I've acquired the four easy-to-find squadron blister packs for the 2003 WizKids Crimson Skies game. Now I'm developing a FlightPath style game to play with them because it's a perfect fit. I just snapped off the click bases, magnetized my Crimson Skies models and it's pretty much ready to go. All I need are rules, a card list, terrain, maybe some scenarios.

It's an opportunity to explore some X-Wing 2.0 rules ideas, along with some rules that are tailored just for the Crimson Skies look and feel. So I'm asking for any ideas you have for moving this project forward. I don't need motivation (I've already written a playable version of the first draft and the first playtest was mostly without problems), I'm mostly looking for ideas for interesting mechanics.

Some of the notable changes I've made:

Pilot skill ranges from 1 (rookies) to 5 (aces). Initiative switches players at the end of each round. Pilot skill conflicts are likely, and making the most of the ebb and flow of initiative is a fun dynamic. (Worked well in playtest.)

All elite upgrades are free (0 points) and they are all discarded after use (one-time-only effects). Most pilots have 1 or 2 (or even 3) elite upgrade slots. Upgrade cards are placed facedown during play, and are not revealed until they are used. (And then they are discarded.) You can have multiple copies of the same elite upgrade card on a ship, but you can't play the same elite upgrade twice on the same ship on the same turn. Most of the elite upgrades are adapted from ones we already have in X-Wing.

Range bonuses apply to all non-bomb attacks (bombs are for scenario use only anyway). In playtesting, this worked better than I hoped, and it's one less rule to remember.

There are no 360 turrets (yet). Rear gunner turrets can fire in a 180 degree arc to the rear (or maybe a narrower arc depending on the ship). Single-engine interceptor-type planes have somewhat narrower firing arcs than the standard. You have to fly those guys more carefully in order to line up shots.

Every ship should have some kind of action to make additional movement after maneuvering. So expect every ship to have at least one of boost, barrel roll and slam.

Target locks are uncommon as standard equipment. That's a fancy gadget you got there. You pay extra for that.

Rocket ordnance is powerful, usually Range 1-2 (appropriate for the period I think), and requires a focus token but you usually don't have to spend it. Most of them cost 1 point. Worked well in playtest.

I'll post a text dump here soon with all the work I've done so far. Until then, do you have any ideas?

1 time use EPT's is a nice touch. I wonder though, is the game long enough to consider cooldowns? Such as, when you use an EPT (or anything for that matter), put X tokens on it. At the beginning of each round (some cards might have other triggers, such as 'when an enemy ship is destroyed' or 'after you perform an attack'), remove 1 token. You may not use this card if it has any tokens on. Maybe some cards even start with tokens when the game starts, sort of like a ship's super ability.

If you separate ships from pilots, keyword the pilots.

So to use an Xwing example, Han and Dash are Freighter Pilots- their pilot ability can only apply to YT 2400 and 1300, YV666, HWK, Imperial Shuttle, and possibly the GR75 and Golzanti. Wedge and Corran are Aces, so they can fly any fighter, from Wraith Squadron Tie fighters on up to Isard's Tie Defenders to scum Clutches. However, you wont catch any of them flying a Ywing. (Farlander and Marrak Steele would have both the Fighter and Bomber pilot keywords)

So, an Xwing equivilant can be on par with a Bwing equivilant, but if they have different pilots, that's one way to make them different.

If you separate ships from pilots, keyword the pilots.

So to use an Xwing example, Han and Dash are Freighter Pilots- their pilot ability can only apply to YT 2400 and 1300, YV666, HWK, Imperial Shuttle, and possibly the GR75 and Golzanti. Wedge and Corran are Aces, so they can fly any fighter, from Wraith Squadron Tie fighters on up to Isard's Tie Defenders to scum Clutches. However, you wont catch any of them flying a Ywing. (Farlander and Marrak Steele would have both the Fighter and Bomber pilot keywords)

So, an Xwing equivilant can be on par with a Bwing equivilant, but if they have different pilots, that's one way to make them different.

Yes, I would agree with you, but I'm designing this mod to work with my collection of WizKids Crimson Skies minis from 2003, which went out of print right away, and which I've only started collecting in 2016. Getting hold of the actual ship models isn't as easy as it once was. So my goal is to be able to play a 100pt v 100pt battle using any two of these blister packs.

1x Broadway Bombers squadron blister (2 sets would be better)

1x Hollywood Knights squadron blister and Ace Pack #1 (1 of each should be fine; these are costly top-of-the-line planes)

1x Fortune Hunters squadron blister (2 sets would be better)

2x Red Skull Legion squadron blister (2 sets are pretty much necessary because these are probably going to be swarmers)

(Miniature Market is having a closeout sale on some of these until the end of March, by the way.)

If you don't already know, each faction's blister pack comes with two copies of two different ships. What I'm getting at is that if there are only two ships to choose from in each faction, pilots can probably be keyword-free because there just aren't enough potential combinations to worry about. So any of the four or five ace Hollywood Knights pilots should be able to fly either of the Hollywood Knights signature planes without breaking anything, I hope.

However, I might still re-combine pilot and ship cards later, or give pilot cards keywords that limit the kinds of planes they're allowed to jump into, so that there can be greater plane variety in each squadron. I just don't like the idea of mismatched paint schemes, and I don't think I'll be able to acquire enough ships to be able repaint enough them to look good when flying with other factions (and I kinda don't want to have to repaint anything). We'll see.

Thanks for the ideas!

My collection so far. I have a few more blisters shipping to me right now.

Those are some outright pretty Bloodhawks.

Here's my Google doc. Feel free to browse and comment.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ttJd1ylzFHOQPm55zSQ0MqwnhJqCad2CH88oDk9_GEQ/edit?usp=sharing

Maybe separate attack damage from accuracy? Have you played imperial assault? I would love that mechanic in an X wing 2.0.

Maybe separate attack damage from accuracy? Have you played imperial assault? I would love that mechanic in an X wing 2.0.

I'm sure it would be possible to come up with some system that uses Imperial Assault dice, but it would be a complete overhaul, grounds-up redesign. It's not a bad idea and could be really cool. (Just not for this. )

This might be more trouble than its worth, but what about various grades of firing arcs? The standard X-wing arc would represent something like snap attacks of opportunity. A narrower arc (maybe a beam straight our from the base) would represent having guns lined up more accurately, and would have another bonus to attack. I'd also love to see something that accounted for relative motion (head to head and head to tail vs crossing the T), but I think know that's even less practical.

Also, I'm not too familiar with how much Crimson Skies tries to keep the feel of actual technology, but unguided aerial rockets weren't very accurate, so it seems like they should probably be Range 1.

Have you played armada? I feel like that essentially is x-wing 2.0 in a lot of ways. The dice mechanics in that play a whole lot better than x-wing. It's sort of a blend between imperial assault and x-wing.

Lots of good mechanics in that game. So if you haven't played it, I strongly recommend it just to survey the differences.

Maybe separate attack damage from accuracy? Have you played imperial assault? I would love that mechanic in an X wing 2.0.

This is what I would try to incorporate. Its probably the biggest flaw in X-wing. It makes 2 attack dice ships kind of useless and it makes certain ships way to powerful defensively.

I had this idea over in the Paradigm thread on the main boards:

Ok I have a crazy idea. It's not tuned or balanced by any means, but let's see if I can convey the concept. And it would be impossible to implement into the existing game, but I can dream for x-wing 2.0.

At the start of each round, each player sums their PS. Each player receives activation tokens equal to their totaled PS / 5, rounded down.

During the activation phase, players alternate, starting with the player with initiative, by either revealing a ship's dial (performing it's move), or discarding an activation token.

If a player has no activation tokens and all of their ships have performed their maneuvers, then the player skips until both players have performed all ship maneuvers.

The rest of the phases are as currently are.

It's a play on Armada's system. Each side takes turns activating a ship, but there's no way to 'pass'. This lets rebels (the swarmers in that game) react to star destroyers and such. The fighter squadrons in Armada do the same thing, but have a fancy sliding cardboard piece that lets you know if it's been activated that round yet or not. Armada does not have PS, so it's simply a numbers game.... granted armada doesn't have arcs the same way X-wing has arcs.

My idea lets PS matter, but up to a point. It would make pricing high PS to be easier, and even make mid range PS mean something. It's not perfect and ends up requiring everything to be rebalanced, hence why it couldn't be added to the existing system. Just a thought.

My one thing would be to 'reverse' ordnance.

Rather than locking 360 and firing in arc i would have it act more like real ordnance and have it Lock in arc (chasing someone tail or getting a firm target lock) and then firing 360 (heat seeking or homing missile types).

For dumbfire rockets make them lock and fire in arc.

Thanks for all the ideas!

Here's the Google doc I've been putting together. Feel free to comment here or in the doc itself:

Might be too powerful an action, but for actual aerial dogfighting I would like to see a "loop" action that was something like a backwards boost, possibly giving a stress to balance being able to move backward.

Edit: Dammit Dave. Now you have me wanting to dig out my crimson skies stuff. I already have too many games to play right now, I don't need another.

This thing is pretty much complete and playable. It just needs lots of playtesting, balancing and refining. But it has zeppelins able to get in the fight (and can dock smaller ships, repair and relaunch them), a bunch of scenarios for much variety, larger point battles so zeps can fight zeps, and tons of upgrade options. Whew.

Google doc here:
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1ttJd1ylzFHOQPm55zSQ0MqwnhJqCad2CH88oDk9_GEQ/edit?usp=sharing

Most of my X-Wing 2.0 wishes are in here:

Initiative switches to the other player at the end of each round. Pilot skill ranges from 1 (rookie) to 5 (aces). This results in more PS conflicts, making for more dynamic activation/combat timing.

Maneuver dials are quirky (limited, sometimes asymmetrical). Very few ships can take a 1-speed maneuver (gotta keep moving if you want to maintain lift), but every ship has at least one kind of post-maneuver repositioning action (barrel roll, boost, drift, slam).

Some ships have narrower primary firing arcs than the standard arc, requiring more careful maneuvering.

All attacks are affected by range combat bonuses. Having secondary weapons be exempt from range combat bonuses is counter-intuitive, so it's just not a rule here. If a weapon is exempt from range combat bonuses, it will say so as a special rule. So all missiles and turrets and cannon get that extra 1 attack die at Range 1, and everybody always gets an extra defense die at Range 3, no exceptions. And it kinda works great, because it makes maneuvering just that much more important.

Every ship has blind spots. (Except zeppelins, but they're special.) No small ships have 360 turrets. Maneuvering is importanter.

Awesome. Are you going to be able to photoshop graphical pilot cards and inserts and the like or is it remaining just a document?

I can create all that stuff, but the game needs to be tested a bunch before taking that step. It's printed lists for the time being.

Maneuvering is importanter.

Now those are words to live by.

Probably not intentional, but awesome'er all the same.