My idea was that they could bring out an expansion that gives you the option to put one ship of another faction in your squad.

Imperials getting access to an x-wing or a falcon + soontir build

Rebel ties (Sabine Wren's paint scheme!)

Scum already does this to some degree I guess, but there could be options to even expand on their ship-range.

There would be a limit of one or two ships you could put in your squad. so no imperial x-wing swarms

They could use current pilots. (Soontir in an A-Wing, Poe in a Tie fighter (with a rear arc?), Unkar Plutt in the Falcon...)

Would make for some fancy squads I think!

Can you guys think of other combo's? Any opinions?

I had a few ideas along those lines. I should look them up. I kind of liked the ideas that S&V could fly with either side. But you're going even further.

Some thought they were interesting, other weren't as interested. Of course there was the usual "NO" crowd too.

Ask people how they think allies worked out in 40k and you'll see why people reject the idea.

In competetive game I dont think it will be good because of balance.

But definately for house rules or some scenario.

Sabine in Tie with ability "Recieve 1 stress and 2 Ion tokens to cause all ships in R1 to recieve 1 stress and 2 Ion-tokens" or something similar :-)

I like the idea in theory, but in practice I feel like it could muddle what exists as faction identity. However, for every pilot that did exist cross-faction in the universe, there are some who make zero sense. Also, the pilots who did fly for the other faction didn't do it in their current ships (New Republic Soontir flew an X-Wing, Imperial Tycho flew a TIE Fighter, etc).

I am, however, all for either multi-faction ships (like a skipray) or releasing pilot cards for a handful of other ships in other factions (imagine getting a Soontir X-Wing in Rebel Veterans!)

I would be for this in a very limited fashion. Maybe 2-3 ships/pilots MAX per side. Fully play tested ofc. Thing is though how to implement? A fixed card booster pack? Probably too many pilots. Rebel/imperial defectors (Think aces)? Could have some nice reprints. A scenario pack?

Could work and need not be Torniment legal (Think MtGs unglued)?

Nope.

Or we could not muddle up the faction identity. X-Wing's a dogfight game and stolen shuttles and TIEs were used for infiltration. Scenarios are the place for them. (The Gozanti's campaign allows the Rebels/Scum to steal it for example).

Ask people how they think allies worked out in 40k and you'll see why people reject the idea.

actually it wouldnt be as bad in x-wing. 40k its just laughably broken because its basically an Imperials rule to let the ~8 different codices mix n match to maximize the cheese, while the xenos have NO allies or only 1/2 incase of daemons.

Allies of Convenience is fine, enables you to bring backfield gunners that can do something in an ork list. But its not fair when Battlebrothers exist and enable psyker-cheese in armies that normally cant get psykers (or good ones) or use other rules involving an IC, again thanks to battlebrothers cheese.

If you make allies a uniform ****ing rule where every faction has access to the same crap, allies arent bad. Its when you do what 40k did where some have allies born of BS and others have "Come the Apocalypse!" or something dumb like that when it becomes unfair and breaks the game.

I could see allies in this game for a small price (say +1pt per 10pts on the "ally" ship, including upgrades, so a 42pt Tie Bomber allied into Scum would cost 46pts as an example). However i think just freely enabling "allies" would kinda not only make no sense but could potentially allow some really broken lists (cant think of any atm) that with the small tax would be too expensive to do.

I don't think it's a bad idea, but if your playing casual games you can do whatever you want. However I think it would be cool if you could steal ships from opponents during a game maybe in a new mission or it could be a character skill for the emperor or maybe snoke, Leila/Finn, Jabba/?.?

<DISCLAIMER> Theory-crafting only. No balance testing or actual thought put into any of the combinations that could result. <END DISCLAIMER>

One title for each faction. Any cross-faction ships would be restricted to their printed upgrade slots, but with the appropriate title would be able to equip faction restricted cards.

-Title-

Rebel/Imperial/Scum Transponder Code: 4pts

-Limited-

-Small ships only-

Any small ship equipped with this card can be fielded as part of a Rebel/Imperial/Scum squadron. You may equip 'Rebel/Imperial/Scum only' upgrades in the corresponding upgrade slot.

Luke joins the dark side to fight along side his (spoiler alert) father in a palp aces build with Vader and Luke (in a new Rogue One black X-wing from the rebel veterans expansion of course).

There's not quite enough ships per list where I find this particularly worthwhile. In a game of 8ish or so models, having 1 be out of faction works ok. With 2-4 though, an out of faction ship really breaks things down. It's not even much of a real restriction, as really the only thing it effects is 2:2 builds. The gut reaction is that it wouldn't let Rebels run, say, a bunch of TIEs along the Falcon, but in reality, you just have to recognize that you're simply running the Falcon in an Imperial list.

Ask people how they think allies worked out in 40k and you'll see why people reject the idea.

Not everything is 40k man. Chill.

I wouldnt mind Roark in my Whisper builds, frees up the EPT for anything else... then toss the captive on Roark for defense.

Ask people how they think allies worked out in 40k and you'll see why people reject the idea.

Yeah but to be fair GW #$%#$ up the whole Allies in 40K. Making Tau battlebrothers with space marines. Giving Tyranids no choice. It was a mess. You can understand allies from a certain point such as Imperial Guard and Space Marines or even Eldar and Harliquins. Those are example of factions that wold fight side by side.

As for the OP Yhr pilots would have to have different abilities. Boba Fet (Imperial) is different from Boba Fet (scum) for good reason. For all the cross faction pilots they will have different abilities. I think the only thing that will remain the same is the pilot skill.

Now that being said I don't think the Rebel Soontir would be a good idea. (I guess something to point out that the old EU was not the best). Soontir is so ingrained with the Imperials side that seing him in the rebels is unimaginable. Sure Biggs started as an Imperial pilot and Soontir was his instructor but can you imagine Biggs in a TIE-Fighter (TIE-ln)?

Existing pilot cards should never change factions.

However, new pilot cards could reasonably be printed with wrong-faction ships.

Say a Rebel Wraith Squadron Pilot in a Tie Intercepter, or an Imperial Erisi Dlarit Xwing pilot, which would be fine.

Fun house rule:

Mercenaries and Bounty Hunters: Either Imperials or Rebels can hire SV mercs, but after your last own faction ship is destroyed or flees the table, you lose even if any SV ships remain.

Existing pilot cards should never change factions.

However, new pilot cards could reasonably be printed with wrong-faction ships...

Yes, this is the way I can imagine it working. They'd have to think out the pilot abilities so they wouldn't be OP with the current faction-specific cards.

The way that pilots are integrated into the ship cards means that you should have new cards for "cross-faction" pilots; e.g. a new Juno Eclipse card with a Rebel Alliance card back, etc. Mind you, I'm not sure how many pilots defected/infiltrated the enemy and kept the same ship, so even that's not important; I don't think Soontir Fel still flew a TIE Interceptor once he joined the Rebels, after all. There's no rules issues, any more than having two different Boba Fett cards in two different factions is a problem now.

It might affect tournament balance, but I don't think that's a good reason to never do it.

The reason that Scum Y-wings and Headhunters make sense is that they're old ships. Both, by new canon, are Clone Wars era ships, so anyone could get their hands on them. And the Firespray was used by Boba when he worked for the Empire, plus no Scum faction when it came out.

There certainly seemed to be enough "uglies" in the old novels around that anyone could get their hands on. OK, they were all cut-and-shut jobs, but since some used TIE Fighter cockpits and Y-Wing engines, and some used TIE Fighter solar panels and X-Wing fuselages, I'm sure some enterprising pirate mob could get their hands on some actual TIE Fighters.

Also, Corran Horn brought his own X-Wing with him to the Rebellion from Corellian Security. Not exactly an Imperial organisation, but certainly on the same side, so I could see some X-Wings in green livery flying alongside a flight of TIEs.

Ask people how they think allies worked out in 40k

Hisssss

*Creeps behind his sofa*

They worked out fine for my group, as all of us had quite a few different forces we wanted to combine, or really liked the look of a model from a different faction, or just wanted to try out a combination that was mentioned in the background (the classic example being Space Marines reinforced by Imperial Guard reserves, or a beleaguered Imperial Guard force rescued by the Space Marine "cavalry arriving over the hill". It did ... odd things to competitive games, but then, 40k was never intended for that. In X-Wing, it need not be "tournament legal", if not for the fact that if you try to arrange a game round here that's not a 100 points deathmatch, people look at you like you've got your willy out in public.