In another topic, @Azrapse made an interesting suggestion of creating "Generic" ship tokens that only had Arcs and Initiative printed on them. Others argued it wouldn't be enough information on the token and would slow the game. That got me to thinking.

X-Wing is a dog-fighting game with the original idea coming from WWII. When fighter pilots in WWII engaged another squadron, they didn't know who they were fighting. They didn't know "Bob" with a PS of 8 and an upgraded engine were in the plane coming at them. Maybe they get a close-up look at the markings on an enemy plane that gives them an idea of the squadron or maybe the pilot. Basically, it was unknown who they were fighting.

So, what about a Mystery Match format for X-Wing where you fly into the unknown. When setting up, all pilot cards and upgrades are placed face-down. Ship tokens would have only arcs and action lines and Initiative printed on them. Shields and damage would be as normal. Ordinance spent would be flipped up.

I think I'm going to plan one of these for a casual night and see how it goes. I'm trying to think of other rules to use. Any thoughts?

I've seen it suggested a few times before.

I don't particularly like the format, nor the logic behind it.

X Wing isn't a simulation of a single fighter pilot flying against a bunch of enemies, it's a top-down god game where the player controls a whole squad of things.

This format seems open to cheating and confusion.

I have played this format, with 1 more rule :

A card need to be flipped in order to be used.
This way you can't cheat, and you can quote Yu-Gi-Ho! each time you reveal a card.

10 minutes ago, drail14me said:

Any  thoughts?

That looks to be super cool! I never tried it so far. Thinking about it, I would start without models on the plates. Maybe the long range scanners tell you the size, but that‘s it. Then, at maybe range 4, add the models onto the bases.

Shields are unknown until they are tested the first time (well, we know from the model...) and hull becomes known together with the model being shown.

Also: if someone blatantly cheats he loses the game instantly. Or get a game master.

One option is to display any upgrade as soon as it has been used.

2 minutes ago, GreenDragoon said:

One option is to display any upgrade as soon as it has been used.

I like that!

You'd certainly need to be playing with people you could trust to not cheat, and who know the game well enough not to need reminders of what their own cards do (not that this regularly happens to me every single week, or anything >_>), but it sounds like it could be quite fun!

13 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

X Wing isn't a simulation of a single fighter pilot flying against a bunch of enemies, it's a top-down god game where the player controls a whole squad of things.

Just because someone is controlling a squad, it doesn't follow that they need to have perfect knowledge of the enemy, too. Plenty of strategy games have Fog of War or limited information of enemy units.

12 minutes ago, thespaceinvader said:

I've seen it suggested a few times before.

I don't particularly like the format, nor the logic behind it.

X Wing isn't a simulation of a single fighter pilot flying against a bunch of enemies, it's a top-down god game where the player controls a whole squad of things.

This format seems open to cheating and confusion.

The one thing I wouldn't mind seeing, though, and which I always thought was one of the few really original ideas in Star Trek: Attack Wing*, was Kirk's captain ability:

"Any Federation (Captain) Upgrades** you purchase for Kirk cost exactly 3 Squadron Points and are placed face down beside his card. Each Upgrade remains face down until you decide to use it, and then it is turned face up for the rest of the game."

It'd need a bit of rewording, but essentially being able to pick a pilot upgrade or two on the fly and keep it secret till used would be an interesting mechanic.

* Before anyone says anything, Time tokens - which have sort of been re-taken by X-wing as the charge mechanic, originated in D&D attack wing, which was a different, and initially much better balanced game

** Essentially Elite upgrades. Kirk had 2 such slots in this incarnation.

I like the idea, but the biggest issue I see is that the initiative value is often enough to determine which pilot is in a ship. Less of a problem with initiative being 1 to 6 rather than one to 9.

It won't exactly be a secret that your I6 sheathipede is Fenn Rau, or that my u wing that passes a focus is Benthic.

1 minute ago, player2072913 said:

I like the idea, but the biggest issue I see is that the initiative value is often enough to determine which pilot is in a ship. Less of a problem with initiative being 1 to 6 rather than one to 9.

It won't exactly be a secret that your I6 sheathipede is Fenn Rau, or that my u wing that passes a focus is Benthic.

Maybe have both sides deploy secretly, so you won't know pilot initiative until after everyone starts moving?

14 minutes ago, player2072913 said:

I like the idea, but the biggest issue I see is that the initiative value is often enough to determine which pilot is in a ship. Less of a problem with initiative being 1 to 6 rather than one to 9.

It won't exactly be a secret that your I6 sheathipede is Fenn Rau, or that my u wing that passes a focus is Benthic.

Well if you wanted to take this idea to the full extreme you could just use generic ship tokens for everything and treat all ships as PS1 until their pilot card is flipped up. Personally I’m more inclined to take the easier approach and have all the pilot cards face up at the start of the game and all the upgrade cards face down.

Another thing that could be interesting in this format is to say that 1. (as someone said above) you can’t use an upgrade until you flip it face up and 2. You can only flip dials face up at the start of the planning phase . It would make for some interesting decisions.

Flip when a card is relevant or used in any way. It’s a great format.

1 hour ago, GreenDragoon said:

That looks to be super cool! I never tried it so far. Thinking about it, I would start without models on the plates. Maybe the long range scanners tell you the size, but that‘s it. Then, at maybe range 4, add the models onto the bases.

Shields are unknown until they are tested the first time (well, we know from the model...) and hull becomes known together with the model being shown.

Also: if someone blatantly cheats he loses the game instantly. Or get a game master.

One option is to display any upgrade as soon as it has been used.

As soon as you flip any dial face up (like during the first activation phase) the ship type will be revealed and nullify the point of removing the model. To make this work you would also need a universal dial that only has the universal maneuvers on it (green 2 straight, white 2 Banks, white 3 straight) and use that until the model is revealed or reveal the proper dial and model when you select one of its non-universal maneuvers.

edit: @GreenDragon mentions below that the plastic dial upgrades could be used to conceal the specific ship type (while revealing most of the maneuvers). I would agree if you can get a number chit into the ID window there so it's still clear which ship and dial go together.

@drail14me why should the initiative be printed on the base in this format? I would think the only identifying info should be the number token matching the ship to its target lock and pilot card. Yes init will be known as soon as it moves, but it won't be readily available info during the planning phase unless the pilot reveals themselves.

I would strongly agree and encourage the idea of revealing any card that is used, pilot abilities included.

18 minutes ago, nitrobenz said:

As  soon as you flip any dial face up (like during the first activat  ion phase) the s  hip type will be revealed and nullify the point of removing the model.

I know many dials by heart, but I can‘t glance at one over the table to identify it. But I‘ve also played exclusively with dial upgrades for years now. It would never occurr to me NOT to use them

1 minute ago, GreenDragoon said:

I know many dials by heart, but I can‘t glance at one over the table to identify it. But I‘ve also played exclusively with dial upgrades for years now. It would never occurr to me NOT to use them

And I have never used the dial upgrades! The thing that reveals the ship type is the name printed on the cardboard face, but you make a good point that that info is not available on the dial upgrade. Unfortunately that would make cheating/accidents very easy if there were no identifying markers at all on the dials.

I would approve of using a number chit in the little ship window instead of the silhouette to semi-conceal the ship identity

I really think the whole "it would be too easy to cheat" argument is utter garbage. This whole format is obviously very informal and could never be used in any official tournament or event. That means it will only ever be used amongst friends or at the very least in a super casual environment. If you can't trust your friends not to cheat at toy spaceships, get new friends. And if you care so much about winning at toy spaceships, I feel really bad for you. This format seems like it would be awesome. I'm all for it.

Along the same lines as this, I've thought about but never tested a way to take this idea one step farther. I'm a huge old EU fan and in the book "The Courtship of Princess Leia" the Empire deploys an Orbital Nightcloak, which is a series of satellites that blocks the sun from a planet to freeze it to death. It also blocks scanners and visual contact. In the book, fighters had to fly through it to see the enemy on the other side and had to knock out several satellites before the ONC collapsed. In game, I think an ONC could work like this. Hang a black sheet across the board at the mid line with satellite tolens ever couple of inches. Put your three obstacles on your side as normal, with no obstacle within range 1 of any satellite. Both players take turns deploying their forces without knowing where the enemy is. Play goes as usual until a player gets at least one ship across the ONC. Then that player gets to look at his opponents ships. They would still be disguised as generics, but he would know where they are at least now. The ONC stays in place until the satellites are destroyed. Its really just hidden deployment that stays in place until knocked out.

I've played this with upgrades face-down until used (pilots known at the start) and it was a blast. Would fly again.

1 hour ago, nitrobenz said:

@drail14me why should the initiative be printed on the base in this format? I would think the only identifying info should be the number token matching the ship to its target lock and pilot card. Yes init will be known as soon as it moves, but it won't be readily available info during the planning phase unless the pilot reveals themselves.

I would strongly agree and encourage the idea of revealing any card that is used, pilot abilities included.

Wasn't sure on this one. Initiative of each ship will be revealed during setup so I was thinking that once information is revealed, it could be on the table. So, having Initiative on the base just seemed simple. Other wise, I was thinking of two other methods for tracking activation and combat order and both involved using the Ship ID number tokens. One method could be to number them 1-4 (in a 4 ship list) with 1 being the lowest INT and 4 the highest. That would be easy to remember for the player. The other method would be to randomly use the Ship ID numbers. The player would just have to remember the INT for each pilot. The last method would bring the greatest Fog of Battle to the game but having the INT on the token would just be the easiest to keep track of since the information would be revealed during set up anyway.

The random numbering does sound fun though!

I'm going to take some ideas from this thread and put some rules on paper for us to try on our next casual night.

I’ve considered playing a game like this. The additional rules I would suggest are:

At the start of the combat phase, any ships within Range 3 of the enemy must place the correct mini on the peg.

At the beginning of the End Phase any ship that has not been revealed and has a red target lock token assigned to it must reveal the pilot card.

At the beginning of the End Phase any ship that has been revealed and has a red target lock token assigned to it must reveal an assigned upgrade.

The idea being that a target lock slowly gathers data on the target over time, and if they’re close enough to shoot any pilot should get a visual ID of their enemy.

I like the idea of all ships starting with their generic token base and operating that way until the first initiative or ability of the pilot is used (and thus the pilot is revealed). So, you know you have four X-Wings bearing down on you, but until one exhibits exceptional abilities you don’t know if there are any aces amongst the squad. Once a specific pilot is revealed his base token should be switched, keeping it easy to execute the correct order of movement and combat.

I’d also suggest having dummy upgrade cards. You wouldn’t really know if the X-Wings were armed with torpedoes or not until they actually fired one. So, a blank card could maintain the bluff much better than no torpedo card at all.

3 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

The one thing I wouldn't mind seeing, though, and which I always thought was one of the few really original ideas in Star Trek: Attack Wing*, was Kirk's captain ability:

"Any Federation (Captain) Upgrades** you purchase for Kirk cost exactly 3 Squadron Points and are placed face down beside his card. Each Upgrade remains face down until you decide to use it, and then it is turned face up for the rest of the game."

It'd need a bit of rewording, but essentially being able to pick a pilot upgrade or two on the fly and keep it secret till used would be an interesting mechanic.

* Before anyone says anything, Time tokens - which have sort of been re-taken by X-wing as the charge mechanic, originated in D&D attack wing, which was a different, and initially much better balanced game

** Essentially Elite upgrades. Kirk had 2 such slots in this incarnation.

That is such a great thematic ability for Kirk! He always has something up his sleeve!

I like the format in theory but I've played it and hate it in practice for the reason that it completely incentives secondary weapons and bombs. Range control is impossible when you don't even know what range you're shooting for.

I got blind Autoblaster accuracy corrector double tapped by the Ghost and it was complete NPE. I think all other upgrades being secret could be run though, just not weapons and bombs.

I love the idea. The only trouble I see is that it is already too difficult to remember your own upgrades with them being face-up, let alone face down!

Probably the best compromise is to have upgrades face-up, but somehow kept out of sight from your opponent. The first time they are used, they become visible.

Also, you can ID ships (like in LucasArts PC games). If you fly a ship within Range 1, you get that ship identified and all its upgrades become visible. Fast recon ships now become important. You would send them in scouting missions to look what's up ahead.

5 hours ago, RookiePilot said:

I’d also suggest having dummy upgrade cards. You wouldn’t really know if the X-Wings were armed with torpedoes or not until they actually fired one. So, a blank card could maintain the bluff much better than no torpedo card at all.

I would say the same, to have a fog of war, every ship is assigned at least 2 (3?) cards. If the ship has no upgrades, then the cards are just duds.

2 hours ago, OoALEJOoO said:

I love the idea. The only trouble I see is that it is already too difficult to remember your own upgrades with them being face-up, let alone face down!

Probably the best compromise is to have upgrades face-up, but somehow kept out of sight from your opponent. The first time they are used, they become visible.

Easiest should be facedown cards on board, but all players have a printed list/app screen shot, out of sight for the opponents. Both to make it easier to remember what you have, but also to prevent any confusion about list constitution (traceable how the setup looked, e.g. if cards fall down or card arrangements accidently get mixed) or cheating (which should not be a problem when playing casually, but you never know...)

4 hours ago, HammerGibbens said:

I like the format in theory but I've played it and hate it in practice for the reason that it completely incentives secondary weapons and bombs. Range control is impossible when you don't even know what range you're shooting for.

I got blind Autoblaster accuracy corrector double tapped by the Ghost and it was complete NPE. I think all other upgrades being secret could be run though, just not weapons and bombs.

As it is totally casual, certain upgrades (e.g tragedy simulator) and upgrade combos should be banned, agreed on beforehand. This format is not about who has the most OP combo hidden longest.