Rebels guide to the galaxy is back from hyperbreak

I talk about Rebels, the meta and the future

https://rebelsguide.home.blog/2020/08/17/rebels-meta-and-moving-forward/

A fun read, I have some disagreements with your tiering but overall pretty solid choices. I always appreciate someone putting their thoughts to be read because it is a lot of work and I enjoy the read. It is always interesting to see what someone values (like snowtroopers) I think you are additionally right there are a lot of interesting ways to build a rebel lists.

I don't quite think the Meta is a powerful operative being supported by a cheap commander, I think it is more having 11 to 12 activations where you have 2-3 scout strike teams, 2-3 tauntauns or atrts, R2D2, 3 core and 2 to 3 of something. Like Cassian, Jyn and K2SO, or the wonder twins, etc. We are saying something similar but I think the bulk of the Meta is same 7-9 activations and the powerful operative is the most elective part of the list.

I think Clan Wren will shake up the Rebel Meta slowly. They will probably either lower activation count or take away some rebel unit quality. A player looking at them will realize if you put one or two squads in your army you are giving up 2 to 3 strike teams and they fill a similar spot as Taun Tauns do. It will take a while to figure out how to make them work and philosophically a lot of rebel players can't get out of a pure out activate mindset.

I don't think Situational Awareness will have the impact you might want it to but portable scanners look interesting. There are very few times a Rebel unit will use outmaneuver to cancel a crit where they couldn't just cancel a regular hit for the same effect. Basically the sweet spot will be 3 or less hits while in cover of some type directed at a unit that has a dodge token and outmaneuver. Portable scanners I agree with you could be a good addition. The issue with dodge token is having them on enough units that your opponent has to fire at the unit with the dodge token, while at the same time not losing a ton of activation advantage putting them on those units. This lets you get a potential 2 or 3 for one which is nice.

Anyway keep up the good work.

Always hard to try and decide a meta or tier list as it is very subjective, it's from my experience from tournaments and casual games in my area. I agree that activations is probably a key component for rebels. I see Iden, Sabine/Luke and Cad Bane will be very popular moving forward however, however yeah 2-3 strike teams is hard to move away from :P.

Yeah I think outmanouver is gonna be huge for in my experince I keep taking wounds on luke/sabine while they have dodge tokens, veterans and rebel troopers in heavy cover are getting hit by crits by shoretroopers, mortars and such. There is alot of critical weapons that keep killing my troopers through cover. My friend recently played 2 games with Iden and despite having a dodge token he never or just once got to use his dodge token since either it was to few hits after cover or just critical or aim-shoot crits from small dice pools.

This is just my experience but having the option to dodge crits will do wonders for the survivability I think. However we will see if it is like I predict.

Thanks for appreciating my work

" a Z-6 + rebel captain squad with this upgrade"

Can I question why you would put Portable Scanner on a squad you investing a decent amount of points in? It seems a waste as that is a unit you want to be attacking with, not a unit you want to be wasting an action with handing out dodges. It would seem better to have it on a cheap squad so their actions don't feel as wasted. Like a naked Rebel squad doesn't mind spending its action handing out a dodge. A Generic Rebel Officer doesn't mind getting two dodges, etc. But a Z6 is going to want to aim and shoot. Or if not aiming and shooting, moving and shooting. Or if it REALLY wants to be tank dodging itself and shooting not giving a dodge to someone else.

8 hours ago, MajorSmexy said:

" a Z-6 + rebel captain squad with this upgrade"

Can I question why you would put Portable Scanner on a squad you investing a decent amount of points in? It seems a waste as that is a unit you want to be attacking with, not a unit you want to be wasting an action with handing out dodges. It would seem better to have it on a cheap squad so their actions don't feel as wasted. Like a naked Rebel squad doesn't mind spending its action handing out a dodge. A Generic Rebel Officer doesn't mind getting two dodges, etc. But a Z6 is going to want to aim and shoot. Or if not aiming and shooting, moving and shooting. Or if it REALLY wants to be tank dodging itself and shooting not giving a dodge to someone else.

Good eye, actually I am referring to situational awareness, I had "this upgrade" as a place holder since my spelling isn't perfect. I however forgot to copy paste it in 😅

11 hours ago, jocke01 said:

Good eye, actually I am referring to situational awareness, I had "this upgrade" as a place holder since my spelling isn't perfect. I however forgot to copy paste it in 😅

Ah ok, that makes much more sense. At first I was like "Hmm, I see why Situational Awareness is worth discussing there, but... Portable Scanners just seems awful on that unit"

im not a big fan of situational awareness. they basically screwed up dodge by adding too much high velocity and critical X and surge to crit and made rebel dodge mechanics weaker than they should be. then tried to patch it by making rebels pay points and an upgrade slot for situational awareness? thats pretty absurd when you think about it.

They shouldve just changed the core rules so that all units can always dodge crits. and they shouldve changed high velocity to do something else instead (like negate guardian or defensive surges or something like that)

I definitely dont like having to spend points and an upgrade slot for situational awareness. Just giving all units the ability to dodge crits wouldve also helped units that dont have an upgrade slot for situational awareness like the airspeeder for which dodge tokens are currently useless.

Its always bothered me that the clone tank can dodge crits but the airspeeder cant when the airspeeder is way more maneuverable

I hate how FFG tries to patch their games by adding new upgrade cards instead of fixing the underlying busted mechanics. All that does is make those upgrade cards compulsory while not fixing the underlying problem. In this case the underlying problem is that too many things circumvent dodge and not everything can take situational awareness.

Quote

I think Clan Wren will shake up the Rebel Meta slowly.

depends how effectively they kill snipers. as far as I can tell theyre meant to be an anti-sniper unit. but I dont know if they actually perform well in that role or not.

It would have been cool if they gave situational awareness the same treatment that they gave the scanners and electrobinoculars but for rebel troopers instead of droids. Allow rebel troopers to ignore the upgrade bar requirement and they might be ok again.

I agree that outmanouver should have been made standard rules for small base troopers to combat the rise of crits. However that has never been how FFG does their games so we work with what we got 😐 .

I don't agree that high velocity is a problem, since outside of the AAT it's only 2 dice snipers that have it.

2p upgrade feels pretty easy to add for some units IMO. Rebel captain gives a training slot and veterans have it natively. I either skip the slot or put offensive push for a single turn aim. I think awareness will be worth the 2p everytime I get to block one crit with that unit compared to a single aim. Commanders and operatives can have more use for other trainings than basic troops, but at least awereness is cheap. I doubt there will be a better option for tauntauns considering the amount of dodges they get.

13 hours ago, Khobai said:

I hate how FFG tries to patch their games by adding new upgrade cards instead of fixing the underlying busted mechanics. All that does is make those upgrade cards compulsory while not fixing the underlying problem. In this case the underlying problem is that too many things circumvent dodge and not everything can take situational awareness.

Welcome to how x-wing 1.0 was played.

Honestly, seeing this dampens my enthusiasm for Legion. Not just here, but other creep elements like the CW heavies etc. the thing keeping me here is painting star wars minis and that the people I play aren’t overly pursuing the power moves so none of us have the multiple strike teams, and none of us have the excessive crit generation.

8 hours ago, jocke01 said:

I agree that outmanouver should have been made standard rules for small base troopers to combat the rise of crits. However that has never been how FFG does their games so we work with what we got 😐 .

I don't agree that high velocity is a problem, since outside of the AAT it's only 2 dice snipers that have it.

2p upgrade feels pretty easy to add for some units IMO. Rebel captain gives a training slot and veterans have it natively. I either skip the slot or put offensive push for a single turn aim. I think awareness will be worth the 2p everytime I get to block one crit with that unit compared to a single aim. Commanders and operatives can have more use for other trainings than basic troops, but at least awereness is cheap. I doubt there will be a better option for tauntauns considering the amount of dodges they get.

high velocity by itself isnt a problem. the problem is the sheer critical mass of effects that ignore dodge. the game has reached a tipping point where too many things ignore dodge and it adversely affects rebels because dodge is one of their core faction mechanics.

2 points is still 2 points. its a tax on rebel units that wouldnt otherwise exist if the game hadnt weakened dodge to the point where situational awareness was needed. while 2 points doesnt seem like much it can make the difference between being blue player or not which is a big deal.

and then theres rebel units like the airspeeder where dodge does absolutely no good. like why can a clone tank dodge crits but an airspeeder cant? that doesnt make sense. the game's keywords need to be applied more consistently and the airspeeder should absolutely have outmaneuver for consistency. For consistency you could also argue that imperial speeder bikes should also get outmaneuver because dodging crits would be way easier for them than a clone tank. The problem is outmaneuver didnt exist for older units and they got low profile or cover instead which arnt nearly as useful since crits ignore cover. the older units need to be updated with the new keywords in mind.

the outmaneuver rule is so out of place on the clone tank right now because of all the more maneuverable vehicles that dont have it.