6 hours ago, svelok said:

So, uh.

I guess double infiltrator is a viable list.

Does anybody have any clue how that wins games?

Maul is able to shoot twice with mods at a decent Ilvl while being a bad choice to shoot at with palp, and dooku is able to be a tough nut to Crack with cloak and still able to fire back with torps. But it is a high skill flying list to be sure.

So 4-2, just shy of making the cut. Some more practice and I think there's some real legs to this list.

On 4/7/2019 at 8:49 AM, MasterShake2 said:

So, anecdotal but, We had a 56 man hyperspace this weekend. I ran Space Invaders (8x Sep Drones w/ 6 Energy Shells). Got a 4-2 record which easily could've been the 5-1 to make the cut......

...especially when you hit an appropriate critical mass and come up with a cohesive formation.

Congratulations on doing well! I'll have to check your other thread out. I have a question first.

How did you set up? Was it usually in formation? I have played a lot vs Jedi and they can be crazy good arc dodgers. I found I often like to set up in a line that almost covers half the table. Everyone sets up in one corner and I move in on them that way. It gets harder for them to dodge the arc. I don't do it every time, but I found it works sometimes.

3 minutes ago, heychadwick said:

Congratulations on doing well! I'll have to check your other thread out. I have a question first.

How did you set up? Was it usually in formation? I have played a lot vs Jedi and they can be crazy good arc dodgers. I found I often like to set up in a line that almost covers half the table. Everyone sets up in one corner and I move in on them that way. It gets harder for them to dodge the arc. I don't do it every time, but I found it works sometimes.

I actually do have the default "Space Invader" formation in the thread. It's actually pretty hard to dodge because it uses the board edge as a shield until it's time to engage which doesn't leave enough room behind the formation for an effective arc dodge.

Discord missiles, ESC, and kraken... Those are the things of beauty. Kraken really shouldn't see a price decrease, especially while a ship like Wat exists. I'm going to be trying this later, but the scout Droid with a discord, 4 I3s with ESC, Wat with treachous, soulless, and kraken looks like it will be my jam for a while. As long as the droids roll paint, they last so much longer than they have any right to. Out of all my CIS games I think I've lost 2 out of roughly 10. I've flown swarms since wave 2 on and off. Usually mini swarms with a pocket ace like Fel. This set up feels really close to old school swarms.

On 4/7/2019 at 8:49 AM, MasterShake2 said:

So, anecdotal but, We had a 56 man hyperspace this weekend. I ran Space Invaders (8x Sep Drones w/ 6 Energy Shells). Got a 4-2 record which easily could've been the 5-1 to make the cut, but made some small mistakes and had some poor dice swings at inopportune moments (possibly a full report with some more complete thoughts in the batrep section later). There was another identical Sep list that also went 4-2. All 3 lists with Sith Infiltrators sat at the bottom tables all day. I wasn't sold the SI was good going in, and none of the games or results that I saw caused me to reverse this. Vultures, on the other hand, especially the I3s with shells, are just really good for their cost -> game impact, especially when you hit an appropriate critical mass and come up with a cohesive formation. I will say, there is definitely a minimum number of Vultures to be effective. It's the combination of the threat offered, the number of firing arcs, the number of floating calculates etc, but as soon as you lose that critical mass, either by splitting or through casualties, they become easy prey.

Did you play the mirror in the first round? If so that was me. I also should have been 5-1 but 21 out of 23 natural evades on a blocked Blackout screwed that up. The I3 swarm is strong.

12 hours ago, Force Majeure said:

In my experience, Heightened Perception on Dooku is nice just a few times, but Hate pays off more often.

Dooku WANTS to get shot at in order to proc part 1 of his ability. Load him with Grevious crew to soften the damage that might come in.

Count Dooku (61)
Hate (3)
General Grievous (3)
Scimitar (4)
K2-B4 (5)
Total: 76

thanks for the tip 😁

On 4/8/2019 at 5:26 PM, Hujoe Bigs said:

Discord  missiles, ESC, and kraken... Those are the things  of beauty. Kraken really shouldn't see a price decrease,       especially while a ship like  Wat exists.  

The most glaringly overpriced thing in CIS right now is naked Vultures. If 24 points for a Vulture with Energy Shells is correct (and maybe it is or isn't too expensive - time will tell), then it needs to be something like 18 Vulture 6 ESC, or maybe even 16/8?

Kraken isn't really an auto include in the same way, he seems worth his current price. That said, the 10/5/5 pricing on the tactical relays does seem like "we didn't know what these were worth" numbers, so they'll probably be tweaked slightly.

11 hours ago, svelok said:

The most glaringly overpriced thing in CIS right now is naked Vultures. If 24 points for a Vulture with Energy Shells is correct (and maybe it is or isn't too expensive - time will tell), then it needs to be something like 18 Vulture 6 ESC, or maybe even 16/8?

Kraken isn't really an auto include in the same way, he seems worth his current price. That said, the 10/5/5 pricing on the tactical relays does seem like "we didn't know what these were worth" numbers, so they'll probably be tweaked slightly.

I'm not seeing why you believe that? Vultures are NOT that squishy unless they are by themselves. They definitely can crumple in a single shot if they get no paint. But they also can bring the hammer down in numbers. Having 4 ESC shots for a single turn can easily turn the battle. If you are flying any number of vultures you need kraken, if you aren't the other relays do just fine, but they do need a bit of a point tweak. Kraken is definitely worth his 10 points in the games.

Vultures definitely will stay how they are, if they get cheaper they start to get out of hand really fast.

Edit: What I do wanna see is grappling struts come down.

44 minutes ago, Hujoe Bigs said:

I'm  not  seeing why you believe that? Vultures are NOT that squishy unless   they are by themselves. They definitely can crumple in a single shot if they get no paint. But they also can bring the hammer down in numbers. Having 4 ESC   shots for a single turn can easily turn the battle  .

Vultures definitely will stay how they are, if they get chea  per they start to get out of hand really fast.  

I'm talking naked Vultures - that's where the ship needs help.

But also, even with ESC, cheaper Vultures have a hard time getting out of hand. For example, let's say they dropped Vultures in half to 10 points, 14 with ESC. What's the nastiest list you could make?

Something like a decent upgraded Maul + 7 ESC Vultures? Maul + Grievous + 4 ESC Vultures?

Is it really all that crazy?

I mean, it'd be strong, for sure. CIS would rocket up to S-Tier. But it wouldn't be, like, game destroyingly bad. Wat + 6 would become a more upgraded Wat and + 7. And that's with ridiculously cheap Vultures. Something like 16-18 point Vultures would be nowhere near as spammable and even then, ESC could go up in points to compensate.

So, like, 17 point Vultures, 6 point Energy Shells - does that actually push the limit that much? I don't really think that it does, but you'd see a lot more of the (thematically accurate) naked filler Vultures in lists.

That really would break it, I don't think you understand what that can do. 7 ESC have the possibility to remove two arcs at range 3 before they even shoot. Tell me what list in this game can shoot 24 red dice in a single turn range 3? That is extremely bad for any list. Even if you somehow manage to knock one out, but then what you will see is people giving up one of those vultures for a PS boost (now shooting before most generics), and probably grappling struts. That is NOT good for the game as a whole. That can spiral so quickly out of control. I would LOVE if vultures were that cheap because at that point every single one would have grapple struts in my list and that's pretty potent when at least half the obstacles in the match will be able to host them.

And if you are talking about generics, you can then spam 7 ships and a supped up ace like grievous. That's also REALLY bad because that's still 17 dice at range 3. Again able to jump in intiative to make sure they fire.

27 minutes ago, Hujoe Bigs said:

That really would break it, I don't think you understand what that can do. 7 ESC have the possibility to remove two arcs at range 3 before they even shoot. Tell me what list in this game can shoot 24 red dice in a single turn range 3?

Uhh... 8x ESC Vultures, already?

12 minutes ago, svelok said:

Uhh... 8x ESC Vultures, already?

But those aren't i3 vultures with kraken slapped on for good measure which really opens up the strategy you can use.

6 minutes ago, Hujoe Bigs said:

But those aren't i3 vultures with kraken slapped on for good measure which really opens up the strategy you can use.

Right, so that brings us back around-

Giving an insane, ten point discount to Vultures, nets them I3s and Kraken. That's... really good, but it's not the literal sky falling, y'know?

So then take a moderate, 2-4 point discount - how much harm could there possible be? It might be one extra Vulture in some lists sometimes , maybe. And since I'm specifically focused on naked Vultures, here, ESC spam isn't an issue - ESC can increase to offset the discount on the base chassis. I forgot to mention it, but...

1 hour ago, Hujoe Bigs said:

And if you are talking about generics, you can then spam 7 ships and a supped up ace like grievous. That's also REALLY bad because that's still 17 dice at range 3. Again able to jump in intiative to make sure they fire.

You can currently field:

General Grievous
Soulless One, Impervium Plating, Outmaneuver, Kraken
6x Trade Federation Drone

= 199

If the TFD dropped to 17 points, with ESC going up to 6 to offset it, that list would expand to... include one whole extra naked Vulture.

I agree Vultures should be cheaper and ESC more expensive. They're too auto-include at this price point, and it might make Grappling Struts more viable an option as well (they could go up a bit to offset, too, but I think they should net -1 point.)

Then play a good swarm player with those modifications. And make sure you don't take something that counters swarms.

I was talking to one of my fellow local league players today, who happened to be flying a few Vultures, about the Vulture. We came up with an interesting thought- what if the Vulture had the same point cost, but Agi 3 Hull 2? Making it what we feel it really should have been, a fragile but agile cheap fighter designed to swarm the enemy. The current issue with the Vulture seems to be its Agi 2 and fairly odd dial (limited blues are fine, but the red 3 bank seems odd and so do the short sloop/kturns), making it fairly easy to erase from the board.

2 hours ago, Ikka said:

I was talking to one of my fellow local league players today, who happened to be flying a few Vultures, about the Vulture. We came up with an interesting thought- what if the Vulture had the same point cost, but Agi 3 Hull 2? Making it what we feel it really should have been, a fragile but agile cheap fighter designed to swarm the enemy. The current issue with the Vulture seems to be its Agi 2 and fairly odd dial (limited blues are fine, but the red 3 bank seems odd and so do the short sloop/kturns), making it fairly easy to erase from the board.

The Vulture seems to be working as intended. As an individual ship, somehwat weak. When flown in groups, much stronger defensively and offensively. If you think about it, a TIE fighter with a focus, is stronger until it uses that focus, then it becomes much weaker. A vulture with friends around usually keeps a pretty consistent defensive profile. In fact, Vultures have comparable defenses to a pilot like Luke when flown in large groups. Offensively is the same deal. Every vulture that natties or blanks out has a token to give to his buddies.

I honestly don't think the generic Vultures are overpriced. I think they're doing exactly what they were designed to do i.e. individually weak, but strong in groups. The named ones is another story, but that also seems to be true of the Clone V-19's and ARC-170's where the generics are really well priced, but a lot of the uniques are far too expensive.

I have been using the **** out of the 1K and 2T. Maybe it’s just my play groups but those turn arounds have been suffocating opponents.

14 minutes ago, MasterShake2 said:

The Vulture seems to be working as intended. As an individual ship, somehwat weak. When flown in groups, much stronger defensively and offensively. If you think about it, a TIE fighter with a focus, is stronger until it uses that focus, then it becomes much weaker. A vulture with friends around usually keeps a pretty consistent defensive profile. In fact, Vultures have comparable defenses to a pilot like Luke when flown in large groups. Offensively is the same deal. Every vulture that natties or blanks out has a token to give to his buddies.

I honestly don't think the generic Vultures are overpriced. I think they're doing exactly what they were designed to do i.e. individually weak, but strong in groups. The named ones is another story, but that also seems to be true of the Clone V-19's and ARC-170's where the generics are really well priced, but a lot of the uniques are far too expensive.

Fair enough. I don't have any experience flying them, just flying against them. I'm guessing that my opponents' haven't been using them to their full ability, as they seem to die if my ships just look at them, but that might just be my games. I'm currently loving the Seps, in particular the Infiltrator, as it is a super mobile Large ship which I didn't have access to before (I only play Scum/Imperial, and the Scum Falcon playstyle is not one I really like).

44 minutes ago, MasterShake2 said:

I   honestly don't think the generic Vultures are overpriced. I think they're doing exactly what they were designed to do i.e. individually weak, but strong in  groups. 

I don't think these two lines necessarily correlate?

The design of Vultures is cool, and with energy shells they're effective. I think specifically the naked ones are too expensive to pull their weight, which can be translated as, they're strong in groups but the group you get in any given list is currently not quite enough bodies. Single modded 2 dice shots are still single modded 2 dice shots, they don't hurt except in sufficient numbers.

Eg: Grievous + 6 naked Vultures, or Maul + Grievous + 3, or whatever. I'm basically proposing bumping those lists to Grievous + 7 or Maul + Grievous + 4, and seeing what happens. (Keeping the price of a Vulture with ESCs the same, by increasing it by an equal amount).

25 minutes ago, Ikka said:

I'm  guessing that my opponents' haven't been using them  to their full ability, as they seem to die if my ships just look a  t them, but that might just be my games.

Vultures have to be very picky on how they engage, but losing one before it shoots is pretty much par for the course. Losing two before they shoot is where it starts to hurt, but they're definitely super expendable, especially if whatever dies is getting to attack first.

They also really want to engage at range 3 initially, where they get a range bonus on defense but deny it to you via missiles. Range 2 makes them sadder, conversely. (Or seeing you packing missiles too. Vultures dislike torpedoes....)

I don't usually have a problem with not getting a shot before I lose one. I go with the I3 droids and they usually get a shot before dying.

I also don't think Kraken or another non-Vulture ships is required. I have used them, but found I prefer just going with 8 Vultures to be more fun and effective.

I am going to try a list tonight with 2 Buicks (naked Grevious and Wat) with 5 naked Trade Fed droids. I'l be using K4 and see how he works to keep things alive.

I really like K2-B4. It leaves the enemy the bad choice of having a vulture survive and took 1 more retaliation shot or being strained and being hit harder by the next attack. I have one-shoted a careless anakin this way. If i take K2-B4 I generally go for a bunch of naked vultures so I'm more free to spend the calc token without loosing ESC shots and I can fit one more vulture.

(ahem)

Does CIS now have the title of owning the weirdest ship in X-Wing?

It's pretty darn close if it isn't. And I love it.