GenCon is scant few days away. And Fantasy Flight might be releasing a 3rd faction in Indianapolis. But if they don’t, who’s interested in helping us make our own 3rd faction?

Over the last few months, we’ve been brainstorming on what a 3rd faction would look like. I’ve been reading the forums. I’ve looked at online suggestions.

Based on all this, we’ve put together some rules. But it’s not just different ships and stats. We’ve put together a whole new set of mechanics along with different upgrade cards and more.

A few nights we tested it out for the first time.

I was really surprised how well the new mechanics worked. It was thematic. It gave you all kinds of new options. It played differently than Rebel or Imperial. But it was still X-Wing. And most importantly, it was a blast, even though the 3rd faction lost both times.

But before moving forward, we want to see what happens at GenCon.

If there isn’t a new faction, we want to start putting more time into this thing. Our goal is to have a proper 3rd Faction that would feel balanced against tournament lists, while still giving the casual gamer a fun excursion.

To that extent, we need MathWingers. A ship movement architect. And beta testers who have access to a large group of X-Wing players.

We also need a good site for collaboration. Maybe it can be Google Drive. Or if anyone has any suggestions.

So shoot me a PM, if you’re interested.

You want a third faction to have different movement than the other two?

Great idea! I would like to see some Bounty hunters flying around!

PMed!

what makes you think a third faction will be coming to this game?

Let's see what happens at gen-con this week...

So, summarize some of the rules you guys developed?

what makes you think a third faction will be coming to this game?

Fantasy Flight Games

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Half Life 3 & 3 X-Wing Factions Confirmed

I made the bounty hunters a while ago, but I still need to update these cards and maneuver dials with some changes I've made since the first post. Would any of these fit this homebrew faction?

http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/110860-ig-88-bossk-dengar-zuckuss-custom-ships/

Otherwise, count me in for helping out with designing a third faction.

I made the bounty hunters a while ago, but I still need to update these cards and maneuver dials with some changes I've made since the first post. Would any of these fit this homebrew faction?

http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/110860-ig-88-bossk-dengar-zuckuss-custom-ships/

Otherwise, count me in for helping out with designing a third faction.

Pirates and bounty hunters make the most sense, but the most iconic guy for the faction, "Boba Fett" is already in imperial lists, though rarely. On the other hand that might allow for a retooling of Fett for his third faction self. Maybe this Boba Fett gets to do disintegrations. Something like when Boba Fett causes an uncancelled critical it bypasses shields?

A pirate/bounty hunter faction operates at the edge of society and a such is going to need a different kind of tactical plan of attack rather than a militaristic approach. Skills for bounty hunters and pirates are going to be about getting in and immobilizing their prey and quickly getting what they want and getting out. Their ships should be fast and their weapons and skills should be tactical and tricky. Things like bypassing shielding or preventing enemy ships from using abilities. Since they are not working within the law of either faction they need to be more about dirty tricks and fast escapes. Not a military force, but more like a mercenary band with high skill level like ex-special forces. Ships and pilots should reflect the highly specialized abilities the trades they are adapted from.

z0m4d: So the need for a Ship Movement Architect would be to make sure whatever we put together will be fair and the point values will be correct. We would use the existing movement types.

Radarman5: Those are sweet looking cards. We haven’t decided anything about the exact ships. Right now we’re using proxies. The OEM bounty hunters. But staying true to the rest of the X-Wing ships, we don’t want to have any multi-faction ships. We would want a multi-role fighter, heavy fighter, interceptor, infantry (swarm) and tank.

Ryther: I think we’re thinking the same thing. That the 3rd faction would rely on different types of tactics. I like all your ideas. Our mechanics are along the similar lines. The ships are also highly customizable.

This all said, this whole conversation may be a moot point.

This card is the biggest smoking gun of an impending Official third faction:

There's also the mention of the Black Sun on the Z95 ship card too. I'd agree there's good, but still circumstantial, evidence of a potential third faction.

I'd like it if there were. Shake things up a bit more instead of always "Us" versus "Them" scenarios.

I think there should be more than just 3 factions. However the BOUNTY HUNTER slash MERC faction doesn't feel unique in a good way, it just fels like a group of leftovers from mulitple diffrent meals thrown into one pot.

What I think we should get that is unique is Black Sun or the Zann Consort. I made a list of fighters they use, the appear to be ones that most here are not familar with, and at the same time lots of them look epic in design, good enough to be in the movies. Much better than the cloak fighter or head hunter.

I think Ion weapons and Tracker Beams would be featured heavily with a pirate/bounty hunter faction. Maybe some kind of Ion mine or bomb, to lay traps with. A way to steal Cargo upgrades from huge ships could be interesting too.

They need to use synergy, but in a different way than the rebel pilots work. It might be good to try to define what rebel synergy is, to see what it isn't, and use that as the basis for the fringe faction. It's easier said than done however. There's a lot of action sharing and granting, but then you have pilots like Jan Ors that don't really fit that model.

How about a pseudo-Biggs non-unique pirate crew that only works for 1 incoming attack. You could put it on a couple of your tougher ships to run interference for a glass cannon wingman.

Maybe a pilot like Howlrunner that grants an all or nothing reroll like Han's.

Slicer crew would make sense. Maybe a Slicer slot on certain ships, that used a slicer gear upgrade, that way you could have different types of slicer effects.

The M-3A Scyk was one of the ships we were considering for the lightweight fighter/infantry/swarm role.

How about a pseudo-Biggs non-unique pirate crew that only works for 1 incoming attack. You could put it on a couple of your tougher ships to run interference for a glass cannon wingman.

How do you word it so that it works if you have 2 or more of them in range.

How about a pseudo-Biggs non-unique pirate crew that only works for 1 incoming attack. You could put it on a couple of your tougher ships to run interference for a glass cannon wingman.

How do you word it so that it works if you have 2 or more of them in range.

Word it as a "may"?

How about a pseudo-Biggs non-unique pirate crew that only works for 1 incoming attack. You could put it on a couple of your tougher ships to run interference for a glass cannon wingman.

How do you word it so that it works if you have 2 or more of them in range.

At the start of the Combat phase, you may choose 1 friendly ship at range 1. Once per round, that ship cannot be targeted by an attack if the attacker could target you instead.

The M-3A Scyk was one of the ships we were considering for the lightweight fighter/infantry/swarm role.

I read on wookieepedia that the Scyk had a versatile weapons mount, and that groups of them would be outfited to serve different roles. I think it would be interesting if it was somewhere between a TIE and an X-Wing, with no secondary weapon slots, but instead could equip one of 3 title cards, each of which would give it either a cannon, missile, or torpedo slot.

How about this for an EPT, it's a reverse Han Solo.

Evasive Maneuvers (4pts)

When defending, you may reroll all of your agility dice. If you choose to so, you must reroll as many of your dice as possible.

It might be too powerful, but it could always be dialed back a bit, maybe make it once per turn or by adding a stress or ion token.

The M-3A Scyk was one of the ships we were considering for the lightweight fighter/infantry/swarm role.

I read on wookieepedia that the Scyk had a versatile weapons mount, and that groups of them would be outfited to serve different roles. I think it would be interesting if it was somewhere between a TIE and an X-Wing, with no secondary weapon slots, but instead could equip one of 3 title cards, each of which would give it either a cannon, missile, or torpedo slot.

To make it different from what is out there it should probably have all 3 slots, but make it not so tough.

2 attack

1 shield

2 hull

2 defense

Dial like a tie advanced. Good but not great.

Target lock focus evade actions.

12 points ps 1

The way I see it it is cheap enough that the cannon slot can't immediately be a HLC since this thing will drop fast to many ships. 3 HP and 2 agility has a decent shot at being 1 shotted. Ion cannon or missiles/torpedoes can be cheap on them though. Not sure what the named guys would do. Maybe something like, if the enemy ship would receive a token due to a secondary weapon it receive double the normal amount instead?

I suggested using the title to grant the slot because the wookiepedia entry made it sound like they had a single weapon mount that could take a variety of weapon types, not that it had numerous weapon mounts. But I havent read any EU stories of played any games with it so I don't really know the ship that well. I just think the title granting slots makes for a unique ship concept, something the other factions don't already have.

I like the option of allowing more different weapons on a fragile ship. It is a risk reward system. The more points you add the greater the risk. Cheaper upgrades are more expendable. Expensive upgrades or multiple upgrades on one fragile ship is dangerous, but potentially effective. The ship itself costing little helps, but you could have 6 of them with ion cannons and a couple with homing missiles or something like that for 100 points. I like the idea of risk taking specialists for this faction. This would be flavorful and unique. I might even argue pretty effective.

All great ideas.

But let's see what happens on Thursday.

There might be an official 3rd faction.