I don't pretend to have any great new ideas that the implementation of such will "fix" X-Wing or the Meta, but I feel like the primary weapon fired out of the front arc seems to be under represented in this game.

I'm not one of those that thinks that Fat Turrets, or TLTs or Sabine Bombs, any other type of attack has ruined he game. But I do thing that taken all together, the standard primary weapon shooting out of the front arc doesn't feel like it is he primary way to do damage any more. Sure lots of ships still attack out their front arcs, but as a dog fighting game, I just feel like it should be more.

I loved bombs, when they were this surprise thing you could throw in your list and catch people off guard with. Or just something extra you could do. I was fine with primary weapons that fired all around the ship, when it was super expensive to invest in a ship that could reliably attack and do considerable damage in a 360 arc.

I like turrets, and extra arcs, and bombs and every other kind of ordinance, but as extra things. I like primary weapons to be the primary way to do damage. It just feels more thematic to me, but more than that it makes the game about dog fighting.

I would like to see some buff (I have no idea what is should be) to primary weapons fired out of front arcs, or maybe some sort of defense against attacks that aren't primary weapons fired out of the front arc.

To be clear, I am not saying that the game or the Meta is bad or broken. But this is just a dirrection I would like to see the meta shift.

Outmaneuvre is a basic rule, all ships without a turret get a bullseye arc. Fixed your ships

When attacking outside your primary firing arc, you can't use a focus token to modify your dice.

8 hours ago, Nyxen said:

Outmaneuvre is a basic rule, all ships without a turret get a bullseye arc. Fixed your ships

Agreed,though you don't need bullseye

Autothrusters out if arc as standard is also way overdue

6 hours ago, Wedge Nantillais said:

When attacking outside your primary firing arc, you can't use a focus token to modify your dice.

Expertise is already on dengar, he don't care

21 hours ago, Wedge Nantillais said:

When attacking outside your primary firing arc, you can't use a focus token to modify your dice.

This will just get people to change the list like having more K4, or Dengar crew, or predator, etc on TLTs and PWTs and not help the primary arc ships. Think about all those jump master nerfs and you kill deadeye and then R4 + attanni sprouts up. Good List-builders get around those things.

14 hours ago, ficklegreendice said:

Agreed,though you don't need bullseye

Autothrusters out if arc as standard is also way overdue

Expertise is already on dengar, he don't care

A weak autothrusters for small ships only would be lovely.

Weak Thrusters

Modification = 1pt, limited, small ship only

You may equip another modification of 3pts or less. When defending, if you are outside the attackers firing arc, you may reroll 1 blank result.

So, its only 1pt, but allows another mod, even autothrusters or more defense from turrets, but not overly powerful, but I think enough to bring TLTs to an even level when defenders are rerolling blanks plus autothrusters on each attack. Helps swarms out as well being so cheap. Limited second mod to 3pts or less so Corran and other powerful ships that rely on engine upgrade dont get more defense.

14 hours ago, ficklegreendice said:

Agreed,though you don't need bullseye

Autothrusters out if arc as standard is also way overdue

Expertise is already on dengar, he don't care

He cares if RAC's around with a captive.

Agree. Two dice primaries are a joke that can't punch through anything and the new meta is littering the mat with bombs. It certainly doesn't feel very Star Warsy. No X-wings, besides the Biggs meat shield, and the only TIEs you see are fielded by Rebels. Toilet seats, Rebel TIEs and bombs., bombs, bombs. The game has an IP connection problem at the moment. Wedge had two Death Star kills and helped found Rogue Squadron but Dengar, Nym and Miranda laugh at him on the mat. Not very iconic.

There are two possible solutions to this problem.

1) Weaken attacks which are made out of arc.

2) Strengthen attacks that are made in arc.

#2 isn't a good solution because that just exacerbates Red Dice Creep.

I am a fan of adding these following rules to the game.

When defending against an attack and you are not in the attacker's arc, you may roll an additional defense dice.

Split secondary weapons into 3 categories and have the following rules.

Cannons: Cannons benefit from range bonuses and penalties exactly as if they were primary weapons.

Turrets: Attacks made with Turret weapons cannot be modified by use of a Focus token unless the attacker also has a target lock on the defender.

Missiles+Torpedoes: All these attacks change to the following format "If this attack hits, the defender suffers X damage. Then cancel all dice results". Missiles should have high attack dice, but low damage. Torpedoes have low attack dice, but high damage.

Example:

Proton Torpedo: Attack 2: If this attack hits, the defender suffers 4 damage and 1 critical damage, then cancel all dice results.

Cluster Missiles: Attack 4: Perform this attack twice against the same target. Each time this attack hits, the defender suffers 2 damage. Then cancel all dice results.

3 hours ago, wurms said:

This will just get people to change the list like having more K4, or Dengar crew, or predator, etc on TLTs and PWTs and not help the primary arc ships.

Of course, it assumes that Expertise, Dengar crew and Predator are limited inside the primary arc ships too. And K4 shoud give a free action, in the same way as TIE/x7 title nerf.

Before solutions can be crafted we must define the problem correctly. Is the problem:

turrets are too powerful/easy/unavoidable?

non Turret ships underpowered/weak?

high ps bombs with slam too unpredictable/unavoidable?

too many ways to modify attack dice vs not enough ways to modify defense dice?

or a combination of these? Or something else. The situation may be more complex than most realize and may require more than just one simple adjustment. Hopefully a simple and elegant solution can be reached.

Range bonuses -- both for attack and defense -- only apply in arc.

Boom, done. No cardboard needs to change.

3 hours ago, Hawkstrike said:

Range bonuses -- both for attack and defense -- only apply in arc.

Boom, done. No cardboard needs to change.

I take it you mean you only get +1 Attack in arc and +1 Defense against out-of-arc shots? Otherwise losing the defense bonus out-of-arc only strengthens turrets (albeit only primary ones).

3 hours ago, GrimmyV said:

turrets are too powerful/easy/unavoidable?

non Turret ships underpowered/weak?

mostly these two

turrets are just infinetly easier to use than arced ships because they (PWTs and TLTs) can basically almost never be avoided and allow more infinetly more flexibility when it comes to maneuvering because they don't give half a **** about facing. Arced ships could use some bonsuses to incentivize them over the turrets that, quite frankly, kind of fly in the face of a game about manuevering

Apart from making outmanuever a base rule, I believe basically every upgrade that just grants straight action-independent modifiers (i.e with no cost or drawback apart from what you pay for them, so C3po more than Latz) should be arc locked. Not only would it make turrets not as stupidly easy to use, but it would have curtailed the defensive upgrade stacking that was such a problem before FFG made red dice creep such a problem.

Basically, stuff like gunner (condition is dependent on missing an attack) or hotshot (doesn't modify shots; forces opponent to spend tokens) shouldn't be arc locked. Weirder things such as rebel captive also wouldn't be arc-locked because it doesn't modify dice.

Stuff like expertise (not being stressed is too easy a condition to matter, especially on dengar or rey), predator and AC (though I'll miss the **** out of AC autoblaster turret) should be arc locked. And, honestly, I'd rather have palp arc locked (to the ship he's modifying, not the ship he's on) than having to guess when to blow his ability.

Only problem is that k4 wouldn't be arc locked because it just gives TLs, but baby steps

With turrets curtailed, bombs become much less of a problem because bombs are much easier to abuse when you're free to point your *** at things without sacrificing anything

1 minute ago, DarthEnderX said:

Free on GUNBOAT

48 minutes ago, ObiWonka said:

I take it you mean you only get +1 Attack in arc and +1 Defense against out-of-arc shots? Otherwise losing the defense bonus out-of-arc only strengthens turrets (albeit only primary ones).

What you said.

16 minutes ago, GrimmyV said:

Free on GUNBOAT

Actually, that just made me realize I need to make it Limited so the Gunboat doesn't double up on them.

9 hours ago, BadMotivator said:

There are two possible solutions to this problem.

1) Weaken attacks which are made out of arc.

2) Strengthen attacks that are made in arc.

#2 isn't a good solution because that just exacerbates Red Dice Creep.

This is well summarized here. 3-attack ships probably shouldn't have buffed attack to limit power creep. 2-attack ships should have their power straight up buffed at this point. TIE Fighters and A-wings are so cool. I want to see them on tables more. Have their accuracy increased while still limiting damage output. This could be done if 2-attack ships had the option of using 3-attack dice, but if the attack hits, it only does a single damage. Like a single TLT shot.

I am very curious to see how the new Starvipers with Autothrusters affect the meta. Autothrusters aren't an elegant solution at this point because they can only be equipped on some ships. I like this Autothrusters light idea, perhaps just a reroll against out of arc shots. Hopefully implemented through a rules change. More likely it will be done with an upgrade card as FFG wants to sell us balance patches. They would have to actually care about the X-wing community for them to balance the game with FAQ changes.

On 9/16/2017 at 6:25 AM, GrimmyV said:

Before solutions can be crafted we must define the problem correctly. Is the problem:

turrets are too powerful/easy/unavoidable?

non Turret ships underpowered/weak?

high ps bombs with slam too unpredictable/unavoidable?

too many ways to modify attack dice vs not enough ways to modify defense dice?

or a combination of these? Or something else. The situation may be more complex than most realize and may require more than just one simple adjustment. Hopefully a simple and elegant solution can be reached.

GrimmyV, I agree the problem is a lot more complex than most if anyone realizes. I also think small fixes to just give it a nudge and wait are better in the long run than the heavy handed approach so many people like to take.

But I think for now the problem is a mix of too many ways to mod attack dice vs not enough ways to mod defense dice. The game after all has always been about dealing damage and blowing up ships.

Also I think we are starting to see too many high HP turret ships. Back in the early waves when your turret ship had 4 HP total you had to focus as much on keeping him out of the arcs of your enemies to keep them alive. The Decimator and Falcon had the high hitpoint at the cost of any real chance to evade so you knew they were going to have their HP chewed through with focus fire. And when I flew hwks I hit you with turrets but also spent time trying to figure out how to stay out of your arc so that I didn't get one shot off the board.

I think I'm just rambling at this point thanks for reading.

I think we just should add a card type:

Squadron Title

Roll them into Episode specific expansions. So "A New Hope" expansion comes with a mini campaign, maybe a repaint Y-Wing and Tie/ln, and gives us...

Gold Squadron (must have 3 ordnance loaded Y-Wings to benefit from its bonus)

Red Squadron (need 3 X-Wings to benefit)

Green Squadron (must have 2 ordnance Y-Wings and 1 X-Wing to benefit)

(save Blue Squadron for a similar Scarif expansion).

Black Squadron (must have 3 TIE fighters to benefit)

Trench Run (must have 2 Ties and 1 Advanced to benefit)

Devastator Squadron (must have 4 TIEs to benefit)

As to what those benefits would be, I dunno. But this would be an easy, relatively cheap, way to give X-Wings, Y-Wings that actually carry ordnance, Tie fighters, and swarms all a boost without FAQ or wonky titles.

I'm not posting the benefits of each, as in the past that's all people will argue about, instead I'd like to push the concept

FFG could easily get 3 more of these expansions for RotJ, ESB, Rogue One and toss in one Rebels TV show too. It could increase sales of older ships (not that YWings need it) and would allow them to do a few more repaints (Tie Bomber and Slave 1? for ESB, Tie Interceptor and B-Wing for RotJ, X-Wing and Striker for Rogue One, A-Wing and Advanced v1). It could also give us mini campaigns that link to each other... why haven't they done this yet?

4 hours ago, Lonestar83 said:

Back in the early waves when your turret ship had 4 HP total

Which ships were these? Y-wings, the first turrets, had 5 hull 3 shields. The Falcon was next as the first PWT, and it has way more hp. I mean ???

On 9/16/2017 at 1:21 AM, weisguy119 said:

Agree. Two dice primaries are a joke that can't punch through anything and the new meta is littering the mat with bombs. It certainly doesn't feel very Star Warsy. No X-wings, besides the Biggs meat shield, and the only TIEs you see are fielded by Rebels. Toilet seats, Rebel TIEs and bombs., bombs, bombs. The game has an IP connection problem at the moment. Wedge had two Death Star kills and helped found Rogue Squadron but Dengar, Nym and Miranda laugh at him on the mat. Not very iconic.

Problem well illustrated, agreed.

On 9/16/2017 at 7:04 AM, Hawkstrike said:

Range bonuses -- both for attack and defense -- only apply in arc.

Boom, done. No cardboard needs to change.

Agreed what I'm sure you meant: no range 1 bonus for turret on attacks and no range 3 bonus for turreted ships on defense? If so: like.

On 9/16/2017 at 10:41 AM, DarthEnderX said:

Nice creativity, but as a simple mod it would be more useful on TIEs and X-Wings, no?

1 hour ago, clanofwolves said:

Nice creativity, but as a simple mod it would be more useful on TIEs and X-Wings, no?

As a simple Mod, it would be an autoinclude on every ship in the game.

45 minutes ago, DarthEnderX said:

As a simple Mod, it would be an autoinclude on every ship in the game.

Ah, well, how about old-school:

TIE/LN, TIE Advanced, T-65, and Y-Wing Only

On 9/16/2017 at 4:25 AM, GrimmyV said:

Before solutions can be crafted we must define the problem correctly. Is the problem:

turrets are too powerful/easy/unavoidable?

non Turret ships underpowered/weak?

high ps bombs with slam too unpredictable/unavoidable?

too many ways to modify attack dice vs not enough ways to modify defense dice?

or a combination of these? Or something else. The situation may be more complex than most realize and may require more than just one simple adjustment. Hopefully a simple and elegant solution can be reached.

I think the problem is simply ships that don't have anything special about how they attack. Ships that just shoot primary weapons out of the standard primary firing arc are getting pretty rare. This by itself isn't a problem except that at its core X-wing is a dog-fighting game. The greatness of the game is how well this is played out in the rules. And I have no problem with other kinds of attacks existing in the game, but they are now so dominant that we don't see much actual dogfighting.