4 hours ago, chr335 said:

With Sloan from wave 6 and the ability for speed 5 fire sprays from wave 5 the nerf was needed. Just think Rhymer boba Fett and up to three more firesprays (corruptor with expanded hanger bays and a squadron token) shooting at medium range with movement speed five is 7 blue and 2 back in one round which is more potential damage then most capital ships. If we go Sloan dropping defense tokens from range.

But a better fix would have been to leave the range as-is, but have it only work on black anti-ship dice. Firesprays not a problem, then.

5 hours ago, chr335 said:

With Sloan from wave 6 and the ability for speed 5 fire sprays from wave 5 the nerf was needed. Just think Rhymer boba Fett and up to three more firesprays (corruptor with expanded hanger bays and a squadron token) shooting at medium range with movement speed five is 7 blue and 2 back in one round which is more potential damage then most capital ships. If we go Sloan dropping defense tokens from range.

No one said he didn't need adjustment.

What people seem to be missing is, that the adjustment was to severe. Making Rhymer only work on Tie Bombers removes all of the issues people keep raising for justification to the over nerf.

I've been playing board games, table top games, wargames, PC games, Console games for decades, one overly common theme is adjustment that goes too far in the opposite direction, I've seen it time and time again, in more games than I care to remember, and I still get annoyed by it, there is a valid need to rebalance that is not up for dispute, because sometimes a concept performs well above and beyond projected expectations when it is put into play, what is being disputed is the whole "well he was auto include, now hes not, job well done." mentality.

There is a whole margin between too powerful, and complete garbage, and they missed it by a mile here.

5 hours ago, chr335 said:

With Sloan from wave 6 and the ability for speed 5 fire sprays from wave 5 the nerf was needed. Just think Rhymer boba Fett and up to three more firesprays (corruptor with expanded hanger bays and a squadron token) shooting at medium range with movement speed five is 7 blue and 2 back in one round which is more potential damage then most capital ships. If we go Sloan dropping defense tokens from range.

Except Sloane doesnt work with Firesprays

1 hour ago, Irokenics said:

Except Sloane doesnt work with Firesprays

But she does work on TIE defenders and tie phantoms both of which are perfect for her ability.

1 hour ago, TheEasternKing said:

No one said he didn't need adjustment.

What people seem to be missing is, that the adjustment was to severe. Making Rhymer only work on Tie Bombers removes all of the issues people keep raising for justification to the over nerf.

Yeah 6 black dice (ISD or quasar with expanded hanger bays a token and all fighters follow me speed 5 bombers) at meduim isn't much better ( the most black dice that can be thrown at medium range in a round from any source) hence the distance nerf. We may not like it but it made sense to do the distance as opposed to anything else. Keep in mind I am an Imperial player that loves Rhymer but his ability was game breaking especially if the Imperials get any fighter with blue black antiship bomber dice in a future wave.

31 minutes ago, chr335 said:

Yeah 6 black dice (ISD or quasar with expanded hanger bays a token and all fighters follow me speed 5 bombers) at meduim isn't much better ( the most black dice that can be thrown at medium range in a round from any source) hence the distance nerf. We may not like it but it made sense to do the distance as opposed to anything else. Keep in mind I am an Imperial player that loves Rhymer but his ability was game breaking especially if the Imperials get any fighter with blue black antiship bomber dice in a future wave.

Just realize with taskmaster grit on a second carrier that is another 5 to 6 tie bombers to throw at a ship and all they need is to get in range one of Rhymer (yes I realize that many bombers is terrible if the opponent brings squadrons) a potential damage of 24 (if all the dice hit crit) which will kill every ship in the game. Rhymer needed the distance nerf

1 hour ago, chr335 said:

But she does work on TIE defenders and tie phantoms both of which are perfect for her ability.

Irrelevant.

The post i quoted you on mentioned Firesprays not Defenders or Phantoms.

Rhymer ball was the only empire squad I saw IF you don't count 4 suicide ties. He combined with intel, escort and bcc was way too good and could ignore enemy fighter screens. He was IMO like biggs was in x wing, too powerful that he made it hard to design new relevent squadrons. After the nerf he requires more planning and positioning, wich makes him "unplayable" in some players eyes.

3 hours ago, TheEasternKing said:

No one said he didn't need adjustment.

What people seem to be missing is, that the adjustment was to severe. Making Rhymer only work on Tie Bombers removes all of the issues people keep raising for justification to the over nerf.

I've been playing board games, table top games, wargames, PC games, Console games for decades, one overly common theme is adjustment that goes too far in the opposite direction, I've seen it time and time again, in more games than I care to remember, and I still get annoyed by it, there is a valid need to rebalance that is not up for dispute, because sometimes a concept performs well above and beyond projected expectations when it is put into play, what is being disputed is the whole "well he was auto include, now hes not, job well done." mentality.

There is a whole margin between too powerful, and complete garbage, and they missed it by a mile here.

From your previous post you wanted to know how many people still took him simply because he had two braces ignoring his ability completely. Thats impossible to know without surveying the list builders, but if he’s worth the points simply because he has 2 braces then I fail to see how he is now “garbage” since he’s getting a an ability on top of the braces. So i’m Still trying to figure out if you think he’s under costed or over costed?

Everyone is entitled to not take him for whatever reason they want. I’m simply showing what list builders are building and post nerf Rhymer is more popular than HALF of the squadrons available. So there is still a large segment of armada players that still see utility in him. Why? Well you’ll have to ask them. I’ve already given my opinion.

On a relative basis he’s now less popular than Maarek, Mauler, Howl Runner, jendon etc. But if Maarek & Howl Runner are your base line for comparison to determine what’s good and what’s garbage then I’d agree that everything else out there “misses by a mile”. YV-666 misses by a bit more than a mile.

I think the nerf was a bit harsh. Yes Rhymer + Sloane would make some overpowering shots, but he could have been toned down a bit less.

He was present in so many lists back then because he was one of the few good tools that the empire had access to.

Now that there are more tools to choose from he could be buffed a little.

6 hours ago, jocke01 said:

Rhymer ball was the only empire squad I saw IF you don't count 4 suicide ties. He combined with intel, escort and bcc was way too good and could ignore enemy fighter screens. He was IMO like biggs was in x wing, too powerful that he made it hard to design new relevent squadrons. After the nerf he requires more planning and positioning, wich makes him "unplayable" in some players eyes.

It's not that he now 'requires more planning and positioning', it's that he now doesn't do anything. His whole shtick, before, was that for ships with black-dice AA...and, notably, a group of ships with black-dice AA that are perfectly capable of wiping out an entire wing of squadrons...he let you take a shot on them that they couldn't directly respond to. The enemy either needed blue-dice AA or a fighter screen - black-dice AA had a very hard time dealing with a Rhymer-led swarm on their own (basically their only option was to spread out their ships enough to get parts of the swarm in range).

But, now, he doesn't do that - the squadrons he leads still need to get into black-dice AA range, so...why bother bringing this 16-pt sink if you have to enter the same range of enemy ships with him as without him?

He just doesn't do anything, now - the range difference he provides makes no difference when attacking ships.

7 hours ago, chr335 said:

Just realize with taskmaster grit on a second carrier that is another 5 to 6 tie bombers to throw at a ship and all they need is to get in range one of Rhymer (yes I realize that many bombers is terrible if the opponent brings squadrons) a potential damage of 24 (if all the dice hit crit) which will kill every ship in the game. Rhymer needed the distance nerf

Unless, of course, your enemy brought EWS - in which case, your 'potential damage' is now 0.

3 hours ago, xanderf said:

It's not that he now 'requires more planning and positioning', it's that he now doesn't do anything. His whole shtick, before, was that for ships with black-dice AA...and, notably, a group of ships with black-dice AA that are perfectly capable of wiping out an entire wing of squadrons...he let you take a shot on them that they couldn't directly respond to. The enemy either needed blue-dice AA or a fighter screen - black-dice AA had a very hard time dealing with a Rhymer-led swarm on their own (basically their only option was to spread out their ships enough to get parts of the swarm in range).

But, now, he doesn't do that - the squadrons he leads still need to get into black-dice AA range, so...why bother bringing this 16-pt sink if you have to enter the same range of enemy ships with him as without him?

He just doesn't do anything, now - the range difference he provides makes no difference when attacking ships.

Tie bombers can survive staying in black AA range a round or two, they got alot of health. That's only vs ships with black AA that dont use that hull zone vs your ships. They did however get the ability too shoot through fighter screens. That was too powerful.

5 hours ago, xanderf said:

Unless, of course, your enemy brought EWS - in which case, your 'potential damage' is now 0.

Unless of course, your opponent know what he is doing. TIEs are really fast and can easy attack another hull zone. Rebel squadrons have more problems to get out of the protected hull zone.

The only Bonus from EWS is, that you can use your full shields by forcing them to attack other sides.

But now image the old Rhymer. He would have even less problems to dodge the EWS.

6 hours ago, xanderf said:

It's not that he now 'requires more planning and positioning', it's that he now doesn't do anything. His whole shtick, before, was that for ships with black-dice AA...and, notably, a group of ships with black-dice AA that are perfectly capable of wiping out an entire wing of squadrons...he let you take a shot on them that they couldn't directly respond to. The enemy either needed blue-dice AA or a fighter screen - black-dice AA had a very hard time dealing with a Rhymer-led swarm on their own (basically their only option was to spread out their ships enough to get parts of the swarm in range).

But, now, he doesn't do that - the squadrons he leads still need to get into black-dice AA range, so...why bother bringing this 16-pt sink if you have to enter the same range of enemy ships with him as without him?

He just doesn't do anything, now - the range difference he provides makes no difference when attacking ships.

Anything with black anti squadron dice either only has only one dice which isnt a huge deal or doesn't have the hull to survive long enough to kill all the bombers.

6 hours ago, xanderf said:

Unless, of course, your enemy brought EWS - in which case, your 'potential damage' is now 0.

At speed four this isn't a huge issue for tie bombers add in the various ways to make them speed 5 only adds to the ability of medium range to get around that.

1 hour ago, chr335 said:

Anything with black anti squadron dice either only has only one dice which isnt a huge deal or doesn't have the hull to survive long enough to kill all the bombers.

Are you forgetting about ISDs and Liberties?

38 minutes ago, Formynder4 said:

Are you forgetting about ISDs and Liberties?

No Isds only have at most one black anti squadron dice and a blue which will at best will take 3 rounds of perfect rolls to kill a tie bomber which is plenty of time for 6 bombers to to massive damage to an ISD. Liberties have the same problem. I didn't forget besides the post in question was referring to black dice only.

4 minutes ago, chr335 said:

No Isds only have at most one black anti squadron dice and a blue which will at best will take 3 rounds of perfect rolls to kill a tie bomber which is plenty of time for 6 bombers to to massive damage to an ISD. Liberties have the same problem. I didn't forget besides the post in question was referring to black dice only.

Cymoons have double black.

7 minutes ago, Formynder4 said:

Cymoons have double black.

If my opponent is using the front arc to shoot flakk I think I'm gonna win either way.

Well, have you seen a Cymoon sans GT yet?

12 minutes ago, jocke01 said:

If my opponent is using the front arc to shoot flakk I think I'm gonna win either way.

Gunnery teams?

Flak is extremely underestimated- you need to complement it with something, such as a light squadron screen, dice modification (Leading Shots, Ordinance Experts), or QLTs, but used properly it chews up squadrons.

58 minutes ago, Formynder4 said:

Cymoons have double black.

Still will take 3 rounds but will have a better chance of killing the bombers then any other double black anti squadron dice ship.

4 minutes ago, chr335 said:

Still will take 3 rounds but will have a better chance of killing the bombers then any other double black anti squadron dice ship.

But why are you just shooting them with one ship? What are the rest of your ships doing? Even without squadrons, you’ll have something else to do damage.

As I said above, this is why everyone thinks flak sucks.

How often do people see a list with 5 or 6 generic bombers? Besides the Nose Punch I don't think I've seen a generic bomber in about a year. And before that they were rare.

I think Rhymer needed to get changed but in the current meta I think bomber swarms without that extra range are just dead. Ace fighter groups will end up shredding them, as do the number of Awing clusters. It would be nice I think to see them more since they can legitimately threaten large ships and that seems to be the shape of the new meta.

5 minutes ago, draco193 said:

How often do people see a list with 5 or 6 generic bombers? Besides the Nose Punch I don't think I've seen a generic bomber in about a year. And before that they were rare.

I think Rhymer needed to get changed but in the current meta I think bomber swarms without that extra range are just dead. Ace fighter groups will end up shredding them, as do the number of Awing clusters. It would be nice I think to see them more since they can legitimately threaten large ships and that seems to be the shape of the new meta.

Yet, we still hear that Rebel Y wings are still a thing.... 1 point more for 1 more hull at the cost of 1 speed... (average as damage is the same)

I feel There is nothing wrong with TIE bombers other than people were used to being spoiled rotten by Rhymer and are now sulking their toy was taken away ?

When I return to Imps it will likely be with a Generic Bomber Swarm.