Reply: Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures Game:: Strategy:: Re: World Championship Lists

by CapAp

RogueThirteen wrote:

The tournament results you speak of aren't really relevant to this debate for several reasons:

I'll take these on point by point.

(1) There are mirror-match games in the tournaments: Rebs have to fight Rebs and Imperials have to fight Imperials. People seem to think a more elite pilot Imperial build has a better shot in the Imperial mirror-match than does a swarm squad, and this alone might mean that swarm squads don't make much of an appearance or don't place well because of struggles in the mirror match. Ironically, this might result in Rebs having a "better" overall chance against Imperial tournament squads than they would against a pick-up game swarm squad.

So "The swarm list isn't good in tournament play where there are better Imperial lists for it to compete against"? I mean... that's like saying the elephant is the biggest mammal there is; as long as you don't count all the larger mammals.

Well, I'll certainly cede that point. The swarm list is the best list if you don't count the lists that are better than it. And as to the claim that the debate only centers on swarms being superior to REBEL fleets, I think the fact that the runner-up at the Championship and the champion at the GenCon event were both very standard Rebel fleets belies that idea.

(2) Just because there were top-Placing Rebels doesn't mean that there is an even balance between the factions in general, for a variety of reasons. Most notably, it appears early round matches were arranged to disproportionately pit Imps vs Imps and Rebs vs Rebs to ensure that there was a Reb vs Imp final match.

Is the claim now just that the Imperials are better than the Rebels? If so, I'd wonder why the factions weren't playtested more. Certainly the above claim (if true) has nothing to do with the power of swarms, but rather the balance between factions. (And I have to say, it's a little ballsy for players to claim that they're a better authority on the game's balance than FFG's playtesters).

(3) Both tournaments had a pretty small player turnout, at least from a standpoint of statistical significance. Even if TIE swarms handily had won both events, we still wouldn't have any real evidence that the TIE swarm was favored because the sample size is just too small at this point.

Agreed. And when we don't have evidence about a claim, the party making the claim bears the burden of proof. We have two official results pulled from the top two tournaments so far, pitted against the comments of half a dozen folks who've played with their best friend Bill a couple of times. I know which way I'm leaning.

(4) It's still young in the game's life and most players at the tourneys may not even own 8 TIEs--it's an expensive build (this was probably especially true for the Gen Con tourney, where players had literally just bought their first bit of product). Whenever we tested games against true swarm we had to pool the TIEs of several players to do so. This alone might contribute to less true swarm squads at tourneys.

Oh come now, it's pretty ridiculous to think that people headed to the inaugural World Championship wouldn't put out for 8 TIE fighters. I own 6 and I've only played the game with two local friends!

I've been to FFG tournament events. Spending is not an obstacle for people who attend them and succeed. I feel confident in the assertion that plenty of players had the tools to field whichever lists they felt were superior. As for the GenCon tournament, players had to field 100 points of product. TIE expansions are no more expensive than any other.

(5) Planning out the moves of seven-eight TIEs each turn (especially if they can be activated in any order you want each time) is both intellectually exhausting and daunting. Some players might be dissuaded from a weekend of back-to-back matches commanding eight TIEs just from a general worry of tediousness and exhaustion.

Eight ships is too many to move all weekend, but six is not? That's weak, man. :)

Basically, the question of "Do Imperial swarm squads have an inherent advantage over the Rebels in 100pt games?"is a very different question from"What squads performed well in the tournament?"

My guess is that had the swarm squad performed well in the tournament, you would be saying the exact opposite. You've backed up a theory (maybe you originally proposed it, I don't know) from your own anecdotal experience - but that just hasn't borne out in real life. The metagame isn't going to conform to what we sit and home and theorize it *should* be. It will be what it is. So far, Rebels have taken 3 of the top 4 spots at the inaugural events. The fourth was non-swarm Imperial. That's not enough evidence to know exactly what is going on, but it's a strong indicator of which way the meta is heading DESPITE what people on BGG have encountered in their game room at home.

Either way, we don't really have any solid data to answer either of those questions yet, as the game is still so young. Basically, it's all "wait and see."

As above, I agree with this to a reasonable extent. And with an expansion coming out in just over a month, I'm sure the meta will change drastically, rendering this discussion totally moot. But until then, I'm confident we'll see the championship lists dominate meta until unseated by a new champion (as they ALWAYS do in ALL competitive collectible games).

Personally speaking, and merely voicing my own 'gut intuition' that's not worth much in the way of hard data, after a lot of play testing I certainly feel like the Empire swarm of 7-8 TIEs certainly has an inherent advantage against Rebels (and that comes after playing both as and against the swarm).

I understand that, but I have the exact opposite gut feeling (which is why our anecdotes aren't worth much to this discussion). We'll just have to wait and see what happens in officially recorded events. Our first two have both countered the assertion that swarm is even competitive, let alone superior.