I'm posting this because a few people expressed interest in it in another thread. If you like X-Wing exactly the way it is, that's awesome. This thread is not for you. There is nothing wrong with the way you play your game, so do please not take it as a personal affront that I've come up with a different mechanic for fun. I'm also not interested in debating whether there is a need for this house rule, because there isn't a need. The game is perfectly fine the way it is. I have explained why I came up with the idea below, but mostly I did it for fun.

A peeve of mine in X-Wing has been how crucial Pilot Skill is. More often than not, the it is the single most important stat in the meta. Even though I understand why Veteran Instincts is ubiquitous, I find it boring and repetitive to see it on so many pilots. Especially on guys like Vader... come on, PS 9 isn't good enough?! A lot of otherwise great pilots never see play because their pilot skill just isn't high enough to compete with the big boys. (The other reason is that a lot of good pilots don't have EPT slots, but that's another topic for another time) In the most recent meta, things have actually been much better... You see Asajj, Ryad, Vessery, and Manaroo, all of whom have lower PS, but only because their ships and abilities are so amazing they actually still compete with the PS 9 guys. The next-most common pilots you see are that don't have PS9 are all PS8 (Miranda, Corran, Inquisitor, etc)... and they very often have VI in their builds if they can take an EPT. You get the drift.

Another mechanic I've never been crazy about is initiative. It's a literal roll of the die to determines who gets it, and it lasts all game. Some matchups rely very heavily on who moves or shoots first when Pilot Skills are even, and I have never been happy to be on either the advantaged or disadvantaged side when such a situation presents itself.

Anyway, I decided to come up with an alternative mechanic for these two issues, and here it is below. I have played maybe 20 games with this system. It is a different experience than the regular way to play, but it is still very fun. I like it slightly more (obviously), but I'm still happy to play rules-as-written any time, which is a testament to my appreciation of this game. I have not played Armada, but it's my understanding that my move order rules are similar to theirs, and it seems to work just fine for that game. Anyway, here we go:

Initiative
At the start of each new round, you determine initiative, according to two rules:
1. The player with the fewest ships receives the initiative token.
2. If both players have the same number of ships, the player who currently has the initiative token gives it to his opponent.

Move Order
At the start of the Planning Phase, the player with initiative declares whether he will go first or second. During the activation phase, the first player activates a ship. The second player then activates a ship, and they go back and forth until every ship has activated. Once a player runs out of ships to activate, his opponent activates the remainder of his own ships in any order he pleases.

Shooting / Target Locks
Shooting works as normal, according to PS, though I have considered capping PS to 9. There is a change to how Target Locks work: You can acquire Target Locks on any ship in the play area. However, at the very start of the Combat Phase (before anything else), check each ship with a Target Lock. If the ship you have locked is beyond Range 3, you must discard the lock. Long Ranged Scanners can maintain their locks past Range 3. I would imagine I would allow Epic ships to maintain a lock out to Range 5... I haven't played any Epic games with my ruleset yet.

That's literally it. Very simple, very easy to play and to pick up. Now to look at some of the ramifications:

Yes, this means that lists with more ships have an advantage, because more of their ships will go late in the turn, after the enemy ships have moved. This allows swarm builds to respond better to developments in the game when they are fighting against small groups of elite pilots. This a feature, not a bug. First of all, swarms are also not exactly dominant right now, so I don't mind giving them a little help. Also, lists with 2-3 ships will usually get the initiative, and so they can opt to go first. This can effectively make one of their ships immune to blocking, but at the cost of moving early in the turn order. Finally, I think it is thematic for a smaller squad to have trouble shaking a swarm of ships in pursuit.

Arc-dodgers are not as screwed as you might initially think... quite the opposite, in fact. This system of alternative movement makes arc dodgers with lower Pilot Skill much, much better, because they can actually occasionally arc-dodge a ship with a higher pilot skill.

The activation phase takes on new life, as well. You now have more interesting decisions to make. "Do I move first with this ship so I can guarantee I don't get blocked, or do I move later so I can use my action to respond to what my opponent does? What if my opponent stalls and activates one of his less important ships to see what I do?" As a minor perk, it's a bit easier to fly in formation. Have you ever found it slightly annoying to fly in groups when the higher-PS guy is in front? It's template hell, having to move ships out of the way so that the guys in back can move first. That's no longer an issue.

The target lock rule change is there for a few reasons. It prevents ships that move early from being stiffed out of their ability to target lock an approaching enemy. If you can correctly predict that your target will be in range once the Combat Phase arrives, you can use your Target Lock. If you let a locked ship escape your range or you fail to predict your opponent's flying, you pay the price for that with a lost lock. Yes, I realize that this probably makes JM5K's with Torpedos too good again, but I have other house rules in place to deal with those (I take away one of their torpedo slots... I am also working on new torpedoes to be reloaded as an action w/out Extra Munitions... it's complicated).

I'm actually not posting this to receive feedback, as I'm pretty happy with how the system works already, and I have friends who are more than happy to play with my version of the rules from time to time. As I said, I posted this because a couple of people wanted to see what I had. If people care to comment or have any ideas to improve these rules, or questions, that's fine. If you're going to knock these rules, though, I humbly suggest trying them first.

I think the Target Lock thing deserves it's own thread and I like it.

I disagree with basically everything else.

For your first statement, that's nice. For your second, don't care.

I do have to concur with Talamare on the alternate Target Lock set up looks nice. For this set up, could a ship with Long Range Scanners still get a target at short range, but have to discard it if the target is still at range 1 to 2?

I would say that a ship with Long Range Scanners could maintain a target lock at any range, even 1-2, as long as that lock was acquired at range 3+. Reason being that otherwise they wouldn't be able to even use some ordnance otherwise (Cluster Missiles, Adv. Torps, Adv. Homing Missiles all have range 1-2 and require a lock). If that's too good for a 0 point card, make it 1 point.

This works much like Imperial Assault. There they eventually added a "pass" mechanic to better balance uneven squads.

Sooo you just took Age of Sigmar a adapted it to Xwing...?

1. Xwing initiative is not random. You bid for it - if you dont, you either don't care or you squad is flawed.

2. Initative rolled each turn is random, very random. Adding to that new activation rules suddenly 2 ship builds are now screwed beyond any hope vs anything with more than 2 ships. For me that invalidated whole PS system as it has most impact on maneuvers not actual shooting.

3. Blocking is no longer viable strategy. It basically reduced the game to pew pew IMO.

I haven't played Age of Sigmar.

1. If you bid the same amount, it's random.
2. Initiative rolled each turn? Who's rolling every turn? I thought I made it very clear that the squad with fewer ships automatically gets initiative. Do I need to rewrite that, or did you misread? 2 ship builds are NOT screwed beyond any hope, not by a long shot. I have won frequently with 2-ship builds, actually. In fact, they have a big advantage because it is much harder (but not impossible) to block them. and...
3. Blocking is still viable, just not as easy as it was before. It's harder to block a ship who moves first, but you can still block ships who move later, and you can do it with ships that normally would move too late. You can also play a turn ahead. You can try to herd ships (large ones in particular) into predictable places if you fly well.

Try it before you write it off as "pew pew." But I'd be surprised if anybody does. That's not the internet discussion "way."

In a Private Message, somebody else brought up the similarity to Imperial Assault. I have a question about the rules to this... do squads that activate fire when they do, or is there some kind of combat phase?

Being able to pass your action if you want to go later in the turn has its merits, but I wonder if it would make blockers even MORE effective, because you could be potentially allowing even more ships the opportunity. Of course, being able to guarantee that both of your ships can always respond to at least SOME of your opponent's squad could be good. I haven't found it necessary in the games I've played so far, but I'd be willing to try it.

A lot of high-PS pilots do pay for their PS, true, but not enough, imo. Shooting first is already a HUGE advantage. Add that to the huge advantage of going last, and I think that each point of high level PS needs to be more and more expensive. The other way to approach this would be to mitigate the other side of high PS, where you can blow up a ship before it can shoot. If you allowed every ship to follow the simultaneous-fire rule (even if destroyed by a higher-PS pilot, you still get to shoot) that might accomplish the same thing.

16 minutes ago, mkevans80 said:

1. If you bid the same amount, it's random.
2. Initiative rolled each turn? Who's rolling every turn? I thought I made it very clear that the squad with fewer ships automatically gets initiative. Do I need to rewrite that, or did you misread? 2 ship builds are NOT screwed beyond any hope, not by a long shot. I have won frequently with 2-ship builds, actually. In fact, they have a big advantage because it is much harder (but not impossible) to block them. and...
3. Blocking is still viable, just not as easy as it was before. It's harder to block a ship who moves first, but you can still block ships who move later, and you can do it with ships that normally would move too late. You can also play a turn ahead. You can try to herd ships (large ones in particular) into predictable places if you fly well.

Try it before you write it off as "pew pew." But I'd be surprised if anybody does. That's not the internet discussion "way."

1. Its way less common.

2. Ah right i apologize, totally misread that one. Deci + Arcdodger ARE so in deep by these rules. Same as Heragators ghost. Rey is also not so happy. Those are ships that really does not care if they are blocked (maybe deci but dec is flying Title lately anyway) - they need the info.

3. Setting up correct block is hard enough as it is unless you are large ship. No reason to make it more difficult.

Don't get me wrong - you having fun with those? Cool, im happy for you. But since you brought those ideas public i see a lot of flaws here.

Pasting in the feedback that I gave you privately to add to this thread.



The target lock thing is kind of cool. It does kind of change up the value of target locks since they can expire now.

Is combat phase activation still handled in descending PS or do you change that as well?

Just based on what I saw with Imperial Assault which used a system similar to what you suggest, having extra activations so that you can move your best units last turns into a big deal. I would also think that it creates a bit of a spiral in that as you are destroying your opponent's ships, more of your ships get to take actions as a reaction to what their ships did. Imperial Assault implemented a rule that allows you to pass as long as you have less activations remaining than your opponent. It might work to do something similar. It might be cool to find a way to tie PS into passing so as to not devalue it too much. A lot of high PS pilots pay a lot of points for their PS.

Have you had a chance to play like this yet?

34 minutes ago, mkevans80 said:

In a Private Message, somebody else brought up the similarity to Imperial Assault. I have a question about the rules to this... do squads that activate fire when they do, or is there some kind of combat phase?

Being able to pass your action if you want to go later in the turn has its merits, but I wonder if it would make blockers even MORE effective, because you could be potentially allowing even more ships the opportunity. Of course, being able to guarantee that both of your ships can always respond to at least SOME of your opponent's squad could be good. I haven't found it necessary in the games I've played so far, but I'd be willing to try it.

A lot of high-PS pilots do pay for their PS, true, but not enough, imo. Shooting first is already a HUGE advantage. Add that to the huge advantage of going last, and I think that each point of high level PS needs to be more and more expensive. The other way to approach this would be to mitigate the other side of high PS, where you can blow up a ship before it can shoot. If you allowed every ship to follow the simultaneous-fire rule (even if destroyed by a higher-PS pilot, you still get to shoot) that might accomplish the same thing.

There is not an separate combat activation in Imperial Assault, Each unit gets 2 actions when they activate. They can move, attack, interact, or use a special ability as an action.

12 minutes ago, WWHSD said:

Pasting in the feedback that I gave you privately to add to this thread.



The target lock thing is kind of cool. It does kind of change up the value of target locks since they can expire now.

Is combat phase activation still handled in descending PS or do you change that as well?

Just based on what I saw with Imperial Assault which used a system similar to what you suggest, having extra activations so that you can move your best units last turns into a big deal. I would also think that it creates a bit of a spiral in that as you are destroying your opponent's ships, more of your ships get to take actions as a reaction to what their ships did. Imperial Assault implemented a rule that allows you to pass as long as you have less activations remaining than your opponent. It might work to do something similar. It might be cool to find a way to tie PS into passing so as to not devalue it too much. A lot of high PS pilots pay a lot of points for their PS.

Have you had a chance to play like this yet?

FFG actually had to update both Imperial Assault and Armada to allow the player with fewer units to activate the option to pass until they were only one unit apart from the player with more because activation advantage was so powerful.

Also since it was mentioned, while some ships might not pay 'enough' for their PS, there are definitely some that overpay for it, especially in earlier waves, and would pretty disadvantaged with that ordering they're paying for going away.

18 minutes ago, Otacon said:

FFG actually had to update both Imperial Assault and Armada to allow the player with fewer units to activate the option to pass until they were only one unit apart from the player with more because activation advantage was so powerful.

Armada has no pass mechanics.

If Imperial Assault has actions that include attacking, I'm afraid we're comparing apples and oranges here.

How does Armada work? They are alternating activations with no pass mechanics, yes?

29 minutes ago, Otacon said:

Also since it was mentioned, while some ships might not pay 'enough' for their PS, there are definitely some that overpay for it, especially in earlier waves, and would pretty disadvantaged with that ordering they're paying for going away.

Can you point out an example of this? There are most definitely some overpriced pilots out there (like Major Rhymer, Ten Numb) but I personally feel that they are overpriced because FFG overvalued their abilities, not their pilot skill. Other pilots that are overpriced, like the mid-PS Interceptor Aces and such, would be just fine if they had access to EPTs. In my opinion.

4 minutes ago, Cusm said:

Armada has no pass mechanics.

I could have sworn they added it before I stopped playing but it seems you're right. In any case I remember it being a pretty big issue. Since you shoot before moving, any activations you get after your opponent has finished moving are inherently more powerful as you get closer range shots and a better view of where everything is for your maneuvers.

1 minute ago, Otacon said:

I could have sworn they added it before I stopped playing but it seems you're right. In any case I remember it being a pretty big issue. Since you shoot before moving, any activations you get after your opponent has finished moving are inherently more powerful as you get closer range shots and a better view of where everything is for your maneuvers.

It seems in tournament play one of the metas is small ship swarms with 6-9 activations, people have been wanting that option for Armada.

Someone proposed alternating initiative based on ship points on the board each turn. That might be a possibility. I really like the target lock change.

43 minutes ago, mkevans80 said:

How does Armada work? They are alternating activations with no pass mechanics, yes?

Correct.

However

This is stated in the rules and as game design philosophy as being a massive advantage to the first player (with the Shoot-then-Move mechanic).

So to offset that Advantage, every game of Armada is based around the mission being played... First player is choosing from a subset of 3 missions that the Second Player has assigned to his fleet, and each of those missions are designed to benefit the Second Player in some meaningful way. Some missions provide a benefit to both players, but even in that case, the benefit to the First player is greatly diminished in comparison to the Second Player.

That, and both Fleets in Armada have access to a ship that, baseline, costs basically 5% of the total fleet cost, to give an activation..... The X-Wing equivelant would be a 5 point ship with no guns. Maybe a variant at 6 points with a single red. So you can sacrifice total fleet points, effectively, for activation advantage if you want... But they're completely and utterly support ships that can't even "bump" effectively (as in Armada, when you ram, normally both ships take damage... But the cheap flotillas are the only ones who take damage in that situation - regular ships can't be ram-damaged by a Flotilla.)

So on the face of it, its a simple answer - No pass mechanic. But on the deepline, there's multiple mitigation points for the inherent first-player advantage in the activation face.

Thank you for the quick primer on Armada. It's a game I'd be very interested to play, but with two kids and my own business, I only have enough time to devote to one game at a time, and X-Wing is going to be it for the foreseeable future.

One more question about both the imperial assault and Armada.... are movements planned in advance? If so, then again we are comparing apples and oranges. If Imperial Assault allows you to watch what an enemy unit does, and then move/action/shoot in response to that, that is a tremendous advantage. I played a game called Dust Tactics and it was a common tactic to take a bunch of cheap units to move first as throwaways, so you could move your important stuff later. If in Armada you can change your ship headings based on order of activation, that's kind of the same thing.

In X-Wing, your ship is going to perform the maneuver you dialed in (barring special abilities and such of course), regardless of where you move in the order. The only advantage you get from moving later is deciding what action you take, and let's be honest, a lot of the time that's going to be focusing up or taking a target lock... stuff you would do regardless of move order. Repositions in particular are where the power of going last lies, as you can try to dodge somebody's arc once you have seen where they moved. The other big advantage is being able to target lock somebody who wasn't close enough to target lock you when they moved first. That's a change I've made with this new ruleset that a lot of people seem to actually LIKE that, even if they don't like anything else.

5 minutes ago, mkevans80 said:

Thank you for the quick primer on Armada. It's a game I'd be very interested to play, but with two kids and my own business, I only have enough time to devote to one game at a time, and X-Wing is going to be it for the foreseeable future.

One more question about both the imperial assault and Armada.... are movements planned in advance? If so, then again we are comparing apples and oranges. If Imperial Assault allows you to watch what an enemy unit does, and then move/action/shoot in response to that, that is a tremendous advantage. I played a game called Dust Tactics and it was a common tactic to take a bunch of cheap units to move first as throwaways, so you could move your important stuff later. If in Armada you can change your ship headings based on order of activation, that's kind of the same thing.

In X-Wing, your ship is going to perform the maneuver you dialed in (barring special abilities and such of course), regardless of where you move in the order. The only advantage you get from moving later is deciding what action you take, and let's be honest, a lot of the time that's going to be focusing up or taking a target lock... stuff you would do regardless of move order. Repositions in particular are where the power of going last lies, as you can try to dodge somebody's arc once you have seen where they moved. The other big advantage is being able to target lock somebody who wasn't close enough to target lock you when they moved first. That's a change I've made with this new ruleset that a lot of people seem to actually LIKE that, even if they don't like anything else.

Neither Armada or Imperial Assault make you plan movements in advance.

Armada does have you set a speed (which is public knowledge) that can be adjusted up or down each round and it has you issue orders for your capital ships in advance. Depending on the ship you may be issuing orders one round in advance or several rounds in advance. The orders aren't committing you to actions but they do make certain options more attractive for the round that they are issued. All games are 6 rounds long (unless all ships on one side are destroyed before then).

Yes, the trick with Armada is the Commands. And the "Basics" Primer, since its similar to "Setting Dials".

Before anyone activates, everyone sets their dials - the dials are commands.

Your Speed is set unless you change it with a Command... The bigger the ship, the further in advance you need to set commands.

So, for example, a Corvette being a small speedy ship, can have a speed thats 1-4... And it is only command 1 (1 dial), so every turn, you're setting a new dial, and can basically actively plan to change your speed, if you wanted, every turn... But that's in lieu of commanding squadrons, repairing yourself, or adding a die to a shooting attack.

An Imperial Star Destroyer is command 3... So on the 1st turn, you need to nominate your command for the First Turn, Second Turn, and Third Turn, in Order... Start of the Second Turn, you're effectively setting your command for the fourth turn, in a 6 turn game, and so on...


The nearest equivelant (and its still a bit ham-fisted) would be like having to set what Speed you have for your X-Wing, and you can only perform maneuvers at that speed, unless you give up an Action to change speed, and in doing so, you can only change your speed Up or Down by one...

It makes X-Wing a Game of (relatively) quick reactions - yes, you're planning before you see what your enemy does, so there's a bit of guesswork - but its guessing, and reacting, Turn-by-Turn.

Armada is a longer thought - you need to set out in advance what your strategy is, and go from there - but there are also numerous ways to attempt to mitigate a poor choice... (Elect to activate squadrons but find them all out of range? Then you get to bank a Squadron Token instead, which allows you on a later turn to activate a single squadron instead of multiples, but its in addition to anything else...)


I don't like equating it to Tactics versus Strategy, when really, its the same thing applied 2 different ways.... When I'm in a certian mood, I equate X-Wing to Slamming Shots, versus Armada's long Sipping Whiskey... Both Will Get you Drunk. Its just the Speed in which its "All over" that happens

In Short:

The only reason why the relatively simplified "pick and choose and go in any order" works for Armada is the fact that there are entire pages of mitigation systems in place for poor choices...

Whereas in X-Wing, your order is Mandated by Upgrade and Such - and the assumption (no matter how incorrect or short sighted) that, even if you dialled in a bad maneuver this round - you make a new choice next round and go from there... That short of suffering Stress or Critical Damage, your last turn doesn't effect your next turn as much - and you really only need to worry about 1 turn ahead in the game mechanic sense. (Of course, a good player is always planning much furtehr ahead, but they can at least adapt that plan turn-by-turn).

So essentially, ships that are worth more points because they have an advantage of moving after the opponent, will usually - or very often loose this advantage. I can't see logic in here.

however, your idea about target locks is amazing and I really, REALLY like it. It would finally help some of the small poor boys to actually do something (I'm looking at you, bombers/headhunters).

Really big ships often don't have repositions and wouldn't care. The ones that do are too strong anyway... I firmly believe that Engine Upgrade should be errata'd to "Small ship only" and that other cards that allow big ships to reposition should have a cost, aka Leebo (who might see some play if EU got changed). Small ship aces will suffer a hit, but they still shoot first, which is a huge advantage.

I think it's funny that everybody is saying that having some lower-PS ships occasionally get to move later than high-PS ships would be too strong, and then those same people say they love my Target Lock changes, which are essentially accomplishing the same thing.

Btw in my homebrew, I have also introduced a new EPT that helps aces who absolutely insist on having a late reposition in order to be effective. It is three points and works as such:
At the start of the Combat Phase, you may perform a free boost or barrel roll action. If you do not have the corresponding icon in your action bar, receive one stress.

I have also slightly modified Target Lock in other ways, but I'm not sure the people on here could handle it without their heads exploding.