I'm trying to develop a new dogfight format that's balanced and symmetrical enough for tournament play, with a capture-the-flag kind of element for deep strategizing.

Here's the PDF.

http://outworld-studio.com/xwing/pdf/X-Wing-Area-Control-Dogfight.pdf

That's a lot of obstacles and ships running about.

8 obstacles, 8 ships max each and 2 sats for 26 separate entities on the board.

Things should get crowded awfully fast.

The obstacles can actually spread out more than you may imagine because the minimum range from the edge is 1 instead of 2.

That's a lot of obstacles and ships running about.

8 obstacles, 8 ships max each and 2 sats for 26 separate entities on the board.

Things should get crowded awfully fast.

Yep, it's more stuff, but you do have more room for placing obstacles. Squads in this format should tend to have about 1 more ship than they do in the standard dogfight, so there might be some crowding there. However, you'll probably want to split up your forces in order to gain control over both satellite zones, so you'll have to make some decisions about formation flying and spreading yourself too thin.

Hadn't taken the range difference into account, that should help, yes.

I like it!

Breaks up the "staleness" (for lack of a better word) of the typical 100-pt dogfight. Love the heavy fire rules, too.

I think the initiative switch is an excellent idea, and so simple, that I'm surprised no one's mentioned it before. Definitely going to be trying this format out at my next gaming session.

You might have to impose a limit on the number of ships you can take of each type, there'd be a large potential for high damage swarm spam, right now I'm thinking of a couple of archetypes that would dominate easily:

6 Tempest with Prot Rocket and ATC

6 Omega's with Juke and Comm Relay

6 HWK TLT with Rec Spec

6 Y TLT

5 Onyx Defenders with /x7

6 R2 Rookies with IA and Flechettes

Maybe a mandatory large base?

You might have to impose a limit on the number of ships you can take of each type, there'd be a large potential for high damage swarm spam, right now I'm thinking of a couple of archetypes that would dominate easily:

6 Tempest with Prot Rocket and ATC

6 Omega's with Juke and Comm Relay

6 HWK TLT with Rec Spec

6 Y TLT

5 Onyx Defenders with /x7

6 R2 Rookies with IA and Flechettes

Maybe a mandatory large base?

I think this is more of a legitimate point, although it depends on how seriously people take the event / if the game is played on vassal. I don't think anyone will run out and buy two or three more defenders to field 5 at once for this specific format. Obviously on vassal things are different. I also went pretty quickly to 5 defenders with the title as being pretty powerful.

One other thing I would worry about is the incentive to control both satellites at once. I imagine a player trying to control both satellites would be at a disadvantage because the other player could concentrate their forces at just one satellite, and deny the off-map fire support while presenting a unified force to a divided force. Even when the satellites are controlled and the off-map fire is triggered, the average damage is about 1 per turn, which might be less than what the ships controlling the satellites might accomplish on their own. When does it make sense to go after the satellites instead of engaging with full force? Did that crop up as a problem in playtests?

Maybe a mandatory large base?

I think that would result in a fat turret meta. At least there's a lot of variety among your spam lists without closing off options to try other things. Nothing wrecks low PS ships like higher PS ships with Predator and the ability to reposition after all enemy movement. I don't really see the PS arms race going away, especially since it costs relatively few points to upgrade a generic to an ace in this format.

double post

I don't think anyone will run out and buy two or three more defenders to field 5 at once for this specific format.

That's something to consider. I have a fairly extensive X-Wing collection and I can't field some of the spam lists I've been putting together, and I don't think I would buy another couple of HWKs no matter how strong I thought the list might be. In a tournament setting, that matters. Players may have to borrow heavily to fill out those sorts of squads, so you'd better make friends.

The thought that you're putting into all of that stuff is a big part of why I like the area-control element. Every player will look at the satellites a different way and decide how to deal with them. It's something in your bag of tricks, and if it can be used, why wouldn't you use it? But that's just how I look at it.

Maybe it's never worth fighting for area control at the start of the game. Maybe it becomes important later, when one team is up a ship or two and has the ability to send someone off to secure both satellites and finish things quickly with the big guns. The importance and availability of that option will change over the course of a battle, so that's a whole dynamic that will need to be played in order to be understood.

If you're worried about your opponent huddling around their home satellite, maybe you can use bombs, area-effect missiles or torpedoes, or obstacle deployment in some way to break that up.

Our first full playtest will be on Thursday, so I'll let you know.

My initial thought was, when I was thinking about the cluttered environment, to just throw the obstacles out and place a Raider or Corvette slap bang in the middle with some hardpoints equipped and have the satellites mean that you've hacked into the controls to fire on the enemy. .

My initial thought was, when I was thinking about the cluttered environment, to just throw the obstacles out and place a Raider or Corvette slap bang in the middle with some hardpoints equipped and have the satellites mean that you've hacked into the controls to fire on the enemy. .

In theory, I'm all in favor of using huge ships as obstacles. They'd have to go at Range 2 of other objects, I think. I might just add that.

Unfortunately, there just isn't enough room for two huge ships on the table at once. You can place the first in such a way that you can't place the other. I'll need to think about that some more before implementing it.

http://outworld-studio.com/xwing/pdf/X-Wing-Area-Control-Dogfight.pdf

Updated with new starting positions, fewer obstacles. It really was getting crowded with the additional corners cut off, and obstacle placement is agonizing with only 3 options (agonizing is good). You'll probably be bringing big stuff. Here's what it might look like (notice that the Epic debris clouds are allowed).

Another change is that supporting fire must be called on an enemy ship with the lowest pilot skill, which I think makes sense for lots of reasons. It keeps low PS swarms on their toes, and lets aces shine a little bit longer. That pilot skill 0 crit is going to be scary.

Did you do a playtest? I'm wondering how much the supporting fire factored into the game.

Playtested! Overall, it works pretty well, I think.

The squads we built were well matched against each other, and even though the squads are a little larger and each ship is more capable, it didn't feel imbalanced. It was just that much easier to concentrate fire, but that seemed to be balanced out by things like Shield Upgrade and synergistic effects (here have a focus) which you can now more easily afford. I'm very pleased with the squadbuilding rules. That alone was worth the price of admission.

The scenario itself is mostly fine. We should have used 4 obstacles each instead of 3. There's plenty of room even if you use the largest obstacles. I think that's the only change I would make.

We totally forgot to alternate initiative each round, but we didn't have any pilot skill conflicts so it never came into play.

My opponent ignored the area control aspect, although he had an opportunity to grab it at one point. I thought he might go for it and so I chose a maneuver that would attempt to spoil his area control, but he broke off instead and it never came up again. I expected some matches to go that way, but I'd like to try again with some fast runners to grab area control right at the start.

Playtested! Overall, it works pretty well, I think.

The squads we built were well matched against each other, and even though the squads are a little larger and each ship is more capable, it didn't feel imbalanced. It was just that much easier to concentrate fire, but that seemed to be balanced out by things like Shield Upgrade and synergistic effects (here have a focus) which you can now more easily afford. I'm very pleased with the squadbuilding rules. That alone was worth the price of admission.

The scenario itself is mostly fine. We should have used 4 obstacles each instead of 3. There's plenty of room even if you use the largest obstacles. I think that's the only change I would make.

We totally forgot to alternate initiative each round, but we didn't have any pilot skill conflicts so it never came into play.

My opponent ignored the area control aspect, although he had an opportunity to grab it at one point. I thought he might go for it and so I chose a maneuver that would attempt to spoil his area control, but he broke off instead and it never came up again. I expected some matches to go that way, but I'd like to try again with some fast runners to grab area control right at the start.

Cool! Glad to hear it worked out well. I think that in 9/10 cases, the squads are going to look like what you had intended, rather than some sort of min/max type build like 5 TIE defenders with X7.

I don't really think you need to do the swap initiative each turn thing. It may be interesting if that was an effect of controlling the satellites, though.

I have a similar area control mission type: Satellite Control, and I had the same issue about players ignoring the area control aspect, even though in my scenario that is literally how you win the mission. Getting players to pay attention to objectives when we've been playing deathmatch for so long isn't easy.

Unfortunately, there just isn't enough room for two huge ships on the table at once. You can place the first in such a way that you can't place the other. I'll need to think about that some more before implementing it.

I was just thinking a single one in the middle, a derelict ship you're all fighting over for control. Would als make for a nice fat obstacle to run circles around (maybe allow flying, but not shooting through?).

I was just thinking a single one in the middle, a derelict ship you're all fighting over for control. Would als make for a nice fat obstacle to run circles around (maybe allow flying, but not shooting through?).

I could see that being cool for a scenario/mission setup. My quest here is to come up with an alternate tournament format. In a tournament, who would bring the huge ship? Who would place it? What happens if both players bring a huge ship?

The best solution I can come up with that this could be done by the TO before the tournament using ships on loan from players. If the TO randomizes the tables, you'll never know whether you'll be playing at a table with a Corvette/Raider sized obstacle or a Gozanti/Transport sized obstacle. That could work and be really fun with the right type of playing group (including mine), but I don't think I could sell most people on the idea of a tournament format that required so many huge ships.

Bring a list, bring a huge, flip a coin to see which is used. Only use Raiders or Corvettes.

I'm just spitballing here, the asteroids would probably be your best bet, everybody has those.