This may be a no brainer but I think I have discovered that: more ships beats upgrades.

What I mean is for the past few weeks I've been building alot of different rebel lists for abunch of different match ups but was always stopped by a lack of cards, mostly imp things like the advanced sensors and such. Frustrated at the idea that I would have to get a few 30 dollar imp shuttles I threw upgrades out the window and built a 5 man rebel swarm. To much success!

I found that having more ships (mostly of the same pilot level) was far more fun to play with and having been winning alot more often. Now I am fumbling around with the ships to use and apart from a 1 or 2 point upgrade I can't think of single upgrade (or upgrades) that would force me to lower my ship count, I feel that more bodies just help much more then upgrades. Also I feel it has helped me start flying my ships better since I get to do a lot more flying and know my dials better.

Does this sound true to anyone else? Maybe just some good fortune has come my way and I've flown it to victory?

That seems to be the tendency, although it's not an absolute. It's probably *easier* -- more dice to throw means the law of averages is going to work in your favor, and you're not as boned when a bit of bad luck takes out 1/3 of your fleet.

Personally, I find more ships with fewer options boring (I think I'd shoot myself before flying a TIE swarm). Fortunately, the new releases seem to be nudging things in the opposite direction.

True, I think TIE swarm is the last thing I will fly as well, but for some reason I like rebel swarm. I don't see it being played that often however, at worlds and such but tie swarm is EVERYWHERE. What gives?

After wave 4 and rebel aces, rebel swarm will be much more common. It won't be a name and six Z95s, but the average rebel list could change from 3-5 ships to 4-6. Right now it's hard to fit 5 ships, but it will soon be much easier for 5 or 6 and people who like swarms will get to fly them on the rebel side too.

However, things like 3 ship falcon lists will also stay.

Well, would you pay 12 points for:

• A second 2/3 strength attack per turn
• An additional action per turn
• +3 hull, and
• Extra move action per turn?

Congrats, you just bought another Academy TIE instead of a bunch of upgrades. It's easy to figure out why they are pretty sweet and why, in general, you typically get more with more ships versus upgrades.

That being said, it is not 100%, and a few key upgrades can really magnify good ships. However, this is why those few really good upgrades (Advanced Sensors, PTL, Gunner, R2 Astromech, etc.) are used all the time and most of the others see minimal and usually non-competitive play. Same for elite/named pilots. Just check out the tournament results thread to see the very short list of very active named pilots (Howlrunner, Biggs, a few others).

It could be as the game progresses there will increase the depth and other "magnifying" abilities to let smaller, elite builds thrive, but generally, going from, say the 3 ship to the 4 or 5 ship build is usually safer/more effective.

This may be a no brainer but I think I have discovered that: more ships beats upgrades.

Yes, this is generally true. A squad's power is proportional to the number of ships squared , all else being equal, so for example a 3 ship squad needs to get a LOT of synergy to increase its effectiveness to offset the loss of the 4th ship.

True, I think TIE swarm is the last thing I will fly as well, but for some reason I like rebel swarm. I don't see it being played that often however, at worlds and such but tie swarm is EVERYWHERE. What gives?

Rebels have a more varied list building choice on the competitive scene. Imperial lists tend to come with high risk (high damage, low/dice dependant survivability), with the swarm being a more stable exception. Stability tends to trump risk, especially at tournaments.

This is actually, in my opinion, the single greatest flaw of the game. We get so much fun and interesting cardboard, but most teams are better off without it. There are a handful of ships that justify the points spent on abilities and carboard. (Basically, Rookie Pilots and Academy pilots should be significantly worse than their higher point named brethren, not functionally better for being more efficient. Why are three Rookie X-wings better than 2 highly trained pilots from Rogue Squadron?

Basically, the game doesn't favor combo play nearly so much as efficiency play, and high pilot skill is about equal with low pilot skill(due to the greater vulnerability to collision and action denial, but costs more points.)

That said, it's still an amazingly fun game. I just find teambuilding to be a frustrating affair at times.

Basically, the game doesn't favor combo play nearly so much as efficiency play, and high pilot skill is about equal with low pilot skill(due to the greater vulnerability to collision and action denial, but costs more points.)

That said, it's still an amazingly fun game. I just find teambuilding to be a frustrating affair at times.

I would argue this isn't all that true. In terms of movement, going first may give you action denial, but moving last gives you assurance that the target is in your sights or behind you, which gives more certainty as to what actions you will be taking. Locking a target, focus, evade, how where and when to barrel roll, all of these can be done with significantly more confidence if you know the other bombers won't be going anywhere before you fire.

Which of course is the second reason high pilot skill is valuable: You shoot first. Being able to kill a target before it kills you (or one of his wingmen kills you) is rather important.

The TIE bomber is the pinnacle for needing the highest pilot skill. When you target lock with an assault missile, you don't want to give your opponent the time to safely boost/barrel roll out of his swarm to minimize damage. And when you're dropping bombs, it's infinitely more easy to pick a good time to drop them bomb if your opponent has finished all his moves. High pilot skill letting you shoot first also lets you empty your bomber before getting torn to shreds.

Of course, on the flipside, the bomber is also the pinnacle in showing the OP's reasons for hesitation with upgrades. A bomber needs to be filled with ordnance. And said ordnance is made out of upgrades. Which are expensive. Very expensive. The odds of anyone fielding a fully-loaded bomber are slim to none, given how those two craft are going to find themselves shot out of the sky far too fast.

Basically, the game doesn't favor combo play nearly so much as efficiency play, and high pilot skill is about equal with low pilot skill(due to the greater vulnerability to collision and action denial, but costs more points.)

That said, it's still an amazingly fun game. I just find teambuilding to be a frustrating affair at times.

I would argue this isn't all that true. In terms of movement, going first may give you action denial, but moving last gives you assurance that the target is in your sights or behind you, which gives more certainty as to what actions you will be taking. Locking a target, focus, evade, how where and when to barrel roll, all of these can be done with significantly more confidence if you know the other bombers won't be going anywhere before you fire.

Which of course is the second reason high pilot skill is valuable: You shoot first. Being able to kill a target before it kills you (or one of his wingmen kills you) is rather important.

The TIE bomber is the pinnacle for needing the highest pilot skill. When you target lock with an assault missile, you don't want to give your opponent the time to safely boost/barrel roll out of his swarm to minimize damage. And when you're dropping bombs, it's infinitely more easy to pick a good time to drop them bomb if your opponent has finished all his moves. High pilot skill letting you shoot first also lets you empty your bomber before getting torn to shreds.

Of course, on the flipside, the bomber is also the pinnacle in showing the OP's reasons for hesitation with upgrades. A bomber needs to be filled with ordnance. And said ordnance is made out of upgrades. Which are expensive. Very expensive. The odds of anyone fielding a fully-loaded bomber are slim to none, given how those two craft are going to find themselves shot out of the sky far too fast.

Which is why I say low Pilot Skill and High Pilot skill largely balance out. Both have advantages and disadvantages. Part of this may be that I rarely use TL, but costing roughly 1 point per rank of Pilot Skill is a little ridiculous given the cost benefit analysis. Now, I'll admit that when ordnance is added into the equation high pilot skill matters more, but that's yet another reason ordnance is nigh on unuseable(in my opinion), not really a good reason to say pilot skill is worth the points.

Shooting first can mean a lot. But typically it matters most late game when people try to kill your high pilot skill pilots first.

shooting first is "good" but shooting more is better. I've had plenty of fights where my high PS pilot misses with his attack and so is killed by the lower PS pilots. Since this is a dice game more is better, guess I know this from playing warhammer but in that game I go for the more "elite" army with less units then others I guess the rebels are kinda the same as they field less ships on average... maybe not...

while the more ships = better theory is true as a general rule of thumb, it's not always the case. A rebel "swarm" usually has 3 core ships (B-wings and/or X-wings) and two filler Y-wings and/or A-wings. You can definitely make a case that reducing it to 4 ships and either combining the two filler ships into one better ship or another basic ship and distributing the rest of the points to improve your other ships is just as viable

shooting first is "good" but shooting more is better. I've had plenty of fights where my high PS pilot misses with his attack and so is killed by the lower PS pilots. Since this is a dice game more is better, guess I know this from playing warhammer but in that game I go for the more "elite" army with less units then others I guess the rebels are kinda the same as they field less ships on average... maybe not...

while the more ships = better theory is true as a general rule of thumb, it's not always the case. A rebel "swarm" usually has 3 core ships (B-wings and/or X-wings) and two filler Y-wings and/or A-wings. You can definitely make a case that reducing it to 4 ships and either combining the two filler ships into one better ship or another basic ship and distributing the rest of the points to improve your other ships is just as viable

The filler ships will be much more cost effective after wave 4 and Rebel Aces, so look for this balance here to change eventually.

Which is why I say low Pilot Skill and High Pilot skill largely balance out. Both have advantages and disadvantages. Part of this may be that I rarely use TL, but costing roughly 1 point per rank of Pilot Skill is a little ridiculous given the cost benefit analysis. Now, I'll admit that when ordnance is added into the equation high pilot skill matters more, but that's yet another reason ordnance is nigh on unuseable(in my opinion), not really a good reason to say pilot skill is worth the points.

Shooting first can mean a lot. But typically it matters most late game when people try to kill your high pilot skill pilots first.

TL is just one example. What about boost? Or barrel roll? If you move last, you can boost or barrel roll exactly where you want to be: In the best place to shoot at people while not being shot at in return.

Shooting first stacks on top of that aforementioned boosting and barrel rolling. You can position yourself so that the lowest amount of fighters can shoot back at you, and from that low amount you get to shoot first, potentially reducing the amount of fighters shooting at you to zero. Heck, even the choice between focus or evade can depend on where you are and how many people will be shooting at you, which is best determined when everybody but you has moved.

For any ship with a reasonable amount of options to choose from during the activation phase, the amount of advantages of a high pilot skill rather dwarfs low pilot skill, in my opinion.

I wouldn't say "Ships beats upgrades" at least not in the sense of winning or loosing.

It's more "Ships are easier than upgrades".

With ships, you get your value for points by flying well and not forgetting to use the ships you have.

With upgrades, you have to find/create situations where you can use the additional points in a sensible manner. Not in every game that works out (also more dependent on your opponents list), so the "more ships variant" is more stable probability-wise than an upgrade oriented strategy. It a case of "Use them or loose them" with "them" as in your points.

So it's more a shift in probabilities, but since victories are more binary and not considerate of high wins/losses the game actually favors the probability stable case.

I think we will move towards higher PS becoming important. If we have more pilots like Jake Farrell with high PS who can barrel roll and boost to get out of firing arcs. Plus the phantoms with high pilot skill pilots and advanced cloaking device will make shooting first a lot more important.

Watching the end of the world championship I could predict every dial that went down (apart from the K-turn on the bwing that did not give a shot, which was likely a mistake, was expecting a simple turn, and the k-turn on the tie), at which point it just becomes a game about throwing dice. Having the unpredictability and flexibiilty of being able to take both a boost and a barrel roll with a high skill pilot will bring a lot to the game I think. More depth, more chance to surprise your opponent, more interesting tactical choices.

Will be interesting to see how it develops.

Boost and barrel roll can be amazing on high pilot skill, but they suffer even more from action denial, and are just as useful on low PS ships for that exact reason. There are ships that need the higher pilot skill, but they are only the most manueverable lf ships. Fettigator, and the Interceptors are the best because they lack predictability and are harder to deny actions to.

The cheap generic pilots do seem to be a relatively better choice than their higher PS counterparts, in general.

It would have been interesting if low PS skill ships had had more red moves on their dials. The logistics of that would have been difficult though. Or, if for every point of hull damage taken, they take a stress token. Either of those would have added weight to the idea that these are "Rookie" or "Academy" pilots that should be below average pilots and much more scared of their first combat experience then their veteran counterparts.

But, that makes the game that much more complicated, and I can't fault FFG for making a great simple and accessible game with straightforward rules.

It occurs to me that the main problem lies with the way action denial works. It punishes those who move last, who tend to be the ones with the greatest point cost and thereby would have need of those actions more than lists with lower point fighters. Further enhanced by those lists having more fighters, and thus actions, to begin with. Basically stacking a penalty on a method of play already penalized by greater point cost per fighter.

Still, action denial is a gambling strategy. One that does get some reliability, depending on how good you are at reading your opponent, but still relying on your opponent moving as you hope they do nonetheless. I still believe the advantages of a high pilot skill outweigh these disadvantages to the point where a high pilot skill is preferable.

The simplest answer would have been to add a single evade dice when evading a shot from a loer PS shot. One evade dice is rarely broke or insurmountable, and it would help mitigate swarms a litte, in addition to helping interceptors, the Tie Advanced Named pilot, and making Han and Veteran instincts both a little too good.

But I'm not calling high PS useless, just rarely worth the point increase given the number of upsides and downsides to having high or low pilot skill.

Is PS9 worth 6-7 more points than PS1? Doubtful.

One of the few things that I do like a little better about STAW is that if you collide with someone, you don't get actions, but you can still shoot them (as per Arvel). Thus blocking strategies can work, but are definitely more risky. I'm not sure if that would be a good idea for this game or not currently (makes Adv Sensors even better), but definitely something to think about if this game ever goes to a '2nd Ed' (and FAQ Arvel to let him take actions if he bumps).