Saber Squadron
Title - TIE Interceptor only - 1 point
When another ship in your squad has this upgrade equipped you may perform a free boost action once per round
When 2 ships in your squad have this upgrade equipped you may perform a free focus or boost action once per round
When 3 ships in your squad have this upgrade equipped you may perform a free evade, focus or boost action once per round
Your squad may only contain 1 ace with this upgrade.

Rogue Squadron
Title - T65 X-Wing only - 1 point
When another ship in your squad has this upgrade equipped you may perform a free barrel roll action once per round
When 2 ships in your squad have this upgrade equipped you may perform a free focus or barrel roll once per round
When 3 ships in your squad have this upgrade equipped you may perform a free target lock, focus or barrel roll action once per round
Your squad may only contain 1 ace with this upgrade.

Black Squadron
Title - TIE Fighter only - 1 point
When another ship in your squad has this upgrade equipped you may perform a evade action once per round
When 2 ships in your squad have this upgrade equipped you may perform a free focus focus or evade action once per round
When 3 ships in your squad have this upgrade equipped you may perform a free barrel roll, focus or evade action once per round
Your squad may only contain 1 ace with this upgrade.

The way I tried to word that was so you could take any number of generics but only 1 ace with that upgrade, but you weren't forced to only take that upgrade. eg: You could take Soontir and and 2 Avenger Squad pilots with that title, but have enough points left over to bring Vader or a shuttle.

This would also allow FFG to release a squadron pack where you get a repaint of some of the earlier ships or ships that need some generic love, and give us a few squadrons. I want Screaming Wookies.

edit: looking back on it, should be reworded so that a single ship does not get 3 free actions per round

2 hours ago, Teloch said:

Saber Squadron
Title - TIE Interceptor only - 1 point
When another ship in your squad has this upgrade equipped you may perform a free boost action once per round
When 2 ships in your squad have this upgrade equipped you may perform a free focus or boost action once per round
When 3 ships in your squad have this upgrade equipped you may perform a free evade, focus or boost action once per round
Your squad may only contain 1 ace with this upgrade.

Rogue Squadron
Title - T65 X-Wing only - 1 point
When another ship in your squad has this upgrade equipped you may perform a free barrel roll action once per round
When 2 ships in your squad have this upgrade equipped you may perform a free focus or barrel roll once per round
When 3 ships in your squad have this upgrade equipped you may perform a free target lock, focus or barrel roll action once per round
Your squad may only contain 1 ace with this upgrade.

Black Squadron
Title - TIE Fighter only - 1 point
When another ship in your squad has this upgrade equipped you may perform a evade action once per round
When 2 ships in your squad have this upgrade equipped you may perform a free focus focus or evade action once per round
When 3 ships in your squad have this upgrade equipped you may perform a free barrel roll, focus or evade action once per round
Your squad may only contain 1 ace with this upgrade.

The way I tried to word that was so you could take any number of generics but only 1 ace with that upgrade, but you weren't forced to only take that upgrade. eg: You could take Soontir and and 2 Avenger Squad pilots with that title, but have enough points left over to bring Vader or a shuttle.

This would also allow FFG to release a squadron pack where you get a repaint of some of the earlier ships or ships that need some generic love, and give us a few squadrons. I want Screaming Wookies.

edit: looking back on it, should be reworded so that a single ship does not get 3 free actions per round

In spirit, this totally nails what I am talking about. . .a concrete, in-game reward for building thematic lists around a single type of starfighter. Bravo!

I agree, Telochs idea seems great. I'd just add that I think it should have a "You may equip an additional title" line for many of them so ships like say the Tie Advanced or such don't have to give up their fix or ability titles. But the Interceptor is probably fine being Saber squadron OR Royal guard but not both.

3 hours ago, Dr Fsticuffs said:

I agree, Telochs idea seems great. I'd just add that I think it should have a "You may equip an additional title" line for many of them so ships like say the Tie Advanced or such don't have to give up their fix or ability titles. But the Interceptor is probably fine being Saber squadron OR Royal guard but not both.

I like the idea of a hard choice.

7 hours ago, BlodVargarna said:

I like the idea of a hard choice.

Me too, that's why I wrote it like that

On 10.02.2017 at 4:14 PM, Darth Meanie said:

No, they reward you for flying close to another friendly. Squadron effects could be something that happens anywhere on the board because your combat unit has a theme, or that change list building to create a theme.

What squadron are Jess, Howl, and Serissu in? Do you know without having to look it up??

First part - i get your points guys - something like battalions from GW games, but to X-wing it more suits to reward for flying in formation.

To you second question, in fact i do. From memory without looking up: Black Squadron, Black Squadron again and Serrisu was Tansari point commander if i recall correct.

Here's an idea I had that would encourage same ship squads:

Red Squadron (T-65 X-Wing only). Title

If your squad contains at least 3 T-65 X-wings, the cost of your squad is reduced by 5.

Obsidian Squadron (TIE only).

If your squad contains at least 4 TIE fighters, the cost of your squad is reduced by 3.

Could do the same thing for A-wings, B-wings, etc.

It would help to partially fix the imbalance of over costed ships, but only if you want to bring multiples of them.

I have been giving this a thought also, wrote a few ideas and want to share them to see what everyone else thinks.

Instead of using a title, I thought about a new type of card, with its included rules reference card.

I think the idea for squadrons is that they should benefit from the fact that they are ships flying together. This is why the effects listed depend on how other ships from the same squadron interact with each other.

The Squad leader card is reassigned when the squad leader dies to give a sense of promotion in the ranks. The mechanic is probably broken.

I got some inspiration from the movies (Red squadron's description is from ANH when Luke is asking for help and Wedge assists him)

Please excuse if the phrasing in the cards is off, English is my second language. Also, I'm sure the costs are way off, I am no expert in calculating squad points.

Squadron Card Rules Explanation

You must equip one ship with the squadron leader card and at least two other ships with a squadron group card. If the squadorn leader gets destroyed and there is more than one ship in the squadron remaining, the squadron leader card is assigned to another ship from the group and its squadron group card is discarded. If there's only one ship left, discard the squadron leader card instead. The squadron should be composed of the same type of ships. Only one ace is allowed per squadron.

Red Squadron (AKA Revenge from an attack on a squadmate)
Limitations: Rebel Only

Red Leader
Cost 2
Description After an enemy ship inside your firing arc attacks any other friendly ship in your squadron, you can perform a free attack.

Red Two (Three, Four, Five, etc)
Cost 1
Description After an enemy ship inside your firing arc attacks any other friendly ship in your squadron you can perform a free attack, you cannot perform a dice modification in this attack

Rogue Squadron (AKA Distracting an enemy about to attack a squadmate)
Limitations: Rebel Only

Rogue Leader
Cost 2
Description Once per round, before an enemy ship withing range 2 inside your firing arc attacks any other friendly ship in your squadron or defends from one, you can remove one of its tokens.

Rogue Two (Three, Four, Five, etc)
Cost 1
Description Once per round before an enemy ship whitin range 2 inside your firing arc attacks any other friendly ship in your squadron or defends from one, choose one of its tokens. This token can only modify one dice

Alpha Squadron (AKA Interfering with a ship firing on a squadmate)
Limitations: Imperial

Alpha Leader
Cost 2
Description Once per round, when an enemy ship attacks any other friendly ship in your squadron. If you are in the attacker's firing arc and your range is equal or less than the defender, you can assign the defender an evade token

Alpha Two (Three, Four, Five, etc)
Cost 1
Description Once per round, when an enemy ship attacks any other friendly ship in your squadron. If you are inside the attacker's firing arc and your range is equal or less than the defender, the defender may reroll a defence die

There are some cool ideas in this thread. I think the best mechanism would be to make use of condition cards.

For example:

Gold Leader, EPT, Y Wing only, Rebel only (I'm assuming some Y Wing pilots with EPTs come out at the same time). X points.

You may not equip this card of your PS is 5 or lower. At the start of the game, assign the "Gold Leader" condition to your ship, and the "Gold Squadron" Condition to at least two other ships of the same class as you within range one of you. If you can not assign these cards, discard this card and all related conditions.

Then the condition cards could give the benefit, rather than taking away title slots.

2 hours ago, MacchuWA said:

There are some cool ideas in this thread. I think the best mechanism would be to make use of condition cards.

For example:

Gold Leader, EPT, Y Wing only, Rebel only (I'm assuming some Y Wing pilots with EPTs come out at the same time). X points.

You may not equip this card of your PS is 5 or lower. At the start of the game, assign the "Gold Leader" condition to your ship, and the "Gold Squadron" Condition to at least two other ships of the same class as you within range one of you. If you can not assign these cards, discard this card and all related conditions.

Then the condition cards could give the benefit, rather than taking away title slots.

Im not a fan of that. I'd rather them take title spots. It should be a hard choice to decide between say a Gold Leader title and BTL-A4 Y Wing.

We dont want to make anything OP with extra conditions etc. Just more variety and different play styles from the same ships.

Considering Gold Squadron took part in the bombing runs on Scarrif and the Death Star maybe the Gold Leader title would let your Ywings use your target lock without spending it.

I was thinking more along the lines of Forces Cards (from Warmachine, back in the day... now they are called theme forces).

These would all be separate Squadron cards.

Black Squadron - Tie Fighter ( 0pts )
Imperial Only.
- To use this card, your squad must contain 4 to 6 Tie Fighters, one of which must be PS 6+. The Highest PS ship is the Squadron Leader, mark this with the SQLeader Token. If the Squad Leader is destroyed, the next highest PS ship becomes the new leader. If there are less than 3 ship remaining, or the highest PS is less than 3, the squadron is considered broken and this card no longer has an effect.
- Tie Fighters without EPTs cost 1 less points.

- During the Combat Phase, all Squad Members within Range 1-2 of the Squad Leader can re-roll 1 defense die when they are defending.

Blue Squadron - T-65 X-wing ( 0pts )
Rebel Only
- To use To use this card, your squad must contain 3 to 5 X-Wings, one of which must be PS 6+. The Highest PS ship is the Squadron Leader, mark this with the SQLeader Token. If the Squad Leader is destroyed, the next highest PS ship becomes the new leader. If there are less than 2 ship remaining, or if the highest PS is less than 3, the squadron is considered broken and this card no longer has an effect.
- All T-65 X-wings cost 2 less points.

- At the end of the Activation Phase, all other T-65 X-wings in range 1-3 of the Squad Leader may perform a barrel roll as a free action, or be assigned an evade token. If the Squad leader is at range 1-3 of at least 1 other X-wing, assign the squad leader an evade token.

Or something...

2 hours ago, KryatDragon said:

I was thinking more along the lines of Forces Cards (from Warmachine, back in the day... now they are called theme forces).

Exactly this. Instead of an upgrade for a ship you have an upgrade for a squadron. Obviously you want to keep it simple, limited and hinged around points rather than added rules and mechanics. If you've got squadwide X7s or something that even vaguely resembles a 40k formations, something's gone wrong.

So for instance (and this is an arbitrary example and not balanced):

Saber Squadron: if all small ships in this list are Saber Squadron pilot, reduce the list's points value by 3

Obsidian Squadron: if 3 or more ships in this list are Obsidian squadron, reduce squads point cost of each ship by 1.

5 hours ago, MacchuWA said:

There are some cool ideas in this thread. I think the best mechanism would be to make use of condition cards.

For example:

Gold Leader, EPT, Y Wing only, Rebel only (I'm assuming some Y Wing pilots with EPTs come out at the same time). X points.

You may not equip this card of your PS is 5 or lower. At the start of the game, assign the "Gold Leader" condition to your ship, and the "Gold Squadron" Condition to at least two other ships of the same class as you within range one of you. If you can not assign these cards, discard this card and all related conditions.

Then the condition cards could give the benefit, rather than taking away title slots.

Im not a fan of this. It will make weaker/older ships too OP if they have too many upgrades available.

The benefit of running it as a title card is that it limits options but increases diversity. IMO we want the hard choices to decide between which upgrades to take, but when we look at titles those upgrades change the play style of the ships. Which makes it harder to counter when a single ship has 3 different play styles depending on which upgrades it's taken.

6 hours ago, Teloch said:

Im not a fan of this. It will make weaker/older ships too OP if they have too many upgrades available.

The benefit of running it as a title card is that it limits options but increases diversity. IMO we want the hard choices to decide between which upgrades to take, but when we look at titles those upgrades change the play style of the ships. Which makes it harder to counter when a single ship has 3 different play styles depending on which upgrades it's taken.

The other way to make it a hard choice is to make the Squadron card a Condition card with a significant cost. It would not hamstring each individual ship, still allowing for diverse builds individually, but would make it a choice of "do I want to add this to my list, or do I want those points on my ships?"

OTOH, since the whole point is to encourage Squadron themed lists, do we really want it to be a hard choice??

Spreading my ideas.

I things a set of title cards would probably be the most elegant way of handling squadrons as "tribes".

There could be unique titles like "Red Five" or "Red Leader" that can only be equipped to a pilot that is printed as having "red squadron" in their name. Thus using the existing generics to build up a squadron.

To reward formation flying most of the titles can have a range limit. And the effects only benefit members of the same squadron.

So over-all something along the lines of:

"Red Leader: 'Red Squadron' only, Unique, Red Squadron ships within Range 1 add the Reenforce action to their action bar" (We're passing though the magnetic field set your defectors to double front)

"Red Five: 'Red Squadron' only, Unique, Red Squadron ships When a Red Squadron ship within range 1 reveals a speed 4 maneuver assign an evade token to them" (We're going in and we're going in full throttle that should keep those fighters off our backs)

"Red Two: 'Red Squadron' only, Unique, Oncer per turn when another Red Squadron ship is dealt a damage card you may make a free boost or barrel roll action, then if the target is within arc and within range 3 you may make a 3 die attack against them." (Thanks Wedge)

This makes them sort of a parallel to the ace pilot cards. At a product level this could come with a pack like "Red Squadron X-Wing", That has Red Squadron rookie/Red Squadron veteran/red Squadron Ace pilots (no named pilots) and one each of the titles with a repainted X-wing.

Rules like these killed warhammer 40k 7th ed, and have absolutely decimated any competitive warmachine scene. Sorry, terrible idea. FFG does not have the time, resources, or talent to design this effectively.

47 minutes ago, chervorlovesu said:

Rules like these killed warhammer 40k 7th ed, and have absolutely decimated any competitive warmachine scene. Sorry, terrible idea. FFG does not have the time, resources, or talent to design this effectively.

Luckily, I don't give a crap about the competitive scene. Make the idea Epic Only.

OTOH, FFG doesn't give a crap about the casual scene, so you are probably right that FFG won't waste the time or resources.

So many great ideas to drool over!

FFG should hire us all!

22 hours ago, Darth Meanie said:

Luckily, I don't give a crap about the competitive scene. Make the idea Epic Only.

OTOH, FFG doesn't give a crap about the casual scene, so you are probably right that FFG won't waste the time or resources.

I am not knocking the idea in a casual sense at all. Just super hard to implement and balance. If it was in epic and scenario that would be awesome! Honestly, that'd be a great way to beta test it out

This is the X Wing squadron mechanic.....

Biggs at range 1

Should be a new mechanic, we don't really need to use any of the current upgrade slots. Can be "1 Squad card max per list". The effects could be anything, and there probably should be a designated leader, but would be nice if it affected all of the ships that meet certain conditions. Generics really need the boost! Shouldn't be mandatory, of course, just a way to make more types of lists viable.

Of course, these things would be released slowly. So could start with just like T-65 and TIE Fighters one (Red and Black squads?) and see how it goes.

Squadron upgrades: Keep them simple. Each squadron should be limited by faction and ship type. (Black Squadron may not be applied to Rebel TIEs; Imperial only. TIE Fighter only.) I'd lean toward simply stealing the Admiral/Fleet Action mechanic from Star Trek: Attack Wing. The Squadron upgrade would apply to all ships of the applicable sort, and during the turn, any ONE of them could use the Squadron Action, which may benefit that ship only, another ship only, or the entire squadron. Different Squadrons should naturally have different abilities. I'd also make it a REQUIREMENT that at least 100 pts of a given list must be able to use the Squadron title; hence, in Epic, 1/3 of your force (in standard 300 pt Epic) would have to be united under the chosen Squadron title, while in 100/6, your entire list would have to be DEFINED by the Squadron title if you wanted to use it.

No Squadron titles apply to Large ships. (Before anyone mentions the Millennium Falcon in Return of the Jedi, note that Lando was Gold Leader, and he was effectively leading/coordinating Red Squadron, Blue, Green, etc. At best, one could theoretically make the Gold Squadron title into the exception, as a Y-Wing and Large shipYT-1300 only Rebel upgrade.)

Then again, I may just really want to see some reason besides my own aesthetic preference to make a First Order squad out of only Omega or Zeta or some Greek letter; Omega Leader, Omega Specialist, Omega Squadron, etc....

indeed. I'd be tempted to make it a pilot-sized card, rather than an upgrade-sized card.

This gives you room to:

• Define specific pilots (not just ships) who are viable members. This is an optional approach, in a sense that you can have some which do define specific pilots, and some which don't; so "Strike Squadron" just requires 'Small Ship with an equipped [Missile] or [Torpedo] upgrade', "Ace Group" might be 'Unique Small Ships with Pilot Skill 7 or higher", 'Red Squadron' might be "X-wing with PS4 or higher only", whilst "Saber Squadron" requires 'Saber Squadron Pilot, Lieutenant Lorrir, Fel's Wrath, Turr Phennir, or Soontir Fel". Firstly this gives you a mechanic to reward "theme-correct" squadrons with the appropriate roster, secondly, it gives you a balancing mechanism which can 'reach in' to the existing roster of pilots and provide a boost which specifically benefits pilots who need more help than others in the same ship (the TIE advanced can always use a bit of help, but doing so without making Darth Vader better and the other pilots still proportionately no more attractive is currently quite hard)
• Squadron cards themselves could be generic or unique. Theoretically, you might have 4 TIE fighters and a pair of bombers, from different squadrons (if they fit in the points), but you should obviously only be able to use some squadron cards once, on very specific ships.
• Have a larger 'space' for rules mechanics.
• Potentially have an 'upgrade bar' on the squadron card. Much like 'Youngster' lets you buy an EPT and apply it to all nearby TIE fighters, essentially providing a (second) discounted EPT slot, a squadron card might have an EPT slot you can fill that benefits all squadron members. Equally, you might have a large upgrade bar with half a dozen upgrade slots for Elite upgrades, but restrict it to 'discard-on-use' cards like Crack Shot, Cool Hand, Lightning Reflexes or Adrenaline Rush, giving your squadron a 'pool' it can draw from.

You then need a means to attach it to specific ships. Condition tokens are a possibility, but littering the board in permanent, never-removed conditions seems silly. A 'squadron token' which sits on the pilot card wouldn't be unreasonable, though:

• The squadron card itself should definitely cost points if the abilities are good enough to matter but you don't want them to be an auto-include. Having a flat cost makes 'packing out' the squadron appealing, so is probably a good thing.
• How you get the points for the squadron is key; wiping it out seems a little harsh, because if you've taken a pure Interceptor squad (or whatever), making the value of the Saber Squadron card inaccessible without tabling the enemy seems unfair. My suggestion would be a loss of over half the squadron members - when people complained about large ship 'points fortresses', this was the response (do 1/2 damage), and no-one has really complained about it that I've seen. Getting the points value for the Squadron Card as if it was a destroyed ship if half or more of the ships with that squadron token have been destroyed is fairly easy to understand and calculate.
• If you move the squadron token back onto the squadron card as members are killed, firstly you get an easy reference (are there as many or more squadron tokens on the squadron card as on ships still in play) and secondly you have the potential for a game mechanic where a squadron gets better (or worse!) as its members are destroyed - 'friendly ships with this squadron token increase their pilot skill by 1 for every squadron token on this card', for example.
• This also gives you room for "one of these is not like the other" - where one of the squadron tokens is 'Tempest Leader' rather than 'Tempest Squadron', and your bonuses relate to being in proximity to them, or where an 'Assassin Squadron' hands out a nominated 'victim' token (akin to the 'bounty' ID token in the Preystalker mission) and the squadron bonus is essentially "go kill that one guy in the face".
• Assigning squadron membership at deployment (at the same time as things like Agent Kallus and A Score To Settle are assigned) means you 'buy' your squadron card(s) in squad building but can potentially define their membership on the fly. Imagine you have two cards; 'Strike Squadron' and 'Escort Squadron', and a squad with two TIE bombers loaded for Ace-hunting (Long Range Scanners/Crack Shot/Homing Missiles) and two for Big-Ship Hunting (Guidance Chips/Deadeye/Plasma Torpedoes/Extra Munitions). If your squadron cards provide you with two (or more) tokens for each squadron, you can define the ace-killers or big ship killers as the 'strike' and the others as the 'escort' depending on the composition of the enemy force, much like you get to decide who is the most threatening thing in the enemy force to assign A Debt To Pay/Agent Kallus to.