12 hours ago, Rinzler in a Tie said:

Duncan Howard currently off-loading his X-Wing winnings..

#whatdoesitmean

It means he needs money to buy an airplane ticket to Worlds?

#ZeroSomeGame

3 minutes ago, Boom Owl said:

It means he needs money to buy an airplane ticket to Worlds.

#ZeroSomeGame

Or another gunboat or 12.

7 hours ago, Kieransi said:

Not sure. Those Boom Owl gifs are totally unfairly OP. All of my gifs get curbstomped when they run into gifs of that power level.

The "X-Wing fix" archetype seems to have died off a bit. But the breakfast meta is still going strong.

The GUNBOAT meta seems to have been balanced by the podcast meta. Although the entire TLJ discussions wave ended in a total dumpster fire, not sure what the forum was thinking on that one. Glad to see that the "should this be allowed in a tournament" threads are still making it to the top tables though. Those kind of dumpster fires always make me laugh.

Counterpoint: Someone on Reddit had possibly the most insane, broken "Fix" card ever, and refused to aknowledge it's stupidity. (I will openly admit how stupid #11 was, but hey, I get to ask people to turn it up to 11, so who wins in the end?)

1 hour ago, Boom Owl said:

It means he needs money to buy an airplane ticket to Worlds.

#ZeroSomeGame

He sells stuff every year. Basically everything he won't that he won't use.

Siding with any of them is foolish. It would be like ants siding with a particular pest control agency. We don't even register to most of them and to those we do register with, we are little more than cannon fodder. Pretty sure won't last long either way.

9 hours ago, Kaptin Krunch said:

maybe something involving Asensors+push+mangler bots?

I mean I guess it sounds good to get crits on the ghost and utilizing adv sensors plus push but I just want to burn down Fenn as quickly as possible so I can start targeting the ghost sooner and I believe HLC Crack/Stims accomplishes that better. The longer it takes to kill Fenn, the more likely the standard Brobots will lose.

5 hours ago, catachanninja said:

He sells stuff every year. Basically everything he won't that he won't use.

I suppose that's probably a good idea. If it's not getting used, it's only clutter and it's better to unload that stuff while there is still a market for it. I should likely do the same. Might be able to buy some more gaming stuff.

Funny coincidence. Everyone was talking about Kanan/Fenn yesterday. I'd never seen it played in person before.

My dad hasn't played X-Wing in a couple years, but I finally convinced him to start playing it again. He's busy playing a lot of other games too, so I told him we'd pick one good list for him to fly and then just keep practicing with that one so he'd be ready to come to a few tournaments with me this summer.

I asked him what he liked flying. He said he liked the playstyle of larger ships that fire a powerful attack in a 360-degree turret, and get to reposition themselves and have tons of fun combinations. I asked him which characters he likes, and he said the characters from Rogue One and Rebels. So I felt like he was basically describing Kanan/Fenn.

So long story short, I got completely curbstomped. I gave him a little bit of advice into what actions to do, and at one point let him pick a new move that didn't take Kanan off of the board. But other than that, my dad just kind of flew that thing around, expertly dodging rocks and boosting around my arcs, and generally wrecking my First Order theme list. I already know that next time I fly against that thing, I have to pick a better list. Kanan/Fenn is really, really good. Not sure it's an NPE yet, but when you fly stupid like I did, it feels really really bad. I tried to flank the Ghost with Kylo, only to remember that it could just boost out of my arc and roast Kylo with the 5-dice rear arc (helps that he rolled three hits and two critical hits and even with the Vanguard, Kylo dodged nothing, but even then, all that did was put Kylo out of his misery sooner). Not really sure how to beat that list, I guess the answer is to try to kill Fenn first? Kind of counter-intuitive to any other Ghost list I've seen if that's the case.

And I'm also worried that I may have created a monster. I should've just given my dad Cassian in a U-Wing and seen what happened.

FLOOR RULES!!! Though I understand its implementation is impossible.

21 minutes ago, Kieransi said:

He said he liked the playstyle of larger ships that fire a powerful attack in a 360-degree turret, and get to reposition themselves and have tons of fun combinations.

What a coincidence! I also like playing with large powerful ships that can do whatever they want whenever they want!

I wish I could go back in time to the days where we used to laugh at people for having a lot of upgrades and say "why would you do that when you could just have another x-wing/tie fighter?" Past us would laugh us out of the room for suggesting the lists we fly today. They just wouldn't understand.

2 minutes ago, Killerardvark said:

I wish I could go back in time to the days where we used to laugh at people for having a lot of upgrades and say "why would you do that when you could just have another x-wing/tie fighter?" Past us would laugh us out of the room for suggesting the lists we fly today. They just wouldn't understand.

I came in too late, but I'll admit it sounds more like I'd like to face on the table.

2 minutes ago, sirjorj said:

What a coincidence! I also like playing with large powerful ships that can do whatever they want whenever they want!

Yeah, funny how that works out! People who have no knowledge of "the meta" sometimes end up picking crazy powerful stuff as their favorite playstyle. Like, if costed appropriately, the "large turret that does all the cool stuff it wants to" archetype should be just as balanced as anything else. Can you blame someone for liking an archetype that then becomes horribly overpowered?

Fun story about that, back in Wave III, my favorite playstyle was bombs. So, Darth Vader, TIE miniswarm, and a single TIE Bomber with a single Proton Bomb. You'd be surprised how many lists that single Proton Bomb absolutely wrecked. Those were the days...

8 minutes ago, sirjorj said:

What a coincidence! I also like playing with large powerful ships that can do whatever they want whenever they want!

i think the reasoning here is the same I had with my dad: Trying to teach someone all of the mechanics, when it likely has 5x as many as any other game is hard. By contrast, giving them a turret and slowly getting them to do other stuff is easier, as they don't have to learn everything all at once.

3 minutes ago, LagJanson said:

I came in too late, but I'll admit it sounds more like I'd like to face on the table.

You'd think so, but we had our own boogie man list. For YEARS it was TIE Swarm. Until the phantom really hit, you'd have to ask "can I beat a TIE Swarm?" and if you answered no then you prolly shouldn't bring it.

5 minutes ago, Killerardvark said:

I wish I could go back in time to the days where we used to laugh at people for having a lot of upgrades and say "why would you do that when you could just have another x-wing/tie fighter?" Past us would laugh us out of the room for suggesting the lists we fly today. They just wouldn't understand.

2 minutes ago, LagJanson said:

I came in too late, but I'll admit it sounds more like I'd like to face on the table.

Yeah I'm in the same boat. I started between wave 7 and 8. I was excited to face off against TIE Swarms because that was the first game I saw on the table, but that never really came to pass.

2 minutes ago, Do I need a Username said:

i think the reasoning here is the same I had with my dad: Trying to teach someone all of the mechanics, when it likely has 5x as many as any other game is hard. By contrast, giving them a turret and slowly getting them to do other stuff is easier, as they don't have to learn everything all at once.

I think you're totally right, and turrets don't punish you as much for bad choices, but I have to say that all the weird combos make Kanan/Fenn kind of a dive into the deep end.

Usually, if I'm going to teach this game to a newbie, I'll just give them 4 T-70 X-Wings. Just less weird upgrades to remember.

1 hour ago, Killerardvark said:

You'd think so, but we had our own boogie man list. For YEARS it was TIE Swarm. Until the phantom really hit, you'd have to ask "can I beat a TIE Swarm?" and if you answered no then you prolly shouldn't bring it.

True. There's always that one list that's always a little better than anything else. I just like flying ships and not worrying about the combos. Getting stomped because the guy out flew me is fine. Getting stomped because the guy triggered more power combos still feels wrong, even though it's still part of the same game.

Then again, I just could be sore because finding those combos has been a skill that's eluded me for decades, right back to Magic in high school.

1 hour ago, Killerardvark said:

I wish I could go back in time to the days where we used to laugh at people for having a lot of upgrades and say "why would you do that when you could just have another x-wing/tie fighter?" Past us would laugh us out of the room for suggesting the lists we fly today. They just wouldn't understand.

Sad reacts only

2 hours ago, Killerardvark said:

You'd think so, but we had our own boogie man list. For YEARS it was TIE Swarm. Until the phantom really hit, you'd have to ask "can I beat a TIE Swarm?" and if you answered no then you prolly shouldn't bring it.

So the first new wave that I got to see released after starting to play more regularly was Wave 11.

Played out like this....X-Wing is fun Whisper/Boba pew pew pew...oh hey Nym and Wookies those look neat.

Basically means I have zero context for a game where Tie Swarms could possibly be relevant. I have played against it several times thanks to some older players who sometimes use that type of stuff for the nostalgia rush. Running Whisper or Vader against most of an entire Rebel Swarm of B-Wings+Things or a full Tie Swarm. Its ridiculously fun and a very different puzzle to solve than your typically presented with. Closest thing to that experience I get now a days is 3BQD, Z-95 Harpoon Swarms, and the occasional 5x Cruise Taps game.

I am starting to realize that my perception of the game is seriously impacted by when I started playing.

Right now feels like the absolute best the meta has ever been for me for a couple reasons...

• I started preparing to play competitively right at the time that Genius Nym was discovered and just before the great nerf
• My introduction to FSR2, Wookies, and Kanan/Biggs happened around the same time
• Jumpmasters were still all over the place
• RAC/lo was considered the "only" good Imperial list
• Which is why to this day I am still convinced Palp or Kylo Crew probably need to be in an Imperial list for it to be top table good despite outlier jank lists like 3BQD.
• At that time people said...Palp Aces was to be avoided
• Then the Biggs nerf dropped...and the game seemingly changed over night.
• Until it didnt...lasted a couple weeks...then Nymiranda existed for a brief moment
• And now...well here we are....

I look at the meta and I see Ghost/Fenn or Timewalk Assaj and just think....well thats really not so bad now is it. I keep looking at the game and thinking....well at least that thing isn't FSR2 or Infinite Genius Nym or Biggs. If my context for what "good" X-Wing looks like included a Tie Swarm Boogie Man timeline I think it would be much easier to relate to everyone's angst about Ghost/Fenn, not that I like playing against it. Also never really went back and reviewed what was in each of the waves....but holy **** do Wave 7 & 8 seem like a significant design shift/mistake that they had just been hitting with Errata Escape button to reverse all last year.

http://xwing-miniatures.wikia.com/wiki/Products

Yeah back in the day the power lists were hard to play. Get off my lawn!

Yeah, favorite Wave is pretty subjective. I actually think III was my favorite, just because Wave IV was the first one where people looked at the game and said "are those Star Wars ships?" The Phantom and YT-2400 were both too powerful, and the YT-2400 has stayed somewhere near the top ever since. I actually really liked Wave VI - the addition of Scum got a lot more people interested in this game. But I agree, Wave VII kinda wrecked it. All subsequent waves have been subject to massive power creep or DOA-ness as a response to power creep. For example, the Jumpmaster was so stupidly OP that the U-Wing was completely DOA because they didn't want to have a repeat of the Jumpmaster. Finally though, we've actually got a ton of different list archetypes winning stuff, and most of them are actually fun to play against (as long as you're playing a decently good list). I wish the game had a little more balance, because it's a good 2/3 of cards that are completely useless in a competitive scene, but all in all the game is in a better place, competitive-meta-wise, than ever before.

39 minutes ago, Biophysical said:

Yeah back in the day the power lists were hard to play. Get off my lawn!

Confirms my theory that you are actually Clint Eastwood.

Back in the day....real men took Tie Swarms to Worlds.

9 minutes ago, Boom Owl said:

Confirms my theory that you are actually Clint Eastwood.

Back in the day....real men took Tie Swarms to Worlds.

Haha!

Nah, swarms were never really my thing. I was too busy trying to prove Defenders were good.

18 minutes ago, Biophysical said:

Haha!

Nah, swarms were never really my thing. I was too busy trying to prove Defenders were good.

Defenders ARE good. I personally subscribe to the theory that Expertise is the best card released for those ships.