FFG wants everyone to buy every ship. They incentivize that (or reward it) by spreading useful upgrades across all the ships. In my opinion, the TIE Advanced "fix" was a happy bonus for getting a Raider. I never even bought a TIE Advanced before getting the Raider in fact.

I guarantee that, even as sh*tty as they used to be, way more people owned Advanceds than will ever own a Raider.

If that hypothetical case, if FFG released a "card only pack", they might be breaking their deal.

All the more reason they should let you buy individual cards online.

FFG will lose money (infrastructure that doesn't currently exist; oversight committees) and consumer faith if they ever sell individual cards. Collectors/Scalpers (~20% buyer_base) are a vital part of the business (Pareto Principle). Some of this 20% buyer_base are also gamers and the rest are just run-of-the-mill Star Wars Scalpers (i.e. wts potf2 longsaber mip). Point is... You either go back to flying for fun, or you support the Gray Market and you get that sweet Upgrade. The Gray Market definitely supports FFG. And for pete's sake, support the Commission Painters/Modders (eBay)! You can get sweet painted minis from hardworking hands anywhere in the world. And we all know the commish kids are buying a lot of models. So in supporting the commish kids, you support FFG and get bling on you ywing. hugs.

Scalpers that sell auto thrusters for $6.75 a card on eBay? No, we don't need their kind. They bring no added value to the game but instead become greedy middle men that mark up card prices. This is exactly why as an Imperial only player I have two Starvipers and one YT-2400 on my shelf.....

FFG wants everyone to buy every ship. They incentivize that (or reward it) by spreading useful upgrades across all the ships. In my opinion, the TIE Advanced "fix" was a happy bonus for getting a Raider. I never even bought a TIE Advanced before getting the Raider in fact.

I guarantee that, even as sh*tty as they used to be, way more people owned Advanceds than will ever own a Raider.

If that hypothetical case, if FFG released a "card only pack", they might be breaking their deal.

All the more reason they should let you buy individual cards online.

FFG will lose money (infrastructure that doesn't currently exist; oversight committees) and consumer faith if they ever sell individual cards. Collectors/Scalpers (~20% buyer_base) are a vital part of the business (Pareto Principle). Some of this 20% buyer_base are also gamers and the rest are just run-of-the-mill Star Wars Scalpers (i.e. wts potf2 longsaber mip). Point is... You either go back to flying for fun, or you support the Gray Market and you get that sweet Upgrade. The Gray Market definitely supports FFG. And for pete's sake, support the Commission Painters/Modders (eBay)! You can get sweet painted minis from hardworking hands anywhere in the world. And we all know the commish kids are buying a lot of models. So in supporting the commish kids, you support FFG and get bling on you ywing. hugs.

Scalpers that sell auto thrusters for $6.75 a card on eBay? No, we don't need their kind. They bring no added value to the game but instead become greedy middle men that mark up card prices. This is exactly why as an Imperial only player I have two Starvipers and one YT-2400 on my shelf.....

Regarding the sale of individual cards via individual orders; This probably would fit in under the license, but print on demand and maintaining the service wouldn't be cheap. By the time you bought two autothrusters, an accuracy Corrector, calculations, and paid shipping, buying a Starviper at MSRP would probably be only a few dollars more. And since FFG doesn't have many overseas facilities to my knowledge, it just wouldn't work for anyone outside of the U.S.

So, I guess it could be attempted, and it might end up making back it's operating costs, but I doubt it's be the panacea people are hoping for.

As for the Raider... It was going to have a small ship. Said ship had to have a hard hyperdrive (Edit: Stupid Auto-correct). Do you want a defender fix in the Raider and the Tie Advanced obselete for at least another year, what we got, or something that's probably push the Phantom back into omnipresence?

FFG wants everyone to buy every ship. They incentivize that (or reward it) by spreading useful upgrades across all the ships. In my opinion, the TIE Advanced "fix" was a happy bonus for getting a Raider. I never even bought a TIE Advanced before getting the Raider in fact.

I guarantee that, even as sh*tty as they used to be, way more people owned Advanceds than will ever own a Raider.

If that hypothetical case, if FFG released a "card only pack", they might be breaking their deal.

All the more reason they should let you buy individual cards online.

FFG will lose money (infrastructure that doesn't currently exist; oversight committees) and consumer faith if they ever sell individual cards. Collectors/Scalpers (~20% buyer_base) are a vital part of the business (Pareto Principle). Some of this 20% buyer_base are also gamers and the rest are just run-of-the-mill Star Wars Scalpers (i.e. wts potf2 longsaber mip). Point is... You either go back to flying for fun, or you support the Gray Market and you get that sweet Upgrade. The Gray Market definitely supports FFG. And for pete's sake, support the Commission Painters/Modders (eBay)! You can get sweet painted minis from hardworking hands anywhere in the world. And we all know the commish kids are buying a lot of models. So in supporting the commish kids, you support FFG and get bling on you ywing. hugs.

Scalpers that sell auto thrusters for $6.75 a card on eBay? No, we don't need their kind. They bring no added value to the game but instead become greedy middle men that mark up card prices. This is exactly why as an Imperial only player I have two Starvipers and one YT-2400 on my shelf.....

Why do you assume it's so cut-n-dry. The handpainted Starviper I bought online ($35) didn't even come with the Autothruster(s) and I'd be happy to know he sold them online as well. He deserves it.

What makes you think FFG wouldn't charge you 7-9$ per card to make any of this work?

FFG wants everyone to buy every ship. They incentivize that (or reward it) by spreading useful upgrades across all the ships. In my opinion, the TIE Advanced "fix" was a happy bonus for getting a Raider. I never even bought a TIE Advanced before getting the Raider in fact.

I guarantee that, even as sh*tty as they used to be, way more people owned Advanceds than will ever own a Raider.

If that hypothetical case, if FFG released a "card only pack", they might be breaking their deal.

All the more reason they should let you buy individual cards online.

FFG will lose money (infrastructure that doesn't currently exist; oversight committees) and consumer faith if they ever sell individual cards. Collectors/Scalpers (~20% buyer_base) are a vital part of the business (Pareto Principle). Some of this 20% buyer_base are also gamers and the rest are just run-of-the-mill Star Wars Scalpers (i.e. wts potf2 longsaber mip). Point is... You either go back to flying for fun, or you support the Gray Market and you get that sweet Upgrade. The Gray Market definitely supports FFG. And for pete's sake, support the Commission Painters/Modders (eBay)! You can get sweet painted minis from hardworking hands anywhere in the world. And we all know the commish kids are buying a lot of models. So in supporting the commish kids, you support FFG and get bling on you ywing. hugs.

Scalpers that sell auto thrusters for $6.75 a card on eBay? No, we don't need their kind. They bring no added value to the game but instead become greedy middle men that mark up card prices. This is exactly why as an Imperial only player I have two Starvipers and one YT-2400 on my shelf.....

Do remember to keep them confined! They're Imperial property now!

Scalpers that sell auto thrusters for $6.75 a card on eBay? No, we don't need their kind. They bring no added value to the game but instead become greedy middle men that mark up card prices.

Amen.

Despite that there's little reason why the Tie Advanced fix couldn't just have been released within the form of say an Aces pack.

It may still be. It may just be that the raider was next in line and they felt the advance needed it's fix sooner rather than later

After market and "camp followers" have an important role in the ecosystem. Businesses like Team Covenant are great for the community. I draw a line between people gouging a limited commodity and people parting out a product. One is an economic terrorist, the other is just a business person.

I want to add one last thing and then i'm probably done with the discussion.

Right now the desire for some products is way less than it could be if the products were refreshed.

I am extremely discouraged from buying a tie advanced if I don't already own a raider. It's darth vader's ship. It should be one of your best selling products but I kind of doubt that it is.

I'm sure you can figure out a good solution FFG.

Economic terrorist.

Sounds like a cyberpunk rpg class.

Does it get points in decking?

After market and "camp followers" have an important role in the ecosystem. Businesses like Team Covenant are great for the community. I draw a line between people gouging a limited commodity and people parting out a product. One is an economic terrorist, the other is just a business person.

I want to add one last thing and then i'm probably done with the discussion.

Right now the desire for some products is way less than it could be if the products were refreshed.

I am extremely discouraged from buying a tie advanced if I don't already own a raider. It's darth vader's ship. It should be one of your best selling products but I kind of doubt that it is.

I'm sure you can figure out a good solution FFG.

Consdiring the fairly regular reprints of all the stuff, I'm going to say this is anecdotal at best.

Economic terrorists? They prefer being called "Economic rebellion to restore the Republic". (Seriously, appending the "terrorist" adjective to everything that is against one's interests is getting out of hand. Soon we will have a thread calling the 4 TLT lists "Gameplay terrorists")

I don't think the "It's not financially viable" claims are founded. Not only we don't have data to back them, but FFG's practices with some other of their games say otherwise.

They are selling hundreds of card-only packs to most of their board games. Basically 90% of the content for games like The Lord of the Ring, Arkham Horror, etc are card only expansions. Most expansions for the Star Wars RPGs are just paper/card only.

Also, if FFG were that much into squeezing every single penny from their customers they wouldn't have their ridiculously satisfactory customer support! And the product itself wouldn't be of the high quality it is. They would use cheaper cardboard punchouts, cheaper plastics, cheaper paint jobs. Geez, if you compare FFG minis with most of other toymakers' Star Wars models, it's lightyears ahead in quality for not so different prices. And you don't have to go to the toy industry. Look at Star Trek Attack Wing no less.

Also it's not like the quality started out great to attract customers and is now dwindling to increase profits. My second or third reprint ships look much much better than ships bought during the first wave; better defined panel lines and details, better paint jobs and weathering, fewer deformed parts (my wave 1 Y-Wing looks like the malformed twin brother of the Y-Wing I bought last month after my LFGS finally got a restock of them).

So I have the feeling that money isn't really the reason here, but how many cards can they justify in front of LFL when adding to a ship pack before it goes offlimits.

There is a very, very large difference between the kind of support you put behind your product and determining what kind of product is viable for your sales goals. We KNOW that the Cores and Falcon have slimmer margins than other ships. (I suspect that the Falcon would likely be a $40 ship today) Alex Davy has said that they have looked into them, and determined that they weren't viable. It really doesn't matter what the reason is. They have determined that such packs won't work for what they want.

Something to keep in mind, most card only expansions are POD. I don't think they have the capabilities to print such small packs for sale. Especially since I doubt they would be able to use their ready made clamshells.

Something to keep in mind, most card only expansions are POD. I don't think they have the capabilities to print such small packs for sale. Especially since I doubt they would be able to use their ready made clamshells.

I have been playing their Lord of the Rings game for several years and there is 6 card only expansions for every single bigger expansion that includes box and cardboard punchouts. The only print-on-demand things they have are the totally optional Nightmare difficulty alternate prints of the initial sets, and few other "rare" products that don't have so great market potential.

Don't see the issue with the secondary market. Buyer beware and all that. I have neither the funds nor the inclination to buy the epic ships and as such I just bought Tie x1, Advanced Targeting Computer and the Twin Ion Engine MkII. I only need one copy of each as I am not planning on using them on more than Vader in an ace squad and a defender for the MKII. Now I have no need to buy the Raider for a long time if ever, or the Punisher.

I can do without R2-D2 crew and I will enter the store championships next year for a C-3PO crew card. So no need for a Corvette. It's the Rebel Transport that I will probaly get first. Too many single X wing pilots and astromechs to ignore.

Don't see the issue with the secondary market. Buyer beware and all that. I have neither the funds nor the inclination to buy the epic ships and as such I just bought Tie x1, Advanced Targeting Computer and the Twin Ion Engine MkII. I only need one copy of each as I am not planning on using them on more than Vader in an ace squad and a defender for the MKII. Now I have no need to buy the Raider for a long time if ever, or the Punisher.

I can do without R2-D2 crew and I will enter the store championships next year for a C-3PO crew card. So no need for a Corvette. It's the Rebel Transport that I will probaly get first. Too many single X wing pilots and astromechs to ignore.

For the most part I agree with you, I buy singles off eBay all the time. Lots of players want the cards from the raider and won't buy the big ships so these people are doing the community a service by making the cards available and making some money, that is commendable. I don't have a problem with people painting the models and selling them for more than the base model because they added value to it. What I have a problem with is people saying go fly casual if you don't want to support the gray market, those people are lobbying for FFG to keep to a business practice that is unfriendly to the average consumer.

As an Imperial Player where do I get these key meta cards:

Autothrusters

engine upgrade

lone wolf

conner net

experimental interface

It is either I buy the other faction's expansion pack or go to the Bay, but when autothrusters is $6.75 and engine upgrade was around $7.00 a few months ago, I just buy the clamshell. I think there has to be a friendlier way than what the quoted 20% are profiteering off of. At least I always have the option to chop up my S&V models for terrain when I buy the clamshell.

Perhaps swapping out one Opportunist (though both would be better) for one Autothrusters in Imperial Aces could be be helpful to the consumer...

The term your looking for is hydrologic despotism.

Don't see the issue with the secondary market. Buyer beware and all that. I have neither the funds nor the inclination to buy the epic ships and as such I just bought Tie x1, Advanced Targeting Computer and the Twin Ion Engine MkII. I only need one copy of each as I am not planning on using them on more than Vader in an ace squad and a defender for the MKII. Now I have no need to buy the Raider for a long time if ever, or the Punisher.

I can do without R2-D2 crew and I will enter the store championships next year for a C-3PO crew card. So no need for a Corvette. It's the Rebel Transport that I will probaly get first. Too many single X wing pilots and astromechs to ignore.

For the most part I agree with you, I buy singles off eBay all the time. Lots of players want the cards from the raider and won't buy the big ships so these people are doing the community a service by making the cards available and making some money, that is commendable. I don't have a problem with people painting the models and selling them for more than the base model because they added value to it. What I have a problem with is people saying go fly casual if you don't want to support the gray market, those people are lobbying for FFG to keep to a business practice that is unfriendly to the average consumer.

But the model is Pay-to-Win(Tournaments); or it's Play-for-Fun(1 Core Set). You want to win Tournament Matches? Pay up. Practice Up.

Time is money. So you must pay to win Tournaments. No way around that.

The XWING community learned a great deal about "the average consumer" when the TFA Coreset dropped and many average consumers showed their asses by doing nothing but complaining about WIRED costing them $40 just so they could use it in their A-WING. This established that there is a certain demographic that is upset no matter FFG does, and now you'd scoff at me for telling this demographic they need an attitude adjustment (go fly casual!).

But the model is Pay-to-Win(Tournaments); or it's Play-for-Fun(1 Core Set). You want to win Tournament Matches? Pay up. Practice Up.

Time is money. So you must pay to win Tournaments. No way around that.

Yeah, it must be because tournaments. Because local gaming circles never have players that like to buy more than others in the group. Because losing all the time to someone with better cards is totally fun as long as it's not at a tournament.

Scalpers that sell auto thrusters for $6.75 a card on eBay?

But the model is Pay-to-Win(Tournaments); or it's Play-for-Fun(1 Core Set). You want to win Tournament Matches? Pay up. Practice Up.

Time is money. So you must pay to win Tournaments. No way around that.

Yeah, it must be because tournaments. Because local gaming circles never have players that like to buy more than others in the group. Because losing all the time to someone with better cards is totally fun as long as it's not at a tournament.

That's more of a balance issue than an issue with the distribution model.

Besides, there are numerous competive lists available at reasonable prices (Most Dash builds are relatively inexpensive, Swarms generally don't require much investment outside of the ships themselves, which makes the 8 tie swarm at $120 the most expensive example). Tie Advanceds and Fat PWTs are the only ships that really get expensive, and in the latter case it's because they use so many of each others upgrades. Which leaves the Tie Advanced, which is a little egregious, but for all we know we'll see the fix in another release* once FFG doesn't have huge ships and the core set hogging production resources.

*You know, it occurs to me we might see the title get reprinted but ATC remain exclusive. I mean, Accuracy Corrector Vader still has a very solid jousting profile, and the generics don't really want ATC anyway.

I'm surprised that you seem to think that FFG selling that card directly would be significantly cheaper than that, taking licensing, packaging, printing, shipping and infrastructure into account.

Shipping aside, absolutely.

All of those other things can be applied to every expansion pack as well. And for a list price of $16, the ship that card comes in comes with a model, it's stand, 4 pilot cards, 9 upgrade cards(including 2 copies of said $7 card), and a ****load of cardboard tokens. All of the licensing, printing, and infrastructure are already in place because of the models.

So yes, it should be CONSIDERABLY ****ing cheaper to just get one card.

Again, that's not counting the cost of shipping. But you can greatly limit the impact of that cost per-card by ordering as many cards at once as possible. That $5 shipping fee goes from being $5 per card, to being $.50 per card if you just order 10 cards at once.

*You know, it occurs to me we might see the title get reprinted but ATC remain exclusive. I mean, Accuracy Corrector Vader still has a very solid jousting profile, and the generics don't really want ATC anyway.

Oh, this would be hilarious!

But the model is Pay-to-Win(Tournaments); or it's Play-for-Fun(1 Core Set). You want to win Tournament Matches? Pay up. Practice Up.

Time is money. So you must pay to win Tournaments. No way around that.

Yeah, it must be because tournaments. Because local gaming circles never have players that like to buy more than others in the group. Because losing all the time to someone with better cards is totally fun as long as it's not at a tournament.

It sounds more like you just have envy issues that you can't get past and plain don't understand the difference between want and need.

In casual play the people that buy more than others only means two things, those people have more options and if they buy up ships others may have to wait to get ones they want. Neither are really all that important unless you feel entitled. You might WANT to have all the options but you don't NEED them to enjoy playing, and you might really WANT to use a ship that someone else buys up but again you don't really NEED it to enjoy playing now do you?

And I hate to break it to you but you do realize that if those players who buy everything aren't capable of self regulating so others will enjoy playing them then the other players should be refusing to play them. It's really easy to do, you just say no to the people that ruin your enjoyment of playing. It's not FFG that's to blame it's the players who don't understand that because you can doesn't mean you should. So stop complaining about your problems and trying to pass the blame onto FFG or anyone else and start actively taking control of your game experience.

I'm surprised that you seem to think that FFG selling that card directly would be significantly cheaper than that, taking licensing, packaging, printing, shipping and infrastructure into account.

Shipping aside, absolutely.

All of those other things can be applied to every expansion pack as well. And for a list price of $16, the ship that card comes in comes with a model, it's stand, 4 pilot cards, 9 upgrade cards(including 2 copies of said $7 card), and a ****load of cardboard tokens. All of the licensing, printing, and infrastructure are already in place because of the models.

So yes, it should be CONSIDERABLY ****ing cheaper to just get one card.

Again, that's not counting the cost of shipping. But you can greatly limit the impact of that cost per-card by ordering as many cards at once as possible. That $5 shipping fee goes from being $5 per card, to being $.50 per card if you just order 10 cards at once.

I'm not entirely sure they have the printing infrastructure in place, and they certainly don't have the distribution infrastructure in place.

With regard to printing the cards themselves... Has anyone ever seen a picture of a misprinted upgrade/pilot card that would suggest how they're made (As in, a card that slipped during printing and has portions of multiple cards printed on it?) Depending on how they produce them, they might have to do at least a little work to adjust the printing model (If all the card for an expansion are printed together, that won't work, because then FFG would have hundred of ion torpedoes sitting around doing nothing. And depending on how the master templates are stored, there might be a fair bit of work involved to create a new printing model. Still, in the long run, this wouldn't be a huge expense. It might take some time to get it running, but most of what would be done is pretty simple, just potentially time consuming.

Now, FFG's promo cards are printed in North America. Assuming they don't have some sort of exclusivity clause with whoever does their printing in China for non-prizes, they could go through this source. You might need to change materials to keep the cards identical to their counterparts from the expansions. Depending on the popularity of this service they might need to make some investments to beef up production, but this probably wouldn't be a huge obstacle.

Then we have distribution. This FFG does not currently have. They need a place to store cards after they're printed but before the whole print run is sold off. They need to pay shipping from the printer to their storage place. They need to hire people to develop and maintain the order service. The list goes on.

Those expenses add up. So, while it might be cheaper to get, say, Autothrusters or the Tie Advanced title, cards like Advanced Sensors, Calculation, Fire Control System, etc. would probably be more cheaply available on the secondary market.

Considering that if they did a card expansion, it would most likely be POD in house. I just don't see the demand for these things that would require them to use their factories, which is for mass printing.

[Great many things]

I think you are threading to thin here. FFG is a board and card game company. The have hundreds of games with hundreds of expansions poping out of China's presses. And a lot of those won't probably sell at all because that is how this business works. They assume some loses for unsold product or unsuccessful games. I mean, in this industry, most game companies are already thick-skinned in that respect.

Probably they order prints for a lot of games at the same time. Who knows if X-Wing cards are printed in the same industrial-sized sheet of cardstock as Arkham Horror, A Game of Thrones, Netrunner, Lord of the rings and the long hundred other games they actively have in their catalog. They have been doing that for almost two decades so I expect their economies of scale are basically mathematically optimized. I would be surprised if printing a sheet of 500x100 Autothrusters cards costs them more than one cent.