Preface: This post is not intended to complain/whine about the options in Imperial Veterans but rather a place to discuss/speculate as to the reasoning about why FFG chose to do what they did.

Imperial Veterans as with Imperial Aces both introduce new generics for the ships they contain but are the only two expansions(thus far) that don't include all previously released generic pilots. With Imp Aces we lost Alphas/Avengers to get more Unique pilots and Royal Guard Pilots. Similarly with Imp Vets (based on current preview photos) we don't get Scimi/Gamma pilots for the Bomber and Delta/Onyx for the Defender.

This got me curious if FFG is doing this on purpose to boost sales or if its to keep the card count down and in turn keep the cost of the expansion down?

I find it amusing/silly that if I want to run 3 Deltas, or 3 Onyx with matching titles (all Tie/D or all x7) I need 2 Imp Vets and 3 individual Defender expacs (i.e. 5 Defender ship models to run a 3 ship list). Similarly if I want to run 4 Scimi/Gamma(non-Vet) LRS bombers I need 4 bomber expacs and 2 Imp Vets. (once again 6 models for a 4 ship list).

From a marketing perspective this seems genius and at the same time evil.*

At the end of the day it doesn't matter too much to me as I do not participate in the tournaments and don't need all the matching cardboard/cards to play at home but I could see it being a bit of a minor annoyance for competitive players especially if said lists above become super competitive.

To FFG Marketing, if this was on-purpose, I applaud you for your genius but as a customer I feel like I should dislike you for being so sneaky

*I could be way overthinking this and FFG just wanted to give us new pilots and the only way to do that in their current expansion scheme is to replace the old generic slots with the new ones.

I think it's just the best way to give is good stuff. They need to drop stuff to fit the goodies so dropping the generics that are in the normal packs is fine and makes sense.

I'm also rarely against a company using clever marketing to make money unless the practice is parasitic which this really isn't.

Brilliant idea. Brilliant write up.

i'd rather what theyre doing than what Magic does.

X-Wing makes its money by making every expansion viable in some way shape or form. Even the Tie Defender pre-Veterans has reasons to be bought, even though i'd rate the ship as the lousiest Tie pre-Vets (not talking specific pilots). Not much, but it does. Both from facing them and heresay, the StarViper is another such expansion where the ship itself is kinda bleh but the expansion is still wanted due to the cards. Not that expensive either so no biggie.

Magic, on the other hand, plays the RNG game to get competitive lists. Yeah you can theoretically get one dynamite deck by only buying a starter box and a few dozen boosters, good luck with that though lol you'll need it. Every magic player i know has briefcases PACKED in cards, 90% of which they dont even care about because theyre repeats. Boosters are cheap but you have 0 idea whats inside or even whats available without some hefty research until you buy a ton of them.

In the end, unless i turn into one of those 3 U-Boat people who buy several pricy expansions PER SHIP in a 2-4 ship list, i will always pay less than any serious Magic player because i KNOW what im getting, they dont.

Dont get me wrong, i wish we could buy cards on their own, but i know better. They would never do that because it would bust their delicate merchandise balance. Though i at least wish there werent any 100% unique upgrade cards...looking at you Autothrustors/C3P0/Adv Targeting Computers....

I find it amusing/silly that if I want to run 3 Deltas, or 3 Onyx with matching titles (all Tie/D or all x7) I need 2 Imp Vets and 3 individual Defender expacs (i.e. 5 Defender ship models to run a 3 ship list). Similarly if I want to run 4 Scimi/Gamma(non-Vet) LRS bombers I need 4 bomber expacs and 2 Imp Vets. (once again 6 models for a 4 ship list).

I really hope there are cards we don't see. It would stink to have to buy another Defender for a total of 5 just to run 3.

Or maybe people shouldn't be so obsessed with running squads of multiples of the same ships.

Or maybe I should hide.

i'd rather what theyre doing than what Magic does.

X-Wing makes its money by making every expansion viable in some way shape or form. Even the Tie Defender pre-Veterans has reasons to be bought, even though i'd rate the ship as the lousiest Tie pre-Vets (not talking specific pilots). Not much, but it does. Both from facing them and heresay, the StarViper is another such expansion where the ship itself is kinda bleh but the expansion is still wanted due to the cards. Not that expensive either so no biggie.

Magic, on the other hand, plays the RNG game to get competitive lists. Yeah you can theoretically get one dynamite deck by only buying a starter box and a few dozen boosters, good luck with that though lol you'll need it. Every magic player i know has briefcases PACKED in cards, 90% of which they dont even care about because theyre repeats. Boosters are cheap but you have 0 idea whats inside or even whats available without some hefty research until you buy a ton of them.

In the end, unless i turn into one of those 3 U-Boat people who buy several pricy expansions PER SHIP in a 2-4 ship list, i will always pay less than any serious Magic player because i KNOW what im getting, they dont.

Dont get me wrong, i wish we could buy cards on their own, but i know better. They would never do that because it would bust their delicate merchandise balance. Though i at least wish there werent any 100% unique upgrade cards...looking at you Autothrustors/C3P0/Adv Targeting Computers....

If I pay ~$200 for a great competitive X-Wing list or 200 for a display of magic cards is not much of a difference money-wise and at least 20 years ago a single display was enough to form interesting competitive magic decks. On top of that trading cards worked a lot better that trading card game than it works in X-Wing, because if that display happend to be second edition you could trade in cards for years to come and never had to actually "buy" cards, but that is another topic ;-)

The biggest cost factor for competitive magic had been that they constantly banned old cards or even whole ability classes to make new cards valid for tournament play. My white ivory tower banding deck created some interesting looks when I wanted to try out in store years after I stopped following and playing magic *grin*

Rebel aces did not give us a new generic, so we got one each more of the originals - 2 in total.

Imperial aces and imperial veterans both included new generics - and so included multiple of each so you could 'upgrade' your old sets with the new option.

This means they don't have the space for the original generics unless they deliberately dedicated an extra ship token to it... And I'd rather they gave us newer pilots instead.

Btw, most wanted did not include Y-Wing and Z-95 Rebel generics. Just one spare scum generic Y-Wing to pull over one of your rebel ships to scum, but not the other way around. ;-)

If there is really demand for it, I guess they have now enough missing generics to create a $10 booster with all those combined. Ironically I would buy that.

I think I'm going to go and spend the 50$ online to grab me 2 more Jumpies. =) Hahaha. Its so fun watching them lurk around the board and surprise blast something with torps.

As I allways say...buy models, not cards.

FFG marketing department is as good as the games they sell.

As I allways say...buy models, not cards.

FFG marketing department is as good as the games they sell.

If only their editing would catch up to those two departments.

Besides that: Buy Lists, not models, nor cards.

Disagree, buy models to show them in your shelves because they are GREAT. I am seriously thinking to say STOP.but I will not because x wing is my main hobby and buying a couple of ships each week is ok.to my wallet.

Or maybe people shouldn't be so obsessed with running squads of multiples of the same ships.

Or maybe I should hide.

The problem is - at least for the Empire - a squad always looks a lot 'cleaner' to me if it's an Interceptor Squadron, or a Defender Squadron, or - at most - a 'pure' squadron with the leader in a single 'improved' fighter (like a TIE squadron with one interceptor ace leading).

Rebels look and feel right being a rag-tag mixed bunch, but it seems weird for the Empire doing the same.

However we have some solution for scimitar squadron:
UPD. No, we don't. I forgot about stand inserts

you KNOW you want TWO.....

Rebel aces did not give us a new generic, so we got one each more of the originals - 2 in total.

Imperial aces and imperial veterans both included new generics - and so included multiple of each so you could 'upgrade' your old sets with the new option.

This means they don't have the space for the original generics unless they deliberately dedicated an extra ship token to it... And I'd rather they gave us newer pilots instead.

There may be a lot of reason why FFG may not have included existing Generic Pilots. "Evil Marketing", didn't they the existing ones where that useful, over sight, etc. But looking at the size of the box lack of space seems the least likely.

FFG has bills and people to pay too.

We should be worried if FFG weren't trying to earn money. They're balancing customer experience and prices very well in my opinion.

I'm not overly concerned about it. While I'm not sure what the additional cost of the 4 cards is (because that's what we're talking about here... 4 cards per each expansion), but judging that you can buy a pack of playing cards for like $2 (4 cents each), I'm going to go with the actual cost of each card is probably around a penny... So we're talking about 4 cents. Heck, screw it, and let's say these are higher cost cards and come out to be a quarter...

So, from the consumer side of it, if they passed that cost on directly to us, who would care? All of a sudden it costs $30.24 instead of $29.99, no big deal, I don't see that affecting sales at all. Sadly, you're not going to do that because you want to stay under $30. So they're going to eat that 25 cents.

Big deal right? Well, when you consider the costs throughout the distribution channels, it starts becoming a bigger deal. I believe in the past I've worked out that the base cost of a pack is ~$3, so for a double product we're talking about ~$6. So a 25cent increase is actually a 4% cost increase - that's HUGE. but furthermore, I'm pretty sure the retailer buys them for $18, and the distributor then probably buys them for about $10 from FFG, adds $4 shipping cost to them, and then makes $4 each. Which means FFG's profit margin is only about $4 on each one. So a 25 cent increase of cost is a 6.25% margin decrease. HUGE! And that's on just the manufacturing costs. That $4 needs to support the designers and any overhead they have (the manufacturing overhead is all included in the cost of goods).

So, even if my numbers are estimated, they should be close enough to portray the picture of why FFG might decided to not include a PS2 Scimitar in a pack titled Veterans from a pure cost perspective. They have a very clear cost model regarding how much of everything is included in each ship pack, and they have that for a reason.

So that's the business reason to not include these cards. As for the case to include them, you basically are left with FFG satisfying completionists. The majority of FFGs fan base are not competitive players or even FLGS players. Therefore, most are going to play with what they have or make up house rules to proxy anything that they don't have. They aren't really impacted by the fact that they don't have the Delta pilot included. As for the subset who are competitive (all of us here on the forums it seems), they either have plenty of friends in the community who will loan them an additional onyx squad card, or will be willing to buy an additional defender. There really is no reason for FFG to include it.

I respect that they give Alt Art generics and hope they do more, because it helps with the card number problem you're speaking to. I'd be happy too for an alt art Defender Onyx Squadron because it's honestly my least favourite art.

Look at it!

FFG has bills and people to pay too.

We should be worried if FFG weren't trying to earn money. They're balancing customer experience and prices very well in my opinion.

I agree, I definitely don't feel like I'm being raked over the coals in my X-Wing purchases, to get the necessary cards/ships I want to make lists. I definitely welcome the diversity/options Gamma Vets and Glaives are giving us too.

I am curious though what kind of cost it would bring to the purchaser to include the other generics. It doesn't seem like printing 4 more cards would cost much, but I imagine the biggest cost is in the additional 2 cardboard base inserts as everything just fits into what they usually give us. I wouldn't mind +$5 to get all generics.(making a big assumption that's what the cost increase would be)

It is kind of annoying, since the pilots players are most likely to want to run many multiples of are normally the cheapest ones, but those are the ones missing from the Aces-style sets.

I will have four Defenders but will only be able to play a list of 2x Delta or 2x Onyx rather than 3x.

I have six Interceptors but can't run a 5x Alpha or Avenger list.

Annoying. Would two extra base tokens and four extra pilot cards really move the release from enough profit to not enough profit? I suspect not.

FFG has bills and people to pay too.

We should be worried if FFG weren't trying to earn money. They're balancing customer experience and prices very well in my opinion.

FFG needs to an evil organisation to support their country, be supportive of the system!

Thank God

It`seems Friday

It is kind of annoying, since the pilots players are most likely to want to run many multiples of are normally the cheapest ones, but those are the ones missing from the Aces-style sets.

Aces and Veterans are by definition higher skilled pilots. It makes sense not to have lower pilot skill cards in the packs.

I think the bigger issue is base tokens, not the cards. Adding the base token would mean removing some other tokens or adding another sheet. Adding another sheet seems like it would have a higher cost than adding the cards.