All range mode!

By KCDodger, in X-Wing

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So I'm going to go ahead and assume I'm not the only STARFOX fan out here? I'm going to assume further, that because it involves space and a few fairly star wars inspired things, that you guys at least know of Star Fox and what it entails regarding its ships and crack pilots?

Well, I got thinking about Starfox in XWMG. Specifically the Arwing (Not that I'm averse to The Wolfen being in it!) and I was wondering, well... What would the stats be like?

First off, we're going to check out how agile the Arwing is. Thing can turn tight as hell, a little tighter than an X-Wing. I'd actually give it two 1 turns, but due to the fact that, to achieve this in Starfox, you must brake AND pull off knife-flight, that any 1-turn 90 degrees would give you stress. Also because you do have an energy bar in game for this type of thing. Given the crazy stuff Arwings can do however, we're going to give it 3 agility. Why? It's just so damned agile a fighter. It's insane, the stuff an Arwing can pull. As for its turns, it's good to get a Red 1 90 degree, 2 white 90 degree and bank, 3 green bank, and as far as straights go, only up 4. Why? Well...

Use the boost to get through!

The Arwing straight up has a boost. But oddly enough, it has no barrel roll. Why? There's a very good reason for that. What you do in Starfox isn't really a barrel roll. What it is, is some kind of very strange roll that deflects incoming fire... So, how does one execute this? A fairly expensive EPT that is both a Barrel Roll -and- an evade. choosing this makes your Arwing very hard to damage- however, it also makes it expensive as a ship. With its qualities already, it's probably going to end up E-Wing expensive. Which is accurate considering less than ten arwings exist in the Starfox universe. It should also have a target lock, alongside a cannon slot. No systems slot or astromech. But the slots are as such.

EPT, Cannon, Torpedo.

As for abilities.

Boost, Target lock.

Now, as far as the torpedo goes, well that should be pretty obvious. Everyone knows about the big sluggish bombs you hurl out of your high performance fighter. That's why the Arwing should also come with a card that is somewhat like a flechette torped, a little more expensive, but with a blast radius of two and a damage of three. Why? Bombs are rare, used usually on massive groups and large targets. But most players never use them, or very rarely do. I feel a card representing the bomb should reflect that.

As for the cannon, well your Arwing has a base attack of 2 . Simply put, the Arwing's basic, one-laser-cannon is pretty piddly. However I do not feel that with the qualities above, it should be a basic 1 firepower. There are cannons that do 3 and 4 damage alike, so no special cards are necessarily required.

As for your hull, flown wrong the Arwing does not last long under fire. I'd expect it to have a hull of 3 , but it is stated to have shields, so I'd add at least 1 or 2 on there. I can't say for sure.

I also can't say for sure how much it should cost. But I can tell you how high each pilot's PS is and what their abilities would be. We're going to go from worst to best. Curiously however, there are no generic pilots. There were Arwing test pilots, so they're our PS2 generic. There weren't many of them though.

And of course we're starting with Slippy.

Slippy . PS4. Why? Because slippy f*cking sucks. But he's got a neat ability. After suffering damage or critical damage, you may repair up to one hull point for the duration of the game.

Why? Well he's the mechanic. While he has absolutely no EPTs and is generally just awful, he can keep his bird flying fairly long. In theory. In practice he just falls absolutely flat. But who knows. The ability might come in handy.

Krystal . PS5.

Wait, no Peppy? That's right. Post Starfox 64, Peppy relegated himself to running the Great Fox. He'd had his run back with James and defeating Andross with Fox and the new starfox team.

Post events on "Dinosaur Planet" and the rescue of Krystal by Fox (Miyamoto I still don't understand you, even if SFA was fun.), she became part of the crew. She's not an amazing pilot, but she can get the job done. What she brings to the team however (Aside from blue foxbutt for Fox to stare at all day long, anyway.) is the abilities of an empath of the psychic variety. I never really understood it but she can do some kind of psychic thing. She could read the thought patterns of aparoids and sense distress signals. Handy stuff for pilots! So, how does this come into play? Well it's no EPT, because it's something she does naturally.

Once every round, if you are behind and facing an enemy, you may select a single unit in front of you. This unit rolls one less attack dice in the attack phase of this round.

This makes Krystal a deadly target, and more than makes up for her slightly below average Pilot Skill. honestly that's something I'd field often as hell. Why choose this? Calming stuff I guess. Makes sense.

Falco . PS8

Well. that was a jump. Why's that though? Well, Falco is really, really f*cking good at what he does. He's extremely brash and fairly arrogant, often being kind of a **** to Fox. Any idiot can tell they're pretty bro-sey though. But how does one reflect both his high skill and brash attitude?

Once every turn, if you do not have a stress token, you may choose to reroll one attack dice or place an evade token .

So he can stress himself- push himself and get a little extra out of it both offensively and defensively. He's the second best pilot in the Starfox team and thus one of the best in the damned galaxy. Might even make someone like Wedge sweat a little bit. So, who's next? There's only one option now.

Fox. PS9.

Now, why is Fox PS9- the rarest PS in the whole game?

Come on. He's Fox motherf*cking McCloud. He's defeated Andross about three or four times, isn't too bad with a blaster (and apparently staff, like miyamoto what were-) and so on. He's a general badass. The high pilot skill is deadly as hell, but how does one make him feel right in the seat of an Arwing?

When more than one unit is in your firing arc, if your shot destroys one foe, it may detonate in a blast radius of 1, damaging any foes in range 1 of its previous position.

Out of all the characters in the Starfox team, Fox is the only one to use a charge shot. This should be reflected. Speedrunners, pointplayers, all these do unlocked, charged shots for more points AND more kills. They're the best of the best, and by extension, so is fox.

As for point cost? Man I have no idea. Between E-Wings and X-wings, I think. That's up to you guys.

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I hope you guys enjoyed this as much as I did. I didn't put massive thought into it, but I felt that the Arwing would be perfect for XWMG. If you liked this, I might do a Wolfen write-up. What do you guys think?

Edited by Captain Lackwit

A few comments, and revisions to bring the pilot abilities more into line with the languaged used by the game...

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2/3/3/1, focus/tl/boost looks a lot like an A-wing. The dial you're describing would help differentiate it, as would having the cannon and torpedo slots, but it's not strictly more powerful except for its upgrade bar, and it's missing the evade action. So I'd start at a cost of 15 for a theoretical PS1 (with an eye toward bumping the cost up by 1-2 points depending on playtesting and what the new cannons coming with the Scykdo ).

So I'd price Slippy at 19-20 (it's actually a really powerful ability), and I'd translate his ability to something like "After you are dealt damage by an attack, you may remove one face-down damage card."

I'd price Krystal at 21-22 (+1 PS with respect to Slippy, and an even better ability). Her ability isn't going to fit very well on a pilot card, so it might have to be simplified: "When a friendly ship at Range 1-2 is defending, you may spend a focus token to cancel one [hit] result."

Falco's ability is a bit calmer, but it would also have to be revised to actually fit on a card. I'd put him at 23 points, with this ability: "When attacking or defending, if you are not stressed, you may reroll 1 die. Then receive 1 stress token."

Fox is about 24 points, and I'd revise his ability as follows: "When your attack destroys an enemy ship, each enemy ship at Range 1 of the target suffers 1 damage."

I think you should just give the Arwing a normal barrel roll action. At least as an homage to the ship that gave rise to an undying Internet meme.

I think you should just give the Arwing a normal barrel roll action. At least as an homage to the ship that gave rise to an undying Internet meme.

I considered that, but really it doesn't actually barrel roll. It just kinda' spins.

That said it can be used to get to the side of the screen very quickly. Honestly I'd have to playtest it.

A few comments, and revisions to bring the pilot abilities more into line with the languaged used by the game...

***

2/3/3/1, focus/tl/boost looks a lot like an A-wing. The dial you're describing would help differentiate it, as would having the cannon and torpedo slots, but it's not strictly more powerful except for its upgrade bar, and it's missing the evade action. So I'd start at a cost of 15 for a theoretical PS1 (with an eye toward bumping the cost up by 1-2 points depending on playtesting and what the new cannons coming with the Scykdo ).

So I'd price Slippy at 19-20 (it's actually a really powerful ability), and I'd translate his ability to something like "After you are dealt damage by an attack, you may remove one face-down damage card."

I'd price Krystal at 21-22 (+1 PS with respect to Slippy, and an even better ability). Her ability isn't going to fit very well on a pilot card, so it might have to be simplified: "When a friendly ship at Range 1-2 is defending, you may spend a focus token to cancel one [hit] result."

Falco's ability is a bit calmer, but it would also have to be revised to actually fit on a card. I'd put him at 23 points, with this ability: "When attacking or defending, if you are not stressed, you may reroll 1 die. Then receive 1 stress token."

Fox is about 24 points, and I'd revise his ability as follows: "When your attack destroys an enemy ship, each enemy ship at Range 1 of the target suffers 1 damage."

Slippy: Seems alright.

Krystal: That's the thing, never trust green dice. The ability is made to hamper red dice. It'd make a TIE fighter effectively useless, and something like say, an X-Wing, less effective. Anything under 3 attack would be threatened by Krystal.

Honestly I could see by merit of that, Krystal being run more than friggin' Falco.

Falco: I imagined with the evade thing of his, slapping a token down rather than rerolling, but a reroll for the die works too I suppose.

Fox: That is better worded. Though I say "choose" due to the fact that the charge shot is indeed a radius thing. In XWMG mechanics it COULD damage a friendly, maybe. So that's the danger behind it. So if somebody was aware it was Fox and on purposely stayed within range one of an enemy and ally, it'd effectively block Fox from firing at him. Both could work really. But the ability to choose that would feel very Starfoxy- though your idea might be better for counterplay and balance.

We did this a while ago.

http://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/107139-do-a-barrel-roll

Not that I am going to complain about a Star Fox thread mind you.

Poop. I didn't even see this. Well... Well.... Mine has a snazzy header image!