I love the idea of expansion packs that tweak the balance around existing units by introduction of new cards and upgrades that...don't change MUCH, but bring some new options to the table to make minor tweaks to the ships in consideration of the current meta.

As a result, I think after 'Imperial Aces', the next choice would be a 'Battle of Yavin' pack that would address the next two units most in need of some attention - the TIE Advanced (seriously, when was the last time this thing was EVER run competitively?) and Y-Wing (not as badly needed, but...what an iconic craft to still languish in the sidelines).

Building on the precedent set with 'Imperial Aces', it might include:

• Some slight repaints for a single TIE Advanced and a single Y-Wing (maybe a TIE Advanced with bloodstripes and Y-Wing in 'green squadron' colors?)
• New ship cards, new pilots, new upgrades, etc.
• Cardboard tokens for turbolaser towers and the 'thermal exhaust port'
• New scenario for the Trench Run on the Death Star

I think 'Battle of Yavin' is the most logical thing to title this, too, as players have long clamored for some kind of 'ground combat' angle - the cardboard tokens (and scenario) included for the combat along the Death Star surface would bring that element (and give us something to really build on!).

Most significantly, this would also be a natural 'second purchase' for new players to the game - with just the core set, and this 'Battle of Yavin' expansion, you'd be able to effectively represent the MOST iconic Star Wars moments of all time. Indeed, only the Millenium Falcon (and maybe another X-Wing or Y-Wing) would be needed to totally complete the experience. But it makes that introduction to the game a nice, gradual, ramp-up.

Finally, those two fighters are BADLY in need of attention for the more established/competitive players. I'd posted a thread over on BGG looking at the issue with the TIE Advanced in some depth (it's not a bad fighter - just *slightly* overpriced for what you get), and the Y-Wing getting similar attention would be most welcome!

Such an expansion would be win-win for both groups, then - an easier way to ramp up into the game for new players...and a way to tweak those Y-Wings and TIE Advanced fighters just a bit, with just a few more options, to make them desirable again for more battle-hardened players.

Thoughts?

I like where you are heading.

A "scenario pack" would be cool. With the precident of the Space Tiles, they could release an "Official" Death Star Trench Run that includes turbo lasers, thermal exaust port, etc.

I would say if we saw a battle of Yavin pack, that it might be a TIE Advanced and one to two TIE fighters as another likely option. Either way the TIE Advanced needs some loving.

I would say if we saw a battle of Yavin pack, that it might be a TIE Advanced and one to two TIE fighters as another likely option. Either way the TIE Advanced needs some loving.

The only thing I would wonder is WHO, then, would pilot the advanced? Vader's squad would have been cool as a pack with the Advanced and two TIEs.

There is a soft spot in my heart for the Y-Wing. I would love some more pilots for that one too

Finally, those two fighters are BADLY in need of attention for the more established/competitive players. I'd posted a thread over on BGG looking at the issue with the TIE Advanced in some depth (it's not a bad fighter - just *slightly* overpriced for what you get), and the Y-Wing getting similar attention would be most welcome!

There is a 25 page thread on Fixing the TIE Advanced here:

http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/94711-fixing-the-tie-advanced/

The general consensus is to let it equip Fire Control System for 0 points, which should bring it up to a similar level as most of the ships in the game.

Also, the combat effectiveness based on dice rolls of a TIE Advanced is not 94% of an X-wing, it is more like 84%. Some numbers are in that thread, including the calculations of FCS with Cluster Missiles. You can also see some general dice value theory here:

http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/100360-using-lanchesters-square-law-to-predict-ships-jousting-values-and-fair-point-values-work-in-progress/

I have been too busy to go and update the Lanchester's thread and reply to the comments there for a while (thesis writing), but here is the basic point for this discussion:

2 agility dice is about 70% effective as 3 agility dice, and 3 offense dice is about 170% as effective as 2 offense dice. So going from 2/3/x/x to 3/2/x/x is about 0.7*1.7 = 1.19 as effective, all else being equal. Balanced point costs are proportional to the square root of combat effectiveness (again, all else being equal, only considering core stat values not dials), so it works out to around a 2 point difference between the X-wing and TIE-Advanced.

As for releasing more repaints? I would certainly buy them, although reprints of the TIE Advanced don't make much sense to me, personally. Y-wings I could see, since they are a more prolific craft.

FFG, hire this man! That would be a great way to update the ships! Give the y-wings a title card that allows them to equip bombs! Also it should come with a 3x3 death star play mat!

Well why not make it say a scenario broken down into two packs, one Rebel one Imperial. Going along with the proposed idea it could be the Battle of Yavin scenario with an Imperial Denfense Force, made up of a Tie Advanced and 1 or 2 Tie Fighters, and a Rebel Trench Runners, made up of a X-Wing and 1 or 2 Y-Wings.

For the Imperial pack it could include Vader and his wingmen along with new advanced pilots and new Tie pilots, for the ships they could be done in ROTJ blue instead of their white paint jobs. This even goes back to the fact that the Tie Fighters in a New Hope were supposed to be more blue but were made white so they did getted washed out on the blue screen/

For the Rebels pack it could include Garven and Dutch with more Red Squadron and some Gold Squadron pilots. They could even include Porkins or another pilot from the Rebel Transport expansion as an alternate way for people to get him. For the paint jobs they could give the X-Wing a blue paint scheme for a similar reason as the Tie Fighter or could make a Rough Squadron paint scheme to work with while the Y-Wing(s) could be painted as a Grey Squadron ship(s).

Overall this may feel like they are splitting something up but I feel it would allow them to devote the scenario to both factions and focus on making these two ships, the advanced and y-wing, more prominent. Although some people may be tired of teh number of Red Squadron pilots since we do have 5 already.

It might be hard to find new Imperal pilots for a Yavin pack. I think all the named Black Squadron members have pilot cards already except for Qorl. I think most of the 32 rebel pilots have names, so they're easy to cover.

The Empire could get some sort of TIE fighter upgrade that makes eight TIE fighters + Darth Vader a credible threat to over 30 rebel ships...

I have been too busy to go and update the Lanchester's thread and reply to the comments there for a while (thesis writing), but here is the basic point for this discussion:

2 agility dice is about 70% effective as 3 agility dice, and 3 offense dice is about 170% as effective as 2 offense dice. So going from 2/3/x/x to 3/2/x/x is about 0.7*1.7 = 1.19 as effective, all else being equal. Balanced point costs are proportional to the square root of combat effectiveness (again, all else being equal, only considering core stat values not dials), so it works out to around a 2 point difference between the X-wing and TIE-Advanced.

Oh....I ran the numbers a few different ways. I was trying to be as generous to FFG as possible - your numbers are far more in alignment with my thoughts, but I doubt we'd ever get *that* out of them.

One can wish, but...

Well, I think the fact that the TIE Advanced just flat-out never appears in competitive builds anymore speaks for itself.

Well why not make it say a scenario broken down into two packs, one Rebel one Imperial. Going along with the proposed idea it could be the Battle of Yavin scenario with an Imperial Denfense Force, made up of a Tie Advanced and 1 or 2 Tie Fighters, and a Rebel Trench Runners, made up of a X-Wing and 1 or 2 Y-Wings.

I would love it, sure, but I just don't see FFG putting that much into it. Honestly, I'm pretty sure even THIS suggestion is beyond what they are thinking of.

I would say if we saw a battle of Yavin pack, that it might be a TIE Advanced and one to two TIE fighters as another likely option. Either way the TIE Advanced needs some loving.

Well, the trick is to work with the existing model (only 2 fighters), and trying to get the most miles out of it as possible.

Recall that the core set does not presently include the Y-Wing, but it *does* have the two TIE Fighters Vader fly next to (well, maybe not those PILOTS, but close enough).

I just want a Star Destroyer.

I'd totally buy a Battle of Yavin pack, but I'd prefer more of the Red Squadron pilots. Figure out a way to fit them in there, and you've sold me!

Red Squadron or Rogue Squadron would be amazing.

They should release a battle of yavin pack just like you described, then a battle of hoth pack with AT-AT, snow terrain (with rebel turrets) and snow speeders. Then they could release a Battle of Endor pack with A-wings and B-wings and a rebel Shuttle Tyderian plus terrain for a death star core run.

SHUT UP AND TAKE MY MONEY FFG!

Regarding the TIE Advanced, they could just reprint the cards. Malifaux did an offer where people could update their cards to version 2 cards free of charge, so it isn't conceivable for FFG to do the same.

Regarding the TIE Advanced, they could just reprint the cards. Malifaux did an offer where people could update their cards to version 2 cards free of charge, so it isn't conceivable for FFG to do the same.

That'd work fairly easily, sure, but I don't *think* FFG has ever done anything like that, before.

They certainly haven't for X-Wing, anyway.

That'd work fairly easily, sure, but I don't *think* FFG has ever done anything like that, before.

They certainly haven't for X-Wing, anyway.

They also included some errata-ed cards in an expansion to replace ones that were badly worded in the core set.

Those examples, however, were really manufacturing and production errors, not flawed design. They did also have a key element of the core game that basically everyone thought was waaaay overpowered. It wasn't really unbalanced, because all the players had basically equal access to it, but it warped the meta of the game badly. They didn't come right out and say that they screwed up, but they published an alternative version online that players could print out, and then in the first expansion included a physical copy of that component. That was a pretty big thing though, akin to a ship modification card that gave +3 attack dice for 2 points.

For the advanced, I like what someone else suggested, a cheap or free title that gives some minor boost to low PS pilots. That seems the simplest way to handle it, especially if the "title" can be made non-unique.

"Battle of Yavin" should be a big pack then.

Well I could imagine like this:

Contents:

Empire: 1 Tie Advanced, 2 Tie Fighters, 4 Turbolaser Turrets

Rebellion: 2 X-Wing, 1 Y-Wing.

Rules for a Mini-Campaign, with scalable points to play:

1. Battle on Death Star surface

2. Trench Run

The core set is needed to play the Battle of Yavin,

so you have at least 1 Advanced, 4 Tie Fighters, 3 X-Wings and one Y-Wing in the game.

I like this idea a lot

"Battle of Yavin" should be a big pack then.

You are overthinking this a bit, and proposing something at a scale FFG has never done, though. I'd like to try to keep the suggestion modest, to maximize the possibility (however remote) for seeing it. Keep in mind - this is an outside shot to begin with! But I think it's a reasonable suggestion, as from the OP.

I mean, heck, consider the core set including only a *single* X-Wing and *two* TIE Fighters, and they managed to milk that for three (actually surprisingly engaging) scenarios. The key is that you don't actually NEED more than 1 or 2 fighters of a type, if only 1 or 2 are 'on screen' at once. As with several of the core set scenarios - with only two TIE Fighters, you basically have a hundred of them (if only two at a time).

That kind of scalability means that only the number of distinct *types* of units are key, thus a single TIE Advanced and single Y-Wing is really all that is needed to achieve that. Sure, gamers will pretty quickly want to add another X-Wing and another Y-Wing to their scenarios, but...well, those expansion packs already exist!

FFG sells capital ships for a reasonable price - and they come in big packs. So I don't think why there shouln'd be a "all you need left is a core box"-Battle of Yavin out of the box-box.

Of course you could scale it down to:

1 Tie Advanced

1 Y-Wing

cupboard Turbolaser-Turrets

This would fit the "Aces"-sized boxes.

But I hope this pack would come at least with 2 Turbolaser Turret models....

On the other side I like the idea of having more named Tie Fighter pilots ... there are quite a few left from the Black Squadron.

So it might be better to make 2 Battle of Yavin packs:

Battle of Yavin - Empire:

1 Tie Advanced, 1 Tie Fighter, 2 Turbolser Turrets

Battle of Yavin - Rebellion:

1 X-Wing, 1 Y-Wing, 2 Turbolaser Turrets

Yes I know - the X-Wing just got a buff. But im sure there are quite a few X-Wing pilots left which took part at the Battle of Yavin. We remember - the imperial intelligence counted 30 attackers. And all of them had names.

Its far more difficult to come up with pilot names for EU ships like the Phantom.

No X-Wings, no TIE Fighters.

If it stays that way, bam. I'm sold.

One problem remains - what other Tie Advanced pilot than Vader you would include if it is called "Battle of Yavin"?

... ?

There were many Black Squadron Tie Fighter pilots ... but 0 Tie Advanced pilots.

One problem remains - what other Tie Advanced pilot than Vader you would include if it is called "Battle of Yavin"?

... ?

There were many Black Squadron Tie Fighter pilots ... but 0 Tie Advanced pilots.

uh.

They'll find something I'm sure.

... well ... Vader had the only Prototype of the Tie Advanced on the Death Star?

Taking some Black Squadron pilots names instead?

I think this could be even a licence issue.

... well ... Vader had the only Prototype of the Tie Advanced on the Death Star?

Taking some Black Squadron pilots names instead?

I think this could be even a licence issue.

Well they've got to add to the Y-Wing and tweak the TIE Advanced somehow.

Not going to happen.