I could definitely see, and would absolutely be happy with, an X-wing/Y-wing Aces pack. The X-wing doesn't really need much else, but they could probably squeeze in enough to make it valid, and new paint schemes are always cool.

(The Y-wing is my favorite Rebel fighter by a large margin )

TIE Advanced and Y-wing Aces. Fix two ships at once (not that the Y-wing's overly broke, just needs some more love)

It's possible that they could get a crew slot. There was a two man variant of the Y in the fluff. What EPT are you talking about that increases the primary attack? Opportunist? That one is situational. I don't know. I really like the Y and have been working to find a way to include it competitively.

...

Wave 3 saw the release of the Blaster turret. Which, to be fair, is kind of terrible and has never seen use out of the play testing laboratories. But still! It's an option.

...

With all due respect, sir, I must disagree. The Blaster Turret, in the hands of a capable pilot is a very useful, and destructive, weapon. The same goes for the also-maligned Advanced Proton Torpedo.

In short, do not blame the weapon system for your (that is to say, not yours personally, but anyone who maligns) inability to pilot the ship effectively.

It's possible that they could get a crew slot. There was a two man variant of the Y in the fluff. What EPT are you talking about that increases the primary attack? Opportunist? That one is situational. I don't know. I really like the Y and have been working to find a way to include it competitively.

Fluff wise the extra crew was to operate the ion turret. The gunner could maintain the 360 arc while the pilot flew. I don't think the Y needs a crew slot, but if it got one it should cost the turret slot.

The only "love" I'd like to see the Y get is in the named pilot area, but a desire for variety doesn't mean the current options are lackluster. Dutch is great. Horton has an ability that is kept in check by cost.

If ya look at my signature you'll notice there's one rebel ship missing

Sorry man but I will never enjoy ioning and blocking my opponents (and I don't think they will either). Ill take my interceptors and phantoms thank you very much

Funny you should say that, because I think increasing use of Y-wings is going to be part of the metagame reaction to the Phantom: the turret removes a lot of their advantages, and although ions aren't any more likely to hit than any other 3-Attack shot, the impact of an ion hit against a Phantom is enormous.

EDIT: Oh, and the Y-wing's reliance on hit points over Agility minimizes, insofar as that's possible, the advantage of the Phantom's enormous offense: you can lose an A-wing or even an X-wing in a single unlucky pass, but the lowly, ponderous Y-wing is going to get a chance to shoot back.

I think loading a Flechette AND an advanced torp on a Y would be a solid way to deal some heavy damage to a larger or higher hulled ship very quickly. Launch the Fletch...

Off-topic, but this is a personal pet peeve: "flechette" is pronounced "flesh-ET", not "FLETCH-it".

I agree about "fletch-it", but http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/flechette?s=t has it as "fley shet" meaning that I've been pronouncing it wrong for a long time by pronouncing it the first way you describe.

BUT it's one of those (mis)pronunciations that I can't really argue with. The ones that bug me are the ones where someone pronounces syllables or letters that aren't even there, or pronounces them in the wrong order:

Human (yoo man)

Mischievous (mis chee vee us)

Nuclear (nuke ya ler)

THOSE are the ones that fry me.

I LOVE Y-wings. I always have.

I was so bummed that it took Kenner until the Return of the Jedi line to put one out.

I have a bunch from the Micro Machines Action Fleet line.

And I'm playing the four I have for this game. That means I probably won't win?

Ah, ****. You know how important winning is to me when I play a game based on the toys I played with as a kid.

It's possible that they could get a crew slot. There was a two man variant of the Y in the fluff. What EPT are you talking about that increases the primary attack? Opportunist? That one is situational. I don't know. I really like the Y and have been working to find a way to include it competitively.

Fluff wise the extra crew was to operate the ion turret. The gunner could maintain the 360 arc while the pilot flew. I don't think the Y needs a crew slot, but if it got one it should cost the turret slot.

The only "love" I'd like to see the Y get is in the named pilot area, but a desire for variety doesn't mean the current options are lackluster. Dutch is great. Horton has an ability that is kept in check by cost.

I disagree on costing the turret slot--I'd sacrifice ordinance slots (all of them, even) for a crew slot.

I agree though that the Y isn't "bad", it just lacks flavor, since there is only 1 named pilot that is worth the points, and none have EPT. Because of this, you only see Golds and Dutch w/ Ion.

I personally really enjoy using Y-Wings, even if they do have some issues and a slight learning curve to them. Ion turrets and flechette torpedoes can make your opponent rip their own hair out, and as stated above, adding on Munitions Failsafe is a pretty easy 1 point addition. Both Dutch and Horton are already great, and Gold Squadron Pilots are already cheap to deploy. I love them to bits.

To restate, the fundamental issue with the Y-wing, is that its jousting value is very low, but conversely turrets (Ion turret in particular) are very powerful. This will be even more true in wave 4 against Phantoms. So the ONLY competitive options for the Y-wing are:

1. Put a turret on it (Ion is the only viable one at the moment)
2. Use it to get a 5 ship Rebel Swarm (MUST use HWK, A-wing, or Y-wing)
3. Run Dutch naked because his action economy buff is so good

#1 prevents a general Y-wing buff (like a points reduction) from being balanced: everyone would still just keep taking Ion Turret Y-wings, but they would simply be cheaper / better.

#2 is going to be completely obsolete come wave 4. The BXXYY build will become BXXZZZ. The latter is flat-out better in every possible way that I can think of. 12 point Z-95s and 15 point A-wings will completely replace the Y-wing as a filler ship in any conceivable list.

#3 is so-so at best; you're usually worth putting an Ion Cannon Turret on him anyway. It did show up once in a Regionals Final Cut.

So the real question is, do you ever want to see Y-wings without turrets in competitive play?

• If no, then do nothing, or apply a global buff to Y-wings.
• If yes, then you need to add an optional upgrade/title/etc at the expense of removing the turret.

My suggestion would be a Y-wing only turret:

Turret Weapon (Y-wing only)

Cost: -2 (see below comment)

Gain the Bomb slot and 1 Crew slot

Comment: the Y-wing would have a jousting efficiency of around the same as a TIE Fighter if it was 2 points cheaper, i.e. 16 points at PS2. Playtesting would be required to see if the cost should be -1 instead of -2. -2 should be OK, but -1 would be the conservative change, and would essentially force you to actually use the crew and bomb slot somehow to make it worth taking.

They can't get rid of the turret slot. A 2 attack ship will always be a 2 attack ship, and you'd be taking away the biggest advantage it has.

Sure you can get rid of the turret slot! You just need to provide something else in return. The fact that the ship has 2 attack is irrelevant. TIE Fighters have 2 attack and they are brutally efficient even without Howlrunner. That the Y-wing is overcosted for its combat capabilities is the only thing that matters. Most people are prejudiced against 2 attack ships because with the exception of the TIE Fighter (and the TIE bomber, which is overshadowed by its cheaper little brother), they ALL have very poor jousting efficiency. That will change in wave 4 and Rebel Aces.

Missiles are unfortunately overcosted across the board, just look at the Regionals Results. A-wings are also overcosted by 2 points relative to a TIE Fighter. This will be fixed in Rebel Aces, so expect to see more of them. Agreed that Crew + Astromech would be a really interesting and fun combo.

Adding lots of EPTs on A-wings is gaining a lot of interest on the forums, but I don't think you'll see significant use of it successfully competitively. 4+ points is a lot to spend on upgrades for a ship that has a PS1 cost of 15.

Fluff-wise, yeah, completely getting rid of the turret might be blasphemous, which means that for balance purposes we're essentially stuck with never seeing Y-wings without turrets. But ironically, that in and of itself is probably not well aligned with canon either (no pun intended). So chose your poison on how to deviate from what is considered historically "normal". Realize that it's ultimately impossible to capture all the nuances of a ship's detail in simplified game mechanics. Personally I would rather see balance tweaked for the sake of the game. It doesn't break the theme of the Y-wing at all.

FWIW - two Y-Wings (sans turrets) just helped to take second at the 77 player FFG Event Center's Regional Championship yesterday (BXXYY).

See point #2 above: it'll be replaced by BXXZZZ, or even BAAZZZZ This was likely the last hurrah that you will ever see for the naked Y-wing competitively, ever, unless it has some kind of a balance change. It's use without the Ion Cannon Turret is entering retirement.

...

Wave 3 saw the release of the Blaster turret. Which, to be fair, is kind of terrible and has never seen use out of the play testing laboratories. But still! It's an option.

...

With all due respect, sir, I must disagree. The Blaster Turret, in the hands of a capable pilot is a very useful, and destructive, weapon. The same goes for the also-maligned Advanced Proton Torpedo.

In short, do not blame the weapon system for your (that is to say, not yours personally, but anyone who maligns) inability to pilot the ship effectively.

The expected damage output of the blaster turret is generally a small bit lower than the Ion Cannon Turret, assuming you can't double focus. I just tweaked my scripts to double check my math, and got an aggregate average number across the entire meta game and action economy.

Pilot skill is irrelevant to how the dice are rolled and modified. The added effect of the Ion Token, and the Ion's Cannon Turret's more consistent damage make it easily worth 1 more point than the blaster turret. The blaster turret really should have been 3 points, or had a soft focus or soft reroll built in to boost its damage output and justify its cost.

It's possible that they could get a crew slot. There was a two man variant of the Y in the fluff. What EPT are you talking about that increases the primary attack? Opportunist? That one is situational. I don't know. I really like the Y and have been working to find a way to include it competitively.

There is a one man variant with the turret locked forward, the 2 man crew was the standard. If squeezing in an extra seat is an upgrade to the B-wing and gives it a crew slot, i see no reason why the Y-wing cant have one (other than the fact that it came out probably before crew slots were invented!)

I could definitely see them getting a bomb upgrade...in fact, since they are kind of the bombers of the Rebel fleet, it would, you know, make sense!

Crew upgrade? ****...that would make me want to play rebels...

but then again, if they could have crew upgrade, their point value would really start to climb.

I'd be satisfied with bomb upgrade over crew

I like to refer to this as Horton's Hawks.

It hits surprisingly hard and your opponent will under estimate it until it lays down the hurt.

35 points

Horton Salm

Proton Torpedoes, Advanced Proton Torpedoes

33 points

Jan Ors

Determination, Blaster Turret, Recon Specialist

32 points

Kyle Katarn

Veteran Instincts, Blaster Turret, Recon Specialist, Moldy Crow

Count with my heart to the Y-wing, with the relase of the Blaster Turret and R2-D6, it gets a huge boost and get a very capable ship, of course the best pilot is Horton, but I like the others too, greettings.

Love the Y-Wing.

Fluff wise, I agree with the crew slot as a Mod or a Title. Not so much with the Bomb slot. Just my opinion.

For those with the argument "Oh, but it's a bomber! It MUST have bombs.", I've seen many people post that the original ideas for the SW space combat came from WW2 dogfights and naval battles... Torpedo bombers anyone?

Torpedo bombers could also carry bombs.

In any case, I LOVE the Y-wing!! Even without a turret, it is a very capable fighter if you know how to fly it, and my Interceptor-loving friends HATE its Ion Cannon Turret. It has plenty of hit points to soak up damage, and it can dish out plenty of punishment over a long period of time with the turret. In fact, I've ionized a few ships right off the map that way.

One of my favorite squads is:

Biggs+R2-F2+SD
GSP+ICT

GSP+ICT
GSP+ICT

100 points

Even if I've lost initiative, even if my pilots all shoot at PS2 except the X-wing, and even if this only brings 10/13 attack dice to the table, it's still a really fun squad to fly. If you can keep all the boys in tight formation, which is child's play with these ships, you've got three turrets just sitting there and doing plenty to give TIE Fighters and Interceptors untold headaches. Often the enemy will underestimate them because they believe the Y-wings are pigs, so they won't think anything about approaching close and getting in range of the turrets. If they do remember the beating they took, they'll stay at range and blast away, but because Biggs has both R2-F2 and SD and stays in the center of the squad they are forced to take range-3 shots against a pilot with five defense dice. I've rolled poorly before with them, but seldom do I roll so bad I lose Biggs in one turn. Even if I do, I usually still manage to hit at least one TIE with the Y-wings in the end.

Fighters did/do too... Should X Wings carry bombs too?

I'm thinking simple roles for simple people (like me). Besides I never really got the point of bombs in space too much. In ESB, how did the they even fall towards the asteroids? Were they launched rather than dropped? I'm sure someone will come up with a valid defense...

The difference between them was bombs didn't carry their own means of propulsion. They would use the momentum imparted on them by the combined force of the ship's engines and the ejection system to carry them toward their target. This way, more space inside the warhead could be given to explosives.

For the non-fluff explanation: World War 2 in space.

I suppose I think that the y-wing is fine because of ion turrets. It's a shame that the thing only really works with a turret, but with the turret it works very well . It's just the counter you want for guys like Soontir Fel or the phantom, as it can survive the initial hit and then seriously mess them up. I ran one in the squad l won a local Imdaar Alpha tournament with and it kept on plugging away with its turret for game after game, without ever dying.

I think the main thing is that Horton should have an EPT. As someone said earlier, he cries out for marksmanship. You can now give it to him with a droid if you like, but he does wind up being a hilariously expensive ship at that point. I guess you could try running Dutch and Horton together, so Horton could let off focussed proton torpedoes, but can you really be bothered?

Proton torpedoes do improve the jousting issue tons. I've experimented with sticking one on a y-wing, so that it made an impact on the initial pass, and the results were sort of ok. In the end I took it off again and just lived with the fact that it's not going to do much in that turn when you're at range 3.

I'm not at all impressed by the idea of a z-95 swarm so I'm not convinced that they will replace y-wings. I can see a fairly strong case for Blount, but that's about it really. z-95s will lose horrendously to tie swarms unless they load up on assault missiles, and even then they will struggle to finish off ties, while constantly taking hits themselves. Not to say that they are useless but I don't think they are strong enough to base a list around in the same way tie fighters are.

I've come up with a few extra named Y-Wing pilots for a campaign I'm planning:

Ekelark Yong: PS 5, Once per turn, when you receive at least 2 damage you also receive a focus token. 22pts. (Note: that droid who lets you spend a focus token for a shield point is Ekelark's droid)

Karie Neth: PS7, At the start of the end phase, if you have made an attack with a secondary weapon this turn and do not have any stress tokens you may receive 1 stress to make an additional attack at a different target with your primary weapon at range 2-3. 25pts.

Leia Organa: PS7, When you perform a green manoeuvre gain an evade token. 24pts.

Don't know if I've made these too powerful. Karie's ability is tempered by the fact that it's a bonus 2 dice attack only, and gives her a stress. Ekelark's makes him the ultimate tanky Y-Wing, but an still be whittled down slowly and requires the investment in a droid too. I wanted Leia's ability to be more about flying cautiously. I realise that a simple 1 point R2 astro makes her obscene. I'm thinking about either dropping the Astromech upgrade or making it specifically a green forward manoeuvre so the astromech doesn't affect it as much.

I've also got an upgrade that basically swaps the turret for a passenger (on the basic premise that the standard Y-Wing has the passenger seat, but that it's taken up by someone managing the turret gun). I'm hoping to see Leia with C3PO like in Splinter of the Mind's Eye

Cheerio,

Ben

The y-Wing overall is a fine ship. The biggest problem it has is that it's a generalist that doesn't focus on one role. If I'd want a turret I'd take roark garnet over a gold squad any day (higher ps, cool ability and the possibility to take a recon spec for the blaster turret). As filler it's going to be outclassed by refit A's and Z's. The named pilots aren't that good, are pretty expensive and dont get a EPT. You could make a case for them as torpedo boats, but ordinance in general is overpriced. The only unique thing it has got going for it is the astromech slot, shame that r3 stress droid is front arc only.

How about we get a title card that makes it quite customizable, such as something like this:

Your upgrade bar loses the Turret Icon, but gains a Cannon Icon, a Crew Icon, and a Bomb Icon. You may only equip two of these upgrades at the same time.

Gives them some options, but makes them make some choices.

Or accept as the time line moves on the old y wing is just obsolete. Still use mine though.

As an ICT platform, I'll take a ywing over a hawk anytime. The hawk is a better support ship but not nearly as tough as the Y. And crew is offset by astromechs.

Y-Wing > HWK for Ions, until you load up on Tacticians.

HWK > Y-Wing for Blaster Turrets, as the Y-Wing can't take a Recon Specialist.

If ya look at my signature you'll notice there's one rebel ship missing

Sorry man but I will never enjoy ioning and blocking my opponents (and I don't think they will either). Ill take my interceptors and phantoms thank you very much

I actually just bought a Y Wing today lol