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Episode 1: Dashing after GenCon.
224 Plays2 years ago
A long time ago, in August 2023, your hosts Nick, Andrew and Emmanuel entered the gauntlet at the GenCon X-wing miniatures open. Nick even made top 4! On this episode, we discuss the post GenCon meta, the new YT-2400 and Imperial bomber releases.
Our friend Chris Tanner's (Planning Phase Syndicate) daughter is battling cancer and if you would like to join us in helping cover her medical costs you can donate here: 312_squadron / Streamlabs 100% of the donation will be given to Chris's family.
If you are in the Midwest you can sign up for our Chicago X-wing Turkey Trot Tournament November 18th: https://rollbetter.gg/tournaments/783
You can also follow us live every week on twitch: twitch.tv/312_Squadron
See our past content, battle reports, and tournament play on YouTube: youtube.com/@312squadronChicago
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Transcript
Introduction of Hosts
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 Emil Picasso. All right, you guys
Episode Focus: Dash Rendar & Gen Con Impact
00:00:11
Speaker
are in for a treat. For our first episode this week, we discuss an old friend joining Standard, Dash Rendar, Lebo, and more. Can we solve certain pilots in the game of X-Wing? The meta fallout of Gen Con amidst store champ season and more.
312 Squadron's Community Involvement
00:00:26
Speaker
But Nick, hey, we're not just on a podcast. There's also other ways to find us. What are some other places that you can see some three, one, two quack content and also videos, all sorts of other stuff. We have you surrounded. We're everywhere these days, man. I swear. That's right. So real quick, guys, before we dive into everything.
00:00:42
Speaker
312 Squadron, if you guys didn't know, we're based here in Chicago, Illinois, and we are an X-Wing community and channel. We specialize in streaming both in-person and online X-Wing and other games. You can find us on YouTube, on Facebook, on Twitch, where we stream, on Discord, and right here on your preferred podcast platform. Now, this is podcasting.
00:01:12
Speaker
All right.
New Releases: YT 2400 & TIE Bomber Packs
00:01:16
Speaker
So I think now we have some big news that is come out from AMG, the YT 2400 and the Thai bomber packs are being released. So it's going to be interesting to see where they're going to be points have not come out yet. But we do have a preview of
00:01:33
Speaker
what the ships are going to have. They have some some new title upgrades, probably some new. It looks like some new ordinance and a lot of things that could possibly shake up the current meta in there as well. Or at least we're going to see if they have the ability to do that. So do we want to start with the YT or the bombers?
Scum YT2400 Pilot Discussion
00:01:56
Speaker
Let's do something new. The YT 2400. Why not?
00:01:59
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Let's start with a shiny new thing. We're exciting. Let's start with scum, guys. Scum is the one that I think the faction needs a little bit of love. So who wants to take the new scum YT2400 pilot? I believe it might just be Lebo, but I'll have to double check here. I'm going to pull it up on my side.
00:02:18
Speaker
Yeah, Libo is in Rebel Orscum. I do like the AMG when they're coming out with the new ships that they have the ability to that they're in multiple factions. So you don't have to just buy into a faction that you don't play.
00:02:34
Speaker
and you can still use the chassis elsewhere. Or, you know, it's a great way to kind of explore and build into a new faction. So the scum pilot... I don't see anything. Yeah, there's nothing for the scum pilot. So I believe the standardized loadouts are the same for scum and rebels. Yeah. And Dash and Leebo are both in Rebels and scum.
00:02:59
Speaker
But it's all standardized. Yes. Right. That was the thing. So it is going to be the same for for rebels and scum. Yeah. So, yeah, it doesn't matter which faction you choose, because the ceramics loadouts give you the same fear of fear. Either one of them. But that's a big deal, right? Because one at one, you get to customize and have opportunity to pick your own upgrades with rebels. But you won't have that opportunity with scum, which.
00:03:23
Speaker
I don't know. I don't think scum players necessarily want to hear that, but, you know, not all not all hope is lost to standardized cards could be quite good. Yeah. Let's jump into it, though. Who wants to who wants to start with? Let's start with Dash.
00:03:35
Speaker
Yeah, I can start with Dash.
Dash Rendar's New Abilities and Impact
00:03:38
Speaker
Dash has a new ability. He's an i5 pilot, six hull, four shields, two evade dice, and he's rolling three attack dice. And his new pilot ability is after you gain a red token as a result of moving through or overlapping an obstacle, you may transfer that red token to a friendly ship at range zero to one.
00:04:02
Speaker
So it's a little bit different. He can still overlap obstacles, but it looks like he's still taking that penalty, but then you just transfer the token. So maybe you don't have the stress, uh, ability and you can do it right after you overlap. So it's not like you would lose an action step unless the obstacle says that you lose that action step.
00:04:24
Speaker
And then it has a ship ability, sensor blackout. While you perform a primary attack at range zero to one, you roll one fewer attack dice. So that is the balance it out because it has a three dice gun. You're not going to be rolling four dice at that zero to one. So you would roll four, but then you would just roll three. So it's always a three dice gun.
00:04:46
Speaker
Another thing it says while you defend it range one you roll one fewer defense die as well. That's the big one. You don't want to be at range one. Yep. This is a large base a large base vying to stay away from
00:05:02
Speaker
In your your enemies list where the average ship count now is around five maybe even six Yeah, not you know, that's five. I think that's the average. Yeah easier said than done It depends on what faction but it's usually five is what we have noticed across the board here in most Yeah, I you know, I think it's a weird thing where that that ship ability is kind of fighting with the pilot ability because if you want to be moving through obstacles and
00:05:29
Speaker
You're I feel like you're doing that to surprise your enemy to to be able to to jump on them at range one. Maybe when they're not expecting you. It's it's interesting, right? It is interesting. And he's got his go ahead and break down some of his upgrades on the standardized version. Yeah, right. So for the standardized, there's a new title ability called mercenary and not title.
00:05:55
Speaker
Oh boy, what's it called? Talent. Talent, that's it. A new talent called mercenary. After another friendly ship at range 0 to 2 is destroyed, before it is removed from the play area, transfer one of its green tokens to yourself.
00:06:12
Speaker
If you're losing a friendly ship, you at least get to if you can spend that focus, you can you can at least get it on to you. And then there's Libo crew. After you repair a damage card, you may perform an action from your action bar, which if you're in a large base ship, that seems really good.
00:06:29
Speaker
Seeker missiles which are interesting only range two to three, three attack dice at the front arc and four charges and so the attack you need a target lock you can spend one charge but during the modify attack dice step you may spend two additional charge tokens to change one result to a hit for each charge spent this way. One eyeball result to a hit.
00:06:54
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. But you can spend up to two. So you can't just like use all three on that. But that covers for being able to target lock and get those folks actions and then has a title. Outrider, while you perform a primary attack at range three, roll one additional attack die while you perform an attack that is obstructed by an obstacle, you may spend one of the defenders evade result or you may change one
00:07:21
Speaker
You may spend one of the defenders of age results to a, uh, eye results. So it's not change you're spending it into an eye, but I'm sure that that's bizarre wording. It's bizarre wording. So I'm wondering if that, that means that there's some, some interaction down the line that, that, uh, that that matters. There might be some edge cases in the rules. So, okay. Uh, rolling four dice at range three, that's pretty good.
00:07:51
Speaker
Yeah, there's a lot of conditional things here. Yeah. Yeah. It's very conditional all the way across the board for it, literally from the ability to every upgrade that he has stapled on the standardized card. Manny, what's your first initial kind of reaction or impression of everything you just saw or you see here? Oh, man. How can I depend on how much this card is going to cost? Because if I'm going to have to guess, I would assume that's going to be seven points. So obviously the comparison
00:08:22
Speaker
would be to Han. And Han compared to this at the same cost, I think I would have some trouble picking Dash over Han. It was the same price. And just for those of you guys listening, you might know the points by the time you listen to this, because we don't even record this. Oh, that's true, yeah. So we will have some insight once this episode is released as to exactly the cost of everything. However, if trends are true,
00:08:51
Speaker
The way that standardized cards have been priced for play across multiple factions, I would not be blown away if this ends up releasing as six points. At six points. Yeah. Six points? Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I think that's fair.
00:09:10
Speaker
Both at six points. Well, we'll talk about Lebo.
Comparison of Dash's New and Old Abilities
00:09:13
Speaker
We'll talk about. All right. All right. OK. And go ahead, Andrew. Yeah, I could I could see it being being six or seven. I think those are both fair. Dash is also as an I five. That's pretty good. I this is something that, yeah, really wants to stay at range three. Yeah. The weird thing is
00:09:38
Speaker
So you still suffer the penalties from going over obstacles. And I'm trying to think, like, what in what. Gas bugs are going to be popular with him, I think.
00:09:50
Speaker
Yeah, but not but that you but then you have to ionize one of your other shifts. The chances of you taking one ion or high three is very. Yeah, no. Right. I know. But I mean, so, yeah, you just don't transfer that. Well, it says you can transfer one. So I guess if you get the third ion and you go over a gas cloud, you can transfer one of them and then you're only at two, which is fine. But this way he can fly away from people if he goes over gas clouds.
00:10:19
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, yeah, that's true. Um, yeah, like I was about to say, if you're using the ability to fly through obstacles, I think you're using it to fly away rather than try to get the jump on someone.
00:10:35
Speaker
Something that's worth calling out here really quick to is that this is kind of a special circumstance where we with with a new release where we are seeing something that is already in the game and priced with different things in the game, different abilities, you know, in different factions with the conversion kit, you could play this ship even though it's extended. This is the first time we're seeing something be completely redone that already exists and is playable currently.
00:11:02
Speaker
And so I think that is going to not only shake things up in terms of maybe the meta, but it also makes it potentially confusing for folks who maybe have stepped away from the game or are playing at home and aren't really paying too much attention to what's going on in the X-Wing outside world.
00:11:19
Speaker
I just think it's interesting that, you know, we might see more of this later, especially with reprints. This is the first kind of reprint that we're now seeing. This is the first reprint, besides bombers being put into standard. But those pilots are still the same. These are different.
00:11:34
Speaker
Really quickly, before we get to Lebo, there is a build your own dash, as we alluded to in Rebels, and Rebels only, that I wanna, I'm gonna read you guys the original dash's ability real quick, and then I'm gonna read you the new build your own dash's ability that will override the old one. So here is the old dash, the one that as of right now is an extended.
00:11:57
Speaker
He is 10 points with 22 loadout. He's initiative 5. He stays the same initiative. And his ability is while you move, you ignore obstacles. Just flat across the board, you just don't suffer the effects of them unless you stay on top of it and then you wouldn't be able to shoot. But otherwise, while you move, you can roll off of it. You can ignore it completely while you move.
00:12:18
Speaker
With Sensor Blind Spot, while you perform a primary attack at range zero to one, do not apply the zero to one bonus and you roll one fewer attack die. Full stop, that's it. Nothing about reducing your agility at range zero to one, only for attacking.
00:12:35
Speaker
So pretty, you know, not really kind of old news at this point, right? Because he's about to be overridden by the new dash. So I'm going to read you guys the new dash's ability, the build your own. During the engagement phase, you ignore the effects of obstacles that you are overlapping. So still tied to obstacles.
00:12:52
Speaker
However, the timing is different. It's not just while you activate. And during the engagement phase, you ignore the effects of obstacles that you are overlapping. So you can park on top of rock, debris, gas cloud. However, here's the deal. You still suffer the effects of it while you're moving on to it. So if you hit a rock and you want to stand on top of it and shoot, great. But you could take two damage from that. So there's, you know, some drawback. Now you can't just be all willy nilly loosey goosey. We don't know how much loadout you'll have.
00:13:20
Speaker
We don't know how much loadout will... He will certainly not be the same price as a standardized version of Dash. I could see this one being 7 points. And standardized, again, you will all know by the time this is released what everything costs and what the loadout is. But I could see this at 7 and standardized Dash at 6. What do you guys think about that? Oh yeah, no, I agree. I mean, good bet. It would make sense if you take account of all their previous actions.
00:13:50
Speaker
Yeah. And we'll see just what the what the loadout is to and what slots it can take. Absolutely. Let's keep going, though. Let's do Lebo. Andrew, do you want to read the standardized Lebo for us?
Lebo's Standardized Abilities
00:14:03
Speaker
Yeah. So Lebo is initiative three and the pilot ability at the end of the engagement phase. You may spend a calculate token to acquire a lock on an enemy ship at range two to three.
00:14:16
Speaker
And so instead of having the focus action like Dash does, Lebo has calculate, has the target lock into rotate turret into, and then has a red barrel roll and just a white rotate. And then also different actions than Dash as well. Different actions than Dash.
00:14:42
Speaker
Which is really, really interesting. That is also something we have not seen before. Right. That's probably the first. Besides, besides, besides the fact that some can only calculate versus focus, that's the only instance in action where we've seen an action bar be manipulated across a chassis. But this is really interesting. A new linked action that another pilot, the same chassis, does not have access to. Being able to link into an arc rotation is pretty big.
00:15:10
Speaker
Yeah, and I three well and I three, you still have to do some guesswork as to where they're, you know, you can still get our dodged but they also just finished off Lebo has still has a center blackout from primary attacker in zero to one role for your attack die while you defend role one fewer defense die.
00:15:30
Speaker
So Libo is interesting because spending that calculate to gain the target lock is pretty interesting as well. So for the talent slot, they have efficient processing after you perform a calculate action, gain a calculate token. So it makes that a little better and makes it more likely that you're going to get that target lock.
00:15:50
Speaker
Uh, has the secret missiles as well. So you can modify, uh, you spend charges to modify those missiles instead of having to use, uh, calculate tokens, and then also has outrider. So I perform primary attack at range three, roll the additional additional attack die. You can spend a defender's evade results, uh, and into a, uh, focus result.
00:16:15
Speaker
You know, just something that we I want to call out as well, that I think, you know, we read out loud a couple of times, but just I think props to AMG and also the testers for just noticing that it would be quite problematic to reduce your agility at range zero. So we're a sensor blackout for attacking a zero to one for defending its only range one. Yes. Yeah, that's right. That's a nuance thing that really matters a lot. Yeah, because that would be very annoying for those range zero shots.
00:16:43
Speaker
You mentioned Outrider. Lebo has Outrider and Dash as Outrider. So what does that mean? You can't have both in a list, guys. I'm sorry. You can't have both standardized versions. You can have one that is and one that isn't. But both standardized, you cannot do it. It will not be possible. You can't have two Outriders. So that's a good call out right there, too. Yeah. So where does this fit in the current scum or Rebels lists?
Tactical Roles for Dash and Lebo
00:17:12
Speaker
Because where I'm I'm seeing it is I mean this I don't think this like goes maybe this is not a Han Solo replacement. But what I am seeing is a pretty if you can keep it at range three, this is going to be a very resilient ship.
00:17:32
Speaker
because you still, if you want to be at range three, so you're rolling potentially three evade die on a large ship. And if you're hovering around obstacles, you can use those maybe to get a fourth. And you have 10 hull to chew through. So this is screaming to me is objective. This is your objective ship.
00:17:57
Speaker
At least for assault, it's going to be good at assault. It's going to be I think it's going to be great at flipping switches like on the far side and reaching those switches. And yeah, I mean, you don't want to pick up crates with this.
00:18:19
Speaker
But I mean, and I think it would be good in chance engagement, too, because it's just it seems like it's going to be very hard to to kill or to destroy.
00:18:30
Speaker
Manny, what do you think before I jump in with my take on? Yeah. I mean, I could see it being used as like a multi-world purpose. I don't know how I feel about spending six or seven points on a large ship. That's, that is, that's primary objective is to go after objectives. I mean, yeah, I guess it makes sense. But, um, I mean, if I'm spending six, seven points, I want that ship to at least be killing stuff. It's got four dice at range three.
00:19:01
Speaker
Yeah, that's true. Again, as I mentioned, I think the theme, the word of the day is conditional with these guys. I think that you can, if put in a position for it to be possible, they will be easily bullied at range one.
00:19:20
Speaker
There has to be and there are a lot of fast ships, a lot of big ships that can cover a lot of distance right now. Three dice, four dice guns, APTs are a thing a little, you know, here and there sometimes, especially with Battle of Yavin and all that stuff. So I think that the six point version of these guys, you can definitely make a good argument. I think it's seven.
00:19:43
Speaker
you will have to figure out exactly what kind of strategy you can control when bringing this piece to a game. Because your opponent will do their best to just get in your face and bully them, which you had to do in 2.0 in the current version of these pilots. That was the only way to really take them down. They're neutered without the ability to double tap, take multiple focuses.
00:20:05
Speaker
sensor blackout affecting your agility at range one. Like I said, being bullied at range one, you could die in two or three shots if you take two or three range one shots. So I am skeptical. Right now, my current standing is I am hopeful.
00:20:23
Speaker
and skeptical at the same time with I I have these goals. I will say, but you're I think that you're forcing your opponents to dive at you. They have to dive at you because if they if you if they let you slow roll up. They are they're going to be in a lot of trouble. They have to go all in pretty aggressive right away. And if you can bring that, I think with this list, you want to bring some good flankers.
00:20:51
Speaker
I'm thinking this is going to be a great list for some of the fangs like Bodeka with the double tap ability because they have to pick a lane. Do they do they bully? They have to go all in and bully Dash or Lebo. And then that is going to leave your flight. Your flankers will have open season because they have to come at them really fast. Yeah, but six or seven points of bait is a pricey piece of bait.
00:21:20
Speaker
Which is, it's at the expense of how big the rest of the list can be. So if your flankers would be a couple A-wings and Luke, is that enough? Or, you know, Bodokai and a couple of, you know, two or three other ships. Alright, here's a question. If you were to take the Rebel-less, oh, that got second in Gen Con, and replace, oh, wait, no, Han, it's not part of those. But let's say if you were to take like a Rebel-less, replace Han with Dash. Would you feel more confident?
00:21:47
Speaker
Overall, I just will not be as good as Han. I don't think it's going to be possible for him to meet that ceiling. It's he's not set up for it. Yeah. Also, Han Han himself is a format warping ship like Han is worth two ships. I don't see Dash or Lebo. Yeah. Even if they are. It's a tough comparison to make because of the double tapping that Dash cannot. I as well. I think I think if you're if you're bringing
00:22:15
Speaker
Dash or Leebo, it's because it's going to be in a different type of list. Now, you know, Dash, Leebo, maybe if you bring Han, that could be interesting because then they have to pickle and they have to pick. Do they go haul in on Han? Do they go all in Leebo? Because what if Han's your flanker? Like, you know, that could be interesting as well, where, you know, because because that's
00:22:44
Speaker
If it's, but that's still, that's a lot, right? So let's say that this is six points on a seven. There's not really much else that you're bringing, but.
00:22:54
Speaker
That could be scary. Yeah, I think you'll be in a position where you might have to build around one of these two. Yeah, I think it's a build around right now, for sure. But I don't think it's going to be nearly the same bliss. And I don't see this on replacement. No. So all right, before we move on to the Bombers, final verdict. Yea or nay, I'm going to ask each of you, OK? Just in terms of impression of what you've seen, if you had to lean one way,
00:23:15
Speaker
Yay or nay? It's extremely hard because we don't have the points. I mean... Let's do it for the hot takes. This is what we do here. Alright, the hot takes. Alright. Uh, including the fact that we don't have the points, I am a nay on this. I am. I like yay. Yeah. Okay. I am a big nay right now. I am yay. I am so yay.
00:23:33
Speaker
Granted, if these guys are like really cheap, like five or six points, then yeah, like God, we were going to revisit this, guys. We're going to check out how things are going after we've seen the when this comes out. We'll know after we've assumed it's going to be like six or seven. Yeah. Yeah. Well, we'll see. But six points. I mean, seven points, I think. I think for Dash, I could see Dash being seven points. That might be all right. Lebo at six. I would be very in on Lebo at
Comparison of Dash and Lebo in Rebel Lists
00:24:01
Speaker
six.
00:24:01
Speaker
Yeah, that's exactly what I'm thinking. It's they have a good stat line. They have a decent action bar. Their dial is great. They, you know, they drop down from four to three attack. They can lose their agility and attack dice at rain zero to one slash one four of eight for defending a large base, higher initiative for Dash at I5, Lebo at I3. There's some dynamic potential. I think we can leave it probably at that and jump into the bombers if, you know, we itching last words about the question.
00:24:31
Speaker
Hold on, hold on. We forgot to take a look at the dial. Their dial has only one red maneuver, and that is a 4K. Right. They have white three hards. They go, yeah, straight. Now the blues aren't great, but not bad. The blues aren't great. Yeah, that's great. However, four blue maneuvers total. One banks, one straight, two straight. For a large base ship that has a three bank, that's pretty rare, too.
00:24:57
Speaker
Very maneuverable. I don't know. Yeah, I'm the one. The white one heart is pretty fast. Is that white white one heart? Very strong. Wow. Yeah. Good question. Do we know what the the loadout numbers for the customized ones or is that still up in the air? Yeah, I think it's all still up in the air. Yeah. OK. All right. Yeah. It'll be revealed at the same time.
00:25:23
Speaker
Gotcha. I don't know if like any leaks. Yeah, that's right. It makes sense if it leaked. Yeah. All right. Cool. But we will know. And when this comes out, we we will know. So an interesting topic, a little bit of a, you know, kind of a trying to use our foresight and guessing guesswork here. So we will. That's right. You know, as you're listening, you can you can tell us how how wrong. Yeah. Oh, yes. Were you a year or an eight? Where are you at now? Yeah, we don't know. They don't know.
00:25:53
Speaker
Please give me
00:25:56
Speaker
I won't respond, but please. Tie bomber time.
TIE Bomber's Role in X-Wing Standard
00:25:59
Speaker
All right. So, guys, the tie bomber has been a part of extended for a long time. I think it was a ship that a lot of people were like, when are we going to get the tie bomber and standard? When are we going to get it? And well, we have it. We had it graduated into standard as soon as a starter pack with the bomber was announced. And now we speculated at the time the starter pack came out that we would get an expansion with just a bomber or two. And now we do. We have a dual pack, two bombers.
00:26:20
Speaker
a message of how wrong I was.
00:26:24
Speaker
with some new standardized pilots that come out that have not been released yet. They're released in this pack specifically. And yeah, I'm eager to see how these do. I'm excited about it. We can break them down. But before we do that, how do you guys feel the bombers have performed so far because they have been standard legal for a little while now? You know, what are your thoughts on them overall?
00:26:46
Speaker
I think they made a splash and then they kind of just became quiet all of a sudden. I don't think they were too prevalent at Gen Con. I don't know if the arcs and hearts kind of ate their lunch. They were in Swiss. They were pretty much. Oh, yeah. Yeah, I faced a bunch. Yeah, I think no, I think they've been strong. They've they've. Oh, they're pretty good.
00:27:12
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, yeah, other other great for their price. I mean, yeah, I depend on the pilot, but they're yeah. Continue. Great at three points. I think that people picked up on pretty quickly the how punishing the saturation salvo barrage rocket combination was in that made it
00:27:33
Speaker
not viable to take quite a few ships. Like it made me not want to really take fang fighters as much because that is something that if they're they do not want to be saturation. So Han doesn't like him. Han doesn't like him. Yeah, they they serve a very important role, I think, in the current meta. And it's kind of it's very cool to see because they're relevant in a way that they haven't been in
00:28:01
Speaker
I mean, since I started playing, which I really like.
00:28:07
Speaker
Yeah, and Tomax Bren is obviously the MVP of the bomber options in better customizable because Tomax is i5 with good loadout to take the barrage rockets, the saturation salvo, and the bomber generator. But if you want to beef up your list and beef up your efficiency with your attacks, then you throw in Rimer at i4 and Jonas, who's the big one that basically almost guarantees that you get three hits on your
00:28:32
Speaker
Barrage rockets because he allows you to reroll up to two dice for each friendly ship or for a friendly ship himself included zero to one They may reroll two of their missile or torpedo tax so Very good. Actually, it's funny. Shout out to Ben Keller one of our locals who thought for the longest time while he's playing these bombers that Jonas's ability was reroll only one die not two So he was the longest time only rerolling one of his barrage rocket
00:29:01
Speaker
Hilarious. I just it's just so funny. You could not believe it. It seems too good. It seems too good. Yeah, it is. It's good. And but there are the drawbacks are there, which we can get into. I mean, actually, I'll talk about it real quick. The drawbacks of why did I not play more than one bomber did well at Gen Con. I only brought one bomber. It was Tomax there. You know, the other Jonas is four points. He can be initiative killed. They have no shields.
00:29:25
Speaker
They can be mag pulsed. They can be jammed by whispers there are and they can be flanked by aces So they're you know, they're a one-trick pony They go in one direction and coast and just try to get their arc wide to catch something and there are ways to beat them And I think that has been proven at this point that there are things out there that will bully them and allow them to basically just take up useless space in your list if they're not firing those barrage rockets and
00:29:53
Speaker
Yeah, I think that the competitive call is, is only one, uh, to max only. Cause also if they, if they go in at the bomber, it's three points that you lose, but if you have all three that are very, I mean, that's nine points that you possibly could be giving up. Um, if I'm sitting up across the table across a multiple bomber list, they, they're going to be my first target for sure. Yeah.
00:30:15
Speaker
Let's let's quickly or as quickly as we can dive into these new standardized pilots.
Captain Jonas and Tomax's Abilities
00:30:20
Speaker
I'll start off with Jonas and then if you want to do Tomax, Andrew and then Manny, you can do deathfire. Oh, I was going to say, I want I'd like to take deathfire. OK, he wants. Sure. Sorry, Manny. You're going to do Tomax. All right. So Captain Jonas, he is at initiative four.
00:30:42
Speaker
And we, again, when this is released, we'll know how much loadout or sorry, not how much loadout, how much he costs. But right now we just know the upgrades. So he's got a talent called Top Cover. This talent reads, after a friendly ship, it rains zero to one defense. If you have not dropped or launched a device this round, you may launch a device using the three bank, three straight
00:31:04
Speaker
a three bank to the left, three straight, or three bank to the right template. So you could be extra nimble, whereas they have the nimble bomber ability where they can drop a device or a bomb with their one bank. He can do this with top cover with a three bank or a three straight.
00:31:20
Speaker
So that is pretty good. And he he can launch it. So it's not dropping. You can't drop it behind you, but you have to use those templates to launch this device with top cover. That is how that works. So kind of scary. Like you could throw out some danger out in front of somebody.
00:31:38
Speaker
with that. Again, after a friendly ship it rains zero to one defends just be nearby something or you know, if it's you that counts as well. He's got barrage rockets as we've been used to seeing on the bombers think that's on par putting that on him. And then proton bombs. So that is the danger that he can throw out with top cover proton bombs. They've been around for a while but in case you don't know or can't remember what the hell they do.
00:32:02
Speaker
Proton bombs, during the system phase, you can drop a proton bomb using a one speed template or the one bank for these bombers. Any ship at range zero to one of the bomb after everyone is activated, it detonates. They suffer a crit, whether it be on the shields or into the hull. Really good in salvage mission, of course, because you suffer a crit and you're holding a crate. Bye-bye crate.
00:32:28
Speaker
So that is Jonas initiative for I didn't even read his ability. So after you drop or launch device gain and evade token. That's that's going to keep him around a little longer. Pretty good. Yeah. Yeah. So it's interesting if you launch a device in response to a friendly ship defending, it doesn't I don't believe that would go off until the next activation route.
00:32:58
Speaker
I believe you're correct. It would be a really weird. It's very special case. Yeah, you're correct. Yeah, it's really strange because that would be really cool if you could throw it and then have it go off. But yeah, that's good. It might actually mess things up for yourself. You're like, well, crap. Yeah, you have to do it at least. You don't have to do it. No, but it's it is interesting. It's it's pretty wild. Yeah. Because you also don't have to be in a position where you have to drop something, which is I don't know. It's it's funky. I like it.
00:33:29
Speaker
Yeah. And the other thing is, is if you not dropped or launch a device that round, so you can't, you know, do two in the same round, you can't have system phase dropped and your first proton bomb and then do top top cover in the same round. Yeah. So that that's another, you know, just a important thing to remember. What do you guys think of Jonas? I'm first. He's interesting. Yeah, it's funky. I like it.
00:33:58
Speaker
But the top cover. Yeah. Here's a hot take. We're going to see if I'm right. I'm going to speculate that this guy comes out at three points. I hope so. Because I mean, we're going to want to be surprised. I don't know if I like that, but I'm like, I'm not going to be surprised by it. I like it. I think three points is absolutely fair for an I-4 bomber, even with top cover. It's standardized. The evade is is really cool.
00:34:27
Speaker
I think that's going to really help, especially in this high initiative field that we see. I would be shocked if it was if it was more than three points. Oh, you know what? Let me read one more. So just a quick note. You had I know when you had said it standardized, you meant in the standardized card format, but just right for the folks at home, it's not standardized across a list where everybody has it just in this card for Jonas. I didn't even read. There's a second part of top cover, guys. It says you ignore the effects of friendly devices. How about that?
00:34:57
Speaker
That's yeah, that that changes everything. Yeah. Right. Yeah. So me just forgot to read that part because I got too excited about the first part. Yeah. Honestly, if it didn't have the second part, I still think it's cool. But that's totally that's a lot better. Absolutely. Yeah, absolutely. Because the bad side is you're telegraphing where you're not going to go. But yeah, this is good. Yeah. How about Tomax Manny? Give us what you got with Tomax. Yeah, I'm just fine him.
00:35:25
Speaker
Where is he? There's like two of them, right? Or is there only one?
00:35:31
Speaker
There's the new standard as well. TBE. TBE, gotcha. All right. All right. So he has the ability of how do you perform a barrel action? You may spend two charges. If you do, gain a focus token. Not bad. I kind of like it. The chanceability is still the same. I'm going to move on to the upgrades. His town slot is true grit. It is a new upgrade.
00:35:56
Speaker
and its effect is at the end of the activation phase, if you are not strain, you may gain 1 strain token to remove 1 non-lock red or orange token. Pretty good if you want to get unstressed, I guess. Ion bombs.
00:36:20
Speaker
Yeah, I don't know what that does, right? I don't know how to explain it. Yeah. All right. Yeah, I mean, let's so ion bombs, it's an ion bomb will detonate. Range one, it'll detonate, and you get zero to one ion tokens. Three ion tokens, no damage. Three, yeah. And for torpedoes, it has plastic torpedoes. The effect, you roll three dice, two charges, range two to three.
00:36:46
Speaker
attack a lock on requirement, spend one charge during the neutralized assault step. Crits are canceled before hit results. After this attack hits, the defender loses one shield. Interesting. I want to point out that what's really interesting about True Grit is that there is a red disarm on this chassis and they would be able to remove the disarm token.
00:37:13
Speaker
at the end of activation if they wanted to. So let's say they had a lockout there already from earlier. They wanted to fire a plasma torpedo, but they had to reload it during the activation phase to have a charge to do it. Now they can use true grit. They could fire that plasma. It's hard. Oh, interesting about a little. Yeah. I did not realize that. Oh, and then also the ship itself has two charges. It starts with two charges and then one reoccurring.
00:37:42
Speaker
So the the pilot, the pilot ability and yeah, you can do that once every other term, which is nifty. And so Max is still initiative five like his build your own counterpart that is being very popular right now with the empire lists.
00:37:58
Speaker
I like this too. I think this is cool. This is a bomber ace. Yeah, this is a bomber ace. I don't think all three of these guys are going to end up being the same cost. I think they're definitely not make one of them be, you know, you know, a couple or maybe an even number three points. One's a four pointer. I don't know who.
00:38:18
Speaker
I would also see I could see this one going either way. I think this is a four pointer just based on the ability to, you know, gain focuses or doing barrel rolls. It's recurring. You have the opportunity to remove disarms. You have the ion bombs, which don't do a lot. Don't do damage. But ion is very good right now for control. So I could go either way with with Tomax here.
00:38:40
Speaker
be honest. Yeah, I mean, honestly, I'd be surprised if one of them was a four, because then you would just take the old toe max. You would just say 3.1. This toe max, though, is interesting, because this is one that wants to it wants to arc dodge. It wants to use that barrel roll, which I like.
00:39:01
Speaker
And this to Max has an ability you will actually be able to use. The other one doesn't work with his ability. So yeah, the other one, the other one you're taking because it's high five. Yeah. And that's it. And I did do a quick check here. The dial is the same and the action bar is the same. So they have a focus. They have a target lock. They have a barrel, a red target lock and a red reload.
00:39:24
Speaker
Their dial, they have one bank whites, one straight blue, two hards, two bank blue, two straight blue. And then they have the three hard white, three bank white, three straight blue, 3K, and then a 5K. A four straight and then a 5K. So honestly, a really good dial. The three hard and two hard being white, the four straight, they go fast. Two different ways to turn around.
00:39:48
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think maybe this will reinvigorate people's passion of playing bombers. I think maybe some people have soured on them slightly just based on them not doing as well in top cut formats, but it's early. It's still very early. So yeah, this will definitely be a bit of a shake up. I would anticipate seeing them get played. Speaking of them, let's do the last one here because I haven't talked about them all. Andrew, let's do Deathfire.
00:40:14
Speaker
Yeah. Uh, so deathfire, the reason why I wanted to deathfire is because I used to fly deathfire in, uh, 2.0 ACEs high a lot. Cause it was a 30 point ship and the ACEs I said that you built to 75 points. So you could load deathfire up with plasma or proton torpedoes on him. You could put, uh,
00:40:36
Speaker
Oh man, one of my favorite proximity mines and do that on him as well. And there were so many games that I had where basically if someone would kill me, I would just kill them right back. Cause his old, his, his pilot ability in the non-standardized form is that after you would be removed from, uh, the table, uh, you get to launch a device or, uh, shoot a, um, uh, a missile or torpedo.
00:41:03
Speaker
Yeah, so that was great. It was so much fun phrases. I loved it. But the new one has there's a new shift ability. And this one's kind of interesting, too, is after you fully execute a speed three to five maneuver, if you have not dropped or launched a device this round, you may spend to charge and he comes with to charge and has one reoccurring. You can spend two to drop or launch a bomb using the three straight template.
00:41:33
Speaker
And then still has the nimble bomber chassis ability. Yeah, pretty. Yeah, I mean, I have to read that again. You get you get to reach out and touch somebody. Yeah, two charges. Yeah. And they are recurring.
00:41:52
Speaker
So if you do it fast, yeah. And yeah, we'll get to what he gets to launch. It's pretty big. Yeah. So we have Swift approaches during the system phase. After you drop or launch a device, you can perform a white barrel roll or boost action even while stressed.
00:42:12
Speaker
So you have to do that. It's only during the system phase, though. But it still gets to put you into some pretty funky abilities. That's like the F-O bomber, but they can barrel roll. Yeah, well.
00:42:25
Speaker
Yeah, that's pretty good. That's a talent, by the way, folks. Oh, also, last, last thing to note, too, Deathfire is I3, if I didn't say that. So it goes I3, I4, I5, I3 for Deathfire, I4 for Jonas, and I5 for Tomax. That is interesting because the non-standardized Deathfire is I2. So he did go up an initiative value for this one as well.
00:42:51
Speaker
So we have swift approach, which during the system phase, you can, uh, yeah, barrel or boost, um, his pilot ability, unlike Jonas, uh, does not say that unlike top cover does not say that, uh, you can, you can launch or drop a device and then still use swift approach. So it doesn't, doesn't preclude you from using one or the other. Um,
00:43:14
Speaker
And then, so he comes with proton bombs, which you can now throw. So you get a crit when those go off for ships at range one. Or conternets, which if you go over one of those, you suffer a damage, gain three ion tokens too. And it's a big, it's a big, it's a very wide area. It's a pretty big template. It's wide, yeah. Except space. Yeah. The area of control with these guys is the theme I'm getting so far.
00:43:41
Speaker
Absolutely. Yeah, it's almost a large, it's like a chaff muscle, I think. Yeah, kind of. Yeah. It sticks out wider. The lips on each side stick out wider than a chaff.
00:43:53
Speaker
Oh wow, okay. In depth, in terms of like the depth of it, you know? Yeah. You know what I'm trying to say? Yeah. But yeah. This is a ship that you want to, I mean, this is a, yeah, this goes very well into a control list where Deathfire comes, lays the trap, and then everybody else can pounce and capitalize on it. I think Deathfire is gonna catch some people on some tables.
00:44:19
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Speculation on cost. I would I think here's the deal. Deathfire doesn't have any ordinance or like anything that in terms of his attacks that would, you know, is just got his primary. So I three points would make sense for me for this one as well. I yeah, I could see I could see three. I think of any of the pilots we've read so far is going to be four points, I think.
00:44:43
Speaker
Deathfire might be. Yeah, he could be the new grudge where grudge was all over the place with chaff when he had more loadout. This could be grudge 2.0. Yeah, because if this is at three points, I don't know if it unseats current tome or current to max because you just you really want that I five. But yeah.
00:45:09
Speaker
It's fun. I'm going to these are going to be good against arc one seventies, at least the Connor Nats. Oh, my God. Oh, yeah. Yeah. We'll get to them in a bit. There is there is one more that we didn't go, but I'm just going to read it quickly. It's Major Reimer. Oh, we miss Reimer. I thought I miss him. Yeah, that's all right.
00:45:28
Speaker
But there's nothing as crazy as the other ones with this. It's just while you perform a torpedo attack, if the defender is in your front arc or is in your front bullseye, you change one eyeball result to a crit. And he comes with advanced proton torpedoes after burners. And then there's a new boy.
00:45:52
Speaker
a new automated loaders automated loaders. And it's after from a primary attack, you can spend one charge. It has one non-recurring charge to perform a reload action. That's pretty good. That's good. Yeah. I mean, so you shoot a torpedo and then you get another torpedo. Yeah. Just shoot the meaningless range zero shot and be like, cool. Thanks for the APT back or something. I mean, that's that's what you want to do is as you get what you could you could.
00:46:17
Speaker
Yeah, it's primary attack on me. OK, so yeah, so you shoot APT, do another attack and then ideally, you're in a you know, ideally you've gotten a good one off. You're still alive. Yeah. Which if you at that point, congratulations, you're doing a good job playing X-Wing right now. Primer. Yeah. Because that's the you know, it's I love this daredevil approach with this, the design space of this. You got the afterburners, you have ways, you know, the APT you want to get close. You want to get into range one. However, your initiative for.
00:46:44
Speaker
And you could be initiative killed being that close to people. So yeah. It's a it's a boom and zoom ship. I don't think this leads the pack. I think this is a cleanup crew where where Major Rimer hangs back until, you know, maybe after the first joust and then it dives in on something. Yeah. Yeah. Totally. Thanks for calling. I'm sorry. Missed him. No, no, no, no. Right.
00:47:12
Speaker
But yeah, I think that's good for the bombers though. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, overall, I'm a yay on pretty much every single one. I'll be honest, guys. Yeah.
00:47:21
Speaker
Breaking them out here with you guys is the first time I've actually taken a good long look at them all individually. And I think whereas we might be uncertain exactly to the extent that the YT2400 gets put on the table, these will have different places and different lists. So I'm eager to see both of how they perform. I'm going to have a lot of fun flying these.
00:47:44
Speaker
Yeah, just I guess those last ones, Manny and Nick, if you if you had to pick one of these bombers, which one seems the most fun to fly? I like Tom X.
00:48:01
Speaker
Yeah, Tomax is Tomax is the Swiss army knife of these options. He's got the torque. He's got the bomb coverage. He's got a good ability and he's got the initiative. So I think he kind of edges out in terms of favorability with his utility.
00:48:16
Speaker
Do I think he's the most fun? I'm not sure. I think Tomax, I agree with you, Tomax, would be the one that I would favor. But I think Rimer or Deathfire would be the ones that I would absolutely be gunning up to bring to the game store and try them out, build lists with them. Yeah.
00:48:35
Speaker
All right, everybody, moving on from the new
Gen Con's Influence on X-Wing Meta
00:48:38
Speaker
releases. It's been a busy... This is good to have a busy week of news for X-Wing. It just goes to show that everything is popping with the game right now. Let's move into the meta fallout of GenCon. And we're going to highlight a couple of pilots who have made headlines, not only at this national event that the three of us were playing at,
00:49:00
Speaker
But also, we're seeing it pop up at a lot of store champs. We're in the middle of store champ season. There are World's Invites on the line at a lot of different places. It is so awesome to be able to finally say that we have official OP supported.
00:49:15
Speaker
store champs again. I missed it. We all missed it. Being able to play tournaments that meant just a little bit more. So shout out to the community for keeping the game alive, whether it be unofficial tournaments in person or online. It's just great to be here and to have gotten back to the kind of X-wing that we were all hoping to get back to after the pandemic.
00:49:38
Speaker
But without further ado, talk about Gen Con. Guys, I think a couple of first impressions that I noticed. One of them is that five ships is the new four ships. The average quantity in a list has gone from four ships to five ships now. You can just expect to see it. Four points.
00:49:58
Speaker
I but yeah, for the yeah, but Gen Con is one of the first couple of national events. So, you know, unless you're going to a bunch of store champs, right? Which some people aren't. They have, you know, it's becoming more apparent to people as more and more larger events are happening. Right. All right. But for there are a lot more for ship lists before this points change. I would say, yeah, even a month ago, it wasn't unique to find more pointless. Absolutely. For championships.
00:50:25
Speaker
Mm hmm. Four points is the new value budget bargain option. We see that in most factions. The factions that are struggling don't have that kind of versatility with that. The chassis is available or pilots at that cost. That's something that we have seen, especially with the Republic. And that's four points. Yeah. Yeah. Well, you can get points.
00:50:47
Speaker
Right. The effect of 4-point control pieces like Padme, who we're going to do a dive into here in a moment. And then lastly, the impact of cheap, high-initiative and high-damaged outline slash output chassis, aka the Arc 170s. Because I would say that high-initiative is now is also more important than ever.
00:51:10
Speaker
Absolutely. So those are my those were the impressions that I made that I were made for me when I went to Gen Con. What were some other things that you guys noticed? Like, wow, I didn't realize this or that just really stood out to you while playing in Swiss. It stood out to me and it was something that actually it kept me up at night for probably a week before Gen Con, because I was last minute in picking my list.
00:51:38
Speaker
And it's because Han Solo is, I think, a meta warping ship. Han Solo. What do you mean by that? Meta warping. I mean, meta warping, as in the list that we're going to talk about, this Padme Rebel list, was built to. Republic, yeah. Republic, sorry. This Republic list was built to fight Han.
00:52:07
Speaker
Like, it exists because Han exists. And there's a lot of lists that I even found going in I felt weren't viable because they're not better than Han. And I didn't want to take Han to Gen Con because I know that people were either going to be bringing the Republic lists to beat Han or that I'd be going up against Han. But players who've been playing this a lot more than more often than me in these store championships
00:52:36
Speaker
And that's where I decided to bring five T-70s for Republicans. Both you guys. Yep. It's- Resistance, yeah. Con scared me into flying a new faction. I had flown a bunch of practice test games against myself with this before. But I got, I think before Gen Con, I maybe had a couple days on the table with it. It was the right call because
00:53:04
Speaker
It was that list. I brought it to defeat the Han list, but then also I thought it was good. If people came and played the Republic, it would defeat the Republic lists. So that list, the five T-70s actually did. I faced a Republic list. I faced a Han list. And then I faced another resistance. It scared me in resistance. I faced another resistance list that had Rey in the YT-1300.
00:53:32
Speaker
with LO and I faced two of those, but I beat one. So it did what it came for, but I think Han Solo has warped the format and is making people, they have to consider Han before they create a list.
00:53:51
Speaker
I just flew to, I just flew to T70s just because it's the only thing I fly and nothing else. Yeah, because Manny is a very interesting human being with his list builder. I'm not a creative individual. I just really, I just really, I just really like the chassis. I'm the type of guy who like smash bros picks the same character over and over again and will not change.
00:54:13
Speaker
So there's a little bit a lot. A lot of those people are or can be like a world world class at that character. But like I say, like Manny, but you've flown against everything like you. You kind of know what what is going to be good and against like especially Manny was getting practice against Han when he was eight points when I was playing Han in the first list. Oh, yeah. I mean, last time in in Chicago, there there's there's a lot of Han.
00:54:41
Speaker
And that's that's one of the reasons after flying against it so many times in store championships. That's what really showed me how powerful it is. And definitely something that I think when you're building a list today, you just have to consider. Yeah. And the people, you know, why why is Han? Let's break it down super quick. I hope you guys with why Han is so good. Well, there's the obvious reasons. There's also the combination of the high initiative at six.
00:55:07
Speaker
the ability to boost with a large base, the wide firing arc, the ability to reroll all your dice, whether the attack dice or defense dice, as long as there's an obstacle at zero to one of you. You can also do this for damage card rolls and obstacle rolls. If you go over a rock, you can reroll the die you roll.
00:55:25
Speaker
And then the more obvious is, well, he can double focus and he can with double the two focuses from perceptive copilot. He can use Bistan, the gunner, while he's focused. He can perform a bonus primary attack against a different defender. So he is basically two ships at seven points, a lot of health, five shields, eight whole, good dial, good style, just everything all around. So good. So his ability to shoot twice with that passive double modded shot with the
00:55:55
Speaker
And by passive, I mean he has to reroll all his dice. So it's no guarantee, but the odds are in your favor. He's just good. He's just in, you know, at eight points, I thought he was really strong, really expensive. So when you lost him, you always lost your game. Now it's seven with everything with the tide rising and the large boats kind of dropping down from eight to seven in almost every case.
00:56:18
Speaker
He is a huge, he almost have to build a competitive Rebel list with Han these days. You don't have, well, Zach Bart proved that it wasn't essential, but a lot of people have looked at, well, if I want to build a Rebel list, I probably need to have either Han or Luke. Han is super popular.
00:56:36
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, and also it counts. I mean, it counts as two ships. There is a four, there's like a four ship list Han, but I would treat that as a, because of the double tap, I would treat it as a five ship list as well. Yeah. Han counts as two ships. Which is also, so the, the original like Han build was, uh, it was Han. You have, uh, Sabine in the TIE fighter, uh, Keo and, uh, Wedge and Luke.
00:57:04
Speaker
really good at objectives and Kyo could take a proton rocket just to make a little extra lethal and Sabine would be taking objectives as well or even if they didn't go Kyo you could and then Wedge would also with that ability of taking away the evade die kind of help chip away at other ships as well.
00:57:26
Speaker
That created, there's a second Han archetype, which is Han, you have Luke, and you have Fenrao in the Fang Fighter with Sabine in the TIE Fighter.
00:57:42
Speaker
And that option, though, was created to counter the first wedge option. No, it's not Sabine. It's Kyo. It's Kyo, Fen, and Ahan.
00:57:59
Speaker
Although Kiyo and Sabine tend to be interchanged, they're both treated almost equally in different ways. Like people will pick one over the other. Yeah, Sabine in the A-wing. Both in three points. Sabine in the A-wing. Yep. They're both Kiyo and Sabine at three points. Yeah, I think Kiyo, I mean, ever since Sabine lost the missile slot, I think Kiyo is a little better now. Yeah. So I had an insane experience at GenCon. I still am processing exactly how
00:58:29
Speaker
on Earth, I was able to kind of just knock down every barrier in my way. I went undefeated in Swiss and then won my play in Swiss game on day two to make top four. I was playing Empire. I was the only Imperial player to make cut in general the second day of Swiss. I was the only Imperial player, which I think if you were to have told somebody that, one of you guys that.
00:58:50
Speaker
weeks before Gen Con, you'd be like, get the hell out of here. There's no way that actually happens. There's going to be more than one Imperial player that makes cut, surely after three days of Swiss. No, apparently not. There are a lot of Empire players, but the Bombers are really popular. And I think that kind of goes to show that maybe they aren't the best option for making
00:59:08
Speaker
you know, for getting to that next level for top-cut purposes, you know, just be competitive enough. We'll see. There's still time. But I brought a five-ship list. I brought Starters at Vader. I brought Merrick. I brought Tomax and the boys, the TIE Fighters, Mauler and Backstabber. And it was a great list. It was a ton of fun.
00:59:27
Speaker
lost to Zach Bart, who played Final Table with his Rebel list that did not feature Han, which I thought was super exciting.
Gen Con Results and Tyler Tippett's Winning List
00:59:35
Speaker
I was really excited for him and excited to play against a list that was different because I always appreciate when my opponents bring something a little different. He loved that I had Marek. I love the fact that he brought Fenrao and Hera
00:59:47
Speaker
and Bodhika and Sabine. Like, it was just a cool list. So he just to let you guys to break it down for you guys super quick, he brought Heron the A-Wing, Fenrao and the Fangfighter, Bodhika and the Fangfighter, Sabine and the TIE Fighter and Battle of Yavin Luke. So a five-ship list with mixed initiative skewing on the higher end. Just good. It was just very solid.
01:00:10
Speaker
And he lost to Tyler Tippett. So congratulations to Tyler for winning GenCon. Tyler has won national events before, including Adepticon in 2019. I know him pretty well. He's been playing for a long time. And he brought the Republic List. We're about to break down. Andrew, I believe, has pulled it up. And this is where we're going to get to the main topic of conversation, this list and a couple of figures in it.
01:00:38
Speaker
Yeah, a lot of, uh, siege of Coruscant stuff. Uh, we have Anathyn Skywalker in the, uh, Ada to addicts, the siege of Coruscant version, uh, Naboo Royal one star fighter with Padme and, uh, Jag in siege of Coruscant odd ball from siege of Coruscant and Wolf siege of Coruscant, all those in the arc one seventies. So.
01:01:04
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Five ships, three medium bases with front and rear arcs. No pun intended. Yeah. And I six with three fours. It's very hard to kill. And then an I four and an N one, which the N one has never been a very good chassis. But this one at four points Padme. Can you read her ability for us, Andrew? Yeah, it's when an enemy ship in your front arc defends or performs an attack, that ship can modify only one focus result.
01:01:36
Speaker
So if you neutralizing, yeah. Uh, it's good for neutralizing Han. He can't modify those, uh, those, you can only modify one focus result on attacks. Um, it's a great flanker. I mean, that's really, that's really what it's there for.
01:01:53
Speaker
Yep. She wants to go fast to get the evade so she can protect herself. And then she you know, a lot of the I think this this version had a proton torpedoes and passive sensors, I believe. Yes. So she'll roll up with the evade, do the three to five maneuver, get that evade and then passive sensor and just sit there with her arc wide on everybody. So that way the arc one seventies can feast on anything in her front arc and they can you know, their attacks and their
01:02:17
Speaker
defensive capabilities are neutered if they're rolling eyeball results. Especially Han, who can still pick up one eyeball result and reroll it instead of all of his dice, but it really hurts him badly. Especially if he wants to spend a focus, he rolls natty eyeballs. Congrats, you get one hit instead of three or four.
01:02:40
Speaker
Uh, Manny, did he play against this list or Padme at all? Uh, yeah. Yes, I did. Uh, I totally forgot his name. I played against him like maybe two or three times before. Uh, I'm sorry for listening to this, but yeah, he flew three arcs, Padme and Anakin. Um,
01:02:58
Speaker
It's very important to read your opponent's list and know what they do, because I had no idea that Oddball is just able to soak up crits, and I don't believe I've ever rolled as many crits in my entire life. Oh, fun. Where the damage was equally split between Oddball and some other ship. Yeah, yeah. Yes, I was like, wait, I thought that was a rebel upgrade. It is. It's dirty.
01:03:27
Speaker
So yeah, read your opponent's list. It's important. That's my tip. If you were to take anything from me, it would be that. Yeah. Yeah. This is, I mean, this is a great list just because it throws a lot of red dice and this is a list that wants to joust and it wants to force you into a joust.
01:03:55
Speaker
I flew against this list and I also I brought my list specifically to counter this list.
Strategies Against Republic Lists
01:04:01
Speaker
So I tried to pay attention. I thought it was for Han, right? Or was it specific? It was for both because so I brought it because I was like, people are either going to bring Han or they're going to be bringing or they're going to be bringing this list. And I wanted something that would be good against both. Yeah, I played against this list as well. My. Second round, it was a rematch.
01:04:24
Speaker
His name is Eric. I think you played him as well, Manny. I'm not sure who just won his world's invite. So, Eric, if you're listening, congrats again on that. He beat me firmly when I was playing Rebels at a store champ at Scramble and I was first player of the entire game. So he just kept taking the point back for me, which was super annoying, but.
01:04:42
Speaker
He brought that... This is known as Paul Hever's list. Paul Hever is the architect behind this list. He's the one that won Lone Star Open with this list. And so Tyler and Eric and a couple other people brought it because it has proven itself at the biggest and the highest level on the biggest stage. Yeah. And really the way that I was able to
01:05:03
Speaker
The way I was able to beat it was that his Padme, I ignored his Padme and she was set up on the opposite side of the board and she couldn't get far enough into the engagement to do anything, including fire a meaningful Torp. And then I was able to take two arcs off the board with the high initiative. I was able to initiative Kill Wolf and get Oddball out of there. And that was enough with the objective points to win. But Padme was a big absence in that game.
01:05:31
Speaker
Um, same. I, I, I did something very similar and, uh, and I went after, um, oddball first. Um, and, and, but yeah, basically. So what, what this list wants to do is, is you're, you're setting up the arcs in the middle and those arcs want to have as much, you know, time on target to, to win that initial joust. Um, you set up the rocks, you want to set up the, your rocks in a way, turn zero with this list is very important.
01:06:00
Speaker
Um, you want to set up the rocks in a way and like crescent moon that gives an opening for you. You basically want to block off one side of the board, um, and, and, and put as many rocks to one side as possible to force your opponents to set up directly in front of your arcs. Uh, cause if they do that, then you can go all in on them.
01:06:25
Speaker
Um, if they decide to set up in the rocks, that's that, that are bad, that's fine. Cause you can turn into them. They still have to then get through that debris field to, to come after you. And it just gives, um, Anakin and Padme even more room to maneuver on the flank. So they, that is really where, where they want to force you. So this is a list that.
01:06:48
Speaker
It's you there is a player skill level. You know, I wouldn't say just think you can take this and think that you're going to start winning games. But it is very good at what it does. This is this is really good against those homeless large base ships.
01:07:06
Speaker
and anything where it can it can win that joust. It's going to have a very hard time, I think, against the high initiative because the initiatives are a little bit lower here. It's going to have some hard times against some of those ace lists that are five, four, three, four, four, three, six, five, four, four, three. Yeah. And it's also going to have issues with.
01:07:31
Speaker
The reason why 5T70s works is that they are also chunky, but they can also, they can throw more red dice into the arcs than the arcs are going to throw back at them. And the longer that the arcs are, the more turns that they take fire and sustain fire, the easier it is to, or the harder it is for them to win.
01:07:59
Speaker
Right. Manny, do you usually go after, as Oddball usually would be your primary target? Well, after that experience, yes. Oddball would be, I mean, now I know how to fight that squad. But at the time, I was like, oh, an arc in range one? Sweet. I'll just shoot at that. Yeah. Surprisingly, that's not the greatest idea, at least not in that game.
01:08:24
Speaker
So as we take a step back and, you know, it's been a few weeks since Gen Con has passed and Republic is still at the top in terms of its appearances at store champs. We're seeing this list a lot. We're seeing versions of lists with even Rick and Delta 7B Anakin, who in 2.0 was never played. He was never.
01:08:47
Speaker
Played until I like only at the very beginning of his release when the expansion came out where people playing him But it's good to see Delta 7 B. Anakin as a place in the meta as well, and he's doing he's faring quite well So Republic is just on top right now in a lot of ways That's been the biggest thing that I've taken away. I I'd say rebel and Republic are on top
01:09:12
Speaker
Yeah, in a lot of ways that isn't, you know, not a catch all like only Republic, but Republic, I would I would argue is number one in Republic and rebels is right behind them at number two. Hmm. I I. I think I think it's pretty even like in a rock paper scissors games, they kind of beat each other. Let's see, I'm going to take. But yeah, I mean, I think that there there have been
01:09:42
Speaker
I don't know. I would say that Rebel has an equal right to first place as Republic. Yeah, it's like a 60 40 split right now. I'm looking at a list that have won their tournaments right now. I see a couple of rebels, but more Republic on the first page of this fortress right now, which is cool, because it's either way.
01:10:08
Speaker
Well, no, I just I just I think that's what I know that there's a first order list. That's cool. Yeah, I that's my opinion. I think Republic is is is has a very slightly narrow advantage, but rebels in Republic both are at the top and both are very much capable of beating each other and winning tournaments.
01:10:28
Speaker
as we're seeing on list fortress, at least the more recent tournaments. You can see loops. Well, so it's he owes and oddballs and I'm like a scum, which is shocking to me. It's so. Yeah. So Republic barely. I mean, fifty five point five percent of tournaments are Republic. Fifty two point three percent are rebel. And that well, that's just in terms of appearances, though, not in terms of winning. Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
01:10:57
Speaker
Right. Yeah. So they're both pretty popular, which, you know, it's really funny. You think it back to the day that that's also skewed because the arc one 70s also include the rebel arc one 70s. Well, yeah. So that's which are also cheap now. OK, yeah. So I don't know that might scare it. So it might be close to 50, 50. Yeah.
01:11:22
Speaker
But I mean, I probably are public. That's Republic. Never mind. Republic is is a very, very, very, very strong. And we will continue to see that list and different versions of it in Delta seven. And it can get played, as I was saying. However, they are not unbeatable. This list is, you know, if you don't practice it, there's a lot of things that could go wrong. And then always, you know, it's a dice game sometimes.
01:11:49
Speaker
Well, and I think the more that it shows up on the table, the more people are starting to figure it out. Because when this one lone star, it was a pretty wacky list. Not wacky as in like, but it wasn't what the Republic meta was at the time at all. It was very different.
01:12:15
Speaker
Yeah, and so I will. We will see what by the time this episode comes out, Nova, the Nova Open will have concluded and we'll get even more insight as to what people brought and what one what did well. And I look forward to taking a look at that as well. I would expect to see a lot of rebels and a lot of republicans.
01:12:39
Speaker
I'm a fire betting man. Oh, absolutely. I would still plan to. I'm still bringing my. Yeah, at this at this point in time, I would definitely be bringing resistance. Yeah. Resistance, I would say it's interesting what goes three through seven. I guess three through six, because seven is come.
01:13:04
Speaker
You first, I think first order resistance are like good enough and middle of the pack. I don't think they're, you know, they don't stand out as strong favorites. Now.
01:13:14
Speaker
Empire, I think, is lower than people expected, but still popular. I'm getting played a lot, just not in terms of the competitive edge, not performing as well. Apparently, I was flattered after I was spellbound talking to Mike, and he's like, dude, everyone's practicing your list right now, and it's really weird to like, I don't know how to feel about that. It's just so funny. It's like, yeah, I'm like, and how is it going? Doing it, not great. I'm like, well,
01:13:41
Speaker
I don't know. You got you got to have you got to have the touch. Yeah. You guys going to move on? Absolutely. Yeah. Cool.
Audience Engagement and Community Shoutouts
01:13:51
Speaker
All right. So take a moment here. We have a segment that's going to be from our audience. So I'd love to be able to, you know, be able to listen to you guys and talk about topics, conversation that you would like to hear on your preferred X-Wing podcast.
01:14:06
Speaker
And Daniel Leon, shout out to Epionic, who is the same person, the very same who from Hawaii shipped me starters at Vader's cart so I could play at Gen Con. Wow. Thank you. Appreciate you, man. It worked out. Appreciate you. Yeah, that was that was clutch. It was beyond clutch. Just amazing. He asks, how do you overcome a bad situation when you are clearly behind? You just lost it.
Strategies for Overcoming Gameplay Challenges
01:14:29
Speaker
You know, an engagement has gone awry, hasn't gone the way that you thought. What is your thought process and what do you do next? How do you adjust?
01:14:37
Speaker
I concede. No, at least for me. But wait, so are you asking me that question? Yeah, let's start with you. All right. All right. Cool. Um, I don't know. It is what it is. I don't really get tilted. It is what it is. Um, I mean,
01:15:02
Speaker
I try to make the best out of a bad situation where you're just like, all right, what's the most optimal moves in this bad place? And basically pray to God that he goes my way. That's basically it. That's my strategy. And for those of you who aren't religious, just do something scientific.
01:15:25
Speaker
Exactly. Preytoon, Yahweh, I know, the place to be a monster. Whoever you worship. Exactly. Buddha. Your cat, dog. Yeah, it's really up to you. What about you, Andrew? Yeah, so this was something that I had to learn very early on. If you can, don't tilt.
01:15:54
Speaker
there's always something that you can do. And this is where it's great about the objectives too, is that there's usually something that you can pivot to if you're behind. It's always good to have a game plan going in, but when that doesn't work, having that backup or just taking a pause, it's an okay moment to take a beat. And honestly, what I do is I go, okay.
01:16:15
Speaker
So you know what the points are, you have it. X-wing is a game of high variance. There's a couple dice rolls can go your way and it can change the whole thing, is figure out what I need to do to win and figure out what that is. If it is like, hey, I got to take out their ace, it's a low probability, but
01:16:37
Speaker
I can, I kind of have to go all in or dive on it, or I have to go all in and dive on these objectives. And it might not work out entirely for me, but the upside is that I can win. Um, you make that risky play because you're already losing. So you at that point, you have nothing more to lose. So you can figure out what, how, what the game plan is now. How do I win? How do I get those points or how to prevent them from, from getting that? And.
01:17:07
Speaker
you can start making that risky play. And also knowing that
01:17:12
Speaker
What helps me not tilt is saying if I come out of this victorious, that's going to be one heck of a great story. Like this is like if I'm behind, I don't tell because I'm like, man, if I tell your kids, your grandkids, seriously, but like, but that's what keeps me from from not tilting is like, OK, wow, if I'm like down, the the score is like, you know, 16 to nine. I got these I got two ships left and they got four. If I pull this out,
01:17:40
Speaker
man, this is going to be amazing. Uh, so how do I do that? And yeah, it's figuring out what, what are your outs, what are your points? And if there is, you know, sometimes it's got to take that risk and, um, and, but go for whatever play will give you the most points. And as long as you, you stick on that strategy, then, then you have a better shot than you did before of getting out of it. Uh, how about you, Nick?
01:18:05
Speaker
Yeah, so this is something that takes a while to get in this kind of mindset. The first thing is no matter what, you can't change the fact that this happened.
01:18:20
Speaker
So you have to just now pay attention to the things that you can control. One of them is, okay, well, the game's not over yet. We haven't hit 20 points. How many points did I lose here? Or what was the long-term aftermath of this happening?
01:18:39
Speaker
Usually, it's not enough for you to feel hopeless. Sometimes it depends on how expensive or how catastrophic the event was, the engagement was. What I try to do is I try to move on to my win condition. And you have to treat the game like a potential, like Andrew said, like a comeback potential. Because what's more exciting than winning 20 to 8, coming back and winning a close game.
01:19:10
Speaker
Until the game is over, it's not over. So with objectives, there are ways for you to score points and pull even, pull ahead, get close to your opponent. Typically, when you've lost a ship late in the mid game or end game, they have a ship that is on, you know, a couple of health, a couple of hole that you could if you just get the right shot in and get just lucky enough or put in the right spot, you can get some points back from taking that ship down.
01:19:39
Speaker
Ultimately, you really owe it to yourself to get as close to your opponent's score as possible. Because if there are cases where you just know you won't be able to win.
01:19:50
Speaker
We all lose games. It's like life, right? You owe it to yourself though to keep trying, to keep going and try to pull as close as possible to make your opponent sweat and remember you. Remember the game that you just played? They said, wow, I won, but they gave me quite a run for my money. They almost had me.
01:20:13
Speaker
So you owe it to yourself to just play your heart out at all times, especially in a competitive environment. Try not to tilt, find ways to cope, realize it's not over yet, and just move on to, what can I do next? That's my advice. That's what I try to do. I am very competitive. I care a lot about winning. I hate losing, as Brad Pitt and Moneyball would say, I hate losing. I hate losing even more than I want to win. And there's a difference.
01:20:41
Speaker
So just you just got to try to you just, you know, sometimes like with just dice, like if you get diced, you could just be like, man, I got diced. And it is, you know what? For every time that you get dice, they go the other way, too. So you could you can do something else like what I played to you. And I beat him 21 to 20. And if his dice weren't horrible, he would have beat me. And I was just like, I'm going to just recognize that. It happens to me. It happens again. You know, it happens against me. It happens to me a lot as well. And that's X-Wing, as you said.
01:21:12
Speaker
But yeah, just be healthy about it. You owe it yourself to just try to play the best game from that point on that you can, I would say. Absolutely. It's still practice. Even if you lost the game, you're still practicing and remembering these things to try to avoid the same mistakes next time as well. Right. Right. Learning experiences. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. That's my TED Talk.
01:21:35
Speaker
Any anything else to to add to Daniel's question there? No, but I mean, that's a great question. It is. Thank you, Daniel. Appreciate it. Yeah. And to those of you guys listening in our discord, we'll have we have a part of our discord dedicated to the show.
Upcoming Events and Fundraisers
01:21:51
Speaker
Please drop your questions in there. We'd love to be able to to to answer them and talk about them, these topics. So, yeah, do you want to move on to upcoming events?
01:22:02
Speaker
Sure, let's do it. We can do upcoming events. So by the time this is out, Nova Open will have just happened. So I'm going to just... That was in DC. That's a pretty big event. That's a multi-day, almost the entire week event. But the next big World's Open Qualifier, I will actually be at in San Francisco, California, the Golden State Games World Open Qualifier on September 23rd and 24th.
01:22:28
Speaker
From there, we have our Dragonfall charity event on October 7th and 8th, a two-day event, two single days of Swiss store champ style, essentially, two Worlds invites across those two days. We are co-hosting. Andrew and I will be there casting Dragonfall as well. That is in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin. Again, October 7th and 8th that weekend, Saturday and Sunday. We'd love to see you there if you are in the area. And then lastly, just announced,
01:22:55
Speaker
We have our Windy City Trials Turkey Try Store Champ. That's on November 18th here in Chicago, Illinois at Good Games. So we will be posting and you'll see the event link for that in the description for this podcast and all over our channels. Is Turkey gotta be served? I'm just curious. I want you guys to eat good food, so probably not. All right, cool.
01:23:18
Speaker
Oh, something that's not dry. I have a potluck. Every, there you go. Everybody just stuffs their face and plays X-Wing. That sounds like fun. Yeah, exactly. That sounds like a great time. I'll probably be down. Yeah.
01:23:30
Speaker
Yeah. All right. Normally, we would have a section of our we will in the future be talking about upcoming or current, you know, Star Wars media and shows. So it could just came out, though, and we're going to let it brew and have a couple more episodes pass before we really break down our thoughts on that show. It's just a little too early, I would say. And one of us hasn't even seen it yet. So we'll just be proactive with that. We will certainly be talking about Ahsoka and how Nick will not stop comparing it to Andor because I'm obsessed with Andor.
01:23:59
Speaker
I am obsessed with Oppenheimer. That's too high of a standard. It's just great. I mean, the all the news server shows have been pretty great so far, so I've been thrilled by it.
01:24:10
Speaker
And but also I was going to say it's got E-Wings in it. So I thought that that was got E-Wings. I know I will be gushing over that as well. Yeah, I built a list with as for E-Wings in it too. Fantastic. I was just going to buy them. Anything else, guys, to wrap up the podcast before I do a little closing remark, I have some one more thing I wanted to mention, but I thought I'd throw it over you. Oh, yeah. No, no, I'm good. I'm good.
01:24:35
Speaker
I just want to give everyone a heads up that our good friend Chris Tanner over at Planning Face Syndicate, I just learned that his 12 year old daughter is dealing with cancer. And we have started a fundraiser, Nickel City Xwing and us at 312 to help raise money to help cover those medical bills. So we will post a donation link, all proceeds, all donations will go to Chris and his family.
01:25:01
Speaker
We're all here for each other. The X-Men community is great for so many reasons. And if you can and are able to donate, we really, really appreciate your generosity. And if anything else, just send some thoughts over to Chris and his family.
01:25:16
Speaker
So I wanted to mention that. Yeah. Well, thank you, everyone, for listening to our first official podcast episode. I can't believe we it took a while, but we did it. Shout out to Andrew, who is helping who it was his idea. And he's the one helping to produce this. I don't think I would be as far along or through into journey without Andrew being a vital part of the community. I'll give Manny a bit of a shout out to just to inflate his ego. Absolutely. Thanks. Even though he spends his life at the beach these days.
01:25:45
Speaker
Yeah, yeah Swimming all that you're you're playing with every day at the beach
01:25:53
Speaker
So when we return, we will discuss the metaphor of the Nova Open that is happening in DC in just about a week from this recording. Be sure to follow us on Twitch, where we livestream tons of X-Wing, both in person and online, as well as other games like me struggling and raging over Jedi Survivor on Grandmaster. Check us out on YouTube for edited content, like us on Facebook for community updates. And if that's not enough self promo, we also have a Discord. Can you believe it?
01:26:20
Speaker
Click the link in the podcast description. Yeah. Please don't hang out with us. Talk with us. Don't talk to me. Actually, do talk to Mandy. DM Mandy, please. Click the link in the podcast description for more information on how you can connect with us. Until next time, for 312 Squadron, my name is Nick Sperry. This is Andrew signing out. And I'm Emmanuel. I'll sign out. I'm sorry, Kestle, you're exit Andrew. I'll think of my own next time.
01:26:49
Speaker
No, that's good. We're leaving all this in. Oh, yes, we are. Thank you all. Appreciate you listening. Take care.