I mentioned this in another thread. Lately I've noticed a few people in our local group getting frustrated and bored with the current meta we find ourselves in, with all it's fugly generic sci-fi looking ships, and combo stacking (I'm not going to lie, I'm one of them). I've been playing around with the idea of running a 'Classic X-wing' league that restricts the ship choice to the iconic stuff we all love to help excite people again. Here were the rules I've come up with for this variant.

Ship Availability:

Only the following ships are available:
Core: T-65 X-wing and TIE Fighter.
Wave 1: Y-wing and TIE Advanced.
Wave 2: A-wing, YT-1300*, TIE Interceptor, Firespray*.
Wave 3: B-wing, Hawk, TIE Bomber, Shuttle.
Other: U-wing and TIE Striker. - I consider the U-wing and Striker to be two excellently balanced ships with several good options. They're also in the movies, in the right era, hence their inclusion.

Obviously that means the Scum faction is out. Oh no how will we cope

Upgrade Availability:

All current upgrades can be used in this format. with the exception of those on the...

Ban List:

The reason for removing these two cards is fairly obvious. I foresee them strangling this artificial meta we're creating, and dominating listbuilding. Also they've had their time in the limelight. I did consider putting Kylo on this list, but without the Decimator and Palpatine, I don't think he'll be oppressive in this format, though I could be wrong.

Also, Just to be clear I don't care so much about keeping the timeline accurate, it's more I just want to see the more iconic ships on the table, hence why cards like Kylo and Finn haven't been banned.

Rules/Card Changes:
Squad Building Change: A single ship cannot cost more than 50pts. - This is simply to curb Fat-Han/Boba now that TLT isn't around to keep them in check.
YT-1300: The Resistance Sympathizer, New Old Chewie, Rey and New Old Han can be taken too (just count their faction as Rebel). - If it bugs you that Rey is included in this format even though she's from TFA era, just pretend she's actually Evaan Verlaine, or some other decent Civil War era YT1300 pilot.
Firespray: The Scum Mandalorian Mercenary, Emon Azzameen, Scum Kath, and Scum Boba can be taken too (just count their faction as Imperial). The original Imperial Firesprays add an illicit slot to their upgrade bar.
Integrated Astromech: This card is a title instead of a mod. - I didn't really want to get into changing actual cards, but this was such a minor change I figured it wouldn't hurt.
Biggs Darklighter: Change Bigg's ability to: "When a friendly ship at Range 1 is hit by an attack, you may suffer 1 of the uncanceled hit or crit results instead of the target ship." - This is the only big card change I'm including. Biggs now just has a better version of the Draw Their Fire EPT. I don't really think this is a nerf, more like adding some choice back into the game.

And that's it, let me know what you think, or if you have any experience with a similar format.

Looks promising. You've caught the things that should be largely unbalancing (TLT, Fat 1300, Biggs).

Why not the Z-95? It's balanced, and by including it you could allow a Scum faction (Firespray, Y-wing, Z-95, HWK).

Integrated Astromech -- just give it to X-wings for free as part of the ship.

I've played in a similar setup. It's a lot of fun. Watch out for alpha ordnance strikes.

What about the ARC??

Whilst I like the ARC a lot, I think the pilot abilities are too good for this format. It would be interesting to invent a generic for it though.

1 hour ago, CRCL said:

I mentioned this in another thread. Lately I've noticed a few people in our local group getting frustrated and bored with the current meta we find ourselves in, with all it's fugly generic sci-fi looking ships, and combo stacking (I'm not going to lie, I'm one of them). I've been playing around with the idea of running a 'Classic X-wing' league that restricts the ship choice to the iconic stuff we all love to help excite people again. Here were the rules I've come up with for this variant.

Ship Availability:

Only the following ships are available:
Core: T-65 X-wing and TIE Fighter.
Wave 1: Y-wing and TIE Advanced.
Wave 2: A-wing, YT-1300*, TIE Interceptor, Firespray*.
Wave 3: B-wing, Hawk, TIE Bomber, Shuttle.
Other: U-wing and TIE Striker. - I consider the U-wing and Striker to be two excellently balanced ships with several good options. They're also in the movies, in the right era, hence their inclusion.

Obviously that means the Scum faction is out. Oh no how will we cope

Upgrade Availability:

All current upgrades can be used in this format. with the exception of those on the...

Ban List:

The reason for removing these two cards is fairly obvious. I foresee them strangling this artificial meta we're creating, and dominating listbuilding. Also they've had their time in the limelight. I did consider putting Kylo on this list, but without the Decimator and Palpatine, I don't think he'll be oppressive in this format, though I could be wrong.

Also, Just to be clear I don't care so much about keeping the timeline accurate, it's more I just want to see the more iconic ships on the table, hence why cards like Kylo and Finn haven't been banned.

Rules/Card Changes:
Squad Building Change: A single ship cannot cost more than 50pts. - This is simply to curb Fat-Han/Boba now that TLT isn't around to keep them in check.
YT-1300: The Resistance Sympathizer, New Old Chewie, Rey and New Old Han can be taken too (just count their faction as Rebel). - If it bugs you that Rey is included in this format even though she's from TFA era, just pretend she's actually Evaan Verlaine, or some other decent Civil War era YT1300 pilot.
Firespray: The Scum Mandalorian Mercenary, Emon Azzameen, Scum Kath, and Scum Boba can be taken too (just count their faction as Imperial). The original Imperial Firesprays add an illicit slot to their upgrade bar.
Integrated Astromech: This card is a title instead of a mod. - I didn't really want to get into changing actual cards, but this was such a minor change I figured it wouldn't hurt.
Biggs Darklighter: Change Bigg's ability to: "When a friendly ship at Range 1 is hit by an attack, you may suffer 1 of the uncanceled hit or crit results instead of the target ship." - This is the only big card change I'm including. Biggs now just has a better version of the Draw Their Fire EPT. I don't really think this is a nerf, more like adding some choice back into the game.

And that's it, let me know what you think, or if you have any experience with a similar format.

No Scum, TLT and Jesus Biggs? Dang, you fixed the game!

I like this but

2 hours ago, CRCL said:

Integrated Astromech: This card is a title instead of a mod. - I didn't really want to get into changing actual cards, but this was such a minor change I figured it wouldn't hurt.

This is a major change. I've played era restricted games over the last few months and believe me the X-Wing shines without this change.

I LOVE this idea, will totally play with these rules.

My only asterisk is that I love the Force Awakens Era (Tie FO is my fav ship) and I would really like some kind of FA equivalent so I kind exercise my 3 T 70 lists in a safe and clean environment

Early scum with fixes should be fine, though I'm not a fan of scum Ys.

Hypothetical scum expansion:

Khirazx Vaskai

Starviper mk2

Z95 headhunter

M3A (light and heavy)

YV666

IG2000

Firespray (counts as small ship for upgrades)

This sounds like it could be a lot of fun ! Think I'll certainly be giving this a try

13 hours ago, Hawkstrike said:

Why not the Z-95? It's balanced, and by including it you could allow a Scum faction (Firespray, Y-wing, Z-95, HWK).

I was considering trying to include the Z-95, but I couldn't find another ship I wanted to add to the imperials without disrupting the balance. I don't think the Z95 adds anything really needed to the Rebels.

The exclusion of the Scum faction was deliberate. Not to go too far down a rabbit-hole, but I've always felt that the addition of the Scum faction was one of the biggest missteps FFG made (in terms of game balance, aesthetic and theme). If you're absolutely Scum mad, and can't even fathom playing a variant that removes them I have some recommendations:

I'd say try and keep the factions thematically different by not sharing ships. To do this I'd deliberately not give the Z-95 to the Rebels, and also remove the Firespray from the Imperial faction and replace it with the Decimator.

Scum ships would be: Z95, Kihraxz/Vaksai, Starviper Mk2, Firespray (can take the Imperial pilots, and they get the illicit), Scyk, YV666, G1-A

Ban list additions: Kylo crew, K4 security droid. - Kylo crew goes on the ban list now that the Deci is back in the game. The removal of the K4 crew is to stop a high PS Scum alpha lists (particularly Bossk) from becoming a problem. K4 makes them relatively resistant to control via blocking.

13 hours ago, Gilarius said:

I've played in a similar setup. It's a lot of fun. Watch out for alpha ordnance strikes.

Alpha lists would be the one thing to watch. If it ends up being an issue, guidance chips could go on the ban list too.

11 hours ago, Sasajak said:

I like this but

This is a major change. I've played era restricted games over the last few months and believe me the X-Wing shines without this change.

I was conscious of that, which is why there's no cost reduction added to the card. Shifting IA to the title slot is simply to give the X-wing more build options. Currently it's pretty difficult to put anything other than IA in the mod slot.

10 hours ago, DarthCognis said:

My only asterisk is that I love the Force Awakens Era (Tie FO is my fav ship) and I would really like some kind of FA equivalent so I kind exercise my 3 T 70 lists in a safe and clean environment

This is just how I'd do this variant. You could add TFA T-70 and TIE/FO, as both those ships are pretty well balanced (the non-Omega Leader FO's are arguably a little overcosted, but they're still solid). I just wanted to keep it to (mostly) the stuff in the galactic civil war that people know and love.

Anyway, what list would people foresee being dominant in this artificial meta?

2 hours ago, CRCL said:

Anyway, what list would people foresee being dominant in this artificial meta?

X-Wings (as if you couldn't guess ). 1 point for what is almost a shield upgrade and keeps your mod slot free will make them amazing. Playing against IA in the normal 100/6 games (mostly casual and I play Imperials) I find IA is OK (well frustrating actually when that crit is cancelled ), when I play era restricted matches or Epic IA is good. Freeing up the mod on its own would transform the card but with the other ideas it's going to be a beast! I suppose it is called X-Wing Miniatures so it'll be true to the game name

The idea of restricted lists isn't new, but I like this idea. It seems fun. How does Stealth Soontir rate? Seems he would be pretty powerful. If you find that's the case, you can always ban Royal Guard title.

I always liked Z-95's as they were a cheap ship for Rebels finally. They aren't too bad. If you want to add something to Imperials, you can add in Tie V1. If worried about Inquisitor, you can ban him, but keep other ships.

Also, is VX-100 OP with 50 pt. limit and no TLT?

Do like keeping the generic YT-1300 from ep7 with the 3 attack dice.

My local store did a "legacy" tournament a few months ago. Only ship and upgrades from waves 1-3 allowed. It was super fun.

Look here for your generic ARC. https://www.dropbox.com/s/ebepyjl7a86e42u/Clone-War-Veteran-Front-Face.png?dl=0

20 minutes ago, Stefan said:

Look here for your generic ARC. https://www.dropbox.com/s/ebepyjl7a86e42u/Clone-War-Veteran-Front-Face.png?dl=0

I like that a lot. If it were real, I'd fly 4 of them. 22pts, Tailgunner (2), R2 astromech, possibly?, Title. But that's an example of the power creep happening, because that's clearly better than eg 4 B-Wings or 4 T-65s.

3 hours ago, heychadwick said:

Do like keeping the generic YT-1300 from ep7 with the 3 attack dice.

NO. Outer Rim Smugglers for you!

19 hours ago, heychadwick said:

The idea of restricted lists isn't new, but I like this idea. It seems fun. How does Stealth Soontir rate? Seems he would be pretty powerful. If you find that's the case, you can always ban Royal Guard title.

I always liked Z-95's as they were a cheap ship for Rebels finally. They aren't too bad. If you want to add something to Imperials, you can add in Tie V1. If worried about Inquisitor, you can ban him, but keep other ships.

Also, is VX-100 OP with 50 pt. limit and no TLT?

Do like keeping the generic YT-1300 from ep7 with the 3 attack dice.

I imagine Soontir will be back to his pre-Palpatine power level of good, but beatable. Without Palpatine he's vulnerable to blocks, not to mention Vader crew, bombs and missiles. I imagine Targetting Computer would become more popular.

You could add the Z-95 and TAP if you want, but as I said the objective was to put the OT ships people know and love back on the board. The Hawk gets a pass because it's an interesting support ship, and even though I hated Rogue One, I loved the ships it introduced. Both the U-wing and Striker are interesting, well balanced ships.

I'd shy away from including the VCX. It has several highly efficient builds even under 50pts, and technically the shuttle is a separate ship. Also the objective is to get back to mostly small-ship dogfights.

This would just be the way I'd run this variant though. Tailor it to what you think people would enjoy.

I always felt Soontir w/ title and Stealth was too much for the dog fight game. It makes it harder for one or two generics to get hits on him. Still potent without. Each his own, though.

Overall looks fun.

Apparently not much love for the Millennium Falcon here. After choosing Han pilot plus Falcon title you're only allowed 3 points to fill out the 4 slots + modification. lol So much for the most important ship from the classic movies. Might as well have just banned the ship. A freighter that can't carry anything is just silly.

3 hours ago, Joe Censored said:

Apparently not much love for the Millennium Falcon here. After choosing Han pilot plus Falcon title you're only allowed 3 points to fill out the 4 slots + modification. lol So much for the most important ship from the classic movies. Might as well have just banned the ship. A freighter that can't carry anything is just silly.

The game is called X-wing, not Falcon-wing. You can build plenty of decent falcons for 50 points and under. You just can't put everything but the kitchen sink on them, which was the point of limiting the cost.

50 Han w/ Adapt, Rey, Leebo.
50 Rey w/ Wired, Hera, Ezra.
50 Chewie w/ Pred, Recon, Jan.

All solid ships, even in the regular 100pt dogfight. I don't see why they won't work in a more limited meta.

But like I said, this is just the way I'd play this variant.

5 hours ago, CRCL said:

The game is called X-wing, not Falcon-wing. You can build plenty of decent falcons for 50 points and under. You just can't put everything but the kitchen sink on them, which was the point of limiting the cost.

50 Han w/ Adapt, Rey, Leebo.
50 Rey w/ Wired, Hera, Ezra.
50 Chewie w/ Pred, Recon, Jan.

All solid ships, even in the regular 100pt dogfight. I don't see why they won't work in a more limited meta.

But like I said, this is just the way I'd play this variant.

Han+Wookiee commandos, Swarm Leader

Do we have a resource somewhere for upgrades per wave?

Just a bit of an update on this. We just finished the second week of our classic X-wing league (out of five), and it's going well. I'm keeping stats on all the lists, ships and upgrades people are using (A-wings are back baby). I'll put up a bit of an analysis when the league is done.

These were the rules we ended up settling on:

X-Wing Classic Rules:
Ship Restrictions: Currently only ships from Waves 1-3, and the Rogue One Wave will be available (yes, that means the Scum and Villainy faction will be unplayable for this league event).
Rebel Ships Available: X-wing, Y-wing, A-wing, YT-1300*, B-wing, Hawk-290, U-wing.
Imperial Ships Available: TIE Fighter, TIE Advanced, TIE Interceptor, Firespray*, TIE Bomber, Lambda Shuttle, TIE Striker.
*YT1300 and Firespray Changes: The Heroes of the Resistance YT-1300 pilots are also available to the Rebels. Just treat the faction as Rebel instead of Resistance (we’re not going for 100% timeline accuracy). To counterbalance this, the Scum Firespray Pilots are also available to the Imperials; just treat their faction as Imperial rather than Scum. The Imperial Firespray pilots also have the illicit slot added to their action bar for free.

Upgrade Cards and Banned List: All upgrade cards are available for use (not just those from the above waves). The only exceptions are the following 3 cards on the banned list: Emperor Palpatine (Crew), Twin-Laser Turret (Turret), and Guidance Chips (Modification).

Points Restriction: No single ship may cost more than 50pts.

FAQ: Nov 4 FAQ is in effect (sorry Biggs).

Why does the Hawk have immunity ?