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Episode 5: Gauntlet Gamble
109 Plays2 years ago
A long time ago… in a windy city, far, far away… Your hosts Nick, Manny and Andrew do a look at how to make some Gauntlet pilots work, the timeline of an evolving meta, and they even rank where they’d put the Star Wars shows!
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Transcript
Introduction of hosts and episode topics
00:00:02
Speaker
You are listening to the 312 Squadron podcast. My name is Andrew Cuba. I'm Manny. And I'm Nick. And this week, we recap a big league debut for the 312 Squadron at the Crossroads Classic, enter the gauntlet and dish out some hot takes as we rank Star Wars shows.
312 Squadron debut and streaming options
00:00:20
Speaker
So first we're going to go into the Crossroads breakdown. Now, Nick was there streaming the event so you can go on our Twitch or on YouTube to find the commentary from some of the ships and some of the lists that were at the Crossroads Classic. And he was working it with co-host Matthew Carey and
00:00:42
Speaker
It was a great time had by all. So we can start there with some of the list breakdowns and Nick, if you want to just kind of get us up to date and tell us what you were seeing there, what was the vibe of the tournament like?
00:00:55
Speaker
Yeah, first of all, thanks. Thanks to the Hangar 19 folks in Indy who thought of us to stream this event. This is the biggest event that we've ever done. Three and a half hours away from home. Took all our gear set up. We had a beautiful set up is some of you guys who did see it. You saw the amazing X-Wing banner with the fury of the first order behind the players and our player cam. And Matt and I had a lot of fun, really good commentary, really fun games. We had at one point three decimators on stream at the same time.
Crossroads Classic highlights and winner shoutout
00:01:25
Speaker
It was just overall a really smooth, great, fun, and interesting X-Wing event. Shout out to Michael Simon, spoilers, who did win it all.
Unexpected tournament elements and faction popularity
00:01:40
Speaker
What did I see? Well, I saw a lot of what I expected and then I saw a few people try to do something a little different.
00:01:47
Speaker
I saw there was a little bit more scum than I expected. There were a lot more decimators. I think people were trying to find a way to get rear admiral Jirnu a little bit more of a spotlight in the meta since he has gone down in price from starting initially way back when it like nine or ten and then he went to eight and then he's at seven now with a lot of loadout. It's the same as as as a build your own Vader.
00:02:14
Speaker
Yeah, and not surprising Han performing just incredibly well. Getting to the point where it's almost a sure thing that you'll see multiple Hans top tables in Swiss all the way into top cut the next day. I was going to say, it looks like I've seen lots of rebel, lots of resistance and lots of Republic as well.
00:02:38
Speaker
But this is the first major tournament, I feel, where Resistance is really rising. Several Resistance lists, yeah. Yeah. And really becoming prominent in the meta. I think that that's a pretty good call, seeing that Republic and the Rebellion are the factions that we're seeing the most.
Resistance faction's rise and effective lists
00:03:00
Speaker
I think Resistance is in a great spot to counter that too, which is a lot of what we saw that weekend, if you're just looking at the list breakdown.
00:03:08
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And I think instead of just reading off lists, I do want to read off Michael Simon's list and then we can talk about some others that I noticed. But you don't have to go one by one and read off all these lists because some of them are going to they do feel very samey after a little while. I'm going to find Michael really quick. If you go back to episode one or.
00:03:27
Speaker
Honestly, or the last episode, too, you're going to see a lot of the same list. I think last episode when we were going over Golden State games, there's a little more F.O. and not seeing too much first order here at the crossroads. Manny, do you have it pulled up?
00:03:43
Speaker
Yeah, I believe I do. Yeah. Well this I'm throwing this over to you because it's a resistance player who won the whole thing Which is kind of just kind of just surprised it surprised me. It was like, oh my gosh, there's this resistance list just pounding through the cut Go ahead and break it break it down for us. Yeah, so we have Poe Dameron and the T70 plus torpedoes integrated s foils R2d2 and
00:04:09
Speaker
There's Sphere of Paint, Marksmanship, and Crackshot. It's a bit of a unique build. Then there's Eloancy with the Jamon Beam, Integrated S-Foils, Predator, and Crackshot. Next is Timon Wexley, Jamon Beam, Integrated S-Foils, R68, with Crackshot as well. Jessica Pava, Electronic
00:04:38
Speaker
Vafel, M9G8, and last but not least, Baby8 and with Crew Chewbacca. So, so 4T70s and, yeah. Yeah. I mean, such a simple list, like 4T70s in a pod and in the hands of a great player capable of doing some winning work, to say the least.
00:05:00
Speaker
And I was going to say, like, I feel like you need there's a lot of skill flying there when you're going with the 40, 70s like that, especially with Poe Dameron and Commander Poe, by the way, not true or happy. Oh, all right. I thought I was going to fly by six point. Oh, with the two charges, you can give himself or friendlies a red action every other turn.
Breakdown of Joshua Richardson's Rebel list
00:05:21
Speaker
So a lot of them. Yeah. I mean, it's a lot of that coordinating.
00:05:26
Speaker
With with this list as well so I can I can definitely see how that'd be lethal especially in the meta where there's a lot of you know big ships in every Every red dye getting paint on those count Yeah, absolutely
00:05:42
Speaker
Joshua Richardson, who played on our stream three times over the course of those two days, he was a runner up playing in final table with his rebel list for ship rebel list. Andrew, do you want to maybe just do a quick rundown of that list? This is this is the classic version of the Hansel. I think it's the one that we're seeing appear more and it's Han Solo with engine upgrade. Bistian chopper, perceptive copilot, Luke Skywalker, which is, yeah, the Battle of Yavin.
00:06:12
Speaker
Keo Venzi with Juke
Empire strategies and notable pilots
00:06:14
Speaker
and Fenrao with Baskar Reinforce plating Predator and Crackshot. So this is the one that counters, in my mind, the Sabine Wedge Keo versions. Keo had lone wolf and concussion missiles, not Juke. Oh, and yeah.
00:06:31
Speaker
I might be I have cut pulled up. I yeah, I. So it's funny, there's two lists. They're both Han Solo ones together. Yeah, I see that lone wolf and couch mushrooms, which I think is a better build for. Yeah. And this would just be a set on our one. Yes, episodes. Because you're you're you're better off just having it. Yeah. Fly separate get objectives that that lone wolf and you'd rather be taking the focus to be a little more punchy than having to take that evade.
00:06:58
Speaker
Yeah, so I like it better there for sure. And I'm just going to shout out Zach Matthews. He went undefeated at Swiss played.
00:07:06
Speaker
A rebelist with Han as well, but he brought Kyo with Prokets and Wedge Sabine. Wedge had Marksmanship and Crackshot. Sabine had Beskar. So, well done, Zach. Grass in your world's invite. Very cool. And then back to back, Velvet Buddha and Arstan. Velvet Buddha's Andrew Block. Arstan is Ryan Staniszewski. Don't have to worry about me doxing them. They both played on stream with their full names. Can't say I doxed them. I didn't do
Rear Admiral Chiraneau's impact on the meta
00:07:34
Speaker
it. Didn't do nothing.
00:07:35
Speaker
That's an empire. They dux themselves. Empire v. Empire is the overlap between the two lists. There's Tomax Bren with the with the new standardized Tomax Bren. He's got the plasma torps. He's got the ion bombs. He's got true grit. He's got a great ability being able to every other turn. Yeah. Fire a focus token after doing a barrel roll or double moded plasmas. Buddha had looked to Lieutenant L'Orére.
00:08:03
Speaker
with lone wolf and target computer. But also the new death fire and also the new death fire where as one of my favorite. Yeah, you go when you complete a speed three to five maneuver, you can launch a bomb.
00:08:19
Speaker
Yeah, exactly. And in Merrick Steel and Buddha's list versus R. Ryan Staniszewski's Volt Scaris in his list. Yes. Next to the big boy rear out. That ruthless and proton rockets. So taking advantage of that missile slot, which you don't see that often. It's a very good build for Merrick, but you're guaranteed. And marksmanship too. Yeah. And when you get to pick it. Yeah, that's that's lethal. Yeah. With the lock.
00:08:44
Speaker
Yeah, he doesn't. Yeah, usually. So with the rocket, he's focusing more often, which he can be more flexible with for defense. Also, but not as big a deal. No, certainly not. I play. I play on the edge with my version of America for sure. Mm hmm. Yeah. So yeah, so bad when you have to take that that focus. Yeah. Yeah.
00:09:05
Speaker
So Buddha and Ryan both played each other in top eight and it really came down to road being a pretty big deal because of all the initiative overlap and just almost the same pilots.
Shifting meta and shoutouts
00:09:21
Speaker
But I just want to quickly talk about Rear Admiral Chiranu and the Decimator.
00:09:28
Speaker
Really, really strong part of an imperial list, especially with Darth Vader and Death Troopers. That combination is absolutely disgusting. Yeah, it's scary. It is very scary for those of you who maybe don't know or newer to the game or just forgot that Darth Vader, he gives you a force. He's he's a pretty expensive. I think he's 14 points crew that you can throw on the decimeter and he.
00:09:53
Speaker
At range 0 to 2 start of engagement, you can choose an enemy ship in your firing arc at range 0 to 2. Spend a force and they either must remove a green token or suffer one damage. And guess what? If they don't have a green token, they just take damage. Very, very good. It's a great endgame threat and it pulls away mods from people all the time.
00:10:14
Speaker
But also with death troopers, if you range zero to one of the decimator, you don't remove stress at the end of your activation or at the end of your maneuver. Yeah.
00:10:31
Speaker
Hey, uh, Manny, have you, have you had to deal with death troopers or Vader at all? Have you had any wins? Not at all. It's all new to me. Yeah. Get ready. Cause it seems to be like, Hey, you can't take a green token. Well guess we're taking the damage. The illusion of choice.
00:10:46
Speaker
Yeah, I think we're going to start to see Rear Admiral Chirnew a lot more, as I think there's kind of rumblings around him being a very meta viable piece, which I'm excited about because I think that's good. I think Empire is one of the more fleshed out factions right now when it comes to variety versus a rebels and republic. Oh, that's cool. There are options, because if you if you're not taking Vader in the ship, this is a absolutely alternate, viable list that you can have.
00:11:14
Speaker
Yeah, I'm looking at our cut here as well. I'm going to scroll down a little bit. I'm going through our top eight here. How many triple arcs did we have in the cut? None. No triple arc one seventies. We had a list with two arc one seventies. That's Will Scott, my boy scooter.
00:11:37
Speaker
with Oddball and Wolf in his list, but triple arcs shut out of the cut. And I absolutely love to see it. It looks like there might have been. Whoever got ranked two would have had triple arcs. But they didn't play in cut.
00:11:56
Speaker
Maybe for yeah, maybe for somebody did have to drop. I think that might have been that person. Yeah. However, the the participating cut. Yeah, we didn't get triple arc one seventies. Yeah. Although I will say if you go and look over at the entire event, there were a lot of people that brought them. Yes. Plenty of those lists out there.
00:12:17
Speaker
Yeah, this is where this is why I'm not surprised to be seeing more resistance coming in because that was one of the choices that I made going into Gen Con 2 with this list.
Resistance faction's meta countering capability
00:12:30
Speaker
And resistance is in the spot right now where I feel that they can beat Han and they can beat the triple arc list pretty easily. And even when I was at Gen Con, every time that I went up against the Han list, every time I went up against Republic list, I won.
00:12:48
Speaker
Yeah, it's a republic lists are they have the arc one seventies have their, you know, they have their weaknesses. And so it's just I, you know, I'm not trying to say, you know, I say it's good that they make I just it's it's just nice to see that, you know, maybe maybe people.
00:13:07
Speaker
are solving it a little bit. I think that's what's happening. I think what's happening is that people are playing against the arc lists and against the Han Solo list so much that they're figuring them out.
00:13:22
Speaker
Yeah, although Han seems to still be. I was going to say fighting is really. Man, it seems like Han is still is still the the meta piece right now. Yeah, you should watch some of our games. Yeah, yeah, exactly. And he just she's especially with the games we had on stream. He's just rolling paint the entire time and rolling multiple credits and just the RNG of knowledge. Yeah, that's going to be so hard to to to come back from.
00:13:47
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, it's like in this game and the game of X-wing and most almost every other case you have if there are two ships in front of you in front of you a two hole you got to pick one to shoot at the other one gets away because he didn't shoot at it Hans like cool. I'll just kill both. Yeah
00:14:02
Speaker
Yeah, just really good. Um, last shout out before we move on from crossroads, just Alex Merrill sneaking in at the number nine to roll up to number eight spot at cut with scum, uh, Lima Kai with our four B 11 plasma torpedoes.
00:14:18
Speaker
Cad Bane with the lats, rozzies, and do blood contraband, cybernetics, proton cannons, marksmanship, boss with expert handling, marksmanship. Dr. Afra, who seems to be a really big part of scumbills right now, pretty good. I am so excited to see Dr. Afra in making top in tournaments. Yeah, that's so cool.
00:14:36
Speaker
Yeah, hopefully maybe a little bit
Scum faction list analysis
00:14:38
Speaker
more. She's starting to show up a little bit in tournaments. In terms of cut, I think if there is a scum list that somehow makes cut, there's a chance that she's in it. Or Fenrao, in this case, Fenrao wasn't a miss list, but Fenrao is popular in scum.
00:14:52
Speaker
Dr. Aphrodite had the Houndstooth title, Dead Man Switch, Babu Frick, Dengar, Triple Zero, and Lando Crew. For those of you that don't know that Lando Crew doesn't specify what type of, like, what instance you're rolling your dice, so you can spend green tokens to reroll the Dengar Gunner die. When people shoot at you, you'd be like, cool, I'm gonna Dengar you.
00:15:11
Speaker
Oh, that's nasty. Yeah. So with triple zero, you get the calculator. Great, I'll spend the calculate. You didn't want to spend a to... You didn't have a green token, so I'm rolling the die. I rolled an eyeball. Cool. Spend it, calculate, reroll, and do a hit. You suffer a damage. Wow. So lots of shenanigans, and then Manaroo with R5P8 punishing one, title, contraband, cybernetics, Gar Saxon, which Gar Saxon, you can spend a red or orange token on the enemy you're shooting at to roll an additional die.
00:15:39
Speaker
That includes your own target locks that you have on them or their stress or their jams or whatever depletes, whatever it is. Yeah, that's so good. Yeah, so the power potential and the shenanigans that he's able to do with Afro Manero alone, really good. Yeah.
00:15:57
Speaker
Uh, yeah. And unfortunately, Alex just had a couple of rough games on our stream. I felt bad. He's like, don't worry enough to plan our stream ever get. He just got diced pretty hard. Um, but yeah. So shout out to Alex from the best in bench warmers. I was going to say that's also a chunky list to get through to like, yeah, that's the same thing as like that double decimator. It's just, there's so much hull just to chew through in that limited time that you have.
00:16:26
Speaker
Yeah, it is. It is a lot. I like the scum list a lot. Mm hmm. Lee Mackay can do a lot of our for B11. You can you basically force your opponent to reroll their defense dice. Just also pretty good. That's like it's like a bomber. It's like like salvo. Yeah, it's like that's all in deed. Any other impressions from just what you've seen, you know, overall from this tournament?
00:16:53
Speaker
Yeah, I was going to say it was fun watching the streams. I came in on that last day and was surprised to not see Darth Vader in the top cut. That was kind of a big one for me. Vader crew made his way into cut, but very different version. Almost no separatist.
00:17:15
Speaker
There's two no almost no first order and no first order. No, there's first order. Well, yeah, no, two, but not not. Yeah, no, that's not. But yeah, that's kind of that's kind of a little disappointing. I hope that we see some big changes with the separatist faction. Manny, are you inspired by resistance winning a 48 player event? Pretty cool. Oh, yeah. And I know I had no idea that that that's there was
00:17:44
Speaker
that many people. But yeah, no, I'm I'm I'm happy for the faction. Sure. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you heard of your first man. Manny is very he's absolutely thrilled. He's jumping up and down. We need to strap him into his chair. I was he's calm down, buddy. Yeah. No, he thinks it's inevitable. It's like, of course. Yeah. BBA pod doing doing some work doing some work. Well, again, those pods will just live forever.
00:18:12
Speaker
Yeah, that's right. That's what's going on. I could go after them. Two points. Well, only two points. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, absolutely. All right. No. Yeah. Yeah. Let's move on. Probably my favorite segment. I know, Andrew, you like it a lot, too. It's fun. Let's break it or buy it, baby. Gauntlet style. We're talking about the gauntlet. Who? The what? The gauntlet. We've got three pilots picked for this one.
00:18:42
Speaker
Yep. And it's, it's only been out for maybe, is it two years now? I think only a year. Only a year. No, wait, it came out around the time that, uh, so, uh, yeah, it was last year. Yeah. Last year. Yeah. Well, over a year now. Um,
00:19:03
Speaker
Yeah. Does that mean we have a friend aversary? Yeah, we missed a friend aversary, bro? Yes, we did. Yes, we did. Damn. Hell yeah. Go back to our Facebook messages and like find the exact date. I don't want to go through our Facebook messages. No, I don't. That's a bad idea. A lot of, it's like probably 12 felonies committed in there. Like, oh God, if this ever reaches the public eye. Yeah.
'Break it or Buy it': Gauntlet pilots
00:19:27
Speaker
I mean, a good thing we're doing out at a public podcast. Talking about it.
00:19:31
Speaker
All right, we got so I picked three guys, Mall, Captain Hark and Bo Katan Kries. Andrew, why don't you explain how Break It or Buy It works? Sure. So Break It or Buy It is we try to pick some ships that aren't being flown that much in the game and we either break it or we say, OK, it's OK at its current cost, but maybe we change the loadout, maybe we
00:19:57
Speaker
give it more loadout, or we give it different slots, or we decide if we're going to buy it, which means that we will take it at its current value, but if it was only like a couple points less, or if we think it should be more for some reason, but with extra stuff. So that is the rules for break it or buy it. Manny, do you want to kick it off with Darth Maul?
00:20:24
Speaker
Yeah, Darth Long Gauntlet for the scum faction should go over the card or go over every every let's go over the stat line first. So break down what a stat line is and what its dial is, what its actions are. And then you can go on into mall specific.
00:20:41
Speaker
All right, so it shoots three tech dice, three in the front, two out the back, rolls two evades, nine hull, two shields, and he has three fours. Action. All specifically. Yes, yes. Action is a focus, a red reinforce, a target lock, and a red coordinate.
00:21:09
Speaker
Should I also go over like the upgrades like the Don't worry about the slot. Yeah, we talked about breaking it or buying it I think so the yeah, also the ability is a while you perform a coordinated action you if you choose a ship with an initiative Lower than yours you may spend one hour
00:21:33
Speaker
force if you do treat the action as white and you may coordinate one initial friendly ship with an initiative lower than yours. Each friendly ship you coordinate this way gains one strain token.
Darth Maul's competitiveness and adjustments
00:21:46
Speaker
Jeez, I don't need dissertations. Longer effects. I don't need dissertations. Yeah, that's a manifesto of an ability for sure. Yeah, he's i5 a large base because, you know, it's a gauntlet.
00:22:02
Speaker
points as a cost, and he has 13 points of loadout in total. Yeah, 15. I'll jump in really quick just for the dial side of things. The gauntlets have zero stop. It's red. One banks are blue. No one straight or one hard. Two hards are white. Two bank blue. Two straight blue.
00:22:24
Speaker
And three hard red, three bank whites, three straight whites, and then a four straight. That is white. That is no one straight on that thing. But it's got the swivel wing, which will execute a zero stop. Yeah, you can choose to move 90 degrees or 180, but you roll one agility. Yeah, one fewer defense agility for that. Yeah. So, all right. So, Manny, you play with a local.
00:22:53
Speaker
who loves Maul. Shout out to Lloyd. Lloyd loves Maul. He's got a cool painted, custom painted gauntlet. He loves Maul. Maul was put in the absolute doghouse at nine points for a while. He was eight when he first came out and then they made him nine. Yeah, so he was at eight first with like 26 loadout or with a pretty high amount of loadout. And then he got jumped up to nine.
00:23:19
Speaker
Well, there's less loadout. Yes. Which is like, like, what exactly did he do to like? Yeah, that's what we should be talking about is what did he do? Because honestly, he didn't really do anything. Yeah. Everyone is putting mall crew on Ezra in Rebel. Well, I mean, that's a different faction, like if you're building. No, I know. I mean, that was where in the gauntlet was like relevant. Yeah. If you were seeing mall, I see what you mean. Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah.
00:23:49
Speaker
Yeah, so, I mean, Manny, would you break it or buy it here with Maul? I mean, I don't know. I don't play scum at all. So, I mean, I five eight points. I mean, if team, I have to compare them with like the other ships from like rebel sound player, like, no, don't do it. I don't do it. You compare it with one point less, five more load out.
00:24:17
Speaker
Ray, one point less. Break him.
Ship balance: Fire Spray vs. Gauntlet
00:24:21
Speaker
Um, I'm, I'm not going to buy him. I think how we need to break him in order to justify taking him. All right. What are you breaking? Oh, okay. So if Honda's seven, he could go down to seven.
00:24:39
Speaker
I don't know if you're gonna buy it you're gonna Well, I think he's I think he's gonna completely break multiple things here. Yeah Talking about cost and then more than just that sure. Yeah Would you break would you change anything else? Cuz if you don't then you are buying it at seven if you are gonna change anything else Then you're technically still breaking it. Would you change anything else? Gotcha Okay
00:25:07
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think he's at seven points with his force. You have to be careful that if he is going to be seven points with that force, then yeah, his loadout should be less than the other the other seven pointers for sure. Well.
00:25:19
Speaker
Mm-hmm. I know like is there a combination and scum that can like really make use of this or like some pieces that can really Ceternjize with his ability. I mean you can give some double mods with your coordinates to a couple lower initiative ships. All right. Well, that's basically it right? That's what you would do. Okay And then each of the shipping stream
00:25:43
Speaker
But I mean, what lower initiative ships are you taking? Are you really trying to reinforce? I don't know. Yeah, scum isn't scum. I think scum could really use a. You know, a star player kind of jumping into the ring like this.
00:25:59
Speaker
There isn't any obvious choices. F scum Fenrao. Here's the issue with scum. I mean, there's many, but one of them is like, OK, cool. I have scum Fenrao six points. Now, can I do I feel confident with my options to build 14 points around him? And usually your options are like weird, like costs, like odd numbers. They don't add up to 20. They have to 19 or 21.
00:26:21
Speaker
Uh, and you know, that's difficult. So I don't think, you know, him going down would necessarily all of a sudden make the faction just way better. I think maybe people just consider it. They don't even necessarily play him still automatically. So, and you can, you can compare it to like a fire spray, right? Cause like a fire spray is also there's seven points except for Boba Fett.
00:26:47
Speaker
Um, then the fire spray chassis, just the ability, it's one less like hull point. So instead of, you know, the, the nine two stat line, you have six hall four shield, uh, three out the front, three out the back, still two agility. Yeah. Medium base can white boost. Yeah.
00:27:09
Speaker
Yeah, the four shields is one of the biggest selling points for a fire sponge, right? It's like because the problem with the gauntlet is that they can, even with the force, I mean, they can, you know, get destroyed pretty quick. Crit sponge. Yeah. Great. Great crits are going to be an issue there. Yeah. So it's like at what point does mall become more attractive than taking that fire spray? Yeah, I mean, it's just I think the gauntlet is just really awkward in the game. It just is. Yeah.
00:27:39
Speaker
It's it's also not to mention like how it's a dope ship. Don't get me wrong It looks great on a table, but it is an inconvenience to play with Have on stream. Yeah, the peg is pretty bad. Well, it's just it just takes you just covers everything and it's true, you know Just like it is like there's three to four ships hiding underneath those wings. It's a very cool ship
00:28:02
Speaker
It is. And that's that's without, you know, with with me qualifying like it is cool. Yeah. And I am proud of my have mine right next to me right now, like my come I the one I painted like Nightbrother style like Ezra for Ezra or whatever. But yeah, it's just it's it's it's a little loose on the peg and it's a little big. So if if mall was one point less. He you could take mall with a mon and Dr. Afra.
00:28:31
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, at the three ship, the three ship scum list, like your your hope is that your opponent dies and doesn't play the objective and that you never play salvage. Yeah. Yeah. You never play salve. You only play assault. Chance engagement is hard for those lists. Yeah. Scramble is hard because you're low initiative. Like your opponent just has more.
00:28:52
Speaker
flexibility than you when you build lists like that. I mean, even if you don't, even if you don't want to go, I mean, you could go, uh, Cad Bane and then Basque. And now you got four ships.
00:29:05
Speaker
I mean, if so, if mall is seven, then Lee Makai makes a 10 and then dirge makes it 14. That's three ships. And then you could do like, I mean, you could do a round to make a 20 or you could do boss that makes a 16. And then, yeah, you could do a five ship or four ship list. Boss, CAD, dirge, Lee Makai Mall. Is that OP?
00:29:30
Speaker
I'm sorry. Bosc is seven, nine, CAD, thirteen, DIRG, seventeen, and Lima Kite. No, it's not. Bosc isn't really a ship like to me. I mean, Bosc is probably the lamest of the two point options right now, although his ability can be really good. Yeah. He's just he doesn't he's not slider Sabine. He's just not he's just not fun. He's just kind of there. Is he ninety five? Just isn't a very fun z ninety five.
00:29:54
Speaker
I don't know. Nobody really talks about Basque and like they say, hey, you know, like maybe maybe he's able to split
Building competitive Scum lists
00:30:01
Speaker
a crit. He gets ignored or he just gets punished immediately and dies immediately. He's cheap for a reason. The Z-95 chassis, unless you're the Republican, you know, five like slider. I just it's just not a very great chassis. Sure. But I mean, like for scum, I think I think it's I think it's a very decent two point ship.
00:30:19
Speaker
He's there. He's I mean, he's he's the two point option. He's a distraction or could be a threat, though. Yeah. With marksmanship, he could. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, most gun players could care less when he dies. Right.
00:30:36
Speaker
for, you know, same with Sabine, I think Sabine same way for goes for Slider, any of the two pointers. I mean, they're the objective ships or if they can stick around, you know, they'll get there. But yeah, I think I think of mall goes down to seven.
00:30:51
Speaker
I don't think you need to change the loadout and I think it's fine Yeah, I think I think maybe even like yeah, if you change a lot out you can do 14 points Just one last just he goes down to six. Is that a bridge too far? Is that a six might be a bridge too far? Yeah, six is six is a weird state You might need to drop like the other goblets Well, no, there shouldn't be any large base without much health that I that I had a ship with a coordinating ability with three force at six points
00:31:17
Speaker
That's yeah, that's also true. There's a lot of a lot of there there. It's yeah. It's yeah. Yeah. Yeah, that's fair. I mean, I mean, we are reinforced with force that that force as well. Coordinating multiple coordinates. That does make you. Not to me to like a low level. Yeah.
00:31:38
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, you're putting them up against like, sure, there are six point of like choppers, six points after six points, but they belong at six. I think Moll belongs. It's it would actually belong at seven. And I think he's just been doghoused for almost no reason. Yeah. Bizarre. It's weird. I think it would be OK. I don't know. I think we talk about how weird it is that he was putting the doghouse with a product they need to sell. Like it's like a newer product. It's like really expensive to produce that like they aren't selling as many of.
00:32:06
Speaker
I don't know. It's making me think that like. But you found some like stupid combination. Yeah, like that. Maybe we haven't even thought about yet that would make it completely broken. But what scum is has a potential of being broken, right? I don't. Well, I mean, you'd be surprised scum can do a lot of weird things like it's like. Well, and the problem, the problem with scum is that.
00:32:30
Speaker
their individual pieces can be so good. Like if Boba Fett was a bunch of little ones or seven points, that becomes a problem. Yeah, I mean, it's people quit the game over stuff like that. And it's it's so it's I think scum is probably one of the hardest factors to balance because of that, because their whole faction identity is that like individually, they're so strong. Yeah, it's a very two point oe faction in my eyes. Yeah.
00:32:59
Speaker
Yeah, I think we agree on. Or we could just say that AMG just hates scum, and that's why.
Future of Scum faction in the meta
00:33:05
Speaker
I mean, I think I've gotten I've reached the point where I think AMG doesn't particularly care that much about scum. I just I think they're like, yeah, they're there and we'll change some things. I mean, they change and they change federal tea and a few other pieces. I think they're making efforts on it, too. And I think that it is a faction that it's not enough if you push it a little too hard. Yeah, I think that there's some other options that they can open up for sure.
00:33:29
Speaker
Yeah, but I think it's also a faction that if you if you push it too hard, you know, the other way that it can get really broken. Very. There's also too many scum ships that are extended only. Yeah. I mean, the faction can use a star viper or something. Yeah. They don't. There's so many extended scum ships, you know. Yeah. So hopefully when those come back, that'll help, too.
00:33:49
Speaker
Yeah, if they come back holding pattern for all reprints right now, we haven't heard anything about the gunboat. Hopefully soon we do because they did spoil that as the upcoming release. They did, yeah. Well, hopefully we haven't heard anything about it in a long time, but hopefully we do soon.
00:34:05
Speaker
Uh, just to say a note, apparently like, all of Legion is gonna get, like, reprinted in higher quality plastics. So, does that mean that X-wing's gonna be next? Probably not, but I mean, that's cool. That seems to be, well sure, I mean I would like that, but if that's where the money's going, I'm alarmed. If that's where they're putting their resources into, like, for the game, it's like, no, please invest in releases. I think Legion is like the one lifeline to name GS right now.
00:34:31
Speaker
I also, I mean, I think that the the the plastics are pretty high quality on X-wing ships already. Oh, yeah, exactly. So I don't think it seems so unnecessary. Yeah. Yeah, I think it's good. You know, good that they're they're they're they're not rotating like it's nice to hear that it's not Shatterpoint. So that gives me hope. Yeah. Yeah. It's funny, as soon as as we're as we're doing this recording right now, Joe Churchman comments in our.
00:34:56
Speaker
in our podcast chat. Thanks for the shout out from our last episode from Golden State Games. That's funny. You're welcome, Joe. If you're listening to this one, you're welcome. Can I do Captain Hark? Or do you want to do Bo-Katan? No. I'm down to do Bo-Katan. Cool. All right. So I'll do Captain Hark.
Enhancing Captain Hark's competitiveness
00:35:13
Speaker
Yes. The Empire has a gauntlet. Did you know that? Maybe you did. Maybe you didn't. Captain Hark is a six point option in Empire. He's initiative three and he's got 14 loadout.
00:35:25
Speaker
So after you reveal this ability, after you reveal a zero stop maneuver, if you are equipped with civil swivel wings down, you may execute a one bank or a one left or right side slip with the one bank template of the same difficulty instead. So you can do a, basically a one side slip as a red maneuver instead of stopping. And then you must, and then after you execute the maneuver, you must flip the swivel wings down.
00:35:54
Speaker
So I guess you could you could technically do it with the swivel wings up or down I think you can as it says if you're equipped with swivel wings down. Yep A side-slipping gauntlet when this when this was spoiled everyone's like this is gonna be so silly and fun and cool I'm super excited about it. And I just think that momentum just kind of got lost I think he started off too pricey and now he's at a place where he probably belongs But he's still kind of left behind because that faction has a lot of other choices for half the price you can multiply ships
00:36:23
Speaker
for a similar value. So let me see. Let me think. Six points, 14 loadout. I'm going to break Captain Hark. I'm going to keep him at six points, but I'm going to give him.
00:36:37
Speaker
You know what? I'm gonna give him 20 loadout. Yeah, I said it. He only has a talent, gunner, illicit, mod, payload, and crew. One crew slot, not two. See, I would give him an extra crew slot, too. I think if he has 20 loadout, getting two crew maybe could be too much, but I'm staying on the line of breaking it. Maybe I would remove his illicit slot.
00:37:02
Speaker
Just so he's can't, you know, I think false transponder codes is always an obvious more obvious one. Overtune modulators contraband contraband is good. I don't even know if he really deserves to lose his illicit. But yeah, I would. Yes, why not? Let's make you got rack and all the other decimators at seven with 20 loadout. Let's give you a six point gauntlet for like this. I am saying this as if I were somebody at atomic mass games. It's like, guys, we got to sell the gauntlet.
00:37:30
Speaker
We gotta sell the gauntlet. So we're making Captain Hark six points and we're giving him 20 loadout. Let's get people into flying the all these other gauntlet pilots that we barely remember, like Captain Hark. So I'm breaking it and I'm giving him 20 loadout, same as possible. Thoughts, opinions? I think give him the extra crew slot.
00:38:00
Speaker
I think with his ability, if you're if you can put Vader and ISB jammer on him or ISB or no, I mean, Death Troopers. You can put Vader and Death Troopers on him with his sideslip ability. Now that's something you can move into position to use that to to put him in somewhere funky, where when he does that zero stop maneuver, who knows where he's going to be. And that could be that could give you some really cool options. I think still makes it playable, like it's still
00:38:29
Speaker
I guess some people would say that could be a negative play experience. I think that that actually makes it exciting for both people. I mean, yeah. Also, this is a ship. I mean, unlike decimators, this is another ship that it doesn't stick around the board for that much longer. Even one does that zero stop maneuver. It's only rolling that one.
00:38:49
Speaker
It doesn't have that rotating arc that the decimator has as well. And this also, the decimator has that one forward. You can control where it moves. Gauntlets move fast. It has gauntlets everywhere. And it has gauntlets, which is huge as well, which they don't. Cool thing about Cap and Hark is that Hark can take best car, can take Mandalorian upgrades as well.
Improving Bo-Katan Kries in Separatist faction
00:39:17
Speaker
Yeah, he is a Mandalorian. That's kind of neat. Yeah. Good point, Andrew, for sure. So you get you get access to the Mandalorian optics and like Baskar reinforced plating. Also, also cool stuff. Yeah, you could do at five points if you take the drop seat bay, that gives you access to that gives access to an extra crew slot. So you can take the Mandalorians, but then you lose access to like taking the points to take other thing. Yeah. Anything else?
00:39:47
Speaker
Yeah, so yeah, that's Captain Hark. I think we all kind of manny anything about Harky Boy. I mean, I don't know that much to really say something substantial, so I'm good. OK. All right. All right, Andrew, we're doing Bo-Katan Kries, which one? We are going to be doing the separatist version of Bo-Katan Kries. This is one that I think on the separatist side, or between Republican separatists, because she can be in both.
00:40:16
Speaker
I think people I've seen more separatist versions on the table. So I think this is an easier one to, to bump up into relevance, especially in a faction that just needs more help. And, uh, we got Boca Tan Cree crease at six points for 12 loadout. And her pilot ability is before a friendly ship at range zero to two activates. You may spend one charge. She has one reoccurring charge. If you do that ship may gain one strain token to remove one non-stress red or orange token.
00:40:47
Speaker
So this helps at the start of activation. If there's a target lock on another ship, if there is, uh, an, uh, an ion, she also, she's I for, um, so if she sticks around close, she can do this ability before friendly ships activate. If they have an ion on them for some reason, if they have, um, a deplete or anything like that as well, if they're not going to do a blue maneuver, I think this is, you're going to probably see this more for like target locks.
00:41:16
Speaker
It's interesting. Yeah, they have to gain a strain, which is could be scary. Yeah. Yeah. So this is. Sure. In some cases, this is going to be on more of your like offense forward chips because they do want to roll those three dice, but even like, I don't know, joy, TIE fighter, where they're throwing like three reds, they only got that three hold, though. So losing that extra die can be pretty. Can be a bummer. That's not maybe.
00:41:47
Speaker
Yeah, even with the vulture class, right? This is a ship that doesn't really want to take strains too much. Well, it's before you activate, right? So could you just like plan out a blue move, then activate the ability and they do the blue move to take away the strain, which I mean, yeah, that's great, too. Good point. That's a really good point. Yeah. So it's not as much of a drawback as it might initially thought. Yeah. I.
00:42:12
Speaker
Twelve load out, man. Twelve. That's I mean, this is where I think I'm going to break this as well. I think I'd be OK bumping this up to. I mean, maybe even 20. Yeah, I feel like separate just can't abuse load out as much unless you're Django or Zam. Yeah, having a lot of loadout doesn't really equate to like being able to like oppress.
00:42:37
Speaker
Unless you're savage, oppressing. I don't think anything else is yet to relate. I think that's a huge worry. You got some cool. You got some cool crew that you can take, though, like you can even put like Hondo on there, but not like anything as terrifying as Vader, right? Or Palpatine. No, I was like, Zam, Zam is probably the. Like one of the big ones that you want to put on there. Zam on Boca Tom would be really cool. That would be cool. I would be pretty menacing.
00:43:07
Speaker
But not too bad. Yeah. And I mean, because right now, ZAM is 11 points. So at the upload out, that's it. You just take and determine that. Take the can take the title, the gauntlet upgrade, get an extra crew. So she has that. She can also once again is a Mandalorian can take the Mandalorian upgrades as well. So I think I would be OK. I mean, even, you know, even with ZAM going up to going up to like 20.
00:43:33
Speaker
And then that, I mean, that even gives you access to, if you wanted to the drop seat Bay, you can do Zam. You can do something cool with the Mandalorian troopers as well. Which one are they in this one? The Death Watch commandos. They're eight points.
00:43:52
Speaker
Yeah. Wow. So, um, with the drop, if you take the drop seat bay, you can't take the death watch commandos. Oh, wow. That's, uh, that kind of brings the gimmick. Yeah, it doesn't it. Cause it's like the whole point of taking the drop seat bay is that so you could, you could take.
00:44:06
Speaker
The Death Watch commando. What are you drop-seating otherwise? Yeah, exactly. Exactly, that's what I'm saying. They are extremely annoying to go up against. Not because they're like... Sorry, commandos. No, it's because they're very annoying to move around. I know, it overlaps. It's just... It's so annoying. It takes way too much time, yeah. Yeah, no offense to you commando players out there, but you are slightly more hated than anybody else when you drop this.
00:44:32
Speaker
I keep wanting to bring them. I keep bringing them because they are. It seems so cool. I love the idea. It just it just adds a lot of aches, I think, for everybody involved. Especially like your planet gets like every play gets like the clock. It's like, yeah, we move this commander token under like three ships.
00:44:53
Speaker
Even the person that is doing it is like do I really want to do this? You know that point it's less about winning more about just make your opponent's life hell No, I don't I think that there is there's a strategy if you are the gauntlet player the longer that like the turn of the rounds go the more likely your ship is to be destroyed so
00:45:15
Speaker
Based on the game state, like in a not cheating way, this is a way to maybe extend some time on your side.
Future updates for Separatist faction
00:45:21
Speaker
Oh, I know. That's slippery slope. So that's a fucking slippery slope. But it's like, I know. I'm not saying it's a good idea and you shouldn't take it because of that. That's wrong. That's not good. This is going to be all over Twitter or X or whatever you call it. Z, Y, theta, beta. Yeah.
00:45:37
Speaker
That's the only shoot twice so it's like it's not like they do anything so it's just like substantial. It's just the movement stuff. It's the second round, yeah. And they're chunky. They give strains.
00:45:47
Speaker
If you if you finish overlapping them, they do. Yeah, I mean, it's or they move into you and overlap. It's not bad. Yeah, I still think that it's not what we're saying. It's just it's it's cool to take. It's a lot of things to be doing. I I'm definitely more of a thematic player, so I love the idea of, you know, dropping commandos when I play things like the gauntlet. I that's an aspect of the game that I really like. I think it's a cool idea. But yeah, it can be annoying for sure. It's a favorite deal with like
00:46:16
Speaker
dropping a bomb on top of the ship or anything like that, too. Well, that's fine, because it's like it's only one round, right? Yeah. Yeah. Cool. Anything else about Bo before we move on to our audience topic? But yeah, well, I was going to say with Bo. Yeah, I think you can. I think the points are fine at six. You go up to 20 and we should probably just do an episode on what we think
00:46:42
Speaker
we could do just to make the Separatist faction playable and not in a way where you're taking Sunfak and Grievous. Actor their roots. Yeah. Back to this. Yeah. Swarming roots. Separatist. You like to the droids?
00:46:58
Speaker
Mm hmm. Yep. Wouldn't that be great? Yeah, for sure. I'm clones are going back to the roots of, you know, clones, lots of clones. Our republic is lots of clones now. I think we're, you know, separatists would be nice to go back to the droids. Yeah. The droids we are looking for as they say. And and you get some cool republic versus separatist games. That would be pretty sweet. I would be into it for sure. Yeah. That's the last comments that I have on the gauntlet with Bo Katan. It's a fun ship. And yeah, I think it's it's been hobbled for
00:47:28
Speaker
For some reason. Yeah. Yeah, that's the thing, right? It's just like for, you know, apparently it's like somehow the gauntlet will never return. So it came in one blink of an eye. It came inside. Certainly did not conquer. Well, when it first came out, there was a period of time where everybody was trying to break it. Everyone. It was good. Yeah. Rook cast for sure. Rook cast was the star.
00:47:53
Speaker
Was good, but also, not Captain Hark, but the other one in Empire was a great Sloan Carrier. I played Gar-Saxon. I played Gar-Saxon Empire. How long has Sloan been banned?
00:48:11
Speaker
That was the last time Gar-Saxon was in play. That was since the Depticon two years ago. Like right when 2.5k bomb. Or just a year ago, yeah. Yeah. Still hard to believe that was only one year ago, or a year and a half ago almost, but it was. It actually is over a year and a half ago. Yeah. All right. JJ from Planning Face Syndicate asked in our 312 podcast chat,
00:48:34
Speaker
What about the life cycle of the meta?
Meta evolution and ideal balance
00:48:37
Speaker
So how long do you guys think it takes for a meta to clarify after a change? And what is your ideal meta? Manny, I'm gonna start with you. Okay. How long is it to clarify? I mean, I don't know how I'll go about answering that question. Don't you say yo mama again?
00:49:01
Speaker
I mean, because if you also said like, after every big tournament, it seems that there's always a person that brings a ship or pilot that people just kind of underestimated and kind of show other players like, hey, it's actually usable and it's actually pretty good, right? But in general, I mean, high initiatives still kind of like kind of Rolex Wayne.
00:49:31
Speaker
What is my ideal meta? I mean like a diverse array of playable ships and pilots with all sorts of initiatives, I feel. Yeah, I agree with that. Variety is good. Variety in this game? Yes. I'll jump in after Andrew. Andrew, what about you?
00:49:55
Speaker
Yeah, so I would say how long it takes to define a meta. I would say the first big tournament is usually when a meta gets solidified. Any event I would say that has like over 35 players is when you start to see it first become established.
00:50:15
Speaker
And that's usually when people start building around that or building things to counter that. And that that is what sets the tone for what the meta is going to be. I think that forgot what the big tournament before Gen Con was was when we really saw a lone star open, lone star. Yeah, the lone star open is when we saw this meta develop
00:50:39
Speaker
And people around that time started bringing the Hanless to like the store champions. And you start seeing that pop up more on places like list fortress. Yeah. And we're probably, you know, Paul Hevers. Yeah. Maybe, maybe about like a month or two though, like after like points changes come out is when you really start to see the meta and my ideal meta. I mean, yeah, I would, I would agree with
00:51:08
Speaker
Manny, where you have lots of different, you want that variance between like different initiatives, different abilities, and you see a variance of the lists within the factions, which is great. I'm trying to think, I think the meta before this one, this last one was pretty fun for me to fly in.
00:51:36
Speaker
Yeah, I had a lot of fun with that. I had a lot of fun with that. And that was with chaffs and everything, too. Yeah, that was back with chaffs. But that was that was when I felt like there was more of an ebb and flow to like that last this last minute, I was flying Empire and I was flying Republic a lot. And I could really switch off between the two and felt like I was doing well with both.
00:52:01
Speaker
versus now I feel like there's, I honestly feel like with this, there's just Han. When there's one ship that is meta warping. One pilot, yeah. One pilot that is warping the meta like that. I think that is maybe the sign of not as fun of a meta for me.
00:52:19
Speaker
Yeah, I'm a little I'm a little disappointed with the current meta. I'm happy that resistance won a crossroads. I think that's awesome. You know, it's certainly not impossible for lists like in factions like that to win, but it does show more about the player skill, I think, in those edge cases. And then Nick, how about you?
00:52:40
Speaker
Yeah, I agree with you. How long does it take for a meta to clarify? I would say two worlds open qualifiers or, you know, 40 plus player events. You know, the second one usually affirms the first one or adds a little bit even, you know, more complement to what you saw. The first one, like there's also it's like, yeah, you have these, but you also with the second event, you have like you also have this. That's really good.
00:53:02
Speaker
So a couple bigger events, you can use those as a good frame of reference, a good sample size to be like, okay, this is clearly what people think is good, and this is clearly what's actually good. My ideal meta... Go ahead. I would say the second one is where you see what counters the winner of the previous one, too. Right, what people have encountered. Yeah. Yeah. And then what is... My ideal meta...
00:53:28
Speaker
is where I wanna see more four ship lists again, and I wanna even see some people take three ship lists. I don't want every single list I see to be five ships. I know that it's not always the case. Sometimes there are maybe, some rebel lists have four ships right now, and there are some that have six ships or maybe even seven. But usually you can count on it being five. For the most part, you can count on it being five. And I'd like to see, I'd like each faction to have more than one or two
00:53:58
Speaker
I4s or less be good or be like taken in lists. Yes. And I think the only way to do that is to be aggressive with costing the less pop, just the less popular pilots. We talked about leaving tens on T65 with Matt Courser last time and just making leave on three points because make you know, make an aggressive choice make people look at those things and consider building a list that's different and taking that value add.
00:54:25
Speaker
Yeah, because I mean, there is a downside to that lower initiative, you know, it's good to make that interesting. Where if you have that choice between that, I mean, honestly, that's, I think, where you're going to get back to what we were seeing in like a 2.0, where you could wear three aces are viable, because it's also viable to take six i3s. Yeah, in a list as well.
00:54:50
Speaker
Yeah, I think we're I love to see more low initiative. I think that's going to be the hardest thing to do to make it so that we do see more of that just because when you have I fives and I sixes that are the same price or maybe just one point more, it's it's it's almost like it's a complete no brainer. You know what you're doing with your list building, not throwing any shade of people who are playing more casually, of course, but just sort of a competitive perspective, you know, as we talk about the meta. I feel like we're we're we're kind of zeroing in on
00:55:19
Speaker
on that, that perfect balance, though, because the meta before this one was low, a lot of low initiative. The whole thing was lots of the debut meta was rough. Yeah. Well, the debut meta was just lots of ships in general. Yeah. And more low initiative, though, like. Well, yes, it was it was definitely a lot more low initiative. I meant the meta before this one, not the first one. Yeah. The Jingo Jingo Wampa meta. You did have the jingos, but I
00:55:47
Speaker
There was the I-4s was the sweet spot and you saw lots of I-4s. So it was okay to take I-3s, but most ships that were on the field were those I-4s and you could do higher ones, but they were more expensive. Now it kind of pinballed the other way where now because all the costs on everything came down for those higher initiatives now only makes sense to take high initiative. So I think we're.
00:56:14
Speaker
in the windshield, you know, we're in the pendulum where we're maybe moving towards something in the middle in the future. Yeah, I think I prefer the last iteration of the meta versus now. But there were glimpses of things in this one that if we just like do a little bit more work, we'll probably be in the best shape that we've been. Yeah. I think that that's what we that that's what we get. Yeah. Yeah.
00:56:39
Speaker
And I will say they made a lot of great choices, though, in this meta. Like, I'm happy that SCUMM is back because last meta, it was almost nowhere. I don't know if I agree that SCUMM is back. I reject. I actually reject. Not bad. You just have a very faint pulse. There's a pulse. I like that, Manny. There is a pulse. I mean, the right people are making cut with SCUMM. One person, usually one person. I'd say they're out of the ICU.
00:57:06
Speaker
They're stabilized. They're being watched, monitored. They're not healthy. Yeah, they're not healthy, but they're out of the ICU. They're being monitored. Right. But they're making progress. They're moving right through. Yeah, they're out of the iron lung. Yeah. All right, and that's good. That's better. Jesus. Our standards. Oh my God, these analogies are great.
00:57:33
Speaker
Yeah. Oh, man. JJ, appreciate you, man. I appreciate what you do for that. That was a great question. Thank you for asking that question. That was a lot of fun to answer. So thank you so much for asking that. Yeah. Appreciate you.
00:57:44
Speaker
All right guys, well let's, before we wrap up our show, I wanted to do something that I was a little, because of a provocateur sometimes, I decided to post my Star Wars rankings on Facebook of the shows, the Star Wars shows.
Ranking Star Wars shows and Ahsoka discussion
00:57:58
Speaker
And so I am going to ask you guys, I'm not gonna, I'm gonna, each one of you to rank.
00:58:05
Speaker
from, you know, your favorite, not necessarily like the objectively, but this is also subjective anyways, but not necessarily what you think is the best, but your favorite. What you enjoyed the most from top to bottom of the Star Wars shows. We are going to be excluding a couple of the children's shows, like Resistance, just, you know, guys. I was about to say, it's like, how could you forget about the critically acclaimed, animated Star Wars series, Persistence? But so, just that. How do you forget about that masterpiece? And live action.
00:58:35
Speaker
We are, yes. We're going to have both animated live action because the live action is actually taking parts of the animated shows and bringing them to life now, right? Like very seriously doing that now. So I think that's only fair, right?
00:58:48
Speaker
Yeah, so Manny, let's start with you, okay? What's number one, your favorite of the Star Wars shows thus far? We have that list as your reference. All right, number one, what had to be Clone Wars? I feel Clone Wars really did what George Lucas was trying to do with the prequels. It basically redeemed the prequels in
00:59:15
Speaker
in a lot of people's eyes. And just the world building and the mythos that was expanding through that show is, and also I kind of grew up with it. So it holds a special place in my heart. So Clone Wars is definitely, will be my number one. Okay. Clone Wars, including season seven, of course. Yeah. Oh yeah, of course. Season seven is one of the best Star Wars out there. Yeah. For sure. Number two. Two.
00:59:43
Speaker
Oh, okay. Let's... Okay, yeah, Andor. Andor has to take it. Andor had to be number two. Just with the writing, the grittiness scene of Star Wars that is not traditionally the typical Star Wars series, right? You don't see the floors. There are no Jedi. You literally just see the birth of the Rebellion.
01:00:10
Speaker
Um, uh, and just like the brutality of it. Um, uh, and also amazing writing. There's so many good lines to that show. Uh, that monologue from, oh, yes. It was like power does not panic, right? Yeah. I mean, just a cool spy thriller. Yeah.
01:00:30
Speaker
Yeah. All right. I should probably hurry up. It's okay. Number three. I appreciate it. You're, you're, you're being succinct. Um, rebels. Um, now it's like those Clone Wars, but you know, I saw a show that, uh, again, expands. Did you mean nothing against bad batch when you say that? Cause Clone Wars, you put his number one. So I'm not sure what you mean by nothing against Clone Wars.
01:00:58
Speaker
No, no, no, wait. No, wait. Uh, I said, wait. So you said number three rebels, nothing against Clone Wars. I'm like, well, well, I'm confused. Clone Wars is the number one. Well, wait, wait, wait. Did I actually say that? Oh no, I'm sorry. I was going to say that it's like, so I made it say like, it's not as good as Clone Wars. Oh, gotcha. Yeah. Yeah.
01:01:19
Speaker
But again, expands the entire galaxy after episode three. Ah, Ahsoka is basically Rebels season five, some months ago. I mean, sure, I'll put it at four. Okay. Bad Batch. Are you putting Bad Batch above the Mandalorian?
01:01:42
Speaker
I mean season three, season three really did read it down for me. It's not great for us. Yeah. I didn't like season three that much. The bed batch still has some interesting plot threads that have yet to be. I love that you're putting the Mandalorian to the doghouse. Oh my God. This is the content we're here for. So after a bad batch, I would put Obi-Wan, then the Mandalorian. Oh my God. Oh my God.
01:02:05
Speaker
For the hot takes, I really wanted you to say Book of Boba Fett and then the Mandalorian. No, no, no. I mean... That's just a hot take. The only thing that's scary in the Book of Boba Fett are those two episodes with Luke. Oh, yeah. Yeah, that's right. I forgot that was in there. That's basically it. I totally forgot that was in there. No, my answer is, I mean, like, no, that's great that you're enjoying it. Yeah. Yeah. I'll be one. The only thing that carries that series are the last two episodes.
01:02:36
Speaker
OK, all right. Well, I'll get Adobe one in a bit. Yeah. Andrew, what about your rankings? I got I put Andor at number one. Let's go. Just because I I think that Andor is really it's it's rewatchable for me. It's what the Star Wars universe and series needs. And it's so great.
01:02:59
Speaker
And it's something that I've had fun maybe recently, too. So I think that's why I'm putting it also like number one now. The journey is out if we deserve Andor still. It doesn't feel like a star. It feels like beyond the Star Wars show. Yeah. No, it's just a great TV show just in general, even if it wasn't Star Wars. Number two, I put Rebels. Rebels is it's got a soft spot in my heart. The characters are just so amazing. And the story is so cool.
01:03:29
Speaker
Uh, it's one of the reasons why Sabine is like one of my favorite characters in the Star Wars universe now. Um, I'm looking at that almost as a different like property. Like it's just, it's, it's, those aren't like my characters, I guess.
01:03:46
Speaker
it because it's just it's so weird and it's so I don't think I kind of, you know, just like they they're cooler and rebels and they it makes a lot more sense there. And then I put the Clone Wars for number three, because it's just the episode's depth of story for all the reasons why Manny said it was number one for him. You know, I think that any of these could be interchangeable, you know, top one contenders.
01:04:12
Speaker
Um, the, my rankings between them, just cause I put them in this order. They are so close. Any of these are, are, are ones that I'm willing to rewatch. Um, but number four, I'm also putting the Mandalorian, um, for me that I really enjoy it. I think it's perfect because spaghetti Western. I think that's the, what kicked off the return of Star Wars and making it great as a TV show and what Star Wars is. It's like a fun Saturday morning cartoon that I absolutely love.
01:04:40
Speaker
Um, you also hear me, you know, go on, on rants. Um, I liked season three a lot. I thought, you know, it was, it was pretty cool. And, uh, I got to identify the characters. It was great seeing, um, you know, Bo-Katan Kreese again. And, uh, and also the Mandalorian gives us some really cool space battles, which we don't really get to see in a lot of Star Wars media. You get to see the gauntlet be bad-ass and that's awesome.
01:05:09
Speaker
Makes me want to wish they came out with a scum, Naboo, Starfighter, because it would be just awesome to fly. So I also really appreciate the Mandalorian for that. Except the Razor Crest for days. Should have destroyed it. I've been so mad about that, still. But we got the Razor Crest. That's cool, too. I'm just going to rip through the last couple of months. I know. Mad match. Oh, sorry. I'm sorry, Andrew. I'm sorry. Oh, right ahead. No, it's all good.
01:05:37
Speaker
Because I want to get to dicks takes as well. I love the bad batch. Bad batch is great. And then this is where I'm getting. All right. Honestly, like the top three could all be tied for one. I think these next could all be tied for the what number we had injured for you. We're going into six. So I put Ahsoka Obi-Wan and then Book of Bubba Fett last.
01:05:57
Speaker
Yeah. And Book of Boba. They've all they've all fallen fat for me, flat for me. I mean, that as well. The Book of Boba. Yeah, that was not a.
01:06:09
Speaker
I think it's great. No, I don't. I think that's a fine choice. The book of Boba Fett, though, it was just the it felt like such an opportunity that was missed. And I think that's why it was at the bottom, because it could have been something so cool. And they played it so safe. And yeah, why do we have to make him a likable character? I might rewatch it because it's funny. They make a lot of really funny choices.
01:06:38
Speaker
like the street urchins are the cleanest things in the galaxy like they look oh the street urchins this the street urchins who were like doing Boba Fett's bidding they're supposed to be like teens that are down their luck but they have like they look like the wealthiest
01:06:54
Speaker
people in Star Wars. Oh, really? Oh, really? Space Mopeds? Yeah. Oh, yeah. I wish they died at the end. And in Tatooine, like I've never seen anything so clean. Yeah, they have to have a lot of money to make it like that clean with all their cybernetic upgrade. I just think of what I think of Book of Mophet. I just think of the meme where people were posting the picture of the back of that Twi'lek's head out of context and it just looked like an ass.
01:07:21
Speaker
to me it was that unnecessary spin that one guy did till I take a shot protecting
01:07:35
Speaker
whose idea was it to let the spy kids guy like run an episode of spy kids guy yeah it should have been in 3d dude where he said like cool like 3d things coming at you in the screen that's all he ever is to me now that we're talking about it maybe book of Boba Fett is awesome we just didn't get it yeah it's it's a comedy it's totally yeah
01:07:58
Speaker
I will say though, it's my kids too. There is that very deep line of Steve Buscemi saying, you think God stays in heaven in fear of what he's created? And I'm just like, you don't deserve that. That movie doesn't deserve that deep of a line. Yeah, that right. Like that cool line. Yeah. Yeah.
01:08:15
Speaker
Yeah. All right. Should I do mine real quick? Yes, absolutely. Okay. When I look at this list, I see a lot of flaws. It's like I see, and then I see Andor. It's like Andor and then just a lot of flawed shows. Like it's just different ways. Just, just, just, well, yeah, diamonds is, yeah, there's, there's something. They might be rocks, might be diamonds. I mean, but every show there is stuff that I really loved. Even little tiny nuggets of bookabooma fat, very small parts, but
01:08:44
Speaker
Number one is Andor for sure. Some of you guys know, I've kind of acidified and I love things feeling really gritty and cold and dark. And I just thought that Andor is like the closest thing, like an adult oriented, adult forward show that took itself very seriously. And I loved everything about that. So Andor is definitely number one. I think good writing in Star Wars, hopefully maybe they take some lessons from the folks who did work on that.
01:09:15
Speaker
on Andor, very esteemed, credible people. Number two, this is where it starts to get hard. So do I go, I'm looking at Clone Wars, I'm looking at Rebels, and between those two, I think, oh, this is hard. I'm gonna go with Clone Wars,
01:09:41
Speaker
Rebels is really close, though. The reason why I go with Clone Wars over Rebels is just because, as Manny pointed out, I think there's a lot of depth and world building and just... It was very much aware of the kind of things it was trying to set up for characters like Anakin. I was like, Clone Wars was extremely brutal. Like, Clone Wars did not hold back in terms of hospitality. But there's also some really bad... But here's the downside of Clone Wars. There's way less cringe in Rebels than there is in Clone Wars.
01:10:07
Speaker
There's some really bad, bad, bomb bad, the bomb bad Gungan episode. Anything with Padme and the Rodian, who she called her uncle. That was interesting. Well, you've blacked it out. There's just some cringe, but yeah, Clone Wars finished on a high note for sure.
01:10:27
Speaker
Um, in Ahsoka, everybody, you know, has an atta- well, to get into Ahsoka in a second, they have an attachment to Ahsoka because of Clone Wars. She, as just like Anakin, started off as a very kind of bland and annoying character and kind of grew into a more respect- respectable, more badass.
01:10:43
Speaker
supporting protagonist type character, which is cool. But I do, you know, my opinions on Ahsoka, I don't love Ahsoka as much as some of the biggest Ahsoka fans out there. I think she's cool. That's really the way I draw the line. I like her. Number three Rebels, Harrison Dula,
01:11:00
Speaker
Kane and Jarrus are two of my favorite characters from the Disney era, like next to Krennic and a couple others. I just like the whole cast, the Spectre Squadron in general. I thought they were all cool, Sabine and Zeb and Chopper. I'm sure, am I missing somebody? I don't think so. So Rebels number three. And then number four, I'm gonna go with The Mandalorian at number four. Season one.
01:11:31
Speaker
Spaghetti Western, like you said, Andrew, was a little formulaic, but it was cool. It set the tone. It was the tone setter for what was to come. It was great. First season had a little bit, a couple of not great episodes, but overall was pretty good. Second season I thought was great.
01:11:45
Speaker
I thought they really buttoned up them. The episode's feeling kind of the same after a while where you just kind of do a side quest. I loved episode season two, especially the end. Season three, I was disappointed by and I thought it lacked a direction until the very end when it was felt just a little too late. But I would give it number four, number five, Obi-Wan. Nostalgia, your boys got a little bit of nostalgia in them. And I thought outside of a couple of moments, I actually thought the show was pretty, pretty good.
01:12:15
Speaker
It wasn't as good as I would have liked it to be, but for me, it was good enough that I don't look upon it with dissatisfaction and resentment. Maybe I wish it could have been better because it should have been a little bit better, but it was fine. I put a Soka.
01:12:31
Speaker
After Obi-Wan, I think Ahsoka is probably a better show, but it's more boring for me. I thought it just didn't really hit the height of what it could have been. And I think it was just too slow for way too long. And then the highs were really high as Manny and I experienced some awesomeness together of Ahsoka. Some really good stuff in that show. I just felt like a lot of the characters were just kind of
01:12:54
Speaker
boring or underdeveloped, even though they seemed interesting or they were like, there was a lot of potential. We didn't get any delivery on that. Cause they didn't like that. Like these are characters that have such rich backstories and for them to feel so flat and underdeveloped when it becomes live action is just weird. Yeah. Um, animation is always better.
01:13:16
Speaker
Props to Bad Batch. It was a show that surprised me pleasantly, and I was really thrilled with the first season, the second season. I didn't care for about half, maybe a third of the second season, but Bad Batch, it was really good. I just got to give them kudos because it was really solid. So I put it right after Ahsoka. It seems to be, you know, bottom of the list. But, you know, to me, Bad Batch can be adjacent to Rebels and Clone Wars, and it can also be adjacent to Ahsoka. Like, it's just kind of all over the place for me.
01:13:44
Speaker
is because of what it connects to. A tier list, yeah, maybe next time. But visually, you can't really, it's hard to do a tier list video over a podcast, right? And then Book of Boba Fett, we talked about it already. It was unnecessary. And if they were gonna, I would have just preferred them to do episodes, short episodes about different bounty hunters, like a Ben Dengar episode.
01:14:05
Speaker
A Greedo episode, a Zuckus episode, a Boba episode. Chronicles of bounty hunters would have been way better. And you know what? Fucking hire me, Lucasfilm. Excuse my language, but hire me and I'll frickin' make it happen. So what I thought would have been cool is if Boba Fett comes out of the sarlacc pit, he's stranded on Tatooine, has nowhere to go and has to work, and he becomes the Marshal of Tatooine.
01:14:30
Speaker
He fills that role after Timothy Oliphant's character, but he keeps forgetting that he's like a annoyed guy. It was called Mos Espa. Mos Espa. No, I don't think it was Espa either. It was some other, most Pelgo. Pelgo.
01:14:48
Speaker
That was where Timothy Ollie Fox character was. Oh, gotcha. OK, sorry. Or even even still, even if he becomes like like he becomes a marshal and just keeps forgetting that because he's using his bounty hunter skills to be a marshal, but he keeps being bad at it because he forgets that he's like a good guy.
01:15:04
Speaker
like now and that way they could make him a good like a quote unquote good guy like like how Disney like wanted to but he but he's a reformed bad guy like he's just keeps going to his old like antics to like break the law to get stuff done and then he could have like a boss who's like God
01:15:22
Speaker
Darn it. It's weird that they kind of they kind of bully. They almost peer pressured Tamara Morrison into being like an actor that he's not and playing a character that it doesn't belong as a main protagonist for an entire series. Tamara is not that guy. And I he's a great guy. Great boys. He looks great, but he's not like an A-list B-list or even I would even know how he was retired as an actor until this. I mean, I think he
01:15:46
Speaker
could be that guy. I just I think I don't think it was him, his acting. I think he was very earnest in his acting. I think it was some criticisms were that he had his helmet off too much and talk just a little too much. I actually agree with that. I think him being a little bit more badass, mysterious and wearing his helmet would have just helped a little bit. Absolutely. Yeah, that would have been cool.
01:16:06
Speaker
He's Boba Fett was the, you know, the most feared bounty hunter in the galaxy was like known for being ruthless. And then, you know, you have a really a teddy bear. And this might
Critique on Star Wars shows and development
01:16:18
Speaker
come out just to just wrap up my my ranking. This might come off as a little hypocritical based on my opinions on Obi-Wan. But I just want for our standards sake and just, you know, what we've been able to see with all of these shows and the potential, especially maximized by Andor is just because
01:16:36
Speaker
There are celebrity cameos just because there are callbacks to some of your favorite moments. And just because there are mentions or exist, you know, the existence of a character that you like, it doesn't automatically make the show good. I just like I think I struggle with that with Ahsoka a little bit is like, yeah, Ahsoka is in it and it's about Ahsoka, but it still needs to be good.
01:17:00
Speaker
that doesn't just make it good. So I know that people are gonna hate me for saying that, because they're like, I just love Star Wars. I love Star Wars too, but I need more. And like, you gotta develop these things. And
Announcements and podcast conclusion
01:17:12
Speaker
I just feel like all of these shows besides Andor have just like been on the precipice of being like as good as they should have been, but they just fell flat and just development in key areas, characters, writing, whatever, right?
01:17:29
Speaker
Yeah, cool. I'm going to just run through some upcoming events and then, Andrew, you can do our outro. So that's great. All right. Our Windy City Trials Turkey Trot is coming up pretty soon. It's November 18th at Good Games Chicago. We still have a few spots available. It will be an official event, which means a world's invite will be on the line. It'll be one of the last
01:17:51
Speaker
Worlds Invite related events or official events in the Midwest of the year. So if you're able to make it, love to have you. We always have a good time at Good Games. PAX Unplugged is December 1 through 3 in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. That's going to be a pretty big Worlds Open qualifier at the beginning of December. And then of course, LVO will be the last Worlds Open qualifier. The Las Vegas Open in January 18th through the 21st. That is it for upcoming events.
01:18:21
Speaker
Well, hey, thanks everyone for listening this episode. When we return, we will discuss overcoming the new player barriers and how to find your calling in the X-Wing community at large. And Nick, if you want to tell them where they can find us.
01:18:34
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. You guys should join in on the conversation with us on Discord. Of course, in this instance, JJ asked us a question. We have a section for our podcast where you can ask us to talk about specific topics and maybe we'll pick it to include in the next episode that we record. You can follow us on Facebook to keep up to date with us. You can watch our live streams on Twitch. And if you miss our live streams, you can always watch edited content and replays of our streams on our YouTube channel.
01:19:03
Speaker
Alright, well thank you so much for listening, and I'm Andrew. I'm Nick. I'm Manuel. And we'll see you next time. See you later!