No, vulture swarms won't be the new meta. They will be good with those excellent energy shells. Most people won't want to drop another $80 or whatever it costs for a hyperspace legal list these days. (I like vulture droids, but I already have other ships) They used all their money rebuying a-wings at $20 a pop.

Also, most people don't know how to effectively fly more than 3 ships. Current best results are obtained with 4-5 ship lists, yet they have not overtaken the meta.

15 hours ago, Dengar5 said:

No, vulture swarms won't be the new meta. They will be good with those excellent energy shells. Most people won't want to drop another $80 or whatever it costs for a hyperspace legal list these days. (I like vulture droids, but I already have other ships) They used all their money rebuying a-wings at $20 a pop.

Also, most people don't know how to effectively fly more than 3 ships. Current best results are obtained with 4-5 ship lists, yet they have not overtaken the meta.

I don't wanna be mean in any way, but I take it you have never played in any super competitive game. Competitive 40k players who run from list to list routinely buys new list that cost upwards of 200-300 bucks whenever there's something hot that comes out. MtG modern deck are costed at around 300-400$ each for Tier 1 deck. Buying 2 conversion pack and a bunch of vultures is small time for those kind of player that run tourney circuit, I have no trouble believing that if the list is good and it exist, people will pay money to get it.

Yeah, I think Vultures have enough solid upgrades to keep them from being best in swarms. I hold as a game maxim that the hoard/swarm looses to the slightly more elite hoard/swarm.

4-5 Vultures + Ace will be best I'm guessing

Not really adding anything to this that's not already been said, but yeah I don't see all Vulture lists doing all that well.

Assuming that, regardless of how cheap they get, they're still limited to a max of 8 per list in the tournament rules, they simply don't have enough going for them defensively. 3 hull behind 2 agility at low Initiatives makes them the most fragile ship in the game. All the calculate tokens and Energy Shell shots in the world won't mean anything if 2 ships get PS killed every round.

4-6 plus an ace, though, and we start looking at things very differently.

I'm fascinated to see how the Tactical Relay slot works as well. It seems like it would be weird for the tactical droid to not be physically present, but presumably the only Sep ship with the ability to carry crew/anything but the pilot is the Sith Infiltrator.

As Servants of Strife comes with a couple of Tactical Relay cards, presumably you are able too equip them to at least the Belbullab. But then if the droid isn't actually physically in the ship (which it can't be in the tiny Belbullab or Vulture), then won't it be strange when you destroy the ship the card is equipped too and lose its effect?

I guess the clue's in the name. The upgrade isn't actually the tactical droid, just a comm relay to wherever the droid is, and you choice of upgrade card is simply picking which droid the relay goes to. The tactical droid broadcasts commands to the relay Vulture droid, who passes it on to the squadron. But why can't that broadcast be made to any other droid when the first is destroyed?

And is the Tactical Relay slot going to be on every single Sep ship? Or will it only be the limited 'squadron leader' droids like the Precise Hunter?

If the Tactical Relay upgrades can be equipped to Vulture Droids, how do you avoid them becoming an obvious priority target? I guess that plays into the miniswarm plus ace archetype. Either you go for the weak ship that's only throwing 2 attack dice, but is buffing the whole list and only nets you a handful of points but also leaves their ace free, or you go for the ace that's worth much more and capable of tearing your list apart, but at the cost of having to deal with the TR buffs for more of the match.

What's curious to me is that the 2e TIE swarm seems to have been designed around that exact archetype - make every single TIE on the board compete for target priority - and yet it's struggling. Does that suggest the tactic won't work on Vulture swarms either?

@GuacCousteau I don’t expect Vultures to have the slot, personally, but maybe? Interesting thought.

31 minutes ago, GuacCousteau said:

Not really adding anything to this that's not already been said, but yeah I don't see all Vulture lists doing all that well.

Assuming that, regardless of how cheap they get, they're still limited to a max of 8 per list in the tournament rules, they simply don't have enough going for them defensively. 3 hull behind 2 agility at low Initiatives makes them the most fragile ship in the game. All the calculate tokens and Energy Shell shots in the world won't mean anything if 2 ships get PS killed every round.

4-6 plus an ace, though, and we start looking at things very differently.

I'm fascinated to see how the Tactical Relay slot works as well. It seems like it would be weird for the tactical droid to not be physically present, but presumably the only Sep ship with a crew slot is the Sith Infiltrator.

As Servants of Strife comes with a couple of Tactical Relay cards, presumably you are able too equip them to at least the Belbullab. But then if the droid isn't actually physically in the ship (which it can't be in the tiny Belbullab or Vulture), then won't it be strange when you destroy the ship the card is equipped too and lose its effect?

I guess the clue's in the name. The upgrade isn't actually the tactical droid, just a comm relay to wherever the droid is, and you choice of upgrade card is simply picking which droid the relay goes to. The tactical droid broadcasts commands to the relay Vulture droid, who passes it on to the squadron. But why can't that broadcast be made to any other droid when the first is destroyed?

And is the Tactical Relay slot going to be on every single Sep ship? Or will it only be the limited 'squadron leader' droids like the Precise Hunter?

If the Tactical Relay upgrades can be equipped to Vulture Droids, how do you avoid them becoming an obvious priority target? I guess that plays into the miniswarm plus ace archetype. Either you go for the weak ship that's only throwing 2 attack dice, but is buffing the whole list and only nets you a handful of points but also leaves their ace free, or you go for the ace that's worth much more and capable of tearing your list apart, but at the cost of having to deal with the TR buffs for more of the match.

What's curious to me is that the 2e TIE swarm seems to have been designed around that exact archetype - make every single TIE on the board compete for target priority - and yet it's struggling. Does that suggest the tactic won't work on Vulture swarms either?

Very thoughtful analysis, I agree completely.

On 1/19/2019 at 5:28 AM, SpiderMana said:

Two calculates is preferable to a focus, though. Not having to choose which ship has the calculate before you spend it is huge. Like, yeah, it balances out a bit that the others won’t have the calculate to spend, but you still get to choose one or two Vultures to have a pretty dang good round.

But the Vulture only gives you one calculate, it is very weak.

I always thought they would have a kind of "attani-mindlink"-ability just limited to ship-type and calculates only - to avoid being abused like in 1.0, where the top-pilots could taken it for 1 pt - limited to ship and calculate only they would be more balanced, while still provide action economy.

Love the ship though, only choice is what color do I want my vultures to have...

6 minutes ago, Sciencius said:

But the Vulture only gives you one calculate, it is very weak.

My point is that if you have 6 Vultures even in a loose formation, they should all have access to two if not three calculates. That takes from the others, obviously, but some ships won't need a calculate, most rounds.

It's as dice dependent as anything in this game, but having the ability to just spam the calculate action, and whomever actually needs to spend them can, sounds pretty powerful to me.

The calc sharing is interesting because mostly swarm ships don't need their focus token. They only shoot once and mostly don't defend at all except one which defends a lot. Letting that one freely gobble the tokens should be very strong.

47 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

The calc sharing is interesting because mostly swarm ships don't need their focus token. They only shoot once and mostly don't defend at all except one which defends a lot. Letting that one freely gobble the tokens should be very strong.

^Das.

And whatever the one or two don't need for defense, they can all share for offense.

The agility 2 isn't such a terrible thing, either. It's actually to keep them from being overpowered. The thing is that you shouldn't be flying these things like a traditional swarm, even if you're not parking on rocks and turretting up. They can fly through obstacle fields without worrying too much about their formation breaking up. They still can't fly through an obstacle safely without landing on them, so they'll be at least a little difficult to fly well, but I think those who can manage to pilot a Vulture Swarm properly will do well for themselves.

Wouldn't be surprised if it did. It should. Curious to see if the TIE swarm gets a nudge in the points update speaking of

Most people don't like more than 3 ships.

A lot of people don't know how to use non-formation swarms.

These things are brittle and generally low initiative.

They also introduce some very weird movement mechanics and squad synergy.

All that added up, I don't see it being highly represented as it's got a pretty high skill ceiling to maximize it. It's going to take a lot more thinking per turn to figure out where to put your teams of 2 or teams of 3 ships. And the decisions per turn are higher than a lot of other lists. Players that are used to the scum swarms will probably be the more natural transition to these ships.

On 1/18/2019 at 10:28 PM, SpiderMana said:

Two calculates is preferable to a focus, though. Not having to choose which ship has the calculate before you spend it is huge. Like, yeah, it balances out a bit that the others won’t have the calculate to spend, but you still get to choose one or two Vultures to have a pretty dang good round.

And focus results are very finicky.

You often don't roll one when you've got the token to help.

Having the option to nag that mod WHEN you need it is pretty awesome.

Ive loved the concept of ace with 4 ship mini swarm and when cis will show up i will definetly test Grievous as an ace and 4 vulture with energy shells. hoping for 3 precise hunters and DFS 311. I hope it all fits within 200 points.