I was just flipping through my cards building potential squadrons lists and I noticed a dot next to R2-D2. I don't remember the dot being mentioned for upgrade cards, but I assume that it means that R2-D2 is unique an you can only take the upgrade once.

This leaves opens up some cool potential for later sets, perhaps chewy could be a unique upgrade.

R2-F2, R5-D8, R5-K6 and Squad Leader are also unique upgrade cards.

Does this mean that only one team can have a Squad Leader ?

R2-D2 is a total badass. I always amuse myself by imagining that between episodes 3 and 4, R2 is constantly trying to tell c3p0 about the events of films 1-3, but 3p0 just thinks hes being mental

"yeah sure r2… you were built by Darth Vader and used to roll with Jedi…"

rhaak said:

Would make sense, since there's just one squad when you're building a squad with the squad building rules

Ok, so unique cards count only for your squad ? If you have Luke Skywalker, your opponent can also use Luke Skywalker ?

rhaak said:

Ah, sorry, I misunderstood you - yeah, unique cards are only unique per squad. You don't necessarily know what your opponent will field while building your squad, so you can't take their build into account, and there are no rules for resolving uniqueness conflicts between the sides. Two cloned Luke Skywalker can fight each other.

haslo said:

Yeah, it doesn't say it on the card, but one person is fielding Luke, and the other is fielding Luuke. And both have visions in their head of an old man saying, "You will kill Luke Skywalker!!!!!"

True, this unique bit sort of throws your immersion, and that's why I think the game should be restricted to Rebels vs Imperials. Then you'd never have this issue because there are currently no pilots on both teams, and the Imperials currently cannot use astromechs (right?). I don't have a problem with squad leader since that's a generic type of unique: each squad should get a squad leader, but no squad should have more than one.

rhaak said:

The rules do say that if you are playing with allies, then only one of you can have each of the unique cards, but you enemy can repeat cards.

In the tournament I played (and that everyone I played was Imperial) I, and every single player I fought, used Darth Vader.

When I saw the thread title, I thought this was going to be about how R2 D2 is probably the best upgrade card in the game. I think he is one of the main reasons why the rebels are competitive- making him the "true hero of star wars".

In a universe where people can and do clone often, I have no issues see a Vader on Vader confrontation. I wouldn't want to experience it in every conflict as that would get stale but occasionally it is fine to me. I think the game options aren't open enough yet to prevent you from constantly seeing Vader v Vader confrontations though.

I suspect Vader and R2 (and to a lesser extent Luke and Biggs) will always be hot. FFG is pretty good at including a few excellent cards in their starters that seem to always stay competitive.

Budgernaut said:

Let's hope so, because they're what the OT is about…

Hrathen said:

Now THIS is exactly why I think tournaments should require you to field both a rebel and an imperial squad! Playing with 2 Vaders or 2 Lukes on the battlefield seems odd and clunky and although it is technically possible in the star wars universe, it just doesnt seem to fit with the thematic flow of the game!

Not to mention that people have already said that imp v imp turned out long and boring, with few kills.

FFG spent a long time designing and playtesting this game so that both teams have distinct advantages and disadvntages and play well against each other. seems a real shame to break a well crafted mechanic and the thematic flow of the game…

R2D2 said:

They will never do this for tournaments simply because this game won't only be Rebels and Imperials. With Lucas's focus on The Clone Wars right now we have to assume that at some point there will be other factions (Republic and Seperatists, as well as Sith, New Republic, Old Republic, Mando, etc.). Then how would you do it? I think the current tournament format is just fine and will prove to be fun for everyone.

Roy

So it seems that for tourney play this is going to be run like any other wargame. You bring a faction and you play whom ever you end up getting matched up with. If you end up fighting your own faction, so be it. That the Championship game at Gencon was Imp vs. Reb was never a given, unless FFG purposely totaled up the score based on faction (best Imp player vs. best Reb player).

For scenario/campaign play, things would need to be more specific.

-DavicusPrime

I have no problem playing against the same faction. With so few unique pilot/ship combinations due to this just getting started, I think it would be hard to avoid some duplicate squads right now anyway.

Plus I would not want to play in a tourney where I could not play my chosen squad every round. Yes being adaptable and knowing how to fly multiple ships opens up a lot of play opportunities for a player, but I prefer possibly facing another Rebel or Imperial. On a side note I would be interested in mixed fleet builds, although thematically it doesn't fit until we get some other factions to unite against.

As a droid, R2 is definitely worthy of praise.

However, there is a small but vocal faction of Star Wars fans that insist that the entire series is REALLY about another droid: The incomparable GONK power droid…

I wonder what he could do in an X-Wing.

bsmith13 said:

You, sir or madam, are my hero. As power droids are walking power supplies… shield recharge or super charged primary weapon sounds about right.

-DavicusPrime

When it comes to the people suggesting that tournaments should require players to have both Imperial and Rebel squadrons so that "Mirror Matches" can be avoided, the ultimate argument against that is simply that it's a bad idea to force players to build full squadrons on both sides. $15 a ship isn't cheap when you can be talking 5-8 ships on the Imperial side, and that's assuming the tournament point level stays at 100 long term instead of drifting up to encourage players to keep expanding their forces with new expansions.

R2D2 said:

Why is it the assumption that FFG wrote their Tournament Rules with out testing the game with those rules (same faction matches)?

ScottieATF said:

I assume this because people have reported here that some homofactional (brand new word I just made up) matches ended up with no kills at all! Surely that wasnt FFGs intention?

Also, in general people ive spoken to seem to suggest that Imp vs Imp was not very satisfying and got too clustered on the size of space used.

Regardless, I dont like the thematic concept of having clones of the same character. The jot of this game (for me) is the variety it offers. As a result watching darth vader trying to shoot darth vader out of the sky seems less interesting to me than seeing ships with different stats and abilities (and therefore different optimal play styles) match up…

R2D2 said:

Yes, some IMP vs IMP actions ended with no kills. In the first tournament ever, featuring players that had little to no experience with the game. So while yes clearly that isn't FFG intention, the results of that tournament are indicative of really nothing. It was many players first times playing the game, their inability to score kills in that much up is not a indication of how that match up will actually play out amongst more experienced players.

More over every game has to sacrifice thematic elements in order to actually work as a game, particularly in tournament play. Should Tycho Celchu not every team up with Biggs since Biggs was dead before his defection? Should one AGoT deck not be able to play a important character because their opponent drew a version of that character first? Games don't work as games if the needlessly slave to theme.

Your suggestion for tournament play doesn't work for a few reasons. First it "doubles" the investment for a player to even compete. Secondly given the need for a time limit it would be impossible to play both sides in a given round, thus leaving even more of the tournament up to random chance.

ScottieATF said:

I agree with ScottieATF. You can't compare playing time of players who have never played before with players who have some experience. The reason games didn't finish was because everyone was unfamiliar with the rules. That can take a lot of time when trying to figure things out in a tournament. But once people get used to the game and become more familiar with the rules, the games will go faster. And in regular tournaments, I believe it is the responsibility of both players to make decisions quick enough so that the game ends before time runs out. If two experienced players meet in a tournament, there is no reason that games shouldn't end before time runs out.

Roy

I would like to point out that I was at the Tournament and had one of those battles where no one died. In none of my battles did any one lose more than a two ships, and that only happened once.

Yes, we were new to the game and I imagine that we will get more deadly as we learn the game better, but the reason why there were so few kills was the fact that TIE fighters have a good defense and a poor attack. That will not change as we gain more experience. Another factor was that with two Imp players there were so many ships on the board that collisions were really hard to avoid and lots of ships had to forgo their actions. I expect that over time good players will learn how to avoid such messy brawls, but TIE's do not have the Target Lock action. The only offensive action they can take is focus (unless they have upgrades) so as we get better, TIE's will actually get harder to hit.

OK, so I was already working up some numbers, but here's the chart:

So the difference between a TIE attacking an X-Wing and a TIE attacking a TIE is 41% vs 29% chance to hit. That's only about a 1/4 reduction in hit chances. Yes, this ignores Evades and Focuses, but if everyone is colliding all the time like you say then no one is getting those anyway.