Well, I might need more Y-Wings now. As we thought, the Ion Cannon fires 360 degrees, as what looks like range 1-2. Reading the card for the token, would a target ship get to fire in the turn it was hit? For example, Salm's Y-Wing (initiative 8) fires first at a Tie and hits with the Ion Cannon. What happens to the Tie on that initial turn? The card says he doesn't get to plot his next move, but he does get to fire on his following turn. Does he get to fire on the turn he got fried?

Also, on the Ion Cannon card, what does "cancel all dice results" mean?

AND the number tokens go up to at least 17 with this one.

tiepilot1138 said:

You're reading into the card things said in the article. The card does not reference "next turn" at all it simply tells you what to do when you have an Ion Token on your ship during each phase. So let's run it down.

Horton Salm, skill 8, hits Obsidian Squadron Pilot, skill 3, with an Ion Cannon during the Combat phase. OSP comes to his turn, it's still the Combat Phase, so he attacks as normal. We then move to the planning phase, OSP does not program a maneuver. We move to the Activation phase, OSP executes a straight 1 and discards the Ion Token. You then go to the Combat phase, but since the ship no longer has an Ion Token the card doesn't relate to you anyway.

"Cancel all dice results", based on what we know about the rules you first negate hits and crits with evades, and what is left is applied as hits to the ship. Ion Cannon is saying at this point apply the effects of "1 damage and 1 Ion Token", but regardless of how many other hits you have, critical or not, ignore them. So say I fire an Ion Cannon and roll 3 dice and get 3 Cirtical hits, and the defender rolls only blanks. The defender would get one facedown damage card and 1 Ion token, nothing else.

tiepilot1138 said:

The Ion Token card describes things that a are affected each "phase" not on the next turn. So in your example, "yes" the hit Tie would be able to fire (if it hasn't been destroyed yet). But couldn't be assigned a maneuver dial during the planning phase and must make the stated move in the activation phase (after which the Ion tokens would be removed).

Reading the Ion Cannon Turret card it appears that a successful (at least 1 hit that isn't negated) attack using the turret causes 1 damage and adds 1 ion token. But any other effects of the dice are cancelled, so no mutiple hits or crits.

That's my best take at least.

Got it. Interesting how they can fire but not maneuver. Still, with two torpedoes and the ion cannon (not to mention that hull and shield strength) they seem pretty formidable.

Three Y-Wings can easily fill 100 points it seems - the 8-skill pilot card in the preview costs 25 points, the Ion Cannon costs 5, the proton torpedoes 4 each, and they can have an Astromech unit, too. That's up to 40 points for one unit. They better be formidable at that cost

So my big question is can we fire both the Ion Cannon and the Main Guns? That would totally make a Y-Wing sweet. Of course, I would think that you need a gunner to fire both. I can't wait for the rule book. If a Y-wing with turret can fire both guns, it would be well worth 40+ points.

Thanks,

Duncan

vadersson said:

Huh… I was going to say of course not, we've been told that already, but I just reread the article on combat and there's no indication wether or not you are restricted to one weapon. The closest thing that comes to referencing it is this: "In the combat phase, pilots can fire at any foes within range and within their firing arcs". Ay could mean "any one" or "any and all". Thankfully it's just an article not a rulebook so the ambiguity can slide, but it is an interesting question. If it is "any and all" a Y-Wing could theoretically, for two turns at least, fire their main weapon, their Ion Cannon and a Proton Torpedo all at the same time. That's crazy!

The rule book can't come soon enough, but meanwhile we have to wait for the TIE Advance preview… sigh.

I suspect that it is 1 attack per turn. However, I think FFG may have missed a great opportunity for game play. They need to add Gunner cards. If Y-wings had a gunner icon, then they could have a Gunner Upgrade card which would represent a backseat gunner. They still could salvage this since the Battle of Yavin was mostly Longprobe Y-wings I believe that do not have a gunner. A future expansion Y-wing could be a two seater and allow Gunner cards. I think it would be great to have personality cards for the gunners as well. This could also work if they ever add the Falcon. Han Solo pilot vs Han Solo gunner cards.
The clone war Y-wings would certainly have a gunner. The EU also have several other fighters with gunners I believe. Hmm, the possibilities are very cool.
Thanks,
Duncan

you would think that an astromech droid could serve as a gunner by utilising on board targetting systems…

vadersson said:

According to Expanded Universe canon, there are at least four Y-wing models.

BTL-B: The Clone Wars model. Heavier and larger than later models, he is a two-man fighter armed with a bubble turret and it is more focused towards making torpedo runs against capital ships.

BTL-S3: A Rebellion Era model. A two-man fighter-bomber equipped with an ion turret.

BTL-A4: A Rebellion Era model. A one-man fighter with the ion cannons fixed towards. It is the model seen in the Original Trilogy models. I suppose that the pilots of Gold Squadron surely missed the 360º turret during the Death Star Trench Run in the Battle of Yavin.

BTL-A4 (LP): The "Longprobe" model, an scout one-man fighter equipped with better sensors, more fuel and a more powerful hyperdrive. This model could be seen (and flown) in the extinct "Star Wars Galaxies" MMORPG. This was the model used in that game: http://images1.wikia.nocookie.net/__cb57525/starwars/images/4/44/Y-wing_LP.jpg

We can assume that the standard Y-wing of the "X-Wing Miniatures Game" without the ion turret upgrade is an A4 model, and the ion turret equipped is a S3 model. We could argue that the A4 model still has the ion cannons, and it should be able to fire them forward, although some Expanded Universe sources say that many A4 models replaced the fixed ion cannons with blaster cannons, and that would explain the ion cannons absence in the standard Y-wing.

About the possibility of having "gunner characters", I found it highly unlikely, as the only "character gunners" that appear in the movies would be Luke Skywalker and Han Solo when the man the Falcon' turrets during the Death Star escape. Skywalker is already represented as an X-wing pilot without referring to an specific squadron (he could be Red Five or Rogue Leader), so I don't think that we see alternate version of a same pilot (the same can be said about Wedge Antilles, he appears as Wedge Antilles, not as Red Two, Rogue Two or Rogue Leader). BTW, I also think that the "Red Squadron pilot" card already covers all the rest of pilots of this squadron, so we don't see a Jek Porkins card, and any future ace X-wing Rebel pilot card wills come from the Rogue Squadron (like Zev Senesca and Hobbie Klivian).

PD: The text of the "Fire the ion cannon" news update confirms that the basic Y-wing is an A4 model. An the generic pilot cards seems to be "Gold Squadron pilot" and "Grey Squadron pilot". We know that one of the ace pilots is "Horton Salm" (Grey Leader during the Battle of Endor). I cannot make the letters of the name of the second ace, but probably it is some Gold Squadron pilot. My bets are on Davish "Pops" Krail, Gold Five during the Battle of Yavin (the last to die during the Y-wing trench run, his last words being "They come from behind!").

This is what I've been waiting for!!!! Yes! I totally want a squadron of all Y-wings!

I'm surprised they went with the 360 degree firing arc, but it's way cool. One thought I had at first was what they would do for the B-wing since it has an ion cannon but can't fire 360 degrees. Then I realized that this one is called an Ion Cannon Turret instead of just an Ion Cannon, which shows their foresight in setting up a different equipment card for the B-wing.

Very excited!

EDIT: Another thought about cancelling all dice. Is it possible that you could have an effect in play that modifies focus dice on an attack? If so, the Ion Cannon Turret will cancel those dice, preventing those bonuses.

Budgernaut said:

That will depend on he timing of the bonus. If the bonus is to convert focus to hit, then you would do that to calculate hits before the Ion cannon took effect.

Hats off to Agrivar, excellent background on my favorite starfighter. I was going to do something like that myself, but I was at work. You did a nice summary.

I agree these must be A4's with turret upgrade. I think the others should be seperate expansions in the future.

I do disagree (respectfully) with your thoughts about character cards. I would expect to see other versions of main characters, espcially Wedge in the future. I don't see a problem with that given that they will just represent differnt points in a characters life. I also think if this game is successful they will eventually put out additional pilots. I fully expect Porkins, Dutch, Triee, and other members of various squadrons to show up. I even expect we will get more EU characters like Corren Horn someday.

Given this is a new product, FFG is probably hedging the bets with just 8 expansions to start and then will develop from there. (2-5 are the current expansions, 6-9 will be A-Wing. B-Wing, TIE Interceptor, TIE Bomber is my guess and the dice are 10.) After those sales will determine where the game goes. I fully expect we will see clone wars ships too.

Thanks,

Duncan

Agrivar said:

Wes Janson and Dak Ralter are also gunners in the films. Still, I agree that it's doubtful we'll get gunner characters. To me it would bog down the game a bit. Besides, Wes Janson would deserve his own pilot card if he ever featured in this game.

The Y-wing has 1 rather than 2 dodge (I don't think that is what they are calles) but 5 rather than 3 Hull points, and 3 rather than 2 shield points. With a R2 droid to recharge your shields. I am not sure how much that one dodge dice is going to hurt them, but I think they might be pretty hard to kill. Add to that a weapon that can fire 360 degrees, even if it can only do 1 point of damage (I don't know how much of a dissadvantage this will be) but it does

[Continued from above] Ionize ships. It will be interesting to how useful that is. I bet this will be really good. From what I can tell from the rules, knowing where an enemy ship after the next move phase will be very useful.

Do my Eyes miss me, or does the Ion-icon look like a Swastika??

I could imagine different versions of some of the already named pilots (like Luke and Wedge) as promo cards or prize support. Not too important to the game, but some new flavor. As for prequel ships, other than ethersprites and v-wings against droid fighters, what else is there really that anyone would care about? Sure, there are lots of obscure separatist ships, but there are lots of better obscure EU ships that would be better done first. Either way, I'd expect I'd have to buy it, but I really don't like mixing the two generations (It just doesn't look right!)

Ahab said:

Very slightly so, maybe. There's a clearer version on the reference card:

Even if it does remind slightly of a Svastika, it looks the other way than the one you're maybe thinking of, and in general you have to squint a lot and ignore a lot of the rest of the icon for seeing one

haslo said:

If it's rotating in the opposite direction from a swastika, that's the symbol for temples on Japanese maps.

To me the symbol doesn't bother me. I think it's supposed to be 4 ion turrets in a circle, representing the 360 degree firing arc.

To add to the discussion about character cards, im hoping for cards with pictures of the pilots on rather than the ships. im slightly dissapointed that ffg have gone for computer style art for the cards rather than hand painted pictures, im hoping they release a pilot deck expansion with images taken straight from the rogue squadron graphic novels.

As far as ion cannons go, is it the tie advanced or tie defender that is also mounted with them?

ironman said:

The TIE Defender is armed with 4 laser cannons and 2 ion cannons (plus a missile or torpedo payload).

The inclusion of Imperial Ace Maarek Stele seems to suggest that we can see a future TIE Defender expansion, because both Maarek Stele and the TIE Defender were first introduced in the computer game "TIE Fighter", and the inclusion of the former suggest the future inclusion of the later. Also, the Lucasarts' Star Wars space sims seems the most logical source for the first additions to this game once the fighters that appear in the original trilogy of movies have been covered.

The inclusion of starfighters introduced in the Star Wars computer space sims would mean the coming of the Z-95, R-41 Starchaser and T-wing for the Rebel side, and the TIE Defender, Starwing gunboat and Missile Boat for the Imperial side. The late "Star Wars Galaxies" MMORPG had a few more candidates from the "Jump to Lightspeed expansion", as the Longprobe Y-wing and Rebel Gunboat for the Rebels, and more TIE variants for the Imperials.

BTW, the Ion Torrent icon looks to me like some stilized lightning motif surrounding a circular object, as a representation of the electrical disruption created by an ion cannon hit.

The numbered tokens are indeed for IDing ships

Agrivar said:

Exactly what I barely dared to hope then, yay I must admit that personally, I'm not really familiar with most of the EU, but did play the old X-Wing and TIE Fighter video games - so getting ships from those is something I really hope and look forward to.