53 minutes ago, mightynute said:

Two Lambdas, one with Sloane + (crew of choice), one with Death Troopers, 4 TIEs? Or if the points allow, Howl/Iden/Wampa?

I was thinking two Reapers + 4 TIEs with that loadout. Seems like it would fit.

37 minutes ago, Brunas said:

F to pay respects to imperial firespray

F

"Imperial bounty hunter" config card (usable only by specific pilots if neededl for the Firespray) when?

WHEN

So ive been memeing a bit, but conceptually Im worried about adding disruption to the imperial faction. It was supposed to be there in 1.0, but coupled with some of the most efficient chassis and the best high end aces, i think ffg chose to move that to othet factions. I'm not sure how other factions play against elite ships, efficent ships and disruptors all rolled together while still playing fair.

I played a ton of rebel control, that was fun and interesting when i was bringing everything down to level with b wings, but felt disgusting when i had miranda around. If i could play 2 rebel stressors with a tie fighter and soontir in wave 6, I'm not sure theres a better list.

No other podcast has ever personally shamed me, not even the ones I've been on. Thanks, Krayts. This is why you're the best!

49 minutes ago, catachanninja said:

So ive been memeing a bit, but conceptually Im worried about adding disruption to the imperial faction. It was supposed to be there in 1.0, but coupled with some of the most efficient chassis and the best high end aces, I'm not sure how other factions play against that fairly.

I played a ton of rebel control, that was fun and interesting when i was bringing everything down to level with b wings, but felt disgusting when i had miranda around. If i could play 2 rebel stressors with a tie fighter and soontir in wave 6, I'm not sure theres a better list.

Very rambling thoughts since its a good topic. Im not all that interested in the "best" Imperial Lists being ones that have to much control or rely heavily on it for success. Simplicity has always been the main appeal of the faction for me.

Really good control like 1.0s Kylo Crew which is probably the best example of it in 1.0 never interested much unless it was out of necessity to make a thing get to play the game everyone else was. It like Palpatine was a requirement for lists that couldnt Alpha or out point Miranda.

The better control gets within a faction though the less solid the basic building blocks feel to use. It can make a bad ship like the 1.0 B-Wing or even the bad parts of the 1.0 Tie Advanced get to punch above its weight but in the end I typically would have more fun just using a better B-Wing.

Being new to tabletop as of last year I really dont have a good design understanding of control mechanics. Its the kind of thing that seems more appropriate mechanically for single player video games than multiplayer cardboard games. If I freeze a bunch of zombies in place in Diablo and smash them with a hammer it looks cool and mixes up gameplay. All of it adds cool flavor at first, but it is universally the foundation of the highest threat jank which eventually degenerates its way to the top. It looks on paper to be much harder to balance than stats and dials.

On the flip side plenty of stuff like this and Rebel Fenn will still be out there shutting down one target per turn. I really wonder if its all intended to be good enough to make two ship lists extra bad over the long term. If high ship count lists are good enough and control cant be applied to all that many things at once then it just kinda re-enforces the direction of the meta toward more not less.

10 hours ago, Tlfj200 said:

you mean reapers and Lambda... and Decimators...

What are the other imperial crew carriers again? Phantoms and bombers?

but at least you cant have both, i guess??

2 hours ago, catachanninja said:

I played a ton of rebel control, that was fun and interesting when i was bringing everything down to level with b wings, but felt disgusting when i had miranda around. If i could play 2 rebel stressors with a tie fighter and soontir in wave 6, I'm not sure theres a better list.

What are the Imperial stressors in 2.0? Death Troopers prevents you from los8ng stress, so it sort of counts. I'm not sure we've seen another source, though.

4 minutes ago, Biophysical said:

What are the Imperial stressors in 2.0? Death Troopers prevents you from los8ng stress, so it sort of counts. I'm not sure we've seen another source, though.

Its just that and Sloane so far.

3 hours ago, catachanninja said:

So ive been memeing a bit, but conceptually Im worried about adding disruption to the imperial faction. It was supposed to be there in 1.0, but coupled with some of the most efficient chassis and the best high end aces, i think ffg chose to move that to othet factions. I'm not sure how other factions play against elite ships, efficent ships and disruptors all rolled together while still playing fair.

I played a ton of rebel control, that was fun and interesting when i was bringing everything down to level with b wings, but felt disgusting when i had miranda around. If i could play 2 rebel stressors with a tie fighter and soontir in wave 6, I'm not sure theres a better list.

Presumably though, a control list + ace is going to struggle to put actual damage through and will suffer from the lack of mods that Palp or Sloan, etc. can provide. You mention Miranda, but I think it would more resemble poorly played control bots. Historically, that is a ton of burden of execution to take on yourself.

8 hours ago, Boom Owl said:

Being new to tabletop as of last year I really dont have a good design understanding of control mechanics. Its the kind of thing that seems more appropriate mechanically for single player video games than multiplayer cardboard games. If I freeze a bunch of zombies in place in Diablo and smash them with a hammer it looks cool and mixes up gameplay. All of it adds cool flavor at first, but it is universally the foundation of the highest threat jank which eventually degenerates its way to the top. It looks on paper to be much harder to balance than stats and dials.

I don't have any handy links to articles at the moment, and I apologize for being far too tired at the moment to go and find some, but take a look around for some articles about Magic that talk about the main archetypes of game play that act as a sort of rock-paper-scissors for the game - Aggro, Midrange, and Control (and sometimes Combo). Short summary of the ideas:

Aggressive (aggro) archetypes beat control by racing out ahead of control's ability to lock things down or by presenting threats too quickly for control to counter them.

Control beats midrange by enduring their moderate pace of threats and then surging ahead once they establish control over the game.

Midrange beats aggro by being just a little slower in the race to deploy and use threats, but it makes up for the slightly slower pace by presenting more resilient and powerful threats.

Combo (when it exists) tries to play around the other archetypes rather than over or through them by interacting as little as possible, but is fragile - often capable of "losing to itself" if their win condition doesn't come together.

In X-Wing, these archetypes (roughly) exist, and have the same strengths and weaknesses.

Aggro is analogous to alpha strike or swarm style lists, attempting to pump out damage as fast as possible or by going 'wide' to make attempts to stop it inadequate.

Control is exemplified (in first edition) by things like bombs, stress, ion, or a LOT of blocking - mitigating damage by controlling actions / movement and ability to choose targets freely.

Midrange lists tend to be capable of absorbing or avoiding a fair amount of damage while presenting good damage output, usually by being efficient ships with a focus on action economy and resources that can outlast the initial combat phases.

Combo in this analogy is the weird/funky trick lists like Swarm Leader Jess Pava + Juke A-Wings, or "Death Rey" style lists.

Long story short:

If control lists get too good/dominating, aggro lists should be able to rise up to eat them alive.

Note: Where X-Wing fell apart in first edition is that the control lists became as resilient as (or even worse, more than) midrange. Harpoons were an attempt to fix this, but instead of making aggro lists work again, they just kicked swarms in the teeth even harder, and all of the resilient control lists were capable of taking them as well.

EDIT: Keep in mind that the above is just broad strokes based on overall trends. I'm not even remotely interested in lengthy tirades about your emphatic hatred of Magic and how strategic archetypes seen in it have nothing to do with X-Wing (you'd be dead wrong anyway) or how I am wrong about some detail in the description of those archetypes. This is about the forest (tap: add G to your mana pool), not the trees.

8 hours ago, Boom Owl said:

Its just that and Sloane so far.

And Sloane isn't exactly a good ace partner.

Sloane really seems interesting to me simply from the head games she introduces. It seems a lot like running Latts Razzi crew on a ship other than Asajj - even without the guaranteed trigger, you still are influencing your opponent's decision tree simply by existing. It's hard to measure the value of that sort of game effect, but I like that dynamic of putting decision pressure on your opponent and seeing if you can provoke them into making the wrong decision.

Are these all the Imperial Crew that have been spoiled so far?

Only other one I know is that Agent Kallus will be back and switchable after the Kallus target is destroyed.

6 hours ago, Aaron Foss said:

Aggressive (aggro) archetypes beat control by racing out ahead of control's ability to lock things down or by presenting threats too quickly for control to counter them.

 Control beats midrange by enduring their moderate pace of threats and then surging ahead once they establish control over the game.

Midrange beats aggro by being just a little slower in the race to deploy and use threats, but it makes up for the slightly slower pace by presenting more resilient and powerful threats.

Combo (when it exists) tries to play around the other archetypes rather than over or through them by interacting as little as possible, but is fragile - often capable of "losing to itself" if their win condition doesn't come together.

Thanks for this breakdown. Makes alot of sense. I like this better than the 3 pillars of X-Wing that people sometimes referred to ( Turrets, Arc Dodgers, Jousters ). These 4 seem more accurate to how competitive things actually work in the game.

15 minutes ago, Boom Owl said:

I like this better than the 3 pillars of X-Wing that people sometimes referred to ( Turrets, Arc Dodgers, Jousters ). These 4 seem more accurate to how competitive things actually work in the game.

It's a different level as far as I understand it. The pillars describe individual ships, these (deck)types describe whole lists.

Edit: and as such both are good concepts, both have their legitimacy. But I agree that the pillars soon lose their utility while this classification remains very useful to think about the competitive side of the game.

2nd edition GenCon tickets are up now

4PM Imperial is where it's at

6 hours ago, Boom Owl said:

Are these all the Imperial Crew that have been spoiled so far?

Only other one I know is that Agent Kallus will be back and switchable after the Kallus target is destroyed.

Where is Trioculus?

30 minutes ago, Kaptin Krunch said:

Where is Trioculus?

In forgotten, where he should remain

51 minutes ago, Kaptin Krunch said:

Where is Trioculus?

The real Trioculus was the friends you made along the way.

20 hours ago, Biophysical said:

What are the Imperial stressors in 2.0? Death Troopers prevents you from los8ng stress, so it sort of counts. I'm not sure we've seen another source, though.

Its not about stress as much as it is disruption. Im takin away ur dudes ability to do thier thing while letin mah dudes do a pretty special thing.

I think there's a pretty marked difference between giving someone a stress (or more) and preventing them from losing one that they voluntarily took. In the first situation you're imposing a lack of actions on them, often forever. There is, dare I say, some level of agency burgling afoot. In the later case they're making the decision to do a red move knowing full well that you've got Death Troopers on the board. You're not preventing them from doing that 4K, just increasing the cost portion of the cost benefit ratio by making them lose 2+ actions rather than the 1. They've still got agency, you're just altering the optimal way in which they can exercise it

So I brought this to a store champ today and went 3-1. Way more fun to fly than Miranda and Friends:

3 hours ago, Makaze said:

I think there's a pretty marked difference between giving someone a stress (or more) and preventing them from losing one that they voluntarily took. In the first situation you're imposing a lack of actions on them, often forever. There is, dare I say, some level of agency burgling afoot. In the later case they're making the decision to do a red move knowing full well that you've got Death Troopers on the board. You're not preventing them from doing that 4K, just increasing the cost portion of the cost benefit ratio by making them lose 2+ actions rather than the 1. They've still got agency, you're just altering the optimal way in which they can exercise it

Another important thing to note about this, is that thus far the only reliable imperial way to stress people is sloan, which means taking two crew carriers.

10 hours ago, Brunas said:

4PM Imperial is where it's at

My 4pm Rebel crew looks forward to not having a shot at Supernatural Vader. Ever.

Unless our guess about it being Rebels v Imps and/or there are lopsided tickets sold?