I am noticing, and hearing in one of my other posts, that people are thinking that FFG favors scum more than any other faction.

I have to say I do face a lot more scum lists than Rebs or imps. What do you think?

Take a look at Worlds Top 16 from this year. 13 Scum lists. 2 Rebel lists. 1 Imperial list.

They just released Guns for Hire, an Aces pack to fix two Scum ships, even though, as you've noticed, a lot of competitive players are already using the Scum faction.

The TIE Striker hasn't delivered much, it seems. It may be too early to tell about the Aggressor, but I haven't gone against it much yet. Maybe Silencer puts Imperials back on the map. But, judging from the last several waves and barring a major FAQ, I don't expect next year's Worlds to look much different than this year's.

I don't think "favoring" is the right word, but certainly, everything they're putting out for the scum faction has a better overall point value than most new Rebel and Imperial expansions.

Scum is really good right now, but I don't believe that FFG is intentionally favoring them over other factions. It's a coincidence of the order they choose to release the ships. Sometimes things look good on paper, but don't make the desired impact upon release. Sometimes ships make more of an impact than expected.

Although I don't play Scum, and have yet to fight them (having only recently started), I think it may not be favor, but rather, lack of info on much of their ships. With the majority of the Rebel and Imperial ships, there are in-universe "stats", but many of the Scum ships may only have minor footnotes, or a quick mention in a book (although I have not actually looked at the Wookiepedia for any Scum ship, so I could be dead wrong). Because of this, FFG is making a ship from scratch and therefore they make the Scum ship and Scum-specific upgrades have really dirty tricks. Just my two cents, but as I'm not a Scum player, feel free to shoot me out of the sky.

FFG is using the scum faction to fix the problem ships in imps and rebels. The YT-2400 was only seeing play with Dash and sometimes rarely Leebo. WSF and Vrill never saw play. They brought in the jumpmaster and undercosted it so it didn't end up like the Fringer. Same with the Scurrg. Very similar to the TIE Punisher, but Punisher has no EPT AND overcosted. Scurrg is the fix imps have always wanted with the TIE Punisher, plus a turret Boba and Kath imperials abilities are weak for their cost, so they fixed them on scum with more powerful abilities.

Even now with Guns for Hire, the khiraxz is basically getting the fix that the Xwing is dying for. 3 mod slots so they can have IA + other things, plus a cost discount on upgrades. FFG using scum faction to fix problems on ships they learned from previous waves. How can you fix the khiraxz before the f***ing X-wing? Seriously. Talonbane Cobra > Wedge

That's how I feel anyways.

3 hours ago, wurms said:

FFG is using the scum faction to fix the problem ships in imps and rebels. The YT-2400 was only seeing play with Dash and sometimes rarely Leebo. WSF and Vrill never saw play. They brought in the jumpmaster and undercosted it so it didn't end up like the Fringer. Same with the Scurrg. Very similar to the TIE Punisher, but Punisher has no EPT AND overcosted. Scurrg is the fix imps have always wanted with the TIE Punisher, plus a turret Boba and Kath imperials abilities are weak for their cost, so they fixed them on scum with more powerful abilities.

Even now with Guns for Hire, the khiraxz is basically getting the fix that the Xwing is dying for. 3 mod slots so they can have IA + other things, plus a cost discount on upgrades. FFG using scum faction to fix problems on ships they learned from previous waves. How can you fix the khiraxz before the f***ing X-wing? Seriously. Talonbane Cobra > Wedge

That's how I feel anyways.

You said what I tried to say. Honestly, how can they fix the Starviper and the Khiraxz before the X wing (and let's be honest, the E wing too). They need to drop the mentality of "if people still use it in competitive play, then it doesn't need to be fixed, even though it clearly does" (I.E. Biggs). Until Biggs leave the competitive scene, we'll never get a T-65 fix.

Hey all! This topic probably doesn't belong in the squad lists subforum.

I say this mostly because this sub tends to avoid a lot of the griping, and a lot of people come here in order to be active on the forums without having to deal with the worst of the salt.

Now that I've said my bit, I'll answer the question:

No. People are dumb, and angry that their favourite faction is not as viable in the meta (a sentiment that I can agree with) and they have those tinfoil hats screwed on too tight. While there may be an appearance of favouritism on FFG's part, there are a number of factors that lead to the current dominance of scum, such as FFG being unwilling to errata card costs or upgrade slots, FFG taking about one year-six months to develop and produce a product (from inception to plastic) which places Guns for Hire in a design space from when Scum didn't quite dominate the competitive scene entirely, and yes, the aforementioned fact that FFG, by designing Scum later, learned how to fix a lot of the mistakes they had previously made. The issue is, Scum gets (almost) all of its ships built with fixes from the start, while Rebels and Imperials have so many ships that need fixes that it'd be hard to know where to start. We also have to consider that they want to line products up with media tie-ins; if X-Wings are going to feature in Season 4 of Rebels, why not wait until then to release a fix, so that they can include any new pilots or upgrades from Rebels.

And, if the volume of scum lists is bringing you down, arrange games where you both fly Imperial or Rebel, or arrange an Original Trilogy Only game (those are very very fun).

@Kreen You make a fair point that FFG designed Scum with mistakes from Rebels and Imperials in hindsight. I’ll confess I never thought of it that way. It’s a refreshing new thought, thanks.

Your refreshing point still doesn’t change my perspective: the fact remains multiple Scum ships have better value-per-point than Rebel and Imperial equivalents. I can’t find any examples of Rebel or Imperial ships with the same advantage, and I keep checking because I don’t want to be wrong about that assertion. The pattern of points inequity over multiple ships feeds the perception of so many players that FFG favors Scum. Deliberate favoritism or not, Scum has an advantage in squad building, and the existence of that advantage results in arguments like this one.

I agree that the Scum faction is ship by ship better than the other factions.
However due to some very powerful abillities Rebels are are competative to some degree, while the Imperial faction on the other hand is lacking very far behind.
It is strange that the X-wing, B-wing, E-wing, Interceptor and Punisherhas not been fixed yet, while FFG is fixing the Starviper and Kihraxz are already being fixed. It seems that FFG is paying more attention to the Scum factions ships and it smells of favourism.