G-1A Starfighter

Overview

• The G-1A gets the same 'Frontal Deflectors' as the B-wing, but otherwise only gets buffed via cost changes.

Pilot Tiers

• Ruthless Freelancer (PS3) is tier 3.
• All other G-1A pilots are tier 2.

Pilot Cost and Ability Changes

• Ruthless Freelancer (PS3): cost reduced from 46 to 45.
• Gand Findsman (PS5): cost reduced from 50 to 49.
• 4-LOM (PS6): cost reduced from 54 to 52.
• Zuckuss (PS7): cost increased from 56 to 58.

Key Card Changes

Frontal Deflectors

See: B-wing post

Sample Loadouts

(All G1-A have Frontal Deflectors equipped)

• Ruthless Freelancer (PS3) + Fire Control System (49 points)
• Gand Findsman (PS5) + Crackshot + Fire Control System (58 points)
• Zuckuss + Veteran Instincts + Fire Control System (67 points)

I've been thinking about the V1 title for a while, and it's great on a missile ship, but... Less good on a ship with a 2 die primary that rarely takes munitions.

Just imagine the V1 on a TIE Bomber!

I might change the title to something like "After you acquire a target lock, you may perform either a free evade action or a free reload action".

This would allow for a second use of the equipped missile, but at the cost of- for a turn- not having the evade token and having a weapon disabled token.

On 11/27/2017 at 11:04 PM, MajorJuggler said:

TIE Fighter

Pilot Cost and Ability Changes

• Wampa: cost increased from 28 to 29.
• Night Beast: ability changed to: After executing a green maneuver, you may assign one focus token to this ship.
• Winged Gundark: cost decreased from 30 to 29. Ability changed to: When attacking at Range 1, you may change 1 of your dice results to a <crit> result.
• Youngster: cost decreased from 30 to 29.
• Backstabber: cost decreased from 32 to 31.
• Dark Curse: cost decreased from 32 to 31.
• Mauler Mithel: cost decreased from 34 to 32.
• Scourge: cost decreased from 34 to 32.
• Howlrunner: cost decreased from 36 to 35.

How could you forget Chaser?!

Quote

B-wing/E1

modification. B-wing only.

0 / 0 / 0

When attacking with an equipped <cannon> secondary weapon, if the defender's agility is less than 2 you may change one die result to a <hit> result.

lore pedantry mode activate

Technically should be called B-wing/E if it's meant to represent the B-wing variant with a gunner chair.

lore pedantry mode deactivate

What's anti-synergy with range 1 for large ships?

5 minutes ago, ObiWonka said:

What's anti-synergy with range 1 for large ships?

Scum Boba's ability, the problem is that when everyone is range 1 the ability triggers, but then he's constantly bumping and not getting actions, and the rerolls really want eyeballs to modify the dice.

1 hour ago, MajorJuggler said:

Scum Boba's ability, the problem is that when everyone is range 1 the ability triggers, but then he's constantly bumping and not getting actions, and the rerolls really want eyeballs to modify the dice.

A sensor slot and Adv. Sensors would fix that!

On 12/2/2017 at 2:11 PM, MajorJuggler said:

I don't mean to be snarky, but it's easy to sit and play Monday morning quarterback and think about theories. It's another thing to actually built it out and test it. I appreciate that people want a magic bullet that can both increase build diversity and not add complexity, but until someone actually puts forward a testable hypothesis, with specific actual card values that we can comprehensively test across 3-5 ships, there's no actual information content in these posts to reply to.

This was the best piece of advice I ever got while I was getting my doctorate:

"Imagine if the King moved two spaces in chess. It would be incredibly interesting, and entirely new strategies and theses and piece-values could be imagined for the game of chess under this model. Except... the king doesn't move two squares."

The moral of the story, of course, is that no matter how intriguing something might seem, it's not worth doing if lacks a connection to reality, however interesting and fun it might be to wander around in the theoretical weeds.

Would this version of X-Wing make for more pilot diversity? Possibly, heck even probably. Does that outweigh the inconveniences of its complexity? Maybe, but that'll depend on each individual gamer's own preferences. Some people will prefer simplicity, even at the cost of balance. And they aren't wrong, it's just a gaming preference. For instance, compare Leading Edge's 1989 ALIENS boardgame to Prodos' current AvP: The Hunt Begins game. They are apples to oranges, with Leading Edge having a very fast elegant ruleset (all combats are resolved with the roll of a single die), while AVP:THB is trying to draw inspiration from the complex table and chart tomes that are Gamesworkshop games (in some such tabletops games, one model shooting at another model can require as many as four dice rolls, all checked against different charts). Some people prefer elegant simplicity, even if it reduces depth or variation, while some folks relish the nitty-gritty granularity of complexity even if it slows down gameplay. It's a subjective preference-- a matter of taste --and neither viewpoint is "wrong" or "inferior" to the other.

Though, for the record, I wouldn't be excited even if someone found a homebrew "magic bullet" that had a near-flawless way of increasing competitive diversity without any complexity baggage. Because, as cool as that would be, the king doesn't move 2 spaces . Like, I'm happy to grant that your version is almost certainly an improvement over FFG's version, at least with regards to list-building variety and competitiveness of options. Nevertheless, even if your system was drastically better at balance, I've not got any personal interest in it. The complexity required to maintain digital organization of all the new information and the headspace storage (memory) of all the new text and costs would be daunting, while having to then also invest effort into finding or convincing folks to play a homebrew version instead of the actual game (and sometimes these days it's hard enough to get a regular game of X-Wing with an opponent, outside of a tournament), plus I have so little time to spend on X-Wing as it is and I wouldn't have any interest in splitting my interest between "Real X-Wing" and "Fake But Better X-Wing." And I wouldn't want to give up the Real Game (its blemishes be damned).

So, I guess the synopsis of my point is this : people can readily recognize and admit that your approach would have improvements over the official game, but that doesn't mean we couldn't rationally still opt to stay with the official game, for a variety of reasons.

That being said, I respect the effort you've put in, I think some of your insights and basic design-philosophies are reasonable, and I hope your model is able to bring joy to the table-tops of those who are interested.

14 minutes ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

This was the best piece of advice I ever got while I was getting my doctorate:

"Imagine if the King moved two spaces in chess. It would be incredibly interesting, and entirely new strategies and theses and piece-values could be imagined for the game of chess under this model. Except... the king doesn't move two squares."

The moral of the story, of course, is that no matter how intriguing something might seem, it's not worth doing if lacks a connection to reality, however interesting and fun it might be to wander around in the theoretical weeds.

Would this version of X-Wing make for more pilot diversity? Possibly, heck even probably. Does that outweigh the inconveniences of its complexity? Maybe, but that'll depend on each individual gamer's own preferences. Some people will prefer simplicity, even at the cost of balance. And they aren't wrong, it's just a gaming preference. For instance, compare Leading Edge's 1989 ALIENS boardgame to Prodos' current AvP: The Hunt Begins game. They are apples to oranges, with Leading Edge having a very fast elegant ruleset (all combats are resolved with the roll of a single die), while AVP:THB is trying to draw inspiration from the complex table and chart tomes that are Gamesworkshop games (in some such tabletops games, one model shooting at another model can require as many as four dice rolls, all checked against different charts). Some people prefer elegant simplicity, even if it reduces depth or variation, while some folks relish the nitty-gritty granularity of complexity even if it slows down gameplay. It's a subjective preference-- a matter of taste --and neither viewpoint is "wrong" or "inferior" to the other.

Though, for the record, I wouldn't be excited even if someone found a homebrew "magic bullet" that had a near-flawless way of increasing competitive diversity without any complexity baggage. Because, as cool as that would be, the king doesn't move 2 spaces . Like, I'm happy to grant that your version is almost certainly an improvement over FFG's version, at least with regards to list-building variety and competitiveness of options. Nevertheless, even if your system was drastically better at balance, I've not got any personal interest in it. The complexity required to maintain digital organization of all the new information and the headspace storage (memory) of all the new text and costs would be daunting, while having to then also invest effort into finding or convincing folks to play a homebrew version instead of the actual game (and sometimes these days it's hard enough to get a regular game of X-Wing with an opponent, outside of a tournament), plus I have so little time to spend on X-Wing as it is and I wouldn't have any interest in splitting my interest between "Real X-Wing" and "Fake But Better X-Wing." And I wouldn't want to give up the Real Game (its blemishes be damned).

So, I guess the synopsis of my point is this : people can readily recognize and admit that your approach would have improvements over the official game, but that doesn't mean we couldn't rationally still opt to stay with the official game, for a variety of reasons.

That being said, I respect the effort you've put in, I think some of your insights and basic design-philosophies are reasonable, and I hope your model is able to bring joy to the table-tops of those who are interested.

Great thoughts! I figure about 75% of the X-wing population is only going to be interested in the official version. Even if this alternate mod really takes off and/or FFG eventually stops making X-wing, alot of people still won't be bothered. I totally respect that most people aren't interested, because it's not official. I know that they can never be my target audience, and I don't have a need to pitch it to the "hardcore must always be practicing for tournaments" crowd like the Paul Heavers of the world. If people want to play, great, if not, that's fine too. I do know that there's a reasonable number of people locally that are very interested in it. If we had a squad builder I'm pretty sure we would be having Mod-Wing tournaments at least every other month.

Gameplay itself being fast paced is certainly one of the draws of the game. I am willing to increase the complexity of the list building aspect, but don't want to make actually playing the game any less fast-paced, interesting, and fun!

Have you considered changing the way ionization works? Specifically, I wonder if it wouldn't be better to make ionization more of a "soft CC" than a "hard CC"?

58 minutes ago, Punning Pundit said:

Have you considered changing the way ionization works? Specifically, I wonder if it wouldn't be better to make ionization more of a "soft CC" than a "hard CC"?

I'm not planning on changing Ion, just balancing around it. I'm trying to keep the core mechanics the same as much as possible, rather than do fundamental X-wing 2.0 overhauls. Changing the ion effect seems to be pretty X-wing 2.0-ish.

YT-1300

Overview

• Engine Upgrade gets a pretty significant nerf for large base ships, as it now gives a stress after use for large base ships.
• Lando pilot's ability is extended to range 2.
• The Outer Rim Smuggler gets a free title to bring it's stat line up to par with the other ships, but is exclusive with the Millennium Falcon title.
• YT-1300's otherwise just get cost tweaks. Since turrets are one of the core pillars of the game, these pilots will be high priority to test once the jousters (X-wings and TIE Fighters) are well-balanced.

Pilot Tiers

• Outer Rim Smuggler (PS1) and Resistance Sympathizer (PS3) are tier 3.
• Chewbacca (both versions), Lando Calrissian, and Rey are tier 2.
• Han Solo (both versions) are tier 1.

Pilot Costs and Ability Changes

• Outer Rim Smuggler: cost increased from 54 to 59.
• Resistance Sympathizer : cost decreased from 76 to 62.
• Chewbacca (original): cost decreased from 84 to 70 .
• Chewbacca (HoTR): cost decreased from 84 to 73 .
• Lando Calrissian : cost decreased from 88 to 77, and ability changed to: " After you execute a green maneuver, choose one other friendly ship at Range 1-2. That ship may perform 1 free action ".
• Rey: cost decreased from 90 to 78.
• Han Solo (original): cost decreased from 92 to 78.
• Han Solo (HoTR): cost decreased from 92 to 74.

Key Card Changes

Engine Upgrade
5 / 7 / 9
Modification. Your action bar gains the <boost> action icon. If this card is equipped to a large base ship, receive a stress token after performing a boost action.

Corellian Retrofit
0 / 0 / 0
title. YT-1300 only. Pilot skill 1 only.
Increase your primary attack value by one. Increase your hull by two. Increase your shields by one. This card cannot be discarded.

Millennium Falcon (HoTR)
cost reduced from 2 to 0 / 0 / 0

Sample Loadouts

• Han (original) + Expertise + Millennium Falcon (original) + C-3P0 + Gunner + Engine Upgrade (115 points)
• Han (original) + Veteran Instincts + Millennium Falcon (original) + C-3P0 + Luke + Engine Upgrade (113 points)
• Rey + Expertise + Millennium Falcon (HoTR) + Finn + Kanan + Engine Upgrade (105 points)
• Rey + Veteran Instincts + Millennium Falcon (HoTR) + Finn + Kanan + Engine Upgrade (101 points)
• Chewbacca (original) + Expertise + Gunner + C-3P0 + Millennium Falcon (original) (94 points)
• Chewbacca (original) + Predator + Gunner + C-3P0 + Millennium Falcon (original) (91 points)

Rebel & Scum Z-95s

Overview

• Z-95s get to take Attack Formation to help their attacks with primary weapons. See: TIE Fighter post. As of v1.0.5, this only works for primary weapons.

Pilot Tiers

• All Z-95s (Rebel and Scum) are tier 3.

Pilot Costs and Ability Changes

Rebels:

• Bandit Squadron Pilot : cost remains 24.
• Tala Squadron Pilot : cost remains 26.
• Lieutenant Blount: cost reduced from 34 to 30.
• Airen Cracken: cost reduced from 38 to 34.

Scum:

• Binayre Pirate : cost decreased from 24 to 23.
• Black Sun Soldier: cost decreased from 26 to 25.
• Kaa'to Leeachos : cost decreased from 30 to 28.
• N'Dru Suhlak : cost decreased from 34 to 32.

Key Card Changes

Attack Formation
See: TIE Fighter post.

Edited 5 hours ago by MajorJuggler

E-wing

Overview

• Unstressed E-wings now get a free evade action after executing a white maneuver, or a green maneuver that did not remove a stress token. See "E-wing Type B" below. Along with some cost adjustments this significantly increases the viability of the generics, although there is counter-play in stress control or forcing them to bump.
• R2-D2 gets changed so it can only trigger every other round, which is an indirect nerf to Corran Horn. See: X-wing post. Corran can still take PtL / Advanced Sensors / R2-D2 / EU, but will generally be far less effective in doing so. Non-PtL builds should still be reasonably viable, such as VI/FCS/EU.

Pilot Tiers

• Knave Squadron Pilot (PS1) and Blackmoon Squadron Pilot (PS3) are tier 3.
• Etahn A'baht is tier 2.
• Corran Horn is tier 1.

Pilot Costs and Ability Changes

• Knave Squadron Pilot: cost reduced from 54 to 48.
• Blackmoon Squadron Pilot: cost reduced from 58 to 51.
• Etahn A'baht: cost reduced from 64 to 57.
• Corran Horn: cost reduced from 70 to 57.

Key Card Changes

E-wing Type B

• title. E-wing only.
• 0 / 0 / 0
• You may treat green maneuvers as white maneuvers. After you execute a white maneuver, if you did not overlap an obstacle or ship, you may perform a free evade action.

R2-D2
See: X-wing post.

Sample Loadouts

All E-wings have "E-wing Type B" equipped.

• Knave Squadron Pilot + Fire Control System (54 points)
• Blackmoon Squadron Pilot + Fire Control System (57 points)
• Corran Horn + Veteran Instincts + Fire Control System {droid slot unfilled} (71 points)
• Corran Horn + Veteran Instincts + Fire Control System + R2-D2 (77 points)
• Corran Horn + Veteran Instincts + Fire Control System + Engine Upgrade {droid slot unfilled} (80 points)
• Corran Horn + Veteran Instincts + Fire Control System + R2-D2 + Engine Upgrade (86 points)
• Corran Horn + Push the Limit + Advanced Sensors + R2-D2 + Engine Upgrade (87 points)

An EpT on the Blackmoon would have been great. Especially with FCS and Snap Shot. Or even Juke.

Nice change on R2D2 (even with my horror of dual cards^^). I note that you don't even propose Corran build without him; do you think there's really no point loading him with another droid, even with your changes? Is he too costy anyway to take the risk of PtL + R2 astro ?

So basically E wings got some sort of x7 treatment. Should do the trick.

On 12/3/2017 at 6:26 PM, Arschbombe said:

How could you forget Chaser?!

I had originally only included pilots that had changed costs, and Chaser's remained the same. Fixed!

8 hours ago, Giledhil said:

An EpT on the Blackmoon would have been great. Especially with FCS and Snap Shot. Or even Juke.

Nice change on R2D2 (even with my horror of dual cards^^). I note that you don't even propose Corran build without him; do you think there's really no point loading him with another droid, even with your changes? Is he too costy anyway to take the risk of PtL + R2 astro ?

So basically E wings got some sort of x7 treatment. Should do the trick.

An EPT on the PS3 E-wing is worth considering, with corresponding cost / tier adjustment. I will put it to a poll later.

Yeah I got lazy and didn't include all the Corran builds. He costs 6 points now on Corran, so I made a couple droid-less versions for reference.

I implemented R2-D2 as a single-sided card, so you put a shield token on him (max 1) on turns you don't regen, and pull the shield token off on turns you do regen. This makes it super easy to proxy with the existing card.

On 11/27/2017 at 11:02 PM, MajorJuggler said:

T-65 X-wing

Key Card Changes

R2-D2
5 / 6 / 6
Astromech
After you execute a green maneuver, you may remove 1 shield token from this card to recover one shield (up to your shield value). After you execute any maneuver and you do not recover a shield, you may place 1 shield token on this card if it does not already have a shield token on it.

On 12/4/2017 at 0:29 AM, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

Though, for the record, I wouldn't be excited even if someone found a homebrew "magic bullet" that had a near-flawless way of increasing competitive diversity without any complexity baggage. Because, as cool as that would be, the king doesn't move 2 spaces . Like, I'm happy to grant that your version is almost certainly an improvement over FFG's version, at least with regards to list-building variety and competitiveness of options. Nevertheless, even if your system was drastically better at balance, I've not got any personal interest in it. The complexity required to maintain digital organization of all the new information and the headspace storage (memory) of all the new text and costs would be daunting, while having to then also invest effort into finding or convincing folks to play a homebrew version instead of the actual game (and sometimes these days it's hard enough to get a regular game of X-Wing with an opponent, outside of a tournament), plus I have so little time to spend on X-Wing as it is and I wouldn't have any interest in splitting my interest between "Real X-Wing" and "Fake But Better X-Wing." And I wouldn't want to give up the Real Game (its blemishes be damned).

THIS is exactly what annoys me when people argue that certain ideas or ships don't need to be in the game because "if you want that, DIY."

Because, if it's a good idea, it should be a good idea officially.

44 minutes ago, Darth Meanie said:

THIS is exactly what annoys me when people argue that certain ideas or ships don't need to be in the game because "if you want that, DIY."

Because, if it's a good idea, it should be a good idea officially.

In an ideal world everything would already be balanced and this project would be redundant, but such is not reality, nor will it be for the forseeable future. FFG is highly limited in their ability to balance the game, from both a business perspective and due to technical capability. Even ignoring the triple cost implementation of upgrade cards used here, FFG doesn't even do cost changes, which is a necessary (although not sufficient) condition for achieving balance.

It's far easier for FFG to add new content that the community has expressed interest in, like the Gunboat. But retreading old ships is rare, let alone making all the ships good across the board. We're into wave 13 and the wave 1 X-wing is still not competitive.

2 hours ago, MajorJuggler said:

In an ideal world everything would already be balanced and this project would be redundant, but such is not reality, nor will it be for the forseeable future. FFG is highly limited in their ability to balance the game, from both a business perspective and due to technical capability. Even ignoring the triple cost implementation of upgrade cards used here, FFG doesn't even do cost changes, which is a necessary (although not sufficient) condition for achieving balance.

It's far easier for FFG to add new content that the community has expressed interest in, like the Gunboat. But retreading old ships is rare, let alone making all the ships good across the board. We're into wave 13 and the wave 1 X-wing is still not competitive.

I do not mean to denigrate your contributions to this game in any way, shape, or form. You have obviously invested a lot of intelligent man-hours into tracking, clarifying, and promoting what this game could be. In fact, it makes me a bit sad to see that in the end, the only conclusion you could come to is that the old game is not salvageable.

OTOH, I guess I am in the same camp with @AllWingsStandyingBy . While "real" XWM exists, I am unlikely to go down the rabbit hole of "improved" XWM.

And for my own selfish, casual-player-only reasons, used the same notion as a jumping off point for why FFG needs to address the desires of non-tournament players. Ergo, DIY, even if better, does not carry the same weight in the XW community as "FFG sanctioned."

You cannot find a well-balanced game.

I cannot find one with a strong SW narrative.

We are both sad pandas.

Personally, I think the FFG-approved 100/6 format is actually pretty weak as far as SW narratives go. It's competitive tournament play, which happens to be set in the Star Wars universe, but you might get stuck flying against not-super-Star-Warsey toilet seats all day long. That's part of the motivation here, X-wings should be good! Or you can play HoTAC, but again that's not FFG official.

Is there any progress toward finding a list builder?

I cajoled Geordan just a bit to do it, but he seems X-Wing-fatigued and not up for the major re-tooling YAXWSB would need.

I really want to help with testing your ideas, MJ, and there's at least one other player I know of that would also, but the job is just too big without a list builder.

2 minutes ago, Jeff Wilder said:

Is there any progress toward finding a list builder?

I cajoled Geordan just a bit to do it, but he seems X-Wing-fatigued and not up for the major re-tooling YAXWSB would need.

I really want to help with testing your ideas, MJ, and there's at least one other player I know of that would also, but the job is just too big without a list builder.

There's a chap from the U.K. that may help, but it's not 100% and with no timeframe, so I am very much still looking!

1 minute ago, MajorJuggler said:

There's a chap from the U.K. that may help, but it's not 100% and with no timeframe, so I am very much still looking!

If it helps as a selling point, I'd be willing to do fairly large-scale text entry toward the project. Geordan always told me that getting all the text in without mistakes or typos was one of the biggest parts of the job.

Just now, Jeff Wilder said:

If it helps as a selling point, I'd be willing to do fairly large-scale text entry toward the project. Geordan always told me that getting all the text in without mistakes or typos was one of the biggest parts of the job.

Yeah I will need to boostrap the data from my spreadsheet into a json format. I may be able to write a script to at least partially automate it, but at a minimum a manual check will be needed. Of course we need a builder that can import it first...

T-70 X-wing

Overview
T-70 X-wings get all the same buffs that the T-65 X-wings get, along with cost tweaks across the board. All T-70 X-wings, like T-65s, can simultaneously equip Integrated Astromech, X-wing Refit, and one other modification, which will almost always default to Autothrusters. Their straight line efficiency is very good, but is still a hair shy of the T-65 X-wing, since they pay a slight tax for boost. They are probably the best generalist fixed-arc ships in the game, but some playtesting is needed to see if point costs should go up by about a point across the board.

Pilot Tiers

• Tier 2 X-wings: Jess Pava, Snap Wexley, Red Ace, Poe Dameron (both PS8 and PS9)
• Tier 3 X-wings: Blue Squadron Novice (PS2), Red Squadron Veteran (PS4), Blue Ace, Nien Nunb, Ello Atsy

Pilot Costs and Ability Changes

• Blue Squadron Novice (PS2): cost decreased from 48 to 45.
• Jess Pava (PS3): cost increased from 50 to 55.
• Red Squadron Veteran (PS4): cost decreased from 52 to 50.
• Blue Ace (PS5): cost decreased from 54 to 50.
• Snap Wexley (PS6): cost decreased from 56 to 54.
• Red Ace (PS6): cost increased from 58 to 59, and ability changed to " The first time you remove a shield token from your ship each round, if you are unstressed then assign 1 evade token to your ship ".
• Nien Nunb (PS7): cost decreased from 58 to 56.
• Ello Atsy (PS7): cost decreased from 60 to 57.
• Poe Dameron (PS8): cost remains 62.
• Poe Dameron (PS9): cost remains 66.

Key Card Changes

Integrated Astromech, X-wing Refit, Incom Refit, astromechs
See: T-65 X-wing post.

Sample Loadouts
Note: all T-70 X-wings include Integrated Astromech, X-wing Refit, and Autothrusters

• Blue Squadron Novice + R5 (50 points)
• Jess Pava + R5 (61 points)
• Red Ace + Comm Relay + R2-D2 (70 points)
• Nien Nunb + Push the Limit + Pattern Analyzer + Targeting Astromech (70 points)
• Poe Dameron (PS8) + Veteran Instincts + BB-8 + Black One (78 points)
• Poe Dameron (PS9) + Intensity + Comm Relay + R2-D2 + Black One (85 points)