I have recently picked up the game, and I have a full complement of fighters for both the Rebels and the Imperials. I have played 3 games so far, so I do not have a lot of play experience. My opponent in the third game, a friend of mine, was discouraged from playing the game ever again. This was because he feels that the standard TIE fighter is undercosted for what it does AND that the Y-wing is too weak. Does anyone have opinions about this? I have my own thoughts, but I am interested in other people's opinions.

Thanks, and happy holidays!

flipperlord said:

Are you playing 100pt games? The Y-Wing is a decent support ship but most people don't use more than one. Despite having a lot of HP, it isn't a tank.

The Academy Pilot a good ship but isn't as good as it seems because defence dice (3/8 evade) aren't as good as attack dice (4/8 hit). Also, having evade isn't as over powered as it seems.

Rebels rely more on synergies than the Empire. Biggs + R2-D2/R2-F2 can be ridiculous in the right hands. Garven and Dutch are also very good. Wedge tears up TIEs if he can be kept alive.

The game is fairly balanced overall. You'll find people here and on other forums who are always complaining about the "other" side being over powered but they are just whiners. Also, 3 games isn't enough to notice any sort of trend, especially among new players.

TIE Fighters were pretty efficient until the arrival of Wave 2. Assault Missiles will now discourage the TIE swarm and the TIE attack of just 2 dice is not as threatening now when trying to hit Stealthed A-Wings at range 3 - that's 2 attack dice vs 5 defence dice! As for the Y-Wing, there is a reason it was being phased out. It's old and not maneuverable but is rugged. I think there hit the nail on the head there!

The sides are fairly balanced. In the first Kessel Run event I was in there were 6 players - 4 Rebel players and 2 Imperial players. The Rebels took the top three spots. I placed fourth and the other Imperial player placed fifth.

..

well,

i some strong opinions about this topic. The TIE being under-costed… i think it is spot on. it may seem cheap or over powered. but there are many things that need to be considered before jumping to this.

1) TIE are spose to be a zerg/swarm tactic. by canan.

2) they are also a base line..before the 2nd wave ther ewas ONLY 4 types of ship..after 2nd wave there are now 8. cheap filler role had to be taken by something.

3) for the love of George… the two side are NOT spose to be 'even' or similar. we arnt playing the same two armies with just differnt colors. by story and canon. The rebels had fewer stronger ships vs the Empires masses. And i think FFG has hit that nail on the head.

4) a few games does not make the whole experiance. Get him to play more games.trade sides. try new things.

These are just my most adiment thoughts..

DS-137-1

for rebels id recommend 4x rookie pilots. u have enough flexibility to add some r2 astromechs and or torpedos. i find that a rookie x-wing pilot is equivalent to two emperial academy pilots.

at my local kessel run event i ran wedge + red sqdron pilot + 2 rookies and was competitive vs all imperial builds i played (most were 6 ship builds, two rand vader). i also had more firepower than the 3 ship rebel teams that use a single Y-Wing

The_Brown_Bomber said:

i ran wedge, Biggs-r2F2, and 2x rookies and got third out of 10. Have to agree that's the most fun rebel build to play, as every ship has decent firepower.

From my reading on the subject, it seems to be a pretty well balanced game, though 3 x Rebel fighter units do tend to suffer against larger Imperial swarms.

It seems the 4 x fighter units do better against them, and should be fairly evenly matched. No sense wasting points on high initiative pilots, when they aren't needed.

Y-Wings do seem to be a bit outclassed by all, so few like, or play them, compared to the other fighters. However, I suspect with a decent allocation of points, good tactics, etc., even it should be fairly decent in a furball.

The Ion Cannon is good for slowing the Imps down, making it easier for the X-Wings to kill them.

Haven't heard much on the subject of the one point maneuver upgrade being used on the Y-Wingt, to make all speed 1 and 2 maneuvers green. I suspect that would be a no brainer, if you want to try to avoid Tie fighter targeting a bit, by using lots of red maneuvers.

Ion Cannons are well liked by many, and I imagine doubling up on proton torps might help them earn back a bit more respect too.

biggs can really mess with their enemy target locks and their balanced attack plans. i think a y-wing with draw their fire upgrade could have a simlar roll in wave2 builds. you might even see draw their fire on Name Falcon Pilots to keep as many attacking ships in battle for as long as possible.

Chewie piloting falcon + draw their fire seems pretty decent, i know its alot of points to invest but ur strategy would be to take out at least half their points by the time the falcon blows up

I find my pure Y-Wing list does better against more elite Imperial squads than it does against larger swarm builds. Naturally it's down to the evade dice and deciding between which weapon to use. Ion Cannons are a must, and then IF you have leftover points, THEN think about Torps.

Thank you for all your feedback, and keep it coming! … a little background information: we did play a 100pt match, and he had 2 Y-wings and 2 X-wings (no unique pilots) and I had Darth Vader and 5 TIEs… I won handedly… I am glad most people feel that the TIE is balanced, because I share that opinion. They are very efficient, but they are not customizable, and they are quite weak on their own

flipperlord said:

Two Gold Ys (with turrets) and two Rookie Xs are only 88 points. Add in R2-D2 and that is 92 points. None of the other upgrades are very good on non-named pilots. It looks like your friend wasted 8 squad points; that is enough to upgrade a Rookie to Wedge.

Vader + 5 TIEs is at least 89 points. even if you decked out vader in upgrades, that'd only be 6-7 points and most upgrades are pretty good on Vader. Those last points would have been spent upgrading your TIEs and unless you did something dumb like run 5 Obsidian/Black pilots, you upgraded at least a couple of your TIEs to named pilots.

Your friend ran a bad list and you ran one that was at least decent; that is why he lost. He shouldn't feel too bad about it, though. Rebels are much harder to make lists for and require more skill in-game. Tell him to try a list with 3 Xs, 1 Y, and R2-D2. That's 90pts and he will have 10 left over to upgrade at least one ship to a named pilot. If he goes with 4 Xs and R2-D2, he will have 12 points to play with.

flipperlord said:

It's also largely down to how well you and your opponent manoeuvre. I can understand your friends opinion, as I had a streak where I was undefeated with Imperials, but I have not won a game in week now, because my opponents have finally caught on. It's really down to experience.

ShadowJak said:

I did run 5 non-named pilots lol … I gave Vader concussion missiles and I gave an upgrade to a TIE (can't remember what it was) … Y is having 5 scrubs and a decked out Vader so bad? Just curious

flipperlord said:

It is pointless. Pilot Skill is the least important stat most of the time. Having abilities is much better.

ShadowJak said:

I disagree knowing where other ships are makes action decisions much easier. The number of times Vader, or a skilled TIE pilot has used barrel roll to just side step an enemy firing arc alone is a big deal. And the advantage of shooting first should be pretty obvious. Han Solo has seriously reduced the amount of fire he received by killing enemy TIEs before they had a chance to shoot multiple times in every game that I have used him in.

i will agree it can be a crap shoot. I once played a game with four black squadron pilots. My opponant used all named pilots so their skill of 4 was meaningless, they might just as we'll have been academy pilots with a skill of 1. But that was an early game and I have since learned that it is wise to have a range of skills. (Swarm tactics is also nice)

i ove how peoples understanding of x-wing is always evolving. i once thought swarm tactics was crap but when i saw how good it was i ran it on wedge to support rookie pilots and vadercto support academy pilots. i also recently realised how good evade tokens r and how important they r for keeping your ties in the game whereas previously i would at times go for focus and regret not rolling any focus icons when defending

The_Brown_Bomber said:

You really learn to appreciate -- or hate -- Evade tokens in an Imperial vs. Imperial match-up!

I also love how FFG seems to be keeping an eye on what tactics are being used. The bomb mechanics introduced in the next wave seem like a direct response to the prevalence of TIE swarms, adding a very real threat to keeping your ships bunched closed together.

DailyRich said:

Seismic Charges and Assault Missiles are a real deterrent to playing swarms. Area effect weapons do indeed discourage swarms.

DailyRich said:

tactics will just change imo. swarms will still be a strong strategy and the presence of bombs will not discourage them only make people think a lil more about how they swarm and when they swarm. it might just mean they break off into 2 separate formations of 3-4 ships for some of the time and reform as a larger swarm once the threat of bombs has passed in a given game

It's kinda strange how people are complaining that the TIEs cost too little, and how the Rebels are at a disadvantage, but posting results of Rebels consistently winning.

So, is every Rebel player just that much better than the Imperials they are playing against?

i kinda doubt it.

Maybe, just maybe the game is actually really well balanced.

The Amazing Flight Lizard said:

In the first Kessel Run event I was at, Rebel squads took the top three places.

As Rebels, you can't just charge into the massed Imperial guns. You need to maneuver and force the Imperial swarm to maneuver, which is hard for the Imperials because they have more ships. In the first Kessel Run game I played I had 8 TIEs against three X-Wings and a Y-Wing. I lost three TIEs and killed NOTHING because the Rebel player forced me to maneuver through asteroids and I got all screwed up.

Stormtrooper721 said:

i played 4 x-wings at my kessel run event. in one match vs 6 imperials (5 ties plus vader) her started in a tight formation of 2-2-2 with vader anf howlrunner at the back. he had a straught run thru asteroiods on my left flank so i sent 3 ships into the centre and used a sngle asteroid for cover while punching into his squad from the side, he was left in disarray and was forced to break formation, losing vader soon after i lost a red squadron pilot (other piolts were wedge +2 rookies) but fhe ended up conceeding as his remaining 3 ties were hopelessly out-classed

Well everybody has his experiences but i gotta say we tested quite a lot of (rebel) builds and tactics against imperial swarms. I playtested with a friend quite a lot and we are experienced tabletop gamers. We saw the potential of swarm tactics and also maxed out Academy pilots pretty early after release.

By swarm i mean at least 7 Imperial ships. To me 6 is not a swarm… Also i speak strictly wave 1. Assault and homing missiles might fix the problem in Wave 2. Which we can't get yet. There was no Kessel run event in my local store and we can't yet get our hands on the W2 ships.

We have tested 7 Academy pilots with Gundark or Nightbeast. Second list was a 7-ship swarm with Howlrunner, Mauler each with Swarm tactics and 5 Academy. Both builds are very potent versus Rebels.

We tested against 3 and 4-ship rebel builds with 4 X-Wings or 3 plus a Y-Wing. In different configs, with and without Wedge/Biggs, Garven, Dutch and varying equipment in torpedoes and Droids. We also switched fleets between every game so player skill can't really be taken into account.

The results are alarmimg. In some 10 -12 games there has been no Rebel Victory by tournament rules. I dont say this is statistically relevant, but it points in one direction pretty clearly. It also says nothing about Imperial mirror matches for such swarm lists. But against rebels we had always 3-4 Ties left at the end of each game while rebels were in 80% of cases wiped out after 60min.

We have identified two reasons for such a dominance.

1. Tie fighters in general, but especially academy pilots seem to be undercosted by 1-2 points. Alternatively X-Wings seem overcosted by 1 point. Y-Wings are pretty **** sure overcosted by 2 points even with ion turret. It should be possible to field 5 plain X-Wing rookies in 100 points if you ask me. Or made impossible to field 8 imperial fighters in 100 points. Two ties versus one X-Wing or Y-Wing is not balanced and that became clearer with every game we made. Another possibility would be to make Tie Fighters only 2 Hit points but idk if that is a good choice really

2. The Evasion action is possibly too strong. You do sacrifice an offensive option but it is basically 1 shield per Fighter per turn if you don't Koiogran. It is also a 100% chance action. Even focused rebel fire including Wedge and torpedoes does not always succeed in downing a tie. And the return fire is quite devastating despite what you might expect. Rebel players just get attritioned to death by exchanging a kill for a kill pretty often. Imps can afford this rebels can not… You might say yes this is the way imps are supposed to be, but Rebels just have no answer to this but extreme dice luck…

I am not claiming that this imperial build is imvincible but even in the games we felt dice luck was on rebel side they could simply not kill Tie's fast enough. Even dense asteroid fields changed nothing about it. I don't really see how rebels could reliably counter this with Wave1 cards only. I feel this hame is mot yet optimally balanced. I hope this will change but i kinda doubt it when i see Firespray vs. Falcon… The rebels seem to have points in the wrong spots they don't need and lack defensive options except the A-Wing.

I still gotta say i adore this game and this is in no way to be seen as a rant post. I just wanted to share my anecdotal evidence for something i feel a little unbalanced.

First time posting on here…

I saw the talk about Y-wings being underpowered and after playing with them today (i've been demoing at the local shop in penrith australia) and been using X-wings, Ties, Tie interceptors and Tie advanced (I won 2 after I had 1 demo and brought some imps and entered a kessel run starting 5 minutes after my demo finished) and I have to say that the Y-wings seem pretty crazy with ion cannons in an asteroid feild.

As a bit of a background the games we have been playing and demoing have all been asteroid furballs and some of the people on their 3rd and 4th games playing off against each other and kinda learning some tactics for the game where trying them out…. and today a 2x Y-wing 2x X-wing fleet (one being biggs to draw fire) was rediculous they can hug the asteroids and reduce return fire quite well once they start ioning out the ties they can get in blinds and see it dead and you use the xwings to try and to get the numbers even early even if ti means exposing them a little.

as a side note the imperial flight was 3 tie's 2 interceptors 1 advanced with cluster missles.

played both with and against them, and seems like 2 in a 4 ship build will get you a lot of mileage with ion cannons…

a 3 ship 2 Y-wings and biggs build nearly over ran the same imp fleet (proton torp alphaing granted bit of luck) lost out in the end imo due to the lack of the second x-wing to draw shots and pump some more early kills.

Seems like if you are running Y-wings biggs is a must for an escort so you can toss out early damage and not get too shot up try to whittle numbers down to a point where you can ion away in blind spots….

It's deffinetly a ship designed to win against elite fleets and not the swarm strategy though.