alternate title: if you could start over from scratch, what would you change about X-Wing?

This isn't intended to be a complaint thread, just more theorizing and game crafting goodness. Here are a few things I would consider doing differently if I were rebuilding x-wing from the ground up. Some of these I've posted in other places, some of these I'm posting for the first time.

Munitions

All missiles and torpedoes would work just like they do now, except that they would have the rule that "if an attack made with a missile or torpedo hits its target, cancel all the defender's dice." Simple, effective, and fluffy. If someone is shooting a missile/torpedo at you then you really want to make sure it doesn't hit you.

Turrets

Turreted ships would no longer be able to fire outside their firing arc. Instead, they would have a special separate firing arc piece that sits on top of their base and can rotate around the center peg. Each turn, after you execute a maneuver with a turreted ship, you can freely rotate that ships firing arc. It then stays fixed until it's next maneuver.

It still lets turrets do what they're supposed to do, but allows for some strategy and guessing and arc dodging in all the right places.

Dice

I actually like the dice from some of the other FFG Star Wars games, notably Imperial Assault, where you have some symbols that do damage and others that increase the likelihood that you hit. I think it would add some nice dynamics and customization possibilities that our current dice system lacks.

Attacking/Defending

Right now the attacker rolls and modifies all his dice, then the defender rolls and modifies his dice. I would actually like to see that reversed. Make the defender decide which attacks he is going to concentrate his efforts (tokens) on to dodge, then let the attackers do their best to hit him.

K-turns and S-loops

Nix them completely. That's right, if it was up to me no ship would have any K-turns, except maybe the Defender. That would add a lot of importance to maneuverability and hard 1 turns and boost/barrel roll actions, and would give it much more of a dogfighting feel. It would have the downside of making the game take longer though, as you would be spending a lot more time turning and trying to get your targets in your line of sight.

Obviously, with all of these proposals, everything would need to be playtested and costs of ships would need to be adjusted to maintain balance.

What changes would you make to the game if it was up to you?

Nah, game's fine.

Munitions, I agree

Turrets, That's what the BTL-A4 SHOULD be doing. Turrets are fine the way they are as long as there is stuff like AT to counter them

Dice, could care less

A/D, I really don't care what order

K/Sloop, nope they are an integral part of the game and fit perfectly

Nah, game's fine.

Oh I'm not arguing that with you. I love the game as it is. Like I said, this is just for fun theorizing and game crafting.

I like your munitions idea.

Turret idea needs work. It would make high PS turrets work the same, and low PS turrets very hard to use. So creates a PS bid to deal with turrets witch is not a great thing.

Dice: The current dice mechanic is one of the strongest elements of the game. Simple. To make a fun game you don't need an overly complex system.

Reversing the attack/defend timing would nerf the green dice even more. Not sure what perceived benefit you see there.

Getting rid of K-turns is interesting. Would make high agility ships way more valuable. Would need to be play tested, but it seems the game would de-volve into a series of "passes". Joust, take 2 turns to get around, and then joust again. I might be wrong on that. Also no K-turns would make turrets so much stronger.

Taking out K-turns would make it **** near impossible to get shots on anyone once they are on your tail. This would be especially problematic in late game/one v. one scenarios.

I like your munitions idea though. Its a neat way to make them more appealing without totally overhauling them.

As far as turrets go, I would just make it a rule that you can't modify attack dice when shooting outside of your firing arc. Then have some special upgrades to get around that (gunners, computer targeting systems and such). That way turrets have an incentive to maneuver offensively but you could still make them really good by paying a larger points premium.

I would be hesitant to add complexity to the dice. One of the appealing things about this game is the simplicity of basic game play. It's already gotten more complex with different upgrades and beginning or end of phase timing.

Munitions could be a little umphie, but the game is fine.

I agree with keeping the game simple. I play a lot of games where the outcome is decided by a rule, only to find out later that we got the rule wrong. Makes the whole game feel unsatisfying. I remember playing warhammer with my buddy, and almost every game we got something major wrong. One of the main reasons I like x-wing. When I loose, I know it was because I got out played.

Only thing in the game that actively bugs me is large ship movement. Large ships should be significantly slower than starfighters. Every time an engine upgrade decimator arc-dodges an A-wing there is a disturbance in the balance of the force.

I think most would agree that munitons were not done well. Letting players use the target lock to modify the dice might have gone a long way to make them more useful.

I think you may be confused with your title. The Core set does not have turrets or S-loops. Those were in expansion waves.

However I do think you brought up a point in how the core set is obviously insufficient in the direction that the game has taken.

Your example were with munitions which in the early days of Wave 1 were alright. Proton torpedoes were able to take out Tie Fighters whole sale greatly knocking down the swarm and concussion missiles were okay in getting enough hits to knock out Rebel shields if paired with focus which was no problem for a Vader and giving him squad leader passed on actions to others. However as more waves came out better ships and secondary weapons came out which completely outclassed the torpedo and missile weapons.

Now on for the suggestions, I could see some things are good. The whole cancel all hits and deal damage sounds like the Ion mechanic which works good and cannot be canceled by Xizor or Draw their fire. I could see a secondary weapon that says if this hits deal 1 face up damage card and cancel all results or suffer 3 damage results and cancel all results.

Turrets it would be a little difficult to keep popping bases out and move them. Also how will this work with turret upgrades like Y-wing. They have a fixed laser cannons. I think the turrets fit with the theme. Defense dice are already the weaker dice in terms of probability. They are more likely to fail and less likely to succeed than attack dice. As for the K-turns and S-loops they should stay. The stress management is a big thing about the balance of maneuver selection. Unless you are a defender you can't perform this flips if you are already stressed. Also unless you are Tycho you lose your action because of the difficulty of the maneuver.

Some nice ideas, i really like the turret idea, also perhaps turrets are more effective when they actually have crew.

A turreted ship *without* a gunner had reduced fire dice perhaps.

But yeah the games fine but i like the idea of thinking of alternative routes that could have been eplored.

i totally get your intent with the OP.

Its an interesting discussion point and much more interesting then *actualy* moaning about one ship or item being a game breaker... you know just to talk hypotheiss

Right now the attacker rolls and modifies all his dice, then the defender rolls and modifies his dice.

Fairly sure the attacker rolls, the defender rolls, the attacker modifies and the defender modifies.

I would add a rule. After performing an action, Take a free action from your action bar, then add a stress. Essentially this gives everyone Push the Limit as standard. The reason currently (or at least in the the start of the game) is there are few ways that stress actually got generated. Really it was pretty much K-turns. Adding in PtL to everyone (at the cost of stress) makes it so that everyone has access to some form of action economy as standard and opens up the design space for actions and for EPTs. As an aside it also makes the greens moves on a ship way more important.

I do like the idea the ordnance idea of cancelling defenders defence dice, but then it devolves into a game of lots of one shot kills. Not sure how I feel about that. An alternative with a new core set is just to have separate dice that are used when firing ordnance that have a higher numbers of crits, maybe less blanks, or focus, just to push the odds in the ordnances favour.

...and since it is in the core set, I would give the X-wing the Evade action (this bridges the gap a little between the X and E-wings and increases the X-wings survival, or at least its ability to survive). It would actually work pretty well with the above PtL change.

Right now the attacker rolls and modifies all his dice, then the defender rolls and modifies his dice.

Fairly sure the attacker rolls, the defender rolls, the attacker modifies and the defender modifies.

Eek, we're probably playing it wrong.

Nearly everyone i play agains does it like this.

Attacker rolls then modifies. Defender then saves with his rolls and then modifies.

Its easier to bookeep and we play that once the green dice are rolled you cant 'backtrack' to put in something that would have saved you or given you an extra hit.

It sort of means that you have to commit to using that TL or focus earlier and you have that dilemma... do i leave it with a fairly ok hit and save my focus for defence or do i rampup the hit to make sure it goes through and risk having myself more open to return fire.

Likei say we're probably doing it wrong butt everyone i know has played it like that, i've never had anyone pull me up in a game and say 'thats not how you do it.'

Right now the attacker rolls and modifies all his dice, then the defender rolls and modifies his dice.

Fairly sure the attacker rolls, the defender rolls, the attacker modifies and the defender modifies.

Eek, we're probably playing it wrong.

Nearly everyone i play agains does it like this.

Attacker rolls then modifies. Defender then saves with his rolls and then modifies.

Its easier to bookeep and we play that once the green dice are rolled you cant 'backtrack' to put in something that would have saved you or given you an extra hit.

It sort of means that you have to commit to using that TL or focus earlier and you have that dilemma... do i leave it with a fairly ok hit and save my focus for defence or do i rampup the hit to make sure it goes through and risk having myself more open to return fire.

Likei say we're probably doing it wrong butt everyone i know has played it like that, i've never had anyone pull me up in a game and say 'thats not how you do it.'

According to the rulebook, the Attacker rolls the dice then modifies, then defender rolls then modifies....page 10-13.

I think a problem with your suggestion for munitions would be (Blount I think) the guy who makes attacks hit no matter what. You could get 4 crits with some weapon, they get four or more evades, and they still get blown to kingdom come.

I really love the game as it is and I am not missing the use of ordnance at all.

However, having missiles/torpedoes hit up to range 5 would make them more attractive and would be more in line with today's warfare (e.g. checkout AIM-120 on wikipedia).

- Use air-to-air missiles for long/medium range

- Engage in dogfights with your primary weapon

Sure, the current TL would need a rework - but having a TL for a FIXED gun/laser is not realistic anyway. I'd say make the TL exlusive to missile/torpedoes...

No, just checked, you're the right way around. I've been doin' it wrong for three years. Probably was confused by the "if the Imperial and Rebel both have abilities that modify attack dice the attacker modifies first" given it was Core and the first time the defender could modify attack dice was R7 in Wave 4.

Very rarely makes a difference though, just means a few focus tokens weren't wasted on both sides.

Right now the attacker rolls and modifies all his dice, then the defender rolls and modifies his dice.

Fairly sure the attacker rolls, the defender rolls, the attacker modifies and the defender modifies.

From the Core Set Rulebook, Reference, on the back cover:

Combat Phase Overview

I think a problem with your suggestion for munitions would be (Blount I think) the guy who makes attacks hit no matter what. You could get 4 crits with some weapon, they get four or more evades, and they still get blown to kingdom come.

Essentially this is a what if scenario, an alternative universe where if the rule played that way, Blount would never have existed (for balance reasons). These are not necessarily changes that could be made to the game as it stands.

No, just checked, you're the right way around. I've been doin' it wrong for three years. Probably was confused by the "if the Imperial and Rebel both have abilities that modify attack dice the attacker modifies first" given it was Core and the first time the defender could modify attack dice was R7 in Wave 4.

Very rarely makes a difference though, just means a few focus tokens weren't wasted on both sides.

Nope still wrong. The defender modifies attack dice first, then the attacker. Also sensor jammer was the first card to allow the defender to modify attack dice I beleive (Wave 3). For example Sensor Jammer flips a hit to focus, then the attacker can flip it back by spending a focus.

For defence dice it is the other way around, the attacker modifies first, then the defender.

An easy way to remember is if they are your dice, you modify last.

Things I'd change about the game if rebuilding from the ground up? While still keeping it recognizable to anyone playing it now?

Add 4 and 5-speed banks and turns for greater flexibility in dial-building.

Completely overhaul Ordnance, something like "when attacking, place a torpedo token next to your ship, at the end of the combat phase, this token maneuvers the length of the range ruler in the direction of its target. If the range ruler overlaps anything, the torpedo hits that instead" and allowing you to shoot at ordnance.

I wish they had integrated modifications and titles into the upgrade bar from the start, and then given the YT-1300 several modification slots instead of stat buffs for the named pilots.

alternate title: if you could start over from scratch, what would you change about X-Wing?

This isn't intended to be a complaint thread, just more theorizing and game crafting goodness. Here are a few things I would consider doing differently if I were rebuilding x-wing from the ground up. Some of these I've posted in other places, some of these I'm posting for the first time. MunitionsAll missiles and torpedoes would work just like they do now, except that they would have the rule that "if an attack made with a missile or torpedo hits its target, cancel all the defender's dice." Simple, effective, and fluffy. If someone is shooting a missile/torpedo at you then you really want to make sure it doesn't hit you. TurretsTurreted ships would no longer be able to fire outside their firing arc. Instead, they would have a special separate firing arc piece that sits on top of their base and can rotate around the center peg. Each turn, after you execute a maneuver with a turreted ship, you can freely rotate that ships firing arc. It then stays fixed until it's next maneuver.

It still lets turrets do what they're supposed to do, but allows for some strategy and guessing and arc dodging in all the right places. DiceI actually like the dice from some of the other FFG Star Wars games, notably Imperial Assault, where you have some symbols that do damage and others that increase the likelihood that you hit. I think it would add some nice dynamics and customization possibilities that our current dice system lacks. Attacking/DefendingRight now the attacker rolls and modifies all his dice, then the defender rolls and modifies his dice. I would actually like to see that reversed. Make the defender decide which attacks he is going to concentrate his efforts (tokens) on to dodge, then let the attackers do their best to hit him. K-turns and S-loopsNix them completely. That's right, if it was up to me no ship would have any K-turns, except maybe the Defender. That would add a lot of importance to maneuverability and hard 1 turns and boost/barrel roll actions, and would give it much more of a dogfighting feel. It would have the downside of making the game take longer though, as you would be spending a lot more time turning and trying to get your targets in your line of sight.

Obviously, with all of these proposals, everything would need to be playtested and costs of ships would need to be adjusted to maintain balance.

What changes would you make to the game if it was up to you?

I fail to understand why folks who dislike a game so much bother with playing and posting on forums.

Game is pretty much perfect as far as I can see.

I just wish ffg hadn't caved on phantoms.