Just thinking about the inevitable release of Mandalorian content into X-Wing TMG, it's really a lot later than we all hoped / expected.

Conspiracy theory from me - the Scum and Villainy faction is going to split out into two smaller factions - I'm not sure if there is enough content to turn the Mandalorians into a stand alone faction, but with some of the stories and relationships forged in the various clone wars/rebels etc, is there a comfortable way to split them in two?

There's a lot of potential Mandalore content outside of the Razorcrest ... could we see some more of the ships created?

For Scum to be split in 2 factions: too late now.

Ships from The Mandalorian, there are very few for now (but hopefully a lot more in the next seasons):

the Bounty Hunter Fighter

And obviously, the Razor Crest

54 minutes ago, Rich P said:

Just thinking about the inevitable release of Mandalorian content into X-Wing TMG, it's really a lot later than we all hoped / expected.

Speak for yourself.

Yes, I want it earlier but I want it done right - and with some of the surprises of the show being kept a secret, there’s no way Disney let that one slip ahead of release.

Remember when the Uwing came out in 1.0 and was kind of a miss because it only had partial data? Or the t70 and bomber pilots having a lot of call signs because they didn’t have names yet? Yeah, I don’t want to go back to that. I’d rather the game take longer to catch up on ships but have it done right in one go than be stuck in the sorta kinda read in but not really stuff.

1 hour ago, Odanan said:

For Scum to be split in 2 factions: too late now.

Ships from The Mandalorian, there are very few for now (but hopefully a lot more in the next seasons):

the Bounty Hunter Fighter

And obviously, the Razor Crest

Don't forget Ran's scavenged(?) Rogue-class "gunship" from Chapter 6: the Prisoner! I've been wanting that since CIS became a thing.

But I have to side with "No Splitting" group. Now. Is there design space for subfaction titles and synergies? **** yes!

28 minutes ago, Kleeg005 said:

Don't forget Ran's scavenged(?) Rogue-class "gunship" from Chapter 6: the Prisoner! I've been wanting that since CIS became a thing.

But I have to side with "No Splitting" group. Now. Is there design space for subfaction titles and synergies? **** yes!

Oh, indeed!

But I would prefer to see the actual Rogue-Class Starfighter (and this "gunship" as a configuration).

No to splitting.

Yes to create subfactions with ship/pilot/crew restrictions, drawbacks and synergies. You could do Mandalorians, Black Sun, The Hutts, and many more. I'm all in for thematic listbuilding.

I have to also agree against splitting at this point. I don't know that the concept of subfactions is exactly how I'd like to phrase what I'd want. I still think something like a squadron upgrade (one per squad, probably, does something to everything in your list that fits some requirement, maybe only works if all ships in the squad fit the requirement).

Scum could really use some sorta method for giving its pilots synergies and buffing less efficient ships. Scum is the grab bag faction where there are many ships but only a few are seen as "good" especially pilot wise. Squadron upgrades have been mentioned and that might be The Way.

Possibly something that allows a squadron of ships make communal use of some calculate tokens or some other buff kinda like Leia's various abilities.

Something like

Quote

Black Sun Negotiations - 1 charge

May only be used if all ships in the squadron are non-limited Kihraxz Fighters

At the start of Engagement, you may exhaust one charge to have all unstressed ships in your squadron boost forward using the 1 straight or 1 bank template. If a ship would overlap another, it may partially complete its boost, but if they do, they gain a strain token.

At the start of Engagement, if you have exactly one ship, you may flip this card to make your remaining ship perform a boost action.

So something like this grants the Kihraxz a boost as a group exactly one time, and when the fight is nearing its end, you can give one final boost action to your last ship. The reverse of the card will be blank, not sure if there's better wording for exhausting a card like in 1e.

There is a lot of cool potential for stuff like this.

Currently the “big three” (the factions from first edition with a ton of ships) are being held back by how many ships they have. I’ve seen the same conversations a lot of times about it, and it seems backwards but really having too many ships is a curse. Look at the “bad” ships out there like TIE Aggressors or generic RZ-1 A-Wings. Now compare those to the TIE/FO or the V-19 torrent. They really aren’t bad! But they don’t get flown because there’s no need to fly them - for the cost of two aggressors, you could just add whisper or duchess or grand inquisitor or one of the other great ace options the empire has.

Even if all the things in a faction are “balanced” some things will be flown more just because they work better with the other things in that faction (win conditions, etc.) and thus not everything will be flown in a competitive setting.

No scum players I’ve talked to have liked hyperspace, usually because “muh specific ship I want to fly isn’t in there” so I think if we’re gonna get some of these other ships played, we need to split up the factions because they aren’t gonna get played in a format that includes all the ships either.

On 6/13/2020 at 1:46 PM, LUZ_TAK said:

No to splitting.

Yes to create subfactions with ship/pilot/crew restrictions, drawbacks and synergies. You could do Mandalorians, Black Sun, The Hutts, and many more. I'm all in for thematic listbuilding.

This is the way. I'm not sure "subfaction" is the best way to put it though but I think that does get at the idea well enough.

That isn't the real issue though. It seems to me what Scum and Villainy needs is a bit more scum and villainy. Bounty Hunters seem to me like they need some sort of "bounty" mechanic or a "theft" mechanic or a "piracy" mechanic. Scum feels too much like they're trying to play the same game as the military factions which doesn't seem right. They're trying to win a battle the same as Empire or Resistance and not like they're trying to ambush a ship and steal all their stuff.

Scum feels too much soldier and not enough criminal or pirate. Scum feels too much anti-hero and not enough villain. The motivations for the faction seem all wrong.

Though I think you could maybe make both anti-heroes and villains with appropriate subfaction style sorts of things. And you could make anti-hero and villain Mandalorians and so on. Criminals just trying to make their way and the downright evil who want to hurt things. And even the more paramilitary sorts of things outside of the primary military factions. Scum as a faction seems a bit too "level" with regards to being its own "army."

I guess I see the faction being so big means that the design space for generic upgrades is tight. Since 2nd Ed, Scum have had some kind of option in each rework of the points that has led to some sort of squad domination.

First off we had the 4 horsemen (Kavil, 4-Lom, Palob and a Gunrunner) powered by low cost Han Gunner and torps ... it dominated, and got pushed down ... then we got treated to the Drea Scurrgs list - until it was upped to a 223 point list ... a brief soujourn into quad starvipers for worlds and now we are in cannon scyks / Bofrost / Boba Dengar territory.

Every points rejig there is whack-a-mole, and every time an equally dominant scum list appears, and I just think it is caused by the size of the faction meaning that there are always 'other options' to fall back to.

So maybe not splitting Scum and Villainy up for 2nd Ed was the big mistake ... but I can't think how to 'solve' the overall issue. There must be a better way than just nerfbatting list after list.

4 minutes ago, Rich P said:

First off we had the 4 horsemen (Kavil, 4-Lom, Palob and a Gunrunner) powered by low cost Han Gunner and torps ... it dominated, and got pushed down ... then we got treated to the Drea Scurrgs list - until it was upped to a 223 point list ... a brief soujourn into quad starvipers for worlds and now we are in cannon scyks / Bofrost / Boba Dengar territory.

Every points rejig there is whack-a-mole, and every time an equally dominant scum list appears, and I just think it is caused by the size of the faction meaning that there are always 'other options' to fall back to.

There’s always been other meta monsters too, not just scum. From rebel beef to jedi regen aces to sinker swarm, the monsters have always been with us, and it hasn’t always been only scum.

Do they have a lot of powerful tools? Sure, but outside of hyperspace Boba Fenn where there aren’t any natural predators, they’ve always been in contest with other monsters.

That's a bit of a non-argument though. While other factions have risen and fallen, scum has prevailed. Rebel beef got whackamoled, and rebels disappeared out of the meta (Other than that crazy worlds top 2 finish that no-one picked up and played).

Jedi - whack-a-mole on R2, now the faction is much less prevalent.

Scum - just keep on slamming new combos down and winning ****.

9 hours ago, Rich P said:

brief soujourn into quad starvipers for worlds and now we are in cannon scyks / Bofrost / Boba Dengar territory.

Cannon Scyks are finally good enough, but they are not S Tier Gatekeeper Meta Destroyer Monsters. And, having flown them already as Masochist in 1st ed, and from the beginning of 2nd ed flown them from time to time, it is refreshing to actually see them after ages of obscurity being successful now.

3 hours ago, Rich P said:

Scum - just keep on slamming new combos down and winning ****.

New? It is very often Boba and/or Fangs since beginning of 2nd ed. FFG even dropped them in the last update, which was a very strange move.

On 6/13/2020 at 6:22 AM, Rich P said:

Just thinking about the inevitable release of Mandalorian content into X-Wing TMG, it's really a lot later than we all hoped / expected.

Conspiracy theory from me - the Scum and Villainy faction is going to split out into two smaller factions - I'm not sure if there is enough content to turn the Mandalorians into a stand alone faction, but with some of the stories and relationships forged in the various clone wars/rebels etc, is there a comfortable way to split them in two?

There's a lot of potential Mandalore content outside of the Razorcrest ... could we see some more of the ships created?

I don't think it needs splitting. The faction isn't that large for new players: a lot of the first edition ships are unavailable or hard to find now -- the Kihraxz and Kimogila come to mind. More likely they just won't re-release some of the old ones.

On 6/13/2020 at 3:22 AM, Rich P said:

Just thinking about the inevitable release of Mandalorian content into X-Wing TMG, it's really a lot later than we all hoped / expected.

Conspiracy theory from me - the Scum and Villainy faction is going to split out into two smaller factions - I'm not sure if there is enough content to turn the Mandalorians into a stand alone faction, but with some of the stories and relationships forged in the various clone wars/rebels etc, is there a comfortable way to split them in two?

There's a lot of potential Mandalore content outside of the Razorcrest ... could we see some more of the ships created?

I wish the faction had a more versatile name. The faction now encompasses the Mining Guild, Local milita, and soon enough Mandalorian mercenary clans to almost make them another faction.

IMO in hindsight Scum and Villany should be a keyword under the "Everything else" faction that Scum and Villany has become. A player could field a mix of keywords, but some upgrades would be keyword restricted. (Mandalorian only, etc)

*Edit, I see I'm not the only one...*

On 6/13/2020 at 4:19 AM, ScummyRebel said:

Speak for yourself.

Yes, I want it earlier but I want it done right - and with some of the surprises of the show being kept a secret, there’s no way Disney let that one slip ahead of release.

Remember when the Uwing came out in 1.0 and was kind of a miss because it only had partial data? Or the t70 and bomber pilots having a lot of call signs because they didn’t have names yet? Yeah, I don’t want to go back to that. I’d rather the game take longer to catch up on ships but have it done right in one go than be stuck in the sorta kinda read in but not really stuff.

Me too. There's gotta be huge pressure from The Mouse to catch up on Mandalorian merch.

On 6/13/2020 at 4:19 AM, ScummyRebel said:

Speak for yourself.

Yes, I want it earlier but I want it done right - and with some of the surprises of the show being kept a secret, there’s no way Disney let that one slip ahead of release.

Remember when the Uwing came out in 1.0 and was kind of a miss because it only had partial data? Or the t70 and bomber pilots having a lot of call signs because they didn’t have names yet? Yeah, I don’t want to go back to that. I’d rather the game take longer to catch up on ships but have it done right in one go than be stuck in the sorta kinda read in but not really stuff.

The 2nd edition U-Wing is nearly unchanged from 1st Edition. Still two crew with a sensor/system slot. Still eight health, 3-die primary, and 2 agility while the wings are open. Dial is exactly the same. Gained a printed red Coordinate action, but actually lost the option to use torpedoes. Even the pilots are identical, down to the K2SO omission.

The only major change was to the mechanics of Pivot Wing. In 1st edition, you had to telegraph your pivot a full turn in advance, and could only perform a 180 with it.

2E changed the timing so that you didn't have to flip the card until just before you revealed your dial, and allowed 90-degree rotations. This mitigated the need to telegraph when you'd be doing a speed-0 maneuver, while also making it much easier for a U-Wing to keep guns on target.