1 minute ago, GreenDragoon said:

I don‘t believe that, but I‘m happy to be wrong on it. It depends on how common I4 really is on the tables and might shift around pretty strongly.

I strongly suspect "Brobots vs Ryad/Vessery" is just one of the examples of I4 heavy lists wanting bids over each other.

Nobody should be playing either of those squads.

7 minutes ago, SOTL said:

Nobody should be playing either of those squads.

And why not?

14 minutes ago, SOTL said:

Nobody should be playing either of those squads.

Double Defenders is pretty fun.

1 hour ago, SOTL said:

Nobody should be playing either of those squads.

I don't think anybody knows enough to make that kind of statement with any expectation of accuracy.

Sadly I fear (although some of you may rejoice) that tripple imperial aces is well and truly dead. With no way to get a third int6 ship (and Vader costing 70 pts stock) along with the seeming reliance on a support ship. Also b/c I need to complain again THE ace platform the tie/in only has 1 int5+ ship this is not ok

The biggest part of the bid is it has to be more valuable to choose player 1 than filling a slot.

So on Vader is a 3 point bid better than having homing missiles? I think yes.

Is an 8 point bid better than having afterburners? Geez I dunno about that.

I agree that bigger bids than 1.0 equivalent will happen, primarily because upgrades seem so poor for their cost.

I feel that a 7 point bid is touch and go in 2.0, however a 3 point bid in 1.0 nearly guaranteed it for you.

In my meta there is only myself and one other Ace player (in general), so will be interesting to see what happens there.

One interesting thing about 2nd edition is that there are some I6 aces who are now relatively cheap. Wedge and Fel are cheaper than they are currently and that means losing them isn't the disaster it could be in 1st edition. Take Fel in 1st edition as an example. With a decent bid to move last PS9 Fel, and later PS11 Vader was able to solo lists with a little bit of difficulty even pre-Palp. He was 35% of your list, sometimes actually more like 60%+ with Palp, so he had to be good. How, at around 25% of your list for a basic Fel with Predator losing him isn't such a big deal.

So are we perhaps still stuck in 1st edition thinking? With fewer multi-repositioning ships in general will a player with good predictive skills need to move last as much as in 1st edition? With fewer fully modified shots coming our way is being in an arc as bad as it would previously have been? Are aces even going to be as good as they have been? I think Vader looks excellent but Fenn looks too expensive and Wedge doesn't really have the survivability. Fel looks great but, again, is cheap enough that I'm possibly not as bothered about losing him as I once was.

4 hours ago, mad mandolorian said:

Sadly I fear (although some of you may rejoice) that tripple imperial aces is well and truly dead. With no way to get a third int6 ship (and Vader costing 70 pts stock) along with the seeming reliance on a support ship. Also b/c I need to complain again THE ace platform the tie/in only has 1 int5+ ship this is not ok

Imperials never had access to triple PS9 ace due to pricing issues (at least not where one of the aces was not heavily compromised). All triple ace squad listed in 1.0 had at least someone at PS8 or lower.

1 hour ago, Jike said:

One interesting thing about 2nd edition is that there are some I6 aces who are now relatively cheap. Wedge and Fel are cheaper than they are currently and that means losing them isn't the disaster it could be in 1st edition. Take Fel in 1st edition as an example. With a decent bid to move last PS9 Fel, and later PS11 Vader was able to solo lists with a little bit of difficulty even pre-Palp. He was 35% of your list, sometimes actually more like 60%+ with Palp, so he had to be good. How, at around 25% of your list for a basic Fel with Predator losing him isn't such a big deal.

I agree totally. This is why I made one of the categories "support ace".

@Biophysical Curious why Guri isn't showing up in your list of I5 aces. Guri with Advanced Sensors is going to be an absolute monster against anyone who moves before her.

I think she looks pretty solid with just AS and your cheap EPT of choice. The Virago title doesn't seem attractive as I don't see two mods worth taking.

You could also go whole hog and give her Afterburners and Lone Wolf and make her your end game piece.

Guri, Fenn, and ??? Could be a great place to start. They fit with two I1 quadjumpers...

52 minutes ago, Biophysical said:

Imperials never had access to triple PS9 ace due to pricing issues (at least not where one of the aces was not heavily compromised). All triple ace squad listed in 1.0 had at least someone at PS8 or lower.

Yeah, and given that you don't need to be assigning points to Advanced Stealth or defensive modifications any more, you can easily fit a cheap Soontir, Duchess and Whisper together in a squad with 40-some points left for support and "luxury" upgrades.

9 minutes ago, gamblertuba said:

@Biophysical Curious why Guri isn't showing up in your list of I5 aces. Guri with Advanced Sensors is going to be an absolute monster against anyone who moves before her.

I think she looks pretty solid with just AS and your cheap EPT of choice. The Virago title doesn't seem attractive as I don't see two mods worth taking.

You could also go whole hog and give her Afterburners and Lone Wolf and make her your end game piece.

Guri, Fenn, and ??? Could be a great place to start. They fit with two I1 quadjumpers...

The list isn't exhaustive, that's why. She definitely fits in the I5 Centerpiece category.

Is the Init race still there? I feel like lesser Init pilots will be able to reposition to still get into a decent spot. Have enough ships to spread out and you should still get a shot. No token stacking means your shots can be effective. Is high Init really as important as it used to be?

5 minutes ago, heychadwick said:

Is the Init race still there? I feel like lesser Init pilots will be able to reposition to still get into a decent spot. Have enough ships to spread out and you should still get a shot. No token stacking means your shots can be effective. Is high Init really as important as it used to be?

I think it is, if only because some of the Ace level pilots have gained access to some really excellent maneuverability options in the form of Supernatural Reflexes and occasionally Advanced Sensors.

On the other hand, repositioning is now much more restrictive (BR is limited and a BR/Boost can fail, no more "I can't go left so I'll go right"), so aces are not as slippery as in 1st edition.

1 hour ago, costi said:

On the other hand, repositioning is now much more restrictive (BR is limited and a BR/Boost can fail, no more "I can't go left so I'll go right"), so aces are not as slippery as in 1st edition.

This is what I'm thinking. Also, everyone can repo a little bit, too.

I’ve never been super competitive into XWMG, but my impression was always that if your list relies on winning the bid and having higher pilot skill, it isn’t a good list.

Any list the relies lies on one specific thing going right and falls apart if it doesn’t isn’t a good list.

1 hour ago, costi said:

On the other hand, repositioning is now much more restrictive (BR is limited and a BR/Boost can fail, no more "I can't go left so I'll go right"), so aces are not as slippery as in 1st edition.

amen to this

gone are the days of ridiculous bull like Dash or adv sensor kylo v lower PS

you actually gotta think and plan ahead with your aces ?

21 minutes ago, Church14 said:

I’ve never been super competitive into XWMG, but my impression was always that if your list relies on winning the bid and having higher pilot skill, it isn’t a good list.

Any list the relies lies on one specific thing going right and falls apart if it doesn’t isn’t a good list.

Really excellent squads have frequently had huge bids to get an edge on the mirror match. Double Phantoms, Jumpmasters and Fenn/Teroch/Manaroo, are the most prominent ones that come to mind.

It's not that you can't win without winning the bid, it's that the bid ends up being more important than more upgrades.

39 minutes ago, Biophysical said:

Really excellent squads have frequently had huge bids to get an edge on the mirror match. Double Phantoms, Jumpmasters and Fenn/Teroch/Manaroo, are the most prominent ones that come to mind.

It's not that you can't win without winning the bid, it's that the bid ends up being more important than more upgrades.

I think these 3 lists are quite bad examples for the bid discussion, for various reasons.

You seem to be quite set into Aces mirror matches mindset. But I think the meta will be very different, with various jousting / efficiency / mini or full swarm lists. I expect Aces to be really more support than center pieces, and therefore the bids will be much, much smaller on average (0-2 sounds about right).

But one thing we know for sure is that for the few first months the meta will be diverse, chaotic and constantly developing. Therefore it makes no sense to take bids just for mirror matchups, or tech against specific lists..

4 minutes ago, baranidlo said:

I think these 3 lists are quite bad examples for the bid discussion, for various reasons.

You seem to be quite set into Aces mirror matches mindset. But I think the meta will be very different, with various jousting / efficiency / mini or full swarm lists. I expect Aces to be really more support than center pieces, and therefore the bids will be much, much smaller on average (0-2 sounds about right).

But one thing we know for sure is that for the few first months the meta will be diverse, chaotic and constantly developing. Therefore it makes no sense to take bids just for mirror matchups, or tech against specific lists..

His key comment is that the bid is better than the upgrades you could take instead.

Given the quality of the current upgrades that is easy for me to see.

Just now, Roundy1161 said:

His key comment is that the bid is better than the upgrades you could take instead.

Given the quality of the current upgrades that is easy for me to see.

Bid is better than upgrades, but more or stronger ships is better than bid.

Agreed there, if you can fit them.

12 minutes ago, baranidlo said:

You seem to be quite set into Aces mirror matches mindset. But I think the meta will be very different, with various jousting / efficiency / mini or full swarm lists. I expect Aces to be really more support than center pieces, and therefore the bids will be much, much smaller on average (0-2 sounds about right).

I mentioned that jousting + Ace would have a small bid in the OP.