First let me pre-curse this by saying I'm not a competitive X-Wing player nor terribly analytical about the game. You can think of me as a sort of dabbler though I have a fairly sizable collection at this point.

In any case with my amateurish observation when I looked over the Forced Unleashed it immediately struck me, these ships are way better and far more cost effective. Perhaps its my lack of experience but I can't see myself ever choosing an old Tie Fighter or X-wing over the new ones outside of simple thematic reasons. I mean mechanically speaking these ships are superior, more cost effective with no drawbacks whatsoever compared to the old ones. If I put 100 points into X-Wings from the old set and my opponent put 100 points into the new set, regardless of any other factors, he will have the advantage as I see it.

Am I missing something? Is there some logic that I have over looked, some flaw in the new ships that I'm not seeing that make the old ships valid?

Just to illustrate here.

Take for example a Pilot Skill 7 ship from the old and the new set.

Mauler Mithel vs. Omega Ace

Now pilot skill the same but pilot ability is really not comparable in my opinion, Omega Ace is clearly better but for arguments sake lets just presume they are roughly equivalent. What do you get for that extra 3 points on Omega Ace? Ability to Target Lock, +1 shield and an extra equipment slot (I believe its called a weapons augmentation).

Now there is absolutely no way that for 3 points you could improve Mauler Mithel sufficiently to be reasonably equal. I mean a 1 shield will cost you 4 points alone bringing you to 21 points so already more expensive.

I don't really understand how balance is achieved in this new set, it appears its designed to obsolete the old ships.

Am I missing something?

I understand that in X-Wing in many cases there are very convincing arguments why say a B-Wing is more cost effective than a Tie-Bomber. But we are talking about different ships, with different abilities that really aren't an apples to apples comparison but with the new set we are simply talking about two different Tie Fighters here that are clearly in competition with each other. Its the equivalent of taking two apples that fell from different tree's but the tree's are of the same species, one being more expensive and the other less. There really is no logical reason to pay more for a lesser version of the same thing.

I don't, just musing here but was curious if anyone could point out a flaw or something in my logic here.

You can't rely on the cost of an upgrade to tell you the value of, f'rinstance, an extra hull or a shield. If you think about it, a shield point on a Patrol Leader Decimator has a different value than a shield point on Soontir Fel. Nobody flies Academy TIEs with hull/shield upgrades. There's a reason for that.

The TIE/foo gets you 33% more durability compared to the equivalent old-skool TIE/ln, but you're paying a 25% points surcharge for it. On the face of it, that looks a good deal! But in actual fact, the efficiency of a ship is derived from a combination of its defence AND its offence. And since the nuTIE has near-as-dammit exactly the same offensive output than the old one, it's actually LESS efficient than the ship in the old core.

Now, the new TIE can make up some of that shortfall with its new Target Lock action, new dial and probably eventually with stuff that goes in the Tech upgrade slot. It's probably viable, in the same way that a Chardaan Refit A-Wing is viable despite sharing a faction with the more efficient Z-95. But it doesn't supersede the TIE/ln.

The new X-Wing is a slightly different story. Yes, the generic T-70 is probably better than the generic T-65 (although actually slightly less efficient, for the reasons I skimmed over in my post above - one more hit point for 3 points without increasing offence isn't as valuable as it looks at first glance). However, generic T-65s are basically invisible in competitive play because it can do only one thing - fly straight at an enemy exchanging dice with it - and it doesn't do it very well. Even in raw numbers they're outclassed in that role by the B-Wing, which to add insult to injury also has Barrel Roll available to it as a Brucie Bonus. If the generic T-70 wasn't better than the T-65 it would have been dead on arrival, so FFG had little choice but to give it some tricks its older brother lacked. Even with those tricks, at best the generic T-70 isn't a clear-cut better choice than the B-Wing as the Rebel's 3-red-dice filler fighter du jour.

(By the way, I keep repeating "generic" because certain T-65 named pilot abilities are so good that they can still see play even though they're attached to a not-great ship - Biggs is the main example, but there are others).

The generic T-65 needs a buff to be viable, in the same way that the A-Wing and TIE-Advanced both did. FFG are aware of that and Alex Davy, one of the game's designers, has strongly hinted that they've got something in the pipeline as an X-Wing "fix". Personally, I can't wait.

tl;dr - The T-70 can't kill the T-65, the T-65 is already dead.

Hi!

If you would like to know this there are lots of threads talking about this on the forum right now. Just look for anything with a title like "OMG THE SKY IS LITERALLY FALLING ON MY FACE" and you will see what the general consensus is.

A lot of people are actually worried they won't find a use for the new Tie /Fo generics and the x-wing has been underused and a bit underpowered for a while and the new ship isn't going to be replacing it really. They probably won't find too much of a role in the competitive meta and in friendlies you are still going to find it funnerer to use Luke Skywalker than some nameless T-70 right?