Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

I haven't been able to play X-wing 2.0 much, but I did play in the tournament on Friday and I have to say that with the exception of my first game, it was the most fun I think I've ever had playing X-wing. The matches (except for my first round matchup against the 4x phantom) were all close games that could have gone either way. The factions were pretty varied and there were a lot of completely different lists. I played a TIE swarm and I played against:

Imperial: 4 x phantom

Scum: 3 x IG-88 ships

Imperial: 1 x reaper, 1 x striker, 1 x TIE/ln, 1 x V1

Resistance: 2 x X-wing, 2 x A-wing

Imperial: 1 x shuttle, 1 x Punisher, 1 Decimator

I ended up going 2 and 3 before dropping (had to get home). This was also the first tournament that I played that required an app to play. It took way to long to start the tournament (45 minutes), but once it was going, the App was great and probably saved a lot of time. You recorded your score in it and it told you what table your next match was at.

Sounds like fun! That's a nice variety of lists you played against, which ones did you beat?

I am horrified that they required an App to play, I really hope that they don't require this at Sydney System Open as I don't own a smart phone and I will be damned if I will buy one just because of a tournament.

What swag did you pic up?

I beat the scum and 2nd imperial list.

It sounds like the App being used at large tournaments is going to be the format going forward. I believe that you can use anyone's smart phone. Once you upload a picture of your list and register, you'd just need to ask someone each round where you're playing next. Maybe the tournament organizer will let you register under theirs. The app lets you look at anyone's list and every matchup after it has started. You just need to do a search on your name.

I got the VIG swag bag this year and got a mountain of stuff.
Game of Thrones mini game starter Box + an extra box of the Giants
Level 7 Invasion
Undercity (Privateerpress)
Achtung! Cthulu starter box
Tanks! starter box (M1 vs T-64) + a helicopter from the same game
One of those laser cut buildings
Games workshop con exclusive figure - Amulis
Guild Ball Farmers box + Another Guild Ball box (metal workers?)
a ton of one-off figures (maybe a dozen?)
a Paint brush
a few free paints
a couple of books
an Adepticon T-shirt
an Adepticon glass + 10 tickets into the raffle
Warhammer Underworld box (goblins/squigs), dice for the game, card sleeves
There is probably more stuff that I'm forgetting.

Not to mention I was able to pick up the limited edition droid fighter and the pre-releases for Legion (tank and landspeeder)

I'm assuming the app is Best Coast Pairings? Sounds like it. If so, I'd be wary of any tournament using it as a lot of the feedback about it seems to be very similar to yours: it's great when it works but there are often teething issues at the start of the tournament. Especially when it comes to X-Wing, the requirement to be able to see your opponent's list online is not that important. I've never felt the need to do that at any X-Wing tournament I've ever been to.

Sounds like the tournament was fun though! A good variety of lists. The quad Phantom list is tough, especially if you've never faced it before.

I've been considering dipping my toe back into 2.0 for a while but the 'meta' from Adepticon has me looking at ebaying my limited 2.0 buy-in

Was the sheer amount of Phantoms, and lack of Scum and large based a freak big con outlier or just normal state of things ?

The game is in a real strange place that is not helped by the split in competitive game types. I wouldn't say Adepticon was overly representative of the state of things though and of course it didn't include the two new factions but the game doesn't seem to have settled too much into meta staples like V1 did. There are popular lists but largely they seem to be either very localised or get nerfed into the ground really quickly (like Boba/Marauder/Han).
I see a lot of quad ion y-wings, two Upsilons and a Silencer, some really weird and wonderful Scum mixes, TIE/ln squadrons (mostly Inferno), triple Imp aces and a surprising amount of Dash.

I want to say there were about 7 or so Phantom lists in a field of 250 + people. There were plenty of scum lists, There was a wide variety of lists. The only "Meta" or common thing is that most lists had 4 ships (away from Mark 1 that seemed to use a lot of 2 and 3 ships lists). There were also a lot of monochromatic lists basically a lot of people used all of one kind of ship. What I didn't see a lot of were swarm lists like mine.

Yet none of the Scum cracked the top 16 but at least 5 Phantom lists did

And it is a problem. But FFG has allowed themselves an out to right the ship every so often.

Just had a look at a few more system open top fours;

Netherlands;
Won by 4x Phantom.
Vader/Soontir/Duchess.
Kylo/Blackout/Midnight.
Drea/ 3x Lok Revenants.

Canada;
Won by U-wing/B-Wing/X-Wing/3x Zs (all generics).
Zeb/x/x/b/b.
Vader/3x generic strikers.
Wedge/Corran/Cassian.

Arizona;
Won by Soontir/Whisper/Redline.
4x Phantoms.
Roark/Dash.
4x Phantoms.

I would say that is a pretty healthy mix of ships although there is only one Scum.

The Arizona lists are not legal anymore or where pointed into oblivion.

Canada is weird, what can I say?

Indeed, was just pointing out that quad phantoms is not a massive overbearing problem (like FSR was) and that as it has been doing relatively above the curve it will be nerfed by July! Will have to have a look and see what other tournaments I can dredge up.

Canada is certainly weird... But since I have been playing what most people have been calling the 'meta' is US only, favoured lists from everywhere else is often very different. Like Brobots winning that tiny tourney at the end of v1 where most people were saying they were rubbish....

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
And it is a problem. But FFG has allowed themselves an out to right the ship every so often.

Whilst this is in theory good I'm still not convinced it'll result in swingy knee-jerk nerf/buffs ala GW,I mean how many swings at 'correcting' did they have at the J5K in 1.0, which admittedly they've avoided in 2.0 by making it plop to start with...

Think I'll stay here on my fence a little while longer

They did have one knee jerk reaction (nerfed the hell out of the Upsilon to counter a list that wasn't even good).
Think staying on the fence is a good idea at least until the rebalancing in July and see what you make of that.

Yep I saw that whilst watching Youtube to catch up, again feeding into my feeling that FFG are winging it a tad, as the list in question existed in 1.0 and was stronger, but still not top tier, as you could pull from a wider range of ships and upgrades

The triple Upsilon list was nerfed for the best reason possible:

It was a list that provided a very negative play experience, especially for new players. The risk they ran by letting even middling players trounce the fresh blood coming into the game was enough to warrant, imho, an emergency adjustment.

Whilst I don't disagree with you Mathieu I just think that it was an over reaction on FFGs part. They made no pervious effort (or subsequent) to insta nerf NPE stuff and the Triple Upsilon list was at best a gatekeeper. For a new player I imagine it would be as horrific to face as all the Dash/Miranda or Dengaroo lists were in v1. But tripups just wasn't a very good list, it was easily enough countered.

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
The triple Upsilon list was nerfed for the best reason possible:

It was a list that provided a very negative play experience, especially for new players. The risk they ran by letting even middling players trounce the fresh blood coming into the game was enough to warrant, imho, an emergency adjustment.

Strongly disagree. It was a list that had major weaknesses if you could dodge the alpha strike, and designing around clueless newbies being able to win against more experienced players is a great way to ruin a game. You have to assume that newbies are going to have "negative play experiences" because they don't know how the game works and design for players with a higher level of skill. Otherwise you have to strip out all of the skill and strategy from the game so that even a clueless newbie can joust straight at the enemy and win half the time. Which, of course, is the reason the list was nerfed: it broke the 2.0 design rule of dice being important. It was a list that could easily stack dice modification and reliably deliver an alpha strike, which just isn't acceptable when FFG's goal is to replace skill with dice luck as much as possible. It was bad design to begin with, and it was a blatant overreaction out of panic at having a meta defined by minimizing dice luck.

 ingtaer wrote:
Whilst I don't disagree with you Mathieu I just think that it was an over reaction on FFGs part. They made no pervious effort (or subsequent) to insta nerf NPE stuff and the Triple Upsilon list was at best a gatekeeper. For a new player I imagine it would be as horrific to face as all the Dash/Miranda or Dengaroo lists were in v1. But tripups just wasn't a very good list, it was easily enough countered.

I'll be honest, never met them. We read about them, but no one ever brought that list even at casual nights. We had a single QuintY (am I getting the hang of the naming conventions?) at our Hyperspace, and he score middle-low of the pack... just like me.

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:

 ingtaer wrote:
Whilst I don't disagree with you Mathieu I just think that it was an over reaction on FFGs part. They made no pervious effort (or subsequent) to insta nerf NPE stuff and the Triple Upsilon list was at best a gatekeeper. For a new player I imagine it would be as horrific to face as all the Dash/Miranda or Dengaroo lists were in v1. But tripups just wasn't a very good list, it was easily enough countered.

I'll be honest, never met them. We read about them, but no one ever brought that list even at casual nights. We had a single QuintY (am I getting the hang of the naming conventions?) at our Hyperspace, and he score middle-low of the pack... just like me.

It was one of those things that looked terrifying on paper but placement of a couple of rocks, deploying on your table edge and a hard turn neutered its alpha completely and once you get behind an Upsilon it dies as quickly as something that is very quick.. I must admit that I have no idea of how the naming conventions come about! Smash random letters and names together and see what sticks I think...

I want to correct something I mentioned. there were a lot more than 7 4 phantom lists at Adepticon - there were more like 22 or so.