54 minutes ago, defkhan1 said:

Anyone thought of putting R2-D2 on Biggs? I haven't seen R4-D6 used much in the games I've viewed.

@sozin won a store championship with a variant which added R2-D2 to Biggs and subbed in Miranda for Jess and Rex (found here). He's a man after my own heart, because I think Miranda is a clear upgrade over Rex + Biggs (or Jess, as he's proven) (found here). Regardless which route one would go, like @sozin said in his post, it's much easier to fly those three ships without Rex.

28 minutes ago, codegnave said:

Gotcha, sorry if i was accusing there, i just kinda spat that sentance out without thought lol

....no problem @codegnave, I spit and spat with the best of 'em. hahaha!

On 2017-07-29 at 1:17 PM, Stoneface said:

Ok, first a couple of admissions. One, I like rebels. I'm comfortable building squads of rebels. I'm comfortable flying those squads. Two, the only way you'll see me on a regional or world's table is if I trip over my own two feet and face plant.

With that out of the way let's get to Biggs. Reading these threads about Biggs is like listening to the stories told to little kids about the Boogeyman, Baba Yaga, Mike Myers or Jason. I feel you're psyching yourselves out and not up for matches against him. Yes, he's a meat shield for more "important" ships but he's an X-wing! He's a PS5, 2 or 3 agility, 5 or 6 hit point ship. Let's look at Baba Yaga.

Yeah but now hes protected by Lowrisk and the dog (Rex) and EPTs, astromech, mods.... He was already a pain when alone but with the level of protection he is getting in that built, the balance shifted from annoying to OP.

2 hours ago, Thormind said:

Yeah but now hes protected by Lowrisk and the dog (Rex) and EPTs, astromech, mods.... He was already a pain when alone but with the level of protection he is getting in that built, the balance shifted from annoying to OP.

If I understand MJ's article, which I probably don't, it would be like playing a 100 vs 120 match. Essentially giving Biggs, or the squad as a whole, 5 additional shields. At least points wise. I'd like to see some game results before I join the OP gang.

5 minutes ago, Stoneface said:

If I understand MJ's article, which I probably don't, it would be like playing a 100 vs 120 match. Essentially giving Biggs, or the squad as a whole, 5 additional shields. At least points wise. I'd like to see some game results before I join the OP gang.

I mean, by this logic you would need to modify the value associated with the opponent list as well. He mentions paratanni being 115 jousting points. Im sure other lists exceed 100 as well, some are probably less. Im not sure these valuations are worth enough to use mathwing as more than one tool among many, especially since so much is aproximations and value judgements.

Increase squadron point limit to 150 points. Problem solved. Single pilots don't do as well in larger point games (see Soontir Fel).

14 minutes ago, Marinealver said:

Increase squadron point limit to 150 points. Problem solved. Single pilots don't do as well in larger point games (see Soontir Fel).

Should match times be increased as well? Or run 150 points at the 75 minute time?

23 minutes ago, Koing907 said:

Should match times be increased as well? Or run 150 points at the 75 minute time?

150 point means more firepower, also there will be a larger spread of points so not too many final salvos. Maybe the point limit is the biggest constraint to the meta.

Also swiss should be at 75 mins anyways. They haven't been 60 mins a round for over a year now. At least for premier games.

24 minutes ago, Koing907 said:

Should match times be increased as well? Or run 150 points at the 75 minute time?

Ditch Swiss entirely for a system similar to Armada's tournament, where you compare points destroyed on each side and depending on how many more points the winner won by, they split up 11 Victory Points - to term it in X-Wing, if you destroyed 25 points of mine and I destroyed 100 points of yours, then I'd get 9 VPs and you'd get 2, but if I destroyed like 2 points more than you, I'd get 6 and you'd get 5.

Advantage: Not needing to spend 5+ rounds just to find a top cut (not even the winner!) and a tournament that could be done in a couple of hours, or a day AT MOST, rather than requiring MULTIPLE ******* DAYS. Seriously, if I thought that anyone would buy my X-Wing collection for even 50% of what I've put into it I'd sell in a hot minute, that's how fed up I am with the sheer stupidity of the tournament system and the resistance of players to doing anything other than 100/6. I love the core mechanic of the game, it's all the rot piled on top which everyone insists tastes like strawberries that drives me mad.

I am, in fact, looking forward to a more open beta of @MajorJuggler's system. Wonder how I can get in on that...

You would still need to play the games, whatever the scoring system is, I don't see your point?

3 hours ago, Stoneface said:

If I understand MJ's article, which I probably don't, it would be like playing a 100 vs 120 match. Essentially giving Biggs, or the squad as a whole, 5 additional shields. At least points wise. I'd like to see some game results before I join the OP gang.

When a list receive 15 fully moded red dices in the face and comes out almost intact, the defense seems a bit excessive...

It is. But if those 15 dice are 5 high PS cruise missiles, apply them to Lowhhrick and the result is somewhat different (wookie pate).

When you've got the benefit of targeting control that xan bypass biggs, the worst thing you can do is lob shots at the one guy the squad is set up to protect.

1 hour ago, Magnus Grendel said:

It is. But if those 15 dice are 5 high PS cruise missiles, apply them to Lowhhrick and the result is somewhat different (wookie pate).

When you've got the benefit of targeting control that xan bypass biggs, the worst thing you can do is lob shots at the one guy the squad is set up to protect.

Lowhhrick survives if he has DTF, as he should have.

Target the ship with selflessness (or Rex...) for highest chance to kill it. You'll likely get 15 hits, Jess has 7 HP and could prevent another 4-6 with green dice. Lowhhrick gives her an evade. So it will come down to the number of crits and the number of green dice she rolls, but chances are good (or ok, considering the investment). After that you'll have a 3vs3 against a wookie without shields (depends on crits), a Biggs that lost his support (wookie won't draw many crits if he has no shields) and a TIE with 3HP, so it should be winnable.

8 hours ago, Thormind said:

When a list receive 15 fully moded red dices in the face and comes out almost intact, the defense seems a bit excessive...

There is potentially a huge problem on the horizon, which is coming down the pipe now are a bunch of ships designed to deal with hugely overpowered Jumpmaster-fuelled lists. So taking 15 red dice to the face and spitting it out sounds like the sort of thing you'd design when Deadeye Scouts were taking off, which is about the time when this wave will have been getting designed.

Even if Jumpmasters are nerfed finally we might be about to see a run of expansions that power creep the game more aggressively than ever in order to get ahead of Jumpmasters and bring them under control.

3 hours ago, SOTL said:

There is potentially a huge problem on the horizon, which is coming down the pipe now are a bunch of ships designed to deal with hugely overpowered Jumpmaster-fuelled lists. So taking 15 red dice to the face and spitting it out sounds like the sort of thing you'd design when Deadeye Scouts were taking off, which is about the time when this wave will have been getting designed.

Even if Jumpmasters are nerfed finally we might be about to see a run of expansions that power creep the game more aggressively than ever in order to get ahead of Jumpmasters and bring them under control.

This. so much this. I say this all the time. FFG errata in every game of theirs I have played comes on the heels of the design solution, which in turn just becomes a new problem of its own. So they never really solve anything and the cycle of game imbalance continues.

1 hour ago, Boris_the_Dwarf said:

This. so much this. I say this all the time. FFG errata in every game of theirs I have played comes on the heels of the design solution, which in turn just becomes a new problem of its own. So they never really solve anything and the cycle of game imbalance continues.

It's endemic to FFG's design approach. I don't think they will ever be able to break the cycle.

4 hours ago, SOTL said:

There is potentially a huge problem on the horizon, which is coming down the pipe now are a bunch of ships designed to deal with hugely overpowered Jumpmaster-fuelled lists. So taking 15 red dice to the face and spitting it out sounds like the sort of thing you'd design when Deadeye Scouts were taking off, which is about the time when this wave will have been getting designed.

Even if Jumpmasters are nerfed finally we might be about to see a run of expansions that power creep the game more aggressively than ever in order to get ahead of Jumpmasters and bring them under control.

With that kind of defense, any chance of seeing the 2 reds ships make a comeback (ie Tie Swarm) are completely thrown out of the window. Even normal 3 reds that cantfully mod their dices constantly (TL+focus) are struggling.

7 minutes ago, Thormind said:

With that kind of defense, any chance of seeing the 2 reds ships make a comeback (ie Tie Swarm) are completely thrown out of the window. Even normal 3 reds that cantfully mod their dices constantly (TL+focus) are struggling.

Yep!

Great isn't it. Look on the bright side: you can look forward to FFG ineffectively nerfing it in an FAQ early next year.

16 hours ago, Koing907 said:

Should match times be increased as well? Or run 150 points at the 75 minute time?

I've played a 150pts tournament before, 75mins is fine.

7 hours ago, SOTL said:

There is potentially a huge problem on the horizon, which is coming down the pipe now are a bunch of ships designed to deal with hugely overpowered Jumpmaster-fuelled lists. So taking 15 red dice to the face and spitting it out sounds like the sort of thing you'd design when Deadeye Scouts were taking off, which is about the time when this wave will have been getting designed.

Even if Jumpmasters are nerfed finally we might be about to see a run of expansions that power creep the game more aggressively than ever in order to get ahead of Jumpmasters and bring them under control.

This.

Jumpmaster design was obviously a huge f**k up. It has created a mess in tournaments and caused the designers who refused to fix their mess to try and deal with the error in power creep which has exasperated the problem and cause huge fissures in game balance.

4 hours ago, Boris_the_Dwarf said:

This. so much this. I say this all the time. FFG errata in every game of theirs I have played comes on the heels of the design solution, which in turn just becomes a new problem of its own. So they never really solve anything and the cycle of game imbalance continues.

Yes. I cannot believe their alleged pride coupled with stupidity in their JMK5 design. In any work endeavor that involves design and complex component interaction upon constructing said design --in real world applications I have been constantly involved in-- one must correct errors as soon as they are discovered no matter the cost for the sake of the overall project. Put simply, if you have a design problem set within the project that gets through review and control apparatus and get built, you cannot fix that problem by designing new reactive measures --in connected but non-directly-related components-- and hope to remove the problem; it's a fools errand at best. Attempts to make corrections in that way will always compounds other issues that had their genesis from the original error down the road. It's madness.

3 hours ago, SOTL said:

It's endemic to FFG's design approach. I don't think they will ever be able to break the cycle.

"Insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results." - Albert Einstein

On the above point, I'd bet that the designers wanted to fix it immediately, but management (Christian) wouldn't let them. And yeah now we're on this power surge roller coaster of excitement! On the plus side, as someone who's played since Wave 1, it is really interesting how more powerful the game feels now. Jumps, Super Biggs, Miranda, Nym, it is like driving around a Indy 500 sportscar when I used to drive around a Honda Civic. So many tokens! So many red dice, all modified with TL and focus! So many upgrade slots! Like being a wee little god!

2 minutes ago, sozin said:

On the above point, I'd bet that the designers wanted to fix it immediately, but management (Christian) wouldn't let them. And yeah now we're on this power surge roller coaster of excitement! On the plus side, as someone who's played since Wave 1, it is really interesting how more powerful the game feels now. Jumps, Super Biggs, Miranda, Nym, it is like driving around a Indy 500 sportscar when I used to drive around a Honda Civic. Like being a wee little god!

The game has jumped many sharks.

Really though, I still think, Jump masters, scum ships being a little too cost effective (like the Protectorate and Shadowcaster), Biggs, .....maybe bombs. are the only overpowered things. Take all those down a peg, and the game is fine. Though, I'd like Palp nerf changed to just R3. Imo, that game is just fine.

Oh and Major Rhymer down 3 points. But now we're talking about some sort of 2.0-style point overhaul. Which would be good. (Imagine a good Kir Kanos??)

On 7/30/2017 at 0:31 AM, iamfanboy said:

Jess has a free TL through her ability, and doesn't need an action to support Biggs, leaving her free to focus or boost. Lowwrick apparently carries Wookiee Commandos, which seems bad, but at 1 point getting some dice mods on a 180-arc ship is solid. Biggs himself can actually deal a fair bit of damage, and Rex is more about avoiding their damage anyway.

Or, to compare it to something else: This thing can outjoust a circa 2016 Triple Jumpmaster build before any cards were nerfed. It can suck down that first-turn damage like candy, with one destroyed/near dead JM5k and another crippled via Suppressive Fire, and Biggs is still alive.

Now, it has weaknesses. Isn't invincible. Isn't even easy to use, like Triple Jumps or Dengaroo or even Palpaces. But it requires outflying the other player near perfectly, always denying them shots, until you wear Biggs out from underneath them. That... seems very hard.

Just watched this Rebel build vs a Contracted Scout and two Lok Revenants. The game went to time and ended with Jess at 2 health and the Auzituck at 1 health. The remaining Lok was full hull plus a shield. Not as one-sided as your example would indicate.

The interesting thing is these guys faced each other in the SC finals for a Regional bye, so I'm assuming pretty fair players.

If you're interested check out Sling Paint on YouTube. It was part of their Friday Night Flights.

5 hours ago, SOTL said:

Yep!

Great isn't it. Look on the bright side: you can look forward to FFG ineffectively nerfing it in an FAQ early next year.

Considering how long it took them to react for the last nerf, i would set my hope to 2019 at best :-)

15 minutes ago, Stoneface said:

Just watched this Rebel build vs a Contracted Scout and two Lok Revenants. The game went to time and ended with Jess at 2 health and the Auzituck at 1 health. The remaining Lok was full hull plus a shield. Not as one-sided as your example would indicate.

The interesting thing is these guys faced each other in the SC finals for a Regional bye, so I'm assuming pretty fair players.

If you're interested check out Sling Paint on YouTube. It was part of their Friday Night Flights.

But he still won on points, yeah? That's all he had to do: Outlast them.

I mean, I'VE taken it with an arc-dodging RAC/Whisper build - but it was tense, a single wrong move would have fatal in the early game, and I wasn't exactly playing a top-notch player who knew my ships and how to outguess them. ****, I think he's played against a Phantom once before (which is fair, I haven't used mine since early 2016ish!) but I beat on that brick for three **** turns before Biggs finally cracked. When you can throw a five dice fully modded shot at Biggs and then watch as he sneers away four damage...