Oh Great Star Wars Sages, I pose to thee a question.

What is the empires close match to the B-Wing?

Gunboat.

The Assault Gunboat and TIE Defender both fill roles that are similar to the B-wing, but not to the point of parity.

The B in the minis game is a rugged jouster that has system and cannon slots, while the Defender wants to live at range 3 and lacks systems. The white K turn does allow superior jousting in some cases, and the agility and 6 HP are beefy like the Bs 8 HP, and they can both BR, but they are still very different craft.

Assault Gunboat fills the same role of "Heavily armored, ion toting starfighter that handles like a brick in molasses."

Gunboat is really more the Empire's Y-Wing.

The TIE Oppressor would probably be the Empire's B-Wing.

Imperial-class Star Destroyer.

Tie Defender is the closest match.

We're talking lore right?

Defender is the most noteworthy, even outside XWTMG. I'm sure there are some obscure equivalents too.

The Empires first heavy assault starfighter was he ARC 170, but that didn't have ions. TIE bombers and their variants such as the Punisher and others could fire as much if not more ordinance, but again lacked ions unless loaded with the proper munitions. Gunboat had ions but lacked torpedoes (having missiles instead), so is a close match, as is the Defender.

I'm surprised no one mentioned the Skipray Blastboat.

The Gunboat fills the same role as the B-Wing in the Imperial Fleet.

I'm surprised no one mentioned the Skipray Blastboat.

Because it would be a Large ship. It's bigger than either the Firespray or the Lambda.

I'm surprised no one mentioned the Skipray Blastboat.

Because it would be a Large ship. It's bigger than either the Firespray or the Lambda.

Yeah but the B-wing packs as much weaponry as the Skipray. It's a beast. It must have driven many pilots insane doing the job of a ship that should have at least two more crew.

I'm surprised no one mentioned the Skipray Blastboat.

Because it would be a Large ship. It's bigger than either the Firespray or the Lambda.

That and the Skipray isn't exactly just Imperial.

I'm surprised no one mentioned the Skipray Blastboat.

Because it would be a Large ship. It's bigger than either the Firespray or the Lambda.

That and the Skipray isn't exactly just Imperial.

Picky picky.

If the empire wanted to manufacture B-wings they would have. They didn't because their design philosophy was commonality between ships and ease of maintenance, with a few nonTIE series here and there for various reasons. That and if they really wanted to the Missile Boat could match the B in firepower and then some.

Yeah but the B-wing packs as much weaponry as the Skipray. It's a beast. It must have driven many pilots insane doing the job of a ship that should have at least two more crew.

Eh. None of the B-Wing's weaponry is on turrets though.

One guy can easily fire 20 lasers if you wanted if you lock them all facing foward.

The B-wing had at least 4 different weapons systems all with different ranges and prefered targets. Not all of the guns would have been fired at the same time, not to mention firing torpedoes wh all that was going on. And flying a ship that, for no real reason and defying sound engineering, had a rotating cockpit, or a ship that rotated around the cockpit.

And the Skipray only had one turret, mostly for antistarfighter duty. The main weapons all pointed forward including huge honking Ion cannons and missile and torpedo tubes. Still required separate gunner to be effecient, but one pilot could control everything.

The B-Wing's representation in X-Wing is actually pretty wierd, if you're going pure-fluff it's got something like 5 cannon slots but no primary.

Going back to the video games we may need to say the Defender as that is what you got in the add-on product.

When it comes to performance I'd also say the Gunboats are what came the closest although I'll admit they also have a very Y-Wing feel to them as well. I just remember that I NEVER wanted to fly the B-Wing because I'd often fly without relying on the targeting computer to place my shots and its weapon layout often made shooting with iron sights darn near impossible.

as of the raider release, it's the Tie Advance. That's your mid-point, tanky, versatile ship that can be run "naked" (Free title + AC) to great effect.

it was supposed to be the Bomber (same wave, same policy with upgrade slots leading to customization and failure if overloaded), but the ordnance slots it was loaded with works in a fundamentally different way than the B's stable cannon, system, and crew slots. Still, it's also a very efficient ship when run without upgrades.