All the comments are valid and quite interesting. With the Advent of Wave two bringing us engine upgrades and shield upgrades. Consider System upgrades such as harking the days of good old X-Wing flight simulator.

I feel as though it would bring a different element into the game. In X-Wing and Tie Fighter flight simulators, even X-Wing vs. Tie Fighter, you can divert power from your weapons, shields, and engines respectively. Here are my two cents:

Switch Deflectors- cost 4

Action: Reduce your Agility or Firepower by 1 to gain 1 Shield token until end of turn.

Primary Overcharge- cost 4

Action: Reduce your Agility or shields by 1 to gain 1 to your Firepower until end of turn. You regain your loss shield token during the end phase.

Speed Freak - cost 4

Action Reduce your Firepower or shields by 1 to gain 1 Agility until endo of turn. You regain your loss shield token during the end phase.

Damage Control - cost 4

Action: Reduce your firepower, shields, or agility by 1 until endo of turn to flip a Crital Effect or discard a Damage Card. Discard this card after use.

Opinions??

In the Star Wars canon there are two types of shields. One protects against energy weapons and the other protects against physical attacks. In general starfighters only have shields that protect against energy weapons. Thus the shields should not protect against hits from missiles (or crashes into obstacles). This would justify the Empire using lots of missiles (as seems to happen with the later starfighters) and would limit the benefits of being able to recharge shields.

LOL….Thispost should have been named "HEY FFG WE THINK WE CAN DO BETTER AT DESIGNING YOUR GAME THAN YOU"

But FFG are not infallible! The Y-Wing should have an option for one crew (gunner/co-pilot) and the TIE Interceptor should have a missile upgrade option. I have heard a rumour that if there is sufficient interest FFG may publish some revised ship cards (but do not hold your breath!).

My suggestion about the current shields only being ray shields (i.e. not protect against missiles and other physical attacks) gives FFG the opportunity to have particle shields as another upgrade (not sure which ships would get these though).

Hiroitchi said:

my opinion is that there already exist upgrades which do most of those things after a fashion. R2-D2, Expose, etc.

The presumption that Imperial swarms are broken is highly inaccurate.

Take a look at what squads are winning in the regionals reports - Rebel squads are winning as much as Imperial. If the game is changed to tip the balance in favour of the Rebels, but the game is already balanced (as the regionals reports seem to indicate), then that is creating an imbalance not a balance.

Imperial TIE swarms are a force to be reckoned with, but not so much that there is a game imbalance. TIE swarms are powerful, but so are Rebel builds with the Falcon.

Correct you are 721. This thread reminds me of the ones that pop up all the time….when someone can't win by using what they want to use!

No need to be condescending. The OP was experiencing what he/she AND their local community thought was an imbalance in the game and came here to get help fixing it. Nothing wrong with that.

Personally I always find value in discussing ideas, no matter where they lead.

I have seen others who claim the Rebels are too weak and Imperials are too strong. The "fix" I've seen other try to institute were giving more points, like 50%-100% more to the Rebels! I find the entire basis of the argument to be completely flawed and wrong. The lists and points are just fine the way they are. I would suggest instead that those Rebel players who find themselves always at a disadvantage, have other problkems going on and need to examine their game play better.

If it's not broken, don't fix it!

I play both Rebel and Imperial.

X and Y Wings can get R2-D2 to restore shields. Maybe there should be a "System Operator" crew member card that can recharge shields on its ship.

We often play with more than 1 person per side and nearly as often if the Imperial side is 2 players rather than 1 they quickly loose their advantage because of the lost co-ordination. Here a few people I've played with have said they feel the Rebels are too or over powered.

It depends on a lot of factors I suppose.

Hi all. New player here.

I've played 3 games (and watched 1) of X-wing at around 68 points total per side and all I can say is that in all but 1 of those games they all came down to one Rebel ship left at the end and almost always to who managed to hit in the very last round of shooting between the last two ships.

From a newbie point of view, I think the game balance is the most spot on I've seen in a game I've just picked up. Take that as you will given my lack of experience, but I like a balanced game and so far all games have been balanced.

As my name suggests, I'm new to this game. I have to say I really like how the flavor of the game keeps with the Star Wars Saga. And, while no expert (and neither are my friends whom I currently play), the games are always coming down to pilot error and not to some overwhelming advantage to one side or the other. Perhaps it's possible we are just so bad that we hide any inherit weaknesses for one faction or the other. But, I'm quite happy with the point costs for everything, and have a lot of fun trying different combinations of ships and upgrades. I must agree, I don't think changes need to be made to level the playing field.

I got a kick out of reading this thread, as different posters are so passionate about particular factions. I think this is perhaps a tip of the cap to FFG, for creating such a great game.

I also find it interesting that the Imperials get initiative unless the Rebels use less points. To me, this would suggest that FFG thought there might be a slight advantage on the Rebel side.

Granted, I'm in it for the casual play. Our group often imagines what a cool fight would be before playing. The ships types are predetermined, a point pool is assigned and the two factions go off and build their squads using those guidelines. This seems to keep us out of ruts and keeps us exploring new abilities and strategies. Other times we just use anything goes rules. Win or lose, we always seem to have fun.

I also find it interesting that the Imperials get initiative unless the Rebels use less points. To me, this would suggest that FFG thought there might be a slight advantage on the Rebel side.

This advantage is removed under Tournament rules, FYI. Perhaps it's because the base game setup with only a core set gives Rebels a slight advantage, but with more ships and more experience, squad building and flying skill erase any such miniscule margins.

True, but I am not sure that the Tournament rules coin flip is any better. I remember a regional where we struggled to find a coin, I think we ended up flipping an objective marker.

That said, I don't really have a good alternative that isn't arbitrary.