If game balance is a factor, the A-Wing sucks. It needs something to make it better. It is absolutely not balanced. You could run a full squad of anything in the game except A-Wings and hope to win.

That's ridiculous.

You are missing the point entirely. 4 A-Wings might work or it might not, but 1 or 2 in a list with other tools is excellent. Combined arms works in this game. Why does everyone want to make spam lists when they theorycraft?! Don't forget to arm them with upgrades. PTL is amazing on an A-Wing. Missiles are also great.

I remember hearing somewhere, possibly the Rogue Squadron game, that the pivot is limited to a narrow forward angle. I also think there have been instances of rear-facing pivot in other places, which makes it seem like an upgrade option (fiction upgrade, not game upgrade) such as mentioned with the Y-Wing BTL-S3 and A4.

What may emulate the gun with a limited traverse would be to increase the angle of the primary fire arc from its aporox 90 degrees to about 135 degrees. The only update would be to the cardboard counter.

Or better yet a 135 degree forward auxilary fire arc. Primary weapon fire only in auxilary arc.

If the guns can pivot UP and DOWN, not SIDE to SIDE, this would make no sense to do.

How about another thing listed as an ability of the A-wing: ramming. The nose is supposedly reinforced so it can survive ramming attacks. Imagine giving it the ability to caus damage whenever it ends its turn inside the base of another ship, or at least giving it the potential to cause damage (i.e., roll one attack die. On a hit or crit, you deal one face-down damage card).

Auxiliary rear firing arc for A-Wings may be a possibility for a future "variant A-Wing escort" that, of course, comes with a brand, new capital rebel ship.

It sounds a little sarcastic, but actually I won't mind it at all.

I was not initially impressed with Awing, until I saw them face off 2 on 2 vs Interceptors. Both Ints got splashed! I have seen them time and time again prove to be tenacious little ships.

I was not initially impressed with Awing, until I saw them face off 2 on 2 vs Interceptors. Both Ints got splashed! I have seen them time and time again prove to be tenacious little ships.

I really like them so far. I think the issue is that they do well when your using them to park right behind (or to the side) of an enemy ship so you can get your 3 dice and avoid being shot on. They can definitely do this due to their dial and boost, but it takes some good piloting.

In other words to get the most out of them you need to be a good player, whereas a lot of other ships you can get decent results being an average player.

It's the same reason that protorps are optional on an X-Wing - and can only carry 1, rather than a magazine of six or whatever, a turret isn't standard on a Y-Wing, etc. Just game balancey stuff. That being said, one of my hopes for the game is that they will come out with some ship variants down the road.

If it was just a repaint with some new pilots, that would be cool. If it was actual variants like a Y-Wing that can take a crew, or an A-Wing with guns that can fire to the rear, that would also be very cool, although figuring out how/if any of the existing pilots could incorporate those upgrades/variants (since their cards/ship tokens wouldn't reflect this) would be tricky.

I was not initially impressed with Awing, until I saw them face off 2 on 2 vs Interceptors. Both Ints got splashed! I have seen them time and time again prove to be tenacious little ships.

I really like them so far. I think the issue is that they do well when your using them to park right behind (or to the side) of an enemy ship so you can get your 3 dice and avoid being shot on. They can definitely do this due to their dial and boost, but it takes some good piloting.

In other words to get the most out of them you need to be a good player, whereas a lot of other ships you can get decent results being an average player.

Well the A-Wing card does say it is only piloted by the best pilots. Why they have a PS 1 pilot I have no idea.

what i think they messed up on with the awing is it is suposed to have target jamming equipment, this should prevent automatic target locks against the awing, like roll a red die, on a blank result target lock fails, any other result, target lock hits.

Or give it a sensor slot... That would give the A-Wing some new breath.

Or a crew member!
What? Totally room to sit on the pilot's lap.

I didn't really care much about viability for the A-Wing in the game. For me, it was all about the old days of X-Wing versus Tie Fighter and earlier. I used to run the A-Wing more often than any other ship. My friend and I would have epic dogfights, lasers only. Good times.

I actually won a friendly game with Tycho recently. I think Tycho, Luke, and Salm. Tycho had a stealth device, PTL, and about twenty stress tokens by games end. He lost one shield all game (three for all at 100pts) when caught by a seismic charge, and wound up versus a beat up Firespray and YT, both of which he managed to polish off. He was a rock star that match, chipping everyone down, driving them crazy; and he was the last man standing. I think A-wings get a bad rap.

Holy cow! Twenty stress tokens! Sounds like an epic game.

He had PTL and every single turn was either Focus + Evade, or Evade + Target Lock, or if he found himself with a side-on shot to one of the Firesprays, Focus + Target Lock. Except the turns when he was Focus + Boosting, to get out of fire arcs or get a closer shot at someone. The Y-Wing stayed alive for a long time because people were trying to stay at range 3 to avoid getting Ion'ed, and Luke is, well, Luke. So Tycho was just kind of cutting in and out of the center of things over and over, doing double actions every turn, one of which was ALMOST always an evade. I think he had a stealth device, and since the only time he ever took damage was a mine, he was rolling 4-5 green dice, often with an evade token, against everything thrown his way.

The issue with that is that it leaves you unable to do K-maneuvers. I much prefer clearing the stress if I can to keep my options open, otherwise you lose quite a bit of maneuverability.

But yeah Tycho with PTL is awsome.

I think I tend to rely too much on K-turns to begin with. I think they're kind of a lazy habit sometimes when they should be a last ditch kind of thing. So it was kind of therapeutic for me to try a game where I basically couldn't K-Turn one of my pilots. And honestly with the ability to boost any turn I wanted, on top of a second action, I didn't even miss it that much. Hard turn plus a boost the same direction and next turn he was coming right back around at you anyway.

Well the A-Wing card does say it is only piloted by the best pilots. Why they have a PS 1 pilot I have no idea.

Because the ship itself is so incredibly hard to pilot that all their skill is being focused into not spinning out and slamming into something. Unlike things like the old reliable Y-wing or the intentianally made with similar controls to a civilian airspeeder X-wing.

Or better yet a 135 degree forward auxilary fire arc. Primary weapon fire only in auxilary arc.

If the guns can pivot UP and DOWN, not SIDE to SIDE, this would make no sense to do.

We are trying to represent a 3D space battle on a 2D surface (ignorng the pretty ships)