How are people welcoming our new Initiative 5-6 15-pt bid overlords?

Specifically, what, other than joining them, is beating them?

What looks unfruitful:

• Blocking. The prevalence of Advanced Sensors, cloaking, coordinate, and Supernatural Reflexes makes blocking much harder in 2e -- possibly harder even if you know their dial than it was in 1e without that knowledge.
• Stress control. Because it no longer exists.
• Ion control. Because the solution to being unable to push damage through won't be found in a weapon that needs to push two damage through.
• Bombs/Mines. These are harder to land with the new timing unless you're the last ship and getting chased -- and dropping a mine in 2e requires giving your opponent an extra round to kill you.
• Missiles/Torpedoes. If they're dodging your primaries, they're dodging these too.

What may have potential:

• Turrets/rear arcs -- to an extent. Only five ships can make a strength 3 attack backward (six, if you count Kavil), though, and they're spread across four factions. A single 2 die rear attack won't scratch a Defender, and aces have too much range control to let you ever get a Range 1 shot on them.
• 5+ ship lists.
• Ships that can cover a contiguous 180° arc.
• Jamming -- but only versus tokening up, which is only half the battle.
• Tractoring -- but it's hard to leverage. You'll do more scaring than tractoring, and if you can't capitalize on that, you won't win with it.
• Rigged Cargo Chute.

I thought these words would never ever enter the forum... but.... triple Punishers flinging bombs, blowing up asteroids and launching Torpedoes. I dont think 3 aces can kill a Punisher in one turn, but it does sadden me that the meta is starting to form and it isn't great. It harkens back to the days of Triple JM5K's.

Just one Punisher helps a lot, but yeah, Seismics are great. All the tokens and agility in the world doesn't help against automatic damage, and forcing the aces to fly around exploding rocks makes them so much more predictable. Ordnance is also generally good if you can keep them at R3. It's true that any shot can be dodged, but if you bring 2-3 ordnance carriers and slowroll them, flying them slightly fanned out, you should be able to catch approaching aces. Hit them once, then speed up and block or go past. Most arc-dodging aces are hesistant to k/sloop/troll, and if they're only turning and maybe boosting, you can get away and grab a lock for the next pass.

I don't have all that much experience running all I1-2, but I tend not to bid at all, even if I bring I5s. In that case it's better to just expect that you have to move first, and practice that. Also, use pilots and upgrades that don't mind shooting first and ideally get some sort of bonus out of it. Examples of this are Juke, Tractor Beam, Shadow Caster title, Whisper, Turr Phennir and to a certain extent Vermeil. There are also abilites that work better at low I, such as Magva Yarro, Leebo (you can run these to together, BTW) and Valen Rudor. These are not bad! I've more than one example of Rudor rolling himself (or someone else with Squad Leader) out of the way of their second ace after taking a hit from the first, and hitting back at range 1 since I now suddenly have arc.

Also, you can surround aces. Soontir can dodge one TIE Fighter, and he can dodge four of them in tight formation. He cannot dodge four of them coming at him from all four sides.

Fly better?

Git gud?

I would generally advice against building lists specifically to take down one archetype, but quadjumpers are toolkit ships that's good against many lists, including aces.

More arcs.

Dodge this, Soontir.

Mini swarms with hard hitters or mini swarms of ships like Kihraxzes can clean up aces if done right. You need to create a field that is full of ships where the enemy Ace can't go. It doesn't matter if he can Adv Sensor beforehand. There is either no where to go or they don't get shots.

So far I've found that if you can get aces in arc you can often land damage on them and if you keep pressuring them to reposition their own dice are often not well modified, which blunts their effectiveness a lot. I think it comes down to predicting better where they'll be and accepting some unmodified shots against them in order to try to push damage, rather than trying to set up a perfect shot to take them down in one go. Aces have been good so far in 2nd edition, but I don't find them anywhere near as bad as they were in 1st. It often takes more of a concerted effort across your squad, as @heychadwick says, but once you have those shots the aces will go down.

7 hours ago, Quarrel said:

What looks unfruitful:

• Blocking. The prevalence of Advanced Sensors, cloaking, coordinate, and Supernatural Reflexes makes blocking much harder in 2e -- possibly harder even if you know their dial than it was in 1e without that knowledge.

I've been running into this issue a lot when playing against Imperials. I'll know exactly where the ships are going to end up and even what actions that they are going to take, but that info is basically useless. Bombers, Phantoms, and Defenders don't seem to care if you know where they are going. Not sure why this is the case in 2.0, but perhaps it's due to how efficient these ships are.

Aces are like Cats. They love to go in boxes.

7 hours ago, Quarrel said:

How are people welcoming our new Initiative 5-6 15-pt bid overlords?

Specifically, what, other than joining them, is beating them?

What looks unfruitful:

• Stress control. Because it no longer exists.

4Lom wants a word with you. Esp. with 0-0-0 on board and the stop on his dial. Aces have to think twice if they want to go tiptoes range 1.

F/O Phasma coming soon.

Sloane and miniswarm.

12 minutes ago, ThinkingB said:

I've been running into this issue a lot when playing against Imperials. I'll know exactly where the ships are going to end up and even what actions that they are going to take, but that info is basically useless. Bombers, Phantoms, and Defenders don't seem to care if you know where they are going. Not sure why this is the case in 2.0, but perhaps it's due to how efficient these ships are.

I'm going to call bull on hyperbolic stuff like this.

I think you need to take a much harder look at your own list and decision making if "you know exactly where they're going and what action they're taking but it's useless".

There's no ridiculous crap like Zuckuss, old reinforce, etc. that completely negate any offense you put together.

Virtually every single Imperial ace, save maybe a Defender, can and will evaporate in a single round. ESPECIALLY "if you know exactly where they're going and what action they're taking".

Stop trying to rush down an ace that hasn't trapped itself in a bad position. Block them, since you know exactly where they're going. Put multiple arcs on them, since you know exactly where they're going. Close lanes with bombs, since you know exactly where they're going. Hit them with ordinance, since you know exactly where they're going.

Do you see why this sounds ridiculous?

Well said.

My suggestions.

Swarm vs Dodgy Aces: Fly loose with arcs spread to cover multiple maneuver + repositions, overlapping where possible. Don't be hard wedded to a large alpha joust for every match. Be willing have 1-2 ships where they don't get the bonus from a named pilot in the squad but also make sure that your next move set can put those ships back in position for it. Make every reposition for them put them either outside of their own weapons range or in one or more of your ships' arcs.

Swarm vs Large base Aces: Envelope and focus down, leaving a couple ships in a position to threaten its squad mates.. You will likely loose ships, but they'll be out more points.

Versus dodgy aces you have to spread the net as @Hiemfire suggested. I lost my first game with my Soontir/Saber/Scimitar list because I tried to get dodgy with 4 rebs spread wide. They covered my every move and picked me off easily (didn't help that I drew a hull breach crit on one of my bombers that made it a useless wreck). But beware! My next time playing this list vs the same opponents (I wanted a rematch) I shot forward and capitalized on my higher initiative to delete key components from the reb list. My list isn't all top aces though - I have 5 ships that all hit well. I use Fel as a lure, but also as a dodgy bastard. So, cover a wide area, but beware of focused fire from one side - aces can often close quickly to maximize fire.

The difference between arc-dodgers in 2.0 vs 1.0 is that in 1.0, even when you caught that arc-dodger in arc, unless you were firing a death star laser at it, it didn't matter, it would have some combination 2-3 green tokens, 3-4 agility, autothrusters and Palpatine to completely bail it out. In 2.0, I've found that just 1-2 modified 3 dice attacks per round are enough to get damage to stick to even things like Defenders. In 2.0 green dice are actually allowed to fail like they are supposed to if you test them enough.

However I think if you are trying to rely on 2-dice attacks in 2.0, you are just SOL. 2 reds fail just as often if not more than 3 greens, so there's not enough pressure being put onto that ace. And mathmatically you have to point 4 2-dice arcs at a 3-dice defender to get the same amount of average damage as 2 3-dice arcs. Less dice and more attacks means more advantage given to high agility ships.

9 hours ago, Quarrel said:

• Missiles/Torpedoes. If they're dodging your primaries, they're dodging these too.

How about Homing Missiles....

2 hours ago, ThinkingB said:

I've been running into this issue a lot when playing against Imperials. I'll know exactly where the ships are going to end up and even what actions that they are going to take, but that info is basically useless. Bombers, Phantoms, and Defenders don't seem to care if you know where they are going. Not sure why this is the case in 2.0, but perhaps it's due to how efficient these ships are.

I don't think you are as good as you think you are. (the fact you claim perfectly predicted defenders are efficient says you are predicting what they are going to do after they do it, and that's not really predicting that is just noticing and then claiming you knew they were going to do it, because if you had you would have either blocked them or forced the advanced sensor to reposition denying them all their tokens and making them very inefficient)

Maybe you are really good at predicting but just really bad at doing anything with that information.

All of the ships you listed are not unkillable especially if you know what they are going to do...

A Bomber either needs a lock or a focus, depending on ordnance, to do anything worthwhile. A blocked Bomber does very little. Of course, if all you bring is I5+ aces, slowrolling Bombers will hit you hard.

I kinda wanna try Defenders

Since the x7 days, I've never felt the need to out PS anyone (until Nym came along, but that's a special case yeah?) because the base package was just so **** solid that being out PSed didn't really matter

Partnered with the white 4k, which lets you maneuver behind aces where they can't really react to you as easily, and I've found Defenders to stand up to even Fen Rau derping in with his full, five-dice mods

Now, I have NOT run 2nd ed Defenders yet , but I'm interested.

Worried that the increase costs makes them incredibly susceptible to ordnance alphas , but the fact that they have boost now is exceptionally interesting and useful for closing the no-man's-land between where you'll move and where higher I ordnance will TL from

This'll probably be my first attempt:

1 minute ago, Icelom said:

I don't think you are as good as you think you are. (the fact you claim perfectly predicted defenders are efficient says you are predicting what they are going to do after they do it, and that's not really predicting that is just noticing and then claiming you knew they were going to do it, because if you had you would have either blocked them or forced the advanced sensor to reposition denying them all their tokens and making them very inefficient)

Maybe you are really good at predicting but just really bad at doing anything with that information.

All of the ships you listed are not unkillable especially if you know what they are going to do...

Yeah let me just block the 4k, so he can follow it up with another 4k with an evade only to be followed by another 4k and an evade. I swear it feels like some people on this forum don't even play the game, but just fly around in theory land, where everything is optimal. It's a matter of there being choices where one option is so optimal that it is foolish to not do it. Another example of this would probably be Hera w/ Nien doing 1 straights the whole game. Everything is still killable (I had no issues slapping around Juke Whisper and Jonus bombers with trench run on Friday), but it is just apparent to me that being predictable is no longer the death sentence that it was in 1.0 for aces now that bombs and turrets have been dialed back majorly. I don't know why people are getting so upset by acknowledging this.

Defenders are...strange. You will never block my Defenders because I field them with Advanced Sensors and they have Outmaneuver. Anywhere you think I'll be, I'll be elsewhere, typically with a shot into your flank or rear and you're at -1 green die. Sure I'm not modding a lot of shots, but I'm hitting you and you're not hitting me. And when you don't force me to do crazy maneuvers I still do crazy maneuvers and now have modded dice and if I'm in the open I likely have an Evade token. Yes, Defenders are little monsters. I think the best counter is to keep your distance and blast them with ordnance. They really won't like Proton Torps and bombs will ruin their day, which seems like the best answer to their constant fire with little return fire.

I've seen other builds with FCS, HLC, and Juke (especially Brath), but I found my build to be the most effective for how I like to fly. They're a bit of a nightmare and I stopped using them because I wanted more of a challenge.

15 minutes ago, ThinkingB said:

Yeah let me just block the 4k, so he can follow it up with another 4k with an evade only to be followed by another 4k and an evade. I swear it feels like some people on this forum don't even play the game, but just fly around in theory land, where everything is optimal.

Not sure why you are 1v1ing a defender with just a single blocking ship.

34 minutes ago, NeonWolf said:

How about Homing Missiles....

I believe the OP meant that aces are dodging your firing arcs/using range control. So while Homing Missiles are an option, they don't help if you aren't able to fire them.

It does feel like the early meta is giving an edge to the IN5+ pilots. I think IN5 in general is probably a little underpriced right now considering how valuable it is, and IN4 and lower pilots are probably a bit overpriced. There should be almost no increase in price to more from IN1 to IN3, a very small price to go from 3 to 4, and a much larger price for moving from 4 to 5 or 5 to 6.