6 minutes ago, heychadwick said:

I will say that I've had good luck with Grappling Struts. It takes some real getting used to as I've spent 7 years NOT trying to hit asteroids, but if you plan on having Grapplers, you can use them to your advantage. I ended up having 2 Vultures sit on a rock vs the last Jedi that kept trying to angle in without getting shot at (he was down to 1 or 2 hull). It was impossible as I could just rotate on the rock and one could always cover the other's flank. Also, I got the defensive bonus, but he didn't (when shooting through a rock).

Meh, this reminds me of the game where I stuck Buzz Droids to a Resistance Bomber. It was neat and all, but there were so many games where they just weren't worth it that I dropped them. Grappling Struts also don't play well with Gas Clouds which have been a lifesaver for 8x Vultures.

I do not know why, but this faction has me considering swarms for the first time.

I will say that, once you see through the lies of the Jedi i.e. bank maneuvers, you can do a much tighter formation than any other swarm. You could practically fly base 2 base if it weren't for nubs.

7 minutes ago, JJ48 said:

Yeah, but with how weak they are, even the defensive bonus doesn't help much, especially with so many lists with Trick Shot and other through-obstacle bonuses.

They aren't THAT weak. I mean, it's 3 dice and if you have 2 on an Asteroid that are just Calculating each turn, you have 2 tokens to share with each other. I mean, you might always blank out, but that's the case for ANY ship.

4 minutes ago, MasterShake2 said:

Meh, this reminds me of the game where I stuck Buzz Droids to a Resistance Bomber. It was neat and all, but there were so many games where they just weren't worth it that I dropped them. Grappling Struts also don't play well with Gas Clouds which have been a lifesaver for 8x Vultures.

Your Buzz Droids story is kind of a one off situational. My Jedi story is more how I planned to use Grapplers and set up at least one large asteroid in a key place during obstacle placement with full intention of what I was doing. I've been experimenting with different tactics and haven't really tried it in a while, but it's definitely been effective.

3 minutes ago, heychadwick said:

They aren't THAT weak. I mean, it's 3 dice and if you have 2 on an Asteroid that are just Calculating each turn, you have 2 tokens to share with each other. I mean, you might always blank out, but that's the case for ANY ship.

Your Buzz Droids story is kind of a one off situational. My Jedi story is more how I planned to use Grapplers and set up at least one large asteroid in a key place during obstacle placement with full intention of what I was doing. I've been experimenting with different tactics and haven't really tried it in a while, but it's definitely been effective.

I disagree, I was intentionally trying to use buzz droids effectively, but the points and effort -> game impact ratio just wasn't enough to care about for those handful of clutch moments and I'm pretty unconvinced about the application of grappling droids as well.

6 minutes ago, heychadwick said:

They aren't THAT weak. I mean, it's 3 dice and if you have 2 on an Asteroid that are just Calculating each turn, you have 2 tokens to share with each other. I mean, you might always blank out, but that's the case for ANY ship.

Ok, but if you're only Calculating every turn and burning your Calculates on defense, you're also not all that intimidating on offense. And that's even before ships like Blackout cripple your defences or Midnight shuts down Calculates altogether.

Confession:

I have secretly wanted a 900 page Separatist thread to exist to someday rival the gunboat thread but been unwilling to start it.

5 minutes ago, MasterShake2 said:

I disagree  , I was intentionally trying to use buzz droids effectively, but the points and effort -> game impact ratio just wasn't enough

Maybe it was just our opponents, but I managed to land a Buzz Droid Swarm on an enemy ship every game, I think? Even when I launched them in front of an enemy’s face, I think I had a total of one enemy attack on Buzz Droids in my 5 games?

I’d also like to challenge the necessity of i3. If you’re putting a few together and can eek the points out, great, but for an 8-ship list I personally would rather have 2 Discords and the i1 DFS than 4 i3. 🤷‍♂️

4 minutes ago, MasterShake2 said:

I disagree, I was intentionally trying to use buzz droids effectively, but the points and effort -> game impact ratio just wasn't enough to care about for those handful of clutch moments and I'm pretty unconvinced about the application of grappling droids as well.

If you place your largest rock well then you can get your ships on it first turn. Maybe 2nd if you don't want it there right away. If it's placed right, they should be able to affect most of the board for the entire game. I don't see that as being as situational. I mean, I know Buzz Droids and using them aren't situational, but who your opponent is and getting to the spot to use them before getting killed is. If you set up right with a rock, you are for sure getting on that rock in turn 1 or 2. Unless they spend the entire game around the edges, you will get shots in.

3 minutes ago, JJ48 said:

Ok, but if you're only Calculating every turn and burning your Calculates on defense, you're also not all that intimidating on offense. And that's even before ships like Blackout cripple your defences or Midnight shuts down Calculates altogether.

Well, you don't HAVE to reload every other turn. I would only do it if I didn't have a good shot. If someone was coming at me and could get a shot in, I would definitely Calc.

Also, I would not mind burning Calc tokens on defense if they weren't getting hits in. If they are firing at 3 dice and 2 nearby Calc tokens, I can't ask for much better, except behind a Gas Cloud. You can't park on a Gas Cloud, though.

Ships like Blackout and Midnight will shut down your defenses no matter what you do. Good thing there aren't many of them. Not the best point, though, as there are almost ALWAYS exceptions to whatever you want to chat about with X-wing.

37 minutes ago, svelok said:

I disagree with this. And it's something I see people say a lot, that strikes me as odd.

So, you talk about variance, and reliance on dice, and whatever... but isn't that just talking about ESC Vultures?

Well, no. I like the Infiltrator a lot but it can't run a game on it's own and it's best kept cheap I think. The Bubblebobble is better than Vultures for sure, I rapidly moved to a mixed squadron of Infitrator/Vulture/Bubbles, but to an extent the variance problem actually gets worse in Bubbles unless you're also paying to take the Skakoan Aces or named dudes (you've got 1 calculate token over 5 dice, not 4 dice). And Impervium is an ANSWER to variance? It's doubling down on it - does nothing unless they happen to roll crits, then does nothing if the wrong crits show up.

Ultimately, the more you move away from flying Vultures the more your list begins to look like every other faction only a bit worse.

I think the Infiltrator is the secret sauce for CIS. I just think it's a tasty secret sauce being poured over some pretty crappy fries.

I find the lack of faith in this thread disturbing...

Just now, RStan said:

I find the lack of faith in this thread disturbing...

Toasters have no need for faith.

8 minutes ago, heychadwick said:

Also, I would not mind burning Calc tokens on defense if they weren't getting hits in. If they are firing at 3 dice and 2 nearby Calc tokens, I can't ask for much better, except behind a Gas Cloud. You can't park on a Gas Cloud, though.

Who in the world are you facing who's only throwing 3 dice? O_o I consider myself lucky if my opponent is limited to 4.

I've used the 1k ONCE... and it was a think of beauty as a Y-Wing banked in behind my droids and I ended up with range 1 shots on it, with calculates from last turn thanks to Kraken...

Then I rolled blank dice and was very sad.

I'm still interchanging pieces and seeing what I like. The Vultures seem to prefer hit and run tactics with their dial - if you're looking to K then either you've got that situational moment when something will turn in behind (see above) or you probably should be looking at straight forward at high speed to get out of dodge and regroup. Maybe. It's an interpretation anyway...

2 minutes ago, JJ48 said:

Who in the world are you facing who's only throwing 3 dice? O_o I consider myself lucky if my opponent is limited to 4.

Most ships throw 3 or less dice on attack. It's rare that they have four without outside help... Either your local meta is addicted to red dice, or maybe you misunderstood the colour of dice?

Roger, Roger

Just now, LagJanson said:

Most ships throw 3 or less dice on attack. It's rare that they have four without outside help... Either your local meta is addicted to red dice, or maybe you misunderstood the colour of dice?

No, high-attack is definitely the flavor of our meta.

3 minutes ago, JJ48 said:

Who in the world are you facing who's only throwing 3 dice? O_o I consider myself lucky if my opponent is limited to 4.

Technically I said they were firing at 3 (green) dice with 2 Calc tokens nearby. I admit that I have mostly been playing against Republic and haven't played against other factions yet. Even then, there are only a few ships that attack with 4 native dice. You would have to be at R1 to get the 4th die for an attack. I think I've had a very good opponent only get 1 range 1 shot on my guys on rocks.

1 minute ago, heychadwick said:

I think I've had a very good opponent only get 1 range 1 shot on my guys on rocks.

You've been facing horrible opponents, then.

2 minutes ago, JJ48 said:

No, high-attack is definitely the flavor of our meta.

I can respect that. We do have a guy that's pretty desperate to get his APTs or Jan Ors related cannon type builds to work. If you're not paying attention and let him get the shot he wants, well... that game gets out of hand quickly.

Not that it's ever happened to me.

...Ever...

...that I'll admit to

2 minutes ago, JJ48 said:

You've been facing horrible opponents, then.

Now that's just not very nice.

1 minute ago, JJ48 said:

You've been facing horrible opponents, then.

Actually, I wouldn't say that. Not all of my opponents were great, but half my games were against a guy who only lost 1 game at the Krayt Kup. Our team tied for 5th place.

3 minutes ago, heychadwick said:

Actually, I wouldn't say that. Not all of my opponents were great, but half my games were against a guy who only lost 1 game at the Krayt Kup. Our team tied for 5th place.

But he couldn't get to range 1 of a stationary target?

9 minutes ago, LagJanson said:

Now that's just not very nice.

You're right; sorry. I was assuming that they were trying to get to range 1 and failing, but it's just as likely that they were going after more dangerous targets or intentionally keeping their distance.