What this guy said ^

Finally!! Someone willing to speak up and do something about this plague of A-wing swarms!

Bravo to the OP, I say!! Down with the tyranny of the Prototype Pilot!

Finally!! Someone willing to speak up and do something about this plague of A-wing swarms!

Bravo to the OP, I say!! Down with the tyranny of the Prototype Pilot!

You're joking right? The 6 hwk swarm is the plague... It's maddening. Clearly everyone expects to face it... Dark Curse. Everywhere......

Finally!! Someone willing to speak up and do something about this plague of A-wing swarms!

Bravo to the OP, I say!! Down with the tyranny of the Prototype Pilot!

You're joking right? The 6 hwk swarm is the plague... It's maddening. Clearly everyone expects to face it... Dark Curse. Everywhere......

lol Sarcasm aside, next game I'm fielding 5 HWKs with blaster turrets (100 even) just to see the reaction of the player across from me. Then I hope to win one for the most misunderstood, underused ship in the game.

Just wanted to snag a random write up, from some no-name Xwing player:

In the [the tournament], I faced two lists with Firesprays, four with YT-1300s, and one build with four X-wings. In each match, Advanced Sensors were extremely helpful. Barrel rolling to K-turn to a clear spot, focusing before purposefully ramming my own ships, and otherwise “cheating” the action mechanics worked really well for me.

My strategy against a TIE swarm was mainly based on the asteroids. A swarm player will drop asteroids in the corners, and usually has initiative, since they often run less than one-hundred points. My first asteroid is always in the middle, then my second asteroid is between that one and one of the corner asteroids. If they place their first two asteroids in my corners, I situate the rest of the asteroid field in my half and loiter there. If they place the asteroids in their corners, I make a hook and maneuver my ships into the pocket. I try to play so that Biggs can only be shot through the asteroids in the beginning, and the TIEs can't K-turn without landing on rocks. After that, you have to play it by ear and take range “1” shots when you can.

All in all, I was surprised at how many large ships I faced at [the tournament] Generally, my plan against large ships is to force them to navigate the asteroid field, while Advanced Sensors lets me dodge rocks easier than the large ships. My only loss in the event was to a proton bomb-heavy Firespray list fielded by former World Champion Doug Kinney. Doug won with two hull left, so that match was nail-biter!

Sorry, when I said a no-named player, what I really meant was Paul Heaver, and his write up of the World Championships. The parts I bolded were to affirm the list diversity. Did he face a TIE swarm at the end? Yes. And between both his list and his opponent's there were 3 named pilots, making up roughly 30%. Sounds reasonable to me.

I know people are upset because they can't fly whatever they want, whenever they want an be successful. But the truth is that nothing in the world works like that. I can't be a major league baseball player just because I own a glave and a bat (I don't, actually), and I can't be a Grammy Award winning musician just because I can hum a tune. Nor so, can you just show up and win a tournament with whatever list you want.

TL;DR: Rather than being pissed about what pilots will and won't fly, maybe focus on getting better at the skill portion of the game. The greater your skill, the more you can get away with flying.

This whole argument kind of collapses in on itself anyway, because what's being argued is in fact that there are very few popular/successful lists made up of nothing but named pilots.

Funny thing is, that for most of the SW fluff out there, there's what maybe 1 or 2 'named pilots' per squad. Most don't even have that many, unless you're talking about rogue squad of course.

How many named pilots where there in the moves vs how many un-named and generic pilots?

This game should feature lots of list with few named pilots. Because that's fitting with how the Star Wars universe actually works.

This whole argument kind of collapses in on itself anyway, because what's being argued is in fact that there are very few popular/successful lists made up of nothing but named pilots.

Funny thing is, that for most of the SW fluff out there, there's what maybe 1 or 2 'named pilots' per squad. Most don't even have that many, unless you're talking about rogue squad of course.

How many named pilots where there in the moves vs how many un-named and generic pilots?

This game should feature lots of list with few named pilots. Because that's fitting with how the Star Wars universe actually works.

Especially when you take into account the fact that 90% of the named pilots we have were retconned in by Decipher for their CCG years after the fact, or written into comics, novels, RPGs, etc.

Especially when you take into account the fact that 90% of the named pilots we have were retconned in by Decipher for their CCG years after the fact, or written into comics, novels, RPGs, etc.

Yeah I was considering that, but it's best to say it.

Read a X-Wing novel and you'll see whole squads that don't have a named pilot in them. So to say that we need more lists made up of only named pilots is not really a matter of balance, and it does to a point break fluff.

It's also not like there aren't elite lists out there made up of nothing but named pilots. Just that they're not common. That doesn't mean something is wrong with the game, if named pilots where much better we'd end up with herohammer which is an issue.

Imagine that the Tie Swam was completely pointless to play because Wedge, Luke and Biggs could destroy it in 3 turns. How would that be more balanced?

Yeah then you wind up with the opposite problem; "why would I ever take a generic pilot, when the named ones are all so good/cheap?"

Yeah then you wind up with the opposite problem; "why would I ever take a generic pilot, when the named ones are all so good/cheap?"

This happened in some version of Warhammer, that's why they called it Herohammer, because the only units worth taking where the 'hero' ones, the named characters just made everything else pointless.

So you had people taking the bare minimum troops required to be legal, then the rest was hero units because they were just so much better.

It's a very thin line to walk in terms of balance. And frankly I think X-Wing does it well. It's not like no one ever takes a named pilot in their list, on both sides a lot of the more popular lists have named characters in them.

So bottom line is, you don't need 3-4 named characters in a list for the game to be considered balanced.

I also find the premise of "restoring" balance to the game a funny concept, since it implies the game was perfectly balanced at some point, then broke, and now desperately needs to return to that lost state of harmony.

The truth is, swarms, for example, have been a dominant force since wave 1. If anything, FFG has tried to slowly work in tools to counter them (assault missiles, bombs and mines, proton bombs in particular, anti pursuit lasers, turret weapons, saboteur, on and on, undoubtedly more stuff in wave 4) in order to let them remain a strong force in the game without them running the meta singlehandedly.

There are plenty of tools in the game now to help deal with swarms and take them down a peg, on top of smart squad building and skilled flying, of course. I feel like the fact there's no magic bullet, instant swarm stopper, leads to the attitude as expressed above, where any advice is written off as vague and unhelpful simply because there's no silver bullet to deal with swarms. When really I don't think there should be.

Plenty of good advice has been given on how to deal with them - take stuff they're vulnerable to (see the big list above). Use the rocks for cover. Use the rocks to make him break up his formation so he can't bring all his guns to bear on one of your ships. Make sure you can do exactly that to one of HIS. Fly defensively, do whatever you can to minimize the number of shots targeting each of your ships, while trying to chip away at his numbers.

And yes - there are going to be squads where that's easy to execute well and others where that's going to be a struggle. Welcome to strategery.

However, there's no doubt that they require good flying when you are paying a premium for the dial and boost in place of shields/hull, a lot of which can sadly be neutralized with a turret or two.

The concept of Interceptors is that it's very... for the lack of a better word, absolute. Skill comes from using the superior dial for sure, but the key point is that you're fighting with a 12+ hull point disparity against other lists and you only have 3 HP per ship. Evade dice are mathematically weaker than attack dice, so in order for you to win out, you need to be 100% on top of your game in all games. There is virtually no room for mistakes and if you get hit (which you will), you need to pray to the dice gods every time.

Don't get me wrong, I love flying my Interceptors. I do very well with them, but a lucky roll on their side or a bad roll on yours decreases your killing potential by a third/fourth.

I'll admit I just skipped over most of this thread but if quantity beat quality I have a simple test battle that should be run a few times to see which really is better:

QUANTITY:

Academy Pilot x4

Obsidian Pilot x4

QUALITY:

Avenger Squadron Pilot x2

Howlrunner

Black Squadron Pilot x3

It should be clear that EVERY ship is the Quality squadron has some advantage over ships in the Quantity squadron. I say "multiple battles" just to clear up the initiative difference that determines if the Avenger or Obsidian Pilots go first. In a dozen battles with no time limits who is going win?

Before you say "THEY'RE BOTH SWARMS!" that may be true but the are also in that same 4:3 ratio which some say will distinguish a Rebel squad between quantity and quality. It's just that with the Imperials it is a lot easier to set that up into something that would be "fair" and very straight forward as opposed to looking at all the special abilities that many more expensive ships have.

The concept of Interceptors is that it's very... for the lack of a better word, absolute. Skill comes from using the superior dial for sure, but the key point is that you're fighting with a 12+ hull point disparity against other lists and you only have 3 HP per ship. Evade dice are mathematically weaker than attack dice, so in order for you to win out, you need to be 100% on top of your game in all games. There is virtually no room for mistakes and if you get hit (which you will), you need to pray to the dice gods every time.

Don't get me wrong, I love flying my Interceptors. I do very well with them, but a lucky roll on their side or a bad roll on yours decreases your killing potential by a third/fourth.

Well, I think that's just who they are and that it's very tough to put a good point value on a glass cannon, whose survival is depended on dice. I know you play high elves in Warhammer, and it's very similar to things I've had happen with them, where a poor leadership roll means you've lost a significant portion of your fighting force.

But, back to the interceptor, and thinking about it more I can see where a ship like this would be very challenging to figure out. For example, Major Juggler's math suggest that they are about a point over what he feels they should be. Now, is that enough to make them more competitively viable? I don't think so.

However, make them much cheaper and you're basically giving them free PTL (or some other upgrade), not to mention very likely making the TIE obsolete. Can you imagine a 15-16 Alpha or a Turr that is the cost of a Red Squadron X-Wing?

Beyond that, I think sometimes, myself included, we focus too much on tournament value and not on individual game value, which may be more what FFG is shooting for. That's a far different animal because tournament success is often predicated on more consistent and reliable factors than the Tie Interceptor has.

All this is to say I think one could make an argument that the TIE interceptor is appropriately priced for it's capabilities in a single game, but what you're paying for (boost, red die, and a top dial) and, more so, what you're NOT getting (reliable survivability) are not cost effective in a tournament setting.

Even 17pt Interceptors are a bit scary. 5 Alphas w/Stealth Device. Shudder.

Beyond that, I think sometimes, myself included, we focus too much on tournament value and not on individual game value, which may be more what FFG is shooting for. That's a far different animal because tournament success is often predicated on more consistent and reliable factors than the Tie Interceptor has.

All this is to say I think one could make an argument that the TIE interceptor is appropriately priced for it's capabilities in a single game, but what you're paying for (boost, red die, and a top dial) and, more so, what you're NOT getting (reliable survivability) are not cost effective in a tournament setting.

Exactly! One should be having fun while pushing their Star Wars miniatures around a table and reliving their childhood!

With the Aces arriving soon (we hope) this ship is going to change. TWO MODS?!?! Just sick. For 27 points you can field an Interceptor with a PS 6, a Targeting Computer and a Stealth Device. Then don't forget about that EPT! It's going to be fun for sure.

The concept of Interceptors is that it's very... for the lack of a better word, absolute. Skill comes from using the superior dial for sure, but the key point is that you're fighting with a 12+ hull point disparity against other lists and you only have 3 HP per ship. Evade dice are mathematically weaker than attack dice, so in order for you to win out, you need to be 100% on top of your game in all games. There is virtually no room for mistakes and if you get hit (which you will), you need to pray to the dice gods every time.

Don't get me wrong, I love flying my Interceptors. I do very well with them, but a lucky roll on their side or a bad roll on yours decreases your killing potential by a third/fourth.

Well, I think that's just who they are and that it's very tough to put a good point value on a glass cannon, whose survival is depended on dice. I know you play high elves in Warhammer, and it's very similar to things I've had happen with them, where a poor leadership roll means you've lost a significant portion of your fighting force.

But, back to the interceptor, and thinking about it more I can see where a ship like this would be very challenging to figure out. For example, Major Juggler's math suggest that they are about a point over what he feels they should be. Now, is that enough to make them more competitively viable? I don't think so.

However, make them much cheaper and you're basically giving them free PTL (or some other upgrade), not to mention very likely making the TIE obsolete. Can you imagine a 15-16 Alpha or a Turr that is the cost of a Red Squadron X-Wing?

Beyond that, I think sometimes, myself included, we focus too much on tournament value and not on individual game value, which may be more what FFG is shooting for. That's a far different animal because tournament success is often predicated on more consistent and reliable factors than the Tie Interceptor has.

All this is to say I think one could make an argument that the TIE interceptor is appropriately priced for it's capabilities in a single game, but what you're paying for (boost, red die, and a top dial) and, more so, what you're NOT getting (reliable survivability) are not cost effective in a tournament setting.

Ah, so you know about my adventures with High Elves? My 40K army is also Dark Eldar, so yes, the glass-cannon playstyle is something I'm very used to playing.

We're kind of breaking off from this thread and there's been quite a few replies who focused too much on the OP's post and not enough on the meat of the discussion. I think my point is perfectly valid and something I've observed to be true in the tournament setting. While I understand where you're coming from with the whole "fly casual" attitude, I can't help but point out the minor flaw in the game.

If I'm to be frank, I would say that Rebels are slightly head, just slightly. They're more forgiving to play, they can obtain the same amount of HP as a full tie swarm with just 4 ships, but they have the added protection of shields. I also think they have one of the best maneuvers in the game in the form of the green 1-forward.

We don't need Aces to be in our hands to make an accurate prediction of the effectiveness of this Interceptor "upgrade" expansion. I'm buying it for the models, but you can bet your horse that I'm not buying it for the rules. As great as Carnor Jax and his rules are, he's still a 3HP model that might die to bad luck. Targeting Computer + Royal Tie on Soontir Fel looks promising as well, but it will just up his price and maintain the issue that Interceptors have to begin with: Cost-effectiveness.

If I'm to be frank, I would say that Rebels are slightly head, just slightly. They're more forgiving to play, they can obtain the same amount of HP as a full tie swarm with just 4 ships, but they have the added protection of shields. I also think they have one of the best maneuvers in the game in the form of the green 1-forward.

I tend to agree here and I think it's largely due to the B-Wing, which I think should be paying a bit more for barrel role as this maneuver, especially paired with advance sensors, causes it to arguably be the Rebel's most maneuverable craft.

We don't need Aces to be in our hands to make an accurate prediction of the effectiveness of this Interceptor "upgrade" expansion. I'm buying it for the models, but you can bet your horse that I'm not buying it for the rules. As great as Carnor Jax and his rules are, he's still a 3HP model that might die to bad luck. Targeting Computer + Royal Tie on Soontir Fel looks promising as well, but it will just up his price and maintain the issue that Interceptors have to begin with: Cost-effectiveness.

I'm not just taking it from a "fly casual" attitude but a competitive single game. My thought, which applies both to your comments and the OP, which is that we often fall into the trap of the tournament mentality, where cost effectiveness includes a list being able to hold up for the long haul. My consideration was just that, perhaps, FFG attempt at balance is more focused on a single game and not the long haul, something I thought worth noting when people are talking about things being "broken." I'm not saying that's exactly your stance, but I wanted to be clear that I was still considering a competitive context, even if it is in a smaller setting.

Can you expand on this "single game" competitive analysis? I'd like to understand your thought process a bit more.

If I'm to be frank, I would say that Rebels are slightly head, just slightly. They're more forgiving to play, they can obtain the same amount of HP as a full tie swarm with just 4 ships, but they have the added protection of shields. I also think they have one of the best maneuvers in the game in the form of the green 1-forward.

I tend to agree here and I think it's largely due to the B-Wing, which I think should be paying a bit more for barrel role as this maneuver, especially paired with advance sensors, causes it to arguably be the Rebel's most maneuverable craft.

But saying that four B-wings are as durable as a swarm strikes me as a mistake. Having approximately the same hp as a 7-ship swarm is not the same thing as being as durable as the swarm: because their agility is so much lower, B-wings would need something like 2 more hull (that is, four B-wings would need 39-40 hp) to have a reasonable, technical claim that it can withstand as much fire as a swarm.

Or, to put it another way--an individual B-wing lasts longer than an individual TIE fighter, but it's almost twice as expensive and nowhere near twice as durable. Of course there's value in the B-wing's reliance on shields instead of hull, and there's more value in reducing your vulnerability to attrition by taking fighters that live longer on an individual basis, but on the whole Rebel lists struggle to match the kind of defense a swarm brings to the table.

Which is really what's driving this whole conversation, if you set aside the OP's puzzling insistence that a named pilot and three generics with upgrades constitutes a "swarm". The Rebellion has offense to spare but can't afford as many ships overall, so they have to maximize the hit points they do have. The Empire is overflowing with cheap, defensively oriented ships, but has to bring as many as possible to constitute a meaningful offense. That's just faction identity: there's a continuum of possible lists, with the defensive pole represented by the Imperial TIE swarm, the offensive pole represented by something like a Wedge/Ibtisam/Biggs list, and a gradient between.

The only real problem is that the poles aren't equally attractive, because they don't involve equivalent compromises: Howlrunner lets swarm lists pull respectable offense as well as representing the apex of redundant defense. Since the elite-Rebel builds have no Howlrunner-style patch for their defense, they're not terribly viable, and the "window" shifts toward swarms.

So if you don't like the metagame's current emphasis on large builds, convince your friends to stop playing with Howlrunner on your game nights. Suddenly the rest of the spectrum is much more competitive, and comparatively much more attractive. Problem solved.

Can you expand on this "single game" competitive analysis? I'd like to understand your thought process a bit more.

Well, what I suggest is that, when flown well, the TIE Interceptor will be pointed well because its superior flying options allow it to become a force for maneuver that will often overcome it's glass nature in any single game. I think that's part of the reason you continually read of people having success with the lists in individual games and smaller tourneys.

However, because an Int list has a clear rock , or two, to its scissor (turrets and ion cannons particularly) and is very unforgiving to bad swings of luck, tournament settings aren't ideal for it. It's just too many games to hope that you won't see some bad luck or that you won't run into a list that voids much of what the Int pays for.

The B-wing is definitely the most maneuverable ship the Rebels have--but just like other ships, it pays an action cost for that maneuverability, so it's hard to say that it should be paying too much more than it already does.

But saying that four B-wings are as durable as a swarm strikes me as a mistake. Having approximately the same hp as a 7-ship swarm is not the same thing as being as durable as the swarm: because their agility is so much lower, B-wings would need something like 2 more hull (that is, four B-wings would need 39-40 hp) to have a reasonable, technical claim that it can withstand as much fire as a swarm.

Or, to put it another way--an individual B-wing lasts longer than an individual TIE fighter, but it's almost twice as expensive and nowhere near twice as durable. Of course there's value in the B-wing's reliance on shields instead of hull, and there's more value in reducing your vulnerability to attrition by taking fighters that live longer on an individual basis, but on the whole Rebel lists struggle to match the kind of defense a swarm brings to the table.

I agree with much of your post, and it's a fantastic point that equal hit-points does not the same amount of durabilty. Of course, the durability of a B-Wing is far more assured than the TIEs green dice.

That means that it can take much less to quickly reduce a swarm's firepower than a squadron of B-Wing's, especially with luck figured into the equation. At normal range, it will take at least four TIES to take down an B-Wing, while a single B-Wing can take down a TIE. I'm just pointing this out. I think they are very closely matched and both are strong lists, but I think the B-wing is pretty clearly the dominant small fighter in the game right now.

I didn't read the whole thread but I would throw out an idea. For those who play warmachine you are familiar with tier lists. That, I think would add some fun. It might look like: you must take at least a least two bombers, one ship modification, one named pilot in your list. You cannot take large ships. You receive a secondary weapon with its cost reduced by 2. This type of play gives a very small bonus to players who work within parameters and incourages diverse builds. PS love the game as is.

I wouldn't read too much into the number of occurrences of certain list types in tournaments.

Given a set of roughly equivalent variants the choice which offers the easiest and most universally applicable lists is probably most common, in particular in a tournament setting. That doesn't necessarily mean they are unbalanced.

Swarms aren't that hard to build, adding another ship can't really hurt, and as mentioned before you can waste many points in upgrades, if you don't get to the situation where you can use them. So high value ship lists tend to require a bit more work in creating such situations during a game.

The one thing which might speaks towards an imbalance would be that the swarm vs. high value lists plays with probabilities. If you look at the remaining fleets after the other player is beaten, I would bet that the high value lists have more remaining points on average than swarms, if they live that is since they are leaning more towards high win/loss situations (at least in my observation). Since this isn't reflected in the binary outcomes, you might say the game is slightly balanced towards swarms.

Can you expand on this "single game" competitive analysis? I'd like to understand your thought process a bit more.

Well, what I suggest is that, when flown well, the TIE Interceptor will be pointed well because its superior flying options allow it to become a force for maneuver that will often overcome it's glass nature in any single game. I think that's part of the reason you continually read of people having success with the lists in individual games and smaller tourneys.

However, because an Int list has a clear rock , or two, to its scissor (turrets and ion cannons particularly) and is very unforgiving to bad swings of luck, tournament settings aren't ideal for it. It's just too many games to hope that you won't see some bad luck or that you won't run into a list that voids much of what the Int pays for.

I don't see why you have to compare smaller tourneys to begin with. Big picture wise, Interceptors suffer vs. several archetypes, thus making it a subpar choice overall. B-Wings however, are very safe from this because of raw statistics. That's what it comes down to at the end of the day.

When it comes down to the smaller ships, the B-Wing being more cost-effective than the Interceptor is what's tipping the scale slightly in favor of Rebels. That's it though, rest is good.