There have been plenty of people who have posted on threads about how excited they are about waive 3. Almost everyone is assuming that the B-Wing and Tie Bomber are locks for this waive. I would be happy to have both, but then I start to wonder what would they actually bring to the game outside of new pilots / upgrades / ships? The rebels already have a tank(s) witht the Y-Wing / YT-1300. What benefit does a 3rd slow moving ship with a bunch of defense bring? On the other hand I think the Imperials could benefit more from the tie bomber, but what are they bombing (slow moving rebel ships with a lot of shield power)?

I was wondering what people's thoughts were on what both ships would bring, be it pilots, upgrades or whatever. Again I would be very happy with both, but I also would like to see what other people are thinking.

My guess for B-wing would be a slow ship with medium health and shield but with a low attack and agility. The strength of the ship would be a low-ish cost and several upgrade slots, maybe a cannon torps missiles bombs or something totally new.

For the sake of balance, I'd prefer they have TIE Bomber and Z-95, that way they'd roughly have equal on the smaller ships:

TIE Fighter/Z-95
TIE Bomber/Y-Wing
TIE Advanced/X-Wing
TIE Interceptor/A-Wing

Waterhobit said:

Since the b-wing is primarily an assault craft, and based on the weapon upgrades we already have, it should be safe to assume that the b-wing can field turret weapons like the firespray. I don't see ffg wanting to make a third turret type for an ion cannon, but who knows. It's sort of a glass cannon while the y-wing is more reliable. I can't believe I just used y-wing and reliable in the same sentence.

I still hope we get a z-95 at some point, though I don't see much use for it outside of rebel swarms, assuming it has a low point cost.

Its the same for Tie Bombers. Cheap craft which will do nothing without torp and missile upgrades.

Basically the rebels already have their bomber: The Y-Wing.

Once the vessels with turbolaser-turrets come along, im sure torps will come in handy. Maybe there will be proton bombs, too.

If the Tie Bomber and B-Wing will released in this wave, the 'balance sheet' will look like this:

Tie Fighter / (Z-95)

Tie Bomber / Y-Wing

Tie Advanced / X-Wing

Tie Interceptor / A-Wing

(Tie Defender) / B-Wing

I've posted my own thoughts on the B-Wing and the TIE Bomber elsewhere.

Putting it succinctly,

The B-Wing is going to be the slow-moving high health cannon carrier and high attack unit of the Rebellion. Maybe 3-4 ships of these maximum in a 100pt list at initiative 1 or 2, shooting 3s, dodging at 1-2s, target lock, focus, Torpedo plus Cannon upgrade and with as much or a little more health than the Y-Wing. Aim them and shoot them at things you want to hit with a lot of firepower, given them Heavy Laser Cannons for Maximum Firepower! Useful against Firesprays, hypothetical TIE Bombers, and mirror matches. Should be able to survive a beating by a TIE swarm and likely kill off a few fighters out of the swarm before succuming.

The TIE Bomber is going to be the ordinance carrier of the Empire with twin torpedo slots and perhaps a bomb to make mines more valid of a tactic than just a firespray gimmick. Low initiative, 4 ships perhaps maximum in a 100 pt list. 2 attack, 1-2 dodge, target lock, focus, dodge, barrel roll, and perhaps 4-5 health with no shields. Good for throwing Torpedoes at the lower-dodge Rebel fighters or making makeshift minefields for your enemies to fly through.

With both ships having Torpedo munitions, I would expect at least one new torpedo ordinance type to fill out that upgrade category. Maybe the new ordinance would help Y-Wings which are woefully under-powered in attack at present.

I'm just hoping that these new units come with official rules for attacking capital class ships. Even if its in a abstract method, like one side or the other, of the playing area designated as a capital ship. That way the new ships would have proper targets for there missiles and torpedo's. It seems to be a waste to fire Assault, Homing, Proton or Concussion missiles at small fighters. These ships are supposed to be capital ship killers.

Have you tried shooting them at agility 1 ships?

Capitals won't be in the game.

BigDogg said:

In game all those options can be properly applied against many targets. I'm not sure what you are talking about. In fiction they are frequently applied in that manner, with the missiles designed for exactly that.

One thing the upgrade cards I hope they have for the B-Wing is a co-pilot option that they currently have for the Firespray and YT-1300. I fealt like they missed out on this with the Y-Wing. Since both ships (Y-Wing / B-Wing) are very similar (slow moving, but pack power) I think it would give you something distinctively different then the Y-Wing.

Maybe the bomber can have a new action ability "bombing". In order to activate you must overlap another ship. Then you can take this action to have your opponent role 4 attack dice and suffer any * results. The bomber would be limited to doing this twice per match or something. This could also be an ACTION upgrade card instead of on the action bar. This would make the bomber pretty useful and would require a little bit of skill to purposefully overlap a ship. And obviously it would help to fend off the YT.

And maybe the B-wing could have a similar ability, or a title card or something to let the Y-wing or B-wing have this option

ughf… Bombs already exist, it's the term for space mines. If you're going to create a "bombing feature" it needs to be something else. It sounds neat but

I'm not sure how fair it would be to crash your three TIE Bombers into the Falcon and blow it up with point-blank warheads when it couldn't fire back at any of them.

Norsehound said:

Thanks for the reponse Norsehound

OK i concede your point, "bombs" exist, so it needs to be called something else (although i would make the argument that a "Mine" is not a bomb even if that is what FFG called it).

My suggestion is that the bombing and the damage happen immediately. So lets say Bomber PS7 ovelaps and bombs YT PS9. The YT takes the damage, and then when its his turn to move, the YT would move away, take his action like normal, and no longer be ovelaapping the bomber, free to fire upon it. If the PS levels are reversed then yes the YT would be unable to fire on the bomber. This gives a little more incentive to spend the extra points to get the higher Pilot Skill.

As far as fair goes, its not really fair that the YT can fire in a 360 arc when other ships can't fire back, but you pay a pretty high point cost in order to have that ship and its unique firing arc. So thebomber or the "bombing" ability could have a point cost that reflects this uniques charecteristic, making it tough to justify putting 3 of them on the board, especially if the bomber has low primary weapon power and flies like a cadillac..

Or the rule could be that only one ship can perform this Action on any particular ship each round. After all, from a thematic viewpoint only one bomber would be able to "fly over" and drop a bomb on a ship at a time. The bomber still wouldn't be able to target the falcon with its primary weapon during the attack phase if they are still overlaping. Or maybe the bomber loses its primary weapon attack that round if it performs the "bombing" (or whatever you call it) action. Lots of possiblities

I don't think any of this will actually happen, just fun speculation.

ScottieATF said:

I didn't say they couldn't be used against fighters. What I was getting at is that Y-wings and B-wings are described as capital ship killers and it would be nice to use them that way.

I think if FFG was interested in representing anything like a "traditional" bombing run, they would have themed their Bombs as Mines and left the term Bomb to describe these other kinds of upgrades. I would have thought some designers in FFG would have raised the point and the designers made it a discussion at FFG behind closed doors before agreeing to release Wave 2 with the "bomb" upgrade printed in the rules.

Now, if TIE Bombers are given twin torp upgrades, Empire-Strikes-Back Proton Bombs could end up being a Torpedo upgrade and so useable by Y-Wings, which are depicted more as traditional bombers than B-Wings are.

And… when I think about it Moose, your Bomb upgrade would seem to simulate the Flight Sim TIE Fighter proton bomb upgrades quite accurately because of how slow moving they are and how you had to deliver them to target almost point-blank. I'd still call it an attack (you could miss with them against normal starfighters, certainly A-Wings), but that could be a way to make them work.

On the other hand, I think the base collisions = no attack rule has to be upheld except in exceptional cases. An upgrade card available to all proton carriers would make this kind of broken. What if you fly nothing but double-Torp Y-Wings and try to collide with everyone on the map? Not a very fun or successful strategy for what you're trying to accomplish. It might work against Large ships but I think Protons work just as well and don't streach the engine too much.

I don't understand why people want traditional bombing runs in space. Bombs fall to the ground because of gravity, not some other type of mystical ship upgrade. If you take away gravity, then the "bomber" becomes a ordanance payload delivery system which is exactly what a Y-Wing or Tie Bomber will be with torpedoes. Point and shoot essentially. Geyt away from the atmostphere or gravity and you have a ship that pushes ordinance out of the front of the ship or leaves it drifting behind them while they scoot away from the explosion while everyone else gets nuked by the "bomb".

I think I get what you are saying. My idea is by no means perfect, maybe its not even good. But i think a new type of torpedo, or letting a ship carry 2 of them, doesn't really add much to the game. Even if they require the new torpedo attack to be at a close 1-2 range, its still too similar to what you already get with a Tie Advance equiped with cluster missiles. Your idea of the bomber having 2 torpedos makes it a little different from the Advance, but I guess i was commenting on something that would really be different from the ships that we already have, something that would add a new layer to the game. I know my idea has its flaws but I think that the guys at FFG could certainly implement something like this and find a way to hammer out the details without breaking the game mechanics. But you are probably right in that they probably talked about this last year when develobing the bomb/mine system and already vetoed it.

To me the idea of trying to pilot your ships out of the way of a bomber, trying to anticipate its movement or blow it up before it can "bomb" you sounds fun. But i understand other people will disagree with me on that

jedi moose said:

Your idea(s) could be way off or spot on, at least you are giving ideas on how to make these ships viable. I think for FFG to keep this game fresh they are going to have to do something pretty crazy like "anticipate it's movement or blow it up before it can bomb you." If they keep The B-Wing similar to the Y-Wing, people will by it initially because it's new, but after word get's out about how similar it is to the Y-Wing it will sit on shelves. On the other hand if they make a Tie Bomber, any which way they design it I don't think will hurt it (unless the point total is too high) since there is not already a ship similar to it for the imperials.

The Tie Bomber is going to be pretty simple IMO.

2/2/4/0 (Hard point)/(Hard point)/Bomb

PS-1, focus, barrel roll, target lock

15 points

Hard points would be able to take either a missile upgrade or a torpedo upgrade. It will come boxed with some new type of torpedo and a missile just to mix things up a bit. Special ability: free action: target lock.

The B-Wing is where the meta will be mixed up IMO.

2/1/4/4 (Hard point)/(Hard point)/cannon upgrade/Crew

PS-2

20 points

A decked out B-wing with a heavy laser cannon with two A-wings and possibly an X-wing flying around? Scary IMO. Y-Wing dial and cannons. Possible upgrade card: pulse blaster or something. Attack:5 range 1-2, point cost 10. Cannot use target locks with this attack.

I’m not really sure how the torpedoes work on the game (just few games played so far), but with the old X-Wing PC games in reference, I would think that the term “bomber” would apply the ability to shoot (delivery ordinance payload - nimdabew) from far the standard primary weapon range, probably an attack that would be resolved a round after it was shoot (to simulate the slow advance of the torpedo) as long as the “bomber” keeps a Target Lock action active, maybe allowing the firer two blue Target Lock tokens, I think that would give the “bombers” an edge to balance their lack of speed and maneuverability and a reason to actually add it to the list

… Bomber: shoot missile/torp 2+ instead of the normal 2-3. That would shake things up a LOT.

Nimbdapew,

You are talking about gravity bombing. That is not the only way to bomb. There was skip bombing. Which you would fly low and skip the bomb off the ground and bounce it into a target. This was used for bombing dams by bouncing bombs off the water into the dam. There is also dive bombing where you dive into a target lining up the shot before releasing and then flying away. Which would be the method usedmost commonly in space.

The Deathstar run is the equivilent to skip bombing. Or that is what a skip bombing run is like.

Daeglan said:

All I am saying is that "bombing" doesn't mean anything in space except ordinance delivery method. The most common ordinance that we have sene in the Star Wars universe is torpedoes and missiles. Proton bombs were used in gravity wells, but not in ship to ship combat.

I don't know if the impending expansions will address this, but having bombers is a good way to enlarge the scope of the game.

Right now, we have fighters fighting fighters for the sake of achieving local space superiority. But sooner or later, we might see scenarios where the objective is to put bombs on target (capital ship, planet, etc), and escape back into hyperspace.

We would need bombers for something like that…or at least rules to cover bombing.

Not true. in Tie fighter and X-Wing they were used on capital Ships and space stations.