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Episode 8: The Gifts that Keep on Giving
98 Plays1 year ago
A long time ago… in a windy city, far, far away… Your hosts Nick, Andrew, and guest Pym dive into a clarifying meta change, the 16 player rule, and a reflection on 312 over the years! The holiday are fully upon us!
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Transcript
Introduction and Year-End Finale
00:00:02
Speaker
You are listening to the 312 Squadron podcast. My name is Nick Sperry. And I'm Andrew Kuba. And I'm Andrew Lippins.
00:00:11
Speaker
This week, we are joined live by our subscribers for this live recording here for episode eight, the end of the year finale. Super excited to get into a lot that we have on the docket today. We're going to wrap up a successful year for 312 Squadron. We talk Pax and the man who cannot be stopped, Duncan Howard. We talk about X-wing gifts. We hope to see under the quote unquote tree this holiday season and more. So, guys, how are you guys doing?
00:00:40
Speaker
Yeah, I'm doing well. Thanks for asking. It's been fun getting closer to the holiday season. Feels like December's flying by already.
Pax Event Highlights
00:00:51
Speaker
Yeah, it's it's going to it come and goes very quickly. I almost forgot that Pax was happening this past weekend, and there were a bunch of people there that I knew in a few that did really, really well, specifically Andrew Block. Yeah. To my man, Andrew, who made top table final table. Yeah. And finished number two overall, I think losing only on a direct hit. I think that was the
00:01:21
Speaker
The finishing is always that like that last that last shot, man, that like second place can be one of the loneliest places, but it's it's a testament just to Andrew's playing ability that he even got there in the first place. And that's so wonderful to see. Also, another Andrew X-Wing. We're always happy to see it for the the Andrew Bowl.
00:01:43
Speaker
I feel like a fraud being a Nick in this trio here. There's two is that what he's going to number me two to one. Well, I'm a fraudulent guy. What can I say?
00:01:54
Speaker
I was gonna say, you're an honorary Andrew. I think you can be an honorary Andrew for sure. Oh, thank you. As long as I'm not Drew, I definitely don't want to lose the draw. No one wants to be Drew. Well, that's why the Andrew goal is so intense. Yeah, very intense. It is an intense field of matchups for sure.
Worlds Open Qualifier and Upcoming Events
00:02:14
Speaker
So, I mean, let's dive into packs.
00:02:18
Speaker
Another major Worlds Open qualifier. There's only one more left until we hit Worlds in March at Adepticon, and that's at LVO, which Andrew and I, Andrew Cuba, and I will be at. I don't think Pym will be there. I don't want to speak for you, Pym, but I don't think you're planning on going. No, I'm traveling to Manchester, England for the SysTaker Open in February. Very cool. And I don't think I can swing LVO.
00:02:42
Speaker
STO and then adept icon. Yeah. Yeah. If you have to pick a couple of those, it's a lot. That's a lot of money. Yeah. No kidding. That's that's so cool though. Oh, I'm thrilled. I'm very excited. Not a world, but it's a very, very fun event. Usually gets most of the European community out to it. Oh, that's great. Very cool.
Meta Analysis: Han Solo and Faction Trends
00:03:05
Speaker
Yeah. So
00:03:07
Speaker
With PAX, I'm going to opt to, we're not going to go through Swiss in mighty detail, but I do want to take a look at just kind of the top breakdown here and initial impressions. And then, of course, we will talk about the top two lists and the winner of the event, Duncan Howard. Again, congrats to Duncan, who the plot armor was with him. He went completely undefeated all the way through to the end, which is something that he is privy to do at times. Very, very, very, very good X-Wing player.
00:03:35
Speaker
one of the best in the country and in the world. Just looking, I'm curious guys, your first impressions, Pym, I'll throw it to you first, just scrolling through these lists. Faction wise, any pilots standing out to you that maybe you're a little bit of a surprise and then a little bit of same old, same old, right? Yeah, a little bit. I think the first, I haven't dove into these too much. The first thing I noticed though was
00:04:02
Speaker
Uh, so a comment that we had in the Nickel City, um, X-Men discussion channel was not a lot of Hans, um, in top. They were, I think I counted, I went through and counted because I was curious. There were seven Hans in the event. I believe two of them made cut or made day two.
00:04:19
Speaker
The whole day to cut thing is always confusing out of. Second Swiss, secondary Swiss. Yeah. I always feel like, what do you call that? I guess second day of Swiss is the best thing. But what was interesting to me about that is a lot of the rebel lists were flying the Fen-Rao, Fen-Han Luke Kiyo build, the same ish build. And Jonathan Grasser was the one who ends up making cut with it.
00:04:43
Speaker
and getting the top four. It was only top four cut right now. It's happy. Mm hmm. Correct. OK. Yeah. Yeah. Well, there's over 70 players I saw. So I would think that they would do a top eight like a Golden State game. If they cut it, I think it was a cut to a four. Was it? I think it was a cut to a four. Yeah, in the cut, it only has one through four. That's true. Yeah. OK. So there you go. Only one hon in the in the cut, as it were. But in top.
00:05:11
Speaker
I think there was only one Han, which is top 16, maybe only one Han, which was Jonathan Graster flying again, that Fenrao, Han Solo, Luke Skywalker, Kaleid build. And I believe four of the Han lists were that, maybe five of them were. I was just surprised not to see, when it comes to Han lists, only seeing, I think, one or two five ship lists. I don't think there was anyone running the Hera, Luke, Bodega, Han that I know popped up a couple times in XTC.
00:05:41
Speaker
That was one of the surprising things for me, is which Han was showing up, or which Han friends were showing up. And the other one was, I think, only one Triple Arc list, which was Jayna, also from Nickel City. I think she was the only one flying the standard Padme, Annie, the Paul Huber LSO list, which surprised me, considering I think that one's still pretty strong.
00:06:05
Speaker
I do wonder if these two, you know, the lack of Han, the lack of the Arcs, I wonder if that, or lack of three Arcs anyways. Obviously Duncan was fine to him. I wonder if that shows a shift in the meta, not necessarily due to balance, but due to player fatigue.
00:06:23
Speaker
right of maybe players are just tired of playing that list, playing the same thing over and over again. You know, people are... Yeah. Go ahead. Oh, I was going to say, I just, I think people figured them out. I think people figured out how to beat Han. Potentially. I think it is more of the fatigue, I would think, but that's just my opinion. Yeah. I go back and forth in that because I think
00:06:46
Speaker
I think Han, Han is still, I mean, the Rebel 5 ship was the one that I was, I was kind of, you know, I expect to see more of, which is the Han, Luke, Sabine, and then two, I think two, three pointers at that point, maybe a three and a four, can't remember what else to fit there. That's the one I expect to see. No, I think it's, I don't want to do bad. I think it's two threes. That's the one I expect to see when it comes to Han-less. I don't want to see why two of those surprised me. I think that one's the more beatable one that people figured out. The triple arcs, I think, is still really solid.
00:07:15
Speaker
Um, and I think the burden of execution is very much on the opponent for that list. Um, with a few caveats of you need to be able to find media base as well, which I know not all of us, like I'm, I'll tell you right now I'm terrible at finding media bases. I just haven't done enough. Um, but I think that one's.
00:07:35
Speaker
Even though it's figured out, you know, as you say, I think it's still even if you know how to beat it, I think it's still hard to beat it. Oh, yeah, it's still good. I don't I don't think I don't think I mean, the fact that even ones in the top four. But I think that it's it's less of a safe option to take. It's not as guaranteed as it was before.
00:07:57
Speaker
Especially with the rise, there's quite a bit of resistance, like the five T-70s or the Poe in the YT 1300, which can be a good counter to those Han lists. And then also, there's a lot of empire.
00:08:17
Speaker
in here as well. Yeah. Empire is is rearing its its head. Yeah. A little bit more and more before always been good. Yes. I would say before we get the empire to one thing I noticed was there's a lot of first order that's also pop that made it to the higher also had a really good win record. I think if I was being slept on right now by the community at large, I think people and I think to an extent always has been a little slept on.
00:08:48
Speaker
But there's a lot of variations between F.O. list and I think a lot of them are still really viable. Obviously, I think an F.O. list won Worlds, right? Wasn't that what Nicholas was finding? That was Nicholas's guy, yeah. And it really didn't get hit with any buffs and our nerfs in that points update. The only thing we lost was shield upgrades. Besides shield upgrades, I think being happy. I mean, that's really what it was. It was all loadout points, though, yeah. His elusive rolls, dude.
00:09:13
Speaker
We're so good. His elusive re-rolls, I will never forget how many conversions he got in his elusive re-rolls. It was like 70%. I mean, I think that's, yeah, any tournament, just always a little bit of luck.
00:09:25
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. But I usually put yourself in a position to, you know, put yourself in a position to where the capital is on it. But absolutely. Anyways, more, more of the story is I think FO is still really strong. I think it was strong before the points update. I think it was strong after the points update. And I think people, I think as we get closer worlds, you're going to see that more often now. I think it does counter some of the Republic stuff well and can counter some of the rebel stuff.
00:09:52
Speaker
I think it also counters the resistance stuff pretty well, too. I think a lot like Zori, who's showing up a lot, I think those C70s don't love Jam either. I mean, there's a lot of things you can do there. Yeah, I mean, Jam is strong. It's great at the objectives. Any of the Kylo builds can produce crits really well. Yes, I agree. Is a slept on action. Some of those Kylo silencer builds are absolutely disgusting, too. If he's like a vegan fit,
00:10:20
Speaker
I was joking the other night, and you can fit out maneuver plasma torpedoes and magpoles in the same sheet. B. Freeman was number four, had Kylo with
00:10:31
Speaker
Is this, yeah, brilliant, brilliant evasion, instinctive aim, concussion missiles, advanced optics, and the, of course, the jamming suite. I would associate myself with Crispy a lot, because I feel like he was flying that a lot, as while it was becoming more popular, the instinctive aim optics missile, Kylo. I think he switched at some point, but that's the one I stole. Yeah. I should say that's what Crispy does a lot. I mean, optics is really good on a four-seizer. Nick and I saw that work with Doug Howe at the Miniature Mart store championship.
00:11:00
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, Andrew and I had some frustrating games. I brought scum and I got the scum experience. I won like one into three, but I lost two games by two points. So I wasn't really that, I didn't think it was like a lost cause thing. Obviously scums in a really bad spot as you're not seeing them pop up here until God, I'm scrolling still 36th.
00:11:23
Speaker
But the thing about the scum list that always surprised me is like the ones that are doing well consistently for defining well, right? The best scum list right now are like multiple fang lists, which really surprised me. It's not like, it's not the big, beefy, you know, large base ships, which I, you know, you come to expect from scum, but like these, these fang fighters right now, I think they require, again, talking about a list that requires a lot of
00:11:50
Speaker
A lot of skill to fly well, those fangs die really fast if you're not careful. But if you can fly them well, you can do some work with them. I will say, Fenrao is like, I don't think we ever doubted his ability when even when he was seven, just because list building was so bad and still is kind of bad for scum. I just, he wasn't played much. Now he's played more because he's six. And I got to say, I was really, really impressed with
00:12:17
Speaker
the capabilities in the way that he kind of shakes up people's strategies when it comes to playing the objective and having to worry about necessarily leaving yourself out the dryer scrambling and then taking a range one shot with no defensive mods and getting one shot at AI.
00:12:35
Speaker
You know, but yeah, with Mandalorian Optics and Besskar, especially Besskar, I think he's not, he's as threatening as he is, difficult to kill, just that much more difficult. I know you could throw a shield upgrade on him as well, which helps. I didn't, I didn't run him with that, but I've seen some very nice builds that I like quite a bit too. Just giving him access to that, that will reposition, I think is very good when you only have four health. But yeah, there's certainly a lot you can do with him.
00:13:02
Speaker
Yeah, I I was I actually liked the list that I brought. I thought it was decent. I had a I had a good mixture of initiatives, coordinating abilities, jamming. I loved what Sivor was able to do into like just playing him in two point five. He's a great piece at three points like.
00:13:21
Speaker
His mitigation to jamming off people's mods. I put enduring on him to just make it even harder to knock a crate off of him. It worked. Like it actually helped. And I was still having fun, but I could tell that I was like one dice roll away from being outmatched and not being able to come back. Whereas I think some other lists and other factions have a little bit more grace in the right hands. Scum doesn't afford you that. Yeah, like playing Dace Bonarm in a hawk.
00:13:50
Speaker
It's like, great, you got days will decro cool, but your five whole eye for. There are five hit points, I for right. So in this in this new meta where it's very firepower heavy, you can you can lose that race very fast. Yeah, exactly. So sorry, back to back to two packs, just just to chime
Pax Top Lists In-Depth Analysis
00:14:11
Speaker
in in terms of what I'm seeing. I worry. I think I am officially going to put the flag down and say we are in a rack
00:14:20
Speaker
meta right now. We have entered the rack meta that Empire is, even though it was popular and has been good for quite some time, there is another variance of viable Empire lists out there that feature Rear Admiral Chirnew, that i5 decimator, often featuring Darth Vader crew to take away your mods or to deal damage that you can't negate, you can't stop.
00:14:46
Speaker
That threat is ridiculous. We'll talk about Vader crew later, but I was thinking can I build a list with Vader and rack? You know Vader pilot and I jambly did to me jambly the only thing is like does the list how much of the list needs Darth Vader crew to Get you over that hump that these great players are getting overs including
00:15:10
Speaker
block. I guess Chamblie proved that you don't have to have Vader crew on your rear admiral chair to do well. I was just when I'm list building, I'm like, do I can I run Vader next to rack right now? Is that like a good idea? Or do I need him for the crew? Seriously, don't you know which Vader pilot he was running?
00:15:29
Speaker
Was it Battle of Yavin? I believe so. Does it say starter set? Just looking at the results just as Vader. Which which one is this? Chambalaya Chambalaya. Oh, yeah. So then that would be the Battle of Yavin, Vader. OK. Yeah.
00:15:51
Speaker
Battle of the Avon Vader, I know in the Nickel City X-Wing discord, we're having some back and forth about his value and his flexibility versus Starset Vader. It's clear that Battle of the Avon Vader has and is still extremely meta viable. I just think the dynamic of all the Vaders has been shaken up because we have another Vader that lets you do a lot as well with the action economy. Just depends on what kind of
00:16:17
Speaker
You want if you don't just want to go for pure kill four hits every time three hits every time value out invader Certainly probably a better bet Empire is really interesting to me because it's a faction that I think early on in this point said it was Singled out as one of the most how more powerful ones It's been and then they kind of drop for a lot of people want to talk about him that much now They're kind of the own back to him again
00:16:42
Speaker
But the bombers are obviously very good. Even before the standard loadout ones came out, afterwards, they're still very good. The SL standard ones and the custom ones, Vader's obviously great. Rack, of course, is really a monster right now. Yeah, and I'd say since the 2.5 change, I think
00:17:01
Speaker
Empire has always been in that like top three faction conversation. Well, I think historically they've always been there, too. That's true. If you go back to the dawn of the game, they've always been one of the most powerful. They've done a good job of keeping Empire consistently meta viable. I will say that in the first. For the first five or six years, there's only three factions. There's like two and three. Well, that's true. But they've kept them consistently not. But yes, I guess is what I'd be to say. But I think they were.
00:17:30
Speaker
Yeah, yeah, they've always been extremely good. Yeah, can we fix scum by having them just enter join the Empire again like it No, they gotta be there. Yeah. No, I was kidding so before I go we go into blocks and Howard's list
00:17:47
Speaker
I wanted to point out that one of the reasons why I gravitated to Empire this meta cycle is because I feel like there is the most variety of the factions that I like to play in Empire that I feel like I could take not only to the game store, but to a tournament and win a few games minimum with.
00:18:07
Speaker
I don't feel that way with Republic with rebels, not to say that necessarily that's a fact, but I do know that you can go. You can look at the interceptors. You can look at the decimators. You can look at the Thai advanced X ones. You can look at Thai fighters like the boys. You can look at all these the Reapers. You anything that's standard legal and empire baby, maybe not the heavy right now, but anything else. Yeah.
00:18:34
Speaker
Even strikers, you can build a good list with the bombers, obviously. Right. Mm hmm. Countdown's been seen some play and it's pretty effective as a little objective runner. Yeah. Countdown. And then it was going to count down the one you stress to cancel results. Yes. Yes. Yeah.
00:18:51
Speaker
I was going to say, even in it, like looking at packs to, um, you know, Chris Apple is, is running grand Inquisitor. So yeah, with, with Vader, uh, and, you know, came in 14th. Like we're seeing a lot of variety with these lists as well. Yep. Yeah. So it's not just, we're just seeing one way to build. Empire, um, even 23rd Vader, Volskaris, uh, and then captain Farrah.
00:19:21
Speaker
Well, sub wall was flying Rex, the breath and juke and barrage. Yep. Um, several others is a very good player. No, we're on the nickel city, uh, discord, but you know, he's, he's been making the defender work pretty well too, which we haven't seen many defenders outside of Vader in the past. I don't know. Since sky strike came out, really. Yeah. Yeah. That's one of the surprises. It's a really good chance. It's a lot of points, but it's a, it's still, it's a phenomenal ship.
00:19:50
Speaker
Yeah, it's one of my favorite just to fly. Yeah, I think seven points were more than fair to be honest. Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. In a world where you can do so much with nine points right now, it you consolidating it to one ship despite the power ability is just an extraordinarily difficult task. So to your point to about.
00:20:13
Speaker
To your point about Rebels being less diverse right now than other factions, or at least other than Empire as you were saying is why you've kind of gone to Empire. I actually think Rebels are pretty diverse and have a lot of options right now.
00:20:28
Speaker
I think the problem is Han is so efficient that it feels like it feels wrong. It does start with Han, right? Yeah, it just feels wrong. It starts with Han. Right, exactly. You're not wrong. You're not wrong. What do you say? I personally have had, I personally do a lot better with Rebels when I just don't take Han. I don't know something about Han's gameplay. I just don't enjoy right now. I will say. But I have that nagging feeling, though, of you should just take Han.
00:20:54
Speaker
Yeah, I was just going to say that in the hands of somebody who's inexperienced. And it will be it is hard to win with Han and keep him alive and know what you're doing. And the objective, the obstacle placement can also for him as well. Even oh yeah, there's a good player using them, right? So yeah, I mean, there's still drawbacks and passing in turn zero. Yes. Yeah.
00:21:21
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. Let's so let's take a look at the main two lists here that met each other at final table. I'll I'll do velvet Buddha. They made each other in day two of Swiss as well. That was the first match of that day for both of them. Oh, gosh. Yeah, remember the Swiss opportunity for velvet Buddha who did bring a rack list. I saw this version of this list at Crossroads. He did tweak it a bit.
00:21:49
Speaker
So, Buddha brought Rear Admiral Jirnu with Deathtroopers Darth Vader crew, agile gutter, ruthless, tauntless, and electronic baffle. Then he had the bomber pack, standardized Tomax Bren, which, as most of you guys know, has got the plasma torpedoes, the ion bombs.
00:22:07
Speaker
And the opportunity to every other turn after he does a barrel roll, he can gain a focus token, which allows him to link. He can then link the barrel roll into a lock or double moded plasmas, which is pretty, pretty good. Or you could just barrel roll to get the focus. Still very strong. Deathfire, another I believe this is the death. Yeah, this is the death fire that also is standardized. I don't think so.
00:22:33
Speaker
Yeah. Trajectory simulator. When he gets to basically after he does a three, a three to five, he just launches or drops. Yeah. Or drops. Yeah. Drops or launches speed three.
00:22:44
Speaker
Yeah, it's really strong. Major Rimer in the bomber as well. This is the third bomber in the list with the Sats, the classic Sats salvo barrage rocket combination and ion bombs and then fair off with triple zero and ruthless. So there's some coordinating ability in that Reaper and triple zero. You can get that calculate if you get close, you can threaten people with stress and then ruthless to convert your attacks. Keep yourself consistent.
00:23:10
Speaker
Great. And then I've shipped lists. Yeah. If they're close enough to rack with those death troopers, potentially keep it. I can't believe all that fits in a list. It's it's it's blows my mind how it's I mean, I experienced it at miniature market. It's like never getting an action again. Oh, I hate death. Death troopers are brutal.
00:23:30
Speaker
Well combo with major crew is ridiculous because it's like hey, there's no way you can get a green token and take the damage Yeah, I mean simply put this list is has a ton of health has high initiative has bombs has a lot of different threats that you can't really you can only play against and strategize against so many of those things at once and
00:23:53
Speaker
It's actually got, you say high initiative, but it's only got, I mean, this is going to sound ridiculous, but it's only got two I fives. Yeah. Um, which in, in the today's list building world, right? You usually have at least an I six and I five, maybe a couple of fives, then nothing really under three, but you've got.
00:24:10
Speaker
You've got two, five, three, four, three, and a two. Yep. I mean, yeah, you've got a whole. Oh, Deathfire is a two, not a three, huh? Yeah. Yep. Just a two. Yeah. I mean, it gives you, I think that gives you a lot of options where I think now you're almost guaranteed to be first player in a lot of match-ups with Deathfire, right? You're almost guaranteed to go first with him, which I think brings back blocking in a really, um,
00:24:32
Speaker
good way because I know people argue about blocking instead, but it's really not. I mean, it's still a very important thing where you can cause, you know, the conga line bumps in your opponents or force of stress when you've got death troopers or even alternatively just body block from an objective action. Right. Also when you got bombs with it too, yeah. Blocking and bombs is a great combination.
00:24:53
Speaker
Yeah, I think that's one thing that helps us list a lot. Between Fair Off and Deathfire, there's two pretty low-initiative blockers that can get in and create some havoc pretty easily, which I think really helps with Rak staying alive and being kind of a, you know, allowing him to just do whatever he wants with that Reinforced Ruth list, just start turning damage out. Yeah, definitely. Andrew, Kuba.
00:25:22
Speaker
Why don't you take Duncan Howard's list? If you don't mind reading that one out, a four ship Republic list. Yeah. So Duncan is flying Anakin Skywalker with Predator RP 17 and shield upgrade. Seven be any in the seven. Yeah. And then Addie Gallia is carbureted calibrated laser targeting C 110 P and debris gambit getting those evades near obstacles.
00:25:51
Speaker
And then Oddball, which is the Siege Coruscant version, and then Wolf, and this looks like the build yourself with the veteran tail gunner, R4P, Astromech, and Expert Handling to get those barrel rolls. You lose Boring for this, and you trade out Q7 for R4P, which is an easy upgrade. And you lose Wolfpack too.
00:26:15
Speaker
Wolfpack when you don't have Jag around isn't as good, because that's the one that lets you spend locks of other ships with Born for this or Plo Koon. But when you don't have Jag around to generate infinite locks for you, it kind of doesn't matter. Yeah, I mean, this list is a lot of heavy lifting for the Jedi, just in terms of, it's a four-ship list with two-one agility, you know, middle initiative. And Oddball, obviously, is in there.
00:26:40
Speaker
I mean, those those arcs are good, but they are they're also vulnerable. So, yeah, that is that is there's a lot of definitely a skill element to being able to fly to arcs like that and keep them alive. But really, really good Jedi for any sort of flanking maneuvers. You can just crush it.
00:27:06
Speaker
Adigalia has the Inquisitor ability, right? Like it's the reverse screen Inquisitor. It's deny the range bonus at one and then nigh it at three, right?
00:27:17
Speaker
Yeah, where Grand Quizitors apply the range bonus on defense and apply it on offense. Defenders cannot apply the range bonus, yeah. Yeah, yeah. She's got basically the inverse of that. I thought so the Quizitor can apply the range one bonus at range three and then deny the range bonus when defending at range one. Yeah, so she can deny the range one bonus when she's defending and she can deny the range three bonus when she's attacking.
00:27:42
Speaker
For the for the defendant. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It's pure denial. It's not all. OK. It's not pure denial. Got it. Yeah. I think the value is good. The Inquisitor affects his dice, I guess. Kind of.
00:27:55
Speaker
I feel like when Adi Gali came out, she just kind of came and went. People played her a little bit, but I think she's always been good. I just don't know. The Jedi are in a weird spot in terms of all of the Jedi in list building right now in the meta. There's a lot. The key thing with Adi is she's got the most loadout of... I guess Plo has more, but her ability is a little more useful than Plo. But she's got more loadout than Obi-Wan, and I think that's kind of the key. That's why you take her over that.
00:28:24
Speaker
I think the same slots. I actually think Obi-Wan has double modification. Yeah, they've got the same Ish slots. Obi-Wan's got a second Force talent and a regular talent. But Adi's abilities are sneaky and really good at trying to keep yourself alive when you've got both of these Jedi on the flank, and you've got these two Arcs coming up the middle, forcing your opponent to choose what they're going to go after, and then reacting based on that.
00:28:54
Speaker
This is definitely one of the more aggressive lists where I think I didn't watch any of these games. It wasn't streamed, so I can't speak to how Duncan flew it. But from what I've heard, you don't have the most flexibility with objectives with this list, like the other five or six Ship Republic, where you can send Slider off or whatever to pick up a crate and then not care for the rest of the game. So it's definitely an aggressive list that can pounce pretty easily if you're not careful.
00:29:25
Speaker
You know, with chopper and CLT on AD, she can, she can hit pretty hard, even though she's only got that two die primary, right? She can jam you, she can get that bullseye. Yeah. That's a lot of denial that Adigalia is able to produce.
00:29:44
Speaker
Yeah, Duncan is good at building lists that are just off meta enough that when you put it together on your squad builder, you'd say no chance and he makes it and he makes it happen. That's something that that another player in Nickel City was talking about, too, that they've talked to, you know, Duncan's a local. They talked to him about this before about Duncan likes to.
00:30:05
Speaker
likes to go off meta just to give his opponents more of a challenge, right? You haven't seen this before. You have to kind of adapt to it on the fly a little more, which there's something to be said about that. I think... I like it. I think Buddha's List does that as well, because I think Farof is not something that people are used to seeing right now. I think Deathfire is still... I think he's catching on. Yes. But he's not as common as like Jonas and Reimer, or I know he's got Reimer in there too.
00:30:34
Speaker
But I think Jonas to Max Reimer is still like the three you expect to see. Yeah, people are just trying to, I think before people were going for the high initiative, but I think death fire is just powerful enough on its own that we're just going to start seeing a lot of death fire.
00:30:51
Speaker
or more often, for sure. But both of these lists, to me, strike me as some, like you said, they're just off meta enough to still be viable, but also give your opponent at least some kind of hesitation when they're facing it or something they're not used to seeing, which is definitely a valuable skill. Yeah, so departure from what we've been seeing, for sure. You probably wouldn't have practiced against either of these lists before this event, right? If you're practicing for the event, you're looking at the meta, you're probably not playing against either of these lists verbatim, at least.
00:31:21
Speaker
Yeah, I think I will say that I was surprised at Gen Con to see Duncan playing 3, 2, 7, and Po. It's not like it was the most meta thing, but of the resistance list. That was one that I've seen a few times in Joel, one hour story champ with it. I think he won a story champ with it in the summer, because that was a list that I know
00:31:43
Speaker
I remember Dom was also flying that Dominic. Yeah, thank you. Dominic Flanagan from Ireland was also flying that at the same time. Both very, both very good players. I was gonna say I saw a lot of that at GenCon too, that list. Yeah, I think that's a list that's a little and it's
00:32:03
Speaker
I think that list has a lot, or I always get confused when we talk about ceiling and floor. I think it's almost has a lot of potential. Um, I think it's a very high, uh, you can achieve a very high level of success with it, but I think the floor for it and the barrier to entry with it is a little bit higher than most of the five ship resistance lists we're saying right now. It's got a high. Yeah. Yeah. That extra body just losing that extra body means you've got to be a lot more careful with your G seventies and also know when to,
00:32:33
Speaker
go for objectives now when you can dive and try to kill, which it can do well. It's a fun list. I've flown it a couple of times. But it's very fun. Poe Falcon's right now a crazy fun ship to fly.
Podcast Growth and Future Plans
00:32:45
Speaker
Yeah. Before we move on from Pax, I do want to go circle back to Vader really quick. And I want to ask both of you, what are your thoughts on
00:32:57
Speaker
Vader's power level right now. For those at home who maybe need a reminder as to what Vader does at the start of the engagement phase, you may spend one force and choose an enemy ship at range zero to two. You do, that ship either removes a green token or suffers one damage.
00:33:14
Speaker
So obviously paired with death troopers can accommodate a lot more damage if they can't clear the stress and they're nearby rack or any decimeter carrying or actually I think rack is the one that can do both. Anyways, what are your guys thoughts on the play experience dealing with Vader? Do you think maybe there's there should be some level of tweak, whether it be points or an errata or do you think he is 100% totally fine the way he is at 1412 points? Well, he's at 12 points.
00:33:44
Speaker
And I think he's fine at 12. There's not a lot of shifts that can take him. If you take him as crew, you can't take him as a ship. I think that's good enough. And his ability is very good. It does give some agency to the player. And while it's good combined with death troopers on rack, I don't think that it's at a point where
00:34:12
Speaker
I don't feel like it spoils anything right now. I saw that smirk, Pym. He smirked pretty hard there. I disagree strongly with that statement. I disagree strongly. Let me split it up. I don't know if he's not fine at 12. I don't know if I can speak to that. I've always hated him as a crew.
00:34:37
Speaker
I think anything that does auto damage in this game is very powerful and always has been. And I think something with perfect information auto damage like that is a really tricky thing to balance well, to say the least. The thing I really disagree with with Andrew on is the agency thing. I think he removes a lot of agencies from the game. And I think that's why he's a problem for a lot of players, at least when combined with death troopers. I think that
00:35:05
Speaker
Obviously there's ways to mitigate it with, if you have a green token you've got a choice. But I think something like Death Troopers being around in the same ship creates this... I don't want to be the guy who just comes and lambasts the thing he hates.
00:35:24
Speaker
Because I do despise that build for a lot of reasons. But I think maybe my feelings of this, as I explain it, I think maybe my feelings are more skewed towards death troopers than Vader itself. Maybe both of them in a vacuum I think are OK. I think it's combined is when the real issue arises.
00:35:42
Speaker
Both are really irritating to deal with and they remove your agency in certain ways. Because while you still have the choice to remove the green token or take the damage, you're still losing your mod. So you're effectively losing your action, right, if you're not careful. And with Rak being i5, he's got usually a pretty good chance of knowing where you will be.
00:36:02
Speaker
And with the side-to-side turret, it's hard to say, just don't be in his turret arc, right? Like that's not the easiest thing to accomplish when he's I-5 and agile gunner too. Yeah. But you got this big wide turret, so it's hard to say don't be that close to him, which is obviously the ideal, but with large base.
00:36:20
Speaker
He wants to kind of wrang himself in there. They have a white force straight, man. They can move. Those things move. They're quick. They don't turn the greatest, but they're quick, going straight at least. Yeah, I mean, a white force straight is what, like a six straight on a large base. So it's, yeah. I mean, it's, I think that's a range three. Maybe. I think range three. Yeah, yeah. I mean, yeah. On a base. Yeah. More of the story is, I think,
00:36:50
Speaker
I think it's the combination of all three things where the problem arises right now. I think on their own, they both involve removing agency. So when you're stacking them on top of each other, it becomes more of an issue that I think needs to be addressed, but I don't know how.
00:37:04
Speaker
Um, because I don't necessarily think, I don't necessarily think they need to get nerfed either. I don't like, again, cause I think it's on their own. I don't think they're as bad, but I'm sure people can roast me for that take, but I mean, I mean, it's reasonable. The, the, the new rules with, with the bumping. Um, and I think makes, you know, death troopers like a lot better, but I'm.
00:37:31
Speaker
I mean, there's there's not. I mean, I think RAC is one of the only ships that can even take that combo. I think all the decis can. But all of this rag is just the best because he's I five. It's got three slots, Pam. There's no three crews. Right. I think Mornick does have three. Or maybe there's one more one, one other choice, like.
00:37:51
Speaker
Morna, but Morna can take two crew, but it has, it has 20. So yeah, it was just racking. Yeah. Let's take three. I think one of the crew from here.
00:38:02
Speaker
Yeah, my my ideas are so I had a couple. There's one that I've heard. I'm going to give great cash to shout out for this one is just an errata of zero to one instead of zero to two, zero to two from a large base is pretty far still. Yeah, I go back and forth on that one. I think zero to one it.
00:38:25
Speaker
It's still good and they still move fast, but it doesn't. It's not a sort of combo with death troopers where it's like super terrifying like it is right now with zero to two because you there's the zero. There's zero one band. You can't clear the stress and then even at zero to two, you can still be taking the auto damage. So you have to be far away from the desk. You might be running away from it. It's hard to range control when they have perfect information, large base and you have to move towards it to clear stress.
00:38:52
Speaker
And you can't clear it once you get close enough. So the other thing that I personally believe and this is this is some confirmation Anecdotal bias. I was at this miniature market event. I had Fenrao go head-to-head with with rack for a kill and If if it was there was an errata where it wasn't started the engagement phase, but before you engage
00:39:14
Speaker
Maybe it changes the dynamic of like the damage that goes through on rack. He can get initiative killed at initiative six, which isn't going to happen very often, but it's possible. I don't really think that that's going to move the needle very much. I just think it maybe is interesting because maybe if you're second player at five, it shifts things a little bit. Do you need that force for another purpose? Maybe probably not.
00:39:39
Speaker
I don't hate that change at all. I think that's a decent change because I think then it also gives other i5s a chance to return fire, which as silly as it sounds at least gives you... When we're talking about something like this where it's an agency issue, you want to make sure you're not taking too much control out of a player's hands because then it feels useless. Anything I do is useless. Anything I do is frivolous. I'm wasting my time. This sucks.
00:40:05
Speaker
Um, started before you engage at least gives you some sort of like, okay. I'm still screwed, but I have a consolation prize of a shot. Right. And that's at least psychologically gives you something more than just, well, this game sucks. I hate this. I'm just being punished unfairly. Yeah. I do think that if I were to predict changes, that this would be one that would be actually addressed slot wise or points wise or something that they would do something. Yeah.
00:40:33
Speaker
Maybe, but I don't know. I'm still thinking, though, that it's on a decimator. It can still be a very fragile ship.
00:40:43
Speaker
And also, I mean, I'm not sure how often it's happening. I don't know if fragile is ever the word to describe a decimator with a reinforce. I mean, yeah, it's good. But I mean, they're only with the four shields. I mean, they're not. Yeah, there's ways to kill it. It's definitely killable. I'm not. Yeah, it's not. Yeah, that's I guess we're not talking unbeatable. It's just does it. I think the question for me is it is it fun to play against?
00:41:12
Speaker
And I don't think everything in the game needs to be fun to play against, but then the question becomes, is it too oppressive to play against? Or how unfun is it, right? How unfun or negative the play experience is. And this is when it just comes up. Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. No, exactly. Yeah. Well, the beautiful thing about discussion, especially on this podcast, is we all have different ideas and different opinions. That's right. I guess I wouldn't be surprised either way if they do nothing or if they change something.
00:41:42
Speaker
I'm not gonna be that pessimistic, nevermind, continue on. I do want to really quickly kind of call out this podcast really quick as we kind of move on from PAX and everything that we've been able to do with the channel, the 312.
00:42:00
Speaker
For those of you that maybe aren't aware, we hit a pretty big growth spurt the last year in terms of our capabilities and what we've been able to do, not just streaming at home, streaming more often, streaming in person. Having our podcast, Andrew, of course, thank you again for producing this.
00:42:20
Speaker
being a huge help in taking that off my plate because it is, we do a lot behind the scenes. And even though we're not streaming four or five times a week, as much as I'd like to, which, you know, we will stream more in the future. There's a lot to be said about where we started versus where we are now. This is the eighth episode already of this podcast and we've had some great
00:42:40
Speaker
feedback, a good reception so far from people who have tuned in and listened, and I hope to do this with you guys a lot more moving forward, and that's the plan. Yeah, we've got big plans, though, for 2024. I just wanted to let you all know and tease some things.
00:42:58
Speaker
We streamed eight in-person events, including my role in helping Gold Squadron for a couple. That is a lot of in-person coverage for local events and as big as Crossroads, which was a big two-day event, about 50 people playing at that one.
00:43:17
Speaker
And we're planning to do even more of that in 2024. I know, Pym, you kind of tried to snopes me on this, but I am confident in saying that of the events featuring a world's invite in the store champ kit, we have streamed the most individual events. I just want to see a fact check.
00:43:35
Speaker
Show me the facts. So I'm more than happy for somebody to say that's not true. There are a lot of great X-wing streams out there, but streaming in person is a task. And there's also not that many X-wing events happening at your local game store in your area to be able to stream as many times as we have been fortunate enough to do so. And it wouldn't be possible without everybody getting us to where we are, the big fundraiser we had.
00:43:58
Speaker
to get the in-person equipment that we needed for commentary. That's been a huge success. Everybody that's joined me for the commentary has been great. We've had so much fun and we're really proud of the quality and the standards that I think we've set as we kind of break on into this world of streaming.
00:44:17
Speaker
Xwing 2.5, leading up to Worlds and beyond. So just wanted to thank you guys. In terms of financially, this is something that is worth bringing up. I'm not going to go long winded here, but money through Twitch, half of it is taken away from us. It's just the way it is. We've never done this to make money, though. So I really want to preface that, that this isn't an endeavor to make any sort of money. It is an endeavor now to just make sure we don't lose a lot of money.
00:44:47
Speaker
So we will be starting a unique low tier Patreon in 2024 that will feature rewards discounts on entry for online leagues and in-person events and more. We'll talk about that later on. But I just want to let you guys know that we will put in a little bit more effort to give you guys more while also trying to put some amount of money back into the stream, even if it just pays for gas to Indianapolis or something like that. It's really helpful. So yeah.
00:45:16
Speaker
Nick, what did you start the... When did you start 312? 312 Squadron. 312? 312 Squadron. The 312 Squadron. The 312 Squadron. This was actually 2019. We started streaming in person. Yeah, just before COVID. We started streaming in person, then doing online, then growing it and doing a really great job growing it and creating great commentary.
00:45:42
Speaker
and doing plenty of impersonation. Really incredible growth, all to become a cash grab at year five. Ever since we went public, man, it's for the shareholders, dude. It's always the shareholders. Yeah, the shareholders. So you, Kuva, and I assume Manny,
00:46:01
Speaker
You got to pay for that hot tub addiction somehow. The beach addiction for me. Don't worry. The Patreon buddy will not. I don't have room for any more Lego. If you're worried about a scandal, be using the money for Lego. I don't have room for Lego anymore, guys. Honestly, you can blame the oil companies. The gas prices have gone up.
00:46:25
Speaker
just the time and energy it just takes to set up for tournaments and take a weekend out for travel and finding lodging and everything like that too. Not to mention, for the quality stream, that means that Nick has had to buy some pretty pricey equipment already.
00:46:45
Speaker
Yeah, you don't want to know how much money that laptop costs me, but it's worth it because we run a stream without lag and without any serious issues, which is the fundamental. And you can do that anywhere in any store, no matter what setup they have, internet-wise.
00:47:03
Speaker
Lastly, it did float online leagues. Those will be returning. You know, every every few months we'll be doing something new and creative. Coming up in January, there will be a team league. It's very different from the draft league. It'll be teams of three.
00:47:18
Speaker
all playing against each other in the same division or whatever you want to call it. And then we'll have a top cut of the teams playing against each other. So that'll be people put together their own teams. It'll be it'll be a lot of fun and excited to do that. We'll stay tuned for more information. We'll be posting that about that on Facebook and in our discord. So that will be coming up not too far from now. Can't wait to see you there. Yeah.
Holiday Wishes from AMG
00:47:42
Speaker
All right guys, our main topic today, we've had a lot of main topics, but we'll just, you know, it's the holiday season, the holidays are upon us. So if you had to pick one gift, you wanna see AMG Claws.
00:47:58
Speaker
bring you this holiday season, what would that gift be? You have to isolate it to one. So think hard. What is like, what is something that you really love specific to X wing? I would say yes. Anything. Anything related. Yeah. OK. I don't mind. Andrew, do you know yours? Yes. Go for it.
00:48:22
Speaker
I would like to see the Lambda reintroduced into standard. Yeah. That's a double. Classic ship. Got one right here. Visual aid for our viewers. In case you don't know what a Lambda is.
00:48:39
Speaker
There it is. And if you're on the podcast, you know, you can imagine it in your mind. Yeah. Permission to land like a dainty butterfly. Permission granted. Beautiful space cam. Here's what my request is. My request is more involved than that. I would like the Resistance ITS transport to be added to this game. This is my favorite ship, currently not in the game. I love it to death. It is like a mini blockade runner. It's about the size of a U-Wing.
00:49:09
Speaker
It's got kind of you wingy engines going on with it. It almost exclusively appears at the Disney ride Rise of the Resistance. I'm in love with this ship. I want it so bad. Please give me a medium base. Barring that.
00:49:26
Speaker
I have a second visual aid. The Star Speeder from Star Tours, iconic, purely. The best piece of Star Wars media ever made is the first Star Tours film, bar none, easily for me. That's my pinnacle of Star Wars. Next to the holiday special, of course. No. Next to all the movies, fuck those things. I don't know if I can swear. Sorry. You can. But that movie and that short five-minute video to me is still the pinnacle of Star Wars.
00:49:55
Speaker
Um, that's awesome. We'll always do that. So either one of those, that'd be great. Um, I was good. It resistance could use like a good, like coordinating support ship. I think that is kind of one thing that they are missing as a faction. I agree. They could also use a medium base, but one thing, the faction. Yep.
00:50:12
Speaker
would fill both roles great. I mean the transport is just like it's so bad at everything it does. Like it's not a good support ship, it's not a good crew carrier, it's not a good offensive ship. Kova is kind of functional but she's also like you have to fly her really weird in order to get the most value out of her.
00:50:36
Speaker
It's just it needs a true support ship or one that's viable right now It just doesn't have that which is yeah for me who plays most resistance. I am sad about that It doesn't have the lambda, you know what I mean? I want mine. Yeah. Yes. I mean because Yeah, I think every other faction has something like it. I think CIA. Well, what does CIS have supporty? HMP can be They could use the sheet to feed
00:51:02
Speaker
Let's say they could be five on it. Kind of good idea. Anyone who says the T85 is not creative. I'm sorry, Manny. I hate to tell you. Manny in our Twitch chat right now. The T85 is not a ship we need in the game. We don't need another X wing. It would be like the most boring man alive playing is only only the same five ship list.
00:51:21
Speaker
I mean it's the name of the game, baby. It's the name of the game. It's called. No, I get it. I'm fine. Two X's is called Star Wars YT 1300. I'd say that you could also use the, um, the, yeah, I'd say that you could use the, I was going to gauntlet to.
00:51:44
Speaker
Does that? Yeah, I always feel the CIS has a gauntlet. Yeah. To be honest, I guess pre-Vizzle is actually one of the better gauntlet pilots. Yeah. He's talking about ships that kind of fell flat. Yeah. I mean, you could give it a four dice attack. Yeah. Pre-Vizzle is good. Should I do mine? Yeah, absolutely. All I want for for X-wing this. All right. AMG clause. This is a this is this is technically two things, but it could be in one box.
00:52:14
Speaker
I know most of you all are going to say, oh, Nick's about to say, give me the E wing and standard. I'm not going to say that. OK, I'm not saying that. And Lambda was mentioned by Andrew. So I'm also not going to say that. Give me give me the star viper back and scum.
00:52:30
Speaker
Flappy wing, flappy wing, flappy wing. Give me the Star Viper and give me the Lancer class patrol craft back in scum as well. For the love of God, I want the fear of, I want the fear of God putting that faction again. Let's go. If we're doing the Star Viper, you got to give it poseable wings. It's got to have flappy wings, but it can kind of like go back. Like the, you know, the B wing to me is still the pinnacle. Like the 2.0 B wing is like the pinnacle of like, Oh my God, this miniature does everything.
00:52:58
Speaker
The cockpit spins, the arm is closed, it spins on the bed. It's incredibly well articulated. Do that with the Star Viper now.
00:53:06
Speaker
Let me close and open the Star Viper rings. Let me tilt it, please. That'd be cool. Oh my gosh, just that action. It could certainly benefit from some new faces, man. This pile, it's fun. Come on, let's do it. How many people would love to fly Guri again? Oh yeah. Seriously, it's like everybody wants this, right? Obi-Wan to show everybody wanted Obi-Wan. Everybody wanted Kenobi. And they gave it to us because they knew everybody wanted it.
00:53:34
Speaker
You know? Yeah. Give us the Starbucks. Dirty bag, yeah. Shadows of the Empire. Let's bring it back. It's hip now.
00:53:42
Speaker
Yeah. And honestly, if the if right now the idea behind the production process is we can't have it be standard unless it's in a black box, I think they should rethink that and say we're going to do the hyperspace format approach and insert things and graduate them into standard. And so that way you can sell off some of your stockier conversion kits that you've decided to call a loss all of a sudden when I don't think you need to.
00:54:10
Speaker
The thing I think I've always wanted them to do is slowly bring back ships via like, if they're going to use standard loadouts, like introduce like a star or like a star forges standard loadout, like just one. You know what I mean?
00:54:22
Speaker
bring it back slowly that way. Here's just one or two options for these extended ships right now. We may not be able to reprint them all, but here's a new standard loadout pack or something that includes just a new Lambda. Here's a Lambda of Captain Cage with a slightly different ability that's a little bit better for Lambda and maybe a new ship ability that lets it turn around better. Here's a slightly different gurry that
00:54:44
Speaker
puts her on the power curve of similar i5s at 2.5, that kind of stuff, right? Slowly working those older ships. I will also kind of the hoping that they don't go too overboard on the completely different pilot abilities with the standard cards, because it's already going to get way too confusing when there's just three different versions of Evader.
00:55:09
Speaker
The counter argument to graduating things is like, oh, well, it's kind of pay to win. It's like, but look, if the alternative is that it will never be reprinted because the only way to play it is if it's reprinted, then graduate it because it's like people have their collections that will get more people to play. So we've been so content dry this year, right? And of like the only thing we've had is two re-releases like cash grabby or not. If you've got to keep the game alive being cash grabby, like here's a
00:55:34
Speaker
card pack like just give us something you know what i mean yeah and the community still i mean the community is still there obviously people in the game people are still enjoying the game we just
00:55:44
Speaker
pump a little bit of life into it, you know, give us a give us something a little more. So we'll snack the Star Viper and Lambda shuttle introductions alone would be enough to bring more people back into the game. Oh, the land. Yes. I mean, right. Those are, I mean, just iconic ships here. I'll give them this. There's one of the least one of the two ships they brought back this year is easily one of the more iconic ships that wasn't in standard or easily the most iconic ship that wasn't the standard was the Thai bomber.
00:56:09
Speaker
I think the Lambda was number two. I always was kind of hoping to do like a squad pack of like a Lambda and two bombers. But that would have been neat. It's like you scored to the tans of four. Yeah. Oh, yeah. Because there's like, oh, there's bombers of that escort in Rogue One. That's interesting. Yeah. But Lambda back would be great. I also think if you bring the Lambda back, I think give it a Rebel Chewy pilot, like throw in some weird stuff, do some mixed factions. I think Rebel Obi-Wan crew. Let's go.
00:56:38
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah, I'd be into that. Wasn't there a 1.0 LOB1 crew? I'm mistaken. I didn't play as much of that. Maybe I'm making that up. Yeah, I'm not. I'm not sure either.
00:56:48
Speaker
I like where our heads are at with this, though. I think I think even, you know, we're I think these are honestly pretty reasonable. And I just the the just the idea of it gets me excited. You know, like, I mean, one can dream, but it would be great if they're if they're not going to if they're going to shelve production plans for a while and do this instead, I would be super down. Alternatively, if you're if you can't do production plans for now, but you want to do it later, which we're making up scenarios in our head now.
00:57:18
Speaker
But if that's the thing that it's going to happen, maybe release some printable cards that someone you do with Armada, you know what I mean? Give it a little bit of something to chew on. Yeah. Just like, just for like the community at least. I think that, that kind of goes a long way. Yeah. It goes a long way to building community and also showing your, your customers and fans that you, you know, you still do appreciate their support and you want them to keep you know, that you haven't forgotten. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. Yeah, for sure.
Controversial World's Invite Rules
00:57:43
Speaker
So the last discussion I want to have before we call it,
00:57:46
Speaker
a wrap on this year and our eighth episode is, Pym, I made sure to make a point of our conversation at the end of our last stream when you join me for commentary about the whole thing with the 16 player rule with qualifying for a world's invite for a store champ.
00:58:03
Speaker
We've heard a lot of discussion about this, a lot of takes, and a lot of people frankly upset and discouraged depending on their situation with this being a factor these days.
00:58:17
Speaker
So for those of you guys that maybe aren't aware don't remember or just need a reminder for me to mansplain to you really quick AMG when when the store champ kits first came out kind of casually mentioned Hey, yeah, like in 16 plus players you can award the world's invite. There wasn't any mention about validate like verifying or
00:58:38
Speaker
What's the word I'm looking for? Yeah, validating the number. To be fair, the insert in the store kit, just to be perfectly clear, does say for 16 to 32 players. The instructions in the kit is explicitly clear in that. Right. Exactly. And that's context that matters in this grand discussion. As we talk about it. Yeah.
00:58:59
Speaker
Yeah, right. I appreciate you mentioning that and so, you know, it was mentioned but it wasn't it was something that I think people With either prior experience with fantasy flight games or or whatever thought hey, that's just kind of you know, those are words on a paper like it's not Gonna be in that was the word enforced and it's not gonna be enforce. I kind of want to throw Tommy Adams under the bus on this one
00:59:21
Speaker
because now that I dislike Tommy, because I like Tommy a lot, but I remember early on, as the store kids were coming out, he posted in the former Flybed or Facebook group, now I think it's just the X-Wing miniatures group or whatever, upside-down cat. But he emailed them asking about like, hey, our upcoming tournament only has 13, can we still run it, whatever, or 14, something like that. And they're like, okay, sure.
00:59:49
Speaker
They made the exception, and I think that's why everyone started to become more lax on the 16 person rule. I think there was one instance of him asking and getting an exception, and I think people took that the wrong way of maybe instead of being like, oh, we should ask. They were just kind of like, oh, we could just do it, and they'll be fine, and then it wasn't fine. Yeah, they made the new number 13.
01:00:14
Speaker
The idea of getting a world's invite is, you know, you're you're honored to play with the best players in X-Wing. That's at least the kind of the intense or the weight behind it is like you you played well. Congratulations. Here's your ticket to worlds where you're going to play the hardest competition you've ever played in this game against the best players who also had to win to get to get there as well. Yeah.
01:00:38
Speaker
And so I go back and forth on this one as well. I'm curious. I mean, I'll honestly defer to you first on how you feel about, you know, here's a scenario. There are there are you're playing at a small game store in Ohio and you have nine people show up. Should that tournament award a world's invite based on the initial number and final number being nine people?
01:01:04
Speaker
So I think what it comes down to for me personally, this is my own personal opinion. No, like I don't have any, you know, there's no statistics, nothing like involved in this. This is just personal opinion on this for me. Um, but my thought process with these kids is you made X number of kits. So, you know, you're giving out X number of invites. You sold them to the stores at that point.
01:01:30
Speaker
Yeah, I know this, some people disagree with this because you do want some level. I think you, it makes sense. If you're going to play for worlds, you want some level of, um, barrier, not barrier. That's the wrong term. Some level of competition in order to justify being there, right? Some level of like you had to compete. It wasn't like you won one game. Here's your invite. You know, there's, there's, there's arguments of fairness across the board too of like, I went to a 32 person one. Should that person who won get like, is it fair to them that someone won for an eight person one?
01:02:00
Speaker
And ultimately, for me personally, my opinion on it is just any number you set is arbitrary. If only nine people show up to the store because that's all the community is.
01:02:10
Speaker
I think it's more damaging to the community to say, sorry, you don't deserve the invite than to say, here's an invite. Sorry, your community wasn't as tough to get through, quote unquote, right? Which could be mistaken, right? Because the line people there could be all great. They could be like the nine best players in the Midwest.
01:02:31
Speaker
Or, you know, whatever, like, I think for me, it's just one of those things of I've always been the more the merrier on this kind of stuff like participation prizes. Like when I was when I run events, it's always participation prizes when I kind of front load. For me, it's always like,
01:02:49
Speaker
I always think back to my first couple of tournaments, right? My first tournament in person, I had a friend there, so I at least had someone to talk to that I could, you know, between rounds and stuff. And then my first large event, I didn't have a great time because it wasn't like, there was a lot of mitigating factors to it. Um, but I just remember like, you know, at least I walked away with corporate participation prizes. Um, and I think that's the one thing that like, it's really important to kind of remember is in order to grow a community, you need to have them excited about the game and excited to come play the game. And I think.
01:03:20
Speaker
I like the idea of having a world-side invite in the store champs. I know people have said it's not a good idea. It's not going to let you know. It's been a mess this year, which I think it has been. But I don't believe that's because it has an invite in the store champs level. I think the mess has been communication issues. Yes, I agree. So that wasn't necessarily clear at the start. And then the way they kind of rolled it out later, it just, I think it rubs in people the wrong way. But the moral of the story for me is I think any numbers arbitrary
01:03:48
Speaker
Yeah, if you say there's no limit, people are going to game it, right? Someone's going to figure out how to buy one as a store and just be like, here's my invite. I want it.
01:03:55
Speaker
You know, Oh yeah. My four friends showed up to my, my, my backyard and we played two games and I won or we play around Robin and I won whatever, you know, um, there'll be people who game it, but it's the same feelings I have as like to welfare, like sure. Someone's going to game it, but like, isn't it better to help people across the board and say like, whatever one person gain fine. If 10%, if 15% of 20%, like what's the percentage to where now you're saying, okay, now we need to put like, whatever, you know what I mean? Like.
01:04:23
Speaker
Yeah, it's just better. For me anyways, from a community standpoint, I think it just makes sense to say, here's the kit, run the kit, give the invite out, don't worry about hitting a threshold. Because I know there's like, because you get to the point too nowadays where
01:04:40
Speaker
And then this happens. I've seen this happen. You don't have 16 people signed up to an event the week or two before, right? Let's say you've got nine. You've got nine people signed up for your event. And you're trying to convince people to drive the extra hour or some odd to get to you, maybe two hours in certain people's cases. I've driven like 2 and 1 half for tournaments. We drove five for this market. Yeah. Yeah. It's one of those things, though, if you're like. Yeah, it's what we did.
01:05:04
Speaker
You're much more willing to go, though, if you know you're going to be able to compete for that invite as opposed to like, yes, that is a great point that we will complain about. Andrew and I. Yeah. So, I mean, yeah, I will. I will say that one. I do think that it came down to communication like, like you said, like getting it out that allowing that, OK, it was just a suggestion before. And then in the middle of the tournament season being like, oh,
01:05:31
Speaker
By the way, no, that's a hard limit. So people who already have won and thought they had their world's invite now no longer do. That was the biggest slap to me. Big shock and the worst way to handle it, I felt. Yeah. I think at that point you needed to just be like. Yeah.
01:05:49
Speaker
We're going to accept those, but no more, because I think that's the biggest one where you're like that you're really burning the community in certain pieces. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And like, oh, man, what an awful feeling for, you know, for anyone like that, that all of a sudden realize that it wasn't valid. And Andrew Block is one of those people. Andrew Block had an invite from an 8% who told like, no, you don't actually. Well, he's certainly sat now. Oh, yeah, he's got a now for sure. But but either then, yeah, too. Like, I think like they should
01:06:17
Speaker
you print enough that you expect that you'll be able to handle everyone showing up to the world's tournament and it should just be good out of the box. So that way there's just no confusion. It's easy. And like, sure, sometimes a store is going to have four people and or maybe two people show up and one of them is going to get an invite. But they also still then have to compete in worlds. And if they're one of the greatest people in the world, players in the world, then they deserve to be there, too, even if they they want it in a two person store championship.
01:06:46
Speaker
And then third, the 16 players right now is creating this weird waiting game that has frustrated me the most personally is where you'll talk to six people and they'll say, I'll sign up when there's 16 people. And you go.
01:06:59
Speaker
Okay, if you all signed up, there would be like 18 to 20 people. So everyone is sitting around their computers waiting for the 16th person to sign on. And if they all had just done it, it would happen. It's a self-fulfilling prophecy. I will call those people out. I'm looking right into the camera. You should be ashamed of yourself, seriously. I have signed up for friends events.
01:07:19
Speaker
I have signed up for friends events like months in advance to be like here's someone going like there's gonna be 16 just to drop you know before before they run event as soon as they get to like 16 they just remove me from it because it's like okay you know we've advertised enough right it's just advertising like you got to pretend you're going people sign up
01:07:35
Speaker
the self-fulfilling prophecy of like it's a negative feedback loop. It's a negative feedback loop. It's what it is. It's like, OK, I'll sign up when there's enough people. We're not close enough. Not signing up. We're not close enough with Dragonfall. That happened. We we had this huge event that Andrew and I took all our gear to. And it was a great and very fun event. We had a great time. But how weird was it that we had all this space and we had the people willing to come and play to get enough people for World's Invite?
01:08:02
Speaker
And instead, it was this shell of what it should have been. And it's surrounded by this massive convention of gamers. And it was for charity as well. And one of the cheaper conventions that you can get into play at, too. And it was two days ago. It was a wonderful, wonderful space. Yeah, it was. Yeah, that was frustrating because it's like what a missed opportunity like we're here. Yeah, everybody's having fun still, which was ultimately, you know, the people that made it, they deserve to have the best time.
01:08:31
Speaker
Are there any more salads than people who went to a 16 person one? Is it less valid for them? Right. And I would say for areas that do have the smaller community, and this also could be because there could be a rural store or just they have a smaller population size in general, that they should have just as much of a chance to compete at worlds and be represented at worlds than anyone else.
01:08:55
Speaker
Yeah, I do want to throw in that we covered this several episodes ago, the the whole wrench in this thing that maybe my conspiracy is what caused AMG to do this, is that AMG threw Asmodee under the bus and claimed that too many kits were sent out.
01:09:13
Speaker
I don't know what that means. It just addresses. It doesn't argue with your point, Pym, but I just want it kind of adds a bit of a footnote to it, I feel like, where it's like it. What? How does this circle revolve? Like, how does it revolve? Yeah, I have a theory on this, too. Go for it, Cuba. Go for it. Yeah, I think I think we might, too.
01:09:36
Speaker
that they overprinted just the amount of store kits and invites expecting people to not be able to like come to world so that they would still have a full tournament there. So, you know, they always have more. I was actually thinking it was the event. I think that maybe Adepticon just said, no, you don't have the tables face this year. It just said like, we're only giving you like, we're only giving you this much. We gave you the like, we gave you, you know, I'm going to say through last year, maybe this year, like we're only giving you 150.
01:10:05
Speaker
Yeah, I mean that too. Or AMG also, for my work, I do a lot with event planning, is that Adepticon is also like, OK, this is how much a tablespace costs. And they take the budget to Asmodee, and they're just like, no, this is what our events budget is going to be for the year. We're not going to be able to afford that. You have to cut something. I know AMG is also, they
01:10:33
Speaker
And this is game maybe to conspiracy theory, but they did just announce recently that they're doing a more structured. Crisis protocol event style right a more structured tournament style and full like worlds asks thing for that. So then conspiracy theories they need more tables for that now because last year like crisis protocol was like what like.
01:10:54
Speaker
a dozen tables there. It wasn't. Yeah. They also, I mean, they added a whole new game to their line with. Yeah. So we'll probably have the first Shatterpoint worlds this year as well. So that's probably going to eat into their allotment. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And that could just be it. It's just they need more space and then it's like, oh, we printed more because we thought we had the space and then we didn't. And then now we're.
01:11:18
Speaker
I do wonder what they expect, like what their projection is in terms of percentage of fighters who have an invite who will go, right? Yeah. I think it was a bad idea to even mention that they gave out too many kits. I think that that's. Yeah, I hadn't heard that anything rising. I missed that. I hope that that was an article or a stream. I just maybe missed it.
01:11:40
Speaker
It's strange considering, you know, we're just starving for an update on a card pack or something and they're more than willing to create a PR hysteria around something that might not even be. And this goes back to the communication, too, because I don't think they did a really good job of explaining themselves as to like why, like if they had a good enough reason that I think they could come out and say, hey, this is why it has to be, you know, 16. Sorry.
01:12:04
Speaker
And that's why they've struggled the most since getting X-Wing, right? It's just communication. That's not what we think. I mean, there's, you know, you can disagree with 2.5 and dislike the changes, whatever, from a game design point. But I think it's not a stretch to say that they were communicated poorly. And I think
01:12:23
Speaker
I think people within the company would probably agree with that sentiment of like, hey, the communication from the get go has not been great on
Interview with Atomic Mass Games: Communication Issues
01:12:29
Speaker
us. So, you know, interview with atomic mass games, you know, forgot to even mention that earlier when we were reflecting. We got to interview AMG, which is amazing. Yeah. But like they owned up to it. I mean, they they did specifically point out one thing, but they did mention that they have made mistakes and are going to make mistakes and that, you know, I mean, they're people. Yeah. Right. Everyone understands, you know, they're a small team.
01:12:53
Speaker
They're taking over some people think they're conniving and scheming. Oh, I just moment of the day, which is hilarious to me I don't I I mean
01:13:03
Speaker
Yeah. Don't, don't attribute to malice to what you can attribute to just being overworked with too many projects. Yeah. Overworked for sure. Malice is just even like, not, not a lack of experience, right? Like I'm, I'm, you know, most of these people are game devs that are now talking publicly about the game and everything. They probably don't really have communications experience. Yeah. You know, training like that, like something downstream is more often. I totally, they have someone else handle that.
01:13:30
Speaker
Yeah, usually that's how that works when you're a small studio. It's the thing where they're a lot more personal and approachable of a studio, which I think is because I know more AMG developers than I ever did. Not personally, but I know their names, right? I know more names of AMG developers than I did FFG developers.
01:13:49
Speaker
you know, because I think they're more present and more, at least on streams and such, right? Like FFG had people at events and things, but I think that just goes to like, that's the double-edged sword of having a studio like that. It's great in some regards because your players know you and, you know, or know of you and they can go out to you in events. Maybe they're not as afraid or, you know, they're more sociable. It's more fun interaction, but the negative side is then sometimes people say something they shouldn't have said on stream and
01:14:19
Speaker
It creates a minor controversy and then you got to deal with that. But yeah, unfortunately when you start for content, everything you do is, is under a microscope. And that's the biggest thing that I think I'm, that I've been disappointed with so far this year is that the content we've gotten has been minimal.
01:14:38
Speaker
Unfortunately, but they, you know, they tease more content than we first seen at Adobe con last year. And it's one of those things of like, even, even one, even like one of their openings, you know, one stream just saying like, here's an update on the X-Wing stuff. It could be 10 minutes long or it could be just a, just like, the adult vendor is still coming. We know we showed you some stuff. It's still coming soon. Or like we talked about the alpha class being reprinted. That's also coming soon. You know, we're.
01:15:05
Speaker
Soon is not, it's not that soon. We're probably still talking 2024, but just some kind of like, you know, some kind of acknowledgement that it's not canceled would be nice. Yeah. Just, I mean, honestly, that's it. Just, just acknowledgement to say, yeah, you know, this, we got some stuff coming up. I mean, this is, this is the first year I was talking to a friend about this too. And both of us are still loved the game, but it's the first year in a long time where neither one of us has bought new X-wing stuff because there hasn't been stuff for us to buy. You know, I'm not.
01:15:35
Speaker
I have a 2400. I wasn't rushing out to get another one. I don't collect the Imperials. So I wasn't going to get the bomber pack and the starter packs were both. I had those shifts. You know, I don't necessarily need another X-wing and two Abings and a Y-wing. So, and he's, you know, he's a scum man. So he's kind of like the same thing. Like I didn't need to buy any of this 2400 maybe when it goes on sale, but he's like the, you know, the two cards included weren't lighting things on fire. So I, he didn't feel like, but you know, I'll save my money for something else, but.
01:16:02
Speaker
It's not, it's not a lack of want, right? Like I do want to spend money on the game. I do want, you know, I still want to play the game. I want new content. I want to keep trying things and, you know, experimenting, seeing the meta change, have fun with it. Like I said, there's plenty of ships I can ramble on there. Serious and not complete joke suggestions of things I want, but, um, pilots and ships and, you know,
Development Cycle and Content Updates
01:16:23
Speaker
stuff you could do. And it's just one of those things of even something, you know, when you guys did a great interview talking about.
01:16:29
Speaker
They talked about their development cycle a little bit, and they did say it's 18 to 24 months. It's a long development cycle, which is understandable. But even just a reminder of, we know we haven't talked about it in a while, but this is still coming.
01:16:49
Speaker
We're working on stuff would just go a long way right now. Yeah, absolutely. And I think that we can all agree to wrap this up that we can all agree that all of the three of us want for for AMG clause to give us is something is it is an update? Yeah, just anything or two. And again, it can be as substantial as we hear concerns. We're still working on the game or, you know, if you really wanted to be great and maybe a small points patch like, hey, Hans losing.
01:17:19
Speaker
a couple loadout or something like that, you know? Racks losing the death troopers are going up a couple points or something, right? And that kind of stuff. Yeah. Yeah, that would be. We're getting rid of zero point two seventies because that's probably a bad idea in hindsight. But anyways, I don't know. I love the game. Force Manny to play something else. Oh, my gosh, that would be wild. I don't know what he might. I don't know what he'd do for two seventies is kind of fun.
01:17:46
Speaker
Five, five to 70s is great. That's a lot of fun. Yeah. Well, he plays five as well. I know you've been dabbling with that as well. Yeah, that's been that's been my. So I don't I want to be mindful of our time, guys. I think that is a good a good stopping point in terms of all coming together there and addressing that we would just love to hear some news. So let's fingers crossed and let's hope that under the tree or the the menorah or or whatever you celebrate or honor
01:18:14
Speaker
this holiday season that we get something like that. Give me something to buy next year. I'll buy it. I swear. Just give me something good. I'll buy it. Yeah.
Upcoming Events and Local Store Importance
01:18:23
Speaker
Elvio is coming up January 18th to the 21st. Just a reminder in terms of the the outstanding events before the official tournament season ends. And we look to worlds that is the last world's open qualifier that Andrew and I will be at that. I'll be there. So I think it's the last world's open qualifier. I think so, too. Yeah.
01:18:42
Speaker
I'm pumped STO didn't get the nod. I know they...
01:18:46
Speaker
They tried. It was just they were like, it's too late to verify whatever. And then, of course, there will be a bunch of last minute store champs, even if you can't make worlds or you, you know, you already have an invite. I would still go if you can. It still tries to try a different list. You'll still have fun. And it's important that you go, especially at the stores that are always teetering around a dozen to 16 plus. Don't help your friends. Help your friends. Help out. Be there if you can. Yeah.
01:19:15
Speaker
Absolutely. Well, guys, thank you so much for your time. This was a great episode eight to wrap up the year. Pym, thank you for joining us. Thanks for having me. It was a great time. Yeah, gladly. Whatever you guys want.
01:19:29
Speaker
Thanks to everybody for listening to this episode, both popping in live or subscribers on Twitch here today while we recorded this and to the listeners at home when you do listen to this when it comes out. Thank you for being a listener. I also just lastly want to thank Strata Strike on Etsy for partnering with
Partnership Announcements and Social Media Promotion
01:19:47
Speaker
us.
01:19:47
Speaker
It is the holiday season, and now is the time to snag some gaming components. You can go to their Etsy page, and you can buy so many different gaming components, including components for X-Wing, like amazing wood template trays, precision cut, objective tokens, and more. You can use discount code 312Squadron. That's a capital S and all lowercase in the rest of Squadron. All one word for 15% off your purchase, and it doesn't even have to be X-Wing. Anything on their Etsy store you will get. Try to strike as great people. Great people to try to strike at.
01:20:17
Speaker
Yeah, Mark, you will shout out to Mark. He's a really, really great guy. Strata Strike where precision meets gaming. I love that tagline as well. Also, just shameless plugs. Be sure to follow us on Twitch where you can catch us live, including our in-person X-Wing events. We have Spellbound coming up on the 10th that you will have seen that at this point when this comes out. You'll catch replayed and edited content on YouTube.
01:20:41
Speaker
You can like us on Facebook and you can jump into the convo directly in our discord links, all in the description of the podcast episode. Thank you all for a tremendous year. Very proud of the progress we've made and what we've been able to do. Look forward to doing even more in the new year. Happy new year, everybody. Happy holidays. And my name is Nick signing out here. You guys go ahead. Yep.
01:21:00
Speaker
I'm Andrew and have a happy holidays and a wonderful new year. Hey, I'm also Andrew and have a great holiday. If you're still looking for gifts, like Nick said, go to Strata Strike, create people. Go to Etsy, buy from Etsy, buy from creators. Yes. And thanks for having me on the, what am I on? This is the Gypsy Gambit Squad. Utah Salt Squad. 312. 312, yeah, yeah. 312. Thanks for having me on the 312 podcast.
01:21:29
Speaker
Anytime. What a way to end it. Cringing inside. Happy holidays, guys.