Dang I just can’t think of anything. The ghost is a beast. Miranda amazing already. Hmmm. Maybe a title for x-wings.

As a faction, the Rebels don't need that much help because a couple star pilots.. Now ship per ship, the X-Wing, A-Wing, B-Wing, Y-Wing, E-Wing, U-Wing, HWK-290 all can use a boost. Plus a few more.

13 minutes ago, Jadotch said:

As a faction, the Rebels don't need that much help because a couple star pilots.. Now ship per ship, the X-Wing, A-Wing, B-Wing, Y-Wing, E-Wing, U-Wing, HWK-290 all can use a boost. Plus a few more.

The A-Wing already has a boost. But yes I can see how it would be useful on the others.

I think we should just universally give all rebels the ability to completely refresh their shields, every turn, for free. Also, lets just give every ship a free Reinforce token every round. That should make them viable in competitive. Also, lets nerf Harpoons so that Rebels just can't be damaged, ever.

When they inevitably give us an updated A-Wing with native Boost/Barrel Roll I think list building for Rebels will change drastically.

Imagine an even better version of Poe/Wedge/Jake that didn't need Regen to get the job done.

Id use that forever.

Clearly they need *ANOTHER* pancake with a turret. Maybe another variant of the Falcon. We don't have enough of those.

Primary it boils down to retooling older ships to better keep up with later releases. The usual method is through titles and occasionally special upgrades (like autothrusters). I personally think Squadron mechanics could do wonders for the Rebels (particularly the lesser used ships and archetypes) due to the sheer number of Rebel squadron we know about, therefore can release multiple squadrons for the same ship to help it fulfill a different role.

Other things I think could help out is give it a "pocket ace" ship (the N-1 is my personal pick for that role). I would love for the new A-Wing to have a bullseye arc to help it with the two dice damage problem. Putting this on the old A-Wings could be really good too, but the logistics of making that work might be tricky.

Note: much like with the Empire thread with a similar name and same author, I think the Rebels as a whole are in a pretty good place. Heck, they're the top dog at the moment. But there still are ships and list styles that I would like to see given a helping hand.

14 minutes ago, SabineKey said:

Primary it boils down to retooling older ships to better keep up with later releases.

Thank you so much for this!

All the edgy talk completely misses how bad of an idea „faction balance“ is.

1 minute ago, GreenDragoon said:

Thank you so much for this!

All the edgy talk completely misses how bad of an idea „faction balance“ is.

I've heard you make this point several times, but I think I've missed the full explanation. Do you mind explaining it?

Note: I'm coming from the point of view that the factions have mostly different ships with access to cards (from faction specific, slot available and so on) being different as well, some thought to how the factions balance should be spared. Just wanted to drop that in to hopefully help bypass any confusion.

12 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

All the edgy talk completely misses how bad of an idea „faction balance“ is.

I too would like an explanation of this. I don't understand the fundamental principal. Doesn't proper faction balance help sell ships from not just one, but all 3 factions? Honestly, I'm asking, because my FLGS has a TON of old, completely crap-tastic imperial ships (seriously there's 8 Punishers on the shelf)- that no one wants. If the Punisher received a big buff, relative to it's counterparts in other factions, wouldn't more of them sell? Wouldn't we see more varied lists? Wouldn't the competitive meta be more varied, bringing more players to events if everyone, regardless if they are a one-faction player or a multi-faction player thought they had a chance to compete?

13 minutes ago, SabineKey said:

I've heard you make this point several times, but I think I've missed the full explanation. Do you mind explaining it?

Note: I'm coming from the point of view that the factions have mostly different ships with access to cards (from faction specific, slot available and so on) being different as well, some thought to how the factions balance should be spared. Just wanted to drop that in to hopefully help bypass any confusion.

Yeah I wanted to make a proper topic for some time now, but I don‘t have the time (nor nerves tbh) to argue it. I know I shouldn‘t throw it in like this if I don‘t properly argue it, but I‘m a flawed human being too.

In short and relevant to the topic here: lack of good alternatives locks people who limit themselves for arbitrary reasons into a single faction into few competitive squadrons. A similar point is made for harpoons and TLT very often, but somehow not adapted here.

The solution is again to simultaneously improve the old ships (or ordnance/turrets) to make them competitive within a certain determined powercurve while also taking down the topshots to the same curve.

You‘ll note that all if this is faction independent. I‘ve made the following example before somewhere: which cut is healthier?

Tournament A has 3x Double Falcon, 3x Dengaroo, 2x Double Decimator

Tournament B has 1x JakeHan, 1x MirandaDash, 1x CorranLowBiggs, 1x Snapcracklepop Awing miniswarm, 1x 7 Z-95 Swarm, 1x Kanan Fenn, 1x DoubleFalcon, 1x NymMiranda

One has 8 rebels, the other has almost a perfect split. One has only large base shipws with primary turrets, the other has an extreme variety of lists.

This extreme example should highlight that faction balance is not of primary concern. There are reasons why it is still important, but it should be relatively far down the list.

Rebels are probably my least favorite faction to play in this game. Why?

Jank. Solid jank.

All of their ships feel like total crap until you add a couple upgrades that interact in weird ways and/or yield some insane ability (namely regen) to bring that ship up to par or potentially a severely lethal force. Tbh i think the main reason is regen, but its a bit late to fix that (make it more common but not easily abused, something akin to Gonk perhaps where its slow but it still regens).

With the exception of an Awing spam list everything i do with rebels feels cheesy as ****, or craptastic. Theres no outsmarting, theres no real planning, its just complete crap or regen/turret spam.

5 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

In short and relevant to the topic here: lack of good alternatives locks people who limit themselves for arbitrary reasons into a single faction into few competitive squadrons.

Money. Isn't. An. Arbitrary. Reason. Period.

There are *plenty* of people who only play one faction because they can't afford to get every ship from all 3 factions. Everyone has friends/knows people who got into the game because someone bought 2 cores and proclaimed "Hey, why don't I take the Rebels and you take the Imperials- that way we both have dice/templates/rules, but we can play bigger games!" Player A goes on to buy nothing but Rebels, Player B nothing but Imperials. This is, in fact how I got into the game- and I purchase (on ebay) or trade for upgrades that only come from other factions' ships- all in an effort to save money. Now as to your example:

12 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

Tournament A has 3x Double Falcon, 3x Dengaroo, 2x Double Decimator

Tournament B has 1x JakeHan, 1x MirandaDash, 1x CorranLowBiggs, 1x Snapcracklepop Awing miniswarm, 1x 7 Z-95 Swarm, 1x Kanan Fenn, 1x DoubleFalcon, 1x NymMiranda

One has 8 rebels, the other has almost a perfect split. One has only large base shipws with primary turrets, the other has an extreme variety of lists.

The clear answer to your query: which Tournament is better? THE FIRST ONE. Why? Because 100% of the players at that tournament, even the ones who couldn't afford all 3 factions worth of ships had a shot of making the cut. Sure, the meta may favor one style of ship (in your case large base ships), but the single faction players still all felt like they had a shot. In the second scenario, every non-rebel single faction player left that Tournament seething, and that's bad for the game.

17 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

Yeah I wanted to make a proper topic for some time now, but I don‘t have the time (nor nerves tbh) to argue it. I know I shouldn‘t throw it in like this if I don‘t properly argue it, but I‘m a flawed human being too.

In short and relevant to the topic here: lack of good alternatives locks people who limit themselves for arbitrary reasons into a single faction into few competitive squadrons. A similar point is made for harpoons and TLT very often, but somehow not adapted here.

The solution is again to simultaneously improve the old ships (or ordnance/turrets) to make them competitive within a certain determined powercurve while also taking down the topshots to the same curve.

You‘ll note that all if this is faction independent. I‘ve made the following example before somewhere: which cut is healthier?

Tournament A has 3x Double Falcon, 3x Dengaroo, 2x Double Decimator

Tournament B has 1x JakeHan, 1x MirandaDash, 1x CorranLowBiggs, 1x Snapcracklepop Awing miniswarm, 1x 7 Z-95 Swarm, 1x Kanan Fenn, 1x DoubleFalcon, 1x NymMiranda

One has 8 rebels, the other has almost a perfect split. One has only large base shipws with primary turrets, the other has an extreme variety of lists.

This extreme example should highlight that faction balance is not of primary concern. There are reasons why it is still important, but it should be relatively far down the list.

Okay. I get your point and can agree. Tournament B isn't ideal, but I do agree that it is preferrable to Tournament A. I do think there are legitimate reasons to only go with one faction, therefore might place faction balance a little high on the list than you do, but I agree that there are more important things to balance and if you get those right, problems lower on the list might solve themselves.

16 minutes ago, Favoritism Flight Games said:

Money. Isn't. An. Arbitrary. Reason. Period.

Buying a Ghost, a T70 and an Ewing will not give you a playable squad on a competitive level. If you stop a moment to think about it you will realize that the target of balancing should be primarily the squad, because that‘s what is put on the table. And this also tells you that - at a competitive level, but that‘s the only one where balance actually matters - synergies do not exist between all ships within a faction but only between certain ships.

Again an example: you can buy 3 wookies and get a rebel list. You can add a HotR and Sheathipede expansion to get another list. Add a Ghost to get a third list. Missing upgrades can be purchased individually.

But none of these should let you believe that a U-Wing is somehow playable just because GhostFenn is dominating. So instead of wasting money on A, B, E, U, X, Y-Wings, Arc, BSF17 you can also get a TIE sf and 3 gunboats. Or a Shadowcaster and Nym or a Jumpfmaster.

These examples should demonstrate why faction loyalty is arbitrary and money is a bad argument if someone - as you mentioned it - buys everything of a faction.

And if it doesn‘t explain it enough... see, @SabineKey, I just don‘t have more in me at the moment.

2 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

And if it doesn‘t explain it enough... see, @SabineKey, I just don‘t have more in me at the moment.

I understand. Sorry if I've opened a can of worms on you.

10 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

These examples should demonstrate why faction loyalty is arbitrary and money is a bad argument if someone - as you mentioned it - buys everything of a faction.

I never said "buys everything of a faction". Using myself as an example, I buy Imperial ships I think are good or fit into squads I want to play. Everything else I source out (like singles on Ebay, I have 3 Twin Ion MkII engines, but no Punishers). But no need to argue any further, I understand your position: you have no empathy for people who don't have the material resources you do to play this game. Enough said. /thread

1 minute ago, Favoritism Flight Games said:

you have no empathy for people who don't have the material resources you do to play this game

Actually the most expensive part for me is travel, tournament fees and lunch/food. Going to a regional costs me 6 small blisters. Storechamp/kit tournament is between 3 and 4 small blisters. Going to system opens costs me 26 small blisters, without food!

So forgive me when I am not as strong in mental accounting and don‘t see the ships themselves as the expensive part of the game.

3 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

So forgive me when I am not as strong in mental accounting and don‘t see the ships themselves as the expensive part of the game.

You are so forgiven. I too only eat food when I'm playing X-Wing competitively. Not like you would have been paying for food otherwise.

1 minute ago, Favoritism Flight Games said:

You are so forgiven. I too only eat food when I'm playing X-Wing competitively. Not like you would have been paying for food otherwise.

Hence ‚mental accounting‘

4 hours ago, Favoritism Flight Games said:

I think we should just universally give all rebels the ability to completely refresh their shields, every turn, for free. Also, lets just give every ship a free Reinforce token every round. That should make them viable in competitive. Also, lets nerf Harpoons so that Rebels just can't be damaged, ever.

Paragoomba is that you?

4 hours ago, viedit said:

Clearly they need *ANOTHER* pancake with a turret. Maybe another variant of the Falcon. We don't have enough of those.

It's more like an icecream cone. Solo movie version is just before somebody had a nibble at the bottom of the cone..

I think the disparity between ships is most evident in the rebel faction. It has a few S tier ships that prevent all other ships from being played at the top level. The majority of the rebel ships aren't even close to the likes of Miranda/Nym/Lowhhrick etc in terms of competitive performance.

That's the only issue I could really pull up on the Rebels. I also just really want to play B-wings competitively

It's early and no coffee yet so instead of trying to put intelligent sentences together I'll throw out some bullet points on why balance will never be achieved in this game. In no particular order:

· I don't think FFG had a clear development strategy for the game or it grew far faster than they anticipated. Changing the development team repeatedly didn't help either.

· Tournament results are an important source of what's being played but they can't be viewed in a vacuum. The best players will use the best lists. AKA, the cream rises to the top.

· 13 waves into the game and I think it's too late to hope for balance of any kind. In a word, FUBAR.

· Not enough time for in depth play testing. Probably due to production scheduling. Or it could be the "Get it out and we'll fix it in the field" theory of production.

Coffee' s done, time to feed the brain.

Only way to help rebels is to line them against a wall and let the recruits get some target practice.