It's the only way to explain why Empire get nothing more than another TIE body, this time basically to do nothing but carry a TLT.

Whilst Scum once again get the ship of the wave that can also be taken by Rebels?

Maybe just a cat. The Tie Aggressor is pretty 'meh' on paper. Both named pilots look pretty bad, but the generics with will probably see some play. At least the expansion comes with some decent upgrades.

Well...

... I* may have conscripted the dog for military service.

... but it has has gotten many awards and treats for valor.

*not my image

the generic Scuurg is pretty good and i first though he would be the star of the xpac. But after playing a bit more with Nym i must say another power creep is about to get released. He can drop bomblets after he moves and is immune to the dmg they do even when he is in range of the detonation. I just dont understand how FFG though it would be a good idea to realease such a powerful ship for the faction that already had plenty of them.

What bothers me even more is the fact that Rebels get another pretty good bomber wile imperials are left with none. Would it have been that hard to think about making scum/imperial cross faction instead (with another pilot)?

We are about to get into "bomb-wing" and one faction doesnt have anything to play that game...

the 'gressor really isn't as bad as people think, just the same as how the SF wasn't as bad as people constantly decried it to be

course, I doubt any of the wave will truly matter because, if I had to predict the REAL powerhouse of Wave 11, it'll be Cruise Missiles

hands.

down.

People calling the SCURRG the ship of the wave are, imo, really overreacting. Cruise missiles are far cheaper on a Vaksai platform

Also, LWF + LW seem nice. Essentially, you get the same amount of dice as being cloaked (3 + a re-rolled blank) plus mods on your tlts

EDIT: also, gotta say anyone fearing a bomber that just now got access to a TLT ship really oughta rethink the value of what FFG is giving empire (have you tried bombing something that can just run from you?)

I don't think it comes down to powerlevel, but more levels of fun/interest to play. And in that area, the Tie Striker has been the only Imp treat for a long time. Scum off course, being scurvy space pirates, are probably easier to design fun pilots abilities for?

Just now, Dwing said:

I don't think it comes down to powerlevel, but more levels of fun/interest to play. And in that area, the Tie Striker has been the only Imp treat for a long time. Scum off course, being scurvy space pirates, are probably easier to design fun pilots abilities for?

It seems to always be the case. When a game starts out, the factions are pretty well defined in what they do. As the game goes on and they need new releases, they start to blur those lines.

Scum gets a little of the Rebel pie and a little of the Imperial pie plus adds the ilicit upgrades which are all a bunch of interesting one-off ideas. I have yet to see a game that has successfully created a faction with the initial theme being "it's got this wacky mechanic that nobody else has" be balanced. Either the mechanics suck or are obnoxiously good because when competitive play is part of the game, players are going to figure out how to break that "silly" mechanic you thought was just something thematic for the criminals and space pirates.

Finally having access to decent ion control is pretty relevant for the empire and the dial is pretty great for a turret ship. I'm quite excited for the aggressor and I definitely play majority imperials.

another thing people overlook with the Gressor "just being TLT"

dudes can take cruise missiles

your TLTs can alpha scouts to death!

it has some subtle but very important distinctions that separate from the Y in very significant ways (both in missile loadout and LWF synergy for LW making defense with focus, in theory, very hard to crack)

Gotta say, I'm really not that excited for an escalation of the bomb meta or the alpha meta. Both are super toxic to play against--one mistake is death.

9 minutes ago, Ailowynn said:

--one mistake is death.

Yeah, almost like a real dogfight.

It's not that an Empire player killed the designers dog as a Scum player got him a puppy.

Just now, Darth Meanie said:

Yeah, almost like a real dogfight.

If I wanted to play a real dogfight I'd get a simulator on my computer. I wanna play a strategy minis game with space fighters that fly in two dimensions and go pew pew .

All I'm saying is that I, personally, don't care for those types of lists. Bombs don't bother me as much because I don't really fly aces, but it's still a shame to see a pro ace player get wrecked by a SLAMing K-Wing after ten rounds of perfect maneuvering.

Alpha strikes, though...they just exacerbate all the existing problems with PS. Your high PS ships move last, so they can get a target lock, and then shoot first, so they can skill-kill one of the enemy ships. It's shockingly frustrating to have a game decided within ten minutes, especially as it invalidates long-term setup and positioning over just setting up for this round. I also really detest the warping effect that alpha lists have on the meta; you simply can't bring a list that can't deal with an alpha strike.

Of course, that's just me. Yall are free to disagree.

30 minutes ago, Ailowynn said:

If I wanted to play a real dogfight I'd get a simulator on my computer. I wanna play a strategy minis game with space fighters that fly in two dimensions and go pew pew .

All I'm saying is that I, personally, don't care for those types of lists. Bombs don't bother me as much because I don't really fly aces, but it's still a shame to see a pro ace player get wrecked by a SLAMing K-Wing after ten rounds of perfect maneuvering.

Alpha strikes, though...they just exacerbate all the existing problems with PS. Your high PS ships move last, so they can get a target lock, and then shoot first, so they can skill-kill one of the enemy ships. It's shockingly frustrating to have a game decided within ten minutes, especially as it invalidates long-term setup and positioning over just setting up for this round. I also really detest the warping effect that alpha lists have on the meta; you simply can't bring a list that can't deal with an alpha strike.

Isn't that how all aces die? Things go great until you are caught out of position then pow. . .space dust?

As for strategy and alpha strikes, I would say both are artifacts of 100-point battles. In Epic, a good alpha strike gives you an early game edge that you need to maintain, but is by no means a game-deciding moment.

More cats needed.

Just stop complaining (and calling for more power creep,...) about a supposed "overall weakness" of imperials, they currently are the best balanced faction in the game.
Agree, a lot of scum things are clearly OP and a few rebel ones are too ennoying (Biggs, K-bombers), and those things should be fixed, but not the other way around.

3 hours ago, Thormind said:

the generic Scuurg is pretty good and i first though he would be the star of the xpac. But after playing a bit more with Nym i must say another power creep is about to get released. He can drop bomblets after he moves and is immune to the dmg they do even when he is in range of the detonation. I just dont understand how FFG though it would be a good idea to realease such a powerful ship for the faction that already had plenty of them.

What bothers me even more is the fact that Rebels get another pretty good bomber wile imperials are left with none. Would it have been that hard to think about making scum/imperial cross faction instead (with another pilot)?

We are about to get into "bomb-wing" and one faction doesnt have anything to play that game...

It's a fluff thing. Nym is already somewhat established in the EU from the Star Wars: Starfighter game, and he worked as a pirate before affiliating himself with the Rebellion.

As for Imps: a buddy of mine has been doing some initial testing and is finding them to be the kings of Cruise Missiles. Vader, Backdraft and Quickdraw can fire off three of them at PS10, 10 and 9. That's an absurd alpha, and you'll still have to deal with three ace pilots when the debris clears.

3 hours ago, Thormind said:

What bothers me even more is the fact that Rebels get another pretty good bomber wile imperials are left with none

Rebels won't replace K-wings by Scurrgs.
Scum, in the other hand, just got another slighlty overpowered ship. An EpT on that thing, and even on generics? 10 HP? And again a scum droid slot? That's a ******* joke.

Edit : agreed, punisher has been *** for a long time, but some of the newly arrived toys will make it quite playable. But at the level of a K-wing, but we don't want this, we need advanced SLAM to be fixed (nerfed).

15 minutes ago, PhantomFO said:

As for Imps: a buddy of mine has been doing some initial testing and is finding them to be the kings of Cruise Missiles. Vader, Backdraft and Quickdraw can fire off three of them at PS10, 10 and 9. That's an absurd alpha, and you'll still have to deal with three ace pilots when the debris clears.

3 of my personal favorite pilots. I think aces could come back, not imperial exclusive, if they can survive to late game. A solid sucker punch could very well tip balance in their favor, can they out-alpha the list they're facing has yet to be seen and tlt spam really hurts any ace list but I like what your friend is doing and may be aces only hope.

1 hour ago, ficklegreendice said:

another thing people overlook with the Gressor "just being TLT"

dudes can take cruise missiles

your TLTs can alpha scouts to death!

it has some subtle but very important distinctions that separate from the Y in very significant ways (both in missile loadout and LWF synergy for LW making defense with focus, in theory, very hard to crack)

4 TLT attack = 8 dmg max. Scouts are 9hp. Wont happen. Even if scouts had 8 hp, with 2 agi they wont be alphaed by 4 TLT. On the other end triple scouts with torp can easily alpha an Aggressor...

8 minutes ago, Thormind said:

4 TLT attack = 8 dmg max. Scouts are 9hp. Wont happen. Even if scouts had 8 hp, with 2 agi they wont be alphaed by 4 TLT. On the other end triple scouts with torp can easily alpha an Aggressor...

His point is that writing them off as just TLT-carriers misses a more potent build with Cruise Missiles.

I think we will be surprised by some Kestal options. There are ways for Kestal to wreck ships that are more valuable than her (I just assume all named Imp pilots are female now).

Kestal can run Homing/Cruise with Gchip and Deadeye, adding in things like Hux/FleetOfficer/OpSpec to scare ships from coming head on. ABT is a little redundant on her, so maybe Dorsal for 1-2?

26 minutes ago, Thormind said:

4 TLT attack = 8 dmg max. Scouts are 9hp. Wont happen. Even if scouts had 8 hp, with 2 agi they wont be alphaed by 4 TLT. On the other end triple scouts with torp can easily alpha an Aggressor...

Cruise

Missiles

40 minutes ago, Giledhil said:

Rebels won't replace K-wings by Scurrgs.

That remains to be seen. The ability to drop 1 bomb/turn and detonate them on demand is pretty powerful IMO. Maybe it wont replace the k-wing but it certainly might be an amazing complement.

41 minutes ago, Giledhil said:

Scum, in the other hand, just got another slighlty overpowered ship. An EpT on that thing, and even on generics? 10 HP? And again a scum droid slot? That's a ******* joke.

AND a droid that allows to drop bombs after move, and Cad Bane who give bombs to JMKs. Seriously i dont know if FFG use different designers (or testers) for each factions but something is wrong and has been ever since the JMKs came out. At first look it was evident the Scuurg was OP. It doesnt need any testing to see that. Didnt they learn anything from the deadeye scouts??

46 minutes ago, Giledhil said:

Edit : agreed, punisher has been *** for a long time, but some of the newly arrived toys will make it quite playable. But at the level of a K-wing, but we don't want this, we need advanced SLAM to be fixed (nerfed).

Not at the lvl of a kwing nor at the lvl of a scuurg. It still has one of the worst dial in the game and no EPT. A pseudo 3 dice attack or bomblets with no way to boost them wont change that imo.

Didjaknow...

theres a ship called the tie bomber. It even featured in a movie once