So while I was sorting through the new cards from AoIA I had an idea for some shenanigans and went about the task of figuring out what ship would be able to make the most use of it. While looking into that I made the following:

19 - Green Squadron A-wing

3 - Push the Limit

0 - A-wing Test Pilot

1 - Veteran Instincts

-2 - Chardaan Refit

21 points total. The same as the beloved Rookie Pilot. Now let's see what we get. A loss of 1 hull and 1 attack die for an extra defense die. It makes Direct Hit! a bigger worry, and the more red die the better. However we see a Pilot Skill increase from 1 to 5. So unless the Rookie was meant to be blocking this is a huge benefit.

Now for a blast from the Spice Weasel we have two actions a turn. A-wings share a similar dial to Squints so there is no lack of Greens to clear stress. Target Lock plus Focus is always handy. When you can get them both at Range 1 you can even feel like an X-wing. And let's not forget about Boost for staying squirrely and Evade for a little extra insurance.

All that for 21 points...

I personally will probably mix the two. Rookie X-Wings serve a vastly different purpose. They are steady, steadfast ships that sit well unupgraded. The A-Wing is theoretically more durable, and has a better dial and action bar. But 3 attack dice is HUGE! If you're running your green squad he isn't a formation flyer. He's a flanking backstabbing harrasser. Playing him like a rookie X-Wing will get you killed.

Rookie X-Wings are one of the most efficient ships in the game for pumping damage and taking hits. B-Wings are moreso, but their dials, while amazing, have certain flaws(2 speed K-Turn against Large base ships).

So I wouldn't say give them up. But you have a pretty viable alternative. I'll be far more likely to just Chardan an A-Wing and hand it Push the limit for 20, rather than bothe with Vet Instincts...

Hmm the thing I don't get is that none of those cards are from AoIA... I don't think anyone disagrees that once Rebel Aces comes out though that A-wings are going to see a lot more table time. Definitely a solid build though, you're almost getting a Vader type ship (minus the PS and no stress actions) for 8 pts less. Predator will be a solid choice as well.

But no Barrel Roll; you shall still fall to the might of the PtL RGI (insert evil laugh here)!!

You can't put a A-Wing into a list, as a replacement for a X-Wing and have it work the same way. Sure you can make good use of that A-Wing, and it does work out points wise. But if you try to fly it like a X, you'll not do well.

Team Epic - 8 Rookies with PT. One heck of an alpha strike and still a good enough dogfighter after.

Instead of VI, for two more points you can stick on Predator which makes up for the firepower 2 a bit.

The A-wing is a frágil ship, X-wing is stronger, and with the same amount of points, my choise is always the X-wing, greettings.

With PTL the A-Wing limits itself to its eight green maneuvers. Rookie has his entire dial to choose from.

For a A-Wing Test Pilot to replace a Rookie, he needs improved damage output without sacrificing half the dial.

With PTL the A-Wing limits itself to its eight green maneuvers. Rookie has his entire dial to choose from.

For a A-Wing Test Pilot to replace a Rookie, he needs improved damage output without sacrificing half the dial.

Just from using PTL A-Wings a lot, the most important maneuver, which also happens to be green, is the hard 2 turn. That your bread and butter. There is nothing on the X-Wing maneuver dial that in my experience I've been unable to recreate, in a practical sense (not literal), with the PTL (except the K turn on a whim) with the greater access to greens and boost. A PTL A-Wing is also tankier and has higher PS than the Rookie X-Wing, its just the firepower that is lacking.

The only thing better than a 21 point PS5 A-wing with PtL....

..... is a 15 point PS1 A-wing!

Seriously though, that's spending 19% of your points (4 out of 21) on upgrades. It's generally not cost efficient to put that many points into upgrades, Regionals results are averaging under 10% per squad. Not that it's a bad ship at 21 points, but for the same cost I think I would rather have 7 PS1s than 5 PS5's + PtL.

The real trick is going to be making target priority hard for your opponents. A-wings are tanks, so if you mix them with X's / B's, your opponent is going to be wise to leave the A-wings for last; even if they are PS5 + PtL.

The only thing better than a 21 point PS5 A-wing with PtL....

..... is a 15 point PS1 A-wing!

Seriously though, that's spending 19% of your points (4 out of 21) on upgrades. It's generally not cost efficient to put that many points into upgrades, Regionals results are averaging under 10% per squad. Not that it's a bad ship at 21 points, but for the same cost I think I would rather have 7 PS1s than 5 PS5's + PtL.

The real trick is going to be making target priority hard for your opponents. A-wings are tanks, so if you mix them with X's / B's, your opponent is going to be wise to leave the A-wings for last; even if they are PS5 + PtL.

Personally, the PS1 15pt A-Wing is the reason why I don't think the Z-95 is going to catch on in our area, unless you're going for the missile swarm. Agility 2 on top of weaker hitpoints is a tough pill to swallow.

yep. cheap missile boats. 6 z95's w/ concs or clusters is 96 pts. 4 points to swap in homing or assault missiles.

I have 4 awings already and will probably have to pick up a few ace packs for those retro fit cards (anyone know how many come with it)? I'll probably be running greens with predator... still very happy that the a-wings are getting some love. They are one of my favorite ships!

Personally, the PS1 15pt A-Wing is the reason why I don't think the Z-95 is going to catch on in our area, unless you're going for the missile swarm. Agility 2 on top of weaker hitpoints is a tough pill to swallow.

They are both going to be excellent ships. The Z-95 actually wins out slightly in jousting cost efficiency over the A-wing, and, believe it or not, the standard TIE Fighter (not supported by Howlrunner). If you consider the Z-95's PS1 cost to be 11.5, then its jousting efficiency for PS1 equivalent cost is around 107% relative to a TIE Fighter. The A-wing after refit is around 98% - 99%, so both are very good. The B-wing is very close behind at 97%. The X-wing is 92%. The standard TIE Fighter with Howlrunner is the ultimate jouster at 117%.

Edit:

2, I think.

Personally, the PS1 15pt A-Wing is the reason why I don't think the Z-95 is going to catch on in our area, unless you're going for the missile swarm. Agility 2 on top of weaker hitpoints is a tough pill to swallow.

They are both going to be excellent ships. The Z-95 actually wins out slightly in jousting cost efficiency over the A-wing, and, believe it or not, the standard TIE Fighter (not supported by Howlrunner). If you consider the Z-95's PS1 cost to be 11.5, then its jousting efficiency for PS1 equivalent cost is around 107% relative to a TIE Fighter. The A-wing after refit is around 98% - 99%, so both are very good. The B-wing is very close behind at 97%. The X-wing is 92%. The standard TIE Fighter with Howlrunner is the ultimate jouster at 117%.

Edit:

I have 4 awings already and will probably have to pick up a few ace packs for those retro fit cards (anyone know how many come with it)?

2, I think.

Did anyone ever get around to doing those calculations based on the Salvo Model?

Did anyone ever get around to doing those calculations based on the Salvo Model?

Not that I'm aware of. You can't use the Salvo Model to make global comparisons though, it's only useful in Red Team vs. Blue Team specific scenarios. Getting a final "number" for a ship's generalized performance out of the Salvo Model is not as straightforward, although it is doable.

I hope the A-Wing has some life left in it after the Refit comes out.

I just have a really hard time with individual 2 dice ships. Even running that Rebel BlockORS list with two ORS, two Golds, when the ORS can shoot 360 - 2 red dice is just.....weak.

You can forget range 2-3 shots on 3 agility ships without a lot of luck on your side.

I guess you will have to count on the A-Wings performing like Squints with no barrel roll, I dunno.

Did anyone ever get around to doing those calculations based on the Salvo Model?

Not that I'm aware of. You can't use the Salvo Model to make global comparisons though, it's only useful in Red Team vs. Blue Team specific scenarios. Getting a final "number" for a ship's generalized performance out of the Salvo Model is not as straightforward, although it is doable.

I thought you based your jousting values on Lanchester Laws? I remember there being talk that maybe the Salvo model might be more applicable so couldn't that be derived into a jousting value as well? I'm not the math guru. Just here to make pew pew noises and chew bubble gum.

I hope the A-Wing has some life left in it after the Refit comes out.

I just have a really hard time with individual 2 dice ships. Even running that Rebel BlockORS list with two ORS, two Golds, when the ORS can shoot 360 - 2 red dice is just.....weak.

You can forget range 2-3 shots on 3 agility ships without a lot of luck on your side.

I guess you will have to count on the A-Wings performing like Squints with no barrel roll, I dunno.

would help if the rebels had someone with an ability like howlrunners... sure there are a few "group" buffs available but nothing quite up to par.

I hope the A-Wing has some life left in it after the Refit comes out.

I just have a really hard time with individual 2 dice ships. Even running that Rebel BlockORS list with two ORS, two Golds, when the ORS can shoot 360 - 2 red dice is just.....weak.

You can forget range 2-3 shots on 3 agility ships without a lot of luck on your side.

I guess you will have to count on the A-Wings performing like Squints with no barrel roll, I dunno.

would help if the rebels had someone with an ability like howlrunners... sure there are a few "group" buffs available but nothing quite up to par.

I feel like the only reason FFG hasn't done it is because the Rebels aren't thematically supposed to employ the "Swarm" mentality.

The Z-95 is as close as we will get I bet, and even that should theoretically lose to a TIE Swarm.

There appear to be 3 refit cards, and two prototype veterans in rebel aces

Did anyone ever get around to doing those calculations based on the Salvo Model?

Not that I'm aware of. You can't use the Salvo Model to make global comparisons though, it's only useful in Red Team vs. Blue Team specific scenarios. Getting a final "number" for a ship's generalized performance out of the Salvo Model is not as straightforward, although it is doable.

I thought you based your jousting values on Lanchester Laws? I remember there being talk that maybe the Salvo model might be more applicable so couldn't that be derived into a jousting value as well? I'm not the math guru. Just here to make pew pew noises and chew bubble gum.

Yes those numbers are all based on Lanchester's Model, which assumes continuous time combat. The Salvo Model is turn based combat.

The nice thing about Lanchester's is that if you know a unit's attack power and durability, then you have a fairly simple equation for assigning the jousting value to it. The "efficiency" I quoted is simply the value divided by PS1 equivalent cost. The only real trick is figuring out what the average attack power and average durability is, since it depends on what other ships you are fighting, what the action economy looks like, and what ranges the shots are at. For that I use a weighted average of all of those variables.

The Salvo Model tells you, in a Red Team vs. Blue Team matchup, who will win and by how much. But you can have a scenario where Blue beats Red, Red beats Green, and Green beats Blue. So getting an "efficiency" out of that is not straight forward. It's further complicated in that you have 16 different ships, so what's the baseline? You would need each squad to fight the other 15 squads, and then get some kind of average "score". Then you would need to translate that into points efficiency.... which again is not trivial.

Basically, the Salvo Model is good for looking at a Deathmatch. It's probably not the best tool for getting generalized results.

Also, for reference, the TIE Advanced jousting efficiency is around 82%.

Did anyone ever get around to doing those calculations based on the Salvo Model?

Not that I'm aware of. You can't use the Salvo Model to make global comparisons though, it's only useful in Red Team vs. Blue Team specific scenarios. Getting a final "number" for a ship's generalized performance out of the Salvo Model is not as straightforward, although it is doable.

I thought you based your jousting values on Lanchester Laws? I remember there being talk that maybe the Salvo model might be more applicable so couldn't that be derived into a jousting value as well? I'm not the math guru. Just here to make pew pew noises and chew bubble gum.

Yes those numbers are all based on Lanchester's Model, which assumes continuous time combat. The Salvo Model is turn based combat.

The nice thing about Lanchester's is that if you know a unit's attack power and durability, then you have a fairly simple equation for assigning the jousting value to it. The "efficiency" I quoted is simply the value divided by PS1 equivalent cost. The only real trick is figuring out what the average attack power and average durability is, since it depends on what other ships you are fighting, what the action economy looks like, and what ranges the shots are at. For that I use a weighted average of all of those variables.

The Salvo Model tells you, in a Red Team vs. Blue Team matchup, who will win and by how much. But you can have a scenario where Blue beats Red, Red beats Green, and Green beats Blue. So getting an "efficiency" out of that is not straight forward. It's further complicated in that you have 16 different ships, so what's the baseline? You would need each squad to fight the other 15 squads, and then get some kind of average "score". Then you would need to translate that into points efficiency.... which again is not trivial.

Basically, the Salvo Model is good for looking at a Deathmatch. It's probably not the best tool for getting generalized results.

Also, for reference, the TIE Advanced jousting efficiency is around 82%.

I wasn't doubting any of that. Just recalled from the some of the threads further back that the Salvo model might have been the way to go, granted it would be time consuming to compile (maybe I can find someone more mathematically inclined than I and use your method of "figuring out what the average attack power and average durability is, since it depends on what other ships you are fighting, what the action economy looks like, and what ranges the shots are at" instead of doing a ship by ship basis). Your jousting model is always very helpful and its a great tool to instantly figure out efficiency. So I'll just leave it at this...

Pew pew.

Rookies will have their spots, all of of that on an A, which can be one-shot still. at least to One shot a rook, you have to have like wedge and luck in the rolls and damage deck

Seems to me A-wing just doesn't seem as attractive when fighting against the Empire.

Ties/Adv Ties/ Interceptors/Defenders all have 3 green dice (50%)

FireSpray/Phantom/Bomber have 2 green dice (37.5%)

Shuttle has 1 green dice (12.5%)

Right off the bat I know 50% of the Imperial options will have a defensive advantage against an A-wing.

Imperials on the other hand have better odds with 2 red dice ships...

Y-wing/YT/B-wing have 1 green dice (37.5%)

X-wing/HWK/Z95/E-wing have 2 green dice (50%)

A-wing has 3 green dice (12.5%)

They balance these differences with hull/shields and they do a good job of it. A-wing just seems soft... will the price reduction help? possibly... I just think you are going away from the balance standard they have set rebels hit harder, have less defense but more hit points... etc

I also been trying to figure out boost... doesn't seem nearly as useful as barrel roll. More practice is needed, there I know.