On 10/28/2020 at 12:03 PM, Bertie Wooster said:

Not impossible to beat though. @GiledPallaeon won NOVA last year with Thrawn, 5 ships and 0 squadrons. And this was in a Sloane-heavy meta I think (don't quote me on that though, it's been a while since I read his write-up).

It's hard to say what the state of Pryce and 2-ship will be when the new changes come. We know that something is happening with pass tokens, but the details are vague. However, it does sound like it's intended to counter gimmicks like Pryce first-last.

The Crabbok interview posted today shed a little more light on the pass tokens. Huge ships will no longer have an innate pass mechanic, but fleets will get pass tokens that are expendable. It wasn't clear how you get them except if one fleet has more ships than you, and also its been designed to favor 2nd player, 1st player will receive fewer tokens. In addition, for tournament play Bail, Pryce and SA are being shelved.

I'm wondering how the new Squadron Ace limitations will effect players' builds:

Will players reduce the number of squadrons they bring to 4: All Aces?

Will players keep the number of squadrons they bring roughly the same, and not use all 134 points for squadrons?

Or will players bring the 4 Aces that they're allowed and max out their squadron points with generics?

I'm concerned it'll be the third scenario and games will routinely have 10+ squadrons and take over 3 hours to play. That's bad for casual play, but it could really be problem for Organized Play events -- whenever that resumes.

My friends and I have been discussing homebrew rules wherein we'll have 800-1200 point Sector Fleet battles but restrict squadrons to 134 points. We don't want to ban squadrons entirely, but we want to focus on pitting large fleets of Republic and Separatists ships against each other for thematic Clone Wars battles.

One very easy change they could make is to adopt the Sector Fleet cap of 25% squadrons max (so, 100 points for a Standard Fleet). In conjunction with the limit of no more than 4 “ace” squadrons per list, I feel like this would be a net positive for the game. You could still see things like Howlrunner and ten TIE Fighter squadrons, but more commonly, this would likely reduce squadron counts to more like 4-6 squads, which is far more manageable. It would also still allow bomber wings to be a thing, without them being so bloody powerful.

To me, the main squadron meta consideration is whether you can counter marek jendon efficiently. Full size squad balls come with the price of fewer and weaker ships, so with a proper fleet you at least have options to fight them. But unopposed, marek jendon by himself for 41 points is a one man bombing wing that can wreck small ships by himself, or swing a big ship fight very quickly. So if you dont want to run heavy squad, at least build in some options to either kill him or hit him so hard he runs away like a cat for the rest of the game.

Recently ive found just a couple of tie interceptors and reserve hanger decks is just about enough for this application.

21 minutes ago, Ophion said:

one man bombing wing

*Two man bombing wing.

3 hours ago, The Jabbawookie said:

*Two man bombing wing.

If I call that number it better not be another Chippendales...

5 hours ago, The Jabbawookie said:

*Two man bombing wing.

it's BEAUTIFUL

Honestly thought that was the local advertisement for “Two men and a truck” movers.

but the 406 code is Montana (vs 403 for Calgary)

10 hours ago, Cpt ObVus said:

One very easy change they could make is to adopt the Sector Fleet cap of 25% squadrons max (so, 100 points for a Standard Fleet). In conjunction with the limit of no more than 4 “ace” squadrons per list, I feel like this would be a net positive for the game. You could still see things like Howlrunner and ten TIE Fighter squadrons, but more commonly, this would likely reduce squadron counts to more like 4-6 squads, which is far more manageable. It would also still allow bomber wings to be a thing, without them being so bloody powerful.

I don't know if this would improve the game over all. Squadrons are an integral part of Star Wars. 34 points can make a significant difference. It could be the difference between a bomber wing being worth the ship investment too. That's a part of this equation many often overlook. Squad heavy lists are rarely just a squad ball with no direction. The player often also makes heavy investments in ships and upgrades that can support them.

For now, with the changes to intel and an official ace cap being added I'd like to see how the meta swings before we start changing hard caps.

(FYI, I understand your side too, it wasn't too long ago I was making posts about how no one cares about the swarms of nameless uninteresting ants fighting in the background of a big spider fighting a scorpion lol)

Agreed with @Darth Sanguis . Let's see how those new changes roll out and change what we currently have. Also there may be more we don't even know about yet changing with 1.5.