I always thought that the reason we had 12 points as the cheapest ship in the game was the 12 MOV for a full win. With that now gone, is there room in the design process to produce a ship at less than 12 points? As an example, a swarm of semi autonomous drones. Would have to be slaved to a single ship and all do his same move at his PS but fire at 1 dice with no actions and a small 1 or 2 agility. That is just something I came up with off the top of my head but could be 3 or 4 point a ship. Is there a place within the Genre and within the design realm of possibility for something that is ultra low cost while still standing on its own base?

Given that blocking is a major part of gameplay, I doubt they will ever consider it viable to put out mass numbers of ships regardless of how pathetic they are. 1 dice may seem limiting, but at range 1 against 0 or 1 agility they would be devastating. So, no, I highly doubt they will ever consider a ship below the Z-95 and TIE Fighter level.

the reason we don't have a ship under 12 points is because Alex and Frank said they'd never make one. They said that 12 points is the lowest any ship will go.

You've got it backwards. The reason the lowest full win was 12 points was that the cheapest ship was 12 points, so you had to win by at least one ship.

Of course, once they introduced half points for large bases, you could half-kill a naked Lambda for 10 points and the logic of the system started to break down.

Worlds has shown that Tie Fighters are underpowered in the current state of the game.

Perhaps Tie Fighters will be given errata so they cost 10 points. This way Tie swarms will have a small chance to make tournament cuts.

Hopefully no.

Bumperwing/trafficjam is not that funny. A bit like cheap mass armies like e.g. Skaven, takes "an eternity" to move every turn, while not bringing the game forward to a large extent per turn. (btw, this is even an argument against uglies).

I would still not say that TIEs are underpowered. However it's the first time that i see players pick upgrades instead of filler ships. Last year we had A-Wings and Z-95s as filler ships, this year we rather saw a few homing missiles and mines instead for example.

I would still not say that TIEs are underpowered. However it's the first time that i see players pick upgrades instead of filler ships. Last year we had A-Wings and Z-95s as filler ships, this year we rather saw a few homing missiles and mines instead for example.

I think the reason for that is the amount of aces. A blocker is nice, but unless you can reliably block the ship you want to kill, it's not the best, and even then, you still have to kill the ship. Also, the return of ordnance (chimps and LRS and whatever else), and triple U-Boats, meant that there were more aces to survive that, which meant more people took homing missiles and mines to kill them. This all contributed to remove filler ships, because they either got PS killed, killed by ordnance, or couldn't contribute enough.

Also, more better upgrades probably helps, and more ships means more places to put those upgrades and more synergies.

Would a 9 academy or 9 Z95 break the game more than howlrunner blackcrack or scum bugzappers?

Should it be small base only? Would it break high PS pilots who dont have/use EPT slots?

Considering you rarely see 8 ship tie or z-95 swarms, I think a 11 point ship wouldn't hurt the game. Yea you can run 9 ships, but how likely is that? (Especially if it means buying 9 expansions to do it).

Vulture droids would be a excellent sub-12 point ship. Maybe 2 attack and 3 agility, but only 2 hull for like 10 points. Super flimsy, but saves a couple points over a tie or z-95.

I theorycrafted this some time ago. Use the TIE/Droid model from Dark Empire. PS 0 all generic pilots for maybe 10 points apiece. You'll have 2 more than an Academy swarm, but how many ships can those 8 take out before the 10 even get to fire?

Again, I'd be hesitant to field anything cheaper than the Academy TIE fighter.

It would risk slowing the game right down - I fly a TIE swarm and I'm constantly aware I'm holding the game up as it is.

I've no problem with giving the non-crack shot TIE fighter a leg up, and I've no problem with seeing the Droid TIE from Dark Empire, but I'd rather do it in a slightly different way.

What I'd suggest:

• If you want to 'up' the academy pilot - and indeed a lot of the 'generic squadrons', I'd strongly be in favour of "squadron upgrades" - a card, possibly with a points cost, that isn't assigned to a single ship but essentially restricts squad composition to "the ships which should be in that squadron" in return for a mechanical benefit - so if, for example, you field a squad which is the named roster of Black Squadron, you get some benefit for doing so.
• Alternatively, a title for the Academy Pilot - one of the mechanics used in the scenarios which isn't used in game is mid-game reinforcements appearing. Having replacement TIEs turn up when the originals are killed would help give the feel of endless numbers but not create ridiculous numbers on the table at once. You'd have to think carefully how to manage victory points for them, though.
• For the TIE Droid swarm, I'd plagiarise a concept from Attack Wing (turnabout is fair....) - they treat fighters (in star trek) and squads (in D&D) as a single unit, whose stats change as it takes damage. A Large based ship with more-or-less a TIE fighter dial representing a swarm of 4 droid TIEs would be rather nice. The attack value goes down, and the agility value goes up (because you're trying to hit individual TIEs not fire into a pack), as members of the squad go down.

If I was writing rules for Droid Fighters:

Pilot Skill 1

Primary Weapon 2

Agility 0

Hull 4

Action Bar - Barrel Roll, Evade, Target Lock (they're too dumb to 'Focus')

Upgrade Bar - System (Maybe)

Dial - Approximately the same as a TIE fighter

Title - 0 points - Droid Fighter Swarm

Droid TIE only

Increase your primary weapon value by 3.

Whenever this ship suffers two or more damage or critical damage, it receives a single face-down damage card. All other damage is cancelled.

Reduce this ship's primary weapon value and increase this ship's agility by the number of damage cards assigned to it.

You may not equip modifications.

They do not want more than 8 ships in a squad. If there ever is a sub-12 point ship, it will have no generics.

They do not want more than 8 ships in a squad. If there ever is a sub-12 point ship, it will have no generics.

Or it would be a unique upgrade card!

"Civilian volunteer"*

Title. Rebel only.

-1 Point.

I think some 10-point Uglies would be viable and thematically appropriate. Take a 2/1/4/0 Die-Wing or 2/2/2/1 Y-TIE for example.

12 points also mean, a maximum of 8 ships in game.

if it was 11 points, you could fit nine.

Worlds has shown that Tie Fighters are underpowered in the current state of the game.

Perhaps Tie Fighters will be given errata so they cost 10 points. This way Tie swarms will have a small chance to make tournament cuts.

TIE Swarms have plenty of chance t make the cut. The Pattiswarm/Duncanswarm won Yavin.

Swarms tend not to make the cut because they're brain-achingly demanding to fly for the two full days tournaments are commonly ending up being, especially as they tend to go to time. Not because they're bad.

To many ships slows the game down.. 8 is slow enough.

Here's a suggestion to buff Swarm Lists without adding more ships

Unique Title - Reduce the point cost of this ship by 1 for each other (Ship Name) in your list.

So if you bring 8 Tie Fighters, you get a 7 point cost reduction. Making it impossible to bring a 9th since you would be at 101 points.

This Title would also be pretty useful in certain "Mini Swarms" that people sometimes use,

Edit - I'm bad at math... nevermind this idea is bad...

Worlds has shown that Tie Fighters are underpowered in the current state of the game.

Perhaps Tie Fighters will be given errata so they cost 10 points. This way Tie swarms will have a small chance to make tournament cuts.

It's less of an issue of TIE Swarms being underpowered and more an issue of TIE Swarm lists being the most mentally exhausting list you could possibly run at a tournament.

With how many rounds there are at Worlds, it's rare for someone to keep the mental fortitude to keep flying a TIE Swarm list that long successfully. Only a select few can. It's much less taxing on the mind to run 2,3, or 4-ship lists.

I gotta agree with deathrain. If we get a ship that's under 12 points it would need to be a limited number ship like the Rebel Tie.

I don't think it's so much a balance concern as a decision made to keep the game running smooth and fun. We only have a limited amount of space on the board, if both sides could manage 10 ships for a total of 20 it would likely turn the center into a parking lot and devolve the game to a point of not being very fun. Not to mention the time factor. It's not so bad when they're in formation but once they split up swarms become quite the time sink. Can make for a unpleasant game experience for your opponent.

One idea for a cheaper "ship" is player controlled munitions. Think of something like a hunter-killer missile that starts as its own independent model that explodes when it bumps an enemy ship. Or a remote control arc-mine that basically acts like a discount bug zapper Z that can only zap, obviously it would probably not damage its self as a trade off. Maybe it could activate automatically every turn effecting friend and foe alike at the cost of being ridiculously cheap, more of a area denial weapon.

Things like that would be interesting to see, as long they're limited by either available munitions slots or just make them independent but limited to 2-3. This would give us another option for cheap filler when you don't just wanna add more upgrades to your current ships.

Here's a suggestion to buff Swarm Lists without adding more ships

Unique Title - Reduce the point cost of this ship by 1 for each other (Ship Name) in your list.

So if you bring 8 Tie Fighters, you get a 7 point cost reduction. Making it impossible to bring a 9th since you would be at 101 points.

This Title would also be pretty useful in certain "Mini Swarms" that people sometimes use,

Edit - I'm bad at math... nevermind this idea is bad...

Maybe if it was ...

Unique Title - Reduce the point cost of this ship by 2 for each other (Ship Name) in your list. (Max 6)