Can somebody point me towards the Axis & Allies forums? I'm suddenly inclined to petition Wizards to include the mafia as a faction in their World War II games.

Only if we can also include the Yakuza...

Sure, and Somali pirates while we're at it. Were they even pirating back then? Ah, who cares. They can come anyways!

Pirates versus U-Boats in the Mediterranean. If it didn't happen before, it's happening now. Gotta keep the game fresh, right guys? Otherwise the game will have no long term appeal.

Uh, am I the only person who would leap at the chance to play time-traveling Somali pirates hunting U-Boats in the Med?

This is now my #1 pitch for my next turn running an RPG campaign.

Can Somali pirate watercraft even go 88 miles per hour? I wouldn't even know what that is in nautical terms.

And the more expansions to the game the fewer people will buy in because the buy in becomes much much higher.

This is what happens with 40k or WHFB, the cost to buy in becomes so great that few new players pick up the game. X-Wing has less of an issue with that, as long as X-Wings and Tie Fighters remain viable.

But at some point yes, there will be so many ships out there that it will turn off new players.

It's like that I think with some of the LCG's. I looked at getting into GoT LCG, but there's so many expansions out there that I just don't think I could do it. Even Netrunner has reached the point that I don't think i'd bother buying into the game.

I agree with Sithborg, I just fail to see anything a 3rd faction offers this game that can't be gained by simply adding more ships to the Rebels or Imperials.

As was said above, if the Firespray, YT serries, and Z-95 weren't already part of the game, then a 3rd faction might be feasible. But right now pretty much all the pirate type ships are already in the game, so a 3rd faction would either have to have new never seen ships, or somehow 'borrow' ships from the existing faction.

I wouldn't even know what that is in nautical terms.

76.4 knots per hour. Some high powered Yachts can actually get up to the 70+ knots speed so a speedboat wouldn't have a problem with that.

I wouldn't even know what that is in nautical terms.

76.4 knots per hour. Some high powered Yachts can actually get up to the 70+ knots speed so a speedboat wouldn't have a problem with that.

"Where we're going, we don't need sea lanes."

Zoccola, your business also assumes a static consumer base. It's not just about return customers, but about new customers. As long as the Star Wars franchise remains strong, there will always be new consumers to purchase those wave 1 X-wings and TIE-Advanced's.

Right, and a third faction will not invalidate the older ships. Today people buy a starter, create an account and ask, "Hi guys, I just started playing this amazing game! I bought a starter, what should I buy so that I can win my next tournament in 3 weeks." To which people have invariably said, "Another starter, and at least another Xwing expansion and another TIE. Then decide where you want to go from there.

This wont change with a new faction. New players will still need 2 expansion, and then the early expacs for all the cards. Push the Limit, Engine Upgrade, Stealth, HLC, R2, Squad Leader, Swarm Tactics, these cards will be needed. New players will have to buy the old expansions.

You are also missing the point of what a third faction does: it generates interest.

That's a pretty big assumption. It may or may not do that in other games, and it may or may not do that here. Given the posts in these forms and elsewhere, I'd say it wouldn't generate more interest then more Rebel and Imperial ships would.

You cannot take anything that happens on the forums as an extrapolation of the market. The forums represent a vocal (albeit loud) minority. A lot of people like the fringers and scum. I know when I started all I wanted to do was play Boba Fett and I was a bit disappointed that he was an Imperial. Imagine how cool a motly looking fleet of bounty hunters and smugglers will be? Imagine if you could fly Bossk, Boba Fett and IG-88 in a list? Each with their own unique ships? Cmon that would ROCK.

Already as it is, whenever we play Xwing at our local LGSes, there are always a bunch of Magic the Gathering nerds that congregate around our table (smelling up our air) and proclaiming how cool the model are. We even converted a few. Suddenly the former Magic geeks were washing themselves and sitting without butt crack showing, and playing a good game that didnt rip you off. (Sorry I digress.)

Point is, new stuff generates interest. Star Wars is about the Empire, Rebels and those that dont fit in, i.e. Fringers and Scum. I like them more than anythign else, and had they been part of the initial factions, I would have been playing this game from launch.

As was said above, if the Firespray, YT serries, and Z-95 weren't already part of the game, then a 3rd faction might be feasible. But right now pretty much all the pirate type ships are already in the game, so a 3rd faction would either have to have new never seen ships, or somehow 'borrow' ships from the existing faction.

Or reprint the Slave 1 as a mercenary variant.

I wouldn't even know what that is in nautical terms.

76.4 knots per hour. Some high powered Yachts can actually get up to the 70+ knots speed so a speedboat wouldn't have a problem with that.

On Ocean waves yes yes they would. That doesn't make it impossible, just limits your points of ingress. If anybody needs that for storytelling purposes, you'd need ong stretches of relatively flat water.

Again, how is having the Punishing One, IG-2000, Hound's Tooth, and the Mist Hunter as Imperial ships preventing them from running the BH's? I really doubt those that want those fringer ships will not get them just because they are assigned to Rebels or Imperials.

And I think it is pretty clear the factions will not be sharing a ship.

Zoccola, your business also assumes a static consumer base. It's not just about return customers, but about new customers. As long as the Star Wars franchise remains strong, there will always be new consumers to purchase those wave 1 X-wings and TIE-Advanced's.

Right, and a third faction will not invalidate the older ships. Today people buy a starter, create an account and ask, "Hi guys, I just started playing this amazing game! I bought a starter, what should I buy so that I can win my next tournament in 3 weeks." To which people have invariably said, "Another starter, and at least another Xwing expansion and another TIE. Then decide where you want to go from there.

This wont change with a new faction. New players will still need 2 expansion, and then the early expacs for all the cards. Push the Limit, Engine Upgrade, Stealth, HLC, R2, Squad Leader, Swarm Tactics, these cards will be needed. New players will have to buy the old expansions.

You are also missing the point of what a third faction does: it generates interest.

That's a pretty big assumption. It may or may not do that in other games, and it may or may not do that here. Given the posts in these forms and elsewhere, I'd say it wouldn't generate more interest then more Rebel and Imperial ships would.

You cannot take anything that happens on the forums as an extrapolation of the market. The forums represent a vocal (albeit loud) minority. A lot of people like the fringers and scum. I know when I started all I wanted to do was play Boba Fett and I was a bit disappointed that he was an Imperial. Imagine how cool a motly looking fleet of bounty hunters and smugglers will be? Imagine if you could fly Bossk, Boba Fett and IG-88 in a list? Each with their own unique ships? Cmon that would ROCK.

Already as it is, whenever we play Xwing at our local LGSes, there are always a bunch of Magic the Gathering nerds that congregate around our table (smelling up our air) and proclaiming how cool the model are. We even converted a few. Suddenly the former Magic geeks were washing themselves and sitting without butt crack showing, and playing a good game that didnt rip you off. (Sorry I digress.)

Point is, new stuff generates interest. Star Wars is about the Empire, Rebels and those that dont fit in, i.e. Fringers and Scum. I like them more than anythign else, and had they been part of the initial factions, I would have been playing this game from launch.

Absolutely nothing is stopping FFG from releasing more bounty hunters as imperials and letting you play an all bounty hunter squad. Same with the Rebels and smugglers. YT's and HWK's cover that. Every ship you want is or could be available in the current 2 factions.

Instead of releasing a wave of 14-16 ships so that one faction didn't feel completely gimped.

So, again, no, it's dumb

You cannot take anything that happens on the forums as an extrapolation of the market.

Funny how often this or something like it get said when the person doesn't agree with the prevailing opinion...

Of course you can. It's done all the time, via focus groups, polls and other such tools. Taking a small group of people and extrapolating their opinion is a common practice. There's whole industries based on taking the opinion of a group of people and using that to base future decisions and products.

You can quite easily take the these forms as a decent sample of the playerbase as a whole. It's a much better and fair representation of the base then your local group is. Because here we have people from all over the world posting.

As a former 40k player, I got very, very sick of playing against Space Marines and all their variants, and evil Space Marines and all their variants. Over and over again. And over and over again.

It would be interesting to see how FFG will sustain interests in the game, if it's not with additional factions.

Again, how is having the Punishing One, IG-2000, Hound's Tooth, and the Mist Hunter as Imperial ships preventing them from running the BH's? I really doubt those that want those fringer ships will not get them just because they are assigned to Rebels or Imperials.

And I think it is pretty clear the factions will not be sharing a ship.

Well--there's a difference between saying "hey, it's all good, Chewie can fly for the Fringe faction if he costs 43 instead of 42" and publishing a new slate of YT-1300 pilots who are aligned specifically and exclusively with the Fringe faction.

Ship types add to a factions distinctiveness. Sharing ships waters down their uniqueness. Considering there is one very glaring example that hasn't been crossed over, I'm thinking FFG doesn't want ships to be shared.

I'm still not seeing how a new faction is in anyway better than merely new ships in the current factions. They both create new options to buy.

This.

The real question is.... if the bounty hunters all come out as a new faction.... would you buy them?

would you buy them?

I don't think I would, not unless they had upgrades or something I thought was useful for the Rebs or Imps.

You cannot take anything that happens on the forums as an extrapolation of the market.

Funny how often this or something like it get said when the person doesn't agree with the prevailing opinion...Of course you can. It's done all the time, via focus groups, polls and other such tools. Taking a small group of people and extrapolating their opinion is a common practice. There's whole industries based on taking the opinion of a group of people and using that to base future decisions and products.You can quite easily take the these forms as a decent sample of the playerbase as a whole. It's a much better and fair representation of the base then your local group is. Because here we have people from all over the world posting.

There's a huge--probably crippling--self-selection problem with taking any group of forum posters. There's something that makes me different from my friend who's also heavily involved in the regional and even national X-wing scene, but doesn't post anywhere under any name. What is that thing, and how does it affect how I answer questions about X-wing? I don't know, and I doubt anyone else does, but it makes drawing a representative sample based on a forum or mailing list very difficult.

More generally, there's a well-known bi-modal bias in responses drawn from existing groups of online respondents--that is, they tend to be highly polarized, with either very positive or very negative opinions, but infrequently "meh". The exact mechanism isn't well understood in the technical sense, but one way to look at it is actually through a cross-cultural lens. Basically, that's just the way it is when you conduct a poll or a focus group with Internet people (meaning primarily Americans, since that's where my professional experience has been), and you have to understand it and interpret it in that context.

I was initially against a third faction, but ever since I found out that they ARE actually doing it, I am slowly getting more on board.

There's a huge--probably crippling--self-selection problem with taking any group of forum posters.

It's not as effective as a random sample I agree. But it's also not completely useless like Zoccola was saying either.

If most everyone here is against something, or for something, then that's a good indication of the player base as a whole. It's not exact but it's a place to start. It is not however as Zoccola was saying worthless.

Why do so many people say no?

I see lots of "no" "heck no" "we don't need it" - but very little reasoning on why we don't need them?

I figure as long as the game balance remains and a third faction is viable - why not? Still, it would be mighty tough to put out enough ships in a short time to make a third faction viable.

i disagree,

1 entire wave of 4 ships would be plenty to build a third faction and have it be competative.

but as far as bounty hunters go, during this time period, almost all of the bounty hunters were working for the empire, crime lords, or companies that could afford them. so i would not count bounty hunters as neutral. rebels would always bring a price, so i do not see them working with the rebel scum at all.

now black sun or the hutts or talone carrde would be options for a third faction, but then lets dig deaper.

carrde all but joined the rebels-not neutral

black sun worked for the empire-not neutral

hutts always looked out for themselves-this could be a viable neutral faction, or just crime lord in general

If you want reasons, search for the other hundreds of threads exactly like this

And the reasons never change either; it's simply people being resistant to and fearful of change.

X-Wing is already FFG's best selling game and it's among top sellers among for all miniatures game.

I can think of 2 reasons why FFG would release a 3rd faction and they're not mutually exclusive.

1. Short term: Make more money now.
2. Long term: Secure the longevity of the game

For the first point, I don't think a 3rd faction, since it's so polarizing would make more money for them then say dedicating those same resources to another wave of Rebel and Imperial ships.

For the second point, if this game is to survive into the roaring 20's, I think it'll need more factions. It doesn't seem 2 factions will keep players interested in the long term. Players want variety, which is why the game was suffering from a drop off after wave 3, but is seeing a huge resurgence with all the new releases.

Great post. People will naturally complain about something new until they actually see it working and in action. People complained about the Firespray-31 not being an Imperial ship. the complained about the HWK and most of Wave 4 coming from the Extended Universe. The complained about the Epic-scale ships and the Epic play format

Then they saw them in action, saw the models, the upgrades and the cards, and they sold in droves.

At this point, FFG has earned the right to do what they want with the game. Personally I'd never seen or heard of the Decimator prior to the Wave 5 announcement, but that doesn't mean I begrudge it's place in the game - I'm actually quite excited by what it brings.

I'm equally excited by the possibilities of the oft-suggested Ground Assault expansion, with speeders, walkers and static defences; a reduced-scale fleet combat expansion to satisfy those with a craving for Star Destroyers, and of course another faction.

References to chess and checkers only ever having two sides are counter productive and pretentious. X-Wing is not chess, and it is not checkers. X-Wing has changed more in the two years (yes, the game has only been around for two years - where do you expect it to be in two years time?) than either of those classic games have changed in over 100 years. X-Wing is a multiplayer miniatures game based on an incredibly rich, varied and diverse universe. there's absolutely no reason whatsoever why the X-wing game can't be just as rich, varied and diverse.

Except of course, that good old resistance to and fear of change.

Is there, to you, a difference between fear and caution?

If I've been burned by fire, am I afraid to put my hand in the fire, or am I smart enough to not do it again?

Is there a difference, to you, between fearlessness and recklessness?

The real question is.... if the bounty hunters all come out as a new faction.... would you buy them?

I currently play and only purchase Imperial ships. If they added a cool 3rd faction, I would buy into them as well. I will never touch Rebels.

Why do so many people say no?

I see lots of "no" "heck no" "we don't need it" - but very little reasoning on why we don't need them?

I figure as long as the game balance remains and a third faction is viable - why not? Still, it would be mighty tough to put out enough ships in a short time to make a third faction viable.

i disagree,

1 entire wave of 4 ships would be plenty to build a third faction and have it be competative.

but as far as bounty hunters go, during this time period, almost all of the bounty hunters were working for the empire, crime lords, or companies that could afford them. so i would not count bounty hunters as neutral. rebels would always bring a price, so i do not see them working with the rebel scum at all.

now black sun or the hutts or talone carrde would be options for a third faction, but then lets dig deaper.

carrde all but joined the rebels-not neutral

black sun worked for the empire-not neutral

hutts always looked out for themselves-this could be a viable neutral faction, or just crime lord in general

Well the Black Sun and Empire fought each other late war. There is also the Zann Consortium which has a complete list of ships not represented on either side.

And the more expansions to the game the fewer people will buy in because the buy in becomes much much higher.

This is what happens with 40k or WHFB, the cost to buy in becomes so great that few new players pick up the game. X-Wing has less of an issue with that, as long as X-Wings and Tie Fighters remain viable.

But at some point yes, there will be so many ships out there that it will turn off new players.

It's like that I think with some of the LCG's. I looked at getting into GoT LCG, but there's so many expansions out there that I just don't think I could do it. Even Netrunner has reached the point that I don't think i'd bother buying into the game.

I agree with Sithborg, I just fail to see anything a 3rd faction offers this game that can't be gained by simply adding more ships to the Rebels or Imperials.

As was said above, if the Firespray, YT serries, and Z-95 weren't already part of the game, then a 3rd faction might be feasible. But right now pretty much all the pirate type ships are already in the game, so a 3rd faction would either have to have new never seen ships, or somehow 'borrow' ships from the existing faction.

They launch and expand universe cause they need to pay salaries, they need to sell new products.

I agree they must left old ships viable to play, or else they will be retired from the game and that is not cool, as you paid for them.

Regarding 3rd faction... this is not attack wing, hope they never do it.

Looks like smugglers are at the Rebel Side and Bount Hunters will show up at Empire Side.

Can somebody point me towards the Axis & Allies forums? I'm suddenly inclined to petition Wizards to include the mafia as a faction in their World War II games.

This is sarcastic and an unnecessary comment that will prevent everyone on the forums from unifying in peace and love.

But it's also funny as all get out.

So, nicely done, Dude!

And the more expansions to the game the fewer people will buy in because the buy in becomes much much higher.

As was said above, if the Firespray, YT serries, and Z-95 weren't already part of the game, then a 3rd faction might be feasible. But right now pretty much all the pirate type ships are already in the game, so a 3rd faction would either have to have new never seen ships, or somehow 'borrow' ships from the existing faction.

I like Animar's point, and Vanor is basically saying where I am.

When the Falcon came out and wasn't "Fringe" I was a little bummed. But the game is well-balanced, and it's too late to go back, so I'm fine with no other factions.

When the Falcon came out and wasn't "Fringe" I was a little bummed. But the game is well-balanced, and it's too late to go back, so I'm fine with no other factions.

...again with the "too late to change"!

The game is not even two years old, for pity's sake.