Carolina Krayts is the best X-Wing podcast

By SaltMaster 5000, in X-Wing

1 hour ago, MasterShake2 said:

Doesn't get played much anymore...but Tavison

Ah Tavison, the OP merging of Tavson and Thannison!

As a sidenote, what would Tavson crew do? If Thannison crew/pilot punishes getting stressed/red/orange tokens, would Tavson just be a single recurring charge of his ability? How much would that cost, 10 pt?

21 hours ago, gennataos said:

Even against my most frequent local playing partners, they get that same thrill/disappointment roller coaster ride. Makes me giggle.

Is the slow, heavy sigh that obvious? You usually scream Heroic before I even have a chance to get excited.

Just now, Biophysical said:

Is the slow, heavy sigh that obvious? You usually scream Heroic before I even have a chance to get excited.

I wasn't giggling last night. :(

3 hours ago, Cuz05 said:

Math huh.

I go personal anecdote. One time, I fired a Jam Beam and it did something useful. One time. Bit of math there I guess.

I've had a game-shatteringly good attack with Jamming Beam.

In Epic.

Strip a CR-90 of a Reinforce and a Lock for it's Turbolaser, and it'll matter.

In 200/6? Never seen it worth the time to take it out of the binder.

Edited by theBitterFig
21 minutes ago, theBitterFig said:

In 200/6? Never seen it worth the time to take it out of the binder.

Yeah. I still have yet to play against a live opponent and even when this card is free I'm not totally sold on having it. Maybe I just have more to learn, but still.

35 minutes ago, theBitterFig said:

I've had a game-shatteringly good attack with Jamming Beam.

In Epic.

We play Epic at home on occasion. Jam is pretty horrible there and you have plenty of spare shots to slip one in. The big guys don't have the defence to stop it and really need the action suite.

In 200/6, I had it on Rex, purely because it was free and the boy insisted. Someone had a full health A Wing R1 of Echo, carrying just the evade. Stripped the focus, bounced the A Wing shot and cloaked off into the sunset.... That shot was one in a million, kid....

57 minutes ago, Spinland said:

Yeah. I still have yet to play against a live opponent and even when this card is free I'm not totally sold on having it. Maybe I just have more to learn, but still.

"It's zero points"

"Yes, but you're forgetting the opportunity cost of finding which dumpster I threw useless cards like that into"

5 hours ago, Biophysical said:

Is the slow, heavy sigh that obvious? You usually scream Heroic before I even have a chance to get excited.

Gotta get over it, there's enough rerolls and mods in 2.0 that a dice roll ain't final. Buddy of mine got 2 procs and saved 3 damage, I didn't blink. I believe in you dude

3 hours ago, catachanninja said:

Gotta get over it, there's enough rerolls and mods in 2.0 that a dice roll ain't final. Buddy of mine got 2 procs and saved 3 damage, I didn't blink. I believe in you dude

HE MUST SUFFER.

On 11/5/2020 at 9:13 AM, gennataos said:

My opponent and I were surprised at how powerful it felt.

crazy man known for living in the mountains and yelling about aliens, wanders into town to find the townsfolk casually discussing how alien abductions are a bigger problem than anticipated

Full disclosure, I think the TIE/rb is neat.

https://strawpoll.com/7w1wk83u8

1 hour ago, Hoarder of Garlic Bread said:

Full disclosure, I think the TIE/rb is neat.

https://strawpoll.com/7w1wk83u8

TIE fatty is good. I'm not 100% sold on either config.

17 hours ago, svelok said:

crazy man known for living in the mountains and yelling about aliens, wanders into town to find the townsfolk casually discussing how alien abductions are a bigger problem than anticipated

Old man hears joke whizz past ear

""Worlds"" then...

My- not factual or data or anything related to anything or even particularly related to my sub headings-

Good:

A range of non-Bob/Spacer Scum doing well. One of whom I consider a friend, Woot! Get in there, my beauties.

Brobots, yassss.

Spacers ofc.

FO, ofc. Nice range. Stick a point on the Epsilons for me eh, FFG?

Resistance having more than A Wings and/or Rey.

Craig Fezzik saying hello.

Nantex are dea- Goddammit Faan!

Actual variety, near enough.

Bad:

Wookiees, boo, yawn.

Sloane being so crutch. Not really a bad tbh, but I don't like her power. +1 for the Reaper at least.

Not Imp aces apparently, who knew?

Unless 2x Imp aces and nothing else.

Republic obviously.

Ugly:

4x RZ-2 > 5x RZ-2. :eyebrow raised: I have no real feels on this but didn't know where to put it. I think it's interesting but the mere mention of RZ-2s doing well lends itself to all sorts of ugly on the follow up. So yeah, whatever. Actually seems almost fun.

Boba plus Nym. Seems unpleasant.

CIS, but that's just my ineptitude against them. I don't even know what's going on there. Except I really don't like Buzz Droids.

Concussion Bombs, obviously.

Please note, these takes are not even takes.

1 hour ago, Cuz05 said:

4x RZ-2 > 5x RZ-2. :eyebrow raised: I have no real feels on this but didn't know where to put it. I think it's interesting but the mere mention of RZ-2s doing well lends itself to all sorts of ugly on the follow up. So yeah, whatever. Actually seems almost fun.

I cannot wait for the mental gymnastics explaining why 4 ships with 2dice guns and 3x a r1-2 procket are a problem. Makes it really easy to judge who's opinions can be safely dismissed.

6 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

I cannot wait for the mental gymnastics explaining why 4 ships with 2dice guns and 3x a r1-2 procket are a problem. Makes it really easy to judge who's opinions can be safely dismissed.

Do you have any thoughts on its efficacy? I haven't watched it.

Seems to me it's a big 1st/2nd engage list. Difficult to approach it without giving them the boomzooms they want. But get that right, dealing with Merls position, making sure any Prockets are only single mod, and it probably becomes quite cats and I5 mouses.

Just try not to go down on points early, I guess. I don't mind it, but I'll have to play against it...

1 hour ago, Cuz05 said:

Spacers ofc.

FO, ofc. Nice range. Stick a point on the Epsilons for me eh, FFG?

Should Spacers and TIE/fo be 26 points? Hadn't the Epsilons already been on the rise when they were there originally, and then FFG rolled in with another buff to them?

They clearly started 2e too high, but kept creeping down in price, and I think they've proven themselves, perhaps in a way that even a 1-point bump doesn't dethrone.

39 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

I cannot wait for the mental gymnastics explaining why 4 ships with 2dice guns and 3x a r1-2 procket are a problem. Makes it really easy to judge who's opinions can be safely dismissed.

The awkward thing about A-Wings is they've always had an annoyance level out-of-proportion to their power level. There's no good solution to something frustrating but non-problematic.

22 minutes ago, theBitterFig said:

Should Spacers and TIE/fo be 26 points? Hadn't the Epsilons already been on the rise when they were there originally, and then FFG rolled in with another buff to them?

They clearly started 2e too high, but kept creeping down in price, and I think they've proven themselves, perhaps in a way that even a 1-point bump doesn't dethrone.

I think 26 would do for now. But it's kind of awkward because it's an all across the board thing. Move this here, it's too close to that there, which reflects badly on these things here that then all get chomped by cheap high end predators, if the low end is fiddled with and they are not.

I think you see where I'm going with this :D

But anyway, the point range at the bottom seems too compact now to accurately reflect the various values.

In addition, many of these lists in which they're currently doing well are up tight against 200. Even a microscopic change could take them out and open up the field for some recurring villains. I think that's less the case for FO, who seem to be showing enough variety to absorb that extra point on their filler.

I'm generally pretty happy with where most things are and kinda wary about what might develop from here.....

Still, ultimately, Extended is kind of a freak show and there's not much telling what will happen, given a whole bunch more play time.

1 hour ago, theBitterFig said:

The awkward thing about A-Wings is they've always had an annoyance level out-of-proportion to their power level. There's no good solution to something frustrating but non-problematic.

One just shrugs in resignation and moves on?

3 hours ago, Cuz05 said:

Ugly:

4x RZ-2 > 5x RZ-2. :eyebrow raised: I have no real feels on this but didn't know where to put it. I think it's interesting but the mere mention of RZ-2s doing well lends itself to all sorts of ugly on the follow up. So yeah, whatever. Actually seems almost fun.

It made me raise an eyebrow, too. I'd definitely thought of all I5 A-Wings, but hadn't arrived at this idea. That said, Marcel and Nick Tobin doing great with an A-Wing list doesn't move the "for the masses" needle for me much more than @kenoslaw doing great with an A-Wing list (which he did). The other guy who made cut with all A-Wings (Maui) is also a pretty big A-Wing guy, from what I understand.

To keep poking the RZ-2 bear (I'd say in an objective manner, but I'm biased):

  • Merl shouldn't be the same price as an I1 generic, that's dumb
  • Suralinda shouldn't be cheaper than an I3 generic, that's super dumb
  • The abilities of Seftin, Tallie, Wrobie and Suralinda are mostly blank and they should probably be priced accordingly. I think only Suralinda isn't
  • The compression of the points for RZ-2s is weird and makes things end up weirder with named vs. generic stuff
  • Tangentially, I'd like to see the half dozen or so unplayed T-70 pilots get a points drop to make RZ-2 inclusion less of a default list building choice
Edited by gennataos
7 minutes ago, gennataos said:

One just shrugs in resignation and moves on?

It made me raise an eyebrow, too. I'd definitely thought of all I5 A-Wings, but hadn't arrived at this idea. That said, Marcel and Nick Tobin doing great with an A-Wing list doesn't move the "for the masses" needle for me much more than @kenoslaw doing great with an A-Wing list (which he did). The other guy who made cut with all A-Wings (Maui) is also a pretty big A-Wing guy, from what I understand.

To keep poking the RZ-2 bear (I'd say in an objective manner, but I'm biased):

  • Merl shouldn't be the same price as an I1 generic, that's dumb
  • Suralinda shouldn't be cheaper than an I3 generic, that's super dumb
  • The abilities of Seftin, Tallie, Wrobie and Suralinda are mostly blank and they should probably be priced accordingly. I think only Suralinda isn't
  • The compression of the points for RZ-2s is weird and makes things end up weirder with named vs. generic stuff
  • Tangentially, I'd like to see the half dozen or so unplayed T-70 pilots get a points drop to make RZ-2 inclusion less of a default list building choice

All of the weird pricing on the new a wings will feel better if the rest of the a wings get price drops in line with it. The way i see it, if the devs think i3 a wings should be 33 and surlindas ability isn't particularly useful, there's no reason to release surlinda at 33 and then drop her when next points come out. It reminds me of something Alex Davy said at gencon after the fang was released, he was asked if the fang costing what it did would kill the khirax, to which he responded, there's no reason to chase bad design decisions with more bad design and that probably applies here.

4 minutes ago, catachanninja said:

All of the weird pricing on the new a wings will feel better if the rest of the a wings get price drops in line with it. The way i see it, if the devs think i3 a wings should be 33 and surlindas ability isn't particularly useful, there's no reason to release surlinda at 33 and then drop her when next points come out. It reminds me of something Alex Davy said at gencon after the fang was released, he was asked if the fang costing what it did would kill the khirax, to which he responded, there's no reason to chase bad design decisions with more bad design and that probably applies here.

That's an...interesting point. So you're saying points drop on RZ-2 generics? ;)

2 minutes ago, gennataos said:

That's an...interesting point. So you're saying points drop on RZ-2 generics? ;)

the generic increase in summer '19 was a mistake. Instead, i5 only should have increased (and some still should). They reversed the BSE increase in August. Together with the all year decrease for generics...

yes

1 minute ago, gennataos said:

That's an...interesting point. So you're saying points drop on RZ-2 generics? ;)

Maybe? Uniques with mostly blank abilities open up some cool design space to allow a chassis to stay cheap but not be spammable as well. I think it was @Brunas who asked during an ama something to the effect of "if a generic is good, how do you keep spamming that generic from being the right answer?" obviously 2.0 has been comfortable using the dots on pilots, but only on some pilots. If the points went UP on the generics this would be a cool way to backdoor keep lists focused on multiple rz2s on the table, without giving them so much room to shave points and get extra advantages on the margins.

44 minutes ago, catachanninja said:

Maybe? Uniques with mostly blank abilities open up some cool design space to allow a chassis to stay cheap but not be spammable as well. I think it was @Brunas who asked during an ama something to the effect of "if a generic is good, how do you keep spamming that generic from being the right answer?" obviously 2.0 has been comfortable using the dots on pilots, but only on some pilots. If the points went UP on the generics this would be a cool way to backdoor keep lists focused on multiple rz2s on the table, without giving them so much room to shave points and get extra advantages on the margins.

That's why I don't think Suralinda is a mistake.

See it as "should be cheaper but can't because spamming. So here's a non-generic" instead

5 hours ago, Cuz05 said:

4x RZ-2 > 5x RZ-2. :eyebrow raised: I have no real feels on this but didn't know where to put it. I think it's interesting but the mere mention of RZ-2s doing well lends itself to all sorts of ugly on the follow up. So yeah, whatever. Actually seems almost fun

Having been knocked out of Swiss by this list this weekend, let me give a few of my impressions.

1st: This list carries a 12pt bid, which is crucial to lining up those prockets.

2nd: The added oomph factor of 3 prockets firing early is that it advances the A's into their preferred endgame early by deleting arcs from the table and making it easier for the remaining 2-3 I-5 aces to avoid taking shots.

3rd: Intimidation Merl is a beast. Merl is deceptively an I1 ace killer. One block from Merl turns Soontir into a structually damaged vulture. Merl has an ability that is probably worth 4pts and he gets it for free (It's crucial to note that Merl's ability only aplies to primaries. I did not realize this and lost Vonreg when maybe he might have survived a procket).

I never played 5A, but I had a pretty good record against them and a playbook that I felt gave me a 60-40 advantage even against a good player. This list tabled me.

Edited by hargleblarg