The current damage deck is just fine.

I have considered the damage deck and the issue that it has not kept up with the ever expanding game. A new damage deck may not be the best since some people may not take to purchasing them. My thought on is to errata the deck so that they new effects that can take advantage of newer cards.

The difference is that debris are an optional substitution. For the same level of change to apply, any update to the damage deck would have to be optional.

This is not impossible, but it adds a whole new dimension to the game. Do you build your own damage deck? Pick any 33 cards you want? Sure I'll replace all the direct hit with munitions failure.

Another option would be to add an extra ten cards, so you can run a 33 card deck or a 43 card deck. But why would you add cards that you know could hurt you? There would have to be something to offset that, some bonus. Is having a slightly lower chance of drawing double damage worth the risk of losing a crew?

In my view, if there were multiple damage decks, there would be no "deck building".

You would simply have to come to the tournament with either Deck A (original core set) or Deck B (new deck) in total. In other words, the complete deck from A or B.

I think if done correctly, FFG could create a new deck which fairly balances with the original deck, and where the deck you bring could be one of a strategic choice.

In fact, I for one would love to see it be just another part of your list that you have to supply in advance, and cannot change for the duration of the tournament ... nor should anyone else be privy to the deck you are bringing before they have submitted their own list.

But technically having Deck A or B would be deck building in its own way, just not as flexible. Even obstacles which is now a part of squadron building (such as making a panic attack squadron with 3 large debris clouds) there is now a great deal in what you can say with the type of obstacle you pick for turn 0, what keeps it even is that both players can pick tokens and both players have a say in what is played by selecting which 3 tokens to include and ignoring the rest.

With options for damage deck it would be simple, just use the deck that will hurt your squadron list the less. To put in to practice lets say that damage deck B has 2 destroyed astromech cards. So if Imperial I would always choose damage deck B because that is a critical damage that won't affect me and if it means less of a chance of pulling direct hit then I would take it. If I was S&V or rebel that would depend if I am using any astromech (or salvaged astromech) upgrades. 4 B-wings would not worry about that and unless I am flying Scum-wings then S&V would not be concerned.

Damage decks much like dice, range rulers, and manuever templates must remain as a "universal asset", in other words all

X-wing players have the same and if the players were to exchange damage decks or share templates it should not have any effect on the game.

There are new damage decks though for the epic ships. However more to reinforce the point that damage decks need to remain the same across the board is that the damage cards are factored in the performance of the epic ships. In a way the epic ships have a weak side so to speak. For the corvette in the rear damage deck there is a critical damage card "Collapsed bulkhead", I'm not going to get into details but it is essentially 3 damage to the ship making the rear section the weak section of the CR-90. For the rebel transport all the direct hits are in the forward damage deck making the front the weak side of the transport. However the rebel transport also has an upgrade that allows the player to draw damage cards from either damage section of the ship. With that upgrade all transport players choose the rear section because it doesn't have any direct hits. The same will go with having a damage deck a or b or having optional damage cards to add.

If you have different types of damage decks you are going to have to lock it to a faction so there is NO such deck building the damage deck what so ever, still that could run into trouble with balance issues as if the factions don't have enough. These are the only ways I can see new damage cards being added.

• 2nd edition core set, but simply new damage cards are not enough, you would need to reprint the rules to include all the updates, possibly include different models such as a Tie Interceptor or bomber along with 2 Z-95 headhunters or 2 Y-wings so you can have all 3 factions included. AS for those who already have the first edition core set you will need to issue update kits which has rules and all the missing components such as the new damage cards in order to make their current collection compatible with the new ones.
• New damage cards that exist come with ships. However the cards must have some restrictions as include with ship/faction and there must be a requirement to have those new cards if you include ship/faction. However it would be difficult to regulate and damage deck manipulation has already been caught before. Also if it is faction specific how would it tie to those players that did not buy the expansion packs that those ships came with.

You cannot let players have options with the damage deck. The damage deck is more like fate deciding what will happen then someone with power gaming knowledge and the latest statistical data to manipulate the outcome. Players should have NO control what so ever that comes out of the damage deck other than a few upgrades and abilities that allow them to flip or discard a couple of hits. however with those abilities you can count the point cost will be substantial. There is no point cost to spend on damage decks just as there is no point cost to spend on obstacle tokens.

But what if someone really dislikes their opponent using C3PO and wants a critical damage to make him ineffective the rest of the game? Shouldn't they get what they want? Shouldn't FFG read these posts and make important game design decisions based on them?

But what if someone really dislikes their opponent using C3PO and wants a critical damage to make him ineffective the rest of the game? Shouldn't they get what they want? Shouldn't FFG read these posts and make important game design decisions based on them?

Then it goes down to who decides what is in the damage deck. No one chooses the card unless you are Leebo or Marek Steele. Now yes the game has expanded and there were no crew upgrades or modification upgrades when the core set was made. Also there astromech could only be used by rebels and salvaged astromech never been though of yet.

Sure there is plenty of different critical damage conditions that can be thought of such as destroying the Astromech upgrade or loosing a modification or lost of sensor or illicit upgrade ect. However other things have to be considered. How many more direct hit cards must be added to keep them relevant. More cards = less chance of a direct hit flipping up. Also the pilot to ship damage card ratio has to be figured out as well.

Then there is the issue about making sure EVERY damage deck has these new cards. Sure a 2nd edition Core Set might be on its way however the problems brought up with adding damage cards will likely ensure that no new damage cards until then.

just had a thought,

what if each ship came with its own damage cards? 1 card for each hull point plus 50%.

this way the damage effects are tailored to the ship and any possible upgrades it could have,

yeah, yeah, that's a huge change, wont happen, im an idiot. what ever. I am just saying this as a "would this have been a better route for them to have gone?"

for clarity and to protect myself, I by no means want them to do this at this point, it is to late in the game for it to happen, just asking if you think it would have been a better way for them to go with it.

more clarification: you would build your damage deck with all the damage cards from all of your ships. so you could still draw criticals that would have no effect on a specific ship just like munitions failure.

I am all for any damage card that would blow up R2-D2 either version of him

While I do not think FFG would, or even should, change the damage deck if they do it probably should be a completely new, as in the cards can not be mixed not the effects must be different, deck. It should probably come out in some kind of Starter 2.0 and probably given out as prizes before it could become tournament legal.

Of all the things I would like to see "new" for X-Wing, Damage cards just isn't on the list.

just had a thought,

what if each ship came with its own damage cards? 1 card for each hull point plus 50%.

this way the damage effects are tailored to the ship and any possible upgrades it could have,

yeah, yeah, that's a huge change, wont happen, im an idiot. what ever. I am just saying this as a "would this have been a better route for them to have gone?"

for clarity and to protect myself, I by no means want them to do this at this point, it is to late in the game for it to happen, just asking if you think it would have been a better way for them to go with it.

more clarification: you would build your damage deck with all the damage cards from all of your ships. so you could still draw criticals that would have no effect on a specific ship just like munitions failure.

Then you will have to make including the damage cards mandatory and TO will have to go through each damage decks and ship list to make sure that none of the damage cards are excluded.

It would be easier to bind a damage deck list to a faction instead of which ships were in the list, and much easier just to make it same for all players no matter what is in their list. We probably won't see new damage cards until they do a new core set. Also if they make a new core set with new dice and damage cards then they will have to include an update kit that has these new components. There is also the issue about if pilot and upgrade cards are reprinted which ones are legitimate and which ones are phased out.