Just saying right here and now that I honestly don't think each visual dictionary / cutaway is correct, and you know what?

I'm blaming the story group. It is their responsibility to ensure this type of stuff is coordinated, and when it comes to starships, they are doing an excruciatingly poor job, and I am not impressed.

It was indeed not given a crew despite its MASSIVE FREAKING SIZE (which btw is downscaled considerably) because of Sabine. They need to nerf her already to both have a R1-2 limit and/or a freakin die roll not auto damage. Quit doing the same thing you did with Biggs and "try to design around him" instead of just going WHAM with the nerfhammer.

Which is hilarious because its not like its hard to bring sabine in something else. I ran Crimson Leader + Miranda yesterday mostly as a joke dropping 6 clusters 2 conners and 2 proton bombs across the map....i won after only doing 3 damage with my guns. Granted, my opponent wasnt the tankiest (doubleviper + kfighter) but not the squishiest either.

I think they wanted to avoid giving us a "fortress" which is what it technically should have been. You're right, it should have been a mobile arc 4die attack. But it would end up costing more than FatRey does, by probably a considerate amount, to make bringing any ship with it really difficult.

To make things worse, they gimped its use to only using reveal bombs. Action bombs are literally just a "dump them as you go to choke the map up" as you will never put them in someones face with a clunky large base and none of its abilities or upgrades let it use action bombs differently (though i do believe the guy that can place bombs touching him CAN use action bombs that way....needs a faq)

3 hours ago, Odanan said:

I would find much more satisfactory if the TIE Striker had bombs and maybe even cannon (it has 6 guns) and/or crew.

I have a major problem with the striker - if it’s so damned good at everything why did the /ln exist in the first place?

Just now, Estarriol said:

I have a major problem with the striker - if it’s so damned good at everything why did the /ln exist in the first place?

Which is why I'm happy with it as shown in the film and the implied bit from its dial; in atmosphere, it's deadly. Out of atmosphere (where 'ailerons' shouldn't do anything if we're honest), it's tolerable but you'd probably rather be in a 'proper' TIE fighter.

Bombs and crew and cannons would be nice, but would definitely make it a much bigger, more expensive ship.

27 minutes ago, Captain Lackwit said:

I'm blaming the story group. It is their responsibility to ensure this type of stuff is coordinated, and when it comes to starships, they are doing an excruciatingly poor job, and I am not impressed.

Agreed. As noted, I can forgive last minute changes of plot due to reshoots, or random verbiage where someone's description in a fluff piece implies the guns should be heavy laser cannons not medium lasers. However, surely to god FFG didn't make up B/SF-17 themselves, but got it from Disney. In which case, why the heck did...I assume DK (they tend to do the cutaway books) get told MG-100 Starfortress?

You'd think that there'd be the same one-paragraph description sent around to everyone doing 'stuff' (the Cobalt Squadron author, FFG, DK, Lego, whatever) when the stuff was first commissioned, with at least enough detail that they all thought it had the same name .

Strikers are in a weird spot.

They make little sense compared to the movie but theyre still awesome on table. I feel like if they gave them ANY extra slots they'd be priced slightly more and thus too expensive to bother with. As it is, only reason they even get used is because theyre a dirt cheap 3die attack thats capable of mildly changing its maneuver on the fly and its difficult to pin down.

Never, ever used strikers as the main force in a list. Theyre always the "I got 26pts left over..." kind of ship. Which is exactly enough for Sabaac.

The aileron move would make their bombing lethal too since they could essentially drop it to the side. It would only be 1 bomb slot but random seismics never hurt.....ok they do hurt somebody

Also the Striker isnt meant to be in space. It CAN be in space but it wont go very far from the planet since it loses a lot of its potential the thinner the atmosphere gets. Look at it when it gets stressed and it cant use the ailerons - its pathetically slow compared to the /ln.

6 hours ago, DarthRossi said:

the MG-100 StarFortress

Can't believe I didn't mention this earlier, but that is a woeful name.

35 minutes ago, Magnus Grendel said:

Agreed. As noted, I can forgive last minute changes of plot due to reshoots, or random verbiage where someone's description in a fluff piece implies the guns should be heavy laser cannons not medium lasers. However, surely to god FFG didn't make up B/SF-17 themselves, but got it from Disney. In which case, why the heck did...I assume DK (they tend to do the cutaway books) get told MG-100 Starfortress?

You'd think that there'd be the same one-paragraph description sent around to everyone doing 'stuff' (the Cobalt Squadron author, FFG, DK, Lego, whatever) when the stuff was first commissioned, with at least enough detail that they all thought it had the same name .

I don't know. But it's a distinct type of inconsistency that really bothers me, especially as a starship aficionado in absolutely every single sense. Honestly, I prefer the B/SF-17 designation as opposed to the woefully generic MG-100 StarFortress (since that's SUCH An obvious play on the good old fashioned B-29 Superfortress. Ugh.)- makes it seem like a genuine advancement and it answers why the B-Wing MK II was canceled.

They didn't need another fighter, they needed a Bomber.

The Story Group has managed to keep many things consistent, but vessels? Not even close. We can't get a straight answer on what ANYTHING does and it irks me to no end.

What if both names are right? Like there's some in-universe design history with two different corporations giving that ship their own respective moniker, or pilots referring to it as a B/sf-17 or vice-versa out of respect to an older craft. Flimsy justification sure but I could see it happening.

3 minutes ago, Hylian100 said:

What if both names are right? Like there's some in-universe design history with two different corporations giving that ship their own respective moniker, or pilots referring to it as a B/sf-17 or vice-versa out of respect to an older craft. Flimsy justification sure but I could see it happening.

You can retroactively justify anything.

5 minutes ago, Hylian100 said:

What if both names are right? Like there's some in-universe design history with two different corporations giving that ship their own respective moniker, or pilots referring to it as a B/sf-17 or vice-versa out of respect to an older craft. Flimsy justification sure but I could see it happening.

Justifying something after the fact is easy enough, and I have no doubt that sooner or later something will.

The point is, and remains, the FFG "Resistance Bomber" expansion calls it by one name, and the Visual Dictionary by another, despite both being produced under license from the same people at the same time.

1 minute ago, thespaceinvader said:

You can retroactively justify anything.

Exactly. Also, ninja-ed.

6 minutes ago, Captain Lackwit said:

Honestly, I prefer the B/SF-17 designation as opposed to the woefully generic MG-100 StarFortress (since that's SUCH An obvious play on the good old fashioned B-29 Superfortress. Ugh.)

To be fair, B/SF-17 could be considered a play on the B-17 flying fortress, so....

I know star wars has always been "WWII air combat but iiiiin spaaaaaace" but they could at least try to be a little subtle about it.

Oh well.

I care a lot more about gameplay and balance than I do fluff.

Yeah, the retroactive justification was exactly my point, and perfectly in keeping with Star Wars tradition.

23 minutes ago, Captain Lackwit said:

I don't know. But it's a distinct type of inconsistency that really bothers me, especially as a starship aficionado in absolutely every single sense. Honestly, I prefer the B/SF-17 designation as opposed to the woefully generic MG-100 StarFortress (since that's SUCH An obvious play on the good old fashioned B-29 Superfortress. Ugh.)- makes it seem like a genuine advancement and it answers why the B-Wing MK II was canceled.

They didn't need another fighter, they needed a Bomber.

The Story Group has managed to keep many things consistent, but vessels? Not even close. We can't get a straight answer on what ANYTHING does and it irks me to no end.

Both names are ridiculous.

B/SF-17 is an obvious play on the B-17 Flying fortress from WW2. It made me cringe when I first read it. MG-100 Starfortress is at least a little more Star Wars like.

28 minutes ago, FTS Gecko said:

Can't believe I didn't mention this earlier, but that is a woeful name.

Much better than in-your-face B/SF-17 IMO.

I guess you can justify it with B/SF-17 being the factory designation and MG-100 the armed forces designation (like Su-57/T-50) or the other way around.

*rabble rabble* my game of pew pew pew fictional starships isn't accurate *rabble rabble*

Speaking of ridiculous, minor spoiler, the dictionary states that EVERY. SINGLE. T-85 X-WING (and I guess all the documentation and factories) has been destroyed by DS3 in TFA and now T-70 is the most advanced X-wing

Some top notch believable world building here, as expected from the sequel trillogy.

^This. I cannot like this enough. It gets tiresome.

My only way to square this circle is to say that the T-85 lines have to start cranking them out again. But all of them destroyed? That's lame.

1 hour ago, IceManHG said:

Both names are ridiculous.

B/SF-17 is an obvious play on the B-17 Flying fortress from WW2. It made me cringe when I first read it. MG-100 Starfortress is at least a little more Star Wars like.

I'd be willing to be it was originally the B/SF-17 StarFortress, and someone saw the OBVIOUS B-17 Flying Fortress similarity and went "yeah...no...."

****...It's right there in the name B/SF-17. "Bomber/StarFortress-17"

Just now, Shokupanman said:

I'd be willing to be it was originally the B/SF-17 StarFortress, and someone saw the OBVIOUS B-17 Flying Fortress similarity and went "yeah...no...."

****...It's right there in the name B/SF-17. "Bomber/StarFortress-17"

It's more likely a callback to A/SF-01 B-wing.

7 hours ago, eMeM said:

Speaking of ridiculous, minor spoiler, the dictionary states that EVERY. SINGLE. T-85 X-WING (and I guess all the documentation and factories) has been destroyed by DS3 in TFA and now T-70 is the most advanced X-wing

Some top notch believable world building here, as expected from the sequel trillogy.

Wow, so somehow the New Republic had all of its ship manufacturers in the same system...that is uh an idea I guess. Seriously, like are there no New Republic ships that were on patrol or doing anything else when the attack went down? Since I'd imagine a few would be on that. And well it also just points out that miraculously somehow the New Republic became worse than the galactic republic, like if something happens what exactly were they expecting to send to deal with the threat? I guess planetary systems were told 'Take care of crap yourselves!'

As for the name change it is silly but lets not forget that at one point these two ships were the same during episode 3's release.

So yea, I imagine retcons will be a thing down the line.

Perhaps this is the bomb variant, rather than the line ship variant. As such, maybe there'll be an upgrade down the road in some "Jakku to [place from next movie]" campaign set. I'd throw it in the Bomb slot rather than Title, so you could keep Crossfire Formation.

MG-100 StarFortress . Bomb (??? Points). B/SF-17 Only. You cannot equip bombs. Your upgrade bar gains crew, crew, and cannon slots.

or

MG-100 StarFortress . Bomb (??? Points). B/SF-17 Only. +2 Energy. You cannot equip bombs. Your upgrade bar gains crew, team, and hardpoint slots. Gain 2 Energy after you perform a Green maneuver. Gain 1 energy after you perform a White maneuver.

Alternately, if a campaign set was including new pilot and ship tokens, why not just make a new ship using the same model/dial, and radically different upgrade bars and stat lines. They kinda did that with the Outer Rim Smuggler and the named Millennium Falcon pilots. That might be cleaner than some sort of a title-based refit.

6 hours ago, FTS Gecko said:

I've never seen a Lambda shoot anything either on the big screen, let alone out of it's backside. And Anti Pursuit lasers sum up what it can do in the PC games pretty well (it was the Escort Shuttle that had the PITA aft turbolasers).

Mostly, I'll just say that immediate default assumption on the boards that FFG fkd up pisses me off. Love the game, love the devs.

46 minutes ago, theBitterFig said:

Perhaps this is the bomb variant, rather than the line ship variant. As such, maybe there'll be an upgrade down the road in some "Jakku to [place from next movie]" campaign set. I'd throw it in the Bomb slot rather than Title, so you could keep Crossfire Formation.

MG-100 StarFortress . Bomb (??? Points). B/SF-17 Only. You cannot equip bombs. Your upgrade bar gains crew, crew, and cannon slots.

or

MG-100 StarFortress . Bomb (??? Points). B/SF-17 Only. +2 Energy. You cannot equip bombs. Your upgrade bar gains crew, team, and hardpoint slots. Gain 2 Energy after you perform a Green maneuver. Gain 1 energy after you perform a White maneuver.

Alternately, if a campaign set was including new pilot and ship tokens, why not just make a new ship using the same model/dial, and radically different upgrade bars and stat lines. They kinda did that with the Outer Rim Smuggler and the named Millennium Falcon pilots. That might be cleaner than some sort of a title-based refit.

This was my immediate thought: free future title cards!!

I also prefer the StarFortress name. I mean, I know the whole galaxy is based on German military uniforms and WWII dogfights, but a little extra distance is nice.

OTOH, MiG-100 conjures a different real-world connection.

7 hours ago, Odanan said:

They are just not looking for info.

Can't be helped if the info doesn't exist. I don't think this is FFG's fault. LFL is supposedly very picky in the handling of their IP. That star wars game by Visceral was apparently cancelled in part because the Star Wars corporate side was very micromanage-y, down to needing to approve every little detail of the costumes. FFG writers have said LFL approves all their ships, and sometimes asks them to delay or change details because of on-going developments.

So somebody from Lucasfilm looked at "B/SF-17" on a card and said "This is fine". And of course with physical printing, if that stops becoming fine somewhere in the printing and shipping phase, FFG can do **** all about it.

EDIT: Also to the general name convention, both are crazy obvious IRL references, I prefer B/SF-17 because it harkens to the B-Wing model designation. Given its looks, you could totally see it as an evolution of the Strike/Attack duties of a B to deal with, say, ridiculously oversized and under defended capital ships.

Also FFG did shoot themselves in the foot by making HLT C-ROC only. Details of them being "heavy" laser turrets probably didn't come out until now, but I think Hard Points might model best to avoid our usual "just add TLT" problem, but also much like the Falcon I'm not sure primary weapons and two independently operated turrets is necessarily modeled by mobile arcs.

Blame The Mouse, not FFG.

could it be possible that the MG starfortress is a larger version and the B/SF is a smaller ship? Not unlike the different sized corvettes?

7 hours ago, clanofwolves said:

as @ficklegreendice always laments: gameplay > fluff

And it remains as wrong as ever.

If I wanted my models to not represent Star Wars, I'd plays some other game, and not a ****ing Star Wars game.