I playtested 1 round with Bigs Luke and Wedge all shooting at Howlrunner (simple tie no shields) all at range 3 without any bonusus. I gave the tie a focus token… after doing this 6 times the tie only was destroyed 1 time. That is unbalanced. Please try this and let me know what you think.

Bad luck? Wedge alone would be a 3 on 3 die roll at that range, not counting if he had a target lock, focus, or both. With a good roll he could easily destroy that ship by himself.

Also not considering a real situation where one of them might have an upgrade card to change the balance of an attack as well. Someone else could do the probability numbers but I think that your sample size of 6 attempts is too low.

With Luke and Wedge did you use their pilot abilities? Wedge can destroy ties like there's no tomorrow, ESPECIALLY because he attacks first, and Luke gets a free evade. Either the tie got SUPER lucky, or you must have been playing wrong, TIES 1v1 will RARELY destroy an X wing unless maneuvered by Gods, or getting super lucky.

Ummm… I don't know what to tell you but this proves absolutely no imbalance… considering I just played today with 4 ships against 7 imperial ships and only lost one ship by the end of the game and it was my third straight rebel win against imperials against 3 different players…. well, what can I say…. Maybe you are doing something wrong or you are not doing something correctly or just flat out have horribly bad unlucky rolls and are not recognizing them as unlucky but as some kind of proof of imbalance in the game. There is one more hit on an attack die than there is evade on a defense die and rebels have a higher offense and on top of that, superior ship durability, especially when paired with astromechs, which imperials cannot use…. There is nothing wrong with the balance of this game… I repeat… there is nothing wrong with the balance of this game…. After I lay a pounding on more imperials again tomorrow I am sure some crybaby opponent will start making noise about the rebels being overpowered…. at which point I will roll out Vader and the boys and stomp all over the rebels with superior flying and some precision flying that would make Maverick and Iceman piss themselves…..

Claiming imbalance when there is none makes you sound like a suck who can't accept that they need to get better at the game and quite frankly, makes you sound like a whiner. I'm not buying your poodu test as proof of anything because I know better. Sorry to be harsh but listening to people cry about imbalances piss me right off. I just took out 7 imperials today using 4 rebels… maybe if I do it 7 more times it will be proof of the rebels being overpowered? Or is it proof of absolutely nothing other than the fact that I won 7 games….

Well, as of the last time Parakitor and I talked, both of us have only seen the Rebels win with the starter rules. Using the full rules, we've only seen Imperial victories. This includes me losing to my wife when she played Imperial and I played Rebel. For my part, I chalk it up to my understanding the Rebels' limitations and understanding how to use Imperials, but I don't know how to use the Rebels to exploit TIE weaknesses yet.

As for the original post, I think the only imbalance was putting the TIE at range 3 and giving him focus while not giving anything to the Rebels (if I understood your scenario correctly). If the Rebels use target locks, focuses, and pilot abilities, one TIE doesn't stand a chance.

I don't know what to tell you guys… Rebels have been running **** around here and we always play 100+ games. I have won three staright with them, my other buddy has won 4 out of 5 games with them and my brother, who always plays imperials won two in a row and has now lost his last 4 straight… so, what is any of that proving? I say it proves nothing. I beat a guy in Infinity today twice in a row and lost the third. The first game I tabled his Haqqislam force with Japanese sectorial, the second I made him quit after one turn against my Highlander sectorial and the third game he played a much better tactical game ( after he deployed in this third game I had to tell him "wait… if you deploy like that, you are going to lose after one turn again… look…" and let him redeploy and he learned some of the lessons of earlier and played a much stronger tactically sound game) and he put me in loss of Lieutenant and forced my into retreat on the same turn, and while I had killed his Lieutenant as well, he had religious unbreakable troops and they were positioned much better than mine and I conceeded the game to him and he won the third game… What did this prove? That Japanese sectorial are better than Haqqislam because I smoked his ass down to the last man?…. and what about when my Highlanders kicked the piss out of him in one turn the next game, were they imbalanced? If so, why did he win in the next game against them? Because he actually used his army properly in the third game and played to his strengths and attacked my weaknesses. I don't know what to tell people when they can't win with a force that I always win with…. I'm playing other veteran miniature gamers… I'm not playing little kids or anything… I'm not the greatest strategist the world has ever seen…. the rebels are just not outclassed by the Imperials and neither are the imperials by the rebels, they have different styles and require different techniques to be effective with them…. But people always seem to find one side to be imbalanced over the other. Its just funny that in one gaming group, Rebels are "imbalanced" and in another the Imperials are "imbalanced"…. could it be that some people are just better with certain factions and squad builds than others? Just maybe that could be it? I could be awesome with one "army" in a miniatures game and totally suck with another that requires a different strategy and playstyle to win with, while someone else could excel with them and suck at the army I'm good at…. I don't see the imbalance and I have played about 20 games of X wing so far on both sides as I have ships for both sides…. I have been gaming for over 15 years and have played or still play almost every miniatures game imaginable and I see no balance issues with the game so far.

But hey…. if no one else can win with Rebels, then maybe we are the greatest wargamers on the planet in these parts

chris cook said:

It doesn't mean a thing except its hard to take down fighters at extreme range with no bonuses, you will find the same if you pitted 3 ties against 1 X-wing, that won't get downed either.

Yeah, Wedge at range 1 is a murderer, especially when outside the enemy firing arc so he can't be attacked. I've taken down Vader with Wedge alone in a couple of turns before.

Taking anything down at extreme range in this game is unlikely but far from improbable. A Tie gets 4 Defense at range 3 and X-Wings only get 3. So as long as the TIE is rolling 2-3 evades, he isn't going to be going down. If the TIE can't pull that off or rolls all blanks, or gets a direct hit critical, he's in trouble.

Against Wedge, that becomes a 3 Attack vs 3 Defense which puts the favor slightly in the Reb's court for at least hitting. Add in target locks, which the higher skilled pilots should have picked up and it gets worse for the TIEs. In most of our games, all the shots at extreme range usually only turn up a hit or two per side with all the usual locks and focuses and what not. Which means a lightly damaged TIE and a dropped shield or two on the rebs. The next turn things get a bit more interesting.

Plus any TIE with a sense of self preservation will be taking evade tokens not focus.

-DavicusPrime

We were inspired to re-watch the original Star Wars tonight. I forgot how Wedge flies right through the fireball of a TIE he destroys at point blank range!

This is exactly what it's like for Wedge at range 1 in this game. 4 attack on 2 defense, plus the effects of focus or target locks … he's a TIE killer.

I would say that six dice rolls is not a good judge of viability. Also, shooting a TIE at long range with an unmodified primary weapon isn't really playing to the Rebellions strong suit.

I've played about a dozen games strictly with the rebellion and have about an even win/loss ratio. Most of it was finding my list and seeing what works and what doesn't. My opponent favors the TIE swarm, and a nasty one at that. I would also reccomend geting the tournament rules and staging set up by them, including the obsticles. Break up your forces and be patient. look for a target lock followed by a focus the next turn, the hit them hard. If the TIE player is off on his manuevering, a lot of damage can be caused by the obsticles. Don't be affraid to run straight down his throat. denying the TIE's the ability to evade/Focus will cause them alot more problems than you not being able to target lock.

If I've learned anything playing the Rebs it's that you have to be willing to take those first hits. You have shields for a reason, you just have to make the loss count. Another thing would be target priority. As awesome as Darth Vader is, he's often not my go to. Mauler Mithel/Backstabber are generally my prime targets, followed by the Academy pilots. I'll leave Vader for last as it normally take a large ammount of concentrated fire to take him out.

My current list is:

Luke

Garvin: R2-D2

2x Rookie Pilots

Keep the Rookies withing range 2 of Garvin and use Luke to harass the flank. Focus fire above all else. Use multiple target locks on the same TIE to take it out. Don't forget to shoot THROUGH less important targets to hit the oppositoins force multipliers.

And never blame the dice for a loss. Every loss is a learning opportunity, and if a player targets the dice for a poor performance, they have given up the chance to learn something.

I played my first match with rebel the other day. (It just has turned out that I always play Imperials) and It was a Tie 67 points to 67 points exactly. My oponant had never played before, so he made some mistakes, but I think my list was pretty weak. Next time I play I will trade Biggs for Luke (at the cost of a couple of upgrades) and I think they will be deadly.

Future list

Wedge; proton torpedo, R2-D2

Luke: Proton Torpedo

Dutch: Ion Turret

Dutch gives the his target locks to Luke and Wedge and they kill stuff. First turn Wedge should have a target lock (from Dutch), he will spend his action on Focus and shoot his proton torpedo. Focus/Proton Torpedo vs reduced agility should really mess something up before the game really even begins.

I gave R2-D2 to Wedge instead of Luke because Luke is already pretty hard to hurt, and Wedge is my real killer.

I have thought about giving Wedge Marksmanship but I am not sure it is worth the points over Focus with is already free.