I was watching a couple of friends play a game of conquest yesterday and noticed the tyranids dial, for those not aware it is two dials stuck together, and it got me thinking about if a ship in X-Wing could utilise a double dial? After thinking about some silly twin ship ideas it struck me that it would have been awesome if turret ships had to set the position of their turret each turn.

If this had been done from the start turret ships would be very different, opponents would have to second guess two factors when fighting turrets and the turret player wouldn't have it as easy as they do now. With this said, its not to say this couldn't be done with future turret style ships.

I imagine the second dial would have only 4 points allowing the turret to switch to fore, aft, port and starboard, the base plate would just have fire arcs marked from corner to corner and to avoid confusion possibly a token to represent which direction it's facing.

Not saying this is a great idea, but it's a great idea

Haha 20/200, obviously 20/20

I've actually tried something similar as a test ... and it was excellent!

I haven't seen the tyranid dials but I had envisioned a "loop with prongs" that could be dropped over the per for each active turret . For the mock up we tested with twisted wire.

The way we played it was the turret could rotate 90 degrees left or right once the ship had moved.

It added depth (and fun!) without complexity ... bringing whole new layers of strategy where you tried to feint from one side while attacking from the other.

In a perfect world (or X-Wing 2.0) I'd love to see something like this implemented.

I'd also love to see the costing for the turrets and their crew separated out also - for example take a base YT-1300... 2 dice attack front arc only and relatively cheap (Y-Wing territory). Add a turret by paying for the weapon (dual for 2 attack, quad for 3 attack, ion, flechette, etc), then man it with a gunner (separate to normal crew), either a relatively cheap generic or a more specialised such as Han, Luke, etc...

My feeling for turret weapons was that ships should have taken (and been balanced around taking in the first place) a penalty of some kind to all shots out of arc. I.e. the guns work better and are more likely to hit when the gunner and the pilot are both looking at the same things, and the gunner can see when the pilots about to dodge incoming or whatever.

My initial thought was -1 red out of arc, but +1 green might have worked better - or alternatively, you can only spend focus tokens on attack when attacking in arc.

Something like that, to give turrets an incentive to point front at target. Something which FFG seem to have grasped now given the designs of both Dengar and Rey.

If it wasn't for the lack of the necessary firing arcs printed, that could have been a cool thing to put in Heroes of the Resistance...

Precision targeting

Modification (Title?)

YT1300 (And others?) only

The ship's primary weapon is replaced with a directional turret of the same attack value. Use a targeting dial alongside your movement dial.

-2 points

Or you could have it fixed at 2 attack, to target it more at fixing the poor outer rim smuggler.

I'd of made shooting out of arc an action representing the fact someone has to go man the turret instead of shooting from the cockpit.

I'd of made shooting out of arc an action representing the fact someone has to go man the turret instead of shooting from the cockpit.

If I ever be a captain of a starship I will send someone to the turret before the battle, and instruct him to stay there until the end.

Yes turrets can be tough. I personally don't feel that these calls to nerf them have any merit, but hey, to each their own.

To the OP, I think the double dial is interesting as a mechanic, but I don't think that forcing the turret to pick a side to fire is a good mechanic. Turrets work they way they should imho. Autothrusters pretty much fixed the deficiency that a lot of ships had against it, and the rest can chalk it up to it being tough to kill turret ships. Not every ship in the game should be the same as every other ship in the game, and turrets should be the toughest and most powerful. I mean c'mon, prior to ep. 7 where an inexperienced pilot crashed it, how many TIEs had the Falcon waxed, and how many times was it shot down?

I'd of made shooting out of arc an action representing the fact someone has to go man the turret instead of shooting from the cockpit.

Well, the very first Blaster Turret required spending Focus to fire it. That mechanic was abandoned and now no other turrets have that requirement.

I always took that to mean the pilot was operating the turret, and had to focus on multitasking it. Most of the turret ships look like they'd have a dedicated gunner on board. Ships like the K-wing are like the Lancaster and B19, in that they'd have dedicated turret crew, where ships like the Hwk or Y-wing, don't necessarily have anyone to man it, or may have other jobs to be tending to as well.

Since all turreted ships have either a crew or astromech slot I always figured that they were operating the turret.

So I've given this some thought and I'm not sure that it needs changing but the idea I came up with was this:

Mark off a 90 degree rear arc identical to the one the Firespray has on all PWT ships. Then each ship would have 4 90 degree arcs (front, starboard, rear and port). At the end of that ships activation it places a token on its base on one of those arcs. The ship may then access that arc and the two adjacent to it. From there you can tailor to what you like. If you want a slight nerf the non-adjacent arc gets a -1 weapon value penalty. Its a small nerf but it requires the PWT player to at least think and make a decision.

I'd of made shooting out of arc an action representing the fact someone has to go man the turret instead of shooting from the cockpit.

Well, the very first Blaster Turret required spending Focus to fire it. That mechanic was abandoned and now no other turrets have that requirement.

Blaster Turd, er, Turret was wave 3. We already had ICTs from wave one and PWT on the Falcon in wave 2. The Blaster Turret has basically been relegated to a mistake, seeing how the Dorsal Turret is one point cheaper, doesnt require a focus, and acts like. PWT at range one.

Dorsal Turret for a discounted Stresshog. Anything else and it's not worth it. Free up points for TLT and use that, or go down to Autoblaster and get some anti-Acewing utility.

I'd rather be stuck with Blaster Turret on a ship instead of Dorsal. You can jump through hoops and make Blaster Turret work, like R4 Agromech and the Moldy Crow title and Rec Spec. Range 2 with a Dorsal is only 2 dice, meh.

IMO Blaster Turret should have required the focus token but not the expenditure of it like Prockets. But Dorsal is really only good for a 23 point Stresshog, I don't see the appeal of using it for anything else. Especially on a Ghost, you're paying too much for it to be throwing 2 dice at range 2.

I still think all turrents should have always been max dice 2 outside of a specific title. Their bonus is not having firing restriction they never should have gotten standard dice to attack too. How many ships are gimped with 2 dice lameness, forced arc, and these guys get better AND more powerful guns? The rest of the mechanics are fine as is but I think a jumpmaster approach would have been the superior solution here.

Turrets aren't an issue, and haven't been for a long time. Heck, the 'issue' was well and truely overstated in the first place, and most people have gotten over it by now.

Stop saying X-Wing 2.0!

Along the OP's line of thought I've been trying some experimental houserule ideas to make turrets more interesting.

1. no primary turret, just give it a turret slot(or two) and make some "large ship only" turrets.

2. make a "turret special firing arc" that you move to point any direction after your maneuver. I'm experimenting with a 45 degree cardboard wedge with a keyhole circle at the small corner that fits over/around the circle sticking up in the center of the plastic base.

These two can even be implemented within the current game framework, although it raises the complexity of using a turret ship. I like the idea of titles that replace the primary weapon with two turret slots and some new turrets that say " Attack: attack 1 ship in your turret special firing arc" instead of the original "attack 1 ship (even a ship outside your firing arc)"

My feeling for turret weapons was that ships should have taken (and been balanced around taking in the first place) a penalty of some kind to all shots out of arc. I.e. the guns work better and are more likely to hit when the gunner and the pilot are both looking at the same things, and the gunner can see when the pilots about to dodge incoming or whatever.

My initial thought was -1 red out of arc, but +1 green might have worked better - or alternatively, you can only spend focus tokens on attack when attacking in arc.

Something like that, to give turrets an incentive to point front at target. Something which FFG seem to have grasped now given the designs of both Dengar and Rey.

At first they did, it was called the blaster turret and it sucked so bad that they never did the focus mechanic again. Although it might have balanced out the TLT with the 2nd attack requiring a focus token to be spent. But all that is now water under the bridge there will be no change to Blaster turret, TLT, or PWTs so we will have to deal with all of it in 20/200 vision.

To everyone feeling that turrets of any kind still need to be nerfed or harder to use - I wish you to fly them turrets against Aceholes till the end of your life.

Stop saying X-Wing 2.0!

Two point zero