6 hours ago, devin.pike.1989 said:

Do not want. It will either be a $50 model that sits on the board for one round then flies off or a weird neutered version of a starfighter that kind of sadly flies in a circle. I would much rather have them represented through a card effect. If you want dogfights play x-wing.

^ This. 100% would prefer it just be a card effect rather than a massive model on the board

13 minutes ago, Derrault said:

It may not even be possible for a 1-2 speed unit to actually get to the far side of a 6 foot map in 6 turns. Even if speed 2 is 6 inches, that would require two activations for all 6 turns to achieve...which sounds impossible considering the probability of suppression.

Under that kind of rubric, there would be plenty of room for a transport. A gunship, for example (the clone wars one seems like an obvious possibility if they expand to that era)

Fair point, it does depend on how the measuring tools translate to actual measurements. A smallish ground based transport, I could see, like the ITT. But the size of many of the known air transports is prohibitive for inclusion as actual models and not just Command card effects.

Yeah....i mentioned this in the last thread about this, and Devin.Pike nailed it.

There's no way i want miniatures for fighters, simply because theres no way to make them even remotely accurate to fluff unless they are basically never on the board. The last thing i want is a repeat of the sad sights i see in 40K games, with a flyer circling forlornly around a tiny (relative to a fighters speed) bit of ground. And it's either that, or you'd only see it for about a second or two as it does a strafing run or bomb attack.

Cards are the solution 1`00% imo.

the main thing I dislike about the command cards is they are basically just a free attack that can be made almost anywhere on the board. With actual units you can interact with them, supress them or other ways of negating or weakening the attack just like other units. The AT-AT and orbital bombardment make sense as cards because those were out of reach for the kind of weapons we are dealing with. Starfighters on the other hand were susceptible to hand held weapons, at least close to the ground.

I'm with alot of you where I don't want to see fighters circling the battlefield, but I think they could be done in a balanced way without just putting them as command abilities.

I don't really think attacking fighters are particularly susceptible to handheld weapons.

Even IF you could hit them (very far from a simple task given the speed an attacking fighter is going to move at), it takes fairly heavy firepower to even damage one. Most/all of them can survive multiple hits from even starfighter scale weaponry, which is an order of magnitude larger and more powerful than anything handheld. I've never really read or seen anything where an attacking fighter is downed by ground weaponry in Star Wars....maybe there's an edge case or two, but really not much.

The only options would be to make them far more vulnerable than the fluff says they should be, or make them pretty much unkillable using infantry scale weapons whilst at the same time they would have enough firepower to erase an AT-ST (or insert target of choice here) with one attack (See X-Wings taking out AT-ACTs on Scarif....without even bothering to use their torpedoes).

Personally i just don't see it. I don't want them watered down to that level.

Chirrut downs a TIE in one shot with a hand held weapon in Rogue One, yes he used the force to hit it but it is a good example of the damage that a hand held weapon could do.

Poes X-wing also gets disabled by a pair of Stormtroopers using their standard blasters at the beginning of The Force Awakens.

58 minutes ago, jcmonson said:

The AT-AT and orbital bombardment make sense as cards because those were out of reach for the kind of weapons we are dealing with. Starfighters on the other hand were susceptible to hand held weapons, at least close to the ground.

We have the T-47 in the game WITH Harpoons, but AT-AT's are out of reach of the weapons the game has? Heck, we see an AT-AT taken out with a lightsaber and a handheld explosive in Empire. I can think of multiple instances off hand where starships are shot at by infantry weapons to no ill effect whatsoever (Stormtroopers shooting at the Falcon, Slave 1 taking off from Bespin, Finn and Poe's stolen TIE/sf).

1 minute ago, jcmonson said:

Chirrut downs a TIE in one shot with a hand held weapon in Rogue One, yes he used the force to hit it but it is a good example of the damage that a hand held weapon could do.

Poes X-wing also gets disabled by a pair of Stormtroopers using their standard blasters at the beginning of The Force Awakens.

Poe had not yet turned on his shields. We later see in Force Awakens a First Order TIE which has shields, take significantly more fire from those same blasters to no ill effect. So shielded ships will just ignore everything for the length of time they are on the board.

I'll grant you the lightbow taking down a TIE, but lightbows are forms of bowcasters, which are known for inflicting much more damage and are usually difficult for human use. In fact, that Chirrut's lightbow was capable of taking down a TIE is considered notable. We also see plenty of media where TIEs strafe ground targets and are not shot down, or are shot down during the run, meaning they still inflict damage, they just won't be returning for a second pass. The speed most starships can travel would only have them on the board for a single turn, perfect for a Command Card.

35 minutes ago, Extropia said:

I don't really think attacking fighters are particularly susceptible to handheld weapons.

Especially not anything with a decent shield array. We already have a weird case of Airspeeders flying into grenades, no need for this to get weirder or significantly more complicated than it already is.

8 minutes ago, jcmonson said:

Chirrut downs a TIE in one shot with a hand held weapon in Rogue One, yes he used the force to hit it but it is a good example of the damage that a hand held weapon could do.

Poes X-wing also gets disabled by a pair of Stormtroopers using their standard blasters at the beginning of The Force Awakens.

Without shields up, I think the starfighters are vulnerable to small arms fire if hit in the right areas. If I recall correctly, TIEs don’t have shields - which would be how Chirrut could down one with a lucky shot, and Poe’s X-wing was powered down - which is why the Stormtroopers could blow it up with rifles

Like i said...edge cases (a force aimed shot? That isnt normal...). And Poes was definitely not an "attacking fighter".

I understand people may have different views with perfectly valid reasons, but i stand by mine. it'd just feel really overpowered, or really unfluffy.

There is also already a very successful miniature game with x wings. I would rather see that integrated in some way on a separate board. It might even encourage people to use original xwings and tie fighters again!

6 minutes ago, devin.pike.1989 said:

There is also already a very successful miniature game with x wings. I would rather see that integrated in some way on a separate board. It might even encourage people to use original xwings and tie fighters again!

Now that is an idea i could get behind!

9 minutes ago, devin.pike.1989 said:

There is also already a very successful miniature game with x wings. I would rather see that integrated in some way on a separate board. It might even encourage people to use original xwings and tie fighters again!

This is my line of thinking. Would be very easy to have an area in the middle of an X Wing board, to imply a battlefield. Fly over that area and take an action for strafing runs, or bomb dropping. Could even have full size turrets on the Legion, and proxy turrets on the X Wing board to be taken out. Transpots trying to evac troops as well as secondary objectives...

Full on simultaneous operations.

Has anybody here played Dropfleet Commander?

In short its a game conducted at low altitude planetary orbit, trying to land troops. Despite being "space" ships, the table is actually a ground map representing part of a planet.

A similar system would work excellent for a game of x-wing run at the same time as a ground game.

They could affect terrain too! Have your tie bomber blow up the house those rebels are hiding behind.

As regards fighters zipping around, Ties in TFA are shown comfortably hovering in fixed position while firing.

Also rather than a commander card parse was thinking something from a support slot, so a card unit that works in the same way as command card but with its own naunces and as support allow for unit zipping in and out the battle field and without crippling a commander with a heavy points cost for what maybe a meh effect.

In the 8 films we've had now, 4 of them have fighters, bombers and transports such as in Attack of the Clones involved in the ground based combat. Would seem in any battle of reasonable size an airforce of some type is involved of the notable firefights we've had, 50% involve aircraft directly in the battle.

Although there maybe some scope for a battle running along side for X-Wing and Armada on a different table given the influence on the Battles in PM, ROTJ and RO on the final outcome.

20 hours ago, OMGBRICK said:

Outside of Leia and Veers’ orbital strikes, they could borrow from Bolt Action and release some sort of forward observer that can call in air strikes. This would allow for a starfighter presence without requiring obscenely large models.

Could this be a good role for the Imperial scouts (and their Alliance equivalents)?

Plenty of good ideas on this thread. I would favour limited-use cards to inflict precision strikes, straffing runs (with heightened suppression) or air superiority (i e hamper the enemies use of air units). Players can optionally use models alongside the cards to enhance the game.

Aa Omgbrick suggested, Air units could lead to specialist roles to call them in. You also in turn have fugures with special roles/abilities e.g. R2-D2s sensor ability detects incoming fighters, delaying their use by a turn to represent the advance warning and giving units a chance to go to cover.

For my own purposes I have just bought and assembled two U-Wings that will provide air-lift/ reinforcements in my current 20mm Star Wars battle...but thats a story for another post

6 minutes ago, LordAdmiralAndy said:

As regards fighters zipping around, Ties in TFA are shown comfortably hovering in fixed position while firing.

Also rather than a commander card parse was thinking something from a support slot, so a card unit that works in the same way as command card but with its own naunces and as support allow for unit zipping in and out the battle field and without crippling a commander with a heavy points cost for what maybe a meh effect.

The problem is still there has to be some unit that your opponent can interact with using their other models, and not just with a specific other abstracted card "unit." So some kind of support spotter single model unit, sure, I've got no major problem. The command card off board support requires the Commander to still be on the battlefield and simultaneously prevents unforeseen broken combos.

I think this is an interesting difference in approach to game design.

One side says "we want a battle. A battle should have troops, vehicles, artillery and aircraft. How doe we represent each of these things in a tabletop game?".

The other side says "let's make a game that offers some really cool mechanics and decisions. How about we apply a theme of combat to that collection of mechanics?".

In x-wing, ffg leaned heavily towards the first. Armada was a little more balanced but legion seems to lean more towards good solid mechanics and decisions.

If your objective is to make solid gameplay then you have to approach things with an attitude of what does the game need? rather than what can I fit in the game?

One of the reasons that I an so attracted to legion is that the board game heritage is very obvious. The system is tight and the game gives specific parameters to work within. It's not a sprawling simulation (which I have played my fair share of) it is a tailored contest.

Anyways, my point in all this is that ffg has given us a game with a very specific scale and effect and trying to put everything in terms of a unit may not work.

I think the best idea for starfighters may actually be a weather condition card. Maybe a condition where anytime a unit moved through the open, they have to roll to see if they attract fire from the air.

I think Devin has a fairpoint about the perspectives at work. I prefer the former as all of those have been a part of ground battles so not having one or more featured would leave a feeling of something missing and for a boardgame inspired approach well IA already does that, including some snazzy vehicles.

IMO Legion as a name does lend itself to the broader scope of more combined arms including air war being a feature, but if a success there maybe a Ground version of Armada of sorts which would more comfortably fit AT-ATs and X-Wings but thats a more time will tell if at all kinda debate.

As it is there's certainly room in the scale for Jetpack troops and Wookie Thopters, and the Imperial Transport/Prison craft from Rebels and Hover Transport Tank from Roogue.

41 minutes ago, devin.pike.1989 said:

I think the best idea for starfighters may actually be a weather condition card. Maybe a condition where anytime a unit moved through the open, they have to roll to see if they attract fire from the air.

Terrible idea. This introduces an element of luck that can essentially decide the outcome of the game regardless of strategy since you can't avoid the open in an objective based game. I remember a decade or so ago Games Workshop came out with a special Warhammer fantasy army the "Lothern Sea Guard". Before the battle was fought, the Sea Guard player could bombard his opponent's army with imaginary boltthrowers. Since the damage done was dice based, sometimes it wouldn't do much, sometimes your elite units would be decimated and the battle outcome was pretty much decided before it started. Everyone hated that list.

If fighters are in any way introduced, they need to be counter-able. Not just a card that does random damage to your units.

4 minutes ago, Lord Tareq said:

If fighters are in any way introduced, they need to be counter-able. Not just a card that does random damage to your units.

Again, you mean like the Veers and Leia command cards do? They already have that sort of element being released in the game.

54 minutes ago, devin.pike.1989 said:

I think the best idea for starfighters may actually be a weather condition card. Maybe a condition where anytime a unit moved through the open, they have to roll to see if they attract fire from the air.

Make this an objective.

When taking the objective, you can declare an airstrike against any unit if the objective is no longer opposed.

17 minutes ago, Caimheul1313 said:

Again, you mean like the Veers and Leia command cards do? They already have that sort of element being released in the game.

Yes, but very limited in scope, respectively 6 and 4 red dice, usable only once per battle and counterable in that you can potentially kill the commanders before they use it. And because those 2 commanders have this doesn't mean this should be taken further and further so that we eventually end up with uncounterable random damage from X-wings, AT-AT's, long range Artillery strikes, Ewok gliders, Capital ships in orbit, the Death Star, etc..etc..

45 minutes ago, Lord Tareq said:

Terrible idea. This introduces an element of luck that can essentially decide the outcome of the game regardless of strategy since you can't avoid the open in an objective based game. I remember a decade or so ago Games Workshop came out with a special Warhammer fantasy army the "Lothern Sea Guard". Before the battle was fought, the Sea Guard player could bombard his opponent's army with imaginary boltthrowers. Since the damage done was dice based, sometimes it wouldn't do much, sometimes your elite units would be decimated and the battle outcome was pretty much decided before it started. Everyone hated that list.

If fighters are in any way introduced, they need to be counter-able. Not just a card that does random damage to your units.

Well it would affect both sides. And it would be counter able by sticking to cover. It could only be in turns 2,3 and 4 so you spend turns 1 and 2 getting into a position, deciding if you want to risk movement during the middle turns and then rushing for objectives at the end.

I think it's fair to say, such options as an actual unit probably will not happen. It's like people asking for the executor on Armada, even in a sliding scale it's just too **** big. (For reference, an ISD is canonically 1.6 km in length, the Executor is 19 km)

The U-Wing is just shy of 5 times the length of the Snowspeeder, itself a very sizable mini in this game. An X-Wing is over twice the size of one. Also, based on established keywords (Repulsor Vehicle, and how it interacts with say, Wedge Antilles) the intent seems not to include space capable craft. If they do, it will probably be through objectives, command cards or other upgrades. Eg, Cassian Andor or Jyn Erso as commanders (I favor Cassian because he's actually a commander type) might have a special order to do a gunship strafe on a target in range, or even make a unit redeploy at a location as if dropped from a gunship. Or maybe your troopers or special forces can equip an Artillery Remote equipment.

It should be noted that Leia and Veers attacks are not just "haha you take damage" it says it's an attack so you can assumedly roll defensive dice and apply bonuses to it. The intent is obviously to go before you have any special benefits, but that won't always be the case.