"Andross has declared war! He's invaded the Lylat system, and is trying to take over Corneria! Our army alone can't do the job. Hurry, Star Fox!"
Perhaps not the most original idea, since I'm sure I've seen it done before, but nevertheless I give you the Arwing expansion pack for X-Wing! (Disclaimer: I don't own Star Fox, X-Wing, or any of the assets used creating these cards. This is a non-profit fan-created expansion. Also, heads up because this is a long post with lots of images!).
For those who arn't familiar, the Arwing is the starfighter used by the Star Fox team in the computer game series of the same name. It is an agile craft with a variety of potential weapon modifications, as well as the 'G-Diffuser' system that allows it to perform U-turns and somersaults.
I'm a big fan of the series, and the N64/3DS version primarily, and so it is that version of the ship that I was striving to emulate and that game that I was most closely tying to represent.
The Arwing
As mentioned, the Arwing is a nimble ship and very capable of evading fire, while also being quite solidly built (it can take quite a lot of firepower, and even head on collisions). It's primary weapon, a nose-mounted laser cannon, is weak though, and in the games it relied on weapon power-ups to compensate. So, for it's base statline I decided on
2
3
3
3
,
with it's closest counterpart being the T-70 X-Wing which served as the basis for working out some points costs.
The Arwing dial:
The dial was mostly designed by playing the 3DS game and getting a 'feel' for the ship - between the brake, boost, and tight steering, it needed to be very agile while also representing the limitations of the boost meter. This is why the 1-speed moves are white (straight and bank) and red (turn), because these are the ship slamming on the brakes, whereas the 2-speed moves are representing the normal cruising speed. I didn't want the ship to be too interceptor-y though (since in my mind, though agile, it's closer to an X-Wing in design), which is why it doesn't have green hard turns.
The in-game U-turn is brought to us by the K-turns, but you'll notice that it has comparatively short K-turn options, including the first 1-speed K-turn. This is because the Arwing is capable of rapid acceleration and deceleration, and if you watch the U-turn being performed in game you can see that the ship stops in place before flipping over, covering very little distance before it has turned around. With that said, however, having only a 1-speed K-turn felt a little too limiting, so there is also a more 'normal' 3-speed K-turn to represent the player getting a bit of distance before executing the U-turn.
As for actions, Barrel Roll and Boost were no-brainer choices since both are identified by name in the game - though the Star Fox barrel roll is actually a rapid Aileron Roll (apparently). But since the name has become so memetically ingrained, I decided to keep the Barrel Roll action and give the ship the Evade action as well, to cover the defensive ability of the Aileron Roll. And then, of course, it has Focus to complete the set.
The Pilots
Originally, I wasn't going to include any generic pilots at all, a la the Aggressor or Attack Shuttle, but decided against it in order to allow a cheaper alternative to the pricier named pilots - the Cornerian Test Pilot:
Since the only combat-ready Arwings are used by Star Fox, it figured that few others would be any good at flying one, hence the Pilot Skill 1. The 22 point cost was based on the T-70 but pitched a little lower for the reduced attack, since
3
2
is a little more valuable than
2
3
, based on the red and green dice. It does also mean that you can't fly more than four of them at maximum, which I thought was a sensible safeguard.
Alright, now for the Star Fox team themselves:
With all the named pilots, I strived to emulate their behaviour and role from the game to make them as recogniseable as possible. So, what do we know about Slippy? I think anyone who has played the game remembers his high-pitched cries for help every two minutes, and the reluctance with which they saved him from pursuing enemies for the umpteenth time. So, the annoyance of how useless Slippy can be (and his subsequent whining) is represented by the mandatory stress token, but offset by the ability to take an extra shot with a wingmate as they struggle to protect him from his own incompetence. Flying Slippy in X-Wing will require him to move into dangerous situations to get shot at as often as possible - just like he does in the game.
I think everyone knows what Peppy is most remembered for - the meme juggernaut that is 'DO A BARREL ROLL!'. Peppy is also the most common 'advice giver' to the player in-game, and so I combined the two for his ability - the fact that Peppy can reposition a friendly ship (or himself) once everyone has moved but before the lasers start flying could be quite the tactical advantage representative of Peppy's experience and wisdom, as well as allowing players to yell that classic meme every turn until the opponent throttles them.
Falco was a tricky one, as he's mostly remembered for being...well, kind of an ****, and that doesn't translate easily into a pilot ability. In the end I decided to focus on his other most prominent trait, in that he is very arrogant and believes himself to be a better pilot than he is, though from the fact that Falco is the one to lead the player onto the more difficult optional paths in-game shows that it isn't all bluster. So, once a round I allow Falco to literally be a better pilot than he is, as he tries to show off in front of the others. Originally I had a mechanism that allowed him to gain additional attack dice by giving himself stress, to try and represent his tendency to over-extend himself by showing off and getting into trouble (such as his G-Diffuser problem on Corneria), but decided against it as it made Wired too much of an autoinclude for him.
Then we have Fox, who proved to be the other difficult pilot to decide on an ability for - after all, it's very hard to encompass all the fancy moves and tricks that an experienced player of the computer game can display, and Fox's own personality didn't lend easily to a pilot ability by itself. Therefore I eventually settled on something generally useful rather than niche (action economy is always solid), but gave a slightly different twist on it rather than simply granting him bonus actions or free tokens. You're still limited to one action a round, but the application of a 'double action' is huge, especially for movement actions like Boost or Barrel Roll. PTL is a valid choice for Fox, allowing him to perform one action, use his ability to do it again, then PTL for another action - and this is why it is limited to once a round, because with the timing the way it is I believe PTL would allow you to take four effective actions (two 'doubles') before the stress is applied. This also reigns in his synergy with Peppy, making the 'double action' a choice like Dengar's payback shot. Overall I feel it best represents Fox in-game - he can do things that his team mates (or indeed most other ships) can't.
Originally, he was PS9, but I decided that regardless of how good a pilot Fox is, it didn't seem fair to put him on the same level as Han Solo or Darth Vader, or to relax the limit on natural PS9 pilots.
The Upgrades
No X-Wing expansion pack would be complete without upgrades, so let's start with the most interesting one - the G-Diffuser system:
The other fancy move the Arwing has at its disposal is the somersault - a loop-de-loop that allows the player to get behind a pursuing enemy, slow down their forward progress, or simply look cool. Getting this move into X-Wing was a tricky proposition, especially given that the program I used for the cards (Strange Eons) didn't allow for custom actions or maneuvers. Necessity being the mother of invention, though, I looked into existing mechanics to see if there was a way to do it.
It was incredibly difficult to make the move both practically useable (so a ship could actually go from infront of an enemy to behind it) but also not exploitable, which a few earlier versions could be for a pseudo 'perma-stall'. I eventually settled on a sort of 'backward boost', but one that required a forward movement too, in order to represent the space needed to use it without smashing into something (a consideration needed in the game also) and also to prevent consecutive backwards movement. A little known (as far as I'm aware, anyway) trick from the computer game is that the somersault can be 'steered' during the execution such that the ship is facing slightly to the left or right when it comes back around, hence the ability to use the G-Diffuser on 1-banks as well as straights. The fact that the backward move is red self-limits the ability from being used after the 1-speed hard turn or K-turn, and from it allowing any actions - since both moves are considered maneuvers, it is possible to bump into a ship with the first 1-straight, and then 'un-bump' again with the second and be able to shoot at that ship, so I felt it was only fair to ensure they couldn't have a modified shot or arc dodge effectively after doing so. The opening wording also prevents the ability being used on ion-enforced moves, since those arn't revealed.
Of all the upgrades, this one is the least likely to be appropriately costed, since there wasn't really anything in the game currently that was analogous enough to draw from and so I just went with an estimate.
Now, for the weapon power-ups, starting with:
The tiddly peashooter that the Arwing begins with can be upgraded to a double version, firing from concealed cannons inside the G-Diffuser modules that open up when the item is collected, which gives it considerably more firepower. In X-Wing it is no exception - but at a cost. If one were careless enough to keep crashing into enemies or obstacles in the original game, one of the ships' wings would snap off and the laser upgrade would be lost, requiring it to be fixed by a different item before the guns could be upgraded again. So, the bargain price of 5 points for a straight primary weapon upgrade is offset by the potential to lose that investment if you take a critical hit with the more common 'Ship' trait (there are only 4 'Pilot' crits compared with 10 'Ship' ones). In the interests of simplicity and balance, it might be better to make this clause cover any faceup damage card, but since its damage to the ship rather than any effect on the pilot that governs the loss of the laser, it seemed reasonable and thematic to keep it this way.
New to the N64 game was the charged shot, allowing the player to lock-on to enemies and then fire a homing laser blast at them, that had the potential to knock out several enemies in one go and earn bonus points. Here, it's an alternative to the Twin Blaster - a limitless-use secondary weapon with a Target Lock requirement (you could fire charged shots without locking on, but it was hard to aim and made for some incredibly fiddly wording when trying to include that ability on the card) but a little bit of self-modification, in this case a variant on the mechanic used by Juke.
Since the Arwing doesn't use that lock-on feature for 'normal' laser fire, the ship doesn't have the Target Lock action natively, and so it's included with this card to actually allow the weapon to be used. Originally this card was a Torpedo upgrade, but I liked it better as a Modification since it forced a choice between it or the Twin Blaster. It was also originally a lot cheaper in points, but when I included the Target Lock action as well as a limitless weapon, it needed to go up - and perhaps still does, since at the moment the weapon itself is priced as equivalent to an Ion Cannon.
Then we have the classic screen-clearing bomb, a perfect candidate for some ordnance. The bomb was fired as a projectile and detonated either at the player's command or after a set time, and would destroy or damage everything within its blast radius. In X-Wing I had to limit the AoE damage to being triggered 'on-hit' only, else it would be possible to simply auto-damage an enemy ship with it, which wasn't fair. However, the wording on the AoE effect deliberately eschews the 'another' clause, so the ship the bomb was fired at will take 1 extra damage as well, if it is hit. Though in the original game you could fire a homing bomb if you had a lock-on, that would be achieved by acquiring the Target Lock action (either from Targeting Computer or the Charged Laser) and using a re-roll to improve accuracy, rather than specific wording on the upgrade. The effectiveness of the (free-fired) bomb itself is dependent both on aim and detonation timing, represented by the Focus requirement. A potentially very damaging weapon, and so pricing it close to the Advanced Proton Torpedo seemed reasonable.
So now, lets have some stuff for the elites to play with...EPT's!
I wanted a way to represent the original games' 'Expert Mode', a higher difficulty option with more enemies, smarter enemies, and more damaging enemy fire - the trade-off being higher potential scores in each level and Fox sporting a pair of stylish shades like his late father. This EPT is what I came up with - the potential for more damage and more kills is huge, but the risk is substantial. A key feature of Expert Mode was that, if you flew into another ship or an obstacle, you had a wing smashed (and thus lost any laser power-up) immediately, rather than after 3-4 collisions as was normally the case. This is represented by the faceup damage card - it ties into the downside of the Twin Blaster, making a collision likely to cost you that upgrade as well as this one. You'll see that this also ties into the functionality of the somersault from the G-Diffuser upgrade - if you are careless enough to try and somersault when you don't have the room to, you'll still complete the maneuvers and be able to fire, but will suffer the consequences of the collision all the same - something all too easily done by mistake in the original game. So, if you play on Expert Mode by equipping this card, you'd better fly flawlessly.
If you were on your last shred of health, you would often hear Peppy telling you to 'Never give up! Trust your instincts!', and that is where the inspiration for this card comes (as well as a reason to use the idea behind the artwork - originally I planned to use something similar for 'Expertise', but every version of this image I made prior did not look good). The way the health bar worked in the game was that it would have to be fully depleted, and then the next hit you took would destroy you - which meant that you always had that last saving grace, no matter how little health you had when a big attack hit you. I imagined, though, that triggering this card would be a very niche occurence, hence the low points cost - and I considered making it 0 points at one stage. The fact that it makes you almost immune to 'death by asteroid' (since you only take one damage at a time from rock/debris collisions) suggested it perhaps couldn't get away with being free, though.
Last but not least, we have a couple of Titles:
It made sense to try and include a 'Star Fox' title in this pack, but I wanted it to represent their ability to work as a team rather than just provide some further bonus to their abilities and making it a no-brainer choice. Thinking about it, the main thing your wingmen do for you in the game is provide powerups by destroying certain objects or leading you through certain paths to make an item appear, and the most common item is the silver shield ring, which restores some of your health bar. So, this title card represents that, allowing anyone with the Star Fox title close enough to their allies to get a little bit of shield regen, but crucially it only works if there is more than one ship with the title on the board, similar to the IG-2000 title. For the same reason, the Star Fox title is 0pts - the cost of having to include another ship to get any use out of it seemed enough. I toyed with allowing the regen to be two shields instead of one, considering how lackluster people consider IG-88A to be, but erred on the side of caution, for fear that it would be too powerrful against swam lists.
This one was a bit of an afterthought after seeing the Retro Arwing in action in Star Fox Zero, but as well as being a bit of a fun card it gave the opportunity to allow cheaper Arwings to be fielded (since all the named pilots get pricey once upgrades start being applied) as well as giving the original SNES Starfox some representation. The main differences (other than aesthetics) between the regular ship and the retro one is that the original SNES game did not have the charge shot or the somersault (technically it didn't have the U-turn either but that was mainly owing to the lack of free-roaming levels as opposed to linear ones in that game), so it is made impossible to equip the G-Diffuser, or use the Charged Laser. To compensate, the Retro Arwing gets more ordnance to represent a greater reliance on bombs - it can equip Extra Munitions for starters, and even a Targeting Computer if it wanted to expand its munitions range beyond the Nova Bomb.
So, that's all the cards...did I think of some example lists? You bet I did...
"Expert Mode"
Fox McCloud (Arwing)
-'Star Fox'
-Expertise
-G-Diffuser
-Twin Blaster
40pts
Falco Lombardi (Arwing)
-'Star Fox'
-Expertise
-G-Diffuser
-Twin Blaster
38pts
Cornerian Test Pilot (Arwing)
22pts
Total: 100pts
Playing on Expert Mode would be similar to double Aggressor, I imagine - two highly capable ships with some synergy between them, but very punishing of mistakes. The Test Pilot is there partly to fill points, but also to (hopefully) get the blocks in before the opponent does the same to your valuable aces.
"Cornerian Firing Range"
Cornerian Test Pilot (x4)
-'Retro' Arwing
-Nova Bomb
-Guidance Chips
25pts
Total: 100pts
For when you just need to carpet bomb an entire area, the 'Retro' Arwing title lets you field four munitions carriers who won't need to rely on getting Target Locks and who can't be blocked outside of other PS1's. Would it work? Probably not...but it would be hilarious finding out.
And of course, what would an expansion pack be without a cool miniature?
The model is from Shapeways, painted by yours truly. A very faithful replica of the N64 games' Arwing, and therefore perfect for this project. I'll likely get three more at some stage (got to have the whole team, right?), but dear lord is it fiddly to paint!
Thanks for enduring the essay! Any feedback on these cards is welcome as, like I said, I'm probably not good at costing things appropriately.
Edited by MalusCalibur
