I have to say that in miniature games I tend to love aesthetically pleasing lists or lists that fit into the fluff of the setting. That said, I think that X-wing could benefit from Squadron Benefits Cards.

For example, it is very rare to see lists made up entirely of one ship type (other than tie or z swarm) because with so few ships you need to specialize. You don't see 4 A-wings very often for instance.

I think that FFG should encourage some of the fluffy squadrons (as well as using more elite ships with non-character pilots) by giving them benefits if they are the only ships.

I don't know what those benefits might be, but I think that flying 1 Character and 3 non-character A-wings or 1 Char X-wing and 3 non-char xwings would be cool.

Thoughts?

I don't know how it would play out in the competitive scene (if it's too good of a bonus, tournament lists will get super bland; if it's not good enough, no one will use it) but it would definitely be a fun thing for casual players.

Competitively? Maybe not but pre-made missions/scenarios with pre-built squads. Awesome!

I know that some may not like this approach. But to that I might suggest that you don't have to stick with any squad. Use your own based on the point totals.

But FFG could build competition around pre-built missions. Also if friends come over, rather than take time to build our own squads we pick a mission, pull the ships and bang we have a (hopefully) balanced game. Finally a mission/campaign book would encourage so fans but but a variety of ships rather than only a 12 TIE swarm.

My 2 cents

I have full faith in FFGs ability to balance it. PP has been able to balance their theme lists. You just have to limit the types of ships so that the benefits match the negatives of having to take certain ships.

Sounds something like the Team Abilities and Keywords that Wizkids uses for Heroclix.

As such, I say no.