A re worked initiative is one of the most commonly requested features I have had for the alternate game format Supremacy.
Although we're looking to address this for the X-Wing Supremacy game format, it's something we're considering bringing in as a general home rule for matches of X-wing in general. Does it work for you? I'm interested to hear what people would do with initiative for mirror matches if they had the choice.

Ours that we're looking at is a "modified" bid system. The thing about the bid is that it is inherently self balancing, and some squads, like arc dodgers desperately need that advantage or some way of guaranteeing it. This I am okay with. What I am less okay with is how we resolve squads with matched Bids. In these cases it often does become who has the bid wins, and the idea of a coin flip for solving a scenario like this doesn't really jive with me well.

A modified bid system involves a scenario like this:
a 96pt squad of interceptors vs.96pt squad of Awings.
In this case, a die is rolled, one player is given the initiative token and the game starts move first shoot first for equivalent ships as per normal in XWing. HOWEVER, at the beginning of a new turn, when the squad point value of one squad is no longer equal to the other, the player with the lowest squad point token may choose to move the initiative token from the player who has it to the player with the highest squad point value total, if they wish.

So when the game becomes 96pts vs 73pts of interceptors vs. A-wings, the player with the lower total can decide if it's in his/her interest to swap initiative and have their pilots with equal pilot skill move second shoot second, etc. This may trade the upper hand for arc-dodging in this game, albeit they are still losing. So soontir loses the initial bid, then a squad mate dies and he seizes the opportunity to strike and turns the tables the next turn to knock out a big target, etc. If of course they knock out to ships, then it swaps again, etc.

If a player has won the bid straight up though, this modification would NOT see play, as the 'winning' of the bid over-rules this mirror match case.

Effectively this would prevent the initial roll from determining the outcome of a match. It would also mean that in a mirror match, if you don't have initiative, you need to gun for their equivalent ace because if you knock someone else out first you may find yourself tactically in a poor position or gain initiative against a great late game ship like soontir or Vader who will use the moving second to their advantage and close the points gap. This lets the player with initiative really dictate some of the tactical considerations of the match and where they should fly.

I feel like this might restore some strong options and tactical play to matches where both sides really care about initiative. The token might change hands one or two times during a match, but you could plan a strategy around trying to have it at the right time for you, but are not guaranteed success. I feel this might be more interesting than a simple "players swap initiative" every turn, but still easy to implement.

Curious to hear your thoughts

X-wing Initiative system is a brilliant mechanic. It works perfectly fine as is. The beauty of it is that bidding for initiative is a 'decision point' that enhances the importance of intelligent list building. If any player is worried about not getting the choice of initiative, they simply have to bid more. Its a simple system that gives players agency and I think that is good for this kind of game. Anyone not willing to bid has accepted the 'risk' of possibly not getting the choice of initiative. There's give and take there that adds an intricate layer of choice there that every alternate initiative idea I've seen simply loses.

The rule that you propose also 'punishes' the player that is currently winning. Now, perhaps a player may have gotten ahead on points purely by luck, but if the player did deserve their advantage, by having initiative swapping kick in part way through the game, you could seriously upset that player's advantage and then they could end up losing. That to my mind, would create far more Negative Play Experiences then it would help solve. So for that reason, I think its a bad idea.

Frankly, I see no value to 'initiative swapping' (either the rule you propose or variations on it).

My 2 cents.

There’s something wrong with the way PS works, but I’m not sure what. Honestly, I’d say the main issue is that PS is costed inappropriately; Wedge pays just as much for PS 9 as Soontir, but it’s waaaay less useful to him.

Your proposed solution is interesting, but it’s a bit much bookkeeping for me; and I’m not really sure I like rubber banding in X-Wing. I feel like you should be rewarded for getting ahead in points, not punished. And honestly, cases where the coin flip determines the match are kinda rare. Blocking is as good as arc dodging; you just need to change tactics. Alpha strikes can come down to initiative, but that feels to me like more of an ordnance problem than anything.

10 minutes ago, blade_mercurial said:

X-wing Initiative system is a brilliant mechanic. It works perfectly fine as is. The beauty of it is that bidding for initiative is a 'decision point' that enhances the importance of intelligent list building. If any player is worried about not getting the choice of initiative, they simply have to bid more. Its a simple system that gives players agency and I think that is good for this kind of game. Anyone not willing to bid has accepted the 'risk' of possibly not getting the choice of initiative. There's give and take there that adds an intricate layer of choice there that every alternate initiative idea I've seen simply loses.

The rule that you propose also 'punishes' the player that is currently winning. Now, perhaps a player may have gotten ahead on points purely by luck, but if the player did deserve their advantage, by having initiative swapping kick in part way through the game, you could seriously upset that player's advantage and then they could end up losing. That to my mind, would create far more Negative Play Experiences then it would help solve. So for that reason, I think its a bad idea.

Frankly, I see no value to 'initiative swapping' (either the rule you propose or variations on it).

My 2 cents.

I too like the bid system. And it's why in the above system it trumps the modification suggested. This is more for situations where one side is given a small advantage over the other by the coin flip at the beginning of the game. The advantage swing shouldn't be too large, if it is it means the person should have bid down more than they did if it were so detrimental to the squad.

I want to keep the layers you suggest, but add another. See, with this system I might be inclined to play a 100pt squad with arcdodgers that also includes a "bait" craft I can use for bumps, who I can use to get knocked out if I tied an initiative bid.

And yes, it does in a sense punish the player who is winning, but the loss of a ship is a much larger margin of difference typically. Wouldn't it just keep matches a little closer, as opposed to a negative play experience?

Thanks for your comments!

2 minutes ago, Ailowynn said:

There’s something wrong with the way PS works, but I’m not sure what. Honestly, I’d say the main issue is that PS is costed inappropriately; Wedge pays just as much for PS 9 as Soontir, but it’s waaaay less useful to him.

Your proposed solution is interesting, but it’s a bit much bookkeeping for me; and I’m not really sure I like rubber banding in X-Wing. I feel like you should be rewarded for getting ahead in points, not punished. And honestly, cases where the coin flip determines the match are kinda rare. Blocking is as good as arc dodging; you just need to change tactics. Alpha strikes can come down to initiative, but that feels to me like more of an ordnance problem than anything.

book-keeping would just be passing the token to each other as appropriate.
But yes, rubber-banding is... unusual. I don't know how I feel about it, tending towards "if it mostly helped you when you had poor luck" then it's good.

I guess the subtle distinction I'm wondering about is if you manage to kill off the opposing ace, the whole thing is moot, but if the player who lost the dice roll can successfully bait the opponent into bumping off a weaker ship first, then is it worth a bonus?

24 minutes ago, citruscannon said:

book-keeping would just be passing the token to each other as appropriate.

I meant more in terms of tracking points. You kill a ship, I kill a ship, you get half MoV on one...seems like it would slow play down unnecessarily, calculating point totals every ten minutes. Especially for casual games.

This sounds horrible. It's simple and easy as it is. In the midst of a tense fight, the last thing I want to do is all of that.

losing or winning based on innitiative is a sign of poor game design. initiative doesnt exist in real life, and the only reason it exists in turn based game is to determine turn order. X-wing is falling apart because the game was built around lower damage, where it might take 2 rounds of combat before anyone lost a ship. this meant that maneuvering and repositioning were king. i consistently played generic squads and won. now my z-95s can get 1 shot by ordinance before they ever fire. we either need ordinance/bombs to be removed from the game or a rebalancing of pilot skill value in terms of points. a quadjumper ace is as powerful as a phantom ace for example, but they pay the same for pilot skill

Man... your solution to the problem is way more complicated than the original problem itself.

Even than, initiative does not represent a problem, and I don't get why you should try to adress it: alpha in this game is not as important as in other games... and if someone wants to get a shot ona ps9+ arc dodger(who I don't even see anymore) you get the faboulous choice of

• Bidding
• Bring a turret
• Bring control elements

1 hour ago, blade_mercurial said:

The rule that you propose also 'punishes' the player that is currently winning. Now, perhaps a player may have gotten ahead on points purely by luck, but if the player did deserve their advantage, by having initiative swapping kick in part way through the game, you could seriously upset that player's advantage and then they could end up losing.

That is called a comeback mechanic. Unless you overdose them, they are actually a rather healthy mechanic even for competitive games. As this is only triggering for mirror matches on top, I really don't see the problem.

46 minutes ago, Ailowynn said:

I meant more in terms of tracking points. You kill a ship, I kill a ship, you get half MoV on one...seems like it would slow play down unnecessarily, calculating point totals every ten minutes. Especially for casual games.

25 minutes ago, migs6000 said:

This sounds horrible. It's simple and easy as it is. In the midst of a tense fight, the last thing I want to do is all of that.

Both of you make very valid points. Efficiency trumps everything, I'm looking at alternatives for the reasons mentioned and because for the home rule format we use it's the most commonly requested feature.

24 minutes ago, ImperialPropaganda said:

Man... your solution to the problem is way more complicated than the original problem itself.

Even than, initiative does not represent a problem, and I don't get why you should try to adress it: alpha in this game is not as important as in other games... and if someone wants to get a shot ona ps9+ arc dodger(who I don't even see anymore) you get the faboulous choice of

• Bidding
• Bring a turret
• Bring control elements

Good points all. It's a fringe case, and if the solution to the case is too complicated, then the solution isn't worth implementing. Thanks for the input

10 minutes ago, SEApocalypse said:

That is called a comeback mechanic. Unless you overdose them, they are actually a rather healthy mechanic even for competitive games. As this is only triggering for mirror matches on top, I really don't see the problem.

That was the idea. In video games this kind of thing is easy to implement and can be pretty fun, but in a board game maybe it's just too time intensive as a constant effect.

I wonder if it might make for an interesting pilot ability though, or some kind of one-time EPT that lets you change the flow of the battle. food for thought.

BTW, in competitive play you SHOULD constantly keep track of the points during the game anyway, because it makes significantly differences for your decision making. Well or it should make a difference if you are actually trying hard. ;-)

For an interesting pilot ability though... hilariously enough:

Fel's Wrath (23):
TIE Interceptor
When the number of Damage cards assigned to you equals or exceeds your hull value, you may assign initiative to a new player.

Really like the idea of making a card that swaps initiative. Not sure if I’d make it a pilot ability, though, just because there’ll be a lot of matches where initiative doesn’t matter after setup. A ship is a big investment for an ability like that.

I could go for it on a TIE fighter.

Recalculating surviving ship point scores every round would slow down the game. Also whether you'd use the large ship half point rule in this would add additional slow downs as you're counting hit points, create confusion if you don't use the half point rule, and would favor either large or small ship builds depending on which way you went with this.

9 minutes ago, Joe Censored said:

Recalculating surviving ship point scores every round would slow down the game. Also whether you'd use the large ship half point rule in this would add additional slow downs as you're counting hit points, create confusion if you don't use the half point rule, and would favor either large or small ship builds depending on which way you went with this.

Hit points should at all points be clear, that's why you need to spread out damage cards and should mark double hits imho with the two damage tokens.

Re-calculating points after each turn is only necessary if there is a point change at all. And lastly, doing simple subtractions should not slow down the game either. Print your lists properly to have the total point values of each ship. ;-)
Once your hands are steady enough to move the ships around the playmat, you should be able to deal with those subtractions without slowing down the game.

Have you seen this thread?

10 hours ago, blade_mercurial said:

X-wing Initiative system is a brilliant mechanic. It works perfectly fine as is. The beauty of it is that bidding for initiative is a 'decision point' that enhances the importance of intelligent list building. If any player is worried about not getting the choice of initiative, they simply have to bid more. Its a simple system that gives players agency and I think that is good for this kind of game. Anyone not willing to bid has accepted the 'risk' of possibly not getting the choice of initiative. There's give and take there that adds an intricate layer of choice there that every alternate initiative idea I've seen simply loses.

While I agree with most of that, I think initiative is way less brilliant when you look at it from the perspective of a single game. There are several mechanics that work disproportionately well with a given choice of initiative. Stuff like arc dodging aces and ordnance alpha strike. No matter how you build your initiative bid, sooner or later you will meet a list with the same bid (let's say a mirror match). If you have one of those initiative dependent mechanics, you will likely win / lose the game on a single coin toss that happens before the actual game. That IMO is too much weight attached to pure randomness.

7 hours ago, Ailowynn said:

There’s something wrong with the way PS works, but I’m not sure what. Honestly, I’d say the main issue is that PS is costed inappropriately; Wedge pays just as much for PS 9 as Soontir, but it’s waaaay less useful to him.

Your proposed solution is interesting, but it’s a bit much bookkeeping for me; and I’m not really sure I like rubber banding in X-Wing. I feel like you should be rewarded for getting ahead in points, not punished. And honestly, cases where the coin flip determines the match are kinda rare. Blocking is as good as arc dodging; you just need to change tactics. Alpha strikes can come down to initiative, but that feels to me like more of an ordnance problem than anything.

What are yah talking about? Where's all this disdain for wedge coming out of the wormwood? Wedge loves shooting at Ps 11 so he can at least say he killed something before your return fire blows his t-65 chassis to bits.

I really think initiative should change each round. Whether by random roll or automatically to the other person. Stops silly bids and keeps you on your toes, making not having a high PS/low bid not the end of the world.

They do that in WOTC Star Wars miniatures and it works awesome to roll each round.

Said it before and I'll say it again: just alternate.

10 hours ago, Ailowynn said:

There’s something wrong with the way PS works, but I’m not sure what. Honestly, I’d say the main issue is that PS is costed inappropriately; Wedge pays just as much for PS 9 as Soontir, but it’s waaaay less useful to him.

Your proposed solution is interesting, but it’s a bit much bookkeeping for me; and I’m not really sure I like rubber banding in X-Wing. I feel like you should be rewarded for getting ahead in points, not punished. And honestly, cases where the coin flip determines the match are kinda rare. Blocking is as good as arc dodging; you just need to change tactics. Alpha strikes can come down to initiative, but that feels to me like more of an ordnance problem than anything.

I've always felt that the issue is not with PS, but with Veteran Instincts/Adaptability.

The ability to artificially boost all ships with an EPT makes PS much more important that it should be, for all ships, whereas it should primarily be important for ships that live and die by moving last/first.

Imho.

4 hours ago, GILLIES291 said:

I really think initiative should change each round. Whether by random roll or automatically to the other person. Stops silly bids and keeps you on your toes, making not having a high PS/low bid not the end of the world.

They do that in WOTC Star Wars miniatures and it works awesome to roll each round.

Nope. Armada players still bid and they change init each round

14 hours ago, LordBlades said:

While I agree with most of that, I think initiative is way less brilliant when you look at it from the perspective of a single game. There are several mechanics that work disproportionately well with a given choice of initiative. Stuff like arc dodging aces and ordnance alpha strike. No matter how you build your initiative bid, sooner or later you will meet a list with the same bid (let's say a mirror match). If you have one of those initiative dependent mechanics, you will likely win / lose the game on a single coin toss that happens before the actual game. That IMO is too much weight attached to pure randomness.

I think you're overstating it by a lot. Although its true that this did happen back when triple torpedo jumps were at their strongest. Personally, I think this has more to do with ordnance being too powerful now; such that alpha strike lists are able to do too much damage without having to fly 'smart' to get it. So yeah, there are problems with the game, but its not really the initiative system.

For example, when triple jumps were common, players found ways to drop their initiative bid pretty low to win the mirror match, but then made it more difficult to beat other tanky lists. So to me, that seems fair and the initiative system can't really be faulted in that instance.

All that aside though, MOST of the time when there are equal PS ships AND both players are at the same points, its not really a 'mirror match' since card diversity is great enough now that its pretty rare you get exact mirror matches. So in this environment, the initiative system works fine. If you ever find yourself in a match where you really wanted the choice of initiative, you just have to bid enough for it. If you don't bid enough, its not the game system's fault that the choice came down to a coin toss when you can 'circumvent' that occurrence through list building...

Honestly, I think that the game would be better off if every ship had Fel’s Wrath’s ability. Ships like Whisper would still need the high-PS to get to cloak, and high-PS jamming beams or Wes Jansens, for example, would still be good, but the way the game works now really punishes low-PS ships that can get killed in one round. We might also see more Punishers on the table (still not sure whether that’s a good thing, as I don’t really care for the thing’s design aesthetic, but more game balance is always good).

And then just say that since ships aren’t destroyed until the end of the round anyway, Fel’s Wrath’s ability means that he lives an extra round. So this could also be a Fel’s Wrath fix.