I don't think this is really all about making certain ships "viable", more expanding each particular ships options.

I think most of us are looking too far into this as a single ships boost versus adding an upgrade slot similar to titles but affects a broader portion of your squad than just 1 ship.

Think for example Youngster. His ability I believe only applies to TIE fighters, would that that in a sense limit the "diversity" of said build? He is strong and beneficial to certain aspects of your list but there are options for including non TIE fighters in your squad, the only limiting factors here are choosing a. The faction of your choice and b. What can be structured in X amount of points.

3X X-Wing's are only used for a reference here guys, and it's well established Rebels flew mixed squadrons for their mission purposes. I can honestly say there is no idea about "forced" inclusions of certain ships but rather an alternative option as to why you consider bringing this particular ship.

I could really get into adding a generic upgrade slot entitled; Squadron . It could bring in slot of so far under utilized Star Wars story.

Don't get me wrong, this could take a considerable amount of observation and thought to prevent certain aspects becoming skewed in our 100 pt death matchs, but what upgrade doesn't take significant consideration before it can be released in this era of X-wing.

Complex rules are certainly easy to make but simple, clean rules are truly challenging to manage into a streamlined game of this complexity.

And if you don't think 3 Rookie pilots and 3 Bandits are a 99 pt threat, ask the Palpmobile players that I ate for lunch. The only ship in this game you will hear Mr say is pure unpleasant and just poorly calculated is the Scyk.

I really want to meet the guy who play tested that ship on such a way that made it get hit with ****** over stick.

Long story short, adding a potential thematic element in the form of multi ship "Squadron" upgrade could make some very cool things happen. Don't let the possibility of bad overwhelm a potential Avenue of good healthy progress for this wonderful game.

This could be another way to play the game.

- 100 pts six rocks

- 150 pts squadrons

- 300 pts Epic

Simply my 2 cts...

I can see what the OP is aiming for. X-wing is a very free-flow game at a small level. The OP is aming for something at squadron level, and X-wing just can't do that at the 100-point game level. At best, the average squad is representing a flight of ships, not a squadron. Even when you scale the game up to Epic and start including many more ships, it's not quite the squadron level game that he's aiming for.

No this is not what I am talking about. I'm talking about adding another facet to the 100 point squad building experience that is balanced for 100 points.

Why screw with what is working?

No.

A lot of that stuff isn't working though. That is the point. Sometimes you have to think about the post after you read it.

I would only support this if the special squadron rules etc.were online and you did NOT need to have any cards to use them (think rule ref cards) and the squadrons did NOT come with any special goodies.

If it ended up being something that would compel me to REbuy ships rather than new ones, it would do nothing more that piss me off and spur a maelstrom of "FFG is the new GW" trollishness on the Interwebs.

The idea is that they would be cheap packs you buy that don't contain ships. It'd be a card/base chip pack that contains everything for the squadron card and possibly new pilots. No ship would hopefully keep the cost of something like this to an MSRP under $7

Just to clarify... don't we already have Squadron Packs, more or less?

Imperial Aces certainly changed the game...

Rebel Aces are still being played today...

Imperial Veterans has a lot of people wanting to play Defenders... in more ways than one.

True, so far we haven't had any "squad" cards that buffed an entire group, but we already have the packaging that fits the bill. And I don't ever see them releasing a package that doesn't include ships. Just doesn't make sense.

Y'know, what cracks me up about this is that it's not even originally a 40k thing. Warmachine was doing it for years before GW ever added it to 40k, and someone was probably doing similar "select a certain force, gain a bonus!" stuff before Warmachine was.

Warmachine/ Hordes was the first game to do it properly. Hell, warmachine kinda of had it in MKI

Battletech had a loose fluff based formation thing due V the field manual era.

This topic was brought up ages ago and it was shot down then by all the people who couldn't get "I hate 40k" out of their head.

Warmahordes is actually where I drew inspiration from. Last time there were so many 40k dissenters the post didn't have a chance. It is refreshing to see this time around with a more fleshed out idea that some people that don't have "post tramatic 40k syndrome" or PT4KS were able to chime in. I don't know 100% that this is exactly the mechanic that would take care of the ships that are laggin behind but something very similar could really bring them up from the scrubs division.

Just to clarify... don't we already have Squadron Packs, more or less?

Imperial Aces certainly changed the game...

Rebel Aces are still being played today...

Imperial Veterans has a lot of people wanting to play Defenders... in more ways than one.

True, so far we haven't had any "squad" cards that buffed an entire group, but we already have the packaging that fits the bill. And I don't ever see them releasing a package that doesn't include ships. Just doesn't make sense.

We definitely do. They are a similar idea and FFG could throw the squadron card into future releases of those packs or into boosters but the idea is that these packs wouldn't contain ships to bring the cost down.

The best example of this is the a-wings and b-wings. They already have a pack so the chances that we get another pack for them anytime soon is slim to none. While neither really needs a huge buff I know that there are pilots that came out later than the packs that people would love to see i.e. Phoenix squardon and Hera in a B-wing. Or Y-wings, they don't really need a buff right now but people have been asking for more Y-wing pilots forever. Good way to do that without having to sacrifice new products in place of fixes or tweaks.

I was just trying to be funny.

But in all seriousness, 100 point X-Wing is no place for formation specific special rules. Epic on the other hand? Well that does seem to lend itself to exactly that sort of thing. Though even in a larger scale, formation rules still limit diversity and promote simplistic list building. Why work out a list for a month before a tourney when you can just tinker around with this proven formation that gives you a bonus? No, it's a silly idea that's only there to push more models. Sure maybe they give you an X-Wing title that gives you a bonus for each other X-Wing title in your squad and we all buy it because let's face it, we will. Then it's the Scyk next year, then the K-Fighter, then by Wave 10 we have to give the Tie Fighter a formation too because we outpaced the benchmark by making it so that all you see on the table is formations.

If you really wanted to, you could have a Squad Organization Chart for Epic play. This way you could organize your lists better and play larger games of Epic, and retain the feel of an actual large scale space battle. This way you can bump the game up to 500 points per side or maybe more. Then, and only then, could you implement some kind of reward system for building a list within a certain guideline. Like for example you could have a Galactic Civil War Era Imperial Interdiction Force, which would be an in-game representation of the sort of fleet you might have seen in the OT. The bonus would be something applicable, but the penalty for having the bonus would be that you couldn't select certain ships and had to take a prerequisite amount of others. Maybe you could build The Bounty Hunters for Epic Scum and get a bonus for taking all the Bounty Hunters available for Scum, but then not be able to take Black Sun ships or characters and the like.

See, now those are options for diverse play. Want cool stuff? Pay for it. It shouldn't be a case of rewarding the player for taking certain units, but rather make the player conform to a strict rule that in turn grants its own benefits.

I was just trying to be funny.

But in all seriousness, 100 point X-Wing is no place for formation specific special rules. Epic on the other hand? Well that does seem to lend itself to exactly that sort of thing. Though even in a larger scale, formation rules still limit diversity and promote simplistic list building. Why work out a list for a month before a tourney when you can just tinker around with this proven formation that gives you a bonus? No, it's a silly idea that's only there to push more models. Sure maybe they give you an X-Wing title that gives you a bonus for each other X-Wing title in your squad and we all buy it because let's face it, we will. Then it's the Scyk next year, then the K-Fighter, then by Wave 10 we have to give the Tie Fighter a formation too because we outpaced the benchmark by making it so that all you see on the table is formations.

I have put in a few posts that they would not necessarily have to be the same ship. You could easily have it be something like "Jedi task force" that has Luke, Kyle, and Rey when she gets release. Silly idea to push models? I don't get a cut of model sales man. If you follow that thought process to its conclusion you'll find that is a silly thing to say.

(not directed specifically at DarkCloak but no reason for an additional post)

AND FOR THE LOVE OF GOD PEOPLE

They don't have to be game breaking, meta shifting, "Don't take anything but this" effects people. Soontir is popular, poe is popular, palp is popular, tlt is popular, vader is popular but you see more stuff out on the board don't you? F*ck every time something new shows up or is proposed it seems like the "chicken littles" as everyone seems to call them, come out of the woodwork and ***** about a game they are going to continue to play anyway. Remember EVERY RELEASE EVER when they complained about EVERY COMBO EVER?

I was just trying to be funny.

But in all seriousness, 100 point X-Wing is no place for formation specific special rules. Epic on the other hand? Well that does seem to lend itself to exactly that sort of thing. Though even in a larger scale, formation rules still limit diversity and promote simplistic list building. Why work out a list for a month before a tourney when you can just tinker around with this proven formation that gives you a bonus? No, it's a silly idea that's only there to push more models. Sure maybe they give you an X-Wing title that gives you a bonus for each other X-Wing title in your squad and we all buy it because let's face it, we will. Then it's the Scyk next year, then the K-Fighter, then by Wave 10 we have to give the Tie Fighter a formation too because we outpaced the benchmark by making it so that all you see on the table is formations.

Silly idea to push models? I don't get a cut of model sales man. If you follow that thought process to its conclusion you'll find that is a silly thing to say.

Ugh.

No one said you got a cut of model sales. Why is that even, like... I'm astounded. Context man, context!

It doesn't matter who did it first. Formation specific special rules are used as a sales device more often than not. If you're talking about some home rules, then yo dude. Formation away! Like I said, that's probably something more suited to Epic, but to each their own.

I thought we were talking about something FFG might actually implement to the benefit of the game as a whole. In that case, my position is pretty clear.

I won't say this is a bad idea but once the process of multiple ships sharing abilities we begin to lose unique attributes and begin to dilute the richness and diversity. M3's are still used, though sparingly but used. Some ships and builds will mean its an uphill battle for you but once everyone is a Super, then no one is...

Eric J

40K was ruined with formations... Don't let it rune this game...

And there goes everyone with their **** 40k gloom and doom ****...

Not doom... Fact... I invested about 10 grand on 40k and now I am x-wing ... one reason "Formations"

I wouldn't mind it including the ships personally. Could be helpful for new or casual players to pick up a decent 100pt squadron off the shelf. MTG does this and it works well. I know that's not exactly what you intended it for, but this would be my preferred use for it.

"(not directed specifically at DarkCloak but no reason for an additional post)

AND FOR THE LOVE OF GOD PEOPLE"

Which one? It's a multinational forum you need to be more specific as we don't all share the same beliefs, or have any beliefs if you're in Europe.

For now ill assume you mean she who is not named.

It's a shame to see the damage GW has done with their formations. Mention any kind of bonus for a certain combination of units in any game and you'll have people on their fences screaming for GW to go away. As others have mentioned, formations are not GW exclusive. Others have implemented similar mechanics quite well. Heck, most historic wargames have certain mechanics that reward you with special rules if you stick to certain historic units. Same could be done here.

Why screw with what is working?

No.

If they had adhered to that advice, they would have called it quits after the basic starters. It worked, so why change it, right?