3 minutes ago, 5050Saint said:

I think increasing Leia to 5 or 6 makes the beef at least make a decision about what the fourth will be.

Not much of one. Only the degree to which one wants to spread upgrades around. Assuming Wedge/Braylen/Cassian, with Leia at 6, every Hyperspace-eligible pilot fits in the list aside from Falcons, Luke, Saw, Magva and Bodhi.

8 minutes ago, 5050Saint said:

All in all, I don't see Rebel beef as a meta problem, just an archetype to be aware of.

I, uh, disagree. Maybe we disagree on the definition of "problem".

This is a tough one. I think Leia to 6 or even 8 isn't wrong, its a really powerful effect.

I'm actually all for Wedge and Soontir seeing very slight increases. 54 for each would be fine. I6 is incredibly powerful.

I think anything more than a 2 point increase on a single Rebel Beef pilot (Leia is an upgrade and doesn't count here) is super overkill, and I'd rather see 1-2 point increases not be enough to knock it down than do too much and make it unplayable.

Combine that with very slight decreases elsewhere and the meta will shift slightly, and really thats all we really want for Hyperspace. Just a very slight power shuffle.

My two cents.

I'm currently wrestling with Rebel lists and learning what works well and what doesn't.

I've flown against "Rebel Beef" two or three times and those have been fairly uninteresting bouts because we're both flying such similar teams using similar tactics.

However, I have not picked up a U-Wing to any of my previous builds. I do see the benefit of having Leah in your rebel list. Fairly obvious and it gives your team a nice boost, post merge so that your pilots can put in a follow on attack nicely with a series of white K Turns.

My approach has been to use Proton Torpedoes in lieu of a fourth ship and that doesn't work. Shaving 36 points of munitions and a handful of other upgrades can easily get you that U-Wing with Leah as a 4th ship. (Or frankly any other fourth ship with the comparable battery of attack dice plus all of the added hull & shield points).

At the current point costs, your best Rebel team is going to be four rebel ship, most of those being pilots with talent upgrades. Heck you CAN'T field 5 X-Wings, even if they are the cheapest pilots.

At the current price points Rebel teams need to field four ships to be competitive. And though a three ship Rebel team (armed with torpedoes) can dish out just as much damage as a four ship team (without protons) three ship teams don't have enough Hull/Shields to withstand damage from most opposing teams.

Right now Proton Torpedoes are too expensive to mount on a ship and be effective.

If you want to try to "balance" out "Rebel Beef" by increasing pilot costs, you're going to need to slash the price of Torpedoes or the Rebels become a defunct faction.

And have you noticed how Luke isn't fielded? I've used him a handful of times and he's slightly more survivable than most other pilots, but he's only slightly better than Wedge on the table. At 62 points Luke is too expensive. I think he should price out at about 56 points. You might see more of him at that price point.

There you go.

5 minutes ago, Mark Caliber said:

but he's only slightly better than Wedge on the table. At 62 points Luke is too expensive. I think he should price out at about 56 points.

Wrong ship getting adjusted. Luke is good where he is, his infinite mods on defense is super strong. His problem is that you can’t field him with 4 named pilots in Rebel beef, Wedge can.

Wedge should go up 2-4 points, Luke stays. When you can’t fit 4 named pilots with Leia and upgrades like current Rebel beef, then you’ll see more generics/ Luke.

9 minutes ago, Mark Caliber said:

My two cents.

I'm currently wrestling with Rebel lists and learning what works well and what doesn't.

I've flown against "Rebel Beef" two or three times and those have been fairly uninteresting bouts because we're both flying such similar teams using similar tactics.

However, I have not picked up a U-Wing to any of my previous builds. I do see the benefit of having Leah in your rebel list. Fairly obvious and it gives your team a nice boost, post merge so that your pilots can put in a follow on attack nicely with a series of white K Turns.

My approach has been to use Proton Torpedoes in lieu of a fourth ship and that doesn't work. Shaving 36 points of munitions and a handful of other upgrades can easily get you that U-Wing with Leah as a 4th ship. (Or frankly any other fourth ship with the comparable battery of attack dice plus all of the added hull & shield points).

At the current point costs, your best Rebel team is going to be four rebel ship, most of those being pilots with talent upgrades. Heck you CAN'T field 5 X-Wings, even if they are the cheapest pilots.

At the current price points Rebel teams need to field four ships to be competitive. And though a three ship Rebel team (armed with torpedoes) can dish out just as much damage as a four ship team (without protons) three ship teams don't have enough Hull/Shields to withstand damage from most opposing teams.

Right now Proton Torpedoes are too expensive to mount on a ship and be effective.

If you want to try to "balance" out "Rebel Beef" by increasing pilot costs, you're going to need to slash the price of Torpedoes or the Rebels become a defunct faction.

And have you noticed how Luke isn't fielded? I've used him a handful of times and he's slightly more survivable than most other pilots, but he's only slightly better than Wedge on the table. At 62 points Luke is too expensive. I think he should price out at about 56 points. You might see more of him at that price point.

There you go.

I mean, not really?

Increase Leia to 6 and add 2 points to Braylen, Ten, Wedge, Dutch, Cassian, and Horton (which all have seen play)

You get Ten, Braylen, Cassian with Leia, and Horton with Veteran Turret Gunner and Dorsal Turret with 1 point bid. Horton being the least oppressive, you could probably only increase him by 1 and then you get ion turret too.

Drop to a generic U wing, and you can replace Braylen with Wedge, or drop Leia and you can drop Ten for Wedge if you want to keep the Cassian/Braylen combo and have Wedge too.

I'm sure there are a ton of other things you can do to still field a viable list, especially if you are willing to play a generic X or Y or B wing in place of a named pilot.

I could maybe see dropping Luke by 2 points to 60 too though, but something as drastic as 6 is ridiculous.

Luke was used a lot more before January/March when Rebels didn't have all these better options. A lot of Luke's steam was stolen by B-Wings.

@Mark Caliber, I agree on most of your points except maybe Luke.

I think Luke would dominate the rebel meta at anything less than 60 pionts. He'd just become an auto-include.

There's gotta be a choice to make.

That's why Poe isn't dominating right now. He's fair and he's an option, be not a no-brainer. You have to really take him on purpose.

That's my view, anyway.

Luke is always gonna be pretty good, even with nothing on him, but his price might mean the squadmates need some more careful selection.

8 minutes ago, Bucknife said:

Luke is always gonna be pretty good, even with nothing on him, but his price might mean the squadmates need some more careful selection

Exactly, and the current flavors of Rebel beef don’t have to make sacrifices or careful selection in their pilots/ upgrades. They get everything they want, with no sacrifice. So it’s no wonder Luke isn’t seeing a ton of play, he either hits a 3 ship list, or requires compromise.

I think the consensus sounds pretty solid. 1 or 2 point bump on each pilot and 4ish point bump on Leia. Probably fine after that. (Although I think Biggs and Selfless deserve a hard look as well.)

Just for a second, imagine how frustrating this would be if we were playing first edition... There is no clear "broken" mechanic here. Nothing that screams out for errata or the banhammer. We would just have to live with this over-efficient, boring, archetype being the only Rebel squad worth flying for basically ever until power creep rendered it obsolete.

Any earlier claims to Beef "Wedgington" than me?

How much is rebel beef a percent of swiss and the cut? I think it's around 40% of swiss if I remember correctly, which is obscene considering there are 7 factions, and meta wing is just filled with rebel beef pilots being at the top. Next points update needs to be heavy handed, Leia should go to at least 6, and all the named pilots that are being problems need to got up quite a bit. People who are sitting here saying, oh Braylen at 47, who gets rerolls for offence and defence the entire round with focus mods, should only go up like 2 points? Just to put it into context so people understand, in 1.0 money that's 23.5 points to 24.5 points, which clearly is not even close to a significant enough increase. I'd pay 52 points for that ability in a heartbeat, and I haven't even gone into the rest of their pilots that rebels get to choose from. The rebel faction gets to take the most meta defining upgrade card, and bring with it 4 of their best named pilots from a plethora of their best ships, with points for other upgrades. The time on target, health, mods, and pilots these rebel beef lists bring is crazy, and entirely what 2.0 was trying to stop. I'd expect major changes to Rebels come July, and a wave of Rebel players saying their faction is unplayable when it's really not. They just actually have to pay for good abilities and make decisions like other factions have too.

Cassian (and Leia) + Braylen + Wedge + Jake = 200 points of stuff for the dealer invoice pricing of 184.

24 minutes ago, SnooSnarry said:

How much is rebel beef a percent of swiss and the cut? I think it's around 40% of swiss if I remember correctly, which is obscene considering there are 7 factions, and meta wing is just filled with rebel beef pilots being at the top.

Rebel Beef is 13.7% of the cut. That is a significant drop off, but, if Beef is paired against Beef, of course that will happen.

1 hour ago, svelok said:

Luke was used a lot more before January/March when Rebels didn't have all these better options. A lot of Luke's steam was stolen by B-Wings.

Luke was also a lot better when he didn't have to spend 24 points on Supernatural Reflexes. The only other Force power that seems useful for him at the moment is Brilliant Evasion.

16 minutes ago, PhantomFO said:

Luke was also a lot better when he didn't have to spend 24 points on Supernatural Reflexes. The only other Force power that seems useful for him at the moment is Brilliant Evasion.

I could see a case for Heightened Perception, but that is marginal.

I am nervous seeing Rebel beef being overly nerfed and overly focused on. I won my regional with a tie swarm. Only two lists gave me trouble. Rebel beef, and a Han Fenn monster that put 1/2 points through on a tie and tried to run.

I believe TIE swarm right now is stronger. It has a higher difficulty threshold to learn, so fewer people are running it. If beef is knocked down too hard, you'll just have a different hyperspace meta monster.

3 hours ago, Blail Blerg said:

Frankly a beef list like this doesn't really worry me. I think its a healthy archetype.

Actually, this brings up an interesting point. Whenever a list that just works floats towards the top of the meta, everyone’s reaction is to call for points increases. How about looking at it from a different perspective?

So, as a bit of a thought experiment; if Rebel Beef were declared ‘here to stay’, what sort of list would you construct to counter it... and what points reductions might be required to other ships and upgrades to make that happen?

For example, there was mention of swarms as a counter to beef... how would you construct and buff a swarm to make it effective in this match-up?

14 minutes ago, DexterOnone said:

Actually, this brings up an interesting point. Whenever a list that just works floats towards the top of the meta, everyone’s reaction is to call for points increases. How about looking at it from a different perspective?

So, as a bit of a thought experiment; if Rebel Beef were declared ‘here to stay’, what sort of list would you construct to counter it... and what points reductions might be required to other ships and upgrades to make that happen?

For example, there was mention of swarms as a counter to beef... how would you construct and buff a swarm to make it effective in this match-up?

I reckon aces should be ok vs this. Also towards end of game it doesn’t have the ability to avoid losing hp.

Also I fail to see the NPE or serious rules breaking in this list.

But one shouldnt avoid avoid doing some point massaging. Get things close to their math wing effective value.

4 hours ago, Blail Blerg said:

I reckon aces should be ok vs this. Also towards end of game it doesn’t have the ability to avoid losing hp.

Also I fail to see the NPE or serious rules breaking in this list.

But one shouldnt avoid avoid doing some point massaging. Get things close to their math wing effective value.

If the aces can manage to draw the beef list away from its corner, then well flown aces absolutly can handle the matchup. It becomes more of an issue when the beef player crab-walks along the board edge and denies the ace player a flank. Then the aces have a very uphill battle on their hands.

I don't think there is a major NPE or rules breaking in the list. I think the only issue is that at current price points, the Rebel Beef player doesn't seem to have many hard choices in list building. They get to have high hit points, excellent action effeciency, high initative with choices for a medium base low initative blocker, damage spread, and lots of red dice with built in mods. If they had to make difficult choices about which of those elements they wanted to include, I think the archetype could still be solid without being such an obviously "correct" choice to take to a tournament.

I don't want to see this archetype disappear. I just think that some of the standard elements of these lists need some small adjustments.

6 minutes ago, MidWestScrub said:

I don't think there is a major NPE or rules breaking in the list.

Braylen can get double mods on offense and rerolls on defense even when he bumps, so there’s that..

1 minute ago, Old Sarge said:

Braylen can get double mods on offense and rerolls on defense even when he bumps, so there’s that..

So can Boba. Granted, he's significantly more expensive, regardless though, is that broken, or simply really good and just too cheap right now? In my opinion it's closer to the latter rather than the former.

3 hours ago, MidWestScrub said:

I agree with you that Braylen's existence, or even that of Braylen/Cassian, isn't broken in itself. Problem is that you can fit two of the other best Rebel pilots (Wedge, Biggs, Ten, Dutch+Torps, Horton+VTG) and call it a day.

Let's suppose Leia goes up to 6. Wedge, Braylen, Cassian all get +3 pts. You could then fit:

Wedge/Braylen/Jake/Cassian(Leia) - 197

Wedge/Biggs/Thane/I2 U-wing(Leia) - 200

Biggs/Thane/Braylen/Cassian(Leia) - 199

These lists are still very strong both on offense and defense, but there's some actual choice to be made during list building.

Edit: Only Leia going up won't change anything. The current best Beef can fit her at 6.

11 hours ago, DexterOnone said:

Actually, this brings up an interesting point. Whenever a list that just works floats towards the top of the meta, everyone’s reaction is to call for points increases. How about looking at it from a different perspective?

So, as a bit of a thought experiment; if Rebel Beef were declared ‘here to stay’, what sort of list would you construct to counter it... and what points reductions might be required to other ships and upgrades to make that happen?

If a list is too good, and you respond by making a counter list too good, you haven't helped lift all the other lists up. Buffing TIE swarms to eat bunker lists doesn't do any favors to Scum lists.

11 hours ago, Cr0aker said:

I am nervous seeing Rebel beef being overly nerfed and overly focused on. I won my regional with a tie swarm. Only two lists gave me trouble. Rebel beef, and a Han Fenn monster that put 1/2 points through on a tie and tried to run.

I believe TIE swarm right now is stronger. It has a higher difficulty threshold to learn, so fewer people are running it. If beef is knocked down too hard, you'll just have a different hyperspace meta monster.

I am extremely nervous about the balance of TIE Swarms. I'd like to see Howl and Iden both go up to 45 points, but I don't expect it to happen.

This is quick and bad napkin math, but 6-ship Howl swarms are like 5% of the meta, while Braylen is around 8% and rebel beef in general is around 15-20%.

6 hours ago, MidWestScrub said:

I don't think there is a major NPE or rules breaking in the list. I think the only issue is that at current price points, the Rebel Beef player doesn't seem to have many hard choices in list building. They get to have high hit points, excellent action effeciency, high initative with choices for a medium base low initative blocker, damage spread, and lots of red dice with built in mods.

Yeah, definitely this. It gets 4 heavily modded attacks, it can beat most things in a joust, it has an I6 with a minor bid, it can freely k-turn to chase things trying to disengage, it's fairly high init (6+4, potentially plus another 4), it has a good blocker, it can stall/castle really well... etcetc.

UXXYY was a cool and thematic list. I am still worried about the power level of these lists:

2 hours ago, Pink_Viking said:

Wedge/Braylen/Jake/Cassian(Leia) - 197

Wedge/Biggs/Thane/I2 U-wing(Leia) - 200

Biggs/Thane/Braylen/Cassian(Leia) - 199

Hence my point costings up thread being a bit more aggressive than most (Wedge +3, Braylen/Cassian +5 each, Leia +4). But these are definitely way cooler and involve more tradeoffs.

These are what Rebel lists are supposed to look like, they're just way to efficient right now.

High initiative pilots should trade raw efficiency for board knowledge, tricks, and initiative kills. When your high initiative pilots are also the most efficient ships, it breaks the game.

Most folks aren't calling for massive point increases. Nobody is calling for errata. Just recognizing that these rebel pilots are too cheap and should see a bit of an adjustment.

Regarding TIE swarms, my concern is that there doesn't seem to be any real debate on about 85% of the list. The best Tie pilots are obviously the best pilots. Some price decreases on some under used pilots would be nice. Iden and maybe Howl could use a minor bump up. Again just to make some interesting choices in list building.

Now that we have the 8 ship maximum, maybe it's time to drop the price of Academy Pilots and Z-95's?

Just now, gamblertuba said:

Iden and maybe Howl could use a minor bump up. Again just to make some interesting choices in list building.

Yeah, 45 for both would be nice. They could shave a point off the Academy Pilot, down to 22, as compensation.

2 minutes ago, gamblertuba said:

Now that we have the 8 ship maximum, maybe it's time to drop the price of Academy Pilots and Z-95's?

Extremely! God, Scum Z's are just so awful. And Vultures are already overpriced, too, so just send the lot down down down. TIE /fo would appreciate it too, because the correct starting price for a TIE /fo is probably unironically 24 points, maybe 25.

Exclude the Howl tax every Imperial TIE has to pay for balance reasons and all those two dice ships are really expensive for what they do right now. Torrents that hit the critical 5hp threshold for 25 points are the primary exception.