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FFG LORE, PROFILE & ARTWORK

Fantasy Flight Games have already included the profile and created rules and artwork for the XG-1 Assault Gunboat in one of their games - Edge of the Empire, specifically in the "Fly Casual " source book which came out in early 2015. More recently, the ship has been added to Star Wars: The Card Game in the Scrap Metal Force Pack which was released in December 2016.

Alpha-Class XG-1 "Star Wing" Assault Gunboat (game rules omitted)

"Designed by Cygnus Spaceworks, the Alpha-class Xg-1 Assault Gunboat is a multipurpose starfighter, excelling at space and planetary attack, interdiction and long-range reconnaissance and patrol. Unlike the more common TIE series, the Alpha-class is equipped with heavy armour, deflector shields and hyperdrives, though these come at the cost of speed and maneuverabilit, making it a less than stellar dogfighter. Heavily armed, the Star Wing is more than a match for most threats, disabling them with it's ion cannons to allow for boarding actions or blasting them out of space with it's lasers and concussion missiles. While used primarily by the Imperial Navy, Star Wings have begun to be employed by Imperial Customs and some planetary defense forces."

Hull Typer/Class: Assault Starfighter/Alpha-class.

Manufacturer: Cygnus Spaceworks

Hyperdrive: Primary: Class 3. Backup: None.

Navicomputer: Yes

Sensor Range: Short

Ship's Complement: One pilot

Encumberance Capacity: 8

Passenger Capacity: 0

Consumbales: Three days,

Price/Rarity: 135,000 credits R/7.

Customization Hard Points: 2

Weapons: Forward-mounted medium laser cannons,forward mounted ion cannons, forward mounted concussion missile launchers.

ASSORTED ARTWORK/RENDERINGS:

CONTRIBUTED BY MEL:

RESURRECTED STARSHIPS' TACTICAL ANALYSIS

My body is ready, FFG...

hmm, now that is feasible.

edit: or the Avenger, maybe?

FRACTALSPONGE'S AMAZING RENDERINGS:

(we love you fractalsponge!)

CONTRIBUTED BY GOSRIC:

(we love you Gosric!)

WOOKIEPEDIA:

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Alpha-class_Xg-1_Star_Wing

EU BACKGROUND:

Once the Rebellion started waging (highly successful) hit and fade attacks via hyperspace on Imperial convoys and installations, the Imperial Navy realised they needed to take a new approach to deal with the threat - their traditional methods of enforcement (capital ships deploying waves of cheap, expendable fodder) weren't enough. There simply weren't enough capital ships to go around, and by the time they responded and deployed the Rebels were usually gone. So they threw open the floor to their contractors.

Cygnus Spaceworks beat their rivals to the punch with the Alpha-class XG-1 Assault Gunboat. Shielded, hyperspace capable and with a flexible load out that featured ion cannons, missiles and lasers, it was quickly pressed into service in escort, patrol, recon and rapid-response roles, well before the Battle of Yavin.

Seinar Fleet Systems meanwhile were working on their own solutions. The first was the Immobiliser-418 cruiser, which used gravity wells to prevent ships from fleeing into hyperspace (or to pull them out of hyperspace). The second was it's experimental TIE project, which led to Vader's X1, the TIE Avenger and eventually the TIE Defender. It had it's own teething problems, notably extremely expensive unit costs and the rogue Admiral Demetrius Zaarin.

By the time the Avenger and Defender made it into service, the Assault Gunboat was already firmly entrenched as a multi role fighter in the Imperial Navy due to necessity more than ability - it could be deployed without capital ship support and was perfect as an escort ship for small convoys, but that meant it was effectively on it's own - no capital ship support also meant no TIE Fighter support, and when the Rebels introduced the R-22 Spearhead and RZ-1 A-Wing, it struggled to hold it's own. Supported by other hyperspace-capable Imperial craft in the TIE Avenger and TIE Defender however, it proved much more effective.

WANT

Gun boats are something I'd really like to see in wave 6, a good medium between fighter and bomber.

Gimme! I wanted these in Wave 4, but if I have to wait for Wave 6, so be it. It would be nice to have a beam upgrade introduced with this ship, too.

Got em off shapeways last year

If a 4 forward is red, I don't think it would have a 4 k-turn, only sorta "complaint" I have about it

looks like the y wing dial not sure if it even is the same dial ;P still good in my opinion ^^

If a 4 forward is red, I don't think it would have a 4 k-turn, only sorta "complaint" I have about it

thats iam not that sure but i think its the same dail the Y-wing uses ;P and even that monster can k turn 4 ;P with his 4 forward red ^^

just looks like a cheap Defender to me, lousy dial, bad primary, but has a cannon slot so a cheap HLC carrier

Heavy laser cannon carrier with targeting sensors and maneuverability. Feels a lot like a Lambda with a K turn. Not quite as heavy as the Lambda but similar enough that you could see it as a souped up version of it. Looks fun.

OK, help required for homebrew stats / upgrades for this ship.

From Wookiepedia:

• Maarek Stele, obviously (but he's already flying two different ships in the game).
• Xeal
• Flight Officer Carith
• Flight Officer Alimet
• Flight Officer Ketcher

• Noble Calder
• Lieutenant Rignik

When (not if) the Assault gunboat arrive I would not be surprised if Gecko's speculations prove to be fairly close to the truth. The gunboat is basically the Empire equivalent to the B-wing and this mirrors that fairly well. I however would lower the agility by one because I remember flying the Gunboat in TIE Fighter and it was not the most manuverable of craft.

Remembering the Assault Gunboat from the TIE Fighter pc game I would say it's more like 2 hull and 3 shields (or a flip of those values). The Gunboat wasn't exactly a tank - more like the middle-ground between a heavy bomber and a fighter.

Maneuverability was decent. A bit better than a TIE Bomber and also somewhat better than the old y-wings. But in X-wing miniatures the Bomber has a quite good dial and giving the Gunboat an even better dial would probably make it too much of a dogfighter.

A beam weapon is what we already have in the way Ion works in the game. In the TIE Fighter game the beam weapon was almost too good and paired with the Defender you nearly had an auto-win.

Remembering the Assault Gunboat from the TIE Fighter pc game I would say it's more like 2 hull and 3 shields (or a flip of those values). The Gunboat wasn't exactly a tank - more like the middle-ground between a heavy bomber and a fighter...

Ehhh... they were a little bit tougher than that. certainly much more durable than your standard X-Wing...

Bear in mind that just one quad-linked shot is enough to shred a TIE Fighter or TIE Interceptor in the game. The Gunboat shrugs off four or five... admittedly once the X-Wing is on it's tail it struggles to shake it.

I'm envisaging a standard load out being FCS & Ion Cannon, or FCS & 2 x Cluster/Concussion Missiles... a flexible, all-round dogfighter.

...maybe it would be a good place to introduce Advanced Concussion Missiles (range 2-3, change one blank to one crit?)

AZRAPSE'S FLIGHT LIEUTENANT ADA:

RAYNUK'S XEAL:

ODANAN'S VERSION:

(more custom cards available on Odanan's thread here)

"Command, what are your orders?"

"DIE IMPERIAL DOGS!"

"Rodger that command."

Far be it from me to poo poo another Wingers favorite ship...but I had rather the cousin to this thing see our collections first, in the Imperial Lander, with boarding action rules.

What do you think?

Might be faulty memory but I don't remember the gun boat being as sluggish as a y-wing, I wouldn't call is agile by any means though.

2 dodge seems right to me.

Might be faulty memory but I don't remember the gun boat being as sluggish as a y-wing, I wouldn't call is agile by any means though.

2 dodge seems right to me.

No, you're right - as can be seen in the video above, it was more agile than a Y-Wing, just not particularly fast.

I saw this represented as either two evade OR barrel roll action. Barrel roll made it a little too similar to the B-Wing though...

Cant wait until wave 6?

Thare are other options.....

I know there are people over on BGG making stats and cards for it

Just thought id mention it.

Assault gunboat? hell yes dissapointed its not in wave 5

Cant wait until wave 6?

Thare are other options.....

I love you Gosric.

Thank you *L*

These secondary wings afforded the Xg-1 significantly increased maneuverability over its shuttle counter-part.

However, it was not particularly fast and had an average level maneuverability, making it mediocre in space superiority.

The Xg-1 was famed for its resilience. Its powerful shields allowed it to engage foes at point blank range, enabling it more opportunity to inflict damage, whereas an unshielded craft would be forced to break off the attack. The Star Wing's reinforced hull could survive a direct hit from an advanced concussion missile, and several times these craft were able to return home safely despite being badly damaged. Pilots such as Maarek Stele, having previously flown TIEs whose best defense was speed and maneuverability, often took advantage of the Star Wing's defenses to press bold assaults.

FFG's method of stat-ing a ship doesn't allow for a lot of finder detail. In Universe I consider the X wing to be a very well rounded starfighter, having above average firepower, and above average maneuverability, with solid shields and hull. There are absolutely ships that are better in certain categories, but the X-wing makes the B Honor Roll because it is solid in so many categories.

So, on one side I don't think the XG-1 should have as much evade as the X-wing...but it should have more than the shuttle. And there's the rub, 1.5 evade doesn't work.

I'd dial the maneuverability as represented on the dial down a little bit too, take that 4K and make it a 2K

There is also plenty of talk about how tough the shields are. This makes me think 4 hull and 4 shield or 3 hull and 5 shield. The problem is this makes it a B-wing with no barrel roll but 1 extra evade. No, the base attack of 2 vs 3 doesn't offset the evade of 1 v 2.

Aside from revamping the B-wing to have 4 Primary Attack, I say give it 4 shield 4 hull and 1 evade, because I think both the Y-wing and the B-wing are better dogfighters than the shuttle, but they too have 1 evade. I guess the Shuttle probably has 0.7 evade which rounds up to 1 and and XG-1 has1.3 evade which rounds down to 1.