Looking at the TIE Defender, I was a little disappointed. I always thought it was supposed to be super fast, not chugging along with the y-wing and b-wing. I thought it was supposed to be as fast and maneuverable as a TIE Interceptor.

Anyway, I'm running a game set around the time of Endor and the players are going to be getting into the Imperial Remnant and establishing the New Republic. Has anyone else house ruled the TIE Defender to be better at doing things?

Edit:

I was thinking of just bumping its speed up to five to match the TIE FIghter and X Wing at the very least.

A friend of mine mentioned loving those and from his description I pictured it being as agile as a TIE, as fast as an X-Wing and having shields to match...

I guess I need to take another look...

Just a quick warning: This topic has gone back and forth in the past, during the Beta period.

http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/92309-tie-defender-stats-whats-the-design-intent/

I link this because, despite some unhelpful posts, there are a few interesting ideas in there about how to "fix" the situation, in one way or another.

That said, I am of the opinion that yes, upping Speed and perhaps even Maneuverability by 1 point each would be sufficient. Others in the linked thread proposed Speed 6, but I think that may be too fast.

How about just using an X-wing with a pair of light ion cannons added and concussion missile launchers replacing the proton torpedoes for the TIE Defender? (Oh, and no astromech.)

If you want the TIE Defender from the X-wing/TIE fighter games, it is faster and more maneuverable than an A-wing, Heavier shields than a B-wing, a quad laser and a pair of ion cannons, and a hull tougher than a gunboat.

When spotted from another ship they say:'thats no moon, that's cheese'

I have a simple response for someone wanting a TIE defender in my game:'walk away from my game. Now.'

Now that the rebels can get an equivalent 'next gen' fighter in the E-Wing the TIE Defender is a bit less munchkin though.

Except in the ugly department... the e-wing show superiority there.

The TIE Defender as presented in the video game was simply pure cheese, being superior to every other fighter in every conceivable way. That sort of thing works fine for a video game, much like Starkiller and his over-the-top Force antics worked for the Force Unleashed games. But it doesn't necessarily translate well into an RPG, particularly one that's more concerned with the group's success as a whole than doling out uber-cool toys the way that Pathfinder and prior editions of D&D were.

Also, could be that the Lucasfilm archives had information that countered fan expectations of what the TIE Defender is fully capable of, with it not necessarily being "as fast" or "as maneuverable" or whatever as the fanboys think it should be. Case in point is the dimensions of the HWK-290, which is listed as being fairly large on Wookieepedia (information itself based of WotC stats) but according to the info that FFG was provided, really isn't much bigger than a Y-Wing.

Or could just be the TIE Defender in the video game was the prototype design, and thus had better overall performance since it's a custom-built design, with the version in the RPG simply being the mass-production model that's not quite as superior due to budgetary concerns/constraints.

I've always been a fan of the Defender, not because of its ridiculous stats, but because of the Imperial mindset change clearly indicated by its design and mass production. As the Empire shrank, they began to realize that pilots were no longer expendable, and that to stand any chance against Rebels, who by now had some of the most experienced pilots in the Galaxy, TIE pilots needed the same safety net (shields, armor, and firepower) that the Rebels had. In my opinion, the Defender is not, as some have said, "cheese"; it's a match for the X-Wing technically, but that all depends on the capability of the pilots. And in the stats given us by the Beta rulebook, even a minion Rebel pilot is superior to his Imperial enemy. Put in standard flights of four, Rebel X-Wings would still have a distinct advantage over the TIEs. And don't even let me start on the Aces.

The one factor that everyone always overlooks - Defenders are NOT cheap. I don't remember the source, but they were 6 and 7 times the costs of a normal starfighter. The huge price tag must have been a consideration in the Empire's decision not to field many of the units.

That said, the look on my players faces when they encountered a hanger full of them (and then promptly blew them all up instead of stealing one for the black market) was priceless. "We just blew up HOW much money?"

*uncontrolled sobbing*

Ah, life is good as an evil GM. . . .

The one factor that everyone always overlooks - Defenders are NOT cheap. I don't remember the source, but they were 6 and 7 times the costs of a normal starfighter. The huge price tag must have been a consideration in the Empire's decision not to field many of the units.

That said, the look on my players faces when they encountered a hanger full of them (and then promptly blew them all up instead of stealing one for the black market) was priceless. "We just blew up HOW much money?"

*uncontrolled sobbing*

Ah, life is good as an evil GM. . . .

The Beta book has them listed at 300K a pop, so good point there.

Personally, the defender I will buy for x-wing, but I prefer the look of the clawcraft

Agreed about the price/rarity.

Looking at my old "Starships of the Galaxy" - a beautiful sourcebook for WotC's Saga-Edition Star Wars RPG that contained not only rules for creating and modifying ships, but also a large library of entries featuring anything from A(cclamator-class Assault Ships) to Z(95 Headhunters) from all eras up to and including Legacy's Fel Empire and the Galactic Alliance - I can see that a T/D really is ridiculously fast, clocking in at 1.680 kph. In fact, it is the fastest ship in the entire book, though both later (1.500 kph for the TIE Predator) and, ironically, earlier designs (1.450 kph for the V-Wing, 1.500 kph for the Eta-2) come closer to its maximum speed than the A-Wing (1.300 kph).

However, whilst its shields are equal to the first version of the B-Wing (SR 30) and its hull is even 10% stronger (100 vs 90 points), it is very much surpassed in this category by the B-Wing/E2 (SR 50, Hull 150). It's also worth pointing out that the Defender's laser cannons are slightly weaker than those of even the first generation B-Wing and equal in damage to those of an X-Wing, but admittedly more accurate thanks to superior targeting computers.

In that book, the Defender was priced "only" at 200.000cr, which compared to a line TIE is an increase of +140.000cr. Considering its cost, I think people are putting too much emphasis on its high speed. The T/D is essentially a very expensive toy that tries to be good at everything, but given that it really only wins at speed it can still be shot down by cheaper starfighters - because concussion missiles are still faster.

In short, the Defender is an overreaction by an Empire shocked by the performance of rebel fighters, which caused the pendulum to swing way too far to the other side and result in something that may be frightening where it shows up, but which is so expensive and uneconomical that it is rarely actually seen anywhere. You can probably count the number of squadrons flying this beast on two hands. Such numbers may be suitable for something like Super Star Destroyers where you only want one in each oversector, but certainly not for a frontline fighter deployed throughout the galaxy.

So I guess what I'd do if I wanted to make the T/D appear as it did in the earlier games and books would be to re-stat it by translating the WotC rules into AoR (or simply guesstimating its profile based on the comparisons drawn), and then make sure it stays rare, by making it a "boss encounter" with a wing of normal TIEs lead into battle by an ace in a Defender, or a single "special forces" squadron of Defenders tasked with hunting down the player characters once they get dangerous enough to warrant dispatching such resources, etc ...

Also, could be that the Lucasfilm archives had information that countered fan expectations of what the TIE Defender is fully capable of, with it not necessarily being "as fast" or "as maneuverable" or whatever as the fanboys think it should be.

Nah. At this point, fan "expectations" are based on the material that has been published thus far, and Lucasfilm's Holocron database made sure that said material is somewhat synchronised.

Now, however, the Expanded Universe has been de-canonised, and from my experience with its 40k RPGs, FFG has a habit of "going its own way" and just disregarding prior sources if they don't fit in with their ideas - so I think I know where the culprit is.

That being said, games have always been less policed by the Holocron simply due to their need of sometimes "twisting" the universe in favour of the player character protagonists.

If you want the TIE Defender from the X-wing/TIE fighter games, it is faster and more maneuverable than an A-wing, Heavier shields than a B-wing, a quad laser and a pair of ion cannons, and a hull tougher than a gunboat.

When spotted from another ship they say:'thats no moon, that's cheese'

I don't think the OP was asking for the TIE Defender in Age of Rebellion to perfectly reflect the TIE Defender in a tactical miniatures game. In fact, it seems that the purpose of this thread (in fact, the purpose of the previous threads on this subject) have been about reconciling the somewhat lackluster TIE/D from the Age of Rebellion Beta book with the TIE/D that was established in canon. At least, before Star Wars canon was completely eviscerated.

Side note: I thought "cheese" in the context of roleplaying games was a synonym for "munchkinism" or a pejorative reference manipulating the rules to gain an advantage that was technically "rules-legal," but not intended. It could also refer to a tactic that was somehow unbalancing and unsportsmanlike. I didn't realize the word now meant "something I don't like."

I have a simple response for someone wanting a TIE defender in my game:'walk away from my game. Now.'

Do you run Imperial-PC campaigns set in the post-Endor period often?

The TIE Defender as presented in the video game was simply pure cheese, being superior to every other fighter in every conceivable way.

Again, how exactly was a spacecraft that was working as intended by the designers and developers of the video games "pure cheese?" In X-Wing: Alliance, it wasn't even available as a playable craft outside of multiplayer and certain simulations. Also, the TIE Defender was not superior in every conceivable way. That statement is demonstrably false. The visibility was poor compared to the A-Wing or X-Wing, the hull was not as sturdy as a B-Wing, TIE Bomber, or even a TIE Interceptor, and the shields were inferior to the B-Wing and roughly equivalent to the Assault Gunboat.

It was an extremely fast and maneuverable craft with the advantages of shields and heavy armament. It was also relatively fragile when compared to the TIE Advanced/Avenger, Preybird, B-Wing, and other fighters it would have been competing with in the post-Endor period.

The in-universe and non-mechanical disadvantages to the TIE/D were numerous and substantial: they included the fact that the TIE/D was incredibly rare, cost 300,000 credits, (six times that of a TIE/Ln) were maintenance intensive, difficult to manufacture, and politically unpopular.

That sort of thing works fine for a video game, much like Starkiller and his over-the-top Force antics worked for the Force Unleashed games. But it doesn't necessarily translate well into an RPG, particularly one that's more concerned with the group's success as a whole than doling out uber-cool toys the way that Pathfinder and prior editions of D&D were.

So what if we aren't talking about the TIE/D as represented in video games? What if we're talking about the significant body of written work that detailed the comparative ability and performance of the TIE/D? You casually dismiss the TIE/D as if it were merely an artifact from a badly balanced video game, but that ignores the fact that the TIE/D has appeared literally everywhere in Star Wars media except on screen.

The irrelevance of video games to this discussion notwithstanding, I don't think your comparison is a valid one. While The Force Unleashed probably represented the worst of Jedi fetishism in the EU, it was ultimately a story about a single individual . A player trying to emulate that character in a roleplaying game would certainly unbalance things for the rest of the group. The TIE/D, however, is not a feat, a talent, or a force power. It is, ultimately, a piece of equipment. A piece of equipment that will virtually never fall into the hands of the players if you're playing the setting straight, and will rarely be used by the GM for Nemesis-level opponents.

The mere existence of a fighter such as the TIE/D (assuming stats that reflect the well established, in-universe performance standards) is no more a threat to your game than any artifact from D&D or Pathfinder. It only has to be an issue if you not only put it in your game, but allow your players to use it. The TIE/D (as established in-universe) is only going to be a balancing problem for the most egregious of Monty Haul GMs.

Also, could be that the Lucasfilm archives had information that countered fan expectations of what the TIE Defender is fully capable of, with it not necessarily being "as fast" or "as maneuverable" or whatever as the fanboys think it should be. Case in point is the dimensions of the HWK-290, which is listed as being fairly large on Wookieepedia (information itself based of WotC stats) but according to the info that FFG was provided, really isn't much bigger than a Y-Wing.

Point of order:

Wanting the TIE Defender's in-game stats to reflect the established lore and feel of the setting does not make one a "fanboy" or whatever other pejorative you wish to use to refer to those you disagree with. I am not a TIE Defender "fanboy," and while I cannot speak to the motivations of the others that have brought up the apparent discrepancy between the TIE/D's stats in the Age of Rebellion Beta and the lore, I suspect that most of them aren't merely TIE/D "fanboys" either. We're not throwing a tantrum because "MUH FVROITTE STRFIGHTER GOT NURFFED!!1one11eleven" we're asking why the discrepancy exists and hoping FFG does something to address it.

Also, don't you find it a bit interesting that the HWK-290's size is much closer to the size it was originally presented as in the Dark Forces (gasp) video games ?

My opinion? Players aren't going to be running into the TIE/D as a matter of course. It's not a mook to be thrown at the party. It's a secret, Imperial project that is a significant arc in a campaign or a campaign unto itself. You don't bump into a random patrol of pilots in TIE Defenders. You confront Baron Soontir Fel and the 181st in TIE Defenders as part of a climactic space battle at the end of your campaign.

The circumstances where a GM will be using TIE Defenders will be rare, and an argument could be made that the situation is so rare that it's wasted space in the book and another craft (such as an Assault Gunboat) could make better use of that real-estate.

Edit: In hindsight, this post sounded much more confrontational than I initially intended it to. Donovan Morningfire and Korjik, please don't take the above post as a personal attack. I really didn't mean for the post to come across as rudely argumentative.

Honestly as a pilot I would love to fly a TIE Defender but if I were in charge of selecting fighters for the Empire from the know Imperial Starfighter models than I would mostly use the TIE Hunters and Assault Gunboats for my fleet, convoy escort, and planet based offensive squadrons and TIE Opressors and I-7 Howlrunners for my planetary defense units.

Thanks yoshiyahu. That's exactly it. I hate, HATE, the power creep in the expanded universe.

Example:

Jedi just keep getting better and better. Okay, let's introduce the force immune yuuzahn vong. Oh, x wings are the best fighter, but now the tie defender is better. Well, that's okay, the xj x-wing is just like the x wing but it's faster, more maneuverable, has better shields, and has more guns and torpedoes.

What I though was crazy is that the defender is as slow as the heavy bombers as the alliance, despite the fluff talking about it as the answer to the rebellions fast an powerful fighters. I have no problem with the tie interceptor being more maneuverable. But the defender should be a nemesis fighter while the interceptor should be a rival and the tie fighter a minion, as has been mentioned somewhere else in the forum.

Honestly as a pilot I would love to fly a TIE Defender but if I were in charge of selecting fighters for the Empire from the know Imperial Starfighter models than I would mostly use the TIE Hunters and Assault Gunboats for my fleet, convoy escort, and planet based offensive squadrons and TIE Opressors and I-7 Howlrunners for my planetary defense units.

Don't forget the option of reviewing the Skipray Blastboat. It's **** effective in the 'heavy fighter' role.

Honestly as a pilot I would love to fly a TIE Defender but if I were in charge of selecting fighters for the Empire from the know Imperial Starfighter models than I would mostly use the TIE Hunters and Assault Gunboats for my fleet, convoy escort, and planet based offensive squadrons and TIE Opressors and I-7 Howlrunners for my planetary defense units.

Don't forget the option of reviewing the Skipray Blastboat. It's **** effective in the 'heavy fighter' role.

True I would definitely add some of those to my dedicated carriers and critical bases. Maybe have a special carrier designed for a full Skipray squadron.

Yoshiyahu,

If you are going to cherry pick your useage of the TIE-D, then why are you complaining about it being nerfed? The original TIE-D from TIE Fighter was alot more powerful than the one from Xwing:Alliance. To put it bluntly, the one you are comparing to the RPG has already been nerfed. By quite a bit if I am remembering it right.

It was, in the original incarnation, stupidly overpowered. To the point where it was used to take down Star Destroyers. Solo.

It was, in the original incarnation, stupidly overpowered. To the point where it was used to take down Star Destroyers. Solo.

To be fair, in those games, just about anything that carried torpedoes or spatial bombs could take down capital ships. Especially if you first took out the shield generator with missile weapons from afar, and then occupied a blind spot (directly behind the engines was always nice) to either kill off their defence grid with your ion cannons, or just kept blasting away at the hull.

Not that the dozen-or-so turrets (which you could destroy with your laser cannons) posed that much of a challenge to a nimble fighter that had shields to recover from the one or two shots that actually managed to hit you. The only thing you really had to watch out for was those **** concussion missiles, but you could just shoot them down, too.

Ahh, the good old times.

The "problem" was not so much that the T/D was "stupidly OP", but rather that the capital ships were ridiculously nerfed. I mean, an Imperial-class Star Destroyer had 300 SBD Shields and 150 RU hull - that's a whopping three times the shields of a Tyderium-class shuttlecraft , and barely three times the hull of a B-Wing fighter.

The stats from the original TIE Fighter PC game have the Defender clock in at the exact same hull as the Interceptor (20 RU, which is +5 compared to the T/F and -30 compared to the T/B), a top speed of 155 MGLT (+35 compared to the A/W) and 200 SBD shields (twice that of a shuttle).

It's not that bad until you start comparing those numbers with the capital ships, but those kind of suck even when compared to a T-Wing.

Ahh the T-Wing my favorite fighter and second favorite ship class introduced in the X-Wing and TIE Fighter games. I would love to see T-Wings in AOR or EOE and IMO they would fit in well in either setting given their background.

Yoshiyahu,

If you are going to cherry pick your useage of the TIE-D, then why are you complaining about it being nerfed? The original TIE-D from TIE Fighter was alot more powerful than the one from Xwing:Alliance. To put it bluntly, the one you are comparing to the RPG has already been nerfed. By quite a bit if I am remembering it right.

It was, in the original incarnation, stupidly overpowered. To the point where it was used to take down Star Destroyers. Solo.

1. How am I "cherry picking" the usage of the TIE/D? The only time in this thread that I mentioned X-Wing: Alliance was when I was talking about how the craft wasn't even available for play, not as a reference to its capabilities. I've not made any claims about what I think the exact statistics should be for the TIE/D based on a video game (TIE Fighter) I never played. I will reiterate: it just seems that the TIE/D as presented by FFG does not match the way it has been presented in-universe in multiple forms of media, not just video games.

2. Where did I complain? In fact, I very specifically pointed out that I wasn't complaining about the so-called "nerf," but asking why the TIE/D in the Age of Rebellion Beta contradicted every other incarnation of the TIE/D in Star Wars canon. It's about verisimilitude.

3. Literally any playable craft in that game could take out a Star Destroyer solo. I've done it with Y-Wings, A-Wings, X-Wings, YT-1300s, YT-2000s, B-Wings, and yes, TIE/Ds. It was never that difficult. Capital ships were poorly represented in those games. In fact, I would go as far to say that the way they were presented in those games was inconsistent with how they have been portrayed in all other Star Wars media. Sound familiar?

4. Why the nerd rage? Why the hate? What about the TIE/D has set you off so? Do you, or do you not run Imperial-PC games set in the post-Endor period often? If not, why are you complaining? Why do you believe that a TIE/D that is consistent with established lore is somehow a threat to your games? It's an honest question.

The "problem" was not so much that the T/D was "stupidly OP", but rather that the capital ships were ridiculously nerfed. I mean, an Imperial-class Star Destroyer had 300 SBD Shields and 150 RU hull - that's a whopping three times the shields of a Tyderium-class shuttlecraft , and barely three times the hull of a B-Wing fighter.

I could - with lots of time and patience - take out a Star Destroyer with an A-Wing. So holding the Defender accountable for being crazy powerful isn't very fair.

Really, you cant compare the two mediums - video and role playing games. They have two different agendas and two completely different criteria for "fun". Trying to get one to fit the mold of the other, regardless of which way you're trying to go, simply wont work in anything but the most broadest terms.

Make the Defender badass? Sure. Make it a "Kill everything in the room without question" badass mutherfucker without equal just because it was so in TIE Fighter? That's stupid.

Make the Defender badass? Sure. Make it a "Kill everything in the room without question" badass mutherfucker without equal just because it was so in TIE Fighter? That's stupid.

'xactly.

I mean, if we go by those games, a single TIE Interceptor was almost as badass. I remember clearing an entire mine field for Admiral Harkov! Yet clearly we wouldn't expect the craft to perform the same way in an RPG. Or in a game that did not give the player's ship the benefit of a player's mind and reflexes, compared to "dumb" AI that was flying very predictable manoeuvres.

If the T/D really was so dangerous in the TIE Fighter game, how come they didn't beat you when Zaarin showed up with four entire squadrons of them in Mission 6 of Battle 9 ? Because the AI in those games made for ridiculously easy targets. And since those T/Ds were only marginally harder to shoot down than any rebel fighter , I propose that just about any rebel fighter has a much better chance against a T/D once it is actually piloted by someone who doesn't keep flying in a straight line when getting shot at.

Especially once the rebel scum starts to outnumber the ridiculously overpriced Defender, because quality over quantity has its limits.

tl;dr: Don't just translate personal experiences from those games into an RPG, or any other game for that matter. The Defender loses a lot of its scare once you start looking solely at hard numbers. Including the numbers from the old PC games. The only thing that made it scary was you , the player.

The novel Isard's Revenge has Rogue squadron fly a mission in Tie Defenders. They grudgingly concede it is a superior craft.