Hi everyone,

I floated this idea around the forums a while back, and it's since undergone some tweaking. Basically, the idea is simple, weight squadron building towards ships that are canonically a dime a dozen, or that you see in the films and related shows in semi-abundance. Then, shunt anything that's currently suffering from power creep away from that weighting.

Presto! this shakes up squad building like a charm. You just need to find an opponent who is happy to follow the same handy chart as you when building. The rule is simple, a class A vessel can be taken with impunity. A class B vessel is a bit rarer, and to have a unique pilot you need to take at least one class A or class B generic pilot. A class C vessel is super rare/super expensive/super whatever term you prefer. To take a generic pilot you need to do the same as a class B, but to take a unique class C pilot you need to take 2 generic class A support pilots. Eg. if you want to take a Ghost, you probably want to take an attack shuttle, but have to take another generic pilot as well. And if you want to take any of the listed fancy schmancy upgrades that are at the top of meta-wing, you take a class penalty as listed.

Hope you give it a go and if you do let me know how you like it!

This could work in epic or team epic, but in 100/6 points are way to tight for something like this and makes list building really frustrating, as you are no longer able to fly whatever pair of ships you like.

Ps: also kihrax should be c, aggresor a so you can actually fly a pair of igs, biggs tier c, upsilon tier a - a movie ship which is really overcosted atm.

I like the general idea, but I can imagine all sorts of complications in regards to list buildings. It will need to be play tested as some ships should be higher or lower (regardless of fluff ) because of their power level/point cost.

27 minutes ago, Zura said:

This could work in epic or team epic, but in 100/6 points are way to tight for something like this and makes list building really frustrating, as you are no longer able to fly whatever pair of ships you like.

Ps: also kihrax should be c, aggresor a so you can actually fly a pair of igs, biggs tier c, upsilon tier a - a movie ship which is really overcosted atm.

In epic it would hardly make a difference as the field is already littered with generics. As for changing the listing/tier of some of the ships I believe that the current status is built with fluff in mind over actual power level.

In regards to ships being over and/or undercosted we have a handy forum chart that tells us the estimated costing of each ship and how over or underpriced they are, if the tiers were mainly based on fluff but lent from the costing chart then we could make more efficient ships a higher tier to even out gameplay somewhat.

E.G this tells us that ten upsilon is estimated to be 1.5 points undercosted.

[1] Upsilon Shuttle : 300% offense, 200% defense = 36 ( 31.5 ) {30} < E=120% >
FORMULA vs PERCEPTION : Seems great. Checks out .
EXPLANATION : 1.5pt savings , monster stats, Coordinate action, and amazing upgrade bar all for the cost of a bad (but still usable) dial. Because it takes up a good chunk of your force, this ship is more susceptible to being caught from behind, which is likely why it's so cheap for what you pay for. All that firepower doesn't mean anything if you can't point it the right way.

see here for more:

3 hours ago, citruscannon said:

Hi everyone,

I floated this idea around the forums a while back, and it's since undergone some tweaking. Basically, the idea is simple, weight squadron building towards ships that are canonically a dime a dozen, or that you see in the films and related shows in semi-abundance. Then, shunt anything that's currently suffering from power creep away from that weighting.

Presto! this shakes up squad building like a charm. You just need to find an opponent who is happy to follow the same handy chart as you when building. The rule is simple, a class A vessel can be taken with impunity. A class B vessel is a bit rarer, and to have a unique pilot you need to take at least one class A or class B generic pilot. A class C vessel is super rare/super expensive/super whatever term you prefer. To take a generic pilot you need to do the same as a class B, but to take a unique class C pilot you need to take 2 generic class A support pilots. Eg. if you want to take a Ghost, you probably want to take an attack shuttle, but have to take another generic pilot as well. And if you want to take any of the listed fancy schmancy upgrades that are at the top of meta-wing, you take a class penalty as listed.

Hope you give it a go and if you do let me know how you like it!

I appreciate the effort... but are you a scum player by any chance?

In what universe would the Protectorate even be the same level as the Punisher or the Lambda, the two worst imperial ships. If I take a Unique Punisher, I have the same penalty as someone who takes Fenn Rau? Protectorate should be on

Imperial Firespray, the worse of the two, is in a better category than the Scum counterpart. Why? Why is ANY imperial large ship in the C category at all? I would be okay with the Decimator maybe, but the Upsilon or the flippin Firespray? No way dude. Also, if you say that because of how common the Slave I was in movies, we mostly saw the Imperial version, if you recall.

Why is the Scurrg B? One of the two most broken things in the game right now, and you think it is in 2nd tier? Despite showing up exactly never in canon, and only in its own series otherwise? Why is this ship even somewhat common?

This whole list seems biased, and not based on anything I can recall. Weak ships are in expensive categories, while bane of the meta ships sitting comfortably with little penalties.

I love this idea and am glad to see you're still working on it. I'm looking forward to throwing it at my playing group, but am hoping to feel secure that the concept has been tested and balanced to some extent.

Citriscannon, have you had the chance to use this system much? What are your experiences with it?

I will try it solo a few times and see if I can provide any feedback.

6 hours ago, Zura said:

This could work in epic or team epic, but in 100/6 points are way to tight for something like this and makes list building really frustrating, as you are no longer able to fly whatever pair of ships you like.

Ps: also kihrax should be c, aggresor a so you can actually fly a pair of igs, biggs tier c, upsilon tier a - a movie ship which is really overcosted atm.

aggressor needs a special exception I think to take a second, but otherwise sits in the right area. Biggs needs an exception as well, both of which I agree on. Upsilon should probably get bumped up to rank B, I don't think it causes too many problems in doing so. I would like no large ships to be in A.

3 hours ago, RufusDaMan said:

I appreciate the effort... but are you a scum player by any chance?

In what universe would the Protectorate even be the same level as the Punisher or the Lambda, the two worst imperial ships. If I take a Unique Punisher, I have the same penalty as someone who takes Fenn Rau? Protectorate should be on

Imperial Firespray, the worse of the two, is in a better category than the Scum counterpart. Why? Why is ANY imperial large ship in the C category at all? I would be okay with the Decimator maybe, but the Upsilon or the flippin Firespray? No way dude. Also, if you say that because of how common the Slave I was in movies, we mostly saw the Imperial version, if you recall.

Why is the Scurrg B? One of the two most broken things in the game right now, and you think it is in 2nd tier? Despite showing up exactly never in canon, and only in its own series otherwise? Why is this ship even somewhat common?

This whole list seems biased, and not based on anything I can recall. Weak ships are in expensive categories, while bane of the meta ships sitting comfortably with little penalties.

Aha, it is very biased, but not in the way you think . So there's a few considerations, protectorates are really pretty fun to play and play against, when they aren't mindlinked up the wazoo. Rank B really isn't actually that much punishment at all, you may need an extra rank A generic, which you are probably doing anyways. What it does heavily restrict is taking multiple rank B aces, so yes, deathrain redline list is a casualty. But Fenn and Old Teroch is just too darn fun to stick in rank A. And it's powerful, but will have an uphill battle against triple interceptors, for example.

No, I'm an imperial player, but I don't want to suck the life out of the really potentially fun squads from other factions either. Firespray is misranked for imperials, it should be on rank B, as with Upsilon.

Scurrg is B, because it's actually not too broken when you take away TLTs and bomblet generators. It's powerful, but starts looking a lot more like generic B-wings, with extra hull. Maybe it should get the bump up to C, but I'm not yet convinced it'd be super problematic at B. Nym is again, fun to play against without the toys listed. An upgrade that bumps a ship to C however that SHOULD be on there, come to think of it is Veteran Instincts, which should address the concern you have.

34 minutes ago, J1mBob said:

I love this idea and am glad to see you're still working on it. I'm looking forward to throwing it at my playing group, but am hoping to feel secure that the concept has been tested and balanced to some extent.

Citriscannon, have you had the chance to use this system much? What are your experiences with it?

I will try it solo a few times and see if I can provide any feedback.

Not as much as I'd like, but we'll hit balance eventually

3 hours ago, citruscannon said:

aggressor needs a special exception I think to take a second, but otherwise sits in the right area. Biggs needs an exception as well, both of which I agree on. Upsilon should probably get bumped up to rank B, I don't think it causes too many problems in doing so. I would like no large ships to be in A.

Aha, it is very biased, but not in the way you think . So there's a few considerations, protectorates are really pretty fun to play and play against, when they aren't mindlinked up the wazoo. Rank B really isn't actually that much punishment at all, you may need an extra rank A generic, which you are probably doing anyways. What it does heavily restrict is taking multiple rank B aces, so yes, deathrain redline list is a casualty. But Fenn and Old Teroch is just too darn fun to stick in rank A. And it's powerful, but will have an uphill battle against triple interceptors, for example.

No, I'm an imperial player, but I don't want to suck the life out of the really potentially fun squads from other factions either. Firespray is misranked for imperials, it should be on rank B, as with Upsilon.

Scurrg is B, because it's actually not too broken when you take away TLTs and bomblet generators. It's powerful, but starts looking a lot more like generic B-wings, with extra hull. Maybe it should get the bump up to C, but I'm not yet convinced it'd be super problematic at B. Nym is again, fun to play against without the toys listed. An upgrade that bumps a ship to C however that SHOULD be on there, come to think of it is Veteran Instincts, which should address the concern you have.

Not as much as I'd like, but we'll hit balance eventually

A punisher in the same category as the scurrg has to be wrong. I might be a bit biased for the sexiest ship out there but the punisher and lambda are really misplaced. Lambda doesn't matter because this doesn't affect the ship at all. (Nobody plays anything aside ogp)

Making bomblets bump them to C isn't helping the punishers either. Nym with bomblets is way worse than deathrain with them.

It seems your aim is to reach some kind of a balance, but I don't think it's working like this.

46 minutes ago, RufusDaMan said:

A punisher in the same category as the scurrg has to be wrong. I might be a bit biased for the sexiest ship out there but the punisher and lambda are really misplaced. Lambda doesn't matter because this doesn't affect the ship at all. (Nobody plays anything aside ogp)

Making bomblets bump them to C isn't helping the punishers either. Nym with bomblets is way worse than deathrain with them.

It seems your aim is to reach some kind of a balance, but I don't think it's working like this.

Understood! I'll give it a good think.

Alright. I've tried to take into consideration people's concerns. It's tough to predict at this point since with this system, nearly every major top 10 popular archetype in the meta now and in past is not possible.

Keep in mind there is NOT going to be a major difference in listbuilding between rank A and B ships. Taking TIE F/Os for example with upsilon shuttles is no issue, you just need to keep it slightly more generic. And yes, if you take a named Upsilon shuttle you need to throw a few generic TIEs in there, I'm just wary of how powerful that 4 dice attack is in this new setting. Remember that the lists possible to counter it are much reduced, so, it's a pretty potent ship. And a TIE, TIEf/o, named upsilon swarm isn't something to sneeze at.

That said, things like swarms, aces and generics, and some ace-heavy lists that have long since vanished are now very possible.
Turrets that can hit r3 are limited in how much you see them, as is the abuse of veteran instincts, which may free up listbuilding with EPTs.

Have at 'er! hope you enjoy trying this out.

The class altering upgrades are interesting, but it makes Attani almost useless as it's stupid difficult to take two of them on tougher ships... but it does knock cheap attack farmers and TLT spam out. So it has pros and cons

but I feel that either the upsilon or the decimator should be moved down to class B (keep Kylo as a class C if you move the upsilon down) as it makes fielding large ships with an ace nigh impossible for the imperials as the lambda and Firespray aren't prime choices nowadays.

also that a ship as good as a fully stacked Soontir is class A bothers me, maybe move him up or make anything with autothrusters go up a class?

otherwise an excellent list that works (without going into assigning detail on pilots...) I appreciate the effort