Geek 32628232

51 minutes ago, GiledPallaeon said:

I intend to discuss all of that in detail in my report, but I'll repeat the Cliff's Notes version here. I faced squadron heavy rounds 1, and 4-7. Of those four games I went 3-1. The plan for my list is simple. Run in, blow up the real ships, bug out. It worked because of two ship. NOVA is incredibly punch-drunk on squads. The Sloane builds I dealt with (4, 6, 7) were all designed by their users at least in part to deal with two ship. Their play reflected this most of all, with conservative backline deployments not only for the ships but the squadrons. What that meant for me as I accelerated across the table is that the squadrons rarely started shooting me before I was firing on their ships, and I tended to win those damage races.

As for Geek 19 blog, is there a link to it anywhere?

http://cannotgetyourshipout.blogspot.com/

1 hour ago, GiledPallaeon said:

I intend to discuss all of that in detail in my report, but I'll repeat the Cliff's Notes version here. I faced squadron heavy rounds 1, and 4-7. Of those four games I went 3-1. The plan for my list is simple. Run in, blow up the real ships, bug out. It worked because of two ship. NOVA is incredibly punch-drunk on squads. The Sloane builds I dealt with (4, 6, 7) were all designed by their users at least in part to deal with two ship. Their play reflected this most of all, with conservative backline deployments not only for the ships but the squadrons. What that meant for me as I accelerated across the table is that the squadrons rarely started shooting me before I was firing on their ships, and I tended to win those damage races.

As a guy who tends to play a lot of low/no squads, myself, I'd like to back this up. 2-ship generally does bad things to no-squads, but the Sloane builds built to counter 2-ship (and other squad-heavy fleets) just don't have the damage output required to stop a no-squads fleet from running them over and blasting through.

Edit: double-posted, delete this please.

Thx for the link, will give that a good read thru, but you feel al ist can run thru like 10 Thraawn bombers to get at the 2 ships and survive?

32 minutes ago, Mcpolle said:

Thx for the link, will give that a good read thru, but you feel al ist can run thru like 10 Thraawn bombers to get at the 2 ships and survive?

If all else is held equal, no. Bombers are much more efficient ship killers than other ships. However, the bomber player is under the gun. If my ships get into firing positions before the bombers start really engaging me, he's going to be in a bad way. He may win, I may win, but either will be close because I will take a lot of him with me. The other reason this build is rare is that it relies heavily on Ruthless Strategists and its ship flak to push through things like Sloane aces, which otherwise have a field day blowing up not-quite-defenseless-but-close bombers. The prevalence of such builds right now, whether true two ship or something intended to kill it means this list is much more likely in a neutral meta (which NOVA is not) to hit a bad matchup than a good one.

18 hours ago, GiledPallaeon said:

If all else is held equal, no. Bombers are much more efficient ship killers than other ships. However, the bomber player is under the gun. If my ships get into firing positions before the bombers start really engaging me, he's going to be in a bad way. He may win, I may win, but either will be close because I will take a lot of him with me. The other reason this build is rare is that it relies heavily on Ruthless Strategists and its ship flak to push through things like Sloane aces, which otherwise have a field day blowing up not-quite-defenseless-but-close bombers. The prevalence of such builds right now, whether true two ship or something intended to kill it means this list is much more likely in a neutral meta (which NOVA is not) to hit a bad matchup than a good one.

What would you say is unusual about the NOVA meta? And what do you think is the current 'neutral' meta?

On 8/31/2019 at 6:27 PM, CommanderDave said:

Some truly stupendous bids in there. Wow. 31 pt bid is crazy.

Yeah, some people taking bidding a bit too seriously for my tastes. At Euros I think I hit a 32pt bid on day one, and a 39pt bid on day two. Turns out the Polish crowd love having first player.

7 hours ago, Zamalekite said:

What would you say is unusual about the NOVA meta? And what do you think is the current 'neutral' meta?

What is unusual about the NOVA meta generally speaking is that it's very Imperial heavy. It got hit hard by Sloane and she's remained ascendant ever since. Two ship isn't terribly prevalent here for that reason, but the threat of two ship keeps Sloane on top, and all of these players have been playing her for so long that they can play through lesser matchups for her. The other advantage that my list has in an Imp-heavy meta, and NOVA doubles down on as a local playstyle pattern, is that Imperial ships (one notable exception) can't fight and hold the range open very effectively. NOVA is an aggressive meta, so they're already inclined to fight a lot, and their fleet builds incentivize that further. But, in order to fight as an Imperial, you have to advance towards the enemy. That makes my job of closing the range quickly much easier because every inch you come closer to me is an inch I don't have to move myself to get that sweet sweet close range. Further, Demolishers were pretty scarce. I fought and killed the only two I think attending Day 1A (I have all the lists, they'll go up eventually.) I can only presume this current dearth of black-dice brawlers has led to a small amount of complacency about their lethality that my list unwittingly exploited.

How this manifested at the tournament was two-fold. First, Rebels and MSU were both scarce. This list despises Rebel bombers, and it's none too happy to see Rhymer or Ackbar either. I still thank the TOME gods I got the Jeremy rematch instead of dealing with Adam Newton's Ackbar list. MSU is theoretically vulnerable to Demo getting pickoffs, but it's much harder to get the tempo control I really want. Second, the bulk of the Imperial-class units were I-2s. I'm not blaming anyone who brought the ship, it's a solid all-rounder, and given the requirements of squad-heavy it is necessarily the ideal choice. The flipside is that it struggles to shovel the buckets of damage the Kuat can throw, especially once the Kuat is in the 2's face beating it up with ordnance. Third, the widespread presence of Squall and Imperial ace groups meant that the squadron players were defaulting to deploying on the back line. Against another Squall that's the right move. Against me, they were consistently blowing a turn of bombing that they either didn't get at all, or happened after I had reached the position I wanted, so it was still just a damage race.

7 hours ago, Zamalekite said:

What would you say is unusual about the NOVA meta? And what do you think is the current 'neutral' meta?

D'oh, I forgot about your second question, what a neutral meta looks like. If I'm being entirely honest, I am not unhappy with the overall state of balance in the game, it's pretty good up into the competitive level once you pass a certain player skill threshold (and for casual gaming it's all but perfect). However, there are certain elements that badly warp the even playing field I would prefer to see. Pryce, StratAd, and Raddus are my usual boogeymen (and -woman), but Sloane, Ackbar, Rieekan, Demo, and Yavaris all create design pressures that can leave the game working into corners. I'd be ok with the ongoing dominance of squad-included fleets if I saw more moderate investments like Dumpster Fire, but for now that's not likely to happen either. We'll see what pressures the Super can start to exert, and see where the Starhawk, the Onager, and all the shenanigans they and the RitR objectives bring into the game.

56 minutes ago, GiledPallaeon said:

D'oh, I forgot about your second question, what a neutral meta looks like. If I'm being entirely honest, I am not unhappy with the overall state of balance in the game, it's pretty good up into the competitive level once you pass a certain player skill threshold (and for casual gaming it's all but perfect). However, there are certain elements that badly warp the even playing field I would prefer to see. Pryce, StratAd, and Raddus are my usual boogeymen (and -woman), but Sloane, Ackbar, Rieekan, Demo, and Yavaris all create design pressures that can leave the game working into corners. I'd be ok with the ongoing dominance of squad-included fleets if I saw more moderate investments like Dumpster Fire, but for now that's not likely to happen either. We'll see what pressures the Super can start to exert, and see where the Starhawk, the Onager, and all the shenanigans they and the RitR objectives bring into the game.

Thanks for taking the time for both replies.

I mainly play rebel squadrons and it's getting tougher. Rebels don't have the squadron alpha strike capabilities that the Imperials do and the best carriers are either very slow (MC80 Command, Pelta) or very squishy (Yavaris) meaning they can't get away from an SSD or live long enough up close to make squadrons count.

Rikki P's MSU rebel squads won UK Nationals but I think won't do well against a Kallus QLT SSD.

So rebels are mainly relying on Raddus squads (i.e. lots of YT2400s) or Riekaan MSU swarms or Lib + MSU/squads.

Personally I'm looking forward to Agate coming and hopefully Salvo giving a counter-hit option so that carriers have a better chance to do some hurt before going down.

On 8/31/2019 at 12:27 PM, CommanderDave said:

Some truly stupendous bids in there. Wow. 31 pt bid is crazy.

It’s a typo. The bid was 23. There were 2x tie fighters.