Uh, I'm seeing a couple of things that are blatantly incorrect being thrown around. I know these are minor quibbles, but you really should fact check before posting an argument.

No rebel ship can equipped boosted comms flight controller and hanger bays. But the vsd and isd can.

Boosted Comms and Expanded Hangars are both offensive retrofits. The only ship in the game that can equip both of them is the ISD-1, which comes at the pretty heavy opportunity cost of not being able to equip any defensive retrofits, which makes it much less durable than other large ships. And, you know, pretty heavily outclassed in the firepower department by the VSD-2 at anything other than close range, and only slightly better than a VSD-1 in those cases.

... Unless you were referring to some other card as hanger bays, but I'll admit I have no idea what that could be.

B-Wings also beat the X-Wing in efficiency as well. This is of little surprise as they are a more dedicated craft but, for only one extra point, gain an extra hull point and have a much more devastating anti-ship armament. Three blue anti-squadron dice means that they aren't helpless against fighters either, unlike a TIE Bomber.

Uhh... B-wings do not have an extra hull point over the X-wing. Y-wings do, but they're also heavy ships with only two anti-squadron dice. Which is better than the Tie Bomber, but only in that they average 1 damage/round instead of only usually doing one damage a round.

B-wing vs. X-wing

X-wing has one more blue dice as anti-squadron armament (Noticable advantage for the X-wing)

B-wing has blue-black battery instead of red (Advantage: B-wing by a long shot)

X-wings have a higher speed (Speed 2 is so slow it's painful if you're not really good at dictating the engagement)

X-wings have the escort keyword. This wasn't a huge advantage in the Wave 1 metagame because most rebel fighters are pretty durable (And most of the aces you wanted to protect were in X-wings), but in wave 2, with HWKs providing Intel or Jan Ors force multiplying? Escort suddenly seems pretty good (Advantage: X-wing)

And even still, is noteworthy, and impressive that the Falcon can outrun Imperial cruisers in Hyperspace.

It turns out that the Empire invests well in its military technology, curious.

Can it? I recall the Empire beating them to Bespin.

Cause han had to use his backup emergency hyperdrive to get there. Cause the main was broken so what would of took at most a few hours or a day took a few weeks

You know what? I'm not going to apologize for (correctly) ****-waving over the B-wings with Yavaris issue. Looking at the photo shows that your opponent didn't alter his strategy to COMPLETELY IGNORE the B-Wings as any ship that maneuverable should have been able to do easily.

What I will say is that B-Wings and every other Rebel fighter should not have been able to elicit that reaction from me. Fighters from both sides aren't puppets or robots, they are piloted by trained soldiers. And trained soldiers don't stumble into a fight with their safeties armed when they go into combat. What we have now is a scenario where squadrons can't even comprehend going into a fight as the aggressors without constant capital carrier support. Literally, it's like every pilot freezes up in fear at the idea they might have to pull the trigger after flying in a straight line. In EVERY MOVIE, EPISODE AND BOOK we see that not only is this not the case, but that in the instance of the droid armies and other overly-micromanaged soldiers loss is inevitable.

That's why my idea makes sense. Ships flying into combat should be able to engage the targets they encounter on arrival. If they want to do more complicated combat tactics, they need capital ship support to coordinate with specialists and feed them critical battlefield information they can't get by looking scant meters out of the cockpit.

In the case of ships like Yavaris and Independence, these traits would be magnified. Nothing about what I've suggested breaks the gameplay flow. If anything, it makes squadrons more fun to play with for both players in every game. And it makes squadron support critical from a gameplay perspective, whether you want to field B-Wings to bomb enemy ships or TIE Fighters to intercept them. In the case of Rhymer and other abilities that break the normal squadron mechanics, their ability is unique but it's no longer mandatory for success.

How broken are fighters right now? Unless there is a core change to the way squadrons function Major Rhymer or someone similar will be in every squadron heavy fleet. His ability to let himself and multiple allies ignore the need for capital support makes him far and away the best squadron upgrade in the game. Only squadrons with similar capability to ignore capital ships will end up being effective tools when the meta shakes out. Combined with the increased lethality of Capital ships, only capital ships capable of weathering overwhelming firepower at long range will be able to function as carriers. And this sets us right back to square one.

Alright let's play the numbers.

You as the Gladiator player swings around wide coming in for a hopeful kill turn 4 or 5. This gives the Yavaris time to position the B-Wings into an intercept position and once you come in to make the attack you will be vulnerable to the retaliation of said B-Wings.

Lets try the picture. That is a Gladiator boxing attempt that failed because the Yavaris was able to destroy a Gladiator with assistance from the B-Wings.

Head on attack? Useless. The 3 red dice will shred your shields and the B-Wings will destroy the Gladiator.

Of course this is all based on a vacuum but you say you are so good that you could not lose. Meh.

Could I be the fellow who politely requests we drop the "my dad can beat up your dad" arguments in favor of the original topic or perhaps more objective analysis? I never see these kinds of arguments go well because through the magic of the internet, both sides claim that their play is flawless and there's just NO WAY they could possibly be defeated by anything short of the building they're in collapsing on them.

Well here's the thing. A good chunk of us don't agree with the thesis of the topic to begin with. There are many of us that have used squadrons effectively. We have tried to give examples, which has devolved into, as you say, "my dad can beat up your dad" arguments. Sorry if you don't like the content of the posts (I don't particularly care for the tone either), but we are quite on topic.

There is no "my dad can beat up your dad" other than the fantasy of a gsd effortlessly rolling through bwings

4 bwing shots + neb fire having good chances of killing a gsd is objective. Similarly, 2 black dice broadsides + ACM will eviscerate a neb. Difference is the neb doesn't have to begin activation in close range to fire off her kill condition. Not even demolisher can do that.

Squadron-less imperial lists having no way to counter the bwings is also objective

Without squadron or hefty anti squadron fire, the squadronless gsd has no way to influence the bwings and the bwings, by the nature of command range + distance 1, can always be waiting for them around close range of the neb

If you do not bring squadrons and expect to waltz into close range of bwing escorted ships, you're going to have a bad time

So remember to bring some TIE screen

Just take squadrons with the rogue keyword and move on.

I'm fine with how squadrons are right now.

There are squadron based lists winning events that people don't know about and they are simply not reported on.

So remember to bring some TIE screen

Or don't...I like easy wins

Btw ... there is a mechanics I miss in the game:

Launching squadrons from their carriers.

Place squadrons on or next to ship cards of their carrier and launch them via squadron command.

This would let you take even slow fighters into battle prior to round 6.

And its kinda cool.

If this would be too strong, you could tone it down a bit:

Max squadrons to carry is squadron value - 1

For each squadron command dial + token you may only launch a single squadron, ths counts as activation.

I am wanting to try out the Independence with 4 b-wings so bad at this point. My thought is to have a guppy with raymus and flight controllers ready to activate a bunch of a wings while Independence with boosted coms gets the b-wings where they will do the most damage. Garm seems like a great Commander for this list.

Just because you can't figure out how to beat a grand master in chess does not mean the game is broken. Just because you cannot figure out (despite numerous examples) how to use squadrons effectively does not mean they are broken.

I really don't think anyone has been saying squadrons are useless or underpowered. They're certainly more complex than ships, and come with their own unique set of restrictions and problems that need to be accounted for where ships don't. They're much less forgiving.

But my biggest complaint is that they feel dumb. Like, just really stupid.

I fly my Y wings directly at an enemy ship. They end their move within attack distance. They clearly have the capability to attack. I can almost hear their conversation in my head:

"Ok, we're flying straight at this enemy ship with our payload of heavy rockets"

"What are we going to do when we get there, boss?"

"Oh, I don't know, I thought we might mill around aimlessly for a bit. Give those TIE Interceptors time to move up and engage us"

"Shouldn't we shoot at the enemy ship?"

"Johnson, what have I told you about thinking on your own?"

Of flying your A Wings to engage a Rhymer ball.

"Ok, we've engaged the enemy squadrons! Should we open fire?"

"Negative! Fly in circles and do not shoot, I say again, do not shoot!"

Until a capital ship gently reminds them that they can, in fact, shoot at the enemy squadrons/ships. And then it's like there's this huge "Ah hah!" moment and suddenly your squadrons aren't stupid any more.

It's like I'm herding a bunch of morons around the table, and that doesn't gel with the frosty, courageous and daredevil pilots I see flying on the screen when I watch Star Wars.

Then I think you're simply reading way too much into the mechanics of how squadrons work. Their mechanics aren't really fluff-based, just a way to emphasis that this game is about capital ships, not squadrons.

Plus remember that squadrons are among the most efficient damage delivery vehicles in the game. Increasing their effectiveness significantly just because you can't disassociate the mechanics from what you imagine in your head is a bad idea.

My advice, next time that conversation plays in your head, chuckle at the humor of it, then remember that you are playing a game, and that reality (the reality of an epic space fantasy opera) has to be abstracted into rules to make the game playable. Then you should be able to silence the conversation of ineptitude, and enjoy the mechanics for what they are.

Or there's X Wing, if you want that epic hero pilot feel.

This is an abstraction too far, IMO. It breaks immersion and is counter intuitive. It's silly, in fact. The game is good enough that I soldier on regardless, but it's still jarring.

I really don't think anyone has been saying squadrons are useless or underpowered. They're certainly more complex than ships, and come with their own unique set of restrictions and problems that need to be accounted for where ships don't. They're much less forgiving.

But my biggest complaint is that they feel dumb. Like, just really stupid.

I fly my Y wings directly at an enemy ship. They end their move within attack distance. They clearly have the capability to attack. I can almost hear their conversation in my head:

"Ok, we're flying straight at this enemy ship with our payload of heavy rockets"

"What are we going to do when we get there, boss?"

"Oh, I don't know, I thought we might mill around aimlessly for a bit. Give those TIE Interceptors time to move up and engage us"

"Shouldn't we shoot at the enemy ship?"

"Johnson, what have I told you about thinking on your own?"

Of flying your A Wings to engage a Rhymer ball.

"Ok, we've engaged the enemy squadrons! Should we open fire?"

"Negative! Fly in circles and do not shoot, I say again, do not shoot!"

Until a capital ship gently reminds them that they can, in fact, shoot at the enemy squadrons/ships. And then it's like there's this huge "Ah hah!" moment and suddenly your squadrons aren't stupid any more.

It's like I'm herding a bunch of morons around the table, and that doesn't gel with the frosty, courageous and daredevil pilots I see flying on the screen when I watch Star Wars.

What he said.

I'll give it that squadrons, if not used completely dump, can be the factor of success. But to me they don't feel right. It's more like they stopped in the process of development and testing, like:

"OK, game design has to be ready by next week. Use your latest working version for squadrons and fine-tune ship movement."

Yes, to me squadrons feel like the fine-tuning is missing, like there were a bunch of other interesting ideas for them which have been dropped because of time and budget reasons.

And Rhymer increasing the range of the laser cannons of Tie Fighters to the range of full-scale turreted heavy laser cannons of capital ships .... this really feels like a glitch to me.

At the moment it's possible to be successful with an all ship build or taking squadrons, the question is, with the arrival of wave 2 change things? Will an all ship build still be viable, or will at least some squadrons be essential?

FWIW- personally I don't let the game mechanics get in the way of my enjoyment of the game. If I can live with the game played on a 2d plane - then nothing else really gets in the way

I look at the squadrons and well the ships too and think, 'I'm playing with a bunch of plastic toys and here are the rules governing these particular plastic toys.'

I then move on to thinking about how to use these particular plastic toys within my overall strategy.

This is an abstraction too far, IMO. It breaks immersion and is counter intuitive. It's silly, in fact. The game is good enough that I soldier on regardless, but it's still jarring.

This is an abstraction too far, IMO. It breaks immersion and is counter intuitive. It's silly, in fact. The game is good enough that I soldier on regardless, but it's still jarring.

Then I think you are taking the mechanics much farther than intended.

That small issue is hardly the most immersion breaking. The thought that a couple of Correlian Corvettes could pose any threat to a Victory Class Star Destroyer is right out. Victories so heavily outgunned corvettes that this game basically shouldn't have room for both (or rather, any equitable force should have a dozen corvettes at least.)

Star Destroyers with turret mounted Turbolasers can somehow only shoot out of their front arcs, despite the fact that their shake should actually allow pretty good fire distribution.

Huge capital ships can only do one thing at time (they can't both repair, and allow their gunners to concentrate their fire, even though the crews doing each action are entirely separate.)

If you want to find ways in which rules abstraction distorts realty, there are far better examples, but it's a game. It has to have balance, and playability. Squadrons are very well balanced, so your opinion on their immersion just isn't that relevant. Better to have a well-designed game that is fun to play than to have something completely unplayable because it tries only to stay true to some aspects of a science fantasy opera.

I look at the squadrons and well the ships too and think, 'I'm playing with a bunch of plastic toys and here are the rules governing these particular plastic toys.'

I then move on to thinking about how to use these particular plastic toys within my overall strategy.

I'm mostly in this camp. There are plenty of things that bend, or break immersion... But it's a game that is fun to play with well designed rules.

Plus it feels like Star Wars, immersion issues aside.

I really don't think anyone has been saying squadrons are useless or underpowered. They're certainly more complex than ships, and come with their own unique set of restrictions and problems that need to be accounted for where ships don't. They're much less forgiving.

But my biggest complaint is that they feel dumb. Like, just really stupid.

I fly my Y wings directly at an enemy ship. They end their move within attack distance. They clearly have the capability to attack. I can almost hear their conversation in my head:

"Ok, we're flying straight at this enemy ship with our payload of heavy rockets"

"What are we going to do when we get there, boss?"

"Oh, I don't know, I thought we might mill around aimlessly for a bit. Give those TIE Interceptors time to move up and engage us"

"Shouldn't we shoot at the enemy ship?"

"Johnson, what have I told you about thinking on your own?"

Of flying your A Wings to engage a Rhymer ball.

"Ok, we've engaged the enemy squadrons! Should we open fire?"

"Negative! Fly in circles and do not shoot, I say again, do not shoot!"

Until a capital ship gently reminds them that they can, in fact, shoot at the enemy squadrons/ships. And then it's like there's this huge "Ah hah!" moment and suddenly your squadrons aren't stupid any more.

It's like I'm herding a bunch of morons around the table, and that doesn't gel with the frosty, courageous and daredevil pilots I see flying on the screen when I watch Star Wars.

What he said.

I'll give it that squadrons, if not used completely dump, can be the factor of success. But to me they don't feel right. It's more like they stopped in the process of development and testing, like:

"OK, game design has to be ready by next week. Use your latest working version for squadrons and fine-tune ship movement."

Yes, to me squadrons feel like the fine-tuning is missing, like there were a bunch of other interesting ideas for them which have been dropped because of time and budget reasons.

And Rhymer increasing the range of the laser cannons of Tie Fighters to the range of full-scale turreted heavy laser cannons of capital ships .... this really feels like a glitch to me.

Rhymer represents a hero. Star Wars exalts heroes. Luke bypasses shields altogether. The full shield value of the largest capital ships in the game, and Luke's torpedoes magically penetrate the shields, despite being identical to every other torpedo fired by any random X Wing.

Most of the other abilities generally make sense, Keyan is just more powerful (special loadout, maybe? Tycho is just a good enough pilot to disengage, Dutch has Ion cannons, Wedge is an excellent responsive pilot, Mithel fires like a madman when engaging enemies, Fel is able to take advantage of distractions, Howlrunner leads really effectively.)

So each side has its plethora of extraordinarily squadrons, and one each of a superhero squadron. Seems pretty reasonable to me.

I'm perfectly fine with the abilities of all other heros.

This is an abstraction too far, IMO. It breaks immersion and is counter intuitive. It's silly, in fact. The game is good enough that I soldier on regardless, but it's still jarring.

This is an abstraction too far, IMO. It breaks immersion and is counter intuitive. It's silly, in fact. The game is good enough that I soldier on regardless, but it's still jarring.

Then I think you are taking the mechanics much farther than intended.

That small issue is hardly the most immersion breaking. The thought that a couple of Correlian Corvettes could pose any threat to a Victory Class Star Destroyer is right out. Victories so heavily outgunned corvettes that this game basically shouldn't have room for both (or rather, any equitable force should have a dozen corvettes at least.)

Star Destroyers with turret mounted Turbolasers can somehow only shoot out of their front arcs, despite the fact that their shake should actually allow pretty good fire distribution.

Huge capital ships can only do one thing at time (they can't both repair, and allow their gunners to concentrate their fire, even though the crews doing each action are entirely separate.)

If you want to find ways in which rules abstraction distorts realty, there are far better examples, but it's a game. It has to have balance, and playability. Squadrons are very well balanced, so your opinion on their immersion just isn't that relevant. Better to have a well-designed game that is fun to play than to have something completely unplayable because it tries only to stay true to some aspects of a science fantasy opera.

This was **** well put! +1 from me!

I look at the squadrons and well the ships too and think, 'I'm playing with a bunch of plastic toys and here are the rules governing these particular plastic toys.'

I then move on to thinking about how to use these particular plastic toys within my overall strategy.

Pretty much this!!

The way I see squadrons portrayed requires the following fluff:

Squadron position is abstracted. The squad is "centered" around their stand, but they don't actually shoot from their stand. They need to move a short distance (distance 1) to attack.

Ship anti-squadron is more powerful than modeled. A fighter coming in from any old angle will get pulverized.

Squadrons engage in bombing or strafing runs. Squadrons don't just shoot from where they are. They need to carefully approach ships from specific vectors to avoid the worst of the AS. This takes time and coordination.

Squadron movement in game does not represent full speed. It represents full functional speed.

Squadron leaders are not part of the BORG hive mind which is the player. They have their own strengths and weaknesses, predilections, and observations of the battle field. The don't automatically agree with the player with regards to what is the "obvious" thing to do. This comes out in some inefficiency when they are moving without squad commands.

Squad commands represent direct guiding of squadrons to targets, specific and continual orders, and the ship crew taking on some of the prep work in identifying best avenues of approach. This is represented by the move and shoot of the squadron command.

The most important aspect of this view point is:

Shooting is NOT just pulling the trigger. It's a whole series of time consuming activities like target acquisition, assessment, getting into ATTACK position, and then making a combat run.

YMMV of course, but this is how I make the game make sense in my head.

This is an abstraction too far, IMO. It breaks immersion and is counter intuitive. It's silly, in fact. The game is good enough that I soldier on regardless, but it's still jarring.