So how is this supposed to work?

As we can see from the threat cards 1 Blue squadron Escort with Protorps, R3 and Sfoils is 2 threat, so 50 points.

Protorps are 8 points. (there is a screenshot of the app showing this value)
R3 is basically weapons engineer, so I'm going to assume somewhere around 4-6 points
S-Foils I think will be free.

Which means, approx. 36-38 points for a naked Blue Squadron escort (with S-Foils)

There is still the Cavern Angel, Initiative 1 X-Wing, which I presume will cost less.

This of course is not definite by any stretch, but it is a very likely estimation.

Which means, you can have 5 X-Wings, with some cheap upgrades... Possibly with R4 astromech (if that also keeps a low price)

So... At this point, the X-Wing has double health, better dial, shields, better actions, better attack value...

How is the TIE swarm supposed to defend against that? How do you beat it? They are inferior in every way imaginable. You can't outmaneuver them... You don't really have overwhelming numbers.

If you focus fire, you will take down maybe 2 ships, and that is the best case scenario. More likely you will damage 1, and kill the other. But you get wiped by simultaneous fire, or just get PS killed by Blue Sqd.

On the other hand, 2 X-Wings can take down a TIE... If we look at the best case scenario, the whole squad can take down 5 TIEs in a round.

I don't wanna be petty (who I'm kidding) and I take no pleasure in this (yeah I do), but (here it comes) I told you so.

I don't see the problem.

Yup, 5 xwings are going to walk all over 7-8 TIE lists.

11 minutes ago, Punning Pundit said:

I don't see the problem.

Since the TIE fighter was used as benchmark during design, (this is why they haven't changed it), this means that 5 X-Wings will likely roll over pretty much anything.

This all assumes the threat cards are even accurate. There could be significant amounts of play (up or down) on what they'd actually cost in the squad builder depending upon when they were locked in vs when the point costs where locked in.

Just now, DR4CO said:

This all assumes the threat cards are even accurate. There could be significant amounts of play (up or down) on what they'd actually cost in the squad builder depending upon when they were locked in vs when the point costs where locked in.

Yeah, I acknowledge this. I'm willing to bet on this information, and as I've said MANY times, I will publicly eat my words if I am wrong.

Look. Having no definite proof of these things doesn't mean we should shut down all discussions. I acknowledge that the information could change, or it is inaccurate. But the whole premise of the post, is to assert that it is indeed likely that this will happen, and to talk about it, just in case.

Comments like yours are found under every discussion about 2.0.

I've made a disclaimer, about the very thing you comment about. What else am I supposed to do? Yeah. We know. The point costs are not written in stone. We get it. You are not giving me or anyone else new information. You are not helping. You just derail the conversation. Your point is moot.

It all just seems like a lazy excuse not to talk about something. I think we should talk about it. You don't have to. FFG yet again, is playing favorites with the rebels. If you still wanna live in denial, go ahead. But if you are going to come here AT LEAST give me the respect of reading my post, WHERE I SPECIFICALLY ADDRESS THE ISSUE YOU MENTION.

People are putting way too much emphasis on these threat cards. Everybody seems to think they will be the font of everything SE. I got the vibe they're just learning tools, with the threat levels being rough approximations to show new players the ropes with cards they're guaranteed to have.

I don't think the threat cards are a sound basis for any analysis of potential point costs.

You can't say this is an instance of Rebel Favouritism if you're speculating. A <41 point X-wing would be, in my opinion, a definate mistake, and could be taken as evidence of favouritism if true, but saying that a hypothetical is proof of bias is a non sequitor (In the logical sense).

As far as the probability of a 40 point X-wing* in 2.0... The threat cards are a bad indicator and shouldn't be used for anything more than really vague estimations. However... I imagine some x-wing fanboys lobbyed for a 5 X-wing squad during playtesting since it has been a popular wishlist item for 1.0. FFG has given vocal playtesters' opinions too much weight in the past (Word is a number of playtesters argued hard for a 6 point TLT), so it's not impossible such a misjudgment could be made.

*It's worth pointing out that the Cavern Angels Zealot has an extra illicit slot, so it will likely be very close to the Blue Squadron Escort in price- Perhaps even the same price.

15 minutes ago, Commander Kaine said:

Yeah, I acknowledge this. I'm willing to bet on this information, and as I've said MANY times, I will publicly eat my words if I am wrong.

Look. Having no definite proof of these things doesn't mean we should shut down all discussions. I acknowledge that the information could change, or it is inaccurate. But the whole premise of the post, is to assert that it is indeed likely that this will happen, and to talk about it, just in case.

Comments like yours are found under every discussion about 2.0.

I've made a disclaimer, about the very thing you comment about. What else am I supposed to do? Yeah. We know. The point costs are not written in stone. We get it. You are not giving me or anyone else new information. You are not helping. You just derail the conversation. Your point is moot.

It all just seems like a lazy excuse not to talk about something. I think we should talk about it. You don't have to. FFG yet again, is playing favorites with the rebels. If you still wanna live in denial, go ahead. But if you are going to come here AT LEAST give me the respect of reading my post, WHERE I SPECIFICALLY ADDRESS THE ISSUE YOU MENTION.

The issue is you've given exact point costs and lists in your example. It's fine to discuss the premise, and over-arcing potential of a scenario arising, but without proof, those sorts of examples only hurt your argument.

If you had said, 8 TIEs get pummeled by 5 X-wings in 1.0, will this happen in 2.0? then you've got a discussion going. Giving completely unsubstantiated numbers as the basis of your argument is just an invitation for people to jump on its fallacy.

22 minutes ago, BVRCH said:

The issue is you've given exact point costs and lists in your example. It's fine to discuss the premise, and over-arcing potential of a scenario arising, but without proof, those sorts of examples only hurt your argument.

If you had said, 8 TIEs get pummeled by 5 X-wings in 1.0, will this happen in 2.0? then you've got a discussion going. Giving completely unsubstantiated numbers as the basis of your argument is just an invitation for people to jump on its fallacy.

It's... not? I told you, it's not coming from my head. It's coming from a source, which might be inaccurate, but I admit that.

I think discussing the hypothetical is definitely something that can and should happen. I don't claim this to be a 100% accurate. I claim, this is a possibility, let's talk about it.

27 minutes ago, Squark said:

As far as the probability of a 40 point X-wing* in 2.0... The threat cards are a bad indicator and shouldn't be used for anything more than really vague estimations.

Why?

You say they are... but how do you know they are not accurate?

2 minutes ago, Commander Kaine said:

Why?

You say they are... but how do you know they are not accurate?

It seems the threat covers a cost range. so I'm going to make a hypothetical example.

Let's pretend 1 threat covers everything from the cost range of 1-10 an a 2 threat covers 11-20. One players is using two ships at 1 threat and the other is using a single 2 threat ship. 2 threat vs 2 threat should be even but it may not be when you factor in the actual point cost.

Those 1 threat ships may have a cost of 10 each and the 2 threat ship costs 11. This fight would be 20 points vs 11 which gives the team with two ships a considerable advantage despite being equal in threat.

This is why they are not accurate.

15 minutes ago, Commander Kaine said:

Why?

You say they are... but how do you know they are not accurate?

The threat cards would need to be finalized before printing, but they could be messing with points right up to the release date, do it's not crazy to think the threat cards represent a rough draft for casual play.

I certainly hope I'm not stuck running 8 TIEs against 5 T-65s.

8 minutes ago, TechnoGolem said:

It seems the threat covers a cost range. so I'm going to make a hypothetical example.

Let's pretend 1 threat covers everything from the cost range of 1-10 an a 2 threat covers 11-20. One players is using two ships at 1 threat and the other is using a single 2 threat ship. 2 threat vs 2 threat should be even but it may not be when you factor in the actual point cost.

Those 1 threat ships may have a cost of 10 each and the 2 threat ship costs 11. This fight would be 20 points vs 11 which gives the team with two ships a considerable advantage despite being equal in threat.

This is why they are not accurate.

Again.... source? What you say here is just as theoretical as my whole post...

Which is fine, but I find it hypocritical, given your position.

Basically you are telling me that I shouldn't post something like this, because it MIGHT be untrue, and you prove it by something that also MIGHT be true?

10 minutes ago, Commander Kaine said:

It's... not? I told you, it's not coming from my head. It's coming from a source, which might be inaccurate, but I admit that.

I think discussing the hypothetical is definitely something that can and should happen. I don't claim this to be a 100% accurate. I claim, this is a possibility, let's talk about it.

And like I said the source has not been corroborated. The point equivalences you and others have made so far just conjecture or guesstimations. That's why that's the first thing anyone will debunk as long as you try to use it as evidence. Providing the source would help a little, but until we see the app people will always argue against it.

Anyway, to the discussion; I personally think with the additional tweaks to the T-65 made in SE, we might not even see 5 X-wings again. If we do, it means that initiative value is going to be a big deal for TIE swarms. Iden and Meeko are probably going to need to be mainstays to keep as many TIEs up after round 1 as possible. There will be ways to mitigate damage a bit but if 5 X-wings are possible they will have a distinct advantage.

I'm interested to see how much the base interceptors are going to cost, as if we were able to fit say 6 interceptors, or 3 named TIEs and 3 interceptors, then that would be quite the fight.

8 minutes ago, BVRCH said:

And like I said the source has not been corroborated. The point equivalences you and others have made so far just conjecture or guesstimations. That's why that's the first thing anyone will debunk as long as you try to use it as evidence. Providing the source would help a little, but until we see the app people will always argue against it.

Anyway, to the discussion; I personally think with the additional tweaks to the T-65 made in SE, we might not even see 5 X-wings again. If we do, it means that initiative value is going to be a big deal for TIE swarms. Iden and Meeko are probably going to need to be mainstays to keep as many TIEs up after round 1 as possible. There will be ways to mitigate damage a bit but if 5 X-wings are possible they will have a distinct advantage.

I'm interested to see how much the base interceptors are going to cost, as if we were able to fit say 6 interceptors, or 3 named TIEs and 3 interceptors, then that would be quite the fight.

There is no need for debunking, because I did not present them as facts.

The question is not that whether you think it is likely for it to happen. The question is... IF it happens, what then? If you still argue against the validity of the claim, you are not paying attention. (Or you are, but you are unable to understand the question).

The information we have so far, points us in the direction of this being the case. This might be inaccurate information, but it is information nonetheless. So I don't feel the "baseless" accusations fair. But I even admit that it isn't necessarily true.

My post however, is to discuss the situation IF it is true. Is it? We shall see. But we can talk about it before knowing.

Namely... How are you expected to win against 5 Xwings with a classic swarm? (Which is STATED to be the whole thing of the Empire)

Alright so let's take this list, which you're calling the Rebel benchmark list, and put it up against what most people are calling the Imperial benchmark list the Iden/Howl/5 AP swarm. Let's just assume Howl and Iden are 40 apiece so the squad naked is 200 as well. Two players of equal skill gets us an opening engagement where all ships are range 2 of each other. With focuses for the 5x they get 11.25 hits on average. The Imperial player is pulling 5.625 and we'll just add 1 evade to that for the focus that is likely spent which leaves us with approximately 4.625 damage getting through. On top of that, the Imperial player also has Iden which completely negates an attack so at the bare minimum that's at least one hit which takes us to roughly 3.625 hits that the Rebel player is punching through on the opening.

So we'll go ahead and assume a tie is popped. If the X-wing howl and iden shoots keeps focus for offense they're pushing through 1.88 into it damage if Howl keeps focus as well. No matter who the Rebel player shoots be it Howl or an AP the Imperial player is still getting at least 4.45 hits through from his AP shots so the Imperial player is still getting at least 6.33 damage through on average provided the Blue that's getting shot keeps his focus for offense which he would need to do to help spike through enough damage to get the tie on average.

Lot of hypothetical stuff there but that's the best head sim I could do and in summation it looks like both sides are losing a 40 point ship in the opening and from there it's anyone's game as the Rebel player has mostly higher ps but the Imperial player can get the blocks the following round.

I guarantee this was a match up that was played more than once in play testing people. I understand the concern people have for 2.0 but these posts would draw a lot more respect if there was any data or testing backed behind it. I think if people played this match up they'd find the two lists are pretty **** close.

I'm ok with 5 X-wings being a thing as long as 10 TIE Fighters is also a thing.

3 minutes ago, Commander Kaine said:

There is no need for debunking, because I did not present them as facts.

The question is not that whether you think it is likely for it to happen. The question is... IF it happens, what then? If you still argue against the validity of the claim, you are not paying attention. (Or you are, but you are unable to understand the question).

The information we have so far, points us in the direction of this being the case. This might be inaccurate information, but it is information nonetheless. So I don't feel the "baseless" accusations fair. But I even admit that it isn't necessarily true.

My post however, is to discuss the situation IF it is true. Is it? We shall see. But we can talk about it before knowing.

Namely... How are you expected to win against 5 Xwings with a classic swarm? (Which is STATED to be the whole thing of the Empire)

You did. You can backtrack all you like but the wording you used presented it as if it were an inevitability. You believe the threat cards to be a solid base point for extrapolating numbers. I don't, its as simple as that. I and many others (evidently) will argue against you using it to project any numbers at all, accurate or not, because they believe there is no point basing a scenario on information we believe inaccurate.

"As we can see from the threat cards 1 Blue squadron Escort with Protorps, R3 and Sfoils is 2 threat, so 50 points." - unconfirmed

"Which means, approx. 36-38 points for a naked Blue Squadron escort (with S-Foils)" - conjecture

1 (2 threat) X-wing against 2 (1 threat) TIE fighters is roughly equal, that doesn't mean you can accurately extrapolate points off that scenario, because points are balanced across the board.

Had you left out all of the projected costings and simply asked the question; if 5 X's vs 8 TIEs are a thing, how do the TIEs win? You would of had less opposition (you'd still get some opposition regardless).

Furthermore; if this scenario is accurate, what do you want? What answer will suffice? Do you want everyone to respond with "We'll petition FFG til 5X lists are stricken from the game that isn't out yet!"?? Game balance is out of our hands as players, and in terms of gameplay 5 X-wings should have the advantage over 8 TIEs, they are better ships. Whether you can beat it with TIEs comes down to skill and chance, just as any other match-up whether that match up leans in your lists favour or not.

When a scenario like that actually occurs, we can make noise about it and potentially affect change. But its not a real scenario right now, so complaining about it is plain stupidity.

The core set was always clear at this subject : 2 tie fighters for 1 xwing!

3 minutes ago, Commander Kaine said:

Don't quote me out of context. That was completely within context.

This is not me backtracking, this is you willfully ignoring parts of my post. Wrong. You realise everyone else can just scroll up and read all this yeah?

Then I repeatedly call attention to it, because apparently, saying it once is not enough for some people. Saying something, and then chucking a disclaimer of 'might be wrong' doesn't change your point. if that were the case I might as well disregard your whole argument.

I know it's unconfirmed. I said so myself in the OP. I know it's a conjecture. Saying it again won't make you look smarter... Quite the opposite. So what is your point? What do you want? You're just whining about a hypothetical scenario then.

You say you don't believe that threat cards are exact... Which is a fair position to take, but it is about as valid as mine. We have differing beliefs on this matter, neither of us can 100% back it up. This is why I said we shouldn't talk about how likely it is. I said I think it is very likely, but then I also said it isn't definite. That's all there is to say about it. We can move on. So discussing how to beat 5 YT-2400s is just as valid then? If the likelihood of it occurring doesn't matter?

We can argue about this longer, but it isn't going to end well for you. You're tough talk doesn't make for good arguments, keep going if you want, people will make their own minds up.

Circles yet again...

44 minutes ago, BVRCH said:

Circles yet again...

Just to get it clear:

If you are ignoring my disclaimers, what is the point of them?

For the record, disclaimers do exactly that. They are there to provide context. Context which you chose to ignore.

We are running in circles, but that's because you are unable to progress, or get to what I am talking about.

"How are you expected to win against 5 xwings with the classic swarm?"

I understand that the title, half of the actual text of my post, and my repeated attempts to explain my position might be misleading.

Your devotion to discussing the likelihood of the scenario is strange, especially when we both know that with the current information, there is no way to decide on the matter. We will see.

I'm not even going to discuss the 4 yt question, and if you honestly think that 5 x wings and them are equally likely, I don't know what are we talking about.

And I hope people will read back... you should too.

35 minutes ago, Commander Kaine said:

Just to get it clear:

If you are ignoring my disclaimers, what is the point of them?

For the record, disclaimers do exactly that. They are there to provide context. Context which you chose to ignore.

There is no point to your disclaimers, you use them as an excuse for poor arguments, and hence why I ignore them.

We are running in circles, but that's because you are unable to progress, or get to what I am talking about. I did get past it, you were one that brought it back to a petty bickering. That seems to be all you're interested in, and I'm happy to play along

"How are you expected to win against 5 xwings with the classic swarm?"

I understand that the title, half of the actual text of my post, and my repeated attempts to explain my position might be misleading. You're understanding of your arguments flaws do not make them anymore valid.

Your devotion to discussing the likelihood of the scenario is strange, especially when we both know that with the current information, there is no way to decide on the matter. We will see. So why bring this scenario up at all? There is nothing to discuss if that's the case. And I do agree, that is the case.

I'm not even going to discuss the 4 yt question, and if you honestly think that 5 x wings and them are equally likely, I don't know what are we talking about. Hyperbole to accentuate your fallacies. You partake in this daily, and since logic and reasoning doesn't seem to work with you, I thought I'd try it on.

And I hope people will read back... you should too. Oh I'm not at all worried about that.

A lesson on how to derail a topic

55 minutes ago, Commander Kaine said:

I understand that the title, half of the actual text of my post, and my repeated attempts to explain my position might be misleading. 

And yet you keep doing it, almost daily in a new thread.

You glosses over an important question @BVRCH asked:

2 hours ago, BVRCH said:

So what is your point? What do you want?

If we discuss the scenario without even mentioning its likelihood in any way: what do you want?

Blair went through it for you with the conclusion that everything is fine. You ignored that, but if you go back: what now?

These topics are preparing some manufactured outrage, which is not healthy for the community or game.