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That being, do AI ships individually break formation, or does the entire formation break the moment one of them breaks?

This is how I understood it.

22 minutes ago, Firespray-32 said:

This is how I understood it.

Um which, you quoted both possibilities?

We’ve always played that the individual breaks away but the others stay in formation.

2 hours ago, Deathseed said:

Um which, you quoted both possibilities?

Oops. Breaking the entire formation is what I meant to quote.

I checked the rulebook and that's indeed how it works: once the formation is broken it breaks completely. Page 25.

11 minutes ago, Bullox said:

We’ve always played that the individual breaks away but the others stay in formation.

That's how I took it to be, but then their combat example threw a monkey in my wrench.

One redditor told me they individually break formation to swerve, but all break if any of them take damage.

1 minute ago, Firespray-32 said:

Oops. Breaking the entire formation is what I meant to quote.

I checked the rulebook and that's indeed how it works: once the formation is broken it breaks completely. Page 25.

Aye. That's the bit that got me pondering it.

We may play it the way I mentioned above though. Makes a bit more sense to me at least.

1 minute ago, Deathseed said:

That's how I took it to be, but then their combat example threw a monkey in my wrench.

One redditor told me they individually break formation to swerve, but all break if any of them take damage.

Hmm. We’ve played through all of HotAC and are in season two of Battle Star Pallas but we have never had them break formation because of damage. Funny if we’ve been doing it wrong the whole time. I guess it doesn’t really matter as long as you’re consistent. I’ll read through the rules again and see if I can learn anything.

2 hours ago, Deathseed said:

Aye. That's the bit that got me pondering it.

We may play it the way I mentioned above though. Makes a bit more sense to me at least.

The idea is they fly in a group on the approach but once they come under fire or get close enough to be blocked they scatter.

It’s an unsanctioned alternate format. Play it the way it makes sense to you.

My HotAC group only breaks off the ship that left the formation. The rules and denizens of the internet might disagree. I don’t care, because to my group it makes sense that one ship might peel off while 2-3 others stay in formation. It also makes sense from the perspective of efficient gameplay. Resolving fewer individual AI’s smoothes the flow of the mission.

Here is the text from the manual -

AI Ships will break from their Formation and act independently when one of three things happen:

6 hours ago, Bullox said:

Here is the text from the manual -

Breaking Formation

AI Ships will break from their Formation and act independently when one of three things happen:

1) The ship is no longer at Range 1 of any other ship in its formation.

2) The ship is no longer facing the same direction as the majority of ships in a formation. This can happen due to swerving to avoid an obstacle, or being unable complete a maneuver due to overlapping other ships.

3) One (or more) ships in the formation collides with, or suffers damage from, a player-controlled (Rebel) ship. Do not break formation for Imperial collisions.

Now, as noted, folks can do whatever they want and just have fun. No need to over-analyze anything.

But, for funzies, let’s have a look:

The first statement could be read two different ways:

It could mean that an individual ship will break away from the rest of the intact formation if one of 3 things happens ...

OR

It could mean the formation will break apart and all of the ships will act independently if one of 3 things happens ...

Conditions 1 and 2 feel more like the first version but condition 3 feels more like the second version.

The example combat described in the manual explicitly states that the whole formation breaks apart and all of the ships act independently if any ship in the formation takes damage from Rebel ship actions.

The example combat also includes a Tie fighter that swerved due to an obstacle which meets condition number 2 for breaking formation but, unfortunately, this happens in the same round as another Tie fighter takes damage which meets condition number 3 which unequivocally causes the whole formation to break.

The way the combat example is written, it feels to me like what’s happening with the swerving Tie fighter is that it would have broken formation by itself leaving the rest of the formation intact but that this is a mute point since the whole formation is broken anyway due to the other Tie fighter taking damage. This seems to support an interpretation where conditions number 1 and 2 only affect the individual ship in question leaving the rest of the formation intact.

tl/dr - the redditor probably has it right.

Thank you for eloquently enumerating my exact observations on the subject. It is honestly like you read my mind and bothered to type out what I was (frankly) too lazy to explain.

Very well done!

And yeah, there could be arguments for more than one interpretation, but as observed, I think I prefer the redditor's take on the subject.

(Though to be fair, I played a metric butt-load of X-Wing and TIE Fighter PC back in the day, and fondly remember TIE formations shattering the moment one of them took all four blaster cannons in the face , so I'm inclined towards that answer.)