Yep, I absolutely realise that. However, the standard load was missiles, and most people keep bringing up things like “to represent it’s missile load” and “heavy reliance on misisles”.

Sure, it could have other warheads, but we are looking for a single statline for fighters…..they don’t do variants for the other ships. Hell, even A-Wings could carry torpedoes, bombs or rockets, but the NORMAL load was missiles.

So there is no insistence, but would you suggest that the single statline does NOT represent the standard loadout? Because that would seem odd, just like if FFG had stated up X-Wings as being armed with space bombs.

...can I say?

Ninjas everywhere tonight??? :ph34r:

Ninjas indeed!

Personally i'm not a fan of overcomplicating the fighters with variants. As you can probably gather from my other posts here, i dislike adding new special rules or variant things to the core system. Go nuts if you like, but i'll just be looking at the baseline fighter to stay in line with FFGs approach

Now I am wondering what Grit and Intel keywords do revealed in the wave II news cast. Maybe those would help us better classify the fighter.

Grit appears to allow you to move away from engaged squadrons. Might not be exactly right but it definitely lets you do something while engaged.

I'm incredibly confused by why they bring in all these other weird ships but completely ignore the Gunboat in every FFG game. It would have filled a really good slot in X-wing too. Has it even appeared in any card art or in the RPG? It's like total damnatio memoriae, yet they bring in all sorts of weird things from terrible games like Rebel Assault 2!

Yeah, it's in one of the RPG's. I have the book, but cant recall which one.

I think in X-Wings case it's a problem of play style and faction identity. The XG-1 is, lets be honest.....a Rebel fighter in all but actual usage. It was built to beat Rebel fighters, designed the same way, with the same capabilities and for the same kinds of missions. My guess is that FFG struggled to find a niche for it in the available "design space" that didn't infringe, overlap or obsolete other stuff that already existed. From a business and game design POV, these are all Bad Things.

I'm not saying i AGREE with this, as i personally like the ship a lot, but it's my gut feel. Hopefully Armada should be different...theres a lot more space to differentiate squadrons as they have actual roles now, rather than "different shades of dogfighter".

Yeah, there seems like an overlap danger, though they've been so creative with everything else. I even think like something to just add in ions would have worked well for x-wing, like some sort of ionization proc like with an uncanceled crit against the hull giving an ion token, or an ion-cannon discount, might have worked. I got to meet Alex Davey briefly a while ago and he said he was surprised at the number of people who wanted a gunboat, so I want to hope something's in the works, though not seeing it here makes me wonder.

No worries I suppose. It can be left in the fans hands to propel forward. I will start work on a card and base topper. I will have plenty of unusable extra tie bases I can paste them over.

Ok, so here is the first go at a custom ship card. Started with the Gunboat. Enjoy.

Ok, so here is the first go at a custom ship card. Started with the Gunboat. Enjoy.

What the flip, how'd you make this? I've been jonesing for Strange Eons to make an Armada set of templates. Tell me howwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!?

Still debating dropping the Escort rule. This will allow them to compliment the Tie Advanced/Avenger better.

Man if Green was the colour of envy, I'm probably bordering at the darkest shade of green/black!

Wes, they look AWESOME!

Did you paint them yourself? How long did it take?

Also, what have your findings been on the Gunboat's performance during your play-testing?

SHARE everything!!!

I painted them up yesterday Alpha, thank you. Play testing again today without escort rule. The Tie Avenger/Advanced is the compliment fighter anyway, so it will have escort.

Still debating dropping the Escort rule. This will allow them to compliment the Tie Advanced/Avenger better.

I think dropping escort would be better.

From my experience in the PC space flight sim X-wing series. I really felt the Assault gunboat was a lighter armored version of the Y-wing, with a primary Concussion Missile load out for stand off attacks against star fighters. I had no problems staying in it's 6 when flying a X-wing, and could often divert power from my engines to cannons and still stay on it's tail. they were not really meant for Anti-ship abilities.. that is what the TIE bombers were for. The biggest thing about this ship was it was one of the first Imperial fighters with Ions, Shields, missles AND a hyperdrive. A true multi-role craft with long range abilities.

and it recently reappeared in the RPG book "Fly casual"

But everyone I think has their own opinion and i doubt i could convince anyone

The Xg-1 was able to compare favorably against similarly heavy Alliance craft such as the Y-wing and the B-wing. However, against the more common X-wing and especially the nimble A-wing which it was often forced to engage, the Xg-1 had a hard time.

...

As a stopgap, Imperial flight officers decided that hyperspace raids should be conducted in two groups, with a squadron of missile-equipped Star Wings being pressed into the space superiority/escort role, and another group tasked with delivery of the warheads to their target (usually proton torpedoes, heavy rockets, or heavy space bombs). An example of this was the assault on the Rebel Mon Calamari Light Cruiser Lulsla, in which the Imperials succeeded.

I thought Escort would be necessary because Star Wings were escorting bomber DX-9s on the Lulsla, but you could represent this just as well by leaning on the pinning game mechanic? I always felt they were more like rebel X-Wings than Y-Wings, but I also recall being able to catch them pretty well..

On the other hand wookiepedia talks about successful partnerships with the Avengers, which probably should take Escort, since this freed up the gunboats to do what I guess is their primary function: Bombing and capture runs.

I have tried to be objective from a game stand point. After several more play test games we swapped the Anti-ship dice to a black, and the black squadron dice to red. This was to bring it in-line with the A-wing and other missile armed fighters. I also built the Avnger card to compliment.

Updated with dials.

Updated with dials for those who wanted them. Anyone playtested these yet? On another note I have been playing with their description as forward recon. How about allowing them to deploy up to distance 5 from a ship during the set-up phase? Would that be practical and or worth the points to pay for it?

Wes Janson, my friend!

Thank you for all your hard work.

At least we'll get to playtest the Gunboat in one form or another now.

No worries, it is fun working on these projects.

Mike, both the Interceptor and X-wing have 4 blue dice just for the sake of continued defense. Currently all the 2 laser fighters have 3 dice while the 4 lasers have 4. Using the A-wing as a further example with 3 blue dice, it is also missile armed but they chose to give it counter to reflect the ability. I think we have to continue to look at the balance vs the want. A red dice in place of blue would up the cost of this fighter to 13 pts. Making it as expensive as the X-wing, with 1 less hit point, and no bomber ability. Currently it is faster and just as well armed as the X-wing while being cheaper. Plus it has a black dice for anti-ship.

Had all the X-wing and Tie Fighter games growing up too

Mike, both the Interceptor and X-wing have 4 blue dice just for the sake of continued defense. Currently all the 2 laser fighters have 3 dice while the 4 lasers have 4. Using the A-wing as a further example with 3 blue dice, it is also missile armed but they chose to give it counter to reflect the ability. I think we have to continue to look at the balance vs the want. A red dice in place of blue would up the cost of this fighter to 13 pts. Making it as expensive as the X-wing, with 1 less hit point, and no bomber ability. Currently it is faster and just as well armed as the X-wing while being cheaper. Plus it has a black dice for anti-ship.

Had all the X-wing and Tie Fighter games growing up too

The problem is that all this depends on what stats you are using I guess. I'm comparing to the stats from the -Wing and Tie Fighter games. 2 Lasers = 3 Dice and 4 Lasers = 4 Dice. The Tie Avenger has 4 lasers so that is a given, or should be. The Avenger is also a souped up Tie Advanced. The speed is greater than either. They Tie Avengers also have shields but little hull.

Speed 5

Hull 4 (More than Ties or Tie Interceptors but same as A-Wing but less than X-Wing)

Squadron Dice = 4 Blue

Anti-Ship Dice = 1 Black

Escort

Counter 2

More speed than the others....check

Proper dice for Anti-Squadron...check

Anti-Ship Dice.....carries concussion missiles....black....check

Escort....You can't ignore it since it's fast and deadly....check

Counter 2.....It's made specifically with Squadron Combat in mind....check

That's my 2 cents on it.

Or remove escort and give it Grit where it cannot be held in place by being "Engaged"

I am open to all ideas, but try them on the table in games and see how often they sway to the winning or losing side. Your setup would run 15-16 pts/squadron. Play it at that level, and see how it goes, let me know the average outcome vs the core X-wings.

The stats i am using are from what I know vs what Armada has done with the fighters. We have already seen with the previews that many of the starfighters are not the speeds they should be in relation to each other. At first I found this a little annoying, but I do see from playing the game that it has established an order to things. So from that point of view the advanced being speed 4 is faster then the X-wing, and slower then the A-wing, which fits what we know. I was aiming to save speed 5 for the Defender. To add to that, why not make the defender the fighter that has counter? Essentially I am afraid that if I make the tie advanced super good, the Tie Defender has no room in the pile, or requires even more rules to stand out.

I was thinking of Grit for the Phantom, to reflect its stealthy combat style.

Just aiming to give you a heads up where I am going vs where I am currently.