A-wings suffer from the same issue as interceptors: high prevalence of turretbricks. That just got majorly shaken up by Autothrusters.

Not really. The issue A-Wings have is their god awful 2 attack dice. Without something like Howlrunner to support them, they will just never be viable in tournament lists.

Finding a way to slap back-stabber's ability (+1 red dice if not in target's firing arc) onto the non-prototypes would do it for me

This is pretty much the fix I wanted to see for A-Wings. Refit was appreciated, but I don't think it did enough or made much thematic sense.

Backwards firing A-wings is a silly mental image. At least the Firespray is a multi-crewed large ship.

It's canonical, though.

And it makes more sense than Refit, which turned the A-Wing into the second cheapest Rebel ship, despite it being an expensive and finicky technological marvel in the background material.

And these ships have targeting computers, it's not like the pilot is twisting around and trying to aim manually. For that reason I would prefer the hypothetical swivel upgrade to require a target lock rather than a focus token to use.

It would also fill a niche that doesn't really seem to have any other viable contenders; a small ship with forward and rear arcs.

Backwards firing A-wings is a silly mental image. At least the Firespray is a multi-crewed large ship.

When it costs two points and has a special rule that let's you win automatically?

Two points for a card that makes you win instantly?

Overcosted POS.

Hey now, that's not an insane concept. In fact, starfighters in general will -need- to be able to shoot a large area around themselves to be viable.

Another point is that to make a "perfectly balanced game" one must make everything identical, which is not good, unless you all want the interceptor and the a-wing to be identical ships, (which would suck) there is always going to be balance issues, which why the game of xwing is fun, because you have to develop and practice with a squad to make it competitive, not just grab 3-4 random ships and automatically have a "Perfectly balanced game" no matter what.

This is why I thought it'd be cool if the A-Wing and TIE Interceptor had many similarities, but one had the forward firepower, while the other had front and rear firepower. It'd make them interesting rivals.

Apart from the fact that it's a laughable image on a ship that small with one pilot. There's a reason there are no other ships with guns on the back without gunners.

It's canonical, though.

1: Legends. 2: Are there any actual storis with A-wing swivel or is it just a crazy sourcebook thing?

And it makes more sense than Refit, which turned the A-Wing into the second cheapest Rebel ship, despite it being an expensive and finicky technological marvel in the background material.

Refit is a cost adjustment. It makes infinitely more sense than backswivel guns, mainly because it's an almost entirely mechanical cost adjustment. You don't price ships out of playability as some sort of meta-joke. If you're in the "the TIE advanced should be overcosted out of playability because it was a rare and expensive ship in canon" camp then I'd recommend ending this conversation here.

Not really. The issue A-Wings have is their god awful 2 attack dice. Without something like Howlrunner to support them, they will just never be viable in tournament lists.

Howlrunner doesn't upgun TIE fighters. They still have two dice.

And if it's free modification effects you need, Predator does that. With A-wings, you can give them Predator and still have an EPT slot left over.

There are multiple references to A-wings having swivel lasers. In the Rogue Squadron books especially. In Wraith Squadron there is a climactic battle scene that features an A-wing flown by Crespin (who'd make a great named pilot) who pursues fleeing squints while rotating his ship. He uses the swivel lasers to keep the squints in his cross-hairs while moving.

Also, a rear firing arc is mentioned as well, the idea being that it makes pursuing them particularly tricky since they can stream fire behind them in precisely the area an ideal pursuing shot must be taken from. It may not be the most accurate but, like suppressing fire, that's not the point. It makes your enemy face a difficult choice and/or risk damage to pursue you.

Frankly I think it would be cool if A-wings had a rear firing arc similar to the pursuit laser modification.

For example:

Rear Firing Arc Modification (3pts)

Range 1-2*

[Focus] "When firing upon an enemy within your rear firing arc, roll 1 attack die."

[You may only equip this card if you have a PS of 5 or higher.]

-By making it 1 attack it allows for the primary weapon range bonus of +1 attack, making range 1 attacks really 2. It makes sense that these shots would be the most dangerous to pursuers since they'd have less time to react even though it was indiscriminate.

-Range 2 attacks remain 1 die. No range 3 or farther. This reflects the difficulty of firing backward and is in keeping with the low attack power. This is also in keeping with the idea of suppression fire. It's not meant for accuracy but can still land a blow, making trailing fighters take notice -- especially fragile TIEs.

-Making it require a focus to use reflects the situational awareness the pilot needs to rotate and fire behind him/herself. It doesn't have to be spent though since the pilot can also just be spraying fire backward as a deterrent, not an actual attempt at a true shot.

-This would also help buff the A-wings lack of barrel role since now the boost action can be used to align lower PS ships up behind it for a rearward shot. This risks setting up trailers for a shot but many times will also grant a difficult deflection shot at a passing ships that thought they were safe.

-The PS5+ limit reflects that only skilled pilots could even think about taking these shots or have such equipped ships. Whichever logic you prefer.

-Outmaneuver and Predator, already staples for A-wings, would make these attacks interesting as well. Outmaneuver attacks on ships passing behind without their own shot get to add an attack die to the A-wing, reflecting the surprise nature of the shot coming seemingly out of nowhere. Predator similarly adds some protection to lower PS ships you choose to expose yourself to since it grants an extra reroll, making the most of the limited 2 attack A-wings have and making the rearward shot somewhat respectable.

-This would also add a great dimension to the A-wing's green straights and speed, allowing it to zoom through engagements while taking pot shots at those it leaves in its wake. This would be a new spin on "flanking" and force ships to choose between taking into account the pesky A-wing and the more powerful ships its clearing trail for.

-Finally the 3 point cost makes it a choice requiring commitment. It loses you Authothrusters, takes Experimental Interface off the table, and adds 3 points to a ship generally trying to keep it's cost down. With Refit it only adds a point but forces you to lose Prockets. So you can't load an A-wing out for bear with all of this, keeping it balanced.

... **** I just talked myself into really liking this idea.

Not really. The issue A-Wings have is their god awful 2 attack dice. Without something like Howlrunner to support them, they will just never be viable in tournament lists.

Howlrunner doesn't upgun TIE fighters. They still have two dice.

And if it's free modification effects you need, Predator does that. With A-wings, you can give them Predator and still have an EPT slot left over.

Sure but you also pay for those upgrades which reduces the number of ships you can field in a given list which further weakens your list by reducing the total number of dice you roll.

An A-Wing swarm can currently max out at 6 ships using Prototypes. A TIE swarm maxes out at 8. With Howlrunner you can have 7. To recreate her ability on A-Wings by using Predator you have to upgrade to Green Squadrons for the EPT slot so you then max out at 5 ships. Of course this topic arose on the heels of the Autothruster announcement and if you want to add that mod your list drops to a max of 4 A-Wings.

It's really an apples to oranges argument. TIE swarms can mitigate the weakness of their 2 dice attacks while maintaining their numbers, A-Wings cannot. That's why a variety of TIE swarms will probably always maintain some level of competitiveness at high levels of play and A-Wings rarely put in an appearance at those tables.

On the A-wing rear arc, if it's that well established in canon then why didn't FFG put it on in the first place? It certainly sounds more established than the kinda curveball Firesprays shooting backwards.

I find it hard to believe that FFG didn't test it on the A-wing, just like I find it hard to believe they didn't test a rear gun on the Lambda. In fact, I'd wager the reason the Firespray has a rear arc is because they liked the mechanic but it didn't work out in testing on the A-wing.

If there's a serious canon precedent for a rear arc on any ship, FFG likely tried it out, and decided against it.

It would be incredibly difficult to measure "Directly Behind" without a previously printed firing arc.

It's actually incredibly easy if you cheat a little bit. Simply pick up the ship's cardboard chit on the plastic base and turn it around to face backwards. You don't even have to take the ship off the base.

This is exactly what we've done for home games for both awings and tie advanced:

Rear arc: 2pts

when you complete a maneuver you may rotate your base.

Sweet, simple, and keeps it under powered. Less fiddly since you do it when you're already moving the mini.

And...

Firesprays guns rotate around... seen in multiple visual sources. Not sure about books.

Some people are just never happy. The A-wing has gotten a quite frankly awesome fix and yet 'it's not competitive enough'. When is it good enough I ask? When it costs two points and has a special rule that let's you win automatically? Seriously, people get off your high meta horses and smell the air. It's far sweeter than the doom and gloom you preach.

Worlds results:

Right now I have only entered the Top 32 squads for statistical analysis. More to follow....

Overall Ship Usage

A-wing 0.00% 0.00% N/A

Some people are just never happy. The A-wing has gotten a quite frankly awesome fix and yet 'it's not competitive enough'. When is it good enough I ask? When it costs two points and has a special rule that let's you win automatically? Seriously, people get off your high meta horses and smell the air. It's far sweeter than the doom and gloom you preach.

Worlds results:

Right now I have only entered the Top 32 squads for statistical analysis. More to follow....

Overall Ship Usage

A-wing 0.00% 0.00% N/A

If the ship can't manage even a single appearance past the cut, it's not good enough.

And while this is Worlds, it's the Top 32 cut - which for the two flights means about 240 players (less, honestly, since there were about 40 repeats on Day 2, but fine)... So that's about 1 in 8, or the top 12% or so. That's a relatively sizable chunk.

First of all you are kinda proving my point here. The people playing at Worlds are 'effing good at what they do, and they are most likely very sensitive to anything perceived as sub-par, even if only by extremely small margins. 99.9 % of the rest us don't come even close to that level of play.

Secondly using statistics from this year's Worlds is hardly fair, now is it? Rebel aces had been out for what, a month before the tournament? That's not nearly enough time for any of the top players to start using them again.

First of all you are kinda proving my point here. The people playing at Worlds are 'effing good at what they do, and they are most likely very sensitive to anything perceived as sub-par, even if only by extremely small margins. 99.9 % of the rest us don't come even close to that level of play.

Secondly using statistics from this year's Worlds is hardly fair, now is it? Rebel aces had been out for what, a month before the tournament? That's not nearly enough time for any of the top players to start using them again.

So I'm proving your point with suspect data? How does that work, exactly? Pick a side, dude - the data is either valid enough to prove that everyone at Worlds are hypercompetitive savants living on a different plan from you and me, or it's invalid because it's too soon after release. You don't get both.

You're piling a whole garbage truck of assumptions on your excuses for the data. Plenty of players - including very good ones - took unconventional builds. Take a look at the Proximity Mine list for a good example. Yet not a single A-wing managed to clear the qualifying flights.

The argument that Rebel Aces hadn't been out long enough doesn't hold water, either. I'd buy it for the new pilots like Farlander and Jake. I might even accept it for something like Proton Rockets. But A-wings are not new, players (especially those super-players) know how they play, and Chardaan does nothing but let you fit other stuff into your list. Han and 3 Talas was a very standard build - 2 A-wings would have fit in there nicely, but we saw it not at all.

You don't have to be Paul Heaver to know that 2 attack dice is a serious liability in this game, which is compensated for by quantity and, to a lesser extent, offensive efficiency boosters. If you choose not to admit it, that's fine, but don't lump that 99.9% of players in with you.

And if you disagree, that's fine - nobody's rounding up your A-wings. But your invented 99.9%s aside, the vast majority of players in my area are indeed good enough to know the difference between what A-wings can do compared to other ships. If your area doesn't, that's on you, but declaring everyone in the world as incompetent just because you don't like the reality is insulting.

I all I ever tried to say in this thread is that people are too damned focused on the cutting edge meta play, i.e. Worlds, and that most of us never come close to that and hence a perceived weakness (which I will still claim is bollocks) with the A-wing is a non-issue. Apparently you've taken quite the offense at that.

Fine. Be that guy then, I will try to maintain a civilised argument anyway.

I will maintain that Rebel Aces had not been out for long enough. Worlds players probably train/play for the entire year with their lists, they are not likely to suddenly drop everything for something new and untested. I also find it hilarious that 2 attack is suddenly completely worthless to so many players. At worlds yes, you are probably not going to far with only 2 attack on your ships without some kind of boost, but again, most players aren't close to that level of play. It doesn't matter.

99.9 % is obviously hyperbole, a clear exaggeration.

Edit: I'll say this, when the next Worlds come around and if there are still no A-wings in sight, I will concede that they at the very least have no place in high level tournament play.

I all I ever tried to say in this thread is that people are too damned focused on the cutting edge meta play, i.e. Worlds, and that most of us never come close to that and hence a perceived weakness (which I will still claim is bollocks) with the A-wing is a non-issue. Apparently you've taken quite the offense at that.

The A-wing's weaknesses are glaring well below cutting edge meta play.

Fine. Be that guy then, I will try to maintain a civilised argument anyway.

There was nothing civilized about your original comments. "None of you are good enough for the A-wing's badness to matter" is not a civilized comment.

I will maintain that Rebel Aces had not been out for long enough. Worlds players probably train/play for the entire year with their lists, they are not likely to suddenly drop everything for something new and untested.

You can maintain this. Or you could, you know, look at the actual data from some of those players, and see that they have indeed made changes to lists - often major ones - since GenCon, when Rebel Aces hit. You might also pay attention to the fact that many of those top players are very active on Vassal, where new stuff is available long before it's actually officially released. You're making blind assertions - doing so without basing it on any data is bad enough, doing so in contradiction of data... <shrug>

I also find it hilarious that 2 attack is suddenly completely worthless to so many players. At worlds yes, you are probably not going to far with only 2 attack on your ships without some kind of boost, but again, most players aren't close to that level of play. It doesn't matter.

There is nothing "sudden" about 2 attack ships being weak. It's been the problem with the TIE Advanced since day one, and the problem with the A-wing the entire time. There is absolutely nothing new about this.

And I will say again - yes, most players are at a level of play where this matters, because anyone who's played the game above a level of "Whoever makes better TIE Engine noises wins!" knows it. Maybe you're not, and your entire area isn't - that's really fine, and I'm happy that you're happy with your A-wings. But your sense of the overall capability level of the X-wing community is downright insulting.

I all I ever tried to say in this thread is that people are too damned focused on the cutting edge meta play, i.e. Worlds, and that most of us never come close to that and hence a perceived weakness (which I will still claim is bollocks) with the A-wing is a non-issue. Apparently you've taken quite the offense at that.

Fine. Be that guy then, I will try to maintain a civilised argument anyway.

I will maintain that Rebel Aces had not been out for long enough. Worlds players probably train/play for the entire year with their lists, they are not likely to suddenly drop everything for something new and untested. I also find it hilarious that 2 attack is suddenly completely worthless to so many players. At worlds yes, you are probably not going to far with only 2 attack on your ships without some kind of boost, but again, most players aren't close to that level of play. It doesn't matter.

99.9 % is obviously hyperbole, a clear exaggeration.

Edit: I'll say this, when the next Worlds come around and if there are still no A-wings in sight, I will concede that they at the very least have no place in high level tournament play.

The notion that players practice "for a year" with their list is exaggeration, too, right? I mean, last year at the time of World's only Wave 3 was out. So, if players needed a year to practice, we wouldn't have seen much beyond that (maybe Imperial Aces?) C3PO didn't make an appearance until regionals in June, and Wave 4 was summer, but plenty of those ships made an appearance.

Also, don't you think that if the ships had only been "out for a month" they'd have caught some people by surprise as well?

Quite the opposite, I'd argue that elite players at Worlds probably have been playing with rebel aces for much longer than it's been out. I mean, I'd think they'd want to gain any advantage possible with new ships and be prepared to play against them. They've been spoiled for quite some time. In fact, in the most recent Vassal tourney, people were playing a lot of Wave 5 ships in partial preparation for World's.

Bottom line is that if there was an advantage to be gained by playing the A-wing, they'd have found it and it would have been revealed because people did play it -- they just didn't make the cut because the A-Wing just isn't good enough. Rebel Aces included access to B-Wing crew upgrade, which made it into at least two top 32 lists and that's a pretty significant nuanced change to playing the B-wing, so I don't think the one month argument holds water.

The bottom line is that an expensive two attack dice ship shrinks your list. It's unlikely to be able to do decent damage to a cloaked phantom or a fat falcon. So, by just including one of them 25% of your list is impotent against the two most common centerpiece ships in the game. The base A-Wing is cheaper, but it's not much better than the Z-95 to make up for the point difference there.

FFS buhallin what is wrong with you? I give up, I concede. Better to just pull out and put you on an ignore list before this escalates to something the admins decides is inappropriate.

FFS buhallin what is wrong with you? I give up, I concede. Better to just pull out and put you on an ignore list before this escalates to something the admins decides is inappropriate.

Maybe you should take a deep breath. I'm pretty comfortable that nothing I've said here will draw admin involvement, so as near as I can tell the only one at risk of escalating anything is you.

You think the A-wing is perfectly competitive at anything below the absolute top level. I (and several others) disagree. You claim nobody short of Paul Heaver is good enough to notice the difference - I don't just disagree, I can provide actual counterexamples. You've invented reasons to explain the lack of A-wings placing well at Worlds, I (and now AlexW) pointed out the flaws in your reasoning. You made several statements that are simply and provably false.

And in response to that you rant about ignore lists and admin involvement.

Outside of GWPTSD I'm not sure why you're hyperventilating over the idea that not every ship in X-wing may be perfectly balanced... but if anyone in the conversation needs to calm down, it's you.

Some people are just never happy. The A-wing has gotten a quite frankly awesome fix and yet 'it's not competitive enough'. When is it good enough I ask? When it costs two points and has a special rule that let's you win automatically? Seriously, people get off your high meta horses and smell the air. It's far sweeter than the doom and gloom you preach.

I just let 'em go now-a-daze.

If I want to run ten glorious Black TIE's say, with Pred and a shield, I will, and all with no Howling Meow Sexy because she is making eggs and bacon for Vader.

210 points for ten of 'em... just say'n.

If I want to run ten glorious Black TIE's...

Nobody is saying you can't run whatever you want. Truly. If Macross had said "I love A-wings and I'll run A-wings forever and ever!" nobody would have batted an eyelash.

But that's not what he said. What he said is that the ship is perfectly effective at anything but the absolutely most competitive levels. More, he said that anyone who thought it was a weak ship were too dumb to make that evaluation based on our own experience, but were just outsourcing our views to the tournament results. He capped it off with a lot of poorly-reasoned justifications that were all easily disproven, then got all frothy when they were disproven.

Fly what you want - but don't pretend that your fondness for flying a ship is equivalent to its actual effectiveness.

Black Death

210 points

4

2

3

3

1

Predator (3)

If I want to run ten glorious Black TIE's...

Nobody is saying you can't run whatever you want. Truly. If Macross had said "I love A-wings and I'll run A-wings forever and ever!" nobody would have batted an eyelash.

But that's not what he said. What he said is that the ship is perfectly effective at anything but the absolutely most competitive levels. More, he said that anyone who thought it was a weak ship were too dumb to make that evaluation based on our own experience, but were just outsourcing our views to the tournament results. He capped it off with a lot of poorly-reasoned justifications that were all easily disproven, then got all frothy when they were disproven.

Fly what you want - but don't pretend that your fondness for flying a ship is equivalent to its actual effectiveness.

I did not read the whole fight, because it is not what I do.

Now let's have some fun with these toys!

I start a thread about a potentially fun modification and SH*T GETS CRAZY.