Based on your opinion and current understanding of X-Wing please rank the below unranked 2.0 archetypes in order from easiest to most difficult to use:

• Ace + Mini Swarm
• Triple Ace
• Double Ace
• Double Ace + Support
• Formation Jousters
• No-Formation Jousters
• Double Fat Turret
• Fat Turret + Ace
• Fat Turret + Mini Swarm
• Turret Swarm
• Bomb Swarm

Preferably on a scale of this:

To This:

Vote for Most Difficult:

https://strawpoll.com/kxr9efx8

Vote for Least Difficult:

https://strawpoll.com/b5axzaex

Can vote for more than one.

Ranked from good to bad:

• Formation Jousters (e.g. TIE swarm)
• Bomb Swarm
• No-Formation Jousters (e.g. BBBBZ, XXXXT)
• Triple Ace
• Ace + Mini Swarm
• Double Ace + Support
• Fat Turret + Mini Swarm
• Double Fat Turret
• Fat Turret + Ace
• Turret Swarm
• Double Ace

I'm not sure whether Ace+miniswarm should be above triple ace. Double ace and turret swarm are nothing, IMO. Double fat turret and fat turret + ace are relying on upgrades, and the current upgrades are not good enough for that. Now Fat turret + miniswarm... no clue. I rank it below ace+miniswarm because the fat turret uses probably too many points or is not good enough to pull its weight. But there could be that sweet spot where the fat turret can statisfy both, and then the list would move up up up.

Edit: thanks @svelok . Ranking from easy to difficult is much harder. What does it mean to be easy in this context? Easiest to use the full potential or easiest to do well with the list? I'll go with the latter.
I think flying 6-8 ships well is hard, and it's even harder to do so several games back to back. Similarly, arcdodging all day is hard.

• No-Formation Jousters (e.g. BBBBZ, XXXXT)
• Bomb Swarm
• Double Fat Turret
• Turret Swarm
• Fat Turret + Ace
• Fat Turret + Mini Swarm
• Ace + Mini Swarm
• Formation Jousters (e.g. TIE swarm)
• Double Ace
• Triple Ace
• Double Ace + Support

1 hour ago, Boom Owl said:

Based on your opinion and current understanding of X-Wing please rank the below 2.0 archetypes in order from easiest to most difficult to use:

• Ace + Mini Swarm
• Triple Ace
• Double Ace
• Double Ace + Support
• Formation Jousters
• No-Formation Jousters
• Double Fat Turret
• Fat Turret + Ace
• Fat Turret + Mini Swarm
• Turret Swarm
• Bomb Swarm

Preferably on a scale of this:

To This:

Which of your ratings is the bad one?

Ship efficiency seems to be the name of the game so I'd exp3ct ace miniswarm, swarm, heavy swarm to be the order of the day for a while.

Though I will if course play trip aces because I am a glutton for punishment.

3 hours ago, GreenDragoon said:

Ranked  from good to bad: 

2 hours ago, thespaceinvader said:

Ship   efficiency seems to be the name of the game

?

3 hours ago, Boom Owl said:

please  rank the below 2.0 archetypes in order from easiest to most difficult  to u  se: 

8 hours ago, Boom Owl said:

Based on your opinion and current understanding of X-Wing please rank the below unranked 2.0 archetypes in order from easiest to most difficult to use:

Starting with potatoes:

• Bomb Swarm - No arcs? No problem. ? Does require a bit of decent flying, but can ruin about any squads day with AoE damage/bad things.
• Formation Jousters - Point and shoot. Basic flying does well. This is a broad category, though. 4 Jousters are quite easy to fly together, more makes things difficult.
• Turret Swarm - Again, point and shoot, but I can point wherever I want. Will require better planning, I think, or more points spent on expensive Gunners.
• Double Fat Turret - See above, but more health per ship and some good Crew tricks. Playing this probably doesn't make one sweat unless they see a 6+ Swarm on the other side of the table.
• Fat Turret +Ace - This is nice because the Ace becomes a hammer, the Turret the anvil. Ace is wherever he wants, playing reactively with plenty of board space.
• Ace + Mini-Swarm - Probably the easiest environment to fly an Ace because the rest of the list is still a threat. You can get away with playing aggessively with your Ace to draw the enemy into your Swarm's killbox.
• Fat Turret + Mini-Swarm - I actually think this is more difficult because so much of the board is taken up with ships, especially 3-4 ship swarm. Might not sweat, but need to think hard on where all of your own ships need to be
• Double Ace - These are hefty, nimble ships, Defenders, E-Wings, Luke, etc. They aren't afraid to be in arc... once or twice. Requires serious forethought, good maneuvering, and a solid grasp on math, but has a lot of flexibility. Probably sweat a bit.
• No-Formation Jousters - Requires planning and understanding of maneuver templates. Usually 4-5 ships, hard to avoid self-bumping in the middle of the board.
• Double Ace + Suppor t - Requires planning, impeccable maneuvering, and guts. Support helps, but not as much as you'd like.
• Triple Ace - All guts, no shields, baby! All glory to the Empire (and, invariably, variance, because those dice are going to make or break your day). Should only be reserved for those who have incredible luck AND skill. Like this guy.

8 hours ago, Boom Owl said:

I think you missed one, though. Ordnance/Alpha Swarms/Jousters are probably relevant enough now to be considered their own archetype.

Archetypes are a tad too broad

You're looking at either intra-list synergy (specifically with persistent modifiers that can whether swarms, especially multiple focus tokens) when it comes to the overall power of a squad, or very efficient ships that can both arc-dodge and hit well (Phantoms!)

1.) It starts with Jonus/Howlrunner barrage/TIE spam at the top

2.) Followed by four ship synergy (Rebs with Biggs, Scum with Seri and Mux, Deathrain + Jonus + Bombers all with Barrage) OR Ace + Howlie mini-swarm

3.) Followed by 3-ship everything kicks *** (Boba + palob + dude, Seri + palob + sabine)

4.) Followed by triple "I put all my eggs into this initiative bid" aces

5.) ends with two ship lists crutching on large bases ships because they're a tad overpriced atm


opinion, ofc

I'm having a hard time ranking these, as I inherently want to incorporate if they're bad or not (double fat turret is not that good). But I tried to rank them more purely as "Hard to play", 1 being the easiest. Even so, I don't think is that simple.

1. Double Ace
2. Formation Jousters
3. Bomb Swarm
4. Ace + Mini Swarm
5. ....
6. Double Ace + Support
7. Triple Ace
8. Turret Swarm
9. ....
10. No-Formation Jousters
11. Double Fat Turret
12. Fat Turret + Ace
13. Fat Turret + Mini Swarm

Basically, I don't think a lot of the fat turrets are good (some exceptions). But, since you either have to be 1) correct with your arc, or 2) be predictable, it's probably quite hard to play without just losing. Hard.

Formation jousters... just aren't as hard as everyone says. If you stop your formation, it's hard... but bad, because they're FORMATION jousters (hi, howlrunner).

In short, generally the more ships that need to act independently the harder it is. The except being fat turret + ace, because the timing of when to be near and far from each other hyper matters, as that turret will now die unsupported, but chances are that ace will also die if it comes in at the wrong time or from the wrong (predictable) angle.

Fat turret plus mini-swarm is probably the worst list, and thus generally the hardest to play (while not just outright losing). Like I said, it's hard to separate "ease of playing" from "good or bad" - the easier a list is to just win on its inherent strengths, the easier it is to play (or rather, to not screw it up).

I only have a couple, everything else falls in the middle based on a player's comfort level with number of ships to manage.

Easiest to fly: Fat turret + "ace", namely Dash with Luke Gunner and a 50 point-ish ship. The only place Dash can't shoot is into whomever is bumping him. Otherwise its a massive cannon with at least one mod, two if you bring something like Jake.

Hardest to fly: Triple aces. At the other end of the spectrum of "fully modified heavy dice at any angle" is "maybe modified dice because I've been repositioning and dodging arcs to the max". ****, double aces might be a thing with Fel and Vader and a giant bid (although slightly easier to fly than triple aces because you only have 2 ships to manage). The only problem is that you have so few hull/shields that you will pay heavily for your dice variance.

I find a list gets harder to fly with: more ships, lower PS, and less re-positioning ability.

8 hours ago, Boom Owl said:

Based on your opinion and current understanding of X-Wing please rank the below unranked 2.0 archetypes in order from easiest to most difficult to use:

• Ace + Mini Swarm
• Triple Ace
• Double Ace
• Double Ace + Support
• Formation Jousters
• No-Formation Jousters
• Double Fat Turret
• Fat Turret + Ace
• Fat Turret + Mini Swarm
• Turret Swarm
• Bomb Swarm

I think to actually rank these properly we need to understand a few things; who is flying each type of list (i.e. Heaver, Eide, Howard, etc..), which pilots are mostly used within each build and the configurartion within each list. Those variables undoubtably would influence an actual ranking. But with what is known I'd believe the following:

Tier 1: (easiest to fly) Double Ace, Non-Formation Jousters and Triple Aces.

Why? Because the ability to maneuver freely, no restrictions and most likely enough firepower to survive without needing assisted mods to help each other. An example of Double Aces (2 Defenders) or (Vader + Defender) every formiable; Triple Aces could be all X's led by (Skywalker) as examples.

Tier 2: Fat Turret + Ace, Bomb Swarm and Double Ace + Support

The turrets force you to rotate ocassionally, swarms even for bombs do the same (with regards to action economy) and the addition of a support ship either would expose the list to it's weakest (the support ship) or splits the important firepower created by the Aces. While in theory Double Aces + Support (Palp Aces as an example is weaker in 2.0 now due to Palpatine, and cost to equip needed mods to survive without Palp, etc.)

Tier 3: (hardest to fly) Turret Swarm, Fat Turret + Mini Swarm, Ace + Mini-Swarm, Formation Jousters.

Power in numbers sure, but at what cost? Split the swarm and split the power and force them to deal with unreliable red dice, let alone the fickle green dice. Turrets force use of actions, mods and extra maneuvering when considers opponents arc, your arc and stayhing out of arc of the opponent. Bombs fall into the same category as turrets within the regards of action mods, movement and depending on the bombs as much as the turret.

21 minutes ago, Tlfj200 said:

I'm having a hard time ranking these, as I inherently want to incorporate if they're bad or not (double fat turret is not that good). But I tried to rank them more purely as "Hard to play", 1 being the easiest. Even so, I don't think is that simple.

This is more just to get a sense of peoples perceptions of difficulty with given archetypes.

Your correct to point out that difficulty and capability can't really be separated.

I think alot of what people have historically described as difficult to use is alot easier then generally assumed.

1 minute ago, Boom Owl said:

This is more just to get a sense of peoples perceptions of difficulty with given archetypes.

Your correct to point out that difficulty and capability can't really be separated.

I think alot of what people have historically described as difficult to use is alot easier then generally assumed.

*cough* formation jousters *cough*

32 minutes ago, YourHucklebrry said:

I find a list gets harder to fly with: more ships , lower PS, and less re-positioning ability.

The "hard" thing with more ships is getting them all to arrive on a target area out of formation at the same time without bumping each other.

The "easy" thing with more ships is that they can block good and if you mess something up and you lose one ship early your game is not over.

So far with my 2.0 games I am finding that as I add more ships to my "aces" lists things get a little more forgiving when trading fire, but a little more difficult when dialing in moves.

Also, easiest against what? The average game? The average list? Against someone who plays his own list to full potential? The already mentioned problem of easiest to use the full potential or easiest to do well with the list indicates that use to full potential might be more feasible because it's independent of opponents. Easiest for a single game or for a tournament run? Playing a swarm for two days gives me a headache, but a single game is rather easy.

So "easiest to use to the full potential for a single game" is very different from "easiest to use against consistently good players for a whole tournament weekend". The former does not equal good, at all, while the latter arguably means good, too.

6 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

Also, easiest against what? The average game? The average list?  Against someone who plays his own list to full potential? The already mentioned problem of easiest to use the full potential or easiest to do well with the list indicates that use to full potential might be more feasible because it's independent of opponents. Easiest for a single game or for a tournament run? Playing a swarm for two days gives me a headache, but a single game is rather easy.

   So "easiest to use to the full potential for a single game" is very different from "easiest to use against consistently good players for a whole tournament weekend  ". The former does not equal good, at all, while the latter arguably means good, too.

All of the above, I intentionally did not clarify to much to keep it open ended.

12 minutes ago, Boom Owl said:

All of the above, I intentionally did not clarify to much to keep it open ended.

Then I‘m glad I failed at reading - now you have two answers depending on the question

I'm going to approach this as if I was setting up a player that never played the game and teaching them how to play.

For me there are two primary components that make a list "easy" or "hard".

1) If I screw up a move how punished will I be? Will 1/2 or 1/3 of my list be evaporated before it does anything? We'll call this the I F*&^ED UP! (IFU) score.

2) How hard is it to keep guns on targets on things? This will be labeled the PEW PEW PEW (PPP) score.

So If I rated things from Potato (1) to Storming of Helms Deep (5) for each of those categories for these lists and added up the total, the lowest score would be the Best Tator Precious! (AKA easiest)

Now please note, that "easy" is not synonymous with "good". It's just simply a way for me to categorize a list that a new player can plop on the table, not have their list exploded in one turn and actually has a chance of shooting at something each round.

• Turret Swarm - IFU (1), PPP(1). TOTAL: 2
• Double Fat Turret - IFU (1), PPP (2). TOTAL 3
• No-Formation Jousters - IFU (1), PPP (2). TOTAL 3
• Bomb Swarm  - IFU (1), PPP(3). TOTAL: 4
• Fat Turret + Mini Swarm. IFU (2), PPP(2). TOTAL: 4
• Double Ace + Support - IFU (3), PPP(2). TOTAL: 5
• Formation Jousters - IFU (2), PPP (3). TOTAL 5
• Ace + Mini Swarm - IFU: (3), PPP (2). TOTAL: 5
• Fat Turret + Ace - IFU (3), PPP (3). TOTAL 6
• Triple Ace - IFU: (4), PPP(2). TOTAL: 6
• Double Ace - IFU: (5), PPP(4). TOTAL: 9

10 minutes ago, viedit said:

I'm going to approach this as if I was setting up a player that never played the game and teaching them how to play.

For me there are two primary components that make a list "easy" or "hard".

1) If I screw up a move how punished will I be? Will 1/2 or 1/3 of my list be evaporated before it does anything? We'll call this the I F*&^ED UP! (IFU) score.

2) How hard is it to keep guns on targets on things? This will be labeled the PEW PEW PEW (PPP) score.

So If I rated things from Potato (1) to Storming of Helms Deep (5) for each of those categories for these lists and added up the total, the lowest score would be the Best Tator Precious! (AKA easiest)

Now please note, that "easy" is not synonymous with "good". It's just simply a way for me to categorize a list that a new player can plop on the table, not have their list exploded in one turn and actually has a chance of shooting at something each round.

• Turret Swarm - IFU (1), PPP(1). TOTAL: 2
• Double Fat Turret - IFU (1), PPP (2). TOTAL 3
• No-Formation Jousters - IFU (1), PPP (2). TOTAL 3
• Bomb Swarm  - IFU (1), PPP(3). TOTAL: 4
• Fat Turret + Mini Swarm. IFU (2), PPP(2). TOTAL: 4
• Double Ace + Support - IFU (3), PPP(2). TOTAL: 5
• Formation Jousters - IFU (2), PPP (3). TOTAL 5
• Ace + Mini Swarm - IFU: (3), PPP (2). TOTAL: 5
• Fat Turret + Ace - IFU (3), PPP (3). TOTAL 6
• Triple Ace - IFU: (4), PPP(2). TOTAL: 6
• Double Ace - IFU: (5), PPP(4). TOTAL: 9

I dig this analysis, but need to add that certain list archetypes are inherently more difficult to use vs other archetypes. Any jouster list is going to have more problems with arc-dodging lists (dub or trip aces). I'm looking forward to flying a double Defender list vs a TIE swarm (sacrilege, I know - it's just a training exercise!), as the Defenders could totally outmaneuver the swarm, but that may cause the swarm player, normally in formation, to break formation in order to spread arcs and/or perform blocks. Then one archetype instantly becomes another because it's easier to use vs the dub aces.

I know OP is looking for a more general analysis and I think viedit kinda nailed it, but there are a lot of variables, as other posters have stated.

Here's my two cents

1 hour ago, Bad Idea Comics said:

I dig this analysis, but need to add that certain list archetypes are inherently more difficult to use vs other archetypes. Any jouster list is going to have more problems with arc-dodging lists (dub or trip aces). I'm looking forward to flying a double Defender list vs a TIE swarm (sacrilege, I know - it's just a training exercise!), as the Defenders could totally outmaneuver the swarm, but that may cause the swarm player, normally in formation, to break formation in order to spread arcs and/or perform blocks. Then one archetype instantly becomes another because it's easier to use vs the dub aces.

Absolutely! I don't even like my numbers, but I had to try and rank objectively in a vacuum.

The other big variable is how do you fly a "swarm"? Or a jouster? If you are sticking your 5x list in a box and marching up the board your "IFU" score is basically as low as it can get. But your ability to keep anything on target is very difficult. Take that same 5x list and fan them out range three apart in your deployment, wait for your enemy to place. If they setup heavily weighted to one side then stall out that side of X's as slow as you can and bring in the other's fast. Then setup a killbox that fans around the enemy. That's the right way. You can collapse in the top of your list and rotate out the damaged ships and keep more arcs on target. It's "easy" but it's not "intuitive".

Same thing with the "Something" + Mini swarm. How are you flying that mini swarm. If you treat it as a single arc of 4 ships then your "PEW PEW PEW" score gets hurt badly. You need to fan out and increase your arc coverage. Again, not hard, but not intuitive for beginners.

And those formations and approaches get much harder as you introduce the counter lists in form of aces or AOE to break up formations.

9 hours ago, HammerGibbens said:

Here's my two cents

So non-formation swarms are on the more difficult side of things ill give you that. Despite how definitely fun they are though strikers arent an art form (nothing is). Alot of times its just look at all these ships at range 1 blocking you. Now look at all these ships slooping while one or two hard 1 turn or still try to block you. More recently its look at all these ships that die quickly because I want them to and give you 2 stress then kill you. Will admit that I absolutly enjoy all of that and moving twice per turn with 5 ships that arent forming a super big base and all dialing in the same moves together probably leads to a tiny bit more brain usage in general. Though i have little experience with traditional tie swarms, maybe they are more difficult? So far it looks like hi im jousting now, or hi im fortressing joust me later.

Updated with poll for Most Difficult and Least Difficult.

Yeah, sort of like what others have said, I think there are two metrics by which you can define difficulty.

-How hard it is on average to identify the optimal play (taking in to account a competent opponent)

-How bad it is for you if you don't make the optimal play

Similar to @viedit 's PPP and IFU indexes, but with PPP taking into account how important bluffing might be. I'd pretty much agree exactly with his scores though. Maybe up the PPP on triple ace and ace+mini swarm a touch, and a little on turret lists now we're in 2e.

So yeah, basically agreement with viedt on double ace hardest, but I'd put formation joisters easiest.

• Turret Swarm
• Formation Jousters
• Double Fat Turret
• Ace + Mini Swarm
• Fat Turret + Ace
• Fat Turret + Mini Swarm
• Double Ace + Support
• Triple Ace
• Bomb Swarm
• Double Ace
• No-Formation Jousters