3 minutes ago, Wiredin said:

Mussolini was a good guy too, from a certain point of view.

Mussolini mustered my musty meat mashers. Mon Mon.

4 minutes ago, Wiredin said:

Mussolini was a good guy too, from a certain point of view.

If you were a rich corrupted industrial with no sons in the army and who happened to have no connection to to anyone who criticized the regime or happened to be jew, yeah maybe. He still thought that declaring war to the USA or invading Greece were great ideas thought, so I would opt for the no more than the maybe

7 minutes ago, Sunitsa said:

If you were a rich corrupted industrial with no sons in the army and who happened to have no connection to to anyone who criticized the regime or happened to be jew, yeah maybe. He still thought that declaring war to the USA or invading Greece were great ideas thought, so I would opt for the no more than the maybe

If you we're a human and loyal to the empire and happened to have no connection to anyone who criticized the regime or happened to be related to rebel scum well...yea maybe. Palpatine still thought that taking over the government and declaring war on the Jedi were great ideas though, so maybe?

Rebels suffer because they have way less viable option right now than the other factions.

They are filled with traps and ships less efficient than their imperial or scum counterparts.

This is obviously a giant imo but right now for me rebels have only one gem which is Wedge

Superluke could be another one, but with the meta going further and further into crazy bids, he becomes less reliable and increasingly expensive.

Behind them there are some nice ship like Moldy Crow Jan Ors, shuttle sabine, braylen, magva, generic bwings and few other.

Rebels are also probably the only faction that could play a non support large ship right now, but that's not the strongest time for the archetype as a whole.

They are also filled with pretty bad things people keep playing for one reason or another and the whole 'rebels are bad' narrative, while based on an objective struggle, isn't helping develping reliable rebel lists

1 hour ago, Wiredin said:

On the topic of vader... got into a debate with one of my locals last night. he says Vader is crap because he's too expensive, no evade, no boost, and dies too quickly. I say he just needs to git gud. Vader is awesome! Just don't get shot.

59 minutes ago, Boom Owl said:

Vader is amazing. Bring him and you will win games.

Your regular reminder that Vader is Awesome! He's about as awesome as wedge*!

*when you use supernatural. It's much much worse when you don't.

2 minutes ago, jagsba said:

Your regular reminder that Vader is Awesome! He's about as awesome as wedge*!

*when you use supernatural. It's much much worse when you don't.

All this tells me is that a lot of Vader players are getting themselves killed. I've done that a lot, too, but I find it ridiculously fun to keep on work through that. I have confidence I will.

Something something skill ceiling?

1 minute ago, GreenDragoon said:

Something something skill ceiling?

5 minutes ago, gennataos said:

All this tells me is that a lot of Vader players are getting themselves killed. I've done that a lot, too, but I find it ridiculously fun to keep on work through that. I have confidence I will.

To be clear, by "a lot", I mean more than once feels like "a lot".

I would have thought that it is not even a question that Vader is harder to play than Wedge.

As such the same numbers are even positively surprising

1 minute ago, GreenDragoon said:

I would have thought that it is not even a question that Vader is harder to play than Wedge.

As such the same numbers are even positively surprising

'member when people said soontir takes skill? What if soontir, but can't be blocked?

2 minutes ago, jagsba said:

'member when people said soontir takes skill? What if soontir, but can't be blocked?

we use two different definitions of skill when comparing Vader and Wedge and saying one is difficult.

What if you make a mistake or run out of options? Vader punishes such mistakes harder (fewer HP, costs more). This makes him more difficult to fly because he is less forgiving than Wedge. So it needs more experience and skill to use him. So he needs more skill.

1 hour ago, Wiredin said:

Mussolini was a good guy too, from a certain point of view.

His main thing he's got going for him is the way he says "Spaghetti"

Actually that was about skill floor just now. But just the larger amount of options for two chassis with very similar available actions means that Vader inadvertantly has a higher ceiling, too.

22 minutes ago, jagsba said:

'member when people said soontir takes skill? What if soontir, but can't be blocked?

Are you comparing 1.0 (probably palp-backed) Soontir to 2.0 Vader?

A lot of conversation stems from or grows into hyperbole. If mistakes are made, Vader can end up a in a situation to be blocked or end up in a position where he can't avoid shots. Unlike 1.0 Soontir, he can't hide behind a stack of mods. Soontir could get caught every once it a while it was fine. The skill challenge with Vader is never ended up in that situation in the first place, because it's very rarely fine if he does.

1 hour ago, gennataos said:

All this tells me is that a lot of Vader players are getting themselves killed. I've done that a lot, too, but I find it ridiculously fun to keep on work through that. I have confidence I will.

In 1.0 it was not unusual to run into a 2 or 3 ship list. A ship like Kylo could easily nope out of action with that few of ships on the board. In 2.0 you are seeing more 4+ ship lists. With that many ships you can spread out and bully a ship like Vader easier. Plus in 2.0 even a 2 dice gun can stand a legitimate chance at plinking a damage through on Vader since he doesn't have a native evade and likely no Palp backing like before. If you can get an arc or two on him eventually variance will work against him.

6 minutes ago, viedit said:

In 1.0 it was not unusual to run into a 2 or 3 ship list. A ship like Kylo could easily nope out of action with that few of ships on the board. In 2.0 you are seeing more 4+ ship lists. With that many ships you can spread out and bully a ship like Vader easier. Plus in 2.0 even a 2 dice gun can stand a legitimate chance at plinking a damage through on Vader since he doesn't have a native evade and likely no Palp backing like before. If you can get an arc or two on him eventually variance will work against him.

I don't disagree, but the point of my quoted comment was that's why people were seeing Vader "succeed" at the same rate as Wedge...because people haven't been playing him well. I think it's a trap to look at things outside of context. Yeah, enough arcs can chase down even the most skillfully flown Vader. But, he does have wing-mates, and the currently viable list of those wing-mates is fairly robust. They're going to do work on a list which is chasing Vader.

1 minute ago, gennataos said:

I don't disagree, but the point of my quoted comment was that's why people were seeing Vader "succeed" at the same rate as Wedge...because people haven't been playing him well. I think it's a trap to look at things outside of context. Yeah, enough arcs can chase down even the most skillfully flown Vader. But, he does have wing-mates, and the currently viable list of those wing-mates is fairly robust. They're going to do work on a list which is chasing Vader. 

Here's been my experience vs Vader. He's pushing 85-90 points, or almost half your list. That leaves room for a 61 point Redline, naked Soontir and a 2pt bid.

In this situation I've almost always seen the Vader player peel vader off and not engage with him initially. If I'm running 4-5 ships I'm likely losing 1 in the exchange with Redline + Soontir and hopefully taking out Redline in the process. Soontir annoys for a few rounds and you loose another before you kill him. You are down to 3-4 ships and vader on the other side of the board. You can start to cast the net and herd him.

He's vulnerable to high ship count lists and/or ship lists with good control (bombs and tractor beam).

In 2.0 limited format he's even more vulnerable since he has jack and crap for wingmates vs extended format.

4 minutes ago, viedit said:

Here's been my experience vs Vader. He's pushing 85-90 points, or almost half your list. That leaves room for a 61 point Redline, naked Soontir and a 2pt bid.

In this situation I've almost always seen the Vader player peel vader off and not engage with him initially. If I'm running 4-5 ships I'm likely losing 1 in the exchange with Redline + Soontir and hopefully taking out Redline in the process. Soontir annoys for a few rounds and you loose another before you kill him. You are down to 3-4 ships and vader on the other side of the board. You can start to cast the net and herd him.

 He's vulnerable to high ship count lists and/or ship lists with good control (bombs and tractor beam).

 In 2.0 limited format he's even more vulnerable since he has jack and crap for wingmates vs extended format.

You are basically an X-Wing unicorn though. A rare player who brings more than 3 ships.

Just now, viedit said:

Here's been my experience vs Vader. He's pushing 85-90 points, or almost half your list. That leaves room for a 61 point Redline, naked Soontir and a 2pt bid.

In this situation I've almost always seen the Vader player peel vader off and not engage with him initially. If I'm running 4-5 ships I'm likely losing 1 in the exchange with Redline + Soontir and hopefully taking out Redline in the process. Soontir annoys for a few rounds and you loose another before you kill him. You are down to 3-4 ships and vader on the other side of the board. You can start to cast the net and herd him.

He's vulnerable to high ship count lists and/or ship lists with good control (bombs and tractor beam).

In 2.0 limited format he's even more vulnerable since he has jack and crap for wingmates vs extended format.

I'm not sure how to respond to that other than we don't know each other, don't play each other and don't know who each of us is playing. That hasn't been my experience, regardless of ship count. I guess at this point we just say, "Okay" and walk away?

3 minutes ago, gennataos said:

I'm not sure how to respond to that other than we don't know each other, don't play each other and don't know who each of us is playing. That hasn't been my experience, regardless of ship count. I guess at this point we just say, "Okay" and walk away?

I've just got roughly 50 games of Second Edition under my belt and am firmly under the belief that if you cast a wide enough net and toss enough red dice at something, it eventually dies.

3 minutes ago, Boom Owl said:

You are basically an X-Wing unicorn though. A rare player who brings more than 3 ships.

Sloane likes unicorns.

On a more serious note, why is flying more than 3 ships so....unpopular?

8 minutes ago, RStan said:

Sloane likes unicorns.

On a more serious note, why is flying more than 3 ships so....unpopular?

The common answer is that more ships = harder to coordinate them all.

I expect the true answer is that people have fun with upgrades. They feel powerful and interesting. They like the card game combination aspect of upgrades. They also like having more information in decision making. This all leads to 2-3 ship lists for the fun of high initiative, interesting/fun card pilot abilities, and card combos.

6 minutes ago, Biophysical said:

The common answer is that more ships = harder to coordinate them all.

I expect the true answer is that people have fun with upgrades. They feel powerful and interesting. They like the card game combination aspect of upgrades. They also like having more information in decision making. This all leads to 2-3 ship lists for the fun of high initiative, interesting/fun card pilot abilities, and card combos.

Low ship count metas are also a trend that tends seems to re-enforce itself.

The less you have to worry about efficiency the more attractive it is to keep bringing 3 ship with deeper and deeper bids or more toys.

Of course about 1/3rd of every cut ends up belonging to the few players to go the other direction and commit to efficiency.

Hopefully things start to settle right around 4.

Extended is here to stay and the higher the ship count is the more fun extended gets.

On top of that, I think we as players reflexively equate word and card count with power. So it seems like some zero or 1 upgrade ship is bad, even though it's still slinging 3 attack dice, and for a much cheaper cost than an upgraded ace.