Don't squadrons with BOMBER use their hits and crits to reduce shields? (without resolving the crit effect)

The rules say it's considered damage.

Yes.

With the Crit Icons Red dice have a total of 6 damage on them. This means an X-wing does, on average 6/8 = 0.75 damage against a capital ship.

Without the crit iconcs Black Dice have a total of 6 damage on them. This means an A-wing does, on average 6/8 = 0.75 damage against a capital ship.

The only advantage of an X wing has, is the ability to resolve critical effects.

If A-wings had Escort as well as Counter they would better represent what they actually were designed to do but they might be overpowered for Armada.

wave 2's yt-1300 comes with exactly that

only it's a speed 2, 7 hull ship with a meager Counter 1

I'm a balanced squadron kind of guy. My A-wings engage TIEs to lock them down, while my X & Ys attack ships. Eventually the A dies, hopefully after taking down a TIE or two and weakening a few others, and then my X needs to be chewed through before my Ys. With luck, my A-wing ties up the TIEs until their ship moves out of command range, and the TIEs are using their own activation to chase my bombers down.

I will say this in support of Escort, do you want TIEs shooting a generic X-wing, or your named Bombers?

Luke and Wedge both have escort... So they can be attacked regardless.

And Dutch, well, I would be happy to have them attack him. For two points above a B Wing, I get an extra health, an extra speed, the ability to remove another squadron from attacking, and two brace tokens. Of course, I do loose one blue anti ship die. If you are using Dutch against ships and there are still fighters around, you are Using him wrong.

Edited to add:

And now that I have pointed out the advantage of Dutch over a generic Bwing, I will replace one Bwing in my fleets with Dutch. That's a really low price for such a benefit.

I think people are under valuing the Escort effect. Your goal is to not tank all of the shots, just some of them.

For example, your opponent has 3 TIEs spaced close enough that all 3 are engage able together. You activate a X and A with a Squadron Command. Your A moves to engage all 3, but your X only to engage 2. You kill 1 of the 2 engaged with the X with your two shots. Now your A is still tying up both, but rather then likely being killed by the combined attacks the TIEs must split thier fire. Allowing to preserve both ships longer while still tying up the enemy better then if you just singled up.

The A Wing, and X Wing battery armament are not functionally the same.

X Wings are bombers. That makes them quite a bit better against ships. A Wings aren't terrible, but not as good.

Statistically they do the exact same amount of damage. The only difference is Bomber. If you are attacking shields with an A wing, or an X Wing they do the same damage. On average 0.75 damage each attack.

Not quite. They hit the same percent of the time. But the X-Wing gets a double hit icon for slightly higher average damage. It is "better" against ships. Just not murderously so.

not "better" just better (not murderously so, but better)

crits are incredible in Armada, and the ability to inflict them does give bomber ships a significant edge against non-bombers. Not to suggest the A-wing is a slouch, but the increased ability to one and done ties and inflict higher potential damage (including crits, not just higher #s) are what give the X its edge over the A (which has its cheaper price and hilarious speed)

Crits are good. Still not as good as you're making them out to be though. I'll take the 2 damage hit over a crit every time. And shields are regenable. And in my experience X-Wings don't get much use out of bomber because they're the first ships hit and killed in the fighter wars. The A-Wings are a better escort in that they can intercept first and handle the fight while bombers engage ships instead.

It's not cut and dry. But Bomber on X-Wings isn't as good as Bomber on Y or B-Wings.

(cough) Here's a few crits I've taken in battle. I dare you to take them lightly.

Life Support Failure - Crew - Discard all command tokens, you may not have any command tokens.

Those sure are some nice command tokens, be a shame if something happened to them.

Compartment Fire - Crew - You cannot ready your defense tokens.

Hello sitting duck!

Capacitor Failure - Ship - If a hull zone has no remaining shields, you cannot recover shields in it, nor move shields to it, if that hull zone is defending, you cannot spend redirect tokens.

"Sir, our shields are dropping!" "Raise them!" "I can't!"

Projector Misaligned - Ship - Your hull zone with the most remaining shields loses all of its shields, if multiple are tied, choose between the tied hull zones, then flip this card face down.

Mmmmmmonster combo!

Power Failure - Ship - Your engineering value is reduced by half, rounded down.

Hope you have some duct tape.

Note: my regular opponent doesn't ever not field x-wings, so some of these (among others) I've taken as a result of x-wing fire. Projector Misaligned springs to mind from my most recent battle. His x-wing squadron's singular crit roll effectively got amplified into a crit + 2 damage dropping one of my GSD's shield arcs in a close range knife-fight. I'm sure you can work out the implications of that.

An odd coincidence is that his x-wings seem to have a tradition of blasting my shield generators in one manner or another.

The A Wing, and X Wing battery armament are not functionally the same.

X Wings are bombers. That makes them quite a bit better against ships. A Wings aren't terrible, but not as good.

Statistically they do the exact same amount of damage. The only difference is Bomber. If you are attacking shields with an A wing, or an X Wing they do the same damage. On average 0.75 damage each attack.

Yeah. Plus the potential resolution of a crit effect.

So not the same.

I think people are under valuing the Escort effect. Your goal is to not tank all of the shots, just some of them.

For example, your opponent has 3 TIEs spaced close enough that all 3 are engage able together. You activate a X and A with a Squadron Command. Your A moves to engage all 3, but your X only to engage 2. You kill 1 of the 2 engaged with the X with your two shots. Now your A is still tying up both, but rather then likely being killed by the combined attacks the TIEs must split thier fire. Allowing to preserve both ships longer while still tying up the enemy better then if you just singled up.

Now that is an excellent use case, and is a very good reason to use X Wings. Thank you for providing that clarification.

Or, to put it another way:

A-wings have a superior chance of causing damage,

X-wings have a chance of causing superior damage.

In either case, their anti-ship strike capability is pretty good. That's better than all Imp craft except the Bomber and Advanced.

Every other Rebel small ship is just a more specialized, bigger bomber.

Basically, Rebel fighters are all superior bombers than all Imp ships, except the dedicated TIE Bomber.

All Rebel bombers are superior as bombers to the TIE Bomber, except the TIE Bomber is faster.

The A Wing, and X Wing battery armament are not functionally the same.

X Wings are bombers. That makes them quite a bit better against ships. A Wings aren't terrible, but not as good.

Statistically they do the exact same amount of damage. The only difference is Bomber. If you are attacking shields with an A wing, or an X Wing they do the same damage. On average 0.75 damage each attack.

Not quite. They hit the same percent of the time. But the X-Wing gets a double hit icon for slightly higher average damage. It is "better" against ships. Just not murderously so.

not "better" just better (not murderously so, but better)

crits are incredible in Armada, and the ability to inflict them does give bomber ships a significant edge against non-bombers. Not to suggest the A-wing is a slouch, but the increased ability to one and done ties and inflict higher potential damage (including crits, not just higher #s) are what give the X its edge over the A (which has its cheaper price and hilarious speed)

Crits are good. Still not as good as you're making them out to be though. I'll take the 2 damage hit over a crit every time. And shields are regenable. And in my experience X-Wings don't get much use out of bomber because they're the first ships hit and killed in the fighter wars. The A-Wings are a better escort in that they can intercept first and handle the fight while bombers engage ships instead.

It's not cut and dry. But Bomber on X-Wings isn't as good as Bomber on Y or B-Wings.

(cough) Here's a few crits I've taken in battle. I dare you to take them lightly.

Life Support Failure - Crew - Discard all command tokens, you may not have any command tokens.

Those sure are some nice command tokens, be a shame if something happened to them.

Compartment Fire - Crew - You cannot ready your defense tokens.

Hello sitting duck!

Capacitor Failure - Ship - If a hull zone has no remaining shields, you cannot recover shields in it, nor move shields to it, if that hull zone is defending, you cannot spend redirect tokens.

"Sir, our shields are dropping!" "Raise them!" "I can't!"

Projector Misaligned - Ship - Your hull zone with the most remaining shields loses all of its shields, if multiple are tied, choose between the tied hull zones, then flip this card face down.

Mmmmmmonster combo!

Power Failure - Ship - Your engineering value is reduced by half, rounded down.

Hope you have some duct tape.

Note: my regular opponent doesn't ever not field x-wings, so some of these (among others) I've taken as a result of x-wing fire. Projector Misaligned springs to mind from my most recent battle. His x-wing squadron's singular crit roll effectively got amplified into a crit + 2 damage dropping one of my GSD's shield arcs in a close range knife-fight. I'm sure you can work out the implications of that.

An odd coincidence is that his x-wings seem to have a tradition of blasting my shield generators in one manner or another.

B. X-Wings will rarely live long enough to hit hull against lists with fighters so Bomber on them is additional points that won't see much use. Escort and Bomber together are not synergistic. Escorts should be protecting Bombers.

C. I only said the advantage isn't as profound as you're making out to be, not that it isn't there.

D. Crits are random. They aren't reliable.

E. A-Wings are better ships for cheaper. They are faster, do more damage, and prevent your bombers from getting engaged in the first place if used well, making them better escorts.

X-Wings are highly versatile. They excel at anti-squadron, though not quite as much as A-Wings with Counter 2. They aren't quite as good at bombing as B-Wings, but they still do a good job with equal hit points and better movement flexibility. They're not quite as durable as Y-Wings, but they perform better against fighters, and they can screen TIEs, where the heavy Ys can't. Generally, the X-Wing has enough flexibility to adjust its role in the battle as needed, assisting any of the other fighters as the engagement develops.

One word: versatility

I bring them in addition to more specialized squadrons and delegate them to the roles that needs it most. Typically, you don't have the luxury of knowing your opponents fleet composition before hand. X-wings help me respond to whatever I end up facing.

I have to defend the humble X-wing. In tournaments they are excellent. When you play a number of games against a variety of opponents without being able to tweak your list, their versatility is invaluable. They are good fighters and if your opponent takes inadequate or no fighters they will also rip ships apart. The escort is great if you mix in other squadrons, as you can force your opponent to chip away at multiple squadrons rather then destroy them entirely.

Y-wings are also good. At 10 points they can throw out black dice if your opponent doesn't counter them. Even though they are heavy, it forces you opponent to engage them. Otherwise their ships will regret it.

Don't squadrons with BOMBER use their hits and crits to reduce shields? (without resolving the crit effect)

The rules say it's considered damage.

Yes.

With the Crit Icons Red dice have a total of 6 damage on them. This means an X-wing does, on average 6/8 = 0.75 damage against a capital ship.

Without the crit iconcs Black Dice have a total of 6 damage on them. This means an A-wing does, on average 6/8 = 0.75 damage against a capital ship.

The only advantage of an X wing has, is the ability to resolve critical effects.

The other advantage is that the X-Wing can 1 shot the A-Wing while the A-Wing can't do the same.

That isn't much of selling point, as it is a low likelyhood. Additionally with Counter the A-wing, if it shoots first, could also destroy the X-wing back.

Outside of corner case possibilities the most average 1v1 outcome is the A jumping the X, the X shooting back getting countered, repeat next round with both likely killing each other.

I absolutely love it when my opponent spends precious rounds killing my Y wings. It takes forever to chew threw 6 hull (~12 blue dice). In the time it takes a tie fighter to kill the ywing, they could have done ~1.5 damage to my capital ship ( 3 attacks, giving it 4 dice an attack).

And typically, once they do finally kill the Ywing, the battle has moved so far away that the surviving tie is a non-factor for the rest of the game.

Btw can you tell I love Y Wings?

Y-Wings are just the most loveabel fighters in Star Wars.

But I think you are to focused on X-Wings beeing escorts. The Escort rule is just bonus for them not their defining role. They are just allrounders and that is their down- and upside.

If A-wings had Escort as well as Counter they would better represent what they actually were designed to do but they might be overpowered for Armada.

wave 2's yt-1300 comes with exactly that

only it's a speed 2, 7 hull ship with a meager Counter 1

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/174152-oh-no-not-you-again-the-millenium-falcon/

That isn't much of selling point, as it is a low likelyhood. Additionally with Counter the A-wing, if it shoots first, could also destroy the X-wing back.

Outside of corner case possibilities the most average 1v1 outcome is the A jumping the X, the X shooting back getting countered, repeat next round with both likely killing each other.

Counter works after the fighter has been attacked. It's the short form of Counter-attack... counter does not happen first and prevent the attacked squadron from being killed. It CAN still trigger after the squadron is destroyed though, at least that's how I understood it.

That isn't much of selling point, as it is a low likelyhood. Additionally with Counter the A-wing, if it shoots first, could also destroy the X-wing back.

Outside of corner case possibilities the most average 1v1 outcome is the A jumping the X, the X shooting back getting countered, repeat next round with both likely killing each other.

Counter works after the fighter has been attacked. It's the short form of Counter-attack... counter does not happen first and prevent the attacked squadron from being killed. It CAN still trigger after the squadron is destroyed though, at least that's how I understood it.

I think what Scottie meant was that if the X-Wing shoots first, and one-shotted the A-wing, the most possible damage back on the X-Wing would be 2, from the counter, not enough to destroy the X-Wing. But if the A-Wing shot first and did 3 damage, then the X-Wing shot the A-Wing, but the A-Wing still got 2 more damage from counter, then it could destroy the X-wing in one turn (unlikely though.)

That isn't much of selling point, as it is a low likelyhood. Additionally with Counter the A-wing, if it shoots first, could also destroy the X-wing back.

Outside of corner case possibilities the most average 1v1 outcome is the A jumping the X, the X shooting back getting countered, repeat next round with both likely killing each other.

6.25% chance that a X-Wing 1 shot an A-Wing, while the A-Wing, with counter, has 3.13% chance. X-Wing is twice more likely to 1 shot the A-Wing than the opposite.

And both are such a low percentage as to be a non-issue.

It does not feel like Star Wars without tie fighters or x-wings flying across the skies locked in combat till the end of time.

It does not feel like Star Wars without tie fighters or x-wings flying across the skies locked in combat till the end of time.

until the end of time only if there's a crap ton of ties

X-wings are quite effective at plowing through 3 health squadrons

It does not feel like Star Wars without tie fighters or x-wings flying across the skies locked in combat till the end of time.

until the end of time only if there's a crap ton of ties

X-wings are quite effective at plowing through 3 health squadrons

Something I learned the hard way my first few games.

X-Wings are the most well rounded squadron in the game IMO. You really don't need anything else.

However my heart will always belong to B-Wings, so I need to find a way to use them soon. Problem is I play Imperials 90% of the time so it might be awhile.

However my heart will always belong to B-Wings, so I need to find a way to use them soon.

THIS IS MY EXACT PROBLEM TOO!