Does any one else have the feeling that in events playing Imperial ties a disadvantage when it comes to mirror matches?

Rebel vs Imperials all is fine as the game ballance is designed for this.

Rebel vs Rebel also works as there are not many ships so turns are quick and combat is deadly because both sides have higher attack than defence and therfore will more than likely wipe eachother out in the 1 hour time limit. This gives one side full 5 points.

Imp vs Imp has in my experiance had on average 14 ships on the table so takes nearly twice as long to move all ships and then combat you rolling less dice in general in attack than defence with the added pain of a evade tokens. So games are a lot slower and I have not seen one that ends in the time limit and in general the differnce is very low so you dont beat the 33 points to get the 5 points.

So it seems rebels always have a chance of getting 5 points but Imps only get that when they play against a rebel player.

What are other peoples thoughts or experiences?

Your observation is accurate, but I have seen some talented Imperial pilots table other Imperials. It's not common, but it happens. The other thing you have to keep in mind is that you can earn a full 5-point match win if the difference between the total point cost of your remaining ships is 33. So while it's not easy to get a match win, it's not impossible either.

The two things that prevented me from running an Imperial squad at Kessel Run were 1) I didn't have enough ships, and 2) Imp vs. Imp matches can be a little bit boring with "I fire, I miss; you fire, you miss, etc." Oh, and I wanted to wear my Rebel Pilot costume.

With the TIE Interceptor expansion there is a good chance that Imperial mirror matches will not have this problem.

I made a post about this very topic a while back:

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=254&efcid=6&efidt=745354

I think that with the new wave of ships coming out, the issue will be alleviated a bit.

I think with the new ships it will all change but we are running an event in Jan with only the Tie/in , Tie Advanced, X-wings and Y-wings allowed.

Bar making the first round as near as possible rebel vs imp there is nothing I think I can fairly do other than give moral support to the Imps and hope the force limits the mirror matches.

I like the idea of a tournament where each player brings an Imperial and Rebel list and each game the player and their opponent randomly determine which side they will be. This way, each match will make sense with good guys vs. bad guys.

Both my games in the Kessel Run event were Imperial vs. Imperial, and the Evade tokens were maddening sometimes. Both games were won on the final turn after the TO called time when one side finally managed to destroy one ship.

I would concur…..I ran a 5 ship IMP build at KR. Two of my games were IMP vs. IMP The first was a draw where I managed to damage everyone of his 6 ships and he had only removed 1 shield, but still a draw. The second I wone by destroying more than 33 pts difference, but it still ended on time. We were running 60 munute rounds so that made it even more difficult.

You can counter this by using named pilots that gain extra dice in the shooting phase.

Mauler does a great job of this.

If the Kessel run was your first big event, you were at a slight disadvantage from those who played at worlds. Those who played at worlds adjusted their lists as I did to deal with this.

My Worlds list was Vader with swarm tactics and a concussion missile with 5 obsidian pilots. After having played three games against imps at worlds I knew I needed to change things.

1.) Vader is not worth it. After the missile is shot he is just a TIE fighter. So I dropped all TIE Advanced from my list giving me 35 extra points.

2.) I went through the deck of Imps and found pilots that can get more than two attack dice, Mauler and Backstabber. This was 33 points.

3.) I felt like I needed one more named pilot. After looking through the deck I knew I wanted Howler Runner. The reroll would make sure my dice landed more often. I down graded the obsidian pilots to academy pilots and then changed one to Howler Runner.

My final list was seven ships, no upgrades.

4 Academy pilots

Mauler

Backstabber

Howler Runner

I hope this helps

FCWookiee said:

As Tawnos points out, however, this will be alleviated to some degree by the release of Wave 2. The Empire's ships from the new expansion have more potent attacks (and are more expensive, which will tend to reduce the size of the typical Imperial list); meanwhile the Rebel ships are tougher or more evasive than their existing counterparts, which will lengthen Rebel/Imperial and Rebel/Rebel matches.

I also hope that by the next round of major tournaments, everyone will be a bit more experienced--and therefore faster.

I totally agree with the idea that tournaments need to be a split between Rebels and Imperials. That way we know who the true champion is -- the one that can handle both sides. That's why I brought event registration sheets for both sides, but fielded an Imperial squad.

I believe that there were talks at Worlds about implementing this in the future. We'll just have to wait and see what happens.

I couldn't disagree more that all tournaments, especially the championship format, should be a classic format, where it will always be the classic Rebel vs. Imperial. For some more casual events, sure why not?

What would you do when the Republic and Separatist faction ships come out? Force everyone to either play one of those factions or bring a squad from every faction? A good player, with a good squad should be able to acheive a full victory no matter what they are facing.

The only issue with requiring players to bring a Rebel and Imperial list is that it makes the initial buy-in for a new player quite expensive, just to be able to play in a tournament. Compare to the current model, where, assuming no discounts on pricing and applicable taxes, a new player could bring 3 X-Wings into a match, only having to spend $70 (which in itself is pretty substantial). You can make some decent competitive lists out of just that and have just as good a chance as any at winning a Kessel Run.

Now compare the Imperial side, where we're seeing 5 ships on the table, as a low number that still functions well competetively. The cheapest way would be a Core Set at $40, then another $45 on 3 ship packs, totalling to $85.

Combine the two, where a player would need both lists to play, and you wind up spending less money overall than buying separately, but the inital buy-in is still a pretty large barrier for some people.

2 Core Sets at $80 to have 4 TIE Fighters and 2 X-Wings

1 X-Wing or Y-Wing pack (personal taste) to get to 100pts of Rebels is $15

1 TIE Advanced pack (to use Vader or Maarek to fill in the points) is $15

So total, you're looking at $110 to have your bases covered and be able to get in the door if you're required to be prepared to play both sides and have a reasonable chance at success. Obviously you could technically play with one Core Set and have a really small army list compared to your opponent, but again, the idea is having a a reasonable and fair chance at success at winning.

No, I think this is fine the way it is. As an Imperial player, you need to appreciate that your 8 Academy Pilot TIE Swarm might have a hard time winning out against a literal mirror match of the same list, because of reasons already discussed in previous posts about 2 Attack Dice vs 3 Agility Dice.

As a Rebel player, you need to be wary of someone like Wedge absolutely wrecking your (modified) Agility 1 X-Wing and your (modified) Agility 0 Y-Wing at Range 1. You'll be trying to keep their ships out of Range 1 firing solutions so you don't take massive damage from the 2:1 ratio of primary weapon fire.

The mirror matches really cover extreme case; slow matches with low damage output with Imperials, and fast, high damage matches with Rebels.

If you're not attempting to factor this in, then you're missing the point of what makes tournament games more of a challenge than your casual games. When we play at home, our collection is only big enough to realistically do a Rebel vs Imperial matchup. I don't have a lot of mirror match experience, except for the one I had at Kessel Run.

What I learned from that has me thinking about the Rebel vs Rebel match a lot more now when I build my list for the Toronto Area Kessel Run Round 2 events coming in January. Apparently there were shipping delays so they'll be trickling in throughout the month.

Remember this, fellow gamers, when you want to practice a mirror match at home and you don't have all the "official" models to play it; you more than likely have the actual number of ship TOKENS to make it work. So, if you have 2 Core Sets, you have 2 Luke Skywalker tokens, and 2 Biggs Darklighter tokens, and if you bought 2 X-Wing packs, you now have 2 Wedge tokens, and so on.

Heck, even that notwithstanding, you can ALWAYS go ahead and proxy tokens in at home, just make sure you and your opponent make each other away of what counts as what, and then have at it. All you really need in the game itself is that little cardboard square and the printed fire arc; the model is just fluff and visuals. Use Imperial tokens if you need to for subbing in rebel ships, and vice versa, depending on your personal supply.

The cards and abilities are all easy enough to come across in squad builders, and your own collections, so while it may not look as elegant as having the "official" loadout, you are more than able to practice this stuff at home if you get a little creative.

adding to Dave's mirror match proxy sparring practice, using the Maneuver Guide that all ships come with and a piece of lined paper/excel make a good substitute for the dials. List all the ships in pilot skill from lowest to highest in columns and a new row for each turn. Simple and effective. Of course you could put more work into it if you really wanted to.

cleardave said:

For this type of hobby, that is not bad. Anyway, I see most people ending up collecting both sides simply by accident.

The R5Don4 Star II said:

Hope they keep it a separate game, like Warhammer Fantasy Battle and Warhamemer 40K.

[ADMIN: Edited for language.]

the problem with making them separate will be a stale game and nobody will play with the older models again or rarely so due to bordom

mixing them will give more flavor; though destroying lore in the process. I say, **** this is a game and games should be fun and fresh. Don't get me wrong, i'm a huge fan of star wars period, be it original trilogy, episodes 1-3 or Clone wars (which is fantastic by the way and i highly reccommend it if you haven't seen it already) and you shouldn't let your personal vendetta's stand in the way of what could be a very diverse and strategic game just because you like one set of trilogies over another

Predictions:

I Really doubt that make the Preques ships be a different game.

They will release or at least announce prequel ships in 2013 and a new core set.

The astromechs will have a slot in many Republic ships.

The Vulture Droids will bring new definition to the term Swarm and will be the first ships sold in a two pack.

The Jedi starfighter Unique pilots are going bring new defintion to the term powerful pilot talent.

To get all the cool new upgrades for your Rebel and Imperial fleets you will need to buy ships you don't want in factions you don't want to play.

General Grevious will make the fanboys shout, no matter what they release.

There will be cross faction ships released in 2013.

I do look forward to cross faction ships.

executor said:

sorry for language, should have said "screw the lore" instead

BarbariAndy said:

Of coruse it's not bad; compared to mini wargames across the industry, it's a steal to get pre-painted models that look that good for that price. The point I'm trying to make is that dollars are dollars, and regardless of how relatively inexpensive something is compared to other games of the genre, it's still your money that needs to be spent at the end of the day.

For new players, not just to X-Wing but to tabletop gaming in general, these relative factors may not be a selling point. If you were collecting it slowly over time, like I did back in September when the game came out, it's easy for me to look back at my collection and not feel I was really put out financially at any one point.

But, if I had to buy it all in one lump sum, I would scoff at the price.

2 Core Sets $80

2 X-Wings $30

3 Y-Wings $45

2 TIE Fighters $30

2 TIE Advanced $30

1 Pack of X-Wing Dice $8

So that's $223. I paid substantially less, because I got it all at a healthy discount, but on paper, I would be reluctant to get that all at once for a game I never really got to get "hooked" on, just to show up ready to go at tournaments and be able to play both sides.

Of course I was going to collect both sides. I'd be lying to everyone here and myself if I pretended it was anything but deliberate, but we shouldn't assume our personal zeal for the game is shared by everyone who may want to play it.

If we want to see an actual organized play community emerge, we need less barriers for new people to get involved, not more. If they like the game, the extra ships and collecting both factions will follow naturally, but for now, a cheaply aquired group of 3 X-Wings is a nice entry point for anyone looking to hit a tournament without spending a lot of money.

When Wave 2 officially releases, and gets ammended into the official tournament document for use in organized play, the potential cost for a competitive list may rise as well, when you factor in not only the existence of new ships and pilots, which means new strategies to account for, but for the Modification cards found in the Falcon and Slave I boxes that can be used by either faction, on any ship.

I'm already imagining how the Stealth device on Biggs with the R2 that boosts Agility will make him an absolute tank for your Rebels, keep Wedge's amazing killy powers safe from attack. But you can't do that without buying the Slave I, and you have to imagine other players will take advantage of that, even if you choose not to, for financial reasons or otherwise.

The game state currently, is very newbie-friendly, as far as cost goes, to play in a tournament. It'll never be this easy or inexpensive again for a new player, so if you have friends thinking about "maybe" getting involved, strike now, fellow gamers.

As far as mirror matches, I understand the necessity.. but I do wish that seeding had a way to "perfer" proper matchups even if optional.

But yes, down the lines it would be kind of cagey. Id like to see other era appropriate factions introduced such as Yuuhzong Vong, or even hutts/underworld (star vipers, headhunters, etc) any of which break the "good vs evil" structure anyway.

The topic of this thread is spot on, but I feel it's a GOOD thing because Imps have an advantage over rebs in wave 1 (no I'm not saying it's an impossible to win rebs vs imps, and no i dont just play without asteroids and charge at them, there's enough of that around here ). Howlrunner being essentially the only "blanket stat buff" in the game since she kinda sorta almost says "all ur other guys have +1 attack" in the faction that has cheap enough ships to swarm leaves really no reason NOT to run 6-7 ties + howlrunner (aka assault missle, seismic charge). Also, only the empire realistically has access to multiple swarm tactics. Both of these are just extremely efficient effects without alot of frills, and in the early stages of a game, those tend to win.

What's funny is this IS really one of the only deterrents to running a sqaud like that. At the kessel runs aroud here, and I Imagine anywhere, a second "top tier" Imp sqaud emerged using Vader + con missle Tempest Pilot + con missle Black sqaud tie with squad leader to help the Tempest add focus to the missle, and a couple academies gave the imps a better alpha strike, and managed to win several games by being up on points more when time ran out, even if it looked like they might lose in the long run. It was interesting to see this as an adaptation more or less specifically for playing against other imps, because while it could still do well against rebs by doing something like putting both missles into a rookie to kill it asap, there still is no reason to use it over the 6-7 ties with howlrunner IF all you ever played against with imps is rebs.

So with those two things in mind, and the fact that the tourney field is gonna change COMPLETELY in wave 2, I like how things are. Wave 2 will see the 6-7 ship swarms that take so long against each other alsmot never happen because those squads will be rare enough that it would be unlikely to see 2 against each other. People are going to use the heck outta assault missle/seismic as a knee jerk reaction to the wave 1 environment (and even if they don't many players will probably go into events expecting this). The addition of the Firesray and everyone playing aroudn with that, and even intereceptors and Awings will all have an effect on sqaud numbers.

Instead of imps all being 5-8 ships, i think it will be more like 3-5 ships (3 ship builds having at least one Firespray) which will be the same number for rebs too.

bobbywhiskey said:

Sorry, I strongly disagree with some points here. The game at Wave 1 was pretty balanced from what I could see, and Imperials certainly do not have a significant advantage. Maybe in your local region the people choosing to play Empire are simply superior tacticians. Read the forums, there are plenty of reports of Rebels winning the KRT's. I know I won my KRT playing Rebels. Infact to show how balanced the game was here are the top 6 builds:

1st - 3 ship rebels (2 X, 1 Y)

2nd - 3 ship rebels (2 X, 1 Y) [yes rebels top 2]

3rd - 6 ship Empire [5 Ln, 1 Adv) = I had a mod. win against this guy in Rd 1

4th - 5 ship Empire [4 Ln, 1 Adv)

5th - 4 ship Rebel [4 X] = I wiped him off the board without loss in Rd 2

6th - 7 ship Empire -7 Ln]

So top 6 was 3 Empire, 3 Rebels, Top 4 was 2 Empire, 2 Rebels. --> Hardly a case for arguing Imperial dominance.

godofcheese said:

It looks like you had a mod win against another Imp and that's what kept you outta the finals? Also the 4 LN 1 tie adv build doesnt sound too great, if he lost to one of the top rebs they are inflated a bit. Keep in mind also that many of the rebel builds that "won" kessel runs probably would not have had they had to play one more game. Many people only played 2 rounds because of venue time limits or byes (and byes give 5 victory points and some peopel had one in a tourney WITH only two rounds) and many of the people I read here and at boardgame geek that did do well with 3 rebels or w/e list what games they did play as reb vs reb or against somone playing 3-4 tie advance garbage or someone that they anecdotally mention got ruined by asteroids cause they played hothie's world build but dont know how to avoid that stuff in formation.

I won one event, and placed 3rd in another due to time win and time loss against other imps, the loss being one of my friends that made the trip with me who had the 5 ship build i mentioned with double con missles that i put together for him, because that venue only played 60 min rounds instead of 75 and was timing during ALL of setup cause they were in a mall and pressed for time His superior alpha strike held up in what was essentially a 45 min game, and he might have still been slightly ahead after another 30 which is why i mentioned that build.

My build was 7 ties with howlrunner, because i felt that the "hothie build" could drop vader for 7th tie because he didn't typically do THAT much more than the average tie unless you get down towards the end game and he has more room to barrel roll into blind spots, his added survivability could be an issue for ur opponent when they only have 1-2 ships left, etc. The 7 ties was my attempt to get some extra early oomph to allow for the time limit. It ruined rebs cause if they played 3 ships 7v3 was too much regardless of who it was or what they did, and i had teched against 4 ship builds by dropping swarm tactics altogether and playing howlrunner/mauler/5x obsidian. I killed several rookie x-wings between the two events without them getting a shot off.

The main thing was i had practiced ALOT on how to manuever 7 ties together, and didnt hit any asteroids all day, even while fighitng the entirety of one of the games against the rebs in the mid of the table all around them. I also would set up on one corner if need be in order to not get flanked, adjust the speed of my opening moves depending on what my oppnent was doing etc, sometimes spending the first few turns doing nothing but working my way aroudn the outer edge of the table faster than my opponent was expecting to have to spin around and was able to get a full 7 ship volley or close to it whenever i did finally get the inital attack angle i wanted.

Like i said its not un winnable, but if you really read some of the reports of the people that won with those builds and consider that they had to play one less game to "win" it's very telling. I feel like the world champs was a much better measuring stick considering they played (counting the single elim rounds) 6 games instead of 2-3 with their squads and the competition overall was tougher im sure. Fewer games = more statisical anomales so to speak. Many MANY players at the KRTs were picking up the game for the first time as well.

Putting alot of wall of texts in this thread lol….