What can we learn from the top8 from worlds?

Paul Heaver (World Champion)

Biggs

Dagger Squadron + Advanced Sensors

Dagger Squadron + Advanced Sensors

Rookie Pilot

Dallas Parker (World Finalist)

Howlrunner + Stealth + Determination

Dark Curse

Academy Pilot

Academy Pilot

Academy Pilot

Academy Pilot

Academy Pilot

Jonathan Gomes (Top 4)

Luke Skywalker + Shield Upgrade + R2-D2 + Draw Their Fire

Rookie Pilot

Rookie Pilot

Rookie Pilot

David Bergstrom (Top 4)

Howlrunner + Stealth Device

Backstabber

Obsidian Squadron

Obsidian Squadron

Obsidian Squadron

Academy Pilot

Academy Pilot

Jim Blakley (Top 8)

Rookie Pilot

Rookie Pilot

Blue Squadron

Gold Squadron

Gold Squadron

Brandon Barthel (Top 8)

Wedge + Push the Limit + R2

Biggs

Rookie Pilot

Rookie Pilot

Neil Howard (Top 8)

Captain Jonus + Squad Leader + Seismic Charge

Scimitar Squadron + Cluster Missiles + Concussion Missiles

Scimitar Squadron + Advanced Proton Tropedoes + Proton Tropedoes

Academy Pilot

Academy Pilot

Ivan Pastor (Top 8)

Han Solo + Gunner + Marksmanship + Chewbacca

Rookie Pilot

Rookie Pilot

At a glance i can see 3 lessons here.

1. Very few upgrades

The thing that stands out to me is the lack of upgrades played.

If u ignore the bomber list (which relies on upgrades from missiles for a powerful alpha strike)

on average there are about 2 upgrades per list.

some run none, a few run 3 (Han shoots 1st, luke + 3 X-Wings)

2. Ties Swarms did not dominate

Only 2 out of the top8 squads were tie-swarms.

The top8 was split evenly with 4 rebel squads and 4 imperial squads

3. Cheap is Good

All rebel lists played at least one Rookie X-Wing Pilot (total of 8 Rookies from 4 squads)

All imperial lists played at least 2 Academy Pilots (total of 9 Academy Pilots from 4 squads)

A total of 10 name pilots were played (Rebel Pilots: Biggs x2, Luke, Wedge, Han. Empire Pilots: Howlrunner x2, Dark Curse, Backstabber, Captain Jonus)

What about...

4. B-Wings with Advanced Sensors are awesome. Only one of the top 8 played them but if you have seen the 2 games Paul made there is no denying it. The B-Wings are good, the sensors make them outstanding!

5. No Firesprays, not even a Bounty Hunter. Not a single one even! This was not to be expected really as they usually show up in top lists for tournaments.

6. Empire is very one-dimensional. The only ships seen are Tie Fghters and a few Bombers. Rebels fare a little better with 4 ship types total.

7. That also means that there seem to be a lot of uncompetitive ship types.

The Flops are: Shuttles, Advanceds, Interceptors and apparently Firesprays for Empire. A-Wings and HWKs for Rebels.

8. Small ships dominate the scene. The only large ship here is Han.

9. I would not say that swarms didn't dominate. The final match Paul was really lucky and 2 Swarms made it to top 4. And there is literally never any tournament where they don't figure in top 4. Swarms are still easily the strongest list around, make no mistake. No one said they were unbeatable though.

The thing that poped out to me was what I call the Rebel Swarm. As mentioned before, getting more cheap ships is better than getting a few highly upgraded ships.

My opinion on upgrades is: I do not dislike upgrades in general, the right upgrade used in just the right way is great, but you can overspend with them really quickly.

well, tie swarms ENTIRELY didn't dominate against the rebs...... but I don't see a lot of firesprays or lambdas out there...

By archetype:

2x TIE Swarm

2x XXXX

1x Rebel Swarm (XXBYY)

1x BBXX

1x HSF

1x Bombers

So, TIE Swarm is still one of the most common, by the numbers. I'm disappointed at the lack of overall ship diversity in the top.

By shiptype:

16x TIE Fighter

14x X-Wing

3x TIE Bomber

3x B-Wing

2x Y-Wing

1x YT-1300

So, only half of the total available ship types were even piloted - and only 1 large ship. This is a fairly 'closed' competitive meta for a miniatures game IMO. Over 75% of all ships in the top 8 were X-Wings and TIE Fighters (30 of 39). That doesn't seem healthy overall for a customizable game like this.

This discussion came up in our playgroup recently and I think the one that stood out the most is:

More ships = better. It doesn't matter if you're flying a low PS ship, as long as you're supplying a body. Wedge and a Rookie Pilot are flying the same type of ship. Does the extra 8 points justify the need to shoot first in a dice based game? Dice can always wiff but the number of shots present does not change. This means that if you "spam" more ships, you get more total hull points, which directly translates to more shots, and more shots allow you to win the game of attrition over your opponent.

Is there anything to oppose this belief? Not according to the top 16 play consisting of mainly bare bones ships.

7. That also means that there seem to be a lot of uncompetitive ship types.

The Flops are: Shuttles, Advanceds, Interceptors and apparently Firesprays for Empire. A-Wings and HWKs for Rebels.

I wouldn't write off those ships just because they weren't in the top 8. Given the size of the tournament, I would say you should go to the top 16 or top 32 to get a better idea of the squads that did well.

Survivability seems to be the theme.. the more ships you ahve the better your chances.. that screams luck to me, not skill.. but really how much of this game is skill, I try to use fewer ships with more upgrades to give that cinematic effort to the game. I do alright, I don't always win, but I am probably 50/50 win loss.. and not too many games in. For me it's all about fun, so certain tactics aren't very exciting for me.

This discussion came up in our playgroup recently and I think the one that stood out the most is:

More ships = better. It doesn't matter if you're flying a low PS ship, as long as you're supplying a body. Wedge and a Rookie Pilot are flying the same type of ship. Does the extra 8 points justify the need to shoot first in a dice based game? Dice can always wiff but the number of shots present does not change. This means that if you "spam" more ships, you get more total hull points, which directly translates to more shots, and more shots allow you to win the game of attrition over your opponent.

Is there anything to oppose this belief? Not according to the top 16 play consisting of mainly bare bones ships.

i think u have hit on the real reason why tie-swarms are so good. They roll more dice. Statistically that will win you more games if ur opponent is rolling less dice.

Academy x7 = 14 red dice at med range, 21 at close range (with rerolls from howlrunner those red dice hit more frequently, even though the max damage is unchanged, but its an automatic effect... see target lock below)

XXXX/BBBB = 12 red dice at med range, 16 at close range (with target locks you get a statistical boost on your hit percentage, just like howlrunner for imperials but its an action to target lock whereas howlrunner is an automatic thing which imo is far better in the early rounds. Rebel ship target locks for a single attack... tie-swarm gets rerolls for multiple attacks)

XXBYY = 13 red dice at med range, 18 at close range (target locks increase hits but not maximum damage possible)

Now movement and positioning does matter and can win/lose you games as well but anyone who has played x-wing long enough will tell you - its got a large luck element built into it. What is unclear is how much luck and how much skill contribute to the game. Im leaning towards MORE luck than skill but i think you need both to win a tournament.

How do we feel about it seemingly like attrition? I liked this game because it was balanced and skilled based, but attrition makes it seem a bit more... like a game of attrition.

How do we feel about it seemingly like attrition? I liked this game because it was balanced and skilled based, but attrition makes it seem a bit more... like a game of attrition.

luck based games swing quickly. x-wing does have this element. if u get in the first kill or two, most of the time they cannot recover - the game has swung in your favour. less ships means less dice and less chance to get the game to swing back. this is the attrition effect ur talking about.

I wouldn't count pilot skill out just yet, but like upgrades, I don't like to go overboard with it. I like to have at least one high skill ship in my fleets, but I also like to back them up with as many cheap ships as I can get. That being said, I didn't go to worlds let alone make it into the top 8.

We could look at those lists and say "rebels dominate" aside from the two TIE swarms and one "mini swarm" Bomber group.

I'll agree with those who say "more ships are better" as the HSF squad is really the only one which could pull a single ship and add two in its place.

I mights say it also shows how valuable the Core Box is to gamers of all levels as it provides most of the fighters used in the top 8.

I think every time I personally have player a 5 ship rebel list (with the notable exception of 5 A-wings) I have won.

I am still trying to see what lists placed 9-16

7. That also means that there seem to be a lot of uncompetitive ship types.

The Flops are: Shuttles, Advanceds, Interceptors and apparently Firesprays for Empire. A-Wings and HWKs for Rebels.

I wouldn't write off those ships just because they weren't in the top 8. Given the size of the tournament, I would say you should go to the top 16 or top 32 to get a better idea of the squads that did well.

does ne1 have this info? what were the top 16-32 squads?

This discussion came up in our playgroup recently and I think the one that stood out the most is:

More ships = better. It doesn't matter if you're flying a low PS ship, as long as you're supplying a body. Wedge and a Rookie Pilot are flying the same type of ship. Does the extra 8 points justify the need to shoot first in a dice based game? Dice can always wiff but the number of shots present does not change. This means that if you "spam" more ships, you get more total hull points, which directly translates to more shots, and more shots allow you to win the game of attrition over your opponent.

Is there anything to oppose this belief? Not according to the top 16 play consisting of mainly bare bones ships.

i think u have hit on the real reason why tie-swarms are so good. They roll more dice. Statistically that will win you more games if ur opponent is rolling less dice.

Academy x7 = 14 red dice at med range, 21 at close range (with rerolls from howlrunner those red dice hit more frequently, even though the max damage is unchanged, but its an automatic effect... see target lock below)

XXXX/BBBB = 12 red dice at med range, 16 at close range (with target locks you get a statistical boost on your hit percentage, just like howlrunner for imperials but its an action to target lock whereas howlrunner is an automatic thing which imo is far better in the early rounds. Rebel ship target locks for a single attack... tie-swarm gets rerolls for multiple attacks)

XXBYY = 13 red dice at med range, 18 at close range (target locks increase hits but not maximum damage possible)

Now movement and positioning does matter and can win/lose you games as well but anyone who has played x-wing long enough will tell you - its got a large luck element built into it. What is unclear is how much luck and how much skill contribute to the game. Im leaning towards MORE luck than skill but i think you need both to win a tournament.

Rebels stand a chance only because they throw more dice per attack which is automatically better since it has higher odds of damaging ships at all regardless of their defense.

I still think imperial Swarms are better than rebel 4-5 ship lists just because of their better defense. Most players just focus to up their damage output, but if needed the Ties can also evade, negating any advantage the rebels have in attack dice per attack. They also have a mobility advantage over X-wings and perhaps also over B-Wings with advanced sensors.

The Tie/ln is the best ship in the game, i have said this from the beginning of wave 1. It is very cheap for what it does, i would say it is too cheap. Every Tie Fighter from Academy to Howlrunner is 1-2 points too cheap for them to be perfectly balanced. Probably they decided the costs while playtesting and made a small mistake with Tie/ln. And the dilemma about X-Wing is that they just can not change it anymore for several reasons even if they wanted.

Basically Rebels or other imperial Squads would have to kill 2 Ties per one loss (in case of XXXX/BBBB). And the thing is... They can't if not for luck. As i said even with the best other ships out there (X-Wing and B-Wing) in any combination and with any equipment it feels like an uphill battle against swarms.

This game has a skillcap, it is not complex enough to win through skill alone. A lot of those players you see at worlds or Gencon just know their squad and the enemy one so well that they just don't do any noticeable mistakes and they also play to the strengths of their list. So games are really luck-based. And there is currently no way to change this.

The only thing that would vime to my mind how to fix this would be to come up with some advanced and more complex ruleset. They can't change cards or point costs without vexing a lot of players. So rules that would favor having a bit more equipment and pilot skill. I would deem this necessary for the advancement if the game, if the community and FFG would want more diversity in lists. I don't know hiw exactly how to do this but i know they have very good game designers and X-Wing rules 2.0 would be something where they would not have to change anything else in the game, like cards and stats, which is very important!

great post ForceM. Luck is needed to win this game. More luck than I would like. Tactics help but you can play a perfect game tactically - moving your ships optimally and taking the best actions etc and get undone by lucky opponents dice/unlucky dice.

i agree advanced tournament rules could move this game closer to skill-based. Lets hope FF designers are thinking about this too!

I wonder if there might be a way to introduce a game rule where you can reroll dice throughout the game somehow. This might be built into the tournament rules themselves or be in the form of some type of unique upgrade.

UPGRADE CARD "The Force is with you"

EFFECT: Once per match you may reroll all dice for a single attack or defense roll.

Force sensitive pilots like Luke, Vader might be able to use this upgrade card twice in a single match or it would cost less squad points.

This single upgrade card would not be too powerful imo, and it would not address the issue of lucky rolls on its own - but with some careful playtesting I am sure designers could come up more ideas which were also balanced to move this game towards skill-based.

Thanks man! I would really like to see some rule changes, because the only other way to balance would be to release more and more powerful stuff and induce a kind of power creep like in other games. I can tell you that nobody would like this...

And after all it's not about making Tie Fighters and X-Wings useless, but to make it more interesting to use higher skill pilots, less ships in a list and some upgrades.

A good example for a game where lots of lists are balanced and and where in top 8 you never find identical lists would be Warmachine/Hordes. They achieve this through a very well-rounded ruleset which is pretty complex. But for tournament players, complexity in rules is not really that problematic i guess!

So for friendly games at home everybody could use the standard rules, but on tournaments or just if you want a bit more complexity, in gaming clubs or so... You would then have an advanced ruleset to play more competitive and balanced!

"Advanced" rules sound horrible. The biggest draw is that this isn't a game with a major rules hurdle to get into. And considering FFG's ability to handle the current rules and rules issues, I'm not entirely thrilled with a more complicated game, with more complicated rules. Keep the current rules as the tournament standard. Or at least as one of the tournament standards, since I imagine Epic is going to get as much support as AGOT's Melee does.

EDIT: Also, the game is still young enough (IE, only 12 ships) that it is really tough to get the desired variety some of you want. And, it may have been a bit early for people to master the HWK and Lambda for Worlds.

Thanks man! I would really like to see some rule changes, because the only other way to balance would be to release more and more powerful stuff and induce a kind of power creep like in other games. I can tell you that nobody would like this...

And after all it's not about making Tie Fighters and X-Wings useless, but to make it more interesting to use higher skill pilots, less ships in a list and some upgrades.

A good example for a game where lots of lists are balanced and and where in top 8 you never find identical lists would be Warmachine/Hordes. They achieve this through a very well-rounded ruleset which is pretty complex. But for tournament players, complexity in rules is not really that problematic i guess!

So for friendly games at home everybody could use the standard rules, but on tournaments or just if you want a bit more complexity, in gaming clubs or so... You would then have an advanced ruleset to play more competitive and balanced!

I don't know if I could disagree more. If find the simplicity of the rules (not to mention the structure of the game) to be very deep strategically. It's not just about making the best move for the next turn, it is also about planning the turn after that, and so on. Being able to make the right judgement call. Not just focus vs evade (easy stuff) but knowing exactly when to K-turn, or how to deploy your forces to start.

That being said any game that also relies on luck will not be as tactical as a game like say chess or go. But it is important to point out how simple the rules to those games are (especially go).

The only thing I see in all 8 lists is that they didn't waste points. There were higher skill pilots, there were upgrades. Their players just didn't go overboard with them. I will admit if anything these lists show a conservative building style that maximizes ships, but I don't think this is the only way to go. The game is only like two years old. I doubt we have plumbed all its depths just yet.

On other thing I love about this game, is that with all its expansions TIE Fighters and X-Wings are still really really good choices. I am so proud of FFG for their ability to resist the very powerful impulse to power creep. I would much prefer a game that was dominated by the core ships of the game rather than whatever happened to be the newest ships (or armies) out.

I agree that it is a good thing that the basic ships still are competitive. But i consider it a very bad thing that it's 30 of 39 ships total in finals. And i also think it is bad that most of those are just plain Rookies and Academy Ties.

And to be honest if i was FFG this would alarm me. Because why would they release more and more ships with tons of options if the things to use in tournaments can be bought 99% in the starter box. This is not healthy for a game.

Also i repeat myself. This game is easy to pick up. This is great for beginners, but a lot of players can play flawless, perfect games. Hell even i can do this most of the time even using a Tie Swarm and there is nothing more to it than movement, actions, target selection and predicting your enemy. And if he is any good you will be able to predict him pretty easily.

I agree that the rules we have now are not even perfect, but they are made for beginners rather than competitive play. And i know FFG is not that bad at designing games that this would not be possible to them to come up with something a bit more complex but balanced!

Also believe me when i say that epic and escalation will not fix the game. More points and players just mean more swarms, Academys and Rookies. Because the more points you have the less efficient named pilots become. With exception of Howlrunner (and Jonus). If you fly well she can handle even more Ties around her. Biggs becomes more obsolete since more enemy firepower means he dies faster. Any other named pilot will just end up as a primary target and his advantage becomes less and less significant. I mean one on one, Skywalker for example is very good, but the more ships there are, the less significant his Pilot skill and ability becomes. Even Wedge or Han with their good alpha strike are no different. They kill a ship? So what they will be the main target and die anyway just after that.

That's bad actually since the named pilots make for a lot of the game's flair. And them being not much better, but much costier than unnamed minimum cost ships, well it does make them uncompetitive for the most part!

Great discussion here - just three things to add that came to mind as I read through what has been said so far:

1.) For all of the moaning about how Wave 3's ships weren't as strong competitively, I only see ONE wave 2 ship in the top 8 squads (Han in the Falcon). There is a smattering of upgrade cards (PTL, Stealth). On the other hand, a squad with wave 3 mixed in won Worlds. I wonder how much of this was wave 3 being new, how much of it was wave 2 being less competitive overall in the larger meta, how much is piloting, and how much just came down to the luck of which squads we see in top 8. As happy as I was to make the top 16, I admit wholeheartedly that a BIG reason I did so was I didn't face imperials until round 4 of the tournament and my round 1 competition hadn't quite gotten the grasp of Advanced Sensors on his B-Wings (he figured it out afterwards and went on to win three of his next four as I recall). Most good rebel squads I have faced don't hold up to 8 TIE Fighters, and most good imperial squads it faces fare better (usually a modified win in one direction or the other). I sincerely think I wouldn't have made the top 16 were it not for my good fortune when it came to matchups - and I know at least one Firespray-heavy squad that would have been in top 16 if it weren't for a horrible matchup round 1 (it went 4-1 otherwise, but SoS knocked it to 20th). I am definitely not trying to change this thread into a discussion about the fairness of the current tournament process LOL (there are plenty of other discussions on that topic), but I am saying I take what showed up in the makeup of the top eight with a grain of salt.

2.) Something I am frequently guilty of overlooking with this game is that a good number of people who buy it do so because they want to have fun playing in a Star Wars environment, pitting Darth Vader in his TIE Advanced against Luke Skywalker in his X-Wing with R2-D2, and aren't really interested in the competitive scene at all. So while it is definitely fair to say named pilots seem to not show up as often as stripped down basic ships in the top squads of the competitive scene, that doesn't necessarily devalue the other options to me. It also doesn't make me worry about the health of the game overall.

3.) My optimistic nature may be showing here, but I think as time irons things out a bit we'll see different ships come more into prominence in competitions because people will figure out how to make them work. We're barely had our hands on this game a year even if you started at the beginning, so I think there's still a great deal of potential to be mined.

I agree that it is a good thing that the basic ships still are competitive. But i consider it a very bad thing that it's 30 of 39 ships total in finals. And i also think it is bad that most of those are just plain Rookies and Academy Ties.

And to be honest if i was FFG this would alarm me. Because why would they release more and more ships with tons of options if the things to use in tournaments can be bought 99% in the starter box. This is not healthy for a game.

And again, you are looking at only the top 8 out of how many squads? How many at Worlds? 80? 100? I forget. Again, from the sounds of it, the top 16 or top 32 would give you the diversity you desire. And really, look at the diversity of ships used. There were no exact mirrors in the top 8. THAT is a good sign. Sure, they used a lot of the basic ideas, of more ships are better, but there is nothing wrong in the top 8.

And I'm sorry, it is just about impossible to design for the kind of diversity you want. I think we can all agree that there are some ships that aren't ideal right now. But that is fine, as playtesting can only do so much. But, I think FFG has shown an ability to make some ships more useful, as indicated by the Aces pack. I'm sure the movie ships will all get more love. But there are very, very few ships that I would consider outright bad. Sure, some are better in more casual games, but not all ships should be designed with the meta in mind.

"Complexity" does not equal good. Adding complexity because you feel there is some fault in the design of the game is ludicrous. The game is fine. As a dice game, yes there will be a lot of luck involved. There is no way you can fix this basic issue. The only way you can fix this is by removing the dice from the equation. I think you are looking for a competitive game that FFG is not willing to make, or support.

Escalation is a fun format. Epic is an unknown quantity. Based on past experiences, I imagine there will be additional rules (theres your complexity if you want). We also do not know how the Capital ships will work. Multiple places to damage, and some way to mitigate the "fishtail" effect such large bases would present in the Flightpath system indicates they will work much differently than we have now.

In the end, the TIE Swarm is still a powerful squad. No where as dominant as it once was (and even, I think people manage to learn how to fight it). And I imagine it will always have a place in the "competitive" game, which is fine. But to say that it is still strong is bad for the game is just insane.