4 minutes ago, Darth Meanie said:

There is another middle ground, as well:

Rebels features the A-Wing, the Y-Wing, the B-Wing, the X-Wing, the TIE Fighter, the TAP, and the Sentinel-class Shuttle.

All of these ships could be reissued with Rebels-themed repaints and pilots* (and even a Rebels themed remold in the case of the Y-Wing) putting Rebels-based material in the game for those who care and iconic ships for those who don't on the game table.

*A decent Ace is what gets a ship on the table more often than the chassis.

I badly want this...

A-Wings - Wedge, Hera, Ezra, Hobbie, 2 seat title, Sabine

TIE Interceptors - mr. mustache

X-Wings - Hera, that kid from Iron Squadron

Y-Wings - Veraline, Ezra

B-wings - Hera

I'd buy it.

6 minutes ago, william1134 said:

I seem to remember that when I first started X-wing you could within reason field any ship you like and have a reasonable chance on winning. That is gone now as only ships with huge combo chains are fielded.

This was absolutely the case. As the go to guy for the game at the flgs I was constantly tapped to assist customers with navigating the product line and introducing them via demos. There was this awesome feel back then, and it was held up in results, that you could fly whatever and if you were good, you could win. It was around wave give that I had to start shaking my head at things and start asking customers "competitive or casual?"

1 minute ago, ForceSensitive said:

This was absolutely the case. As the go to guy for the game at the flgs I was constantly tapped to assist customers with navigating the product line and introducing them via demos. There was this awesome feel back then, and it was held up in results, that you could fly whatever and if you were good, you could win. It was around wave give that I had to start shaking my head at things and start asking customers "competitive or casual?"

one of our FLGS demo players (RIP that FLGS ) used Rey/Poe as a demo squad. it was thematic, fun, and competitive enough. Has a low floor, and a high ceiling. Good for competitive or casual.

1 minute ago, Wiredin said:

I badly want this...

A-Wings - Wedge, Hera, Ezra, Hobbie, 2 seat title, Sabine

TIE Interceptors - mr. mustache

X-Wings - Hera, that kid from Iron Squadron

Y-Wings - Veraline, Ezra

B-wings - Hera

I'd buy it.

Let's add a Starwing Aces Expansion with cannon (albeit video game) pilots, Maarek Stele and Soontir Fel and a Storm Sqadron TIE Fighter with new pilots and Title.

they could sell enough of these to keep X-Wing the top selling game even if it were the only expansion issued the whole year.

Eh, the game isn't so bad that you can't make good squads for newbies

Just don't be a **** and throw vcxfenn or any sort of fat turret at them, unless you want them to never play again

But I have to imagine things will be easier to recommend once Saws comes out. Imp vets made it very easy to make good squads with minimal investment (ep7 core, tiefo, imp vets, run all 3 named FOs from standalone + crackshot Steele,). Now that I think about it, the Silencer + FO expac lets you take the 3 named FO expac characters (juke relay Omega L, wired Wep guidance zeta L, optics Epsilon Ace) with an analyst packing thrusters + optics + first order vanguard.

Hopefully, saws does the same with x/t-70, u, x with maybe an Auzzie or sheathe as needed/REBELs theme

Though, if you let them proxy (which you should if you want anything resembling a growing community), you could easily do Poe, Auzzie, Auzzie. Wookie commandoes make it a really self sufficient expac

1 hour ago, william1134 said:

I seem to remember that when I first started X-wing you could within reason field any ship you like and have a reasonable chance on winning. That is gone now as only ships with huge combo chains are fielded.

When was that ? (Just curious)

I've been playing since Wave 6 and the gap between good lists and not good lists was always really big (it's gotten bigger over time, but it was always big enough to be noticeable for my entire X-wing 'career').

Wave 7 for sure

Gaps still existed (poor x and bwing), but you'd have everything from bandits and prototypes to corrans and Poes and r3a2 Ys and tactican TLT ks (back when they still double stressed), Palp aces (lambda, carnor/soontir/Vader) crackswarm, brobots, unhinged TLTs and, in my case, mother-loving deathrain

That's just tip top stuff, though. Saw plenty of decimators, whispers, red ace (r2d2 comm relay while Poe packed r5p9), Dash, even news of Han's death had been greatly exaggerated if you knew how to fly him (with Poe)

Only scum wasn't terribly well off apart from TLT thugs and brobots (though firespray + two thugs didn't do badly locally)

Then the torpscout kinda ****** it all up

45 minutes ago, LordBlades said:

When was that ? (Just curious)

I've been playing since Wave 6 and the gap between good lists and not good lists was always really big (it's gotten bigger over time, but it was always big enough to be noticeable for my entire X-wing 'career').

Hmmmm. maybe 3 years ago? It could also be that I was one of the few x-wing players and were happy to fly these standard ships. Agreed with the post above.. torpscouts were the beginning of insanely powerful ships dominating everything and squeezing out anything non-competitive.

7 minutes ago, william1134 said:

Hmmmm. maybe 3 years ago? It could also be that I was one of the few x-wing players and were happy to fly these standard ships. Agreed with the post above.. torpscouts were the beginning of insanely powerful ships dominating everything and squeezing out anything non-competitive.

It was like that before torp scouts as well, although not as bad. I started the game as a Scum player, as I like Mandalorians a lot. So at first I tried to make Mandalorian ships work (Firespray, Starviper, M3-A), with mediocre results. Eventually I switched to Brobots, and the difference was huge.

What changed with Torp Scouts IMO is that the illusion you might win disappeared. Many X-wing players don't do too much math in my experience. It doesn't matter that Soontir is in reality unkilkable with what they have left. They'll keep playing because something maybe will happen. Torp scouts removed that illusion. When your ship is dead round 1 from a volley of 4 hit torps, you don't need to do math to get the point that you've lost.

1 hour ago, LordBlades said:

When was that ? (Just curious)

I've been playing since Wave 6 and the gap between good lists and not good lists was always really big (it's gotten bigger over time, but it was always big enough to be noticeable for my entire X-wing 'career').

It happened in Wave 7. Wave 7 destroyed X-Wing as it had been played and rebuilt the game as 'modern X-Wing' that's very recognisably the game we play today.
http://stayontheleader.blogspot.com/2018/04/the-six-ages-of-x-wing-2-twin-laser.html

20 minutes ago, SOTL said:

It happened in Wave 7. Wave 7 destroyed X-Wing as it had been played and rebuilt the game as 'modern X-Wing' that's very recognisably the game we play today.
http://stayontheleader.blogspot.com/2018/04/the-six-ages-of-x-wing-2-twin-laser.html

I think the word(s) you are looking for is "the K-Wing Expansion"

2 minutes ago, clanofwolves said:

I think the word(s) you are looking for is "the K-Wing Expansion"

Actually I think Palp had more to do with it. Palp allowed for the first time to semi-reliably engineer situations where a ship was 100% immune to a 3 dice attack. This has lead to offense power creep, which has lead to defense power creep, which has lead to more offense power creep etc.

36 minutes ago, LordBlades said:

Actually I think Palp had more to do with it. Palp allowed for the first time to semi-reliably engineer situations where a ship was 100% immune to a 3 dice attack. This has lead to offense power creep, which has lead to defense power creep, which has lead to more offense power creep etc.

Good point. Palpatine did make quite the defensive stir and single-handedly created super-defensive Aces and a real usable Lambda build ironically (fortunate boost to a beautiful immovable cow) due to the fact there wasn't really another option. Guess Palp's still very powerful, but was never the super OP as he couldn't crack Worlds, and has been supplanted by arguably better powers over the last few waves. My point was, Miranda is still standing as arguably the best X-Wing ship ever and has never wavered since her rise to power.

53 minutes ago, clanofwolves said:

I think the word(s) you are looking for is "the K-Wing Expansion"

And the Raider. Palp has a part to play here too.

10 minutes ago, clanofwolves said:

My point was, Miranda is still standing as arguably the best X-Wing ship ever and has never wavered since her rise to power.

I'll cover it in a future edition in my series, but it's between Miranda and Dash

11 minutes ago, clanofwolves said:

Guess Palp's still very powerful, but was never the super OP as he couldn't crack Worlds

Worlds is just one event and just like we shouldn't really care at all when a Punisher makes a single cut we shouldn't make worlds the end all be all determinant of anything. Palp didn't win worlds but he was absolutely the dominant list during that meta.

Idk, prewave 7 was nothing but the dark ages of wave 5 for me

Whisper and Cheri versus corran dash versus something Han

******* nightmarescape of unending drudgery, which wave 6 did next to nothing to alleviate with only brobots coming in while vipers only turned soontir into cheri's butt boy by introducing thrusters after the phantom nerf

Wave 7 was a massive improvement on the meta, only problem having been palp turning the lambda into biggs

25 minutes ago, Makaze said:

Worlds is just one event and just like we shouldn't really care at all when a Punisher makes a single cut we shouldn't make worlds the end all be all determinant of anything. Palp didn't win worlds but he was absolutely the dominant list during that meta.

Yeah, stats are for geeks, as they say mate. Winning the top spot in the top event is the goldstandard though. If that’s not true, we’d all be super happy being Atlanta Falcon’s fans (or any other “almost the best but still a really-really good competitor” illustration you’d like to fill in here... that just came to mind first, haha)

23 hours ago, Wiredin said:

I wish steam trains were still a thing.... so much cooler looking and sounding than this diesel/electric stuff.

While steam engines are somewhat fun to drive in fine weather, they are craving, and the working environment is really devilish (tested myself). Drivers/Engineers had bad health at 50, firemen/stokers often already at 40. On top a degree of efficiency of around 12% if I remember correctly. Using injectors with coal dust or heavy duty mineralic fuel do somewhat drive up effiency, as well as the few turbine ones existing, but still abysmal compared to modern engines, especially overhead cable ones.

@Wiredin & @clanofwolves

As for Rebels content bringing ships

For the Imps

TAP with Seventh Sister, Fifth Brother, Eigth Brother

Classic (!) Interceptor e.g. the Ace in the young Wedge episode

Defenders, there seems to be a number of them.

Not having TV at all, I am watching Rebels on DVD, so I do not know the content of season 4, not available yet, might be more there

For Scum

amongst others

My friends, my friends......Hondo! Flies a Lambda/Sentinel.

34 minutes ago, Managarmr said:

While steam engines are somewhat fun to drive in fine weather, they are craving, and the working environment is really devilish (tested myself). Drivers/Engineers had bad health at 50, firemen/stokers often already at 40. On top a degree of efficiency of around 12% if I remember correctly. Using injectors with coal dust or heavy duty mineralic fuel do somewhat drive up effiency, as well as the few turbine ones existing, but still abysmal compared to modern engines, especially overhead cable ones.

cannot dispute all the benefits. but it still doesn't replace the powerful sound and visuals of a steam train roaring across some tracks. call me nostalgic.

10 hours ago, FatherTurin said:

Thats a big part of why all of us are here, and neither you nor anyone else short of (maybe) the folks at Lucasfilm has any right to declare what “is” Star Wars for anyone except you.

That was an intriguing diatribe. Looks like you put a lot of keystroke into it. Won't know, it was clear there wasn't much value in reading all of it. I was just refuting the other poster's assertion that the ships outside of the movies should be recognizable and that the person he was replying to was wrong for saying they found the game less recognizable because the trilogy ships are exceedingly rare.

You know, like you asserted in the second half of that quote. In the future, I suggest that you explore context before getting so personally invested in your bad arguments. One of your posts on the first page was about being a positive influence. What happened? lol

3 hours ago, TheVeteranSergeant said:

That was an intriguing diatribe. Looks like you put a lot of keystroke into it. Won't know, it was clear there wasn't much value in reading all of it. I was just refuting the other poster's assertion that the ships outside of the movies should be recognizable and that the person he was replying to was wrong for saying they found the game less recognizable because the trilogy ships are exceedingly rare.

You know, like you asserted in the second half of that quote. In the future, I suggest that you explore context before getting so personally invested in your bad arguments. One of your posts on the first page was about being a positive influence. What happened? lol

Maybe my language wasn’t clear, and looking back I can see the confusion. I meant the collective “you” as in, you determine what is Star Wars to you, I determine what is Star Wars to me, and to heck with what anyone else says.

As for the rest, you gotta lay out better bait than that to catch me.

Heh... maybe this is all part of FFG's plan. They know the early models are lacking in terms of sculpt and paint job.. so they make all of those models worthless due to harpoons/bombs/scum.. with no demand and sales of these ships the warehouse goes empty, which then allows FFG to completely scrap the ship and re-release with an awesome new model and paintjob. Huge buffs follow!

23 hours ago, LordBlades said:

Actually I think Palp had more to do with it. Palp allowed for the first time to semi-reliably engineer situations where a ship was 100% immune to a 3 dice attack. This has lead to offense power creep, which has lead to defense power creep, which has lead to more offense power creep etc.

Not quite. R2D2+3PO with Falcon title (once R2 kicked in) was the first iteration of that. Also of note is that there was literally no way to bypass it with one main gun except by getting a R1 shot with a 3 attack dice ship or the phantom. Palp was shortly followed by Crack Shot.

44 minutes ago, AlexW said:

Not quite. R2D2+3PO with Falcon title (once R2 kicked in) was the first iteration of that. Also of note is that there was literally no way to bypass it with main guns except by getting a R1 shot with a 3 attack dice ship or the phantom. Palp was shortly followed by Crack Shot.

Indeed, and it was in many ways worse since it didn't require a lumbering space cow somewhere elsewhere the board or being at R3/out of arc, it was all self contained in that one ship. Which was also an amazing high PS arc dodger with a turret...