At my work today we got a package in. It's the Imdaar Alpha stuff. I got to look at (but not open obviously) the upcoming blisters for Wave 4!

The TIE Defender is my most desired fighter. I got a good look at it, smiled at getting this chance, and then turned it on it's side...

I don't know about the three of you other fans of the TIE Defender, but I'm a little dismayed by how proportionally short the fighter is to the breadth and height. Playing the flight sims the TIE Defender is a long, large fighter with big wings. Here it seems rather abrupt at how short the TIE Fighter is. Virtually every other TIE besides the LN itself is proportionally longer than it is wide, and seeing the Defender his way is a little odd.

Ah well. I can accept these as the production run ties. The Advanced-Wing ones similar to the original sims I can say are prototype versions, and if Sans_fi ever answers my email about getting his version of the 3D peg perhaps someday I can see those models on the table via shapeways.

The rest of the models, as always, look spectacular. I'll be in the running for my store's Imdaar alpha event and I'm really hoping to walk away with at least one of them.

A shame that the TO only gets one of the exclusive cards for his effort. I'm running the event at the sister store and I don't have much use for a promo card of a ship I won't have for a few weeks. At least Bandit squadron fighters are generic enough that the card will see use? I have three Z-95s on preorder now.

I havent seen the model itself IRL yet, but it seems to most closely resemble the Star Wars Galactic Battlefront version, which was really short lengthwise

It doesn't look that out of proportion to me?

I made this graphic a little while ago, with a poll up on BGG to ask for people's favorite models. Many people voted for the Decipher model, but I was always partial to the implications of the original model. The TIE Defender is supposed to be bigger and more powerful than the TIE Interceptor but all it shows for it in the Decipher model is a third solar panel? Almost every other TIE/D depiction is a more powerful, meaty fighter.

I blame TIE Fighter (the PC game). Because of that game the TIE Defender to me will always have the Advanced style wings. After all the TIE Defender is suppose to be an improvement of the TIE Advanced (TIE Avenger) line of starfighters. The only reason anyone ever used the Interceptor winged model is because Decipher couldn't be bothered to make the real Defender and slapped one together with a normal TIE cockpit and Interceptor wings for their card game.That somehow became official. Ah well at least we got a TIE Defender in some form. I'm happy for that.

I prefer the cinematic version myself.

Too many white K-turns stunts your growth.

Ansel's (Fractalsponge) one is my favorite.

If you inflate the cockpit pod some on Fractal's TIE Defender you have a pretty good compromise on the Defender. His gallery for this craft is here .

If FFG ever does the TIE Avenger I hope they DO NOT DO the squashed ball cockpit. I never liked that. Again I can point to Fractals work on how an Avenger should be depicted.

Huh... somehow I assumed they'd be long, like the wings of an Interceptor. That being said, they could probably be making them short for the sake of not having a huge model on the table. Why? Ever have the wings of an Interceptor, or the nose of an X-Wing poke the fighter it collides with? The YT-1300 is especially guilty of this due to it's size and shape. It's likely a measure to prevent too much fighter bumping, which I'm in favour for.

Huh... somehow I assumed they'd be long, like the wings of an Interceptor. That being said, they could probably be making them short for the sake of not having a huge model on the table. Why? Ever have the wings of an Interceptor, or the nose of an X-Wing poke the fighter it collides with? The YT-1300 is especially guilty of this due to it's size and shape. It's likely a measure to prevent too much fighter bumping, which I'm in favour for.

you know you can just add/remove an extra section to the stand right?

you know you can just add/remove an extra section to the stand right?

But that requires effort!