The X Wing was designed for a completely different game, that just happened to share the same name and dev team. The problem isn't the jousting efficiency, its the lack of reposition or autothrusters, since those things obviously weren't concerns back then.

Well. Both the TIE Fighter and TIE Advanced were released in Wave 1. They both have some great repositioning ability.

And it was actually a different team. The current developers first worked (jointly with the originals, iirc) on Imperial Aces.

Being harder to kill is nice but if your opponents are avoiding your arcs because they can boost and barrel while you can't it's mearly delaying the inevitable.

The inability of high ps x-wing pilots to alter position will keep them on the shoreline.

BB-8. R7-T1. Expert Handling. Engine Upgrade.

Or better still, learning to play the game without relying on the crutches that are high-PS, post-maneuver repositioning abilities.

Post maneuvering options can certainly be a safety valve, but they're also an ability to put your ship in a lot more places than it normally couldn't have gone, which is especially important for blockers and is also useful for the purposes of escaping and reengaging.

Gecko is right. "crutches" make the game boring and require less skill than real precognition.

But meta is mostly about these "crutches" and 360' attack "crutches"

Jousters can't raise the head because of them.

The X Wing was designed for a completely different game, that just happened to share the same name and dev team. The problem isn't the jousting efficiency, its the lack of reposition or autothrusters, since those things obviously weren't concerns back then.

Well. Both the TIE Fighter and TIE Advanced were released in Wave 1. They both have some great repositioning ability.

I thought the idea was that rebels get sheilds and the empire got repositioning? If all of the rebel ships get repositioning how would that effect the imperials?

Problem is, any specific fix to the (t-65) X-Wing wouldn't actually be able to say T-65 only... because the original X-Wing doesn't have T-65 printed on it, so from a game mechanics standpoint, you can either start re-reprinting all of the original X-WIngs with T-65 on them, which they aren't going to do, or look at other ways. Because as of right now, even a title for the X-Wing that says X-Wing Only, will still be usable on the T-70. (Unless they come up with a new way to specify, like X-Wing only, but not the T-70 - but that would sound strange).

I think it would have to be something like:

"X-Wing only

May not have the boost action"

Problem is, any specific fix to the (t-65) X-Wing wouldn't actually be able to say T-65 only... because the original X-Wing doesn't have T-65 printed on it, so from a game mechanics standpoint, you can either start re-reprinting all of the original X-WIngs with T-65 on them, which they aren't going to do, or look at other ways. Because as of right now, even a title for the X-Wing that says X-Wing Only, will still be usable on the T-70. (Unless they come up with a new way to specify, like X-Wing only, but not the T-70 - but that would sound strange).

I think it would have to be something like:

"X-Wing only

May not have the boost action"

*ahem

Honestly I don't think people will be satisfied until the X-Wing has the maneuverability of the TIE Interceptor and totally dominates the meta.

I think the problem is that the game is called X-Wing Miniatures. If it had been called Tie Fighter Miniatures or even Star Wars Miniatures, there would be less forums on this topic, especially since the Tie has become the benchmark for what is properly costed and what isn't.

I feel the game is remarkably balanced in general and many ships/pilots that dont see a lot of high level tournament play are still great and fun in epic and casual play.

Still, sometimes its fun to imagine that Wedge can solo a 12 ship sqaudron of Ties by auto killing 3 at range 5 with his protons and then swoop and deke and dive circles around the rest of them while regening 2 shields a round, like he does in the Legends books.

Honestly I don't think people will be satisfied until the X-Wing has the maneuverability of the TIE Interceptor and totally dominates the meta.

I think the problem is that the game is called X-Wing Miniatures. If it had been called Tie Fighter Miniatures or even Star Wars Miniatures, there would be less forums on this topic, especially since the Tie has become the benchmark for what is properly costed and what isn't.

I feel the game is remarkably balanced in general and many ships/pilots that dont see a lot of high level tournament play are still great and fun in epic and casual play.

I think this is part of the problem. Many are thinking thought through the lens tournament results where everything is exaggerated to get the best absolute results. The game and specifically the X-Wing, with the Integrated Astromech (IA), are well balanced.

Once the IA is released I do feel that there will be a lot more X-Wings with droids which is both thematic and and a buff. Personally I think after IA comes out the game will be at a good place. But that's just me, I know several will disagree but that's okay too.

As far as the name of the game. At first I gave this reason more credit than I do recently. Given my thoughts of IA actually rebalancing the X-Wing and the so-called 'tournament lens' then if we continue to buff the X-Wing it may end up dominating everything. Regardless is this being the games namesake that would kind of take the fun out of it for everyone else.

Just my thoughts.

P.S. my view may be a little biased. I think I'm one of the few who thinks ships could be situational and not necessarily balanced to a fraction of a point. But again that's just me.

It needs something besides an Astromech, because that slot needs to stay versatile.

It needs something to give it better repositioning capability. It's not Soontir Fel, but it's a far heavier starship... What if it could park?

What if it had "Retro Thrusters"?

"When you reveal your movement dial, select any speed 1 maneuver and assign yourself a stress token."

Of course, the problem is, almost anything the T-65 can get, the T-70 can get. So what about something it can't get?Resistance Refit

All banks and straights up to speed 2 are considered green maneuvers. T-65 Only.

It'd definitely make it one hard to stress fighter. Anybody operating a T-65 would be able to keep their cool and know their ship to stay cool doing such maneuvers anyway- alongside just flat out better engines. The mass and stats stay the same, but the stress put on the pilot/engines changes.

Or perhaps even...Civil War VeteranT-65 X-Wing only

Raise your Pilot Skill by 1

This raises Wedge to 10, and Luke to 9. It's a big deal, so it needs to be costed appropriately. But these are people with four more decades of experience flying these ships, so a PS gain makes some sense for these veteran pilots.

It might even be overpowered to combine that with Resistance Retrofit.

But who knows. People seem to think the pivotal ship of XWMG needs a huge buff.

So here it is.

EDIT: I forgot Veteran Instincts was a thing.

And "Retro Thrusters" isn't just Engine Upgrade. It allows you to change your selected maneuver to any 1-speed if it won't work out.

Insanely buffing (bit of hyperbole there) Wedge because folks don't take rookies very often seems a bit counterintuitive.

Being harder to kill is nice but if your opponents are avoiding your arcs because they can boost and barrel while you can't it's mearly delaying the inevitable.

The inability of high ps x-wing pilots to alter position will keep them on the shoreline.

BB-8. R7-T1. Expert Handling. Engine Upgrade.

Or better still, learning to play the game without relying on the crutches that are high-PS, post-maneuver repositioning abilities.

You mean play the game without half the toys in the toy chest? Why on Earth would I want to not have fun?!

Just want to point this out.

There are 5 PS9 Pilots in the game. Soontir, Vader, Han, Wedge and Talonbane.

At Worlds, Soontir was used in 30 lists, 2 of which made top 16.

Vader was used in 29 lists, 4 of which made top 16.

Han was used in 6 lists, 0 of which made top 16, highest Swiss rank was 33.

Talonbane was used in 1 list, Swiss rank 175.

Wedge was used in 1 list, Swiss rank 215.

Every time a new Astromech gets released, the T-65s get better.

The T-65 is not as bad as pre-title Advanced.

Is this just the younger players with their sense of entitlement from the preschooler highschools and daycare colleges speaking?

Just want to point this out.

There are 5 PS9 Pilots in the game. Soontir, Vader, Han, Wedge and Talonbane.

At Worlds, Soontir was used in 30 lists, 2 of which made top 16.

Vader was used in 29 lists, 4 of which made top 16.

Han was used in 6 lists, 0 of which made top 16, highest Swiss rank was 33.

Talonbane was used in 1 list, Swiss rank 175.

Wedge was used in 1 list, Swiss rank 215.

What are the go-to ships in Imperial?

The PS9 Imp ships just happen to have the best ways to keep themselves alive, there aren't any shield regenerating shenanigans to be had on Imperial side.

Every time a new Astromech gets released, the T-65s get better.

The T-65 is not as bad as pre-title Advanced.

Is this just the younger players with their sense of entitlement from the preschooler highschools and daycare colleges speaking?

Just want to point this out.

There are 5 PS9 Pilots in the game. Soontir, Vader, Han, Wedge and Talonbane.

At Worlds, Soontir was used in 30 lists, 2 of which made top 16.

Vader was used in 29 lists, 4 of which made top 16.

Han was used in 6 lists, 0 of which made top 16, highest Swiss rank was 33.

Talonbane was used in 1 list, Swiss rank 175.

Wedge was used in 1 list, Swiss rank 215.

What are the go-to ships in Imperial?

The PS9 Imp ships just happen to have the best ways to keep themselves alive, there aren't any shield regenerating shenanigans to be had on Imperial side.

The numbers stay the same no matter how short the bus is implied to be.

What role does this craft perform on the field? Does it have lateral mobility like an interceptor, or enough straight line speed to hunt something down and be called a fighter? Besides just taking Hobie or Tarn for their abilities, what exactly does the X-Wing DO?

The biggest problem is that game mechanics mean that minmaxing is inherently desirable, and the idea of a "generalist" ship just breaks down.

I had a really long post ready to submit. Then I accidentally hit the back button on my mouse losing everything. So I'll just give the Cliff Notes summary of where we are now.

Basically it boils down to 2 main points:

1. TLT Y-wings are so efficient for turrets that they have put all vanilla generic ships on the endangered species list.

2. The X-wing with I.A. is almost, but not quite, as cost efficient as a naked B-wing.

Here are the jousting numbers using updated non-public MathWing analysis (including a real action economy model), but still using the legacy meta assumptions from over a year ago. These numbers will change once I pull in TLT as a defining attack type in the wave 7+ meta. These are "absolute" efficiency numbers, so they are NOT derated for Pilot Skill. I threw in Vader and Fel for kicks because, despite being PS9, they have an efficiency that nearly matches tier 1.5 PS1/2 jousters.

Z-95: 100.0% (reference)

TIE Fighter: 99.3%

B-wing + FCS: 95.3%

Y-wing + TLT + BTL: 94.2%

TIE Adv + ACC: 93.9%

A-wing + Refit: 93.1%

B-wing: 92.5%

X-wing + I.A: 91.3%

Vader + ATC: 90.4%

X-wing: 86.3%

Y-wing + TLT: 85.7%

Fel + PtL + SD + AT: 85.5%*

* Fel's efficiency will go up with wave 7 meta assumptions where AT will matter more vs the flood of TLT attacks that I'm not modeling yet. Note this doesn't even consider that he is PS9 or has access to boost and barrel roll. It's just looking at "turtle Fel" approach of double focus + evade every round.

Disclaimer: analysis still in progress, final numbers subject to change, terms and conditions apply, etc etc etc.

Conclusion: for the X-wing to be viable, they need:

• TLT Y-wings to not exist at 24 points
• The X-wing still needs to be more cost efficient at low PS even than with I.A. +1 Hull for free as I had suggested a year ago in my House Rules would be OK. Integrated Astromech for 1 point (droid cost) is a step in the right direction, but it won't quite be enough.
• The high PS ships need a repositional capability, at an absolute minimum barrel roll is required for PS8+ to have any sort of positional advantage.

Therefore, steps to "fix" the X-wing:

1. FFG hires me as a Consultant Technical Director.
2. Errata TLT to 7 points.
3. Change Integrated Astromech to also reduce the cost of the astromech by 1 point to a minimum of 0, and grant the barrel roll action if your action bar does not include the boost action. (text won't all fit on the card, but that's still what it needs)

None of these however are likely to happen.

What role does this craft perform on the field? Does it have lateral mobility like an interceptor, or enough straight line speed to hunt something down and be called a fighter? Besides just taking Hobie or Tarn for their abilities, what exactly does the X-Wing DO?

The biggest problem is that game mechanics mean that minmaxing is inherently desirable, and the idea of a "generalist" ship just breaks down.

it's not really "generalist" it's "doesn'tgetfuckedoverbyshitdice...alist"

every single one of the top worlds lists was stuffed up the ass with dice mitigation, including

1.) PS 8-9

Want to avoid rolling spikey dice? Don't get shot at in the first place!

High ps pulls double duty: arc-dodging and killing fools before they shoot you

2.) Shield Regen

completely dice free! Just green maneuver and DING, free shield!

well, Miranda has to shoot, but her regen doesn't care about the result. Speaking of,

3.) Dice independent upgrades

specifically r3-a2 and Tactician

stress is excellent for controlling enemy movement (which allows easier arc-dodging and less dice modifiers), but what's amazing is r3-a2 and Tactician give zero **** about how much damage you do

Flechette cannon does, which is half of why it is an irredeemable piece of ****

4.) Dice retardant upgrades

from TLTs to crackshot, Emperor to FCS to ATC, you better stuff your list full of things that bypass crap dice or you will fall to rng long before you make the cut

hell, the poor triple K-wing list got utterly annihilated by its own inability to roll hits on TLTs. Them's the breaks, sadly

speaking of TLTs, though, they're an interesting thing. See, fact of the matter is you can break your own back catching an ace in your firing arc, but if the dice flip you the bird then you're getting ******. With TLTs, not only do you not have to worry about arc (as much), but you can navigate defensive tokens and tech far more easily.

so, if you want to be competitive, you're going to need to consult the above list and shun naked dice like they defecated in public

unfortunately, jousters are all about those naked or nearly naked dice, so life kinda sucks for them now. a k4 clone would've gone a long way to making X-wings viable (full offensive mods post-green maneuver for 24 points), but Targeting Astromech basically shat the bed on arrival

on the plus side, Wedge remains terrifying if you can fly him right

What role does this craft perform on the field? Does it have lateral mobility like an interceptor, or enough straight line speed to hunt something down and be called a fighter? Besides just taking Hobie or Tarn for their abilities, what exactly does the X-Wing DO?

The biggest problem is that game mechanics mean that minmaxing is inherently desirable, and the idea of a "generalist" ship just breaks down.

(David Attenborough voice)

Well I'm pretty sure the middle ground between a wolf and a ram is called a sheep, and it describes these ships with some accuracy.

2. The X-wing with I.A. is almost, but not quite, as cost efficient as a naked B-wing.

Finally, MJ proves what people who actually fly X-wings with proxied IA have been thinking.

All we need is a Charden Refit style card, to allow the Xwing to get better upgrades/pilots.

Every time a new Astromech gets released, the T-65s get better.

The T-65 is not as bad as pre-title Advanced.

That's part of the problem, I think. When a ship is 3-4 points too expensive, it's easy enough to give it a kick into the right spot. But a 1.5 point nudge? That's tough to properly calibrate.

Integrated Astromech seems to function as a 1pt Hull Upgrade (Zero point mod that requires a minimum of a 1 point 'mech). Is that enough? Maybe so. I'm not 100% convinced, but I am hoping to be wrong.

I guarantee Biggs will be on more tables in 2016 than he was in 2015. That will be quite nice.

What role does this craft perform on the field? Does it have lateral mobility like an interceptor, or enough straight line speed to hunt something down and be called a fighter? Besides just taking Hobie or Tarn for their abilities, what exactly does the X-Wing DO?

The biggest problem is that game mechanics mean that minmaxing is inherently desirable, and the idea of a "generalist" ship just breaks down.

it's not really "generalist" it's "doesn'tgetfuckedoverbyshitdice...alist"

The idea of a generalist as an archetype is specifically the matter at hand.

Every ship with a strong presence is min-maxed to do some particular task well.

Z-95: 100.0% (reference)

TIE Fighter: 99.3%

B-wing + FCS: 95.3%

Y-wing + TLT + BTL: 94.2%

TIE Adv + ACC: 93.9%

A-wing + Refit: 93.1%

B-wing: 92.5%

X-wing + I.A: 91.3%

Vader + ATC: 90.4%

X-wing: 86.3%

Y-wing + TLT: 85.7%

Fel + PtL + SD + AT: 85.5%*

Disclaimer: analysis still in progress, final numbers subject to change, terms and conditions apply, etc etc etc.

Wait. Can we stop and marvel that the Z-95 is more cost efficient than the TIE Fighter?!

Z-95: 100.0% (reference)

TIE Fighter: 99.3%

B-wing + FCS: 95.3%

Y-wing + TLT + BTL: 94.2%

TIE Adv + ACC: 93.9%

A-wing + Refit: 93.1%

B-wing: 92.5%

X-wing + I.A: 91.3%

Vader + ATC: 90.4%

X-wing: 86.3%

Y-wing + TLT: 85.7%

Fel + PtL + SD + AT: 85.5%*

Disclaimer: analysis still in progress, final numbers subject to change, terms and conditions apply, etc etc etc.

Wait. Can we stop and marvel that the Z-95 is more cost efficient than the TIE Fighter?!

nope

old news

also, it's a stiff piece of **** that can't take crackshot on a generic

This is my 'Rogue Squadron' build that I've gone 5-3 with at my local store. When IA comes out, I can see myself adding that to all the ships for that added survivability. I'm also tempted to try switch out Luke for Hobbie with a TA to use him as a jouster.

I disagree about the T-65 being noncompetitive. If you're looking for a flanking, arc dodger then the T-65 isn't your ship and you shouldn't try fly it as such. I think it works best when flown relatively conservatively, in formation, maximising firepower against a single target. Keep it slow and keep the enemy in your sights.

Z-95: 100.0% (reference)

TIE Fighter: 99.3%

B-wing + FCS: 95.3%

Y-wing + TLT + BTL: 94.2%

TIE Adv + ACC: 93.9%

A-wing + Refit: 93.1%

B-wing: 92.5%

X-wing + I.A: 91.3%

Vader + ATC: 90.4%

X-wing: 86.3%

Y-wing + TLT: 85.7%

Fel + PtL + SD + AT: 85.5%*

Disclaimer: analysis still in progress, final numbers subject to change, terms and conditions apply, etc etc etc.

Wait. Can we stop and marvel that the Z-95 is more cost efficient than the TIE Fighter?!

Tie fighter has Barrel roll over the Z95... the z95 BETTER be more efficent.

ROGUE SQUADRON

Wedge, Wes, Luke

99 points

PILOTS

Wes Janson (34)

X-Wing (29), R2-D2 (4), Veteran Instincts (1)

Wedge Antilles (34)

X-Wing (29), R2 Astromech (1), Opportunist (4)

Luke Skywalker (31)

X-Wing (28), R5-K6 (2), Veteran Instincts (1)

You win games with that? You're braver than I thought!