Advanced Optics Probably Aren't As Good As You Think

I had an interesting conversation yesterday on the X-Wing Second Edition Discord that I think is worth pulling out and sharing as a blog entry.  We started off talking about a First Order squad and then wombled our way across a few topics like the maths behind Heroic and Advanced Optics and finished on the RZ2 A-Wing.

Advanced Optics in particular is a topic that I think is worth talking about because I suspect it's an upgrade card that players don't really fully understand the maths of.  As a result I think it's consistently overestimated and put into squads that it shouldn't really belong in (aka, most things that aren't RZ2 A-Wings).  I'd even argue that in the current metagame it shouldn't really be a no-brainer for the RZ2 A-Wings, which is tantamount to sacrilege... but we'll get there.

I'm not going to repeat the conversation verbatim but paraphrase stuff a bit and condense multiple people together to make it easier to read.  Apologies to the people who were involved in the conversation if you feel I misrepresent what you said, it wasn't my intention!

Let's drop in where the conversation started, which is when somebody suggested this First Order squad only to have a couple of people (not just me) recommend dropping the Advanced Optics...

/==/_BEGIN TRANSMISSION_/==/

Galaxies?

• Quickdraw (TIE/sf) - Special Forces Gunner, Fire Control System
• First Order Provocateur (TIE/ba)
• First Order Provocateur (TIE/ba)  
• Epsilon Squadron Cadet (TIE/fo) - Advanced Optics
• Epsilon Squadron Cadet (TIE/fo) - Advanced Optics
  (198) 

Would this be good for Galaxies?  It's going to be a tough thing to joust!

I'd take the Advanced Optics off, they're pretty poor on Cadets.   Optics adds very little to their offense and they spend too long k-turning or s-looping so aren't always Focused. 

But everyone agrees the problem with Cadets is their anaemic offense, and people shouldn't be shooting at them so they'd still have Focus.  This is the best upgrade to help them get better offensive value. 

You don't get 4pts worth of value from it.  

How else are you going to make their offense more reliable?

I'd probably play with Rivas, or TN-3465.  You have to attack with Advanced Optics about SIX times before it adds up to an extra damage being dealt.  Are these Epsilons going to attack six times with Focus?

Probably not.  Ok, I'll take the Optics off!

I think people really overrate Advanced Optics based on what it does on RZ2 A-Wings when they have multiple arcs, linked focus actions and another dice mod that catches double blanks (Heroic).  And even on RZ2 A-Wings it's still only arguably worthwhile.  These days Optics are only in the 5 A-Wings squad because there's nothing better to spend the points on.

It's definitely worthwhile on A-Wings.  Heroic and Optics is really the core of that squad and you're relying on how much you're certain of rolling 2 hits wherever you put the ships on the table.  I wouldn't trade 20pts of Advanced Optics for a Fireball or to just run six Heroic A-Wings without Optics.

I know that's the perception but I think if you tracked how often those 20pts turned into actual damage being dealt it wouldn't be a spectacular return on your investment.  Advanced Optics was good in the Rebel Beef meta of 1 Agility ships but it's lost a massive chunk of it's effectiveness now there's loads of 3 Agility around.

It's not just about the maths.  We had the same conversations when Heroic was first released and it supposedly not being worth playing at all.

Heroic is different, it's not just about the maths but Optics is.  Heroic is a skill-rewarding upgrade.

What?

Good players win games where their dice don't produce bad variance results.  Any variance close to average is probably a game win for a good player.  Heroic is therefore a safety net that tosses the one thing that means they lose games and turns it into the thing that means they probably do win games.  But for bad players Heroic takes the results that mean they're going to lose games and turns it into results that probably means they're going to lose anyway.

Mathematically: Heroic does nearly nothing.  But to a good player that nearly nothing is the one thing they need it to do because all other eventualities are covered by their skill.

That's an interesting way to look at it!  But why doesn't it apply to Advanced Optics too?

Well Optics costs 4x as much.  And I think the game-losing variance you need Heroic for more often happens on defense than offense.  Heroic covers both and all the time, Optics costs more and only covers offensive variance when you've a focus to spend.

The decisive factor for Optics value is really the expected agility of opposing ships because vs low agility the incremental extra hits you get from optics are likely to turn into extra damage cards, but vs high agility there's a reasonable chance the opponent will evade anyway.  Optics on A-Wings are a great addition when the meta is right for A-Wings and their 2 dice guns, but when A-Wings are weaker in the meta the Optics are weaker too and you're not really solving the problem you're facing by adding Optics.

But it's really the same thing - Optics is there to kill the very variance that makes you lose as it's giving you close to max hits every time.

But it costs TWENTY points for a squad, and we're back around to that it's good in that squad mainly because there's nothing better available.  People locked onto Optics' value when it made a big splash in a rebel beef sort of meta when turning 1 hit into 2 hits was highly likely to be +1 damage dealt.  It's value has dropped a lot since then but I think people still have it pegged at where it was and then they make mistakes like assuming the RZ2 value from a beef meta transfers onto another ship in another meta (like putting it on TIE/fo to deal with an Agility 3 Nantex meta).  Optics hasn't changed at all, but everything around it changed and it got a lot worse.

*** the sound of me cranking up an Excel spreadsheet ***

This chart shows how Advanced Optics value tails off quickly when the defender starts rolling lots of green dice.

Does that chart include Heroic?  If we're talking A-Wings then I think it's about Heroic and Advanced Optics working together

No, but I can add it.  I think you'll be surprised how little difference it makes.

*** more Excel noises ***

Ok... Heroic actually makes Advanced Optics worse!  Because Heroic is already catching the double blank rolls that Optics can turn into 1 Hit it's actually running interference on Advanced Optics rather than boosting it.

What's that line about '+2 damage' mean?

That's how many attacks you'll need to make with Advanced Optics for it to turn into 2 extra damage dealt.  I'm assuming that if you're investing 4pts in Optics you want a good chance to return 2 incremental damage in a game to make it worthwhile.  You could halve the number of attacks if you decide you only want +1 damage for your investment, though.

Got it.

And all those stats are assuming that the green dice don't have a Focus behind them.  If the defender has Focus then it gets worse again for Advanced Optics as it's even more likely that the extra hit you go was evaded anyway.

So to come back around to the start... I think a lot of the strength of Advanced Optics, even in their best use case of RZ2 A-Wings, is as much perception as it is reality.  In their best use case vs low agility targets, like in the beef meta, you probably got good value out of Optics over a game.  But in the current meta you're probably throwing points away by taking Optics and you're DEFINITELY throwing points away if it's going onto a ship that has a harder time taking focused shots than an RZ2 (like a TIE/fo, or even the TIE/sf as it doesn't have linked focus-reposition).

Ok.  I think I can start to agree with this.  I still think the consistency of getting 2 hits is a big factor in helping you plan your turn knowing what the dice will do, though.

Maybe.  Right now I think the metagame isn't right for 5 A-Wings - wild horses couldn't make me fly that list into all those efficient Agility 3 swarms.  But if I was flying it I'd probably be giving serious thought to dropping Advanced Optics to play Proton Rockets, they at least answer the problem that the list is facing when it plays against lots of Agility.  

A few Initiative 5 A-Wings with Proton Rockets are probably not what the Nantex want to be playing against!

/==/_END TRANSMISSION_/==/

So there you go.  Advanced Optics probably aren't as good as you think.  I think.

First Order Orientation - What To Fly?

When I ran through the recent point changes for First Order I said that I thought the faction was full of A-Tier ships and pilots but had nothing truly S-Tier.  I've seen a lot of players starting to look more at the First Order faction in the last few weeks, but as it's historically been one of the least played factions a lot of players aren't really sure where to start.

Jump into Scum and you know you'll need a Firespray, jump into Empire and it's rapidly obvious you'll want Darth Vader, Soontir Fel or Grand Inquisitor.  Want to play Separatists?  You'll want a bunch of Vultures and Hyenas, most likely.

For First Order I think the picture is really muddy as there's never really been a fixed 'here's how to win with First Order' type of squad that's consistently risen above.  At the back of end of last year we saw the Avenger Swarm do well, then suddenly the TIE/fo was 25pts and FOcho appeared... then seemingly disappeared just as quickly and it was a time for Concussion Missile TIE/sfs.  And while all this was going on what was happening with faction hero Kylo Ren and his new running mate Major Vonreg, who many players had expected to make a splash?

In short if you're thinking about dropping into First Order it's hard to really know for sure what squad you should be trying to make.  It turns out that there's a good reason for this: it's because they're virtually all good squads and no two First Order players can agree on the best way to do things.

To help introduce players to the faction I was going to try and write a blog that shared a bunch of different First Order squads that I've seen people flying and then I had a better idea... let's get those players to do all the hard work for me!

So here's four First Order players from the First Order channel on the X-Wing Second Edition Discord telling you about their favourite squads and why they're cool and you should definitely play them.  

Now if you don't mind I'm going to put my feet up for a bit, like this model in a stock photo pretending he's not too tall and handsome to have a real job like a normal person.

First Order Ace Lads (FOALS)

• Kylo Ren (TIE Silencer)
• Major Vonreg (TIE/ba) - Daredevil
• Rush (TIE Silencer)
  (190)

Introduced by Battlebrow...

I’ve been running this squad since before the points change and now it’s even cheaper. Running Vonreg with Daredevil,and then naked Kylo and Rush is a solid ace list that ends up at 190 now, giving you room to add some toys like Advanced Optics, Sense, or Hate - whatever you prefer!.

Main strategy with this list is to put Rush into combat quickly, taunting the enemy to chase him. If they’re gullible (or greedy) enough they will go after him, freeing you up to get Kylo and Vonreg on the flanks. Just be careful not to engage with Rush on turn one otherwise you may end up in a bad spot (I may or may not have lost him to four range three attacks once). Usually you will want Rush engaging on turn two, while setting up the flanks for Kylo and Vonreg. If the enemy ends up halving Rush, get him out of there so he can fix any crits and come back in as an i6 ace.

Kylo and Vonreg will also likely want to be on opposite sides of the board so you can use them as bait too if the enemy is wise enough to ignore the i2 silencer. Kylo and Vonreg are your endgame pieces, so try to keep one of them untouched as long as you can. 

It's also completely Hyperspace legal and in Hyperspace there's a lot less Initiative 6 pilots around and it gets even better!

 

Holo, TN & 3/sf

• Holo (TIE/ba) - Proud Tradition
• Zeta Squadron Survivor (TIE/sf) - Special Forces Gunner
• Zeta Squadron Survivor (TIE/sf) - Special Forces Gunner
• Zeta Squadron Survivor (TIE/sf)
• TN-3465 (TIE/fo)
  (197)

Introduced by Elred...

This list started off from the Kylo, TN, 3 Zeta Survivors list who got a decent track record a few months back (top8 at LVO), I adapted it with the /ba when I was trying to make good lists for the chassis. I settled on this variant with the 2 gunners after I noticed gunnerless SF had a lot of trouble handling both Boba and 3 AGI list like 5 Jedi.

The gist of it is you have a jousting block of TN and the 3 TIE/sf (gunners in the back) that will aim to engage the opponent at range 1 if possible, to maximize the damage output from TN. Holo more of less follows the block (on a sideline before turning in or directly behind) to provide evades if engaged early, then will dump strain on the safest target (usually the gunnerless Zeta who is the most unattractive target in the list). This list has a strong engage round thanks to TN providing a lot of spike damage, and will also have strong follow-up thanks to the survivors back arc, allowing for unexpected maneuvers and blocks that don't cost you shots if the rest of the opponent squad overshoot your blocker. The gunners are here to provide extra damage from the front but trying to milk them as much as possible is a trap, it's more often than not the correct decision to focus > rotate rather than slooping directly after engage.

Overall it's a very balanced and efficient list that can challenge anything in the hyperspace meta, the key to it being using TN to maximum effect (either as bait or as crit battery), Holo in a flexible ace/damage/support role and the /sf back arc to setup killbox and cut off escapes.

And you can find Elred proving the list's effectiveness in a series of videos from a recent lockdown tournament in France.  It looks like the Semi-Final and Final are yet to be uploaded to Youtube and (spoiler alert) Elred features in both, but here's one of him dismantling a fellow First Order squad during the Swiss rounds...

Ben Swolo

• Kylo Ren (TIE Silencer) - Instinctive Aim, Advanced Optics, Proton Torpedoes
• Epsilon Squadron Cadet (TIE/fo)
• Epsilon Squadron Cadet (TIE/fo)
• Epsilon Squadron Cadet (TIE/fo)
• Epsilon Squadron Cadet (TIE/fo)
  (194)

Introduced by TriggerHappyTaco...

This squad really puts the “swole” in Ben Swolo. The list is set up to provide Kylo everything he needs to carry the team. He is equipped with a torpedo that can be fired without the lock, using an optics focus on a blank result and a force on an eye result. Firing without the lock gives a 63% chance of 4 hits, slightly less than the 71% if a lock were used instead. This loadout helps him threaten fragile I-6 pilots that move after him. Fenn, Vader, Fel, and Wedge are all deathly afraid of this threat, which can swing an unfavorable ace matchup back in Kylo’s favor. 

Then come the four Cadets. This efficient distraction can force your opponent to pick their poison: They could spend their time slowly taking out the TIEs (They’re surprisingly durable, as anyone who has played against the FOcho will tell you) while Kylo screams in on the flank. Alternatively, they could chase Kylo, only to have him slip away with the TIEs bearing down from your other flank. Either choice is bad for your opponent.

All in all, this squad is a fantastic choice if you enjoy flying Kylo. It gives you all the tools you need to set Kylo up for success in the late game. I would recommend using rocks or debris fields to prevent enemy ships hiding from Kylo’s torpedo behind those pesky gas clouds. The squad works well against almost all squad archetypes, especially lists that include boba.  I’ve had a lot of fun flying this squad in the past, and hope you do too!

Ride Eternal, Shiny & Chrome

• Major Vonreg (TIE/ba) - Daredevil
• Captain Phasma (TIE/sf) - Fanatical, Special Forces Gunner
• Major Tavson (Upsilon Shuttle)
• Lieutenant Rivas (TIE/fo)
  (198)

Introduced by Dave (SOTL) - that's me, btw, I'm back from putting my feet up...

This is probably the squad I've been playing most over the last month or so, and if you follow me on Instagram you'll have seen me sharing some of the highlights of my deepening love affair with Captain Phasma as pilot of a TIE/sf.  Much maligned since she arrived in Hotshots & Aces I'd go as far as to say that I think she's the best of the named TIE/sf pilots, especially when used in conjuction with Tavson.  Usually a named TIE/sf becomes the most obvious and easy target in your squad as it only has 2 Agility in a faction full of efficient 3 Agility ships but Phasma breaks that rules as she can pass damage off to nearby ships, and it makes her a very tough target to kill.

What I love most about this squad, though, is that it's got a bit of everything in it.  I've got a blocker in Rivas, I've got an ace in Vonreg, I've got a jouster in Phasma and I've got a big gun shuttle in Tavson.  But I've also got coordinate tricks, synergies to unlock between Phasma's ability and Tavson's ability, extra dice mods for Rivas and Vonreg, surprising Coordinate moves or Jam actions.  It's only ever been a fun list to put on the table and just whizz about with and in the key Phasma/Tavson axis there's a real core of steel to the squad as well.

What it's really good at is giving the opponent no targets they really want to attack.  Lieutenant Rivas is a little throwaway filler ship that takes much more effort to kill than it's really worth, if you shoot at Major Tavson he tends to stack up on Target Locks for the whole team and exact his revenge (TL himself, coordinate Phasma to TL, then Rivas picks up a TL too) but if you go after Captain Phasma then you're giving me more green dice to roll and half of it winds up being passed off to Tavson to trigger all the revenge attacks anyway.  So long as I'm careful to keep Vonreg out of harm's way this list presents a real Hobson's Choice of unattractive targets that tend to hit you back harder than you hit them.

Chase the ace and you've got a lot of red dice sitting at your back.  Try to break down the jousting block and it's probably going to take much longer than you expected and hurt more than you'd like.

And it has an Upsilon Shuttle in, which is a ship that I've long had an unreasonable attraction to dating all the way back to first edition.

 SUMMARY

That's four players who've each shared very different First Order squads that they've been enjoying and winning games with.  That really highlights the strength of the faction to me - there's so much stuff that's competitive you can take lists in multiple directions and really spend months and months just exploring all the different options.  In fact not only were those four very different squads but they also included at least one of every ship in the faction - there's literally nothing unplayable in First Order!  

And we did all that without hitting on other popular archetypes like Kylo & 3 Provocateurs, Avenger Swarm, triple Silencers, FOcho, a block of TIE/sfs loaded with Concussion Missiles, or other ace squad options like Kylo/Vonreg/Tavson or Kylo/Vonreg/Cadets.

Although the First Order is a faction that's missing out on the truly standout individual pilots that push a faction to the top of the game like a Boba Fett, Whisper or the simple Trade Federation Droid there's such a wealth of good stuff just below that level that's waiting for players to explore and discover.  It doesn't really matter what ships you buy because they're all good, and you can assemble them together in almost any combination and have it be effective.  With the Xi Light Shuttle just around the corner I don't think I'll be looking far beyond the boundaries of First Order space for the near future.

Now bring on the First Order Bomber and the TIE Dagger.  All remaining systems will bow before the First Order!

July 2020 Points Changes - Resistance & Generic Upgrades

Finishing up my review of how I think the July 2020 points changes will play out for the various factions I'm going to look at Resistance in this blog, and also cast an eye on some changes to Generic Upgrades that I've not talked about already as part of the previous blogs.

If you recall my original totem pole of faction power level before the points change I had Resistance pegged in the second tier along with the First Order.  

Much like the First Order I think the Resistance has tons of very good and solid ships but a lack of any really super-strong S-Tier guys who you can build a squad around with confidence that you're going to have something special at the end of it.  It means you get lots of squads circulating that have bits of shared DNA between them as everyone can agree that the ingredients are good and are trying to just find a magic recipe for success, but you don't really see any one squad type become adopted and proving repeatedly successful like you get in the top tier factions.

RESISTANCE

It's taken me a little while to get round to writing about Resistance points changes and I left them to last for a reason: I don't think there's much to say.

Of all the factions the Resistance have had maybe the least impact in the July price changes with no major pricing moves at all, really.  On the one hand that's great news as it means things like the RZ2 A-Wing or the incredibly efficient generic T-70 X-Wings got away without being hit at all, and even my boy Finn and his transport pod were left alone.  There's a lot of players who have been having success with various versions of Resistance efficiency lists because you could assemble these pieces in almost any way you liked and find success, with most players landing on four or five ship versions.

I've been championing a six ship version, and although it came out on 201pts after the change (stupid Crack Shot increase) that's easily remedied.

And yes, you can still run five RZ2 A-Wings, which is a great squad but just not a great squad for right now in this metagame.  If anything the RZ2 A-Wings got a little bit of a hit in Zizi Tlo going up and also Crack Shot, although I think they'd already got squeezed on points so much that Crack Shot was out of most squads anyway.

Likewise, Rey went down 2pts in the Salvaged Millenium Falcon but does that do a lot?  Well in the case of the most recently successful build - running deep in the LA Space Jam event - all it did was offset the +2pts of Zizi and Crack Shot and net the list back out at 200pts.

In the whole of the Resistance arsenal probably the only squad to meaningfully come down in cost was Vennie and her humongous Starfortress because not only did Vennie herself get cheaper but there was a price cut to Veteran Turret Gunner too. The only problem is, well, what do you get the girl who has everything?  Vennie already had all the toys she wants and there's no room for anything else... the only thing I can think to spend those saved points on is an upgrade to her T-70 wingman and that maybe the newly discounted Joph Seastriker could shore up a weak point in the list.

Let's get one thing straight: Vennie is not to everyone's taste and the experience of flying her lumbering bomber is about as far from a fun and whizzy A-Wing as you can get... but she damn sure is effective and can have some great matchups into all the swarm squads around.  

And yeah, that's the Resistance in this points cut: it doesn't change.  It was pretty good before and it's pretty good now, but there's no reason to think it's suddenly going to be able to compete with the best factions or that it's worth revisiting Poe Dameron now he's 1pt less.

GENERIC UPGRADES

Not a faction but with some of the points changes being made I thought it was worthwhile stopping by to look at what has happened to some squadbuilding decisions that could affect all the squads.

Torpedoes & Missiles

I really appreciate the little changes made to all the less popular Torpedoes and Missiles in this points cut and I think it makes decision points between them all a lot more valid.  Previously for all the diverse range of torpedoes and missiles in the game you saw 90% of them being played as either Proton Torpedoes or Concussion Missiles.  I still think those are the main go-to secondary weapons but there's now that little more incentive to trim points here when things get tight.  I'll pull a few out to talk about...

3pts - Ion Missiles - a cheap way to bring a 3rd red dice to a fight.  I've been a huge proponent on Ion Cannons for Scyks playing exactly this role in that getting Ion tokens through is a secondary benefit to simply being more likely to chip a damage in by rolling 3 red dice.  The missiles are weaker because you need the Target Lock and it's hard to get at low initiative so I think even at 3pts they're not quite good enough most of the time.  They may actually find more play as a cheap addition to an ace pilot who will find it easier to get the lock.

5pts - Ion Torpedoes - a cheap way to bring a 3rd AND 4th red dice to a fight!  I like these more than Ion Missiles because that 4th dice is really hard for an enemy ace to ignore and you only have to pay 2pts for it over the Ion Missiles.  That 4th dice threatens to reliably punch through damage and even ion tokens against even 3 Agility ships and it means even the smallest ship can cast a big shadow on the table that the opponent has to run from.  You can bring an N1 Starfighter with Passive Sensors and Ion Torpedoes for 40pts and it will be something that any enemy ace has to treat with utter respect.

8pts - Plasma Torpedoes - probably the 3rd most popular ordnance weapon already I actually think the points change WON'T see much increase in how many of these you see.  It's like the inverse of the Ion Torpedoes argument, in that for 8pts you're still only swinging 3 red dice and no guarantee that it will punch through a 3 Agility target to hit and cause the shield strip... assuming the opponent has any shields left to strip.  Because you really need to push those 3 red dice as hard as possible I think Plasma Torpedoes remain glued to the few ships capable of reliably getting double mods for them who were already using them.  For just 5pts you can throw Ion Torpedoes single modded and get the value you need but that's not true here and I think it limits how many ships will take them.

2pts - Passive Sensors - not strictly ordnance but an enabler for it on low initiative ships.  It all helps you to push cheap ordnance carriers as effective 'super-filler' ships that can deliver a real bite for relatively low cost.  Targeting Synchroniser getting a points cut has a similar effect and I've already seen some janky Z-95 swarms that use a Quadjumper with Targeting Synchroniser to get their missiles away!

Payloads

Ion Bombs, Conner Nets and Electro-Proton Bombs all get a point cheaper.  Ok.  Ion Bombs are still a niche use item, Conner Nets still aren't good enough with just one charge and Electro-Proton Bombs are still a meme.

Gunners

Agile Gunner finally costs a probably fair amount considering what Gyroscopic Targeting cost for the Lancer in First Edition.  5pts on a large base is really reasonable and I wouldn't be surprised to see this starting to creep into some big turret builds on 100pt ships because those boys need every bit of action economy they can lay their hands on.

Veteran Turret Gunner dropping on large bases has already been mentioned in this blog with regard to Vennie but while it's a welcome price drop I'm not sure it's going to get played very often.  Without Paige Tico's ability to swing that arc around and allow for double tap attacks on the same target I think it's still going to be limited by just how often you're going to have targets in two different arcs as the Starfortress is the only large ship currently able to pull off that double-tap trick.

Crack Shot

Crack Shot is now 2pts.  This is arguably the single biggest change in Generic Upgrades because of how much it was being played vs anything else that got a price change.

Firstly: Crack Shot was too good at 1pt.  Even at 2pts it routinely outperforms Predator in terms of combat math for almost any ship in the game and there's actually a mathematical argument for making Crack Shot 3pts so that there's a reason to use Predator instead.

Secondly: Crack Shot did have a role to play in controlling token-stacking defensive aces and doubling it's cost will limit how well it can perform this role.  At the moment I'm not too concerned by this as I think the token-stacking defensive aces are already coming under much more pressure from the huge ranks of hyper-efficient generic ship swarms.  If that ever changes and the efficient swarms go away I could see an argument for bringing Crack Shot back down in price.  In the meantime losing Crack Shot from things like Rebel Beef is just another nail in the coffin of that archetype - already unable to beat off the hyper-efficient swarms it now finds it harder to fit key anti-ace tools too.

Thirdly: you're going to play a lot of Marksmanship now.  You don't think you are because you think Marksmanship is rubbish and it's not really a proper dice mod.  And you'd be right.  But when you've got 3pts hanging and 3 empty Talent slots you're going to add Marksmanship in anyway... and then later you'll realise it's actually winning you games a fair amount of the time.

WRAPPING UP

I set out in my first blog by saying how I thought the factions lined up in three tiers and after reviewing all the changes and stewing on it for two weeks, I still think not a vast amount is going to change, at least before new ships come out and possibly shake things up.

Tier 1 is still Boba/Dengar or Boba/Koshka, Imperial Aces, Droids and the Agi3 Swarms (Scyks, Sloane, FOcho etc, now maybe joined by Spamtex and TIE v1 swarms)

Tier 2 is still where you find best jousting blocks of First Order and Resistance ships in their many configurations, or First Order aces and Vennie or Rey hoping to dodge the wrong matchups.

Tier 3 is still whatever the best of the Rebels and Republic can throw together after their dominant 2019 squad archetypes got hammered into the ground at the end of last year.

New ships are coming and I really hope they do something to shake this all up.  With no serious events happening during the continued Coronavirus lockdown I think FFG may have missed a trick by not just throwing everything up in the air for six months and experimenting with some wacky points costs to see what happens.  But on the other hand, with no serious events happening maybe that's our release valve that not everyone is going to be taking the game seriously enough to really make us sick and tired of seeing Boba in every other match for another six months!

July 2020 Points Changes - Separatists & Scum

Continuing my review of how the seven factions will respond to the recent points changes, this time I want to look at two factions who were at the top of their games: Separatists and Scum.

Below is my faction tiering as I thought it was and you can see that Separatists and Scum are right at the top of the totem pole.  Separatist swarms of various flavours have been hugely strong ever since they arrived in the game, while Scum is arguably the single strongest faction in the game with multiple vectors - Boba at the top, but also the hugely efficient Scyks and Fangs too.

Do the July points changes do anything to shake this up?

SEPARATISTS

When I wrote my review of how factions would do in Hyperspace after the January points changes I said that Separatists were at the same time both an incredibly thin faction with only a couple of good pilots - Trade Federation Drones and Techno Union Bombers - but also one of the strongest because those two pieces were so strong they could carry the whole faction.  Well, for the first time we've had a points increase on one of these pieces with the Trade Federation Drones going up from 19pts to 20pts.

This is not enough.

My generic efficiency analysis highlighted just how powerful Networked Calculations was and that when massed together the Vulture droids were mathematically as good as TIE Fighters... TIE Fighters with blue turn maneuvers and linked actions.  Droid lists are currently able to afford lots of ships and lots of toys along with them - Grappling Struts, Discord Missiles and other weaponry, DRK Probe Droids or Tactical Relays - and I don't believe an increase of 1pt does enough to change this fact.  With so many toys already included it's relatively easy for droid players to trim a couple of upgrades and still continue to run with the fundamental strength of the list - lots of bodies and calculate tokens for Networked Calculations.  

You can see this in sample Sear Swarm lists like the one above, or in the mixed Hyena/Vulture squads like the one below... which often actually also benefited by the reduction to Plasma Torpedoes!  Droid swarms get trimmed slightly but fundamentally they're still going to be able to function with 98% of the power level they used to have and there's no compelling reason to Separatist players to feel they need to make major changes to lists that were already working.  Sear Swarms have it worst and they probably have a real decision to make about how much they need TA-175 vs other upgrade cards, but the munition-base swarms were arguably better anyway and haven't suffered nearly as much.

Away from the Droids there has been some major points changes to the Nantex Starfighter.  Originally the Nantex and its tractor beam shenanigans proved to be as popular as a fart in an elevator and the ships got hammered not just by big points increases but also by rewriting the tractor beam rules!  That double whammy pretty much entirely erased the ship from playability for the first half of 2020, which a big discount in this round of changes hopes to fix.  There's two angles to this - firstly that most of the Nantex have now been priced to make sense without having to use Ensnare (but then saw Ensnare go up in cost), and secondly that Sun Fac came down in cost while Ensnare stayed the same cost for I6 pilots, putting the big bad of the Geonosians back into contention.

Tackling them in order, I actually quite like the new discount non-Ensnare Nantex.  At 29pts for a Stalgasin Hive Guard you're actually pretty comparable to where an Autoblaster Scyk is sitting (at 28pts with the cannon adding an extra dice in bullseye).  It might take some adjustment to how Separatist players think about their squads and ships but I'm definitely not ruling out that Nantex swarm can now work without having to rely on Ensnare, or that the Nantex can be a good filler ship.  I'd much rather they were 28pts than 29pt because that's the break point for being able to afford 7 of them in a squad like you can with Scyks, but with cheap Vultures around as well I think there's some potential for a Nantex swarm to work, just laying down those cheap bullseyes and bringing 20 red dice to the table.

The big bad of Sun Fac, however, I'm much more lukewarm about.  He may well be the cheapest points cost that he's ever been to field with Ensnare but I think the six months that he's sat out on the bench have been really unkind to Mr Fac.  

• Original Cost - Sun Fac with Ensnare: 78pts.  1 Tractor token for any size ship to be tractored.
• January - Sun Fac with Ensnare: 82pts.  Unable to affect Medium or Large bases.  Tractored ships can rotate
• July - Sun Fac with Ensnare: 73pts.  Unable to affect Medium or Large bases.  Tractored ships can rotate

Tractor tokens are much less effectively against medium or large bases (like Boba Fett or Dengar) and being able to gobble up one small ship is much less potent when that ship is a cheap generic Scyk or TIE Fighter with a bunch of mates around who can take revenge.  Add to that, with the fact ships you tractor can rotate to fire at Sun Fac if he moves them I think he probably needs more high Initiative friends around to help ensure that he kills his intended targets before they can fire on him... and there's not a lot of high initiative around in the faction.  Sun Fac will scare a few aces but he's always been very similar to Fenn Rau and we can see from how Fenn has dipped in form that it's not a great time to be an ace hunter.

Overall I think very little changes for Separatist players.  The pieces they're used to using have only slightly increased in cost while the pieces that got a discount in this points change are either unfamiliar and untested, or poorly equipped for the modern metagame.  With the proven methods still effective I doubt most players will spend too long worrying about whether to bring a Nantex into play and simply stay locked onto the Droid swarms.  That's also setting a real high bar for whether any of the upcoming new ships like the HMP Gunship or Tri Fighter can actually muscle their way into the starting lineups or not.

SCUM & VILLAINY

The last six months have seen Scum pretty fairly cemented to the top spot in any format you care to mention.  From the moment Boba and Koshka announced themselves at the Milton Keynes System Open they were the dominant force in Hyperspace, while in Extended it soon shook out that Boba and Dengar were a great pairing with Dengar able to snipe away the few things that Boba might have trouble with.  It's been a real reign of terror as the rest of the game cowered under Boba Fett's gaze, so surely Boba got a big hit in the July points changes, right?

Wrong.

Boba essentially got hit twice, a little bit on the pilot card itself (+1pt) then more heavily on the Slave I title (+4pts).  I think this is the right way to do it and although I know a lot of people were expecting a bigger increase on Boba himself, I think we've seen in the past that when he doesn't have this specific combination of tools - Slave I and Maul - to be able to reposition AND have dice mods he's really fair.  Before players landed on Maul crew the Perceptive Copilot was a common version and that Boba Fett was really beatable, so I think Boba himself at 85pts was fine.  I just thought somewhere between Maul and Slave I the price needed to go up by more, and I was all for slamming Slave I with Supernatural Reflexes levels of costing by initiative just to bomb it out of the game for a while.

That's not what we got and I think the Boba lists will absorb a +5pts increase pretty smoothly, probably just dropping a Hull Upgrade and carrying on.  It hurts them... a bit, but probably not enough.  Arguably Boba actually gets stronger in these changes as some of the the things that he struggled with got hit harder.  

Boba is fine and should be going nowhere, either in Hyperspace or Extended.  He's still the guy to beat.

But away from Boba Fett there was another successful line of play for Scum players - the M3-A Scyk that I've been banging a drum about ever since they dropped in points in January.  I've had a lot of success (and fun) with Scyk swarms and although things didn't work out for me in Milton Keynes the squad I took there with such high hopes has performed incredibly well for Akhter Khan during Gold Squadron's Space Jam tournament series during lockdown.

• Space Jam Chicago: Top 4 with a 7-2 record
• Space Jam Rome: Top 4 with an 8-1 record
• Space Jam LA: Top 16 with a 5-2 record
• Space Jam Sydney: Top 4 with an 8-1 record
• OVERALL: 28-6

Akhter's list is the same one that I took to Milton Keynes and it's untouched by any of the July points changes.

Also unchanged are the Ion/Tractor Scyk Swarm I took to the Element Games Store Championship and did well with, and the Autoblaster Scyk Swarm that Nikolas God also did very well with in the Space Jam series.

Scyks are still incredibly efficient - almost certainly the most efficient ship that's ever been in first or second edition - and the points haven't changed on them at all.  Crazy!

Although Scum players have plenty of incentive to just carry on playing what has been working so well for them to date there ARE a bunch of little quality of life points changes to unpopular ships like the YV-666, IG-Aggressor and Lando's Millenium Falcon.  On the one hand I don't think any one of these price drops is enough to flip one of these ships from 'bad' to 'good', certainly not good enough to dislodge Boba Fett or Cartel Spacers.  On the other hand the Scum faction loves to have unexpected tricks and problems for its opponents to solve and these price cuts certainly make all those 'off-meta' type of lists that little bit more competitive and dangerous.

In the end I think Scum are in a similar boat to Separatists.  Yes there's potential for exploring cool new things but the old reliable things are still just as reliable as ever so why change a winning team?  It's still going to be a Boba and Scyk world out there for the next six months, I'd expect.