2 minutes ago, theBitterFig said:

And again, you can play with them all you want, if your friends are down for it.

My friends are down for practicing for the next 200/6 tournament. So essentially I have pretty but expensive paperweights.

3 minutes ago, Darth Meanie said:

If you don't have the time/attention span/inclination to play more than a 60 minute game, that's not something FFG needs to fix.

That's not the case. I want to play with my huge ships, but FFG doesn't let me bring them to the games that everyone else wants to play.

I don't give a **** if a huge ship levels half of the opponent's squad in the first round because they are made of super flimsy aces. That will teach them not to go to a gunfight with a knife.

41 minutes ago, Azrapse said:

That's not the case. I want to play with my huge ships, but FFG doesn't let me bring them to the games that everyone else wants to play.

Sorry you can't find folks to play Epic, but that doesn't mean FFG needs to change the nature of Huge Ships.

45 minutes ago, Azrapse said:

My friends are down for practicing for the next 200/6 tournament.

Sounds boring. But like I said above, ruining everyone's Epic experience so you table a Huge on a 3x3 mat isn't how to fix standard or huge ships.

Personally, I think FFG should start running Team Epic tournaments that have the same level of support as Standard. The games might be twice as long, but twice as many players would be participating per game. And it would finally give Epic some real support. Plus, then the "tournament-only" minded crowd might actually use Huge ships.

I still think a lot of it is people coming from games like 40k and not wanting to play stuff that large, drawn out and time consuming anymore. i know it's why I don't like Epic.

I've played twice, and both times I was with people i like, doing a team game, and basing it on very themed battles in the films. But both times, like my last 40k game, I'm bored by turn 2 and wish I was just playing a faster-paced game.

You can do whatever you want around Epic, and suggestions in here are good for it, but it is still too long a game format with too many models for me. Just isn't the sort of game I like anymore, and I think a lot of people feel the same.

1 hour ago, InterceptorMad said:

I still think a lot of it is people coming from games like 40k and not wanting to play stuff that large, drawn out and time consuming anymore. i know it's why I don't like Epic.

I've played twice, and both times I was with people i like, doing a team game, and basing it on very themed battles in the films. But both times, like my last 40k game, I'm bored by turn 2 and wish I was just playing a faster-paced game.

You can do whatever you want around Epic, and suggestions in here are good for it, but it is still too long a game format with too many models for me. Just isn't the sort of game I like anymore, and I think a lot of people feel the same.

That's all fine and good. You do you, and I'll do me.

But let's not ask FFG to dumb everything down to fit into a 3x3 200-point match.

Because that only ruins XWM for those who are looking for something else.

1 hour ago, Darth Meanie said:

You would be undoing all the things that made Huge ships better in 2.0.

I clearly wouldn't want to do it for Huge ships in Epic, but in 200/6 it might be enough to balance things out. It'd be two sets of huge ship rules (standard, epic), and a hassle, and maybe it wouldn't even work to balance things out.

1 hour ago, Azrapse said:

My friends are down for practicing for the next 200/6 tournament. So essentially I have pretty but expensive paperweights.

Huge ships (as they exist now) would ruin 200/6 for everyone else, though, and ruining Epic for any Epic fans isn't a great solution either.

1 hour ago, Azrapse said:

I don't give a **** if a huge ship levels half of the opponent's squad in the first round because they are made of super flimsy aces. That will teach them not to go to a gunfight with a knife.

So ruining everyone else's fun is a goal then? Well, sympathies retracted.

1 hour ago, Darth Meanie said:

Personally, I think FFG should start running Team Epic tournaments that have the same level of support as Standard. The games might be twice as long, but twice as many players would be participating per game. And it would finally give Epic some real support. Plus, then the "tournament-only" minded crowd might actually use Huge ships.

This would be a better solution. Huge ships should get more OP action.

1 minute ago, theBitterFig said:

So ruining everyone else's fun is a goal then? Well, sympathies retracted.

It's not that ruining everyone else's fun would be the goal.
More like the game could account for "huges" becoming a fifth archetype of ship (besides jousters, arc-dodgers, turrets, and bombers).
Nobody says that arc-dodgers "ruin the fun" for players that focus on jousters, right? They are just another element in the rock-paper-scissors-lizard-spock game. Well, the same could be done with huges.
It would certainly change the meta, since now you would need to account for the chance of facing a squad that includes a huge ship. But that's not different from how things are now.

Also, how sure would you be a huge ship with barely any support would deal by itself against a full enemy squad?
Your Syndicate Smuggler loses a lot of its teeth if the opponents remain at range 3. And a huge ship isn't precisely the hardest thing to outmaneuver.
Even going range 2 or 1, its five 2 dice attacks in one turn is basically something it could do once per game, since then it would be empty of energy.

Anyway, I don't think there is any point to this discussion, because it will never happen.

2 hours ago, Azrapse said:

Also, how sure would you be a huge ship with barely any support would deal by itself against a full enemy squad?
Your Syndicate Smuggler loses a lot of its teeth if the opponents remain at range 3. And a huge ship isn't precisely the hardest thing to outmaneuver.

A Syndicate Smuggler with Boba crew, Damage Control Team, and Broken Horn is 69 points, and is the best battering Ram in the game. I've driven this ship into wings of TIEs and destroyed them for minimal returns in damage. It isn't fast, but if you keep your enemy running from it on a 3x3 mat, it provides a sizable advantage to the 131 point leftover for the rest of the list.

Alternatively, taking a Rebel Alderaanian Guard with an Ion Cannon Battery, Targeting Battery, or Turbolaser Battery can inch along the board edge, firing 3 shots beyond range 3 with 3 weapons that basically cannot be avoided since you are on a 3x3. The potential for killing many ships before they even reach the Epic ship is pretty strong.

I don't know if that is truly a good build, but it does raise Tripsilon level concerns. I'd be interesting in trying out a 3x3, 200 points games, if only to find how broken we could make things, but taking epic, as is, into the 200 style matches is off.

----------------------

To make a simple "this seems broken" comparison, a Decimator has a 3/0/12/4 statline for 67 points while the Gozanti has 3/0/11/5 statline with shield regen for 60 points. Additionally, the Gozanti does not lose actions when it hits an obstacle or bumps into another ship.

Wow... okay, this is tough.

1st wish: pilots separate from chassis. Now many will not that this could break the game, but, all you need to do is use the ship icons to show which ship the pilot can go on. So a pilot can not go on EVERY Ship, but they can go in select vessels. Bonus point, the crew option is on the reverse side of the ship.

2nd wish: Less combo building, more skill flying. I'm not going to lie, but while I love x-wing, I personally fine the gameplay of the Battlestar Galactica starship Game better. I find it encourages better flying over x-wings card combo system. The firing arc in that game is smaller, so when you line up a shot it just makes you feel good. Plus, all the dodging is done with maneuvering, instead of a dice roll.

3rd wish: Brand new game system - Energy management and an overhaul of the dice system with more dice types. Having to allocate energy to systems would offer more strategy. Also, the two dice system could be replaced with different dice. Of all the Star Wars miniature games, I think I like Armadas Dice system the best. Couple that with dodging being based on your ships actual position. I think it would offer up an interesting and more rewarding game play.

I dunno about the other 2 wishes, but I know what my first wish would be:

1st wish : "Tractor tokens lose 'Give the person holding them -1 agility.' Jam tokens gain this effect."

Jam tokens and tractor tokens are in a weird spot. Tractor has two entirely unrelated (mechanically) effects: Forced movement and fire support. Neither of these effects are broken, but it causes a problem because if you balance for both parts being in full force then tractors are overpriced, but if you balance with a 'discount' for the effects being non-synergistic you can spam it and get really annoying. Jam, meanwhile, is weird because its entire purpose is to make a ship easier to do damage too... but you know what makes doing damage to a ship easier? A focus action and an actual attack, which often will force the target to spend a token to reduce damage anyway and make future attacks easier. Even situations where you jam for free are often weird, like Chopper being in range 0 of something almost always means it bumped and lost its action ANYWAY so that jam does nothing. And if someone is holding a jam token that would remove a future action they know just not to take it and to wait for the jam to fall off, so it doesn't really limit action economy so much as make it so they will reposition that turn.

Jam wants to be a 'softener' but it frankly isn't. Tractor really wants to be about forced movement exclusively. So just make it so that if you end up holding a jam token because you ran out of greens cause -1 to agility. Suddenly ignoring a jam token is real bad, and it becomes worth it to fire a jamming beam at something. You now also have to make a choice on the cannon slot: Do you want to soften, or do you want to try to go for high-roll rock tossing where you land someone in an asteroid and force them to take 2 stress and 2 damage?

On the whole "Huge ships in Standard play" debate, my locals and I have been mucking around with a Corvette + Jake list, seeing if anyone could beat it with 200 points. Not only has it never lost, the record for most damage dealt is only 2 cards under the shields.

I'm going to side with Fig and Meanie on this one: leave them in Epic, where they were designed to be.

Epic is my preferred game mode and I think from experience, the thing keeping it from being more popular is how long it takes to clean up after 😄

45 minutes ago, All Shields Forward said:

Epic is my preferred game mode and I think from experience, the thing keeping it from being more popular is how long it takes to clean up after 😄

Yeah, it's best to have a "box it as it dies" strategy, so there is not too much at the end.

Also, I have to revise my entire Wish Post now that I have learned that STRUCTURES are an imminent feature:

1. Turbolaser Batteries

2. Shield Gates

3. Space Station.

And I'm still cool with gettin' the Squint fixed.

The biggest issue with Huge ships as currently statted and costed in 200-point play is that they can become near unkillable as the opponent's ship count drops. There's one C-ROC setup that is literally impossible to even put damage on when your opponent gets down to one ship, unless that ship puts out 4-damage shots every turn (since with reinforce and 2 regen per turn, you negate three damage each time).

And it's not that much better when they have two ships, either. So once the generic 3-ship list loses one, they are often just straight doomed. You don't want to force people to only spam generics to stand a chance.

Oh, and this C-ROC only takes about half your list. But if it costed more, it might be a bad deal in Epic where it gets blown apart by 10+ ships casually focusing it from potentially multiple directions.

Though unfortunately I've actually played the same number of games with this in a 200-point list as I have anything in the Epic Battles expansion, since scenarios vary so much it's hard to get people to build for them. (plus, even before the shutdown, it was hard to get people to show up consistently so it was impossible to plan a scenario with specific people)

1) TIE Avenger xpac

2) Different attack die types similar to Armada

3) Campaign/Narrative/Objective play options.

Okay, I replace my 3rd wish. Instead of huge ships in Standard, I join those asking for different dice.
At least different attack dice for precision and damage. That was the biggest missed opportunity in Second Edition.

As far as attack dice, I like the Legion dice more than Armada or Imperial Assault.

Armada and IA dice are strange, with a lot of different symbols, and it's just a lot harder to know what's good. I greatly like that X-Wing all reduces to hits and crits. Armada are better than IA, where I've got to try to figure out range vs surge vs hits. Ungh.

Maybe it's just me, but I just like a low-complexity "roll and count" for my dice.

Legion dice are simpler. They only really differ in the number of hits, with each die having 1 crit, and 1 surge (kinda like focus). Black with Surge > Black > Red with Surge > Red > White with Surge > White, at least on the single-die level. However, it gives a lot of flexibility to how a ship's weapons look. Is 2x Black better than 5x White? It might depend on what kind of thing you're attacking. I don't play Legion, so I don't have an inside understanding (is rolling lots of whites for a higher crit chance better sometimes?), but I love how overall simple it is.

But that's just like, my opinion, man.

(Get well, Jeff Bridges!)

My actual three wishes

1. Tie Avengers

2. Talent that grants a bonus canon attack

3. Pilots of Legends booster with EU pilots exclusively. Specifically Maarek Stele back in the Tie Defender

On 10/21/2020 at 6:55 PM, dezzmont said:

I dunno about the other 2 wishes, but I know what my first wish would be:

1st wish : "Tractor tokens lose 'Give the person holding them -1 agility.' Jam tokens gain this effect."

Jam tokens and tractor tokens are in a weird spot. Tractor has two entirely unrelated (mechanically) effects: Forced movement and fire support. Neither of these effects are broken, but it causes a problem because if you balance for both parts being in full force then tractors are overpriced, but if you balance with a 'discount' for the effects being non-synergistic you can spam it and get really annoying. Jam, meanwhile, is weird because its entire purpose is to make a ship easier to do damage too... but you know what makes doing damage to a ship easier? A focus action and an actual attack, which often will force the target to spend a token to reduce damage anyway and make future attacks easier. Even situations where you jam for free are often weird, like Chopper being in range 0 of something almost always means it bumped and lost its action ANYWAY so that jam does nothing. And if someone is holding a jam token that would remove a future action they know just not to take it and to wait for the jam to fall off, so it doesn't really limit action economy so much as make it so they will reposition that turn.

Jam wants to be a 'softener' but it frankly isn't. Tractor really wants to be about forced movement exclusively. So just make it so that if you end up holding a jam token because you ran out of greens cause -1 to agility. Suddenly ignoring a jam token is real bad, and it becomes worth it to fire a jamming beam at something. You now also have to make a choice on the cannon slot: Do you want to soften, or do you want to try to go for high-roll rock tossing where you land someone in an asteroid and force them to take 2 stress and 2 damage?

I just don’t agree with this. The flavor’s all wrong, for one thing.

Starfighter-scale tractor beams, as shown in Star Wars, take an object of about starfighter size and... not quite immobilize it, but make it slow and easy to hit for a time. The X-Wing and TIE Fighter games from the 90’s set a clear precedent for this, and it’s one that the new Squadrons game has held on to, and it’s great. The -1 agility suffered by a tractored ship is absolutely, spot-on, a flavor win, and totally makes it worth it to throw a Tractor Beam on your T-70 or M3-A or Upsilon Shuttle. The bit where you drag your opponent around is the bit of Tractoring that I could do without (though I personally don’t hate it, and think it’s pretty neat), and allowing your opponent to rotate his ship when you do it is often doing him a big favor; enough that it often isn’t worth using that part of the beam. But it’s also the part that makes the Nantex work, which is kind of important, even if only for that one ship (and yes, I get that the tournament guys are looking for Nantex Fighters to recede back into the shadows right now, but better that FFG fix them with a points rebalance than totally wreck their whole ship ability).

Jam, meanwhile... I don’t know that we have the same opinion on how Jam is used, conceptually. You seem to think it’s for lowering defenses, and while it CAN do that, I always thought of Jam more as a great way to make my opponent’s offense worse. Breaking locks is great. Is Jam itself a great action? Not usually. I mean, I have used it, but it’s situational, and isn’t usually amazing. But if it broke locks/removed tokens AND lowered Agility by one? It’d be one of the game’s most powerful abilities. Far TOO good, in fact; it would require a massive rebalance on every Jam-capable ship and every Jam effect in the game. I could MAYBE see Jam giving out a Jam token and a Strain token, because at least then the reduced agility only lasts for one attack, but a straight 1-to-1 switch of -1 Agility from Tractor to Jam is not cool. It’s way harder to Tractor someone than it is to Jam them.

X-wing tractors don't make any sense at all and it's funny that people still debate it. They were only added to the original computer games because of the design not functioning the way they wanted. Which is a problem they didn't have here in X-wing. In canon, tractors don't work at all against fighters. If they did, not a single major space battle makes sense. In fact, if tractors worked against fighters, all of gold and red squad would have been towed into a hangar on the Death Star, the crews imprisoned and interrogated, and Yavin destroyed. Just like what happened to the Falcon. And that'd be it. Done.

What's even worse, is that ion in canon shuts down your whole ship. If 'thematic accuracy' was your goal, when you get ionized, you should also be assigned a jam and a weapons disabled token to go with the ion, and ion would set your agility to 0 and prohibit it from improving.

The reason people who like tractors in X-wing isn't because they like good design, it's because they're players, and they want things that control outcomes, in a way that let's you win. That's what your supposed to want. The problem was that FFG gave us one that took away from one player to do it.

as a scum layer i want scum illicits that only scum has that are impactful on the game. even if they r overcosted they will at least add some new squad building options to a faction that has access to the illiict slot but nothing much other than contraband cybernetics thats actually with it.

My wishes:

1) Make secondary weapons special. Not just roll dice and damage. I really like what epic has done with its turbo lasers battery and ion cannon battery. Apply effects like this to torpedos, missiles and cannons. Make them feel unique and special.

2) Make ships more unique. Though I don’t care for the Nantex, but it flies beyond the standard dial; Several scum ships are this way too. Give ships different firing arcs and multiple repositions to make them harder to hit, not just dice. Dice should be more for armor in my opinion. Ie: TIE/LN has bullseye arc only, but allowed to barrel roll every round, nudges (move to left or right of template), and rotate. It’s supposed to be nimble

3) Astromechs. For the love of the game, ships that carry astromechs NEEDED them for a reason. Make carrying one darn near a requirement. Then, make the astormechs special.

I am not much for making wishes but I will cast a vote for doing away with tractor mechanics.

More down to earth I would like a greater variety of modifications, illicits, and rebel astromechs. There is too much "stock" about things especially the various freighters.

Starfighters are complex vehicles in high stress use that beings depend on for their lives. That sort of thing gets tweaked. More "upgrade" in the upgrades.

I would like to see more done in the vein of maneuvers. I really like the sideslip maneuver, but there was something that I saw a while ago in one of the trench run scenarios like what @Ccwebb was suggesting with the nudges.

On 10/20/2020 at 11:05 AM, Darth Meanie said:

Fair enough, but as an Epic player I was hoping for something better than Captain Wattle and Lt Daub.

On 10/20/2020 at 1:02 PM, Darth Meanie said:

If flying 6 generic x-wings from red squadron during the trench run scenario doesn't work for you, it might not be the cards that have no emotional connection to the Star Wars universe.

It's weird because to me those point seems antithesis to each other! 😁 Do you like generics or not?

That being said, I'll echo what Nyxen said, Saber Squadron are absolute blast to fly. Cheap I4 generics? Yes please! the 3 3 3 stat line is also, in my opinion, the most ''Pure'' xwing you can have :P. Make those shots count, always have focus when needed, engage and disengage at the right time, or you'll die very quickly!

Also, as a FO players, I wish we'd get :

- Some double missile/bomb platform of some sort. The FO bomber can't get here fast enough!
- Tie-rangle! Make the Sith Tie fighter! I know it's just an interceptor piloted by a wannabe cultist guy, but I dare hope they'll design it like an ETA-2 with bulleyes 3 dice and lots of reposition. Can also give us a I4 generic that isn't the silencer and cost 1/3 of your list.
- some upgrade, or some way to make Omega Leader as cool as she was before! I miss having a Tie fighter ace that was genuinely scary and could threaten other, lower init ships. She doesn't need to juke a complete result each time she attacks, just something to give her a little bit more efficiency so she's not howlrunner priced but hit as hard as a wet mop.