7 hours ago, Managarmr said:

I noticed that Scyks still are on the to-do list. Is that the reason they cannot have attack formation, or is it theme-wise (scum and mercs not disciplined enough for formations or Scyk as budget Interceptor not a strict formation flyer)? Normally I do not try to fly Scyks in formation, but the card would enable another playstyle for them.

Yeah, I haven't decided what to do with Scyks yet, or even if Z-95's can use Attack Formation in conjunction with missiles for that matter. Attack Formation would seem apropriate especially for the "Light Scyk", otherwise there's really no way they are ever going to hit the broad side of a barn. So I will probably change Attack Formation to include the M3-A when I get to it.

29 minutes ago, Sparklelord said:

I don't know if you necessarily want to minimize the amount of FAQs, but you could avoid the S-foils one if you make it a dual card with the additional text, "When attacking, after rolling attack dice, you may flip this card" to separate the 'or' clauses.

That's a good idea. Making something a dual-card is a painful way to fix grammer though, don't want the cure to be worse than the poison! Will think about it, everyone else feel free to chime in.

For the Lambda could you add a title for an appropriate number of points that would allow you to fire a cannon out of arc?

Or if you want to limit the arc give it a title that allows firing of cannon and primary in the same turn.

For the Firespray, what if you had something like Maneuvering Fins? Reveal a bank but you can execute the equivalent turn instead? Or is that too close to Imp. Boba's ability?

Rebel & Scum Y-wings

Overview
Y-wings need to either take a turret, torpedoes, or bombs to be viable, and none of those upgrades have been rebalanced yet except for an initial cut at TLT, so Y-wings are still partially TBD. Y-wings with TLT see a cost decrease in absolute terms, but based on the new power curve and historical data, it should be balanced better. It needs some playtesting vs X-wings and TIEs, and may need some minor tweaks going forward. I would rather err on the side of TLT being slightly underpowered. Non-TLT turrets still need to get balanced, but the goal is for them to also be equivalently viable (ion turret, blaster turret, synced turret, etc). Y-wings also now get an option to remove the turret slot entirely to turn them into cheap heavy bombers or torpedo carriers, but since torpedoes and bombs are last on my list to balance, this is largely a placeholder . Horton obviously gets an EPT.

Pilot Tiers

• Tier 2 Y-wings: Horton Salm, Dutch Vander, Kavil.
• Tier 3 Y-wings: Gold Squadron Pilot, Gray Squadron Pilot, Syndicate Thug, Hired Gun, Drea Renthal.

Pilot Costs and Ability Changes

Rebel :

• Gold Squadron Pilot: cost decreased from 36 to 32.
• Gray Squadron Pilot: cost decreased from 40 to 35.
• Dutch Vander: cost decreased from 46 to 39.
• Horton Salm: gains an EPT, and cost decreased from 50 to 41.

Scum :

• Syndicate Thug: cost reduced from 36 to 32.
• Hired Gun: cost reduced from 40 to 35.
• Drea Renthal: cost reduced from 44 to 37.
• Kavil: cost reduced from 48 to 42.

Key Card Changes

See Turrets and Bombs

BTL-A4 Y-wing

• Title. Y-wing only.
• Cost remains 0 / 0 / 0
• You cannot attack ships outside your firing arc. After you perform a primary weapon attack, you may immediately perform an attack with a Turret secondary weapon. You may equip "Long Range Scanners" ignoring the restriction of requiring a <missile> slot .

Sample Loadouts

Rebel :

• Gold Squadron Pilot + Twin Laser Turret (45 points)
• Gold Squadron Pilot + BTL-A4 + Plasma Torpedoes + Extra Munitions + Long Range Scanners (40 points)
• Gold Squadron Pilot + Autoblaster Turret + BTL-A4 + Plasma Torpedoes + Extra Munitions + Long Range Scanners (43 points)
• Gold Squadron Pilot + Twin Laser Turret + BTL-A4 + R3-A2 (50 points)
• Horton Salm + Adaptability + Twin Laser Turret (57 points)

Scum :

• Syndicate Thug + Twin Laser Turret + Unhinged Astromech (45 points)
• Kavil + Veteran Instincts + Twin Laser Turret + Unhinged Astromech (63 points)

A-wings

Overview
A-wings now get +1 hull via 'A-wing Refit', and also get ATT3 if they trigger the same text as Outmaneuver. This makes them very fun to fly, but difficult to balance without some analytical playtesting to see how often this typically triggers for each pilot, so I expect all the A-wing pilot costs to get tweaked. If you're playtesting A-wings please keep track of how often it triggers per pilot and let me know how it goes! Arvel gets an EPT and an ability wording buff, so his strategy is now to just directly ram into enemy ships. We will need to keep an eye on him to make sure he doesn't turn into too good of a proton rocket carrier. Chardaan refit is now redundant with cost changes. Missiles are still TBD, so A-wings having the missile slot open will matter.

Pilot Tiers

• Tier 2 A-wings: Arvel Crynyd, Jake Farrell, Tycho Celchu
• Tier 3 A-wings: Prototype Pilot, Green Squadron Pilot, Gemmer Sojan

Pilot Costs and Ability Changes

• Prototype Pilot: cost decreased from 34 to 30.
• Green Squadron Pilot: cost increased from 39 to 40.
• Gemmer Sojan: cost decreased from 44 to 43.
• Arvel Crynyd: gains an EPT, cost decreased from 46 to 43, and pilot ability changed to: You may declare an enemy ship inside your firing arc that you are touching as the target of an attack. Overlapping another ship while executing a maneuver does not cause you to skip the "Perform Action" step.
• Jake Farrell: cost reduced from 48 to 47.
• Tycho Celchu: cost decreased from 52 to 48.

Key Card Changes

Chardaan Refit
0 / 0 / 0
Missile. A-wing only.
Note: This card has effectively been removed from the game.

A-wing Refit
0 / 0 / 0
Modification. A-wing only. Limited.
You may equip one additional modification. Increase your hull value by 1. If you are attacking with a primary weapon and you are not inside the defender's arc, you may roll one additional die.

Sample Loadouts

Note: All A-wings have "A-wing Refit"

• Green Squadron Pilot + Push the Limit + A-wing Test Pilot + Juke + Autothrusters (52 points)
• Arvel + Push the Limit + A-wing Test Pilot + Intimidation + Autothrusters (57 points)
• Jake + Push the Limit + A-wing Test Pilot + Veteran Instincts + Autothrusters (61 points)
• Tycho + Push the Limit + A-wing Test Pilot + Rage + Experimental Interface (61 points)
• Tycho + Push the Limit + A-wing Test Pilot + Veteran Instincts + Autothrusters (63 points)

Been looking forward to this since you announced it and it's looking great!

Would it be possible for you copy the new ships you add into the first post as you add them? It'd be a great help keeping track of everything.

Some thoughts for your consideration:

Rear arcs on ships without them base printed (ie: the Lambda): I've experimented with adding mobile arcs to turreted ships in the past and one solution I found is to divide the base into four arcs by measuring directly backwards from the sides of the base insert like in the image below:

The rules we used were that any turret weapon worked like the Lancer's mobile arc: the primary arc can always be used and a tracking token is used to show which arc the mobile arc was set to. The mobile arc is changed with an action like the Lancer and ships in the mobile arc count as in arc.

It added an interesting dynamic to turrets. The side arcs are so big that you still have huge arc coverage so even low PS turrets have a good chance of getting a shot on their chosen target. If you attack a turreted ship from the front or side it's not going to be that different from fighting the vanilla ones. The weak spot is the rear: get directly behind it and it's much easier to move between its arcs, forcing it to spend valuable actions on turret traverse and against lower PS turrets allowing you to dodge it entirely.

You could give a rear arc like that to the Lambda. That'd avoid needing to change the base inserts and keeps it different from the Firespray.

Munitions (seeing as you brought up that you hadn't settled on what to do for them yet): The other rule we tested at the same time as the arc changes was to delete Extra Munitions, Munitions Failsafe and Guidance Chips entirely and to simply apply a munitions token to every ordnance upgrade. It's a very straightforward change that neatly solves a lot of the problems with them. I wouldn't be surprised to see FFG do something similar if they had the power to.

On the X-wing: Have you thought of combining Incom Refit and S-foils into one dual card? Outside of a few corner cases they can't trigger independently anyway as using the sloop stresses the X-wing and together they make for a very thematic toggleable s-foil card. For example:

Strike Foils
Side 1 (Attack Position): If you are unstressed when attacking, you may either reroll one blank attack die, or, if you have a target lock on the defender you may convert all <eye> results to <hit> results. You may flip this card at the end of the planning phase.
Side 2 (Flight Position): When you reveal a speed 3 <left bank> or <right bank> maneuver, you must instead treat it as a red speed 3 <left sloop> or <right sloop> of the same bearing as the revealed maneuver. You may flip this card at the end of the planning phase.

Thematically it fits with observed behaviour from TFA and Rebels: the s-foils are closed for extreme maneuvers but it's usually better to have them in attack position. Almost always the same effect as the separate cards. The main difference is flipping to flight unnecessarily (when you don't anticipate some form of stress) comes with a cost.

On X-wing and A-wing HP increases (+2 and +1 respectively): Why did you decide to increase their hit points rather than reduce their costs here? You're altering costs anyway so I'm curious as to why you didn't just use the price to balance them.

Ship Abilities: As you've added cards with no opportunity cost in terms of slot or points to three out the four ships posted so far have you considered defining a new card type for them? As they all bear "you may equip one additional modification" there's no real reason for them to be modifications. A "Ship Ability" type upgrade could cut down on a lot of rules text and you could move the StarViper, TIE advanced, ARC-170, Kihraxz and TIE/sf autoinclude titles under that banner to open up their title slots again. Another advantage is that you can define a Ship Ability card as having to match the ship name exactly. That'd prevent X-wing cards from applying to the T-70 X-wing and TIE advanced cards from having to be FAQed to not apply to the TIE advanced Prototype.

Upgrade Tiering: I personally think it's an elegant solution you can do a lot with. Have you considered doing it backwards on some cards where the greatest benefit is to the cheap pilot? Twin Laser Turret's a good example: this is a card you almost always want to throw on cheap pilots so you can mass them. The stress astromech is another example: it hurts less on a cheap pilot that doesn't matter as much.

So let me get this straight... you just buffed 4tlt ywings by lowering the ywing cost by 4 while setting tlt cost to 13... essentially discounting them by 1.5 in standard. Meaning i could easily replace 1 ywing by a stressarc or so...

And you based this on math, I hear ya. In this case, I remain sceptical about your math.

Given the broad changes to so many things I'm not sure you can treat any of the changes in isolation like that. TLT Spam is very powerful in vanilla but look at how powerful the X-wing is now. I'm not confident TLT Spam can match the reworked jousters in sheer firepower.

5 hours ago, Firespray-32 said:

Been looking forward to this since you announced it and it's looking great!

Would it be possible for you copy the new ships you add into the first post as you add them? It'd be a great help keeping track of everything.

Some thoughts for your consideration:

Rear arcs on ships without them base printed (ie: the Lambda): I've experimented with adding mobile arcs to turreted ships in the past and one solution I found is to divide the base into four arcs by measuring directly backwards from the sides of the base insert like in the image below:

The rules we used were that any turret weapon worked like the Lancer's mobile arc: the primary arc can always be used and a tracking token is used to show which arc the mobile arc was set to. The mobile arc is changed with an action like the Lancer and ships in the mobile arc count as in arc.

It added an interesting dynamic to turrets. The side arcs are so big that you still have huge arc coverage so even low PS turrets have a good chance of getting a shot on their chosen target. If you attack a turreted ship from the front or side it's not going to be that different from fighting the vanilla ones. The weak spot is the rear: get directly behind it and it's much easier to move between its arcs, forcing it to spend valuable actions on turret traverse and against lower PS turrets allowing you to dodge it entirely.

You could give a rear arc like that to the Lambda. That'd avoid needing to change the base inserts and keeps it different from the Firespray.

Munitions: The other rule we tested at the same time as the arc changes was to delete Extra Munitions, Munitions Failsafe and Guidance Chips entirely and to simply apply a munitions token to every ordnance upgrade. It's a very straightforward change that neatly solves a lot of the problems with them. I wouldn't be surprised to see FFG do something similar if they had the power to.

On the X-wing: Have you thought of combining Incom Refit and S-foils into one dual card? Outside of a few corner cases they can't trigger independently anyway as using the sloop stresses the X-wing. For example:

Strike Foils
Side 1 (Attack Position): If you are unstressed when attacking, you may either reroll one blank attack die, or, if you have a target lock on the defender you may convert all <eye> results to <hit> results. You may flip this card at the end of the planning phase.
Side 2 (Flight Position): When you reveal a speed 3 <left bank> or <right bank> maneuver, you must instead treat it as a red speed 3 <left sloop> or <right sloop> of the same bearing as the revealed maneuver. You may flip this card at the end of the planning phase.

Almost always the same effect as the separate cards. The main difference is flipping Incom Refit to flight unnecessarily (when you don't anticipate some form of stress) comes with a cost.

On X-wing and A-wing HP increases (+2 and +1 respectively): Why did you decide against simply reducing their costs if the statlines aren't worth the price? It's more a thematic qualm than a mechanical one.

Ship Abilities: As you've added cards with no opportunity cost in terms of slot or points to three out the four ships posted so far have you considered defining a new card type for them? As they all bear "you may equip one additional modification" there's no real reason for them to be modifications. A "Ship Ability" type upgrade could cut down on a lot of rules text and you could move the StarViper, TIE advanced, ARC-170, Kihraxz and TIE/sf autoinclude titles under that banner to open up their title slots again. Another advantage is that you can define a Ship Ability card as having to match the ship name exactly. That'd prevent X-wing cards from applying to the T-70 X-wing and TIE advanced cards from having to be FAQed to not apply to the TIE advanced Prototype.

Upgrade Tiering: I personally think it's an elegant solution you can do a lot with. Have you considered doing it backwards on some cards where the greatest benefit is to the cheap pilot? Twin Laser Turret's a good example: this is a card you almost always want to throw on cheap pilots so you can mass them. The stress astromech is another example: it hurts less on a cheap pilot that doesn't matter as much.

The old FFG forums (before Asmodee merger) had a limit on how long a post could be, which I ran into with previous years' Regionals Results threads. That limitation might be gone now, but rather than find out the hard way again, I'm just including links in the OP to each ship's individual post.

A rectangular rear arc is an interesting idea that had crossed my mind, but I'm erring on the side of not introduing new mechanics (see Core Philosophies in OP). So my solution is just to use a Firespray or Lancer base instead, to get the rear arc.The Lambda rear arc is only ATT2, so it is still a very different ship than the Firespray, especially with the dial differences.

Muntions -- yes there's lots of things that could be done here, I just want to make sure that it's equally well balanced across all ships. A major benefit to keeping Extra Munitions in the game, is that missile carriers like the Z-95 and A-wing remain "one and done", which for balance reasons they really need to be. A-wings with multiple proton rockets would be a bad thing.

Incom Refit needs to remain as its own separate card, so that it doesn't give any dial information away. As currently worded, if you're not doing a 3 bank or a 3 sloop then it literally does not matter what side Incom Refit is set to, other than potentially playing mind games with your opponent. But, if you change the wording so it has to be set one way in order to utilize S-foils, you would always want it set to that side, except for when slooping. This means that when you are going to sloop, you would be advertising it. This would be disadvantageous for higher pilot skill ships, by essentially spoiling their dial before it's revealed.

Re: X-wings and A-wings getting +1 hull. There's a couple reasons:

1. You want the tank to glass cannon ratio to be somewhere in the center of the range for most ships, i.e. you don't want most ships to be a glass cannon, nor do you want most ships to be straight-up tanks. X-wings and A-wings both got pretty significant attack upgrades, so to keep them "centered" they needed more durability. In addition, A-wings suffer from a lack of durability in the absolute sense, even in the stock game. @Kelvan has a lot of experience running A-wings, and he says that they just pop too fast - I believe him.
2. I don't want to normalize 5 X-wings as a list. They are suppossed to be "powerful ships" that the game is named after and our heros fly, not cheap massed spam ships like TIE Fighters. Related, technically 5 Rookies is a legal squad now, they just can't equip an astromech. I do want to keep an eye on that squad to make sure it's not imbalanced; I may add the restriction to Integrated Astromech that you must also equip an astromech.

Re: ship abilities: Yes, that thought had certainly crossed my mind before, of creating a custom upgrade type called "Balance Upgrade" or something, with an icon of some gears. But, that's still adding a new mechanic to the game that didn't exist before just to save a few words on some cards. I would rather err on the side of not introducing new fundamental concepts if I can get away with it. It's less to explain. I had also thought about combining I.A., S-foils, and Incom Refit into one giant upgrade card, but it's the same problem on introducing new concepts. (And Boba Fett crew could simultaneously chuck all three upgrades).

I don't have any upgrade costs that are "backwards" yet, but many are flat costs across the board. I have R3-A2 pegged at 5/6/7, but you're right that could probably be a flat 5 across the board.

2 hours ago, MaxPower said:

So let me get this straight... you just buffed 4tlt ywings by lowering the ywing cost by 4 while setting tlt cost to 13... essentially discounting them by 1.5 in standard. Meaning i could easily replace 1 ywing by a stressarc or so...

And you based this on math, I hear ya. In this case, I remain sceptical about your math.

2 hours ago, Firespray-32 said:

Given the broad changes to so many things I'm not sure you can treat any of the changes in isolation like that. TLT Spam is very powerful in vanilla but look at how powerful the X-wing is now. I'm not confident TLT Spam can match the reworked jousters in sheer firepower.

The magic number that turrets should be at is somewhere around 80% efficiency, if you have 100% efficient jousters. Back when TLTs displaced B-wings, TLT Y's were around 80% but B-wings were only about 90%, so the difference between the two was too small. TLT's still didn't totally run the table, because there were enough named pilots in the game that pushed the overall power curve higher (i.e. Inquisitor at 110%/115% efficiency at PS8). By that point B-wings were inferior to everything on the top tables though. Back in the wave 5 meta, the Chewie / Leebo lists also were right around the 80% efficiency. They were good enough to be solidly competitive, but not enough to dominate.

I have established a new power curve for this Mod, which is also a pretty close approximation to what the current wave 11 power curve is. In this new power curve, X-wings and TIE Fighters are right around 100% efficient. All they can do is joust and trade dice, but they are the benchmarks at it. So, regardless of what your baseline power curve is, a good starting point for any non-repositional turret is around 80%. Too much higher and they're too good and perceived as "Easy Mode", too much lower and they can't keep up. When we get more data we'll refine this "target efficiency" number better, but it's a pretty good first cut. The Y-wing costs in conjunction with TLT were chosen so the Y-wing + TLT is right around 80%. They may need to get tweaked upwards by a point or so, but the new X-wings should tear them up pretty good if they get arc on them. Matchup-wise, I'm actually more concerned about quad TLT vs the TIE Swarm, since the TIEs' new upgrades only marginally help vs TLT Y-wings.

TL;DR: I'm confident that the Y-wing + TLT cost is pretty close to where it needs to end up, but I wouldn't be suprised if it needs to go up 1 point, possibly as much as 2 points (on a 200 point scale). It partially depends how "good" we want turrets to be as fillers vs pure jousters.

Quote

I would rather err on the side of not introducing new fundamental concepts if I can get away with it. It's less to explain.

I disagree there: I don't think you should rule out edits to the core mechanics entirely. One of the strongest elements of X-wing's original design was its simplicity: its depth came from its mechanics rather than from an MTG-style tangled web of card interactions. FFG is completely hamstrung by its business model when it comes to balance: their only option is to release fix card after fix card until they get in such a tangle they abandon old ships.

The Community Mod has near total freedom to edit whatever it needs to. If the simplest, most elegant solution is to add or edit a core mechanic I think you definitely should. A few universally applied edits to the core rules'll be much easier to remember and keep track of midgame than multiple fix cards per ship. I'd much prefer a few custom mechanics that allow you to fine tune durability and accuracy where you need to than have circa 15 upgrade cards in a TIE swarm.

Quote

Incom Refit needs to remain as its own separate card, so that it doesn't give any dial information away. As currently worded, if you're not doing a 3 bank or a 3 sloop then it literally does not matter what side Incom Refit is set to, other than potentially playing mind games with your opponent. But, if you change the wording so it has to be set one way in order to utilize S-foils, you would always want it set to that side, except for when slooping. This means that when you are going to sloop, you would be advertising it. This would be disadvantageous for higher pilot skill ships, by essentially spoiling their dial before it's revealed.

Only slightly (the X-wing has three red maneuvers with sloops active) and disadvantageous isn't necessarily bad design. As it stands the card already telegraphs your move at the start of the activation phase if it's on the wrong side.

Quote

Muntions -- yes there's lots of things that could be done here, I just want to make sure that it's equally well balanced across all ships. A major benefit to keeping Extra Munitions in the game, is that missile carriers like the Z-95 and A-wing remain "one and done", which for balance reasons they really need to be. A-wings with multiple proton rockets would be a bad thing.

Even if you priced them relative to their power? They were 5 points on an A-wing from the start.

That or ditch 'em. You've got the power to rewrite or remove upgrade cards that don't fit any more. I personally think you should make Integrated Astromech a normal upgrade now that you can patch the X-wing directly.

2 hours ago, Firespray-32 said:

Only slightly (the X-wing has three red maneuvers with sloops active) and disadvantageous isn't necessarily bad design. As it stands the card already telegraphs your move at the start of the activation phase if it's on the wrong side.

From a thematic point of view, if the card is going to represent the s-foils closing, then that would be something that other pilots would be able to see.

3 hours ago, Firespray-32 said:

Only slightly (the X-wing has three red maneuvers with sloops active) and disadvantageous isn't necessarily bad design. As it stands the card already telegraphs your move at the start of the activation phase if it's on the wrong side.

As I have 'Incom Refit' currently written, there is no "wrong" side. Either the 3 banks act as 3 banks (disabled side), or 3 banks act as red 3 sloops (enabled side). Regardless of which side the card is set to, your dial can be set to any maneuver, so the only information that it provides is that you either can NOT perform 3 banks, or you can NOT perform 3 sloops. It does not telegraph any moves at the start of activation.

I updated the OP so the "Links" section is right near the top, followed by some squads that I would like to have tested. Right now it's X-wings vs TIE Fighters. Back to basics! If you want to come up with your own list, list building is currently all manual, but it can be done by going through the data in the linked Google Balance Spreadsheet .

Any help in doing actual playtesting is very much appreciated, please fill out the Electronic Playtesting Form when done. Also feel free to discuss results here or on the Facebook discussion group .

On 11/27/2017 at 11:00 PM, MajorJuggler said:

Links

• Pre-Built Lists : To make playtesting easier (and to focus playtesting on the stuff that currently needs it most), this contains a bunch of pre-built lists that you can just grab-and-go. Each pre-built list includes a printable squad sheet in PDF format. Lists are color-coded in order of testing status and priority.
• Balance Spreadsheet : this contains all the changes in a Google Spreadsheet.
• Custom & Changed Card Reference + FAQ : Includes printable cards for custom cards and stock cards that are now dual-sided. Note: the cards were just made using "Strange Eons". Long-term I would like to change the formatting to include the triple-cost structure, and an "X-wing Community Mod" label.
• Electronic Playtesting Form : a google form to provide feedback.
• Physical Score Sheet / Playtesting Form : Hard copy version of the electronic version, useful if running a casual in-person tournament.
• Facebook discussion group

Current High-Priority Lists for Testing (excerpt from the Pre-Built Lists Doc)

TIE Swarms

Note: All TIE Fighters have Attack Formation, and Evasive Thrusters , see TIE Fighter post for details.

7 TIE Swarm (200) PDF, last updated v1.0.4 : https://drive.google.com/open?id=1gRdakOf3UVgzT8ZSfB-f7bNtdwm3BCY5

Approximate Squad Spawner : https://geordanr.github.io/xwing/?f=Galactic%20Empire&d=v4!s!18:9:-1:-1:;151:9:-1:-1:;15::-1:-1:;10::-1:-1:;10::-1:-1:;10::-1:-1:;10::-1:-1

Note: Backstabber is included here to make it easier to fly as 6 TIEs in formation, and Backstabber separately.

• Howlrunner + Swarm Tactics (38)

• Scourge + Swarm Tactics (35)

• Backstabber (31)

• 4x Academy Pilot (PS1 TIE Fighter) (24)

CrackSwarm (199) PDF, last updated v1.0.4 : https://drive.google.com/open?id=1QAN1jKukbLGSBqbS0qXzOniStArBHnds

Approximate squad spawner: https://geordanr.github.io/xwing/?f=Galactic%20Empire&d=v4!s!18:140:-1:-1:;12:140:-1:-1:;12:140:-1:-1:;12:140:-1:-1:;12:140:-1:-1:;188:140,203:-1:-1

Note: Crackshot is now dual-sided for TIE Fighters, so they can use it twice.

• Howlrunner + Crackshot* (37)

• Zeta Leader + Crackshot* + Primed Thrusters (42)

• 4x Black Squadron Pilot (PS4 TIE Fighter) + Crackshot* (30)

The Sinister Six (199) PDF, last updated v1.0.4: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1kCVxWEyvVk1XI-cjQyMygNrU-4YSyc2T

Approximate squad spawner : https://geordanr.github.io/xwing/?f=Galactic%20Empire&d=v4!s!18:140:-1:-1:;17:205:-1:-1:;151:205:-1:-1:;15::-1:-1:;16::-1:-1:;14::-1:-1

Notes: Crackshot is now dual-sided for TIE Fighters, so they can use it twice. Night Beast pilot ability changed.

• Howlrunner + Crackshot* (37)

• Mauler Mithel + Snapshot (35)

• Scourge + Snapshot (35)

• Backstabber (31)

• Dark Curse (31)

• Night Beast* (30)

T-65 X-wings

Note: All X-wings have S-foils, Incom Refit, and Integrated Astromech, see X-wing post for details.

Wedge / Biggs / Hobbie / Rookie (200) PDF, last updated v1.0.4: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1HDwyC-qybKifo4H9yPAnjVwgoqtKQB3y

Approximate Squad Spawner: https://geordanr.github.io/xwing/?f=Rebel%20Alliance&d=v4!s!0:9,-1,163:-1:20:;4:-1,7:-1:20:;84:-1,163:-1:20:;3:-1,7:-1:20

• Wedge + Swarm Tactics + Targeting Astromech (64)

• Biggs + R5 (47)

• Hobbie + Targeting Astromech (48)

• Rookie Pilot (PS2 X-wing) + R5 (41)

Red Squadron (199) PDF, last updated v1.0.4 : https://drive.google.com/open?id=1WpOcCrq_ieDtjX7lPJ3w1N95N-9MRQIr

Approximate Squad Spawner: https://geordanr.github.io/xwing/?f=Rebel%20Alliance&d=v4!s!1:-1,7:-1:20:;2:-1,7:-1:20:;2:-1,7:-1:20:;2:-1,7:-1:20

• Garven + Crackshot + R5 (55)

• 3x Red Squadron Pilot (PS4 X-wing) + Crackshot + R5 (48)

Triple T-65 X-wings (200) PDF, last updated v1.0.4 : https://drive.google.com/open?id=1WpOcCrq_ieDtjX7lPJ3w1N95N-9MRQIr

Note: Luke Skywalker ability, R2-D2, and R5-D8 text changed, see PDF or X-wing post for details.

Approximate Squad Spawner : https://geordanr.github.io/xwing/?f=Rebel%20Alliance&d=v4!s!0:18,-1,148:-1:3:;5:30,-1,3:-1:26:;83:18,-1,5:-1:26

• Wedge Antilles + Push the Limit + BB-8 + Engine Upgrade (75)

• Luke Skywalker* + Draw Their Fire + R2-D2* + Vectored Thrusters (67)

• Jek Porkins + Push the Limit + R5-D8* + Vectored Thrusters (58)

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As I have 'Incom Refit' currently written, there is no "wrong" side. Either the 3 banks act as 3 banks (disabled side), or 3 banks act as red 3 sloops (enabled side). Regardless of which side the card is set to, your dial can be set to any maneuver, so the only information that it provides is that you either can NOT perform 3 banks, or you can NOT perform 3 sloops. It does not telegraph any moves at the start of activation.

By wrong side I mean the side that doesn't allow the maneuver you want to execute.

If you want to execute a sloop instead of a 3-bank and Incom Refit is set to Disabled or vice versa you need to flip it. If you only flip Incom Refit when you need to the act of flipping it telegraphs your dial is set to 3-bank.

The only way for the X-wing player to avoid telegraphing in this manner is to choose Incom Refit's side at random every time they dial a maneuver that isn't a 3-bank. This means interacting with every Incom Refit on every turn.

Assuming optimal play this leaves the designer with two choices:

1. Implement Incom Refit in its present form. At the end of every planning phase the X-wing player interacts with each Incom Refit they have: either to flip it to the required side in the case of a 3-bank or to set it to a random side for any other maneuver. There is practically no useful telegraphing of maneuver.
2. Make enabling Incom Refit without need disadvantageous. The player only interacts with Incom Refit when they need to execute a Segnor's loop but doing so telegraphs their intent.

I think having to flip Incom Refit at random on every non 3-bank maneuver is a chore whereas I see no problem with activation phase telegraphing. That's why I think option 2 is a better implementation. I acknowledge that's a conclusion based on opinions so I see why you might conclude differently.

Intelligence agent is already SO good vs higher PS pilots, speaking as one who is always using it. If the card gave away sloops on activation, then Wedge would get absolutely murdered on top tables if the other player has any element of activation phase control. (I.e. Jumpmaster barrel roll). Arced ships are at their most vulnerable when they are slooping, because if they get blocked they are still stressed it takes them another 2 turns to turn around. Giving away that info is far too debilitating for top level play. The downside is just too great.

You can also do the reverse, keep it disabled on approach, and then as you get into the furball just enable by default, since sloops in that scenario are more common than 3 banks. You can occasionally play the mind-games of meaninglessly flipping it back to disabled even without a 3 bank dialed in. I agree that it's a little tedious, but it's the closest that I have seen to adding a maneuver to the dial with only cards.

3 hours ago, MajorJuggler said:

Intelligence agent is already SO good vs higher PS pilots, speaking as one who is always using it. If the card gave away sloops on activation, then Wedge would get absolutely murdered on top tables if the other player has any element of activation phase control. (I.e. Jumpmaster barrel roll). Arced ships are at their most vulnerable when they are slooping, because if they get blocked they are still stressed it takes them another 2 turns to turn around. Giving away that info is far too debilitating for top level play. The downside is just too great.

You can also do the reverse, keep it disabled on approach, and then as you get into the furball just enable by default, since sloops in that scenario are more common than 3 banks. You can occasionally play the mind-games of meaninglessly flipping it back to disabled even without a 3 bank dialed in. I agree that it's a little tedious, but it's the closest that I have seen to adding a maneuver to the dial with only cards.

Why not just literally make the Imcom title a single sided card with language identical to the TFA Falcon title?

2 minutes ago, Punning Pundit said:

Why not just literally make the Imcom title a single sided card with language identical to the TFA Falcon title?

That was actually my first thought, but then it gives you post-dial reveal reposition options. You can dial in a 3 bank and, at high PS, decide if you want to turn it into a sloop. Guess I decided to open a different can of worms instead.

TIE Interceptors

Overview

• TIE Interceptors get +1 hull for free without consuming an upgrade slot, via a new title.
• TIE Interceptors can also equip the new Evasive Thrusters modification, which should generally be an auto-include at 0 points. Evasive Thrusters lets the TIE Interceptors perform a free barrel roll after maneuvering (but before taking their normal action), and can also be discarded to reroll any number of defense dice.
• Autothrusters will generally be the second modification to take. The Royal Guard TIE cost has been increased, since the second modification is a massive boost to a 3/3/4/0 statline with focus + evade every round.
• It's still possible to take Autothrusters and Stealth Device without taking Evasive Thrusters, but the combination of Evasive Thrusters and Autothrusters should serve as a gentle nudge away from stacking tons of tokens on 4 agility.
• Both PS5 pilot abilities have been reworded, and Kir Kanos gains an EPT slot.
• The Interceptor pilots are fairly aggressively costed across the board considering their new free positional capability with Evasive Thrusters, so some playtesting will be helpful in fine-tuning their costs.

Pilot Tiers

• Soontir Fel is tier 1.
• Carnor Jax is tier 2.
• All other TIE Interceptors are tier 3.

Pilot Cost and Ability Changes

• Alpha Squadron Pilot (PS1): cost decreased from 36 to 33.
• Avenger Squadron Pilot (PS3): cost decreased from 40 to 35.
• Saber Squadron Pilot (PS4): cost decreased from 42 to 40.
• Fel's Wrath: cost decreased from 46 to 42, and ability changed to: " When the damage assigned to you equals or exceeds your hull value, you may assign one focus token to yourself and then perform an additional attack. "
• Lieutenant Lorrir: cost reduced from 46 to 43, gains an EPT, and ability changed to: "When performing a barrel roll action, you may use the <1 bank left> or <1 bank right> template instead of the <1 straight> template."
• Royal Guard Pilot (PS6): cost reduced from 44 to 43.
• Kir Kanos: cost reduced from 48 to 44, and gains an EPT.
• Tetran Cowell: cost reduced from 48 to 44.
• Turr Phennir: cost reduced from 50 to 46.
• Carnor Jax: cost reduced from 52 to 50.
• Soontir Fel: cost reduced from 54 to 53.

Key Card Changes

Interceptor Plating
0 / 0 / 0
title. TIE Interceptor only.
Increase your hull value by 1. You may equip one additional title.

Evasive Thrusters
0 / 0 / 0
Modification. TIE Fighter or TIE Interceptor only.
Your agility value must be "3" to equip this card. After executing a maneuver, if you did not overlap an obstacle or ship, you may perform a free barrel roll action.

When defending, you may discard this card to reroll any number of defense dice.

Royal Guard TIE
cost changed from 0 to 3 / 3 / 3

Sample Loadouts

All TIE Interceptors have Interceptor Plating equipped.

• Alpha Squadron Pilot (PS1) + Evasive Thrusters (33 points)
• Avenger Squadron Pilot (PS3) + Evasive Thrusters (35 points)
• Saber Squadron Pilot (PS4) + Evasive Thrusters + PtL (45 points)
• Fel's Wrath + Evasive Thrusters (42 points)
• Lt. Lorrir (PS5) + PtL + Evasive Thrusters (48 points)
• Royal Guard (PS6) + PtL + Evasive Thrusters (48 points)
• Royal Guard (PS6) + PtL + Evasive Thrusters + Autothrusters (55 points)
• Kir Kanos (PS6) + PtL + Evasive Thrusters (49 points)
• Kir Kanos (PS6) + PtL + Evasive Thrusters + Autothrusters (56 points)
• Tetran Cowell (PS7) + PtL + Evasive Thrusters (49 points)
• Tetran Cowell (PS7) + PtL + Evasive Thrusters + Autothrusters (56 points)
• Turr Phennir (PS7) + PtL + Evasive Thrusters (51 points)
• Turr Phennir (PS7) + PtL + Evasive Thrusters + Autothrusters (58 points)
• Carnor Jax (PS8) + PtL + Evasive Thrusters (56 points)
• Carnor Jax (PS7) + PtL + Evasive Thrusters + Autothrusters (64 points)
• Soontir Fel + PtL + Evasive Thrusters (60 points)
• Soontir Fel + PtL + Evasive Thrusters + Autothrusters (69 points)
• Soontir Fel + PtL + Stealth Device + Autothrusters (73 points)

14 hours ago, Firespray-32 said:

I disagree there: I don't think you should rule out edits to the core mechanics entirely. One of the strongest elements of X-wing's original design was its simplicity: its depth came from its mechanics rather than from an MTG-style tangled web of card interactions. FFG is completely hamstrung by its business model when it comes to balance: their only option is to release fix card after fix card until they get in such a tangle they abandon old ships.

I must say I also am a little concerned about over-complexity when adding loads of fix cards.
If a change in some game mechanics does the work easier than a big bunch of cards, I'm all for the single rule instead of the many. With that much additional cards, "reading" your opponent's list across the table sometimes gets difficult. Especially when multiple occurences of ships with dual cards happen...

For exemple, why "Squint Plating" as a card, instead of an errata to the statline?
And, to go even further, why add free Title/Mod cards when we can make these special gimmicks part of the ship card?
IMO, the less cards on the board, the better.

21 hours ago, Firespray-32 said:

Rear arcs on ships without them base printed (ie: the Lambda): I've experimented with adding mobile arcs to turreted ships in the past and one solution I found is to divide the base into four arcs by measuring directly backwards from the sides of the base insert like in the image below:

Those type of arcs sound good to me. Especially because that doesn't require new cardboard. Side arcs for U-wings ? Yes please!


Also, @MajorJuggler , do you already have a plan for torpedoes/missiles?
In our group, we currently use the following rule : missiles doesn't discard TL; torpedoes add one hit if the attack is successful. And we got rid of Guidance Chips.
Seems to work well for now, and adds a little difference between the slots.

Quote

For exemple, why "Squint Plating" as a card, instead of an errata to the statline?
And, to go even further, why add free Title/Mod cards when we can make these special gimmicks part of the ship card?
IMO, the less cards on the board, the better.

The difficulty there is that ship cards are functional components: you can't really leave them on the printout.

There are definitely a few options I can think of for cutting down on the number of fix cards without changing the pilot cards.

SQUADRON UPGRADES

CHASSIS CARDS

The chassis cards are the tidiest solution and allow fine tuning of specific ships but they only apply to one ship: the TIE fighter, TIE/fo and TIE/sf all would need their own.

This looks fantastic. Mind if I make a suggestion for Y-Wings? The BTL-A4 title. Instead of locking a turret in arc, perhaps have it remove the turret slot and replace it witha cannon slot.

Or would that be potentially too powerful? (I always forget about HLC)

1 hour ago, Firespray-32 said:

The difficulty there is that ship cards are functional components: you can't really leave them on the printout.

There are definitely a few options I can think of for cutting down on the number of fix cards without changing the pilot cards.

Majorjuggler was talking about using a firespray's cardboard on the lambda to see the rear arc; so I guess the cardboard isn't so important.
I think people interested by this project are the type of players that don't need the ships stat printed on it anyway...
(but I like your chassis / squadron cards:) )

12 hours ago, MajorJuggler said:

and Kir Kanos gains an EPT slot.

Sold!

12 minutes ago, Punning Pundit said:

Sold!

I know right!? And Lorrir! I can tell from playing with Starvipers quite a bit that the funky fresh barrel roll is really nice but sometimes you just want a normal one too. Lorrir is going to be a blast.