6 minutes ago, Darth Meanie said:

No offense, but this is cumbersome as fudge.

This game is getting a little too Condition happy, IMHO.

This:

fixes TIE swarms and any other generic ship you might want to finally get into the game.

So what you’re saying is that you’d like x3 Contracted Scouts to take over the meta again?

2 minutes ago, Herowannabe said:

So what you’re saying is that you’d like x3 Contracted Scouts to take over the meta again?

Would it? Post nerf?

OK so I realized ships need access to a second title, or you kill nearly all the "fixed" ships.

What if it specified "Primary Attack?"

The problem with the TIE swarm is while it should do well against most of the field, bombs and harpoons just eat it and there's not much you can do while playing wholesome single action generic pilots

32 minutes ago, Darth Meanie said:

Would it? Post nerf?

OK so I realized ships need access to a second title, or you kill nearly all the "fixed" ships.

What if it specified "Primary Attack?"

That would literally make no difference for the scouts. You’d still have 3 scouts, each with essentially a primary weapon value of 3, at 26 points each, and their EPT, Crew, Illicit, and Mod slots still open, and 22 points to fill them with.

I have good results with 5x omega pilots with advanced optics an crackshot.

Now since we finish our regional, I will certainly take them has my new squadron. They have not many red dice but a really good defence and a good block cans ave your match.

Swarm is no more 7/8 ships but 5/6 ships now. Hope the new tie from Han solo will give more tools...

2 hours ago, Darth Meanie said:

No offense, but this is cumbersome as fudge.

This game is getting a little too Condition happy, IMHO.

This:

fixes TIE swarms and any other generic ship you might want to finally get into the game.

4x Karthakk Pirates with this title. 4 atk 360 arc x 4. 5 attack 360 arc x4 at range 1.

5 hours ago, Herowannabe said:

So what you’re saying is that you’d like x3 Contracted Scouts to take over the meta again?

Hmmm.... I would find it hard to fly two large based ships within range 1 of each other. At range 1 maybe but within range 1?

@Darth Meanie if Formation Flying became a thing I think the attack value of the ship it could be equipped to would have to be 2 or less. There are too many 3 attack ships that could take this and even some 4 attack ships.

9 hours ago, Herowannabe said:

That would literally make no difference for the scouts. You’d still have 3 scouts, each with essentially a primary weapon value of 3, at 26 points each, and their EPT, Crew, Illicit, and Mod slots still open, and 22 points to fill them with.

OK, Small Ship Only. It's mostly what we want anyways.

8 hours ago, spacelion said:

4x Karthakk Pirates with this title. 4 atk 360 arc x 4 . 5 attack 360 arc x4 at range 1.

But not if we make it Primary Arc only.

4 hours ago, Sasajak said:

Hmmm.... I would find it hard to fly two large based ships within range 1 of each other. At range 1 maybe but within range 1?

@Darth Meanie if Formation Flying became a thing I think the attack value of the ship it could be equipped to would have to be 2 or less. There are too many 3 attack ships that could take this and even some 4 attack ships.

This is probably the best idea. Although it would be sad to see the X- and B- left out in the cold.

this thead has got to be the best example of no matter how bad the game gets, we should at least be glad the designers don't listen to the community for fix ideas.

33 minutes ago, jimmius said:

this thead has got to be the best example of no matter how bad the game gets, we should at least be glad the designers don't listen to the community for fix ideas.

So, this is brainstorming. You don't think they do this? My "card" has already passed thru 3 revision ideas in my head based on what people have said. It might still be a bad idea. I've heard tell the exact same thing happens at FFG and then the idea is trashed as OP. I have enjoyed the useful critiques.

2 dice primaries are worthless because of green dice

only Omega L and Crackswarm have historically risen above this limitation, not counting ye ole torpscout with 4-lom (so easy to slay even whispers with that ****, no torps required just get within range 1)

and so,

Swarm (ala Armada's TIE fighter ability)

TIE Fighter only

When performing a primary weapon attack, if another friendly ship has the defender inside their firing arc at Range 1-3 , reduce the defender's agility value by 1 (to a minimum of 0).

yeah, lets just make sure nobody ever wants to fly a-wings, x-wings, b-wings, or like, any classic Star Wars ship ever again lmao.

42 minutes ago, ficklegreendice said:

2 dice primaries are worthless because of green dice

Uh I thought they were worthless because of the passive damage mitigation that’s flying around. It’s also strange to hear this kind of stuff from YOU of all peoples!

44 minutes ago, ficklegreendice said:

Swarm (ala Armada's TIE fighter ability)

TIE Fighter only

When performing a primary weapon attack, if another friendly ship has the defender inside their firing arc at Range 1-3 , reduce the defender's agility value by 1 (to a minimum of 0)

I assume this is an EPT. Turns TIEs into mini-Wedge, I like!

54 minutes ago, ficklegreendice said:

2 dice primaries are worthless because of green dice

only Omega L and Crackswarm have historically risen above this limitation, not counting ye ole torpscout with 4-lom (so easy to slay even whispers with that ****, no torps required just get within range 1)

and so,

Swarm (ala Armada's TIE fighter ability)

TIE Fighter only

When performing a primary weapon attack, if another friendly ship has the defender inside their firing arc at Range 1-3 , reduce the defender's agility value by 1 (to a minimum of 0).

Just as a point of interest, why does everyone come at it from a "reduce defense dice" rather than "increase attack dice" POV?

Prevent power creep?

Actual game advantage in terms of probability?

Cuz Armada did it first?

3 minutes ago, Darth Meanie said:

Just as a point of interest, why does everyone come at it from a "reduce defense dice" rather than "increase attack dice" POV?

Prevent power creep?

Actual game advantage in terms of probability?

Cuz Armada did it first?

Armada basically gives you predator when attacking a squadron engaged by another friendly squadron, since there are no green dice

and yes, power creep. 12 points for a 3 dice primary is horseshit, esp when Howlie starts fully modding them. Even 15 points for 3 dice crackshot is just dumb, you'll annihilate basically anything with that much dice. You could conceivably one-round a VCX with a 3-dice crackswarm, which would be 18 red dice propped up by focus and re-rolls

1 hour ago, ficklegreendice said:

Swarm (ala Armada's TIE fighter ability)

TIE Fighter only

When performing a primary weapon attack, if another friendly ship has the defender inside their firing arc at Range 1-3 , reduce the defender's agility value by 1 (to a minimum of 0).

This is getting better, but still has some issues... I feel like people would just slap this on Omega Leader or Omega Ace (or even Backstabber or Mauler or one of the other pseudo 3 Attack TIEs) and ignore the generic TIEs, plus it doesn’t do anything to help other types of Swarms (Z-95s, Light-Scyks, even A-Wings or TAPs).

So let’s break it down. If we want to fix swarms, and not unintentionally buff anything that doesn’t need the help, what do we need the card to do?

To avoid slapping it on one or two ace ships, it should get better the more copies there are of it in the list.

Primary weapon only to not buff Harpoons or HLCS.

In arc only to not buff turrets.

How about this as a starting point? If you felt they were needed, you could add other modifiers such as “galactic empire only” or “you may not equip this card if your PS is X or greater” or so on.

Swarmy Swarmers

Title

You may equip another title costing 0 points or less.

When making an attack with a primary weapon against a ship in your arc, for each friendly ship that has Swarmy Swarmers equipped and has the defender in arc at range 1-3, you may force the defender to reroll 1 defense die.

8 minutes ago, Darth Meanie said:

Just as a point of interest, why does everyone come at it from a "reduce defense dice" rather than "increase attack dice" POV?

Probably because it’s thematically more appropriate. Agility represents your ability to dodge incoming fire, right? Well the more incoming fire there is, the less useful your ability to dodge is.

Plus, if it increased attack power then swarms would brutalize any 0 or 1 agility ships, which they already tend to do pretty well against. I realize the Ghost is a problem in the meta right now, but nobody wants to see it blow up in the first round after being shot by 4 TIE fighters.

EDIT: ninja’d by @ficklegreendice

3 minutes ago, Herowannabe said:

Probably because it’s thematically more appropriate. Agility represents your ability to dodge incoming fire, right? Well the more incoming fire there is, the less useful your ability to dodge is.

Plus, if it increased attack power then swarms would brutalize any 0 or 1 agility ships, which they already tend to do pretty well against. I realize the Ghost is a problem in the meta right now, but nobody wants to see it blow up in the first round after being shot by 4 TIE fighters.

Right! It's nice when the fluff and the gameplay line up.

As for the Ghost vs. TIEs, I do.

1 hour ago, ficklegreendice said:

2 dice primaries are worthless because of green dice

only Omega L and Crackswarm have historically risen above this limitation, not counting ye ole torpscout with 4-lom (so easy to slay even whispers with that ****, no torps required just get within range 1)

and so,

Swarm (ala Armada's TIE fighter ability)

TIE Fighter only

When performing a primary weapon attack, if another friendly ship has the defender inside their firing arc at Range 1-3 , reduce the defender's agility value by 1 (to a minimum of 0).

So, given that 2 Die ships suck, why limit this to TIE Fighters. . .

3 hours ago, ficklegreendice said:

2 dice primaries are worthless because of green dice

Hmmm.... I always thought green dice were fickle

15 hours ago, Darth Meanie said:

No offense, but this is cumbersome as fudge.

This game is getting a little too Condition happy, IMHO.

This:

fixes TIE swarms and any other generic ship you might want to finally get into the game.

Add TIE only.

Replace "same name" with TIE.

7 hours ago, Herowannabe said:

This is getting better, but still has some issues... I feel like people would just slap this on Omega Leader or Omega Ace (or even Backstabber or Mauler or one of the other pseudo 3 Attack TIEs) and ignore the generic TIEs, plus it doesn’t do anything to help other types of Swarms (Z-95s, Light-Scyks, even A-Wings or TAPs).

So let’s break it down. If we want to fix swarms, and not unintentionally buff anything that doesn’t need the help, what do we need the card to do?

To avoid slapping it on one or two ace ships, it should get better the more copies there are of it in the list.

Primary weapon only to not buff Harpoons or HLCS.

In arc only to not buff turrets.

How about this as a starting point? If you felt they were needed, you could add other modifiers such as “galactic empire only” or “you may not equip this card if your PS is X or greater” or so on.

Swarmy Swarmers

Title

You may equip another title costing 0 points or less.

When making an attack with a primary weapon against a ship in your arc, for each friendly ship that has Swarmy Swarmers equipped and has the defender in arc at range 1-3, you may force the defender to reroll 1 defense die.

Probably because it’s thematically more appropriate. Agility represents your ability to dodge incoming fire, right? Well the more incoming fire there is, the less useful your ability to dodge is.

Plus, if it increased attack power then swarms would brutalize any 0 or 1 agility ships, which they already tend to do pretty well against. I realize the Ghost is a problem in the meta right now, but nobody wants to see it blow up in the first round after being shot by 4 TIE fighters.

EDIT: ninja’d by @ficklegreendice

What if after attacking a ship assign it a 'swarmed' token. This token may be spent on subsequent attacks to force the defender to reroll a defense die or attacker reroll an attack die.

Possibly reroll on attack is too strong. But I think generating a token on a target once attacked helps represent how a single target is being hounded by the swarm. Having mods against a ship that hasn't even defended yet seems unthematic to me.

But an interesting idea nonethe less

Just now, Scum4Life said:

What if after attacking a ship assign it a 'swarmed' token. This token may be spent on subsequent attacks to force the defender to reroll a defense die or attacker reroll an attack die.

Possibly reroll on attack is too strong. But I think generating a token on a target once attacked helps represent how a single target is being hounded by the swarm. Having mods against a ship that hasn't even defended yet seems unthematic to me.

But an interesting idea nonethe less

Also the 'Swarmed' tokens would be removed at the start of movement phase.

On 23/02/2018 at 9:38 PM, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

This is probably an unpopular opinion, but I started playing way back before even the first Kessel Run events. The early waves of X-Wing were not as golden and happy as we'd like to believe. Pretty much without exception, every Imperial player was flying a 7-Tie Howl Swarm or a full on 8 TIE Swarm (Howl swarm was the more popular and generally more successful choice). There was very little that Rebel fighters could do compete with the jousting efficiency of a Howl-Swarm, and Swarm games took a long time . Very often games went to time, especially in the case of Swarm vs Swarm mirror matches. The community was begging for answers to Swarms, and cards like Predator and the TIE Phantom were received with cheers of applause as something that might be able to stave off the swarm menace. People were constantly complaining that Unique Pilots (aside from Biggs and Howl) and upgrades were so rarely worth taking. Seriously, it's hard to believe now, but back in the early Swarm-Dominated days of X-Wing, people complained that naked generic ships were always better than unique ships or ships with upgrades.

So, I mean, I like the thematicness of a TIE Swarm and I'd like TIE Fighters to be more commonly fielded in X-Wing. That being said, I'm conflicted because I really don't miss the early days of Howl-Swarm vs Howl-Swarm X-Wing, like not even a little bit.

Important to note that originally the cut off for a modified win was around 30 points. 33 if I recall correctly.

This was a large part of why expensive (33+ point) unique pilots were a bad idea.

It does not even have to be something so complex. A good indirect way :

Give a good Action: headered EPT card that is half way useful.

That way even if it is good, you can still target Youngster.

23 minutes ago, Jadotch said:

It does not even have to be something so complex. A good indirect way :

Give a good Action: headered EPT card that is half way useful.

That way even if it is good, you can still target Youngster.

This is a MUCH better idea. TIE Swarm doesn't need a flat buff, they are a very powerful list that's currently outclassed by the degenerate meta (by which I mean the best lists are very uninteractive: They'll get fully modded shots whilst bumped, stressed, on a rock, whatever).

Giving them more options definitely: I'd love to see non Howl Swarms, or even Howl-Youngster swarms, to spice up the standard Howl + Curse + Academy list. But a flat buff, on the power level of making every academy pilot Wedge Antillies or giving them all an extra attack dice is bonkers. Just no.