From the rulebook:

There are three primary factions in X-Wing: Rebel, Imperial, and Scum. The Rebel primary faction consists of the Resistance and the Rebel Alliance. The Imperial primary faction consists of the First Order and the Galactic Empire. The Scum primary faction consists of the Scum and Villainy subfaction. Each squad is aligned to one of these primary factions and may contain any ships and upgrades belonging to its subfactions.

1. What is the point of a Resistance or First Order faction, if they’re essentially the same as the Primary Faction? Especially, when we're about to get more Resistance and First Order ships. Are the subjfactions just a logo and fluff?
2. Speaking of fluff, what is the Resistance resisting against? They’re more of a paramilitary force and operating outside the bounds of the galactic superpower, New Republic. The Resistance does not seem synonymous to the Alliance to Restore the Republic.
3. Is the First Order really the equivalent to the Galacdtic Empire? The DS-1 platform was enforcing domestic policy with counterterrorist measures. It’s goal was to maintain law and order by preemptively neutralizing a planet overrun with sympathizers harboring and aiding extremely dangerous and armed elements that were performing attacks against the state.
   
   The First Order, on the other hand, broke a mutually signed peace agreement, breached galactic law and destroyed multiple planets located within the borders of another government. Actions that seem fair from the Order that Chancellor Sheev Palpatine and the Galactic Empire fought for.
4. And what's this last part? "Scum and Villainy subfaction" within the Scum primary faction? What does this mean? Will there be more subfactions within Scum?

nope

/thread

the only purpose of the faction split is fluff, which is just a nice little touch that doesn't affect gameplay in any way

unless they need to make an X-wing Only thingie that doesn't include the t-70, in which case they'll make it X-wing Only; Rebellion Only

Maybe.

HOPEFULLY (!!) not

I say yep, eventually, hopefully. The new YT pilots have Resistance logos. Hopefully once Ep9 is out and we have fleets of new, advanced (from a Galactic Civil War perspective) fighters, Resistance & First Order can be their own factions.

I do hope.

I imagine that 'theme' Tournaments may have some potential in the future once more First Order and Resistance ship options become available.

Well, we just got the first real expansion from the Resistance, so I think we'll see more First Order and Resistance soon.

As far as in-game play, I don't see FFG going the route of giving bonuses or other benefits to play a "pure" faction list. Maybe I'm wrong about that, but it just doesn't feel likely.

I say yep, eventually, hopefully. The new YT pilots have Resistance logos. Hopefully once Ep9 is out and we have fleets of new, advanced (from a Galactic Civil War perspective) fighters, Resistance & First Order can be their own factions.

I do hope.

While I would hope this might be true - consider that Ep9 is not due out until 2019. 4 years (well, 3.7 or something) is a lot of waves of material that has only the EU to draw on for new ships, meaning the Rebel/Imperial/Scum factions would seem destined to just have far, FAR more units than the Resistance/First Order factions would.

...unless FFG tries to keep up putting out new Resistance/First Order ships alongside the other factions, but they are running pretty low on material to work from already, and no more new material will be coming for their use for nearly 2 years...

I'd guess that they won't, but let's be honest, having 2 additional viable factions gives a lot of design playspace and would sell a lot of ships. For that reason alone, I wouldn't rule it out.

I'll be interested to see what happens, clearly scum exists in TFA and if they get a unique subfaction as well, that would lead me to believe it's more likely.

I say yep, eventually, hopefully. The new YT pilots have Resistance logos. Hopefully once Ep9 is out and we have fleets of new, advanced (from a Galactic Civil War perspective) fighters, Resistance & First Order can be their own factions.

I do hope.

While I would hope this might be true - consider that Ep9 is not due out until 2019. 4 years (well, 3.7 or something) is a lot of waves of material that has only the EU to draw on for new ships, meaning the Rebel/Imperial/Scum factions would seem destined to just have far, FAR more units than the Resistance/First Order factions would.

...unless FFG tries to keep up putting out new Resistance/First Order ships alongside the other factions, but they are running pretty low on material to work from already, and no more new material will be coming for their use for nearly 2 years...

You forget that there are new EU books coming out as well, so we will probably see stuff from there that will be used as Resistance/First Order.

Not unless they start adding new ships instead of lazy copies of OT ships.

1. It doesn't really need to have a reason other than fluff, especially since they're mostly just modified versions of existing ships at the moment (and even share some pilots). It might get another reason in the future, but probably not soon.

I am already kind of on board with having some fun Rebellion Era and Resistance Era games. In STAW you can play TOS and TNG ships together but it is never very good. It is a bit like that now in X-WING.

I am good with it. The new T-70 and TIE Fo-Fos are better ships. Once they get more new era film ships around them you will be able to have Old and Modern games.

All good, and full of flavor.

I don't think they'll split into stand alone factions but I do think we'll see upgrades that are limited to (or restricted from) a particualr subfaction

I say yep, eventually, hopefully. The new YT pilots have Resistance logos. Hopefully once Ep9 is out and we have fleets of new, advanced (from a Galactic Civil War perspective) fighters, Resistance & First Order can be their own factions.

I do hope.

While I would hope this might be true - consider that Ep9 is not due out until 2019. 4 years (well, 3.7 or something) is a lot of waves of material that has only the EU to draw on for new ships, meaning the Rebel/Imperial/Scum factions would seem destined to just have far, FAR more units than the Resistance/First Order factions would.

...unless FFG tries to keep up putting out new Resistance/First Order ships alongside the other factions, but they are running pretty low on material to work from already, and no more new material will be coming for their use for nearly 2 years...

You forget that there are new EU books coming out as well, so we will probably see stuff from there that will be used as Resistance/First Order.

Those are not EU books. Those are new canon books. EU has a VERY specific meaning (except when it means European Union and Engine Upgrade as well).

I say yep, eventually, hopefully. The new YT pilots have Resistance logos. Hopefully once Ep9 is out and we have fleets of new, advanced (from a Galactic Civil War perspective) fighters, Resistance & First Order can be their own factions.

I do hope.

While I would hope this might be true - consider that Ep9 is not due out until 2019. 4 years (well, 3.7 or something) is a lot of waves of material that has only the EU to draw on for new ships, meaning the Rebel/Imperial/Scum factions would seem destined to just have far, FAR more units than the Resistance/First Order factions would.

...unless FFG tries to keep up putting out new Resistance/First Order ships alongside the other factions, but they are running pretty low on material to work from already, and no more new material will be coming for their use for nearly 2 years...

You forget that there are new EU books coming out as well, so we will probably see stuff from there that will be used as Resistance/First Order.

Those are not EU books. Those are new canon books. EU has a VERY specific meaning (except when it means European Union and Engine Upgrade as well).

I think we got his meaning.

In any case, while true that technically new material is coming out, I just don't feel like it helps us much. The type of books we've been getting don't really tell you what a thing LOOKS like in enough detail to make a model of it. Unless some of the new novel authors decide to drop a new squadron of E-Wings and K-Wings on us, with new named pilots... I dunno, seems unlikely.

It seems the far more likely outcome of such novels is just more (endless) pilots for the T-70 or TIE/FO, with FFG just releasing new paint-jobs for those ships over and over in. Maybe, if we get lucky, some named pilots for a T-65. (T-85 we've had a few of - including Poe, actually - but unfortunately we still don't know what a T-85 looks like, so...)

X-wing only, Rebel Alliance only. That's why it matters.

The only thing I could see is if they ever released prequel stuff. Then you could say Republic and Rebellion or Rebellion and Resistance but not Republic. That said I don't think it will happen

Rebel = Rebel Alliance + Resistence

Imperial = Galactic Empire + First Order

Scum = Scum + Villainy, er I mean Scum and Villainy

Primary factions = subfactions.

What does that tell us? Well, the Resistence already has their 2 PS 9 pilots!!!!! I guess that means FO will have two ps 9 dudes coming soon. Maybe.

Also, Scum needs a second subfaction. Kanjiklub and Guavian Death Gang would be the obvious choices, but what to call them? Gangsters? Crime Lords? Goodfellas?

I posted a week or so ago about subfaction specific crew or upgrades. Gives them a little more control over design space when they can design something for 2-3 ships in a faction instead of every ship in every faction. It'll be interesting to see if crew Rey is Resistance Only or such.

• It doesn't really need to have a reason other than fluff, especially since they're mostly just modified versions of existing ships at the moment (and even share some pilots). It might get another reason in the future, but probably not soon.
• They're resisting the spread of evil in the galaxy, specifically the First Order in this case. There's probably a better way to put it. They're not parallel to the Rebellion in a political, in-universe sense, but they fill the same role in a narrative sense.
• The First Order does play things a lot differently than the Empire. Again, it's a narrative thing. The Resistance is where our heroes belong, and they fight an underdog war against the dark side (even if it's only because people aren't taking the threat seriously this time). The First Order are the villains, using the dark side, and a great threat to peace and happiness in the galaxy (the Empire may have had order, but order isn't necessarily a good thing).
• This one seems a little weird to me. You could theoretically divide Scum and Villainy into subfactions like neutral smugglers, malicious pirates, or even something specific like Black Sun, but all of those things are already covered by Scum and Villainy. Maybe they'll split it more logically if they have a more iconic place in the movies to split it.

i really...really hope not.

Cards restricted to the subfaction, yeah probably in fact we technically already have that (TIE/fo evade holding card afaik is a card only they can use right now)

Maybe.

This is the best answer. Depends on FFG's plan.

If they get enough ships say 6 different ships each FFG could decide to separate the subfaction from the primary factions.

HOPEFULLY (!!) not

Now yeah there is a bunch of people who don't want things to change but when looking at ways to combat power creep adding subfactions then splitting them is a great way to combat power creep. As the primary factions get more ships due to the subfactions inside them growing the design space will get crowded and so far there are only two ways to open up design space.

1. Remove items from the game (so called Type 1 and Type 2 formats)
2. Split the factions apart. The resistance/1^stOrder will have its own power builds while the Rebel Alliance/Galactic Empire will have the advantage of being a full faction at the time of the split.

So yeah there is a reason to split the factions. I am a little surprised that they already did an alternate pain scheme for the T-70. But yeah the Falcon wasn't that much of a surprise.

i really...really hope not.

Cards restricted to the subfaction, yeah probably in fact we technically already have that (TIE/fo evade holding card afaik is a card only they can use right now)

So far the Tech upgrade is limited to the TIE/FO and the T-70. So there's already that specific upgrade for Resistance and First Order. No idea if FFG will keep the Tech upgrade exclusive, I can see them going that route to give the sequel trilogy an advanced technology theme.

I should think it fairly obvious by now that the two factions are just piggy backing off of the other factions until they get enough content to stand a little on their own... Not that anyone else seems to get that? Whatever. This latest announcement should be evidence of that. Pilots always change ability when moved across factions: Han and Chewbacca are getting new abilities. And more interestingly there are two generic forms of the 1300 now. Which are different enough to give a reason to have both in one faction, but enables the faction to be split apart and still have a generic in each.

I really hope they do. However, I hope they wait until the new factions are more independently viable. It makes sense honestly. This would help keep power creep in check, add ships and allows for further expansion.