17 minutes ago, ThinkingB said:

So is Kanan supposed to be terrible now? It feels like there are no reasons to run him instead of Hera w/ Ezra gunner for about the same points.

I don't think he's worse, just different. His ability is no longer dependent on actions. You get blocked? He still works. Stressed? He still works. Jammed? Still works. It's also now a a friendly ship within your firing arc. Now the question I need resolved is - what counts as a "firing arc"? Is the rear still an arc and is it still defined as an arc even if a shuttle isn't docked? What if I have a dorsal turret added, is that now a third? Depending on how things work out, you could have Kanan parked in the middle of the board and in 75% of the board he would be able to nerf the shots of a defender. If he has three effective arcs, a friendly could be up to range three of that arc, with the attacker up to range 3 from them for a total of 6. Range 6 from the middle is beyond the edge of the board.

On 8/7/2018 at 10:11 AM, TasteTheRainbow said:

Has anyone had any success at all with 2e and the VCX? I’ve tried with and without docked phantoms, with and without gunners for extra shots. But I can’t get its dice mods anywhere near high enough to justify its cost.

I have found this to be the case with all 2.0 Large Ships, for the most part.

People have clearly forgotten the early days of Wave 1 X-Wing where generic swarms (read: HowlSwarm) ruled the skies and no one dared touch a large ship. Why spend ~50% of your list on a ship that will on average take 2.5 rounds of attacking per TIE FIGHTER to get a kill? That's a terrible, terrible return on investment (and it's the same reason almost no one competitively ran large ships back in 1.0 until things like Predator came along to provide more reliable and flexible anti-Swarm offense and perhaps more notably TIE Phantoms came along to drive away the Joust Swarms).


I simply don't see anything in 2.0 that is better than the Howl + Iden + 5x TIE swarm, generally speaking. And, just like the early days of 1.0, whenever you list build you have to start with the question "Can this list beat a Howl Swarm?" And, from everything I've seen so far, it seems to me that most large ships in 2.0 cannot justify their cost in the TIE Swarm match-up.

2 minutes ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

I simply don't see anything in 2.0 that is better than the Howl + Iden + 5x TIE swarm, generally speaking. And, just like the early days of 1.0, whenever you list build you have to start with the question "Can this list beat a Howl Swarm?" And, it seems to me, there are very few large ships in 2.0 that will be able to justify their cost in the TIE Swarm match-up. 

Yeah, I do think the days of large ship + something are over. The combo wing effect highly modified dice + ability to boost on most of them is gone. I think the ghost will end up being best served as a dirt cheap brawler that you can coordinate an action or two towards before/after it moves and will be plunked into a list with 2-3 other ships to help support it.

Eh, I've done fine with Sabine caster

Sabine (fearless, perceptive, scrambler, title)

Seri (ion)

Palob (moldy, Lando, trickshot)

Got enough mods to weather a swarm or miniswarm quite well

But the other caster pilots are SUPER expensive by comparison, haven't been able to justify fielding them

You gotta keep the large ships relatively cheap and/or use obstacles to the best of your ability to break up the swarm. Personally, I'd always bring a buddy (that'd be Seri or Biggs) so you don't just lose your ship in two rounds

29 minutes ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

And, just like the early days of 1.0, whenever you list build you have to start with the question "Can this list beat a Howl Swarm?" And, from everything I've seen so far, it seems to me that most large ships in 2.0 cannot justify their cost in the TIE Swarm match-up.

My finding exactly.

My average kill count on ties with the 15+ VCX lists I’ve run now is 1. 1 tie fighter. And it usually isn’t Howl, lol. One time I got 3 because Benthic rolled hot after the VCX died.

So in 2.0 testing so far, what does well vs Howl/Iden swarms? Triple proton bomb launching Punishers with a Soontir flanker?

18 minutes ago, TasteTheRainbow said:

My average kill count on ties with the 15+ VCX lists I’ve run now is 1. 1 tie fighter. And it usually isn’t Howl, lol. One time I got 3 because Benthic rolled hot after the VCX died.

Yup, I suspect when 2.0 goes live will see something like this:

Early Days: everyone will be really excited and singing its praises, optimistically feeling like that they can run anything in this new era of uncharted territories
A Few Months In: the meta will rapidly develop and coalesce around Howl+Iden+5-Ties and specific counters, and people will basically be playing Waves 1-3 again
About Six Months In: people will either remember or discover how repetitive and constraining the era of Howlrunner really was, optimism will start fading
About 9 Months In: people will be lamenting the loss of 1.0 and wishing they could go back.

37 minutes ago, ficklegreendice said:

You gotta keep the large ships relatively cheap and/or use obstacles to the best of your ability to break up the swarm.

Agree with all of your points, except the obstacle one is pretty moot I fear. Since 2.0 has made no changes to fortressing, expect any high-level TIE Swarm player to just deploy in a corner fortressed. This way the enemy list has to eventually come to them, with no chance of stringing the swarm out or drawing it through the obstacle field first.

Casual players will just deploy their swarm and probably fly right through the asteroid field trying to get to the opponent, but fotressing really got pretty common in the past couple years at the high end of competitive play. The player who won Worlds with Dual IGs started fortressed (like all good Dual IG players, really) with indefinite 1-Turns into each other. Most players using Gunboats fortressed, to not risk losing their alpha strikes on the opening combat. Some Fairship Rebels and lots of X-spam lists fortressed. Lambdas constantly parked indefinitely with one of their aces acting as a break, or else a K-Turning Defender acting as a break alternating with the red stop. I played in Worlds and the North American Championships recently, and I'd say about 60% of my opponents started at least a portion of their list fortressed and not-moving.

I mean, if Final Salvo is still a thing, you'd be kind of crazy to not fortress your 7 Tie Howl Swarm ... not much can reliably risk a 14-Die Final Salvo, so most things have to come to you.

I bet they’ll adjust some point several times over that timeline. I bet they drop generic VCX and non-Kanan Pilots by about 10 points. They still won’t be good, but they’ll be better than now.

similar treatment for decimators, who are maybe even worse off, imo.

Eck, fortressing ties sounds awful to face

But, given the app, it's very easy to bump Howlrunner and Iden up if they get too dumb (howlie working on herself is already very powerful)

Though I think it's silly to believe TIE swarm will be even a fraction as oppressive as the current meta. 1st Ed is so restrictive in meta that I was about to sell my entire collection save like the six ships worth a ****

I'll take a TIE swarm (though they do the opposite of swarm) being top tier over any of the 1.0 cancer any day of the week. Besides, if you are really afraid of TIEs then fly a trajectory sim Punisher, or fly Phantoms, or Cluster Missile carriers, or Interceptor aces, etc.

9 minutes ago, ficklegreendice said:

Eck, fortressing ties sounds awful to face

But, given the app, it's very easy to bump Howlrunner and Iden up if they get too dumb (howlie working on herself is already very powerful)

Though I think it's silly to believe TIE swarm will be even a fraction as oppressive as the current meta. 1st Ed is so restrictive in meta that I was about to sell my entire collection save like the six ships worth a ****

I think the only reason howl swarms won’t oppress the meta is that not everyone has 7 ties and the will to fly them.

Also because our first big points adjustments will even them out pretty quick.

The biggest difference between this and 1.0 TIE Swarms is that there are several counter-options available right now, as opposed to having to choose from a number of ships you can count on one hand. With enough players running different counters, it'll be tougher for the swarm to crystallize as the single, dominant build.

Got in a game with Lone Wolf Hera (Kanan, Ezra, R2dcrew, ion turret, static discharge vanes) and Super Sabine (Debris gambit, Perceptive copilot, Stealth device, ion turret) vs ScumHan, Fen Rau, and Old Teroch.

Some unlucky dice in the opening salvo on both sides, (long range hera vs Teroch, everyone else out of range, Hera lost 1 shield, teroch nothing) then I broke past Old T and got a short range double tap out of my rear (with a rotate turret action). The ion missed, but Lone Wolf Force on 4 dice did two crits on teroch, including a structural damag, while Fen rau bumped and Han missed his long range 2 die shot.

Next round had Teroch turning back into the fight at long range, Fen Talon-rolling to just outside short, and Han pulling up to medium but spending all his actions locking rocks. Hera lost the last of her shields, then got some nasty hits on Fen Rau- Hit and 2 ion tokens, and 2 damage from the tailgun.

While Fen was ionized and at range 3, Teroch zipped up to range 1 (though still in my rear arc) and Han was still range 2, and Teroch stripped my Reinforce. That turn was nasty, and I traded killing Teroch for half my hull... then R2 helpfully reveals a double stress crit to repair a shield. Dammit Chopper!

We actually misplayed the next round and went back- I survived range 1 Fen Rau range 1 Han with 1 health, dropped fen rau with the ion and did 2 shields to han- then we remembered greedo, Flipped the last damage card as a direct hit, changed it to an emergency undock, and supersabine emergency undocked.

Over the next few rounds, Sabine trades her stealth device and a "All hits are crits" crit for Fen Rau's life, and it was down to a 2 agility turreted ship with 3 tokens a round vs a 2 primary 1 agility ship that needed an obstructing rock to make a superlaser. after a few turns of not being able to touch sabine, we called the game for time. han was more points than Sabine, and Fen + the emergency undock had already gotten half points on her.

If you really wanna counter swarms, though, get ffg to give Ks a ******* sensor slot already

It's an advanced Ship and rebs lost their only trajectory simulator with the resistance bomber

The mistreatment of the poor K and ARC (poor abilities apart from Norra, CRAPTASTIC crew and all Gunners are turret only for some unfathomable reason) have me really disinterested in purchasing a rebel conversion kit

14 minutes ago, ficklegreendice said:

If you really wanna counter swarms, though, get ffg to give Ks a ******* sensor slot already

It's an advanced Ship and rebs lost their only trajectory simulator with the resistance bomber

The mistreatment of the poor K and ARC (poor abilities apart from Norra, CRAPTASTIC crew and all Gunners are turret only for some unfathomable reason) have me really disinterested in purchasing a rebel conversion kit

No thanks. Sabine doesn't need TS, she's dangerous enough as is.

1 hour ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

Yup, I suspect when 2.0 goes live will see something like this:

Early Days: everyone will be really excited and singing its praises, optimistically feeling like that they can run anything in this new era of uncharted territories
A Few Months In: the meta will rapidly develop and coalesce around Howl+Iden+5-Ties and specific counters, and people will basically be playing Waves 1-3 again
About Six Months In: people will either remember or discover how repetitive and constraining the era of Howlrunner really was, optimism will start fading
About 9 Months In: people will be lamenting the loss of 1.0 and wishing they could go back.

Don’t know if you’re kidding but I agree with this time line 100%. It may have variance for margin of error but definately starting to see 2.0 as same **** different day. Of course in wave 1 things aren’t super broken, the only real difference between this start and 1.0’s is the starting ship counts. I’m even laying real odds they repeal mobile arcs because it doesn’t even need to be ties, there are viable swarms everywhere now and they can unite to become Voltron on any non swarm list. Area damage and possibly pwt will return because the synergy is too good for 5-6 ship lists.

lol no

Area damage already exists (trajectory simulator, easy) and if you can't work mobile arcs and their very generous coverage, that's entirely on you

Working PWTs back in is extra dumb because you can just drop the cost of the new mobile arc ships (legitimately surprised they got MORE expensive) and up the price of incredibly powerful synergy ships, fixing the game without resorting to harebrained schemes

1 minute ago, ficklegreendice said:

lol no

Area damage already exists (trajectory simulator, easy) and if you can't work mobile arcs and their very generous coverage, that's entirely on you

Working PWTs back in is extra dumb because you can just drop the cost of the new mobile arc ships (legitimately surprised they got MORE expensive) and up the price of incredibly powerful synergy ships, fixing the game without resorting to harebrained schemes

I truly hope you are correct Fickle, truly, we’ll see though. I never under-estimate ffg’s harebrained capabilities, in any product.

26 minutes ago, ficklegreendice said:

If you really wanna counter swarms, though, get ffg to give Ks a ******* sensor slot already

It's an advanced Ship and rebs lost their only trajectory simulator with the resistance bomber

The mistreatment of the poor K and ARC (poor abilities apart from Norra, CRAPTASTIC crew and all Gunners are turret only for some unfathomable reason) have me really disinterested in purchasing a rebel conversion kit

I kind of agree, but also I loathe TS so much that I’d rather just live in the swarm meta.

12 minutes ago, LordFajubi said:

Don’t know if you’re kidding but I agree with this time line 100%. It may have variance for margin of error but definately starting to see 2.0 as same **** different day. Of course in wave 1 things aren’t super broken, the only real difference between this start and 1.0’s is the starting ship counts. I’m even laying real odds they repeal mobile arcs because it doesn’t even need to be ties, there are viable swarms everywhere now and they can unite to become Voltron on any non swarm list. Area damage and possibly pwt will return because the synergy is too good for 5-6 ship lists.

Nah they can fix this with price adjustments.

16 minutes ago, LordFajubi said:

I truly hope you are correct Fickle, truly, we’ll see though. I never under-estimate ffg’s harebrained capabilities, in any product.

We can fix it

We have the technology!

But seriously, so many rebel options seem wildly overpriced. Most large ships too. I think ffg overcorrected based on how cancerous they were in first edition, not realizing they've already done a TERRIFIC job at removing what what made so ******* dumb in the first place

K needs sensors because they did a fine job curtailing Miranda, removing turret slot, removing action bombs.

I appreciate balancing for ability rather than I but Kanan at 90 seems **** awful

Kanan crew is in NO WAY worth as much as Vader crew. 10 points

Ezra gunner is just laughable

Bistan could be 10 (action/token AND different target requirement)

The generic yts are way over budget, especially the yt1300 with its barely-better-than-bwing state line. -8 points on both AT LEAST

Etc etc etc etc

Vcx came out pretty well, comparatively

In summary, the stuff is already mechanically balanced it's just wildly overcosted which makes fixing it very easy

1 hour ago, ficklegreendice said:

If you really wanna counter swarms, though, get ffg to give Ks a ******* sensor slot already

It's an advanced Ship and rebs lost their only trajectory simulator with the resistance bomber

The mistreatment of the poor K and ARC (poor abilities apart from Norra, CRAPTASTIC crew and all Gunners are turret only for some unfathomable reason) have me really disinterested in purchasing a rebel conversion kit

No.

The K-Wing has turret, crew, gunner, regen and SLAM. It has enough toys. Let the rebels taste a bit of their own medicine before you cry the ship useless.

The ARC got shafted somewhat, but the K-wing wasn't mistreated. It got the rightful treatment it deserved. It has absolutely no need for a sensor slot, plus it has Sabine.

37 minutes ago, ficklegreendice said:

K needs sensors because they did a fine job curtailing Miranda, removing turret slot, removing action bombs.

The K-wing is fine. It has a great upgrade bar, it doesn't need sensors on top of that. Also, no way do we want TS with Sabine in the game.

37 minutes ago, ficklegreendice said:

Kanan crew is in NO WAY worth as much as Vader crew. 10 points

Ezra gunner is just laughable

It looks like FFG is setting the value of a force charge at 10 points, so any ability on top of that is going to increase the cost. I don't think that Kanan crew is overpriced, but Ezra probably is by a few points.

It looks like FFG has gone conservative on pricing for many things, especially things that were abusive in 1.0. Many of these will likely come down in price over the next year. People are going to be much happier and more receptive to their favorites getting buffed than they would if they were getting nerfed, so balancing up in power is likely to be more well received by the community.

30 minutes ago, ficklegreendice said:

K needs sensors because they did a fine job curtailing Miranda, removing turret slot, removing action bombs.

This is not an argument for needing a sensor slot. The point is not to have the K-wing where it was, but below, because it was cancer.

31 minutes ago, ficklegreendice said:

I appreciate balancing for ability rather than I but Kanan at 90 seems **** awful

Kanan crew is in NO WAY worth as much as Vader crew. 10 points

Comperatively, Kaanan (pilot) is priced similarly to other force user pilots. It's not balanced for the ability, it is balanced for the Force Rating of 2... on a large ship.

Kaanan (crew) basically turns any maneuver from white to blue once per turn. Even allied ships. Even the ghost. Having 12 blue moves on the Ghost dial I think is worth that much... Especially when if you don't need it, works as a free focus, and you can use it on friendlies. Kaanan is bonkers good. It was disgustingly underpriced in 1.0, but I think the price is fair.

40 minutes ago, ficklegreendice said:

Ezra gunner is just laughable

Yeah. So what? There are many bad cards in the game. They will probably drop his cost to 12-14... At least you have gunners to choose from.

44 minutes ago, ficklegreendice said:

Bistan could be 10 (action/token AND different target requirement)

The generic yts are way over budget, especially the yt1300 with its barely-better-than-bwing state line. -8 points on both AT LEAST

Yeah. Well, Wedge and Soontir shouldn't cost the same either.

The rebels didn't get screwed. They just got toned down to the level of the Imps. There are many overpriced cards in the game, from all three factions. The Defender, for example, isn't worth close to a 100 points, just because it has 5 actions on its action bar.... Still can only do 1 + ship ability per turn. And it pays too much for a single 3 dice attack.

31 minutes ago, Commander Kaine said:

The rebels didn't get screwed. They just got toned down to the level of the Imps. There are many overpriced cards in the game, from all three factions. The Defender, for example, isn't worth close to a 100 points, just because it has 5 actions on its action bar.... Still can only do 1 + ship ability per turn. And it pays too much for a single 3 dice attack.

What rebel list is on par with a Howl/Iden swarm?

No. The defender is not overpriced. Fly it.