New poll is up on the wiki . The last poll asked what you enjoy flying the most, with Aces and Toolkit Jousters taking a solid lead. This one asks what you most dislike flying against. What bores you, frustrates you, or just picks apart your favorite fleets?

edit: BTW the answers order is randomized, so the order you see will differ from what your buddy sees.

Go vote on the wiki, and talk about it here!

Edit: for those who can't see the poll on the wiki, hopefully you can access it via this direct link .

I answered: other: TimePlay (Expensive Ship that tries to grab very few points and to win on time)

All others are fine to me, they are all completely legit play styles.

I would also dispute that winning on time is an inherent part of aces or two ship builds, even if they often correlate.

Two ship, massive upgrade super synergy lists. Falcons, turrets with high PS.

Too many options and a running around taking opportunity shots type of style. Lack of need to think as much about maneuvering especially with less dials. Hate it. Burn it to the ground.

Reduce generics cost. Provide options of counterplay. And while currently in 2.0 they aren't oppressive like 1.0, if they ever do, create some relatively hard hard counters. And definitely don't make hard counters to things like aces or swarm when none exist for fat turret 2 ship.

37 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

I answered: other: TimePlay (Expensive Ship that tries to grab very few points and to win on time)

All others are fine to me, they are all completely legit play styles.

I would also dispute that winning on time is an inherent part of aces or two ship builds, even if they often correlate.

That's... a really good point (I despise those lists too). Since we're so early in the poll, and this feels like an important option, I've added it. People can update their vote if they want to include that one (I'm hoping that's not an inconvenience).

Edit: It may take a few minutes for the poll to update as well. Hopefully that's not going to cause trouble.

14 minutes ago, Wazat said:

That's... a really good point (I despise those lists too). Since we're so early in the poll, and this feels like an important option, I've added it. People can update their vote if they want to include that one (I'm hoping that's not an inconvenience).

Edit: It may take a few minutes for the poll to update as well. Hopefully that's not going to cause trouble.

Spamming refresh now that there is a choice that fits.

Edit: scratch that. I'll wait for a bit. The option shuffling is making figuring out if the poll has updated a bit problematic.

Top Meta. Because probably between 20 and 50% of the players in a given tournament will run it. I loathe having to play against the same list (or its subtle variations) ever and ever.

1 hour ago, Wazat said:

That's... a really good point (I despise those lists too). Since we're so early in the poll, and this feels like an important option, I've added it. People can update their vote if they want to include that one (I'm hoping that's not an inconvenience).

Edit: It may take a few minutes for the poll to update as well. Hopefully that's not going to cause trouble.

@Wazat Time Wasters is showing up as a possible result but not as an option in the poll itself for me.

Ugh... I'll have to tinker to see what's wrong.

I tweaked some settings and saved again, and suddenly it shows. Maybe it's just a dumb bug with CrowdSignal.

As for me, I voted against:

• Bulk. Tedious and boring to fight, and I fight it a lot . The lists I tend to fly aren't great against it either. Thank god Rebel Beef has been nerfed, maybe it won't be all we see anymore.
• Time Wasters: It's just not fun to spend all 75 minutes chasing their ship and not even getting half points on it, so they win on points.
• Top-Meta: I fly quirky, casual slag for fun most of the time, and I get bored of seeing the same lists pick me apart even on "casual night". Every once in a while is fine, but I get tired of it beyond that; I'm not a tournament player, and I'm not here for that.
• Heavy Swarms: I dislike double-tapping y-wing or scurrg lists, and some republic beef also counts as both a heavy swarm and bulk. This playstyle mixes the sins of Bulk lists with the power of Swarms.
• Alpha strikers. This is a mild vote, but it sucks to have a ship or two tabled on the first round due to tons of dice and no range 3 bonus die. If your team isn't set up to play range games, it can be over really quickly. And we're gonna see more of with with Passive Sensors.

Very happy to see Rebel Beef, Handbreak Han, and other lists took a nerf bat to the face. They get no pity. I'm in a mildly salty mood today, and I want to see some of my more fun lists do better on the table in the less-beefed meta.

6 minutes ago, Wazat said:

• Bulk  . Tedious and boring to fight, and I fight it a lot . The lists I tend to fly aren't great against it either. Thank god Rebel Beef has been nerfed, maybe it won't be all we see anymore.
• Time Wasters: It's just  not fun to spend all 75 minutes chasing their ship and not even getting half points on it, so they win on po  ints. 

Both got my vote, for exactly the same reason. I actually tend to do well against both, but just because I can beat selfless Y’s and Biggs doesn’t mean I enjoy it. And truthfully if people fly it better (meaning learning how to deal with my double pincer flanking move, with a central anchor) and not in a block? Well I’ll just say that only one or two local players are advanced enough to do so 😉

My big irritation is people all in on the ‘only I5/6 with a big bid because I don’t know how to win if I’m not moving last’. I just get bored facing the same pilots.

Big ol super aces and other pointsinks that can be bailed by a round of lucky dice

Fortunately, not EVEN REMOTELY as much of an issue as last Ed...

6 minutes ago, ficklegreendice said:

Big ol super aces and other pointsinks that can be bailed by a round of lucky dice

Fortunately, not EVEN REMOTELY as much of an issue as last Ed...

Case in point:

my Arc, range 3 and focus, shoots focus less Soontir and does a damage. My Torrent then shoots concussions at the nearby bomber, flipping that damage into Panicked Pilot. By the time Soontir got around, the rest of his list was dead.

everything in my list may have been moving first, but I never felt it would be impossible to catch his aces.

What do you dislike flying against?

Me.

Work and family schedules often make it hard to get a real game in for a few weeks at a time so I sometimes just set up squads on the dining room table and play both sides. Its good practice for judging distance and arcs and maneuvers, but you can only pretend to not know what "the other guy" is doing so much. Plus I think his dice are rigged.

Sigh...

Just be honest and say you don't like whatever you lost to

AdvS Guri.

Such a feels bad man.

Rebel beef, especially with U-Wings who can basically stay still as long as they want and rotate to face whatever approach you choose.

Droid swarm with Energy Shells, way too good to have that many 3 dice attacks which deny range bonuses.

127 votes and Bulk and Time Wasters have a big lead. This surprises no one.

8 hours ago, ayedubbleyoo said:

Rebel beef, especially with U-Wings who can basically stay still as long as they want and rotate to face whatever approach you choose.

Droid swarm with Energy Shells, way too good to have that many 3 dice attacks which deny range bonuses.

If you fly in a way that gives your opponent the opportunity to fire off most if not all his Energy Shells, you did something wrong. Energy Shell Vulture swarms rely heavily on getting a good "shooting round 1" alpha strike. And even then they don't get rerolls on their attacks. I used to be super scared of them, but not so much anymore.

We've hit 200 votes. Thanks, everyone!

As before, Time Wasters and Bulk have a solid lead at 42 and 35 votes. They've consistently stayed at half-again or double the votes below them. The next band is around 16-25 votes each: Aces, Alpha-Strikes, Top-Meta, and Heavy Swarms.

I'm guessing we have yet to see the effects of new stuff like Passive Sensors, so I'm curious to see how that might swing in the future (hence this post to mark where we were at 200, right as the new wave lands). Maybe bulk and time-waster lists will become less appealing (and thus less played and hated) if alpha-strikers see more play, though alpha-strikers have lots of votes too so that's not an unambiguously positive change. There will always be something to irk us.

Thank you to everyone who has voted! I'm always a bit surprised by the way votes land, and I love to learn what people are thinking about the game.

Swarm is the most mind-numbing experience to play against. You're not playing against their strategy, but instead, their ability to legally slow play you because they can take minutes to set a bunch of dials and execute the maneuvers. And they don't even have to fly well; just crash into you repeatedly until the clock is zero and take extra long to waste as much time as possible. At least I'm setting dials and executing maneuvers in my run down the clock lists.

Your average tie swarm player wins because they didn't give their opponent enough turns to play the game and kill ships ; not because they are using any advanced tactics or strategy. I'd rather just not play than play against swarm, where I get to spend literally 50 minutes of the match watching my opponent pretend like they are making hard decisions even though that 4 K turn was the most obvious choice in existence and they're really just exploiting the fact that they haven't given me the time to even play the game.

The fact that Tie Swarms frequently make the cut and then magically all lose once the time limit jumps up is proof enough in my book of this being a very real thing in the competitive community.

5 minutes ago, ThinkingB said:

The fact that Tie Swarms frequently make the cut and then magically all lose once the time limit jumps up is proof enough in my book of this being a very real thing in the competitive community.

The only match in a tournament that has a longer period of allotted time is the final table (2 hrs). All of the others are 75min... For your statement to be accurate swarms would have to make final table every tournament...

Might be a different style of tournament; game store preferences and different circumstances can drive this. I know when we're crunched for time we might do 60-minute rounds until the cut, then switch to 75 minute rounds for the rest of the night.

1 hour ago, Hiemfire said:

The only match in a tournament that has a longer period of allotted time is the final table (2 hrs). All of the others are 75min... For your statement to be accurate swarms would have to make final table every tournament...

I suppose you're right. I think I just don't like the game in general anymore to be honest and that was probably what was informing me.

2 minutes ago, ThinkingB said:

I suppose you're right. I think I just don't like the game in general anymore to be honest and that was probably what was informing me.

I've found what I play against can affect the experience quite a lot. If you're at a casual night, just ask your opponent if they'd mind playing something else. Not facing the top meta or hard counters to your list all the time can do a ton to improve the experience, and restore your love of the game. And flying something new yourself can also be refreshing!

This is why I don't play tournaments much anymore. They just drag me down, and I'm here to enjoy myself. Casual night is where it's at -- it has all the most fun lists to fly and fly against.