20 minutes ago, Brunas said:

Oh, I misunderstood! I"m pretty sure looking at the picture it should have been clear, just seeing Kylo's base got in my head, haha.

God I hope it's like 2 weeks. January could be January 31st Or on FFG time, like February, haha.

Unrelated to all of this, Hearthstone is getting a balance update on like a day's notice: https://playhearthstone.com/en-us/blog/22817529/

3 of these are only cost changes, and 2 are the equivalent of errata. That's going to have such a massive impact on the game with an even larger cardpool than X-Wing. Makes me wonder how even a few small point changes could dramatically change the X-Wing balance.

Some examples:

If Proton torps go way up in price, but Palob doesn't change much, Palob gets even better than he is now!

If i5s get "brought into line" but Kylo/Supernatural doesn't change, hope you brought a big bid or a very maneuverable i6!

If fat turrets go way down, but everything else that's good now goes up, are we playing fat turret wing?

I'm a bit salty about Wild Growth going up. Everything else makes sense, but my instinct is that makes it nearly unplayable. Going to be a Zoolock meta.

4 minutes ago, Tlfj200 said:

I understand the premise, but sticking I. Formation like that means the kylo side is easier, generally, not harder.

That's definitely context specific. I've been finding that a closer formation, especially with one ship further back, makes good shots with Kylo harder to come by. Spreading out ups your odds of getting shots against Kylo, but in many situations leaves you more vulnerable to close range shots that take big chunks put of ships.

But again, all this stuff is massively context specific, hence the promised later article looking at it in more detail.

12 minutes ago, Brunas said:

Yep, and I don't know how you explain how to play against aces to new players...

"well they're probably bad so they'll trade shots, but you need to punish both trading shots and not trading shots in case they aren't bad, and they have more than one ace... which one do you think is going to make the worst decision this turn?"

lol

R3a2 when?

7 minutes ago, Brunas said:

Yep, and I don't know how you explain how to play against aces to new players...

"well they're probably bad so they'll trade shots, but you need to punish both trading shots and not trading shots in case they aren't bad, and they have more than one ace... which one do you think is going to make the worst decision this turn?"

lol

Definitely.

Which ace can hurt you really bad if you ignore it? Which ace do you stand the best chance of catching in arc? Can you commit one ship to making a threatening ace go defensive? Do you have damaged ships vulnerable to being punished off? Are you screwing yourself next turn? Do you need to preserve a lead or catch up? How much time do you have?

All those variables go into the brain, and you have to output a maneuver, and every turn those variables change. It's not massively difficult, but you need some experience to know which variables to listen to each turn.

8 hours ago, Quack Shot said:

Kanan isn’t Hyperspace legal. It’s easily the best option. Got a good 30-40 games with the Falcon and Kanan/Jyn is the best combo. R2-D2 is best Hyperspace Crew for it, but question is what’s the best second crew of Gunner option for it.

Yeah I am only looking at Hyperspace legal Han right now. I ran this last night:

6 minutes ago, Biophysical said:

That's definitely context specific. I've been finding that a closer formation, especially with one ship further back, makes good shots with Kylo harder to come by. Spreading out ups your odds of getting shots against Kylo, but in many situations leaves you more vulnerable to close range shots that take big chunks put of ships.

But again, all this stuff is massively context specific, hence the promised later article looking at it in more detail.

I mean, this is mostly true, except when you play in formation, I can see it as the kylo player. Assuming I decided to bring a 2nd ship, you're either in a game of swerving to try and "look" at kylo (CHASE ME!) with the other ships behind you (NEAT!), or you look at the other ships, which means kylo gets free reign without any bully arcs.

I liked the article, but the premise fit better on "normal" ships like fenn, etc, rather than pre-dial moves.

For instance, that kylo could:

1) SR BR right, autothrusters boost forward, 5 straight, and take a focus.

2) Boost left, BR left, 5 straight, exchange R1 shots with the back x-wing (this is bad, but maybe there's some reason to want to do this).

In scenario 1, now you're playing CHASE ME!™ with kylo, so unless you've eliminated the other ships, they're probably behind you? You did successfully bully kylo from shooting that turn, but that's not necessarily a victory - you actually WANT to trade shots. The lack of exchange probably favors the kylo player (this is why I hate all of supernatural reflexes).

19 minutes ago, Scott Pilgrim2 said:

I'm a bit salty about Wild Growth going up. Everything else makes sense, but my instinct is that makes it nearly unplayable. Going to be a Zoolock meta.

Life is truly suffering when a game about board control, trading, and spell interactions might have the meta go back to being about board control, trading, and spell interactions.

2 minutes ago, Scott Pilgrim2 said:

Yeah I am only looking at Hyperspace legal Han right now. I ran this last night:

Han Solo — Modified YT-1300 Light Freighter	92
Trick Shot	1
Lando Calrissian	5
R2-D2	8
Ship Total: 106
Half Points: 53 Threshold: 7
Luke Skywalker — T-65 X-Wing	62
Supernatural Reflexes	12
Proton Torpedoes	9
Servomotor S-foils	0
Ship Total: 83
Half Points: 42 Threshold: 3 I've run some variation of this the last few weeks. First iteration swapped Lando for EU and put R2 astro on Luke. It worked pretty well against a swarm with Whisper/Sloane. Next version swapped EU for Lando. Lost the bid against Vader + friends, eeked out the win with Vader hitting debris on the last turn and taking a crit. The most recent version dropped the R2 for the 11 point bid to see how that felt. This was against a Kath swarm. Solid win there. So I am pretty sure that Han build is the right one. It was tanky, it had regen, it shot at i6, and it has lower negative variance. It also has a fairly low burden of execution. In extended I would add Kanan if I had the space for him. Luke is probably just the best option as a wingmate. Biggs+x may be interesting as well since Han is your endgame piece, but Luke with Torps is a great way to get to that endgame and can play the endgame as well.

I can assure you you are not alone 😉

11 minutes ago, Tlfj200 said:

I mean, this is mostly true, except when you play in formation, I can see it as the kylo player. Assuming I decided to bring a 2nd ship, you're either in a game of swerving to try and "look" at kylo (CHASE ME!) with the other ships behind you (NEAT!), or you look at the other ships, which means kylo gets free reign without any bully arcs.

I liked the article, but the premise fit better on "normal" ships like fenn, etc, rather than pre-dial moves.

For instance, that kylo could:

1) SR BR right, autothrusters boost forward, 5 straight, and take a focus.

2) Boost left, BR left, 5 straight, exchange R1 shots with the back x-wing (this is bad, but maybe there's some reason to want to do this).

In scenario 1, now you're playing CHASE ME!™ with kylo, so unless you've eliminated the other ships, they're probably behind you? You did successfully bully kylo from shooting that turn, but that's not necessarily a victory - you actually WANT to trade shots. The lack of exchange probably favors the kylo player (this is why I hate all of supernatural reflexes).

Absolutely. To spoil the conclusion of the upcoming promised article, I think that when Its Kylo vs Efficiency, whoever has the best opening game wins the game 4 times out of 5. If Kylo is up or only a couple mediocre attacks away from being up, he will have a very hard time not winning. If the Efficiency is up and Kylo has to do real damage to win, he has a very hard time pulling it off. The non-exchange is bad for Kylo in this case.

The limited experience I have right now suggests it's quite possible to be up on Kylo after finishing off his squad as his efficiency + big bid probably leaves his wingmates relatively weak. Time will tell how repeatable that result is.

Edit: I also added a clarification to the article a that the correct Kylo move was to 5-straight and get out. The point of the figure was to show that even with great maneuverability, certain situations can prevent a ship from making progress toward it's win condition.

4 minutes ago, Tlfj200 said:

I can assure you you are not alone 😉

It is sort of a fun puzzle to figure out. Usually I just netlist stuff and maybe tweak it very slightly for what I feel are meta calls.

2 minutes ago, Scott Pilgrim2 said:

Yeah I am only looking at Hyperspace legal Han right now. I ran this last night:

Han Solo — Modified YT-1300 Light Freighter	92
Trick Shot	1
Lando Calrissian	5
R2-D2	8
Ship Total: 106
Half Points: 53 Threshold: 7
Luke Skywalker — T-65 X-Wing	62
Supernatural Reflexes	12
Proton Torpedoes	9
Servomotor S-foils	0
Ship Total: 83
Half Points: 42 Threshold: 3 I've run some variation of this the last few weeks. First iteration swapped Lando for EU and put R2 astro on Luke. It worked pretty well against a swarm with Whisper/Sloane. Next version swapped EU for Lando. Lost the bid against Vader + friends, eeked out the win with Vader hitting debris on the last turn and taking a crit. The most recent version dropped the R2 for the 11 point bid to see how that felt. This was against a Kath swarm. Solid win there. So I am pretty sure that Han build is the right one. It was tanky, it had regen, it shot at i6, and it has lower negative variance. It also has a fairly low burden of execution. In extended I would add Kanan if I had the space for him. Luke is probably just the best option as a wingmate. Biggs+x may be interesting as well since Han is your endgame piece, but Luke with Torps is a great way to get to that endgame and can play the endgame as well.

There’s 2 ways to build Han imo. Arc dodger with Kanan or a brawler with R2-D2/Lando/Dampeners. Neither version needs EU. Since Kanan isn’t legal, you’re stuck with the brawler version.

I like flying the arc dodger version, so I may be flying Resistance Han instead which has mods for days so Han doesn’t mind not boosting a lot. Resistance Han is essentially an i6 Rey that can use the mobile arc. In Hyperspace, you’d run C-3PO/Rose/Rey and in Extended Freelance/Rose/Rey (only spot where Freelance actually makes sense).

22 minutes ago, Biophysical said:

Time will tell how repeatable that result is.

It really depends on what is left in the 2 v Kylo or 3 v Kylo after you deal with Kylo's wingmates.

From the games I have had so far even 3 ships moving before Kylo are often in deep trouble.

The better they are at adjusting wide nets turn to turn the easier it is. (Tie Bombers are bad at this)

Against Kylo with 3 ships I am constantly building boxes with the expectation that I will only be able to take 1 decent shot at whatever range he opts into.

Its alot of "hmmmm ok Kylo avoided 1 shot entirely, ps killed 1, and is at range 3 of the other guy who actually gets to shoot.......this is fine or at minimum better than no shots at all."

The biggest problem challenge I have is he "force jumps" the front line of the boxes I setup because of the ridiculous range on a boost/roll 5 straight.

I think this is partly because my strikers have a tendency to accidently set narrow boxes faster or further forward than i want them to. That speed is an advantage when chasing at least.

@Brunas have you played your game versus Bunn yet? If so, how’d you like the Han/Talli/Nien list?

1 hour ago, Brunas said:

Life is truly suffering when a game about board control, trading, and spell interactions might have the meta go back to being about board control, trading, and spell interactions.

If counterspell could go away, that would be great.

35 minutes ago, Boom Owl said:

It really depends on what is left in the 2 v Kylo or 3 v Kylo after you deal with Kylo's wingmates.

From the games I have had so far even 3 ships moving before Kylo are often in deep trouble.

The better they are at adjusting wide nets turn to turn the easier it is. (Tie Bombers are bad at this)

Against Kylo with 3 ships I am constantly building boxes with the expectation that I will only be able to take 1 decent shot at whatever range he opts into.

Its alot of "hmmmm ok Kylo avoided 1 shot entirely, ps killed 1, and is at range 3 of the other guy who actually gets to shoot.......this is fine or at minimum better than no shots at all."

The biggest problem challenge I have is he "force jumps" the front line of the boxes I setup because of the ridiculous range on a boost/roll 5 straight.

I think this is partly because my strikers have a tendency to accidently set narrow boxes faster or further forward than i want them to. That speed is an advantage when chasing at least.

It sounds like you're much too close to him, and you have fragile ships, which makes things even harder.

3 minutes ago, Scott Pilgrim2 said:

If counterspell could go away, that would be great.

I don't like where secrets have gone in general. It went from "He probably played X, and I can probably afford to play around Y, so I'll do Z" to "There's so many secrets no matter what I do it can be equally punished so I guess I'll just hope it's not too bad"

So much content it makes me anxious.

Rebel 5-ship: Jan Ors+crow+jyn, Blount, Ezra Tie, Sabine, and you've got 44 points for a 5th ship.

You can't teach players how to play against Kylo because the answer is move after him or you need to range control so that if he moved slow he's taking R3 shots or if he moved fast he still can't boost out of all the arcs, and that's more about rock placement and maneuvering than it is about actual engagement.

13 minutes ago, Micanthropyre said:

You can't teach players how to play against Kylo because the answer is move after him or you need to range control so that if he moved slow he's taking R3 shots or if he moved fast he still can't boost out of all the arcs, and that's more about rock placement and maneuvering than it is about actual engagement.

I don't understand how these aren't the same thing.

2 minutes ago, Biophysical said:

I don't understand how these aren't the same thing.

no u

1.938 expected hits with Fanatical, Adv. Optics, and a focus w/2 die.

2.781 expected hits with Fanatical, Adv. Optics, and a focus w/3 die.

24 minutes ago, Biophysical said:

I don't understand how these aren't the same thing.

I guess I see "engagement" being the actual turn that shots are fired, where maneuvering are the turns leading up to that.

17 minutes ago, Brunas said:

I don't like where secrets have gone in general. It went from "He probably played X, and I can probably afford to play around Y, so I'll do Z" to "There's so many secrets no matter what I do it can be equally punished so I guess I'll just hope it's not too bad"

That is pretty much how I feel. Both hunter and mage secrets feel bad - counterspell feels the worst because you can get into unwinnable states two turns in advance with a fairly even board. I should probably just run secret hunter (the card, not archetype) in all of my decks.

4SF Null (199)
Zeta Squadron Survivor — TIE/SF Fighter	34
Advanced Optics	4
Fire-Control System	3
Ship Total: 41
Half Points: 21 Threshold: 3
 	
Zeta Squadron Survivor — TIE/SF Fighter	34
Advanced Optics	4
Fire-Control System	3
Ship Total: 41
Half Points: 21 Threshold: 3
 	
Zeta Squadron Survivor — TIE/SF Fighter	34
Advanced Optics	4
Fire-Control System	3
Ship Total: 41
Half Points: 21 Threshold: 3
 	
Zeta Squadron Survivor — TIE/SF Fighter	34
Advanced Optics	4
Fire-Control System	3
Ship Total: 41
Half Points: 21 Threshold: 3
 	
"Null" — TIE/FO Fighter	31
Squad Leader	4
Ship Total: 35
Half Points: 18 Threshold: 2

Theory crafting non-gunner SF spam to see if its worth taking; with 2 arcs maybe?

23 minutes ago, Micanthropyre said:

I guess I see "engagement" being the actual turn that shots are fired, where maneuvering are the turns leading up to that.

But you're making maneuver decisions on the engagement turn, right? Semantics, I guess. I think I agree that stiffer moving efficiency squads, you're needing to move more carefully in the upcoming turns than with other squads, if that's what you're saying.

7 minutes ago, Biophysical said:

But you're making maneuver decisions on the engagement turn, right? Semantics, I guess. I think I agree that stiffer moving efficiency squads, you're needing to move more carefully in the upcoming turns than with other squads, if that's what you're saying.

That is exactly what I'm trying to say, in a better way than I said it.