So I played for the first time after getting my HWK-290 and Lambda-class Shuttle.

Little introductory information for people who didn't see my last thread:

My friends and I are playing this game in a nonstandard way. They're short on cash so I've been collecting one fleet that we divide up, one ship to one player, then we divide into teams like normal and play everything else the same. We're just playing to have fun, and I'm still primarily collecting my favorite ships over competitive ones.

We have: 1 X-Wing, 1 A-Wing, 1 HWK-290, 2 TIE Fighters, and 1 Lambda-class Shuttle

Now, onto the story:

We only had four people, so I planned to split my six ships in a way for the Empire to have more and we could more easily balance the points, unlike last time. However, everyone insisted we try with all six ships. At first, I wasn't sure where to start, but then I just declared we're going off the default 100-points per side. However, the Empire team only got to 75, while the Rebels got to 91 before I stopped them and informed them that the Empire could not catch up (if we played different pilots and chose different upgrades the Empire probably could have gotten higher, but it wasn't a big deal).

So, the Rebels took off a bunch of upgrades until we more or less matched up... then proceeded to get completely annihilated to the point where they never destroyed a single Empire ship.

I want to point out that luck was a factor. Several Empire attacks were all hits and the corresponding defense rolls were all blank. This never happened for the Rebel players even once. Likewise, of the three or so crits that were handed out, the only one that ever had a relevant effect ended up on the X-Wing.

What I want advice about, is just a little more information about how to keep teams balanced. I knew only one side had a large ship, but I had heard the Lambda wasn't so powerful and I figured the points were supposed to be self-balancing regardless.

What happened here is that the X-Wing, which had been upgraded to be tank-like, was nevertheless blown away by the Lamba in the second or third turn. After that, the TIEs just outmaneuvered the other two ships until the Empire won. To be fair, the Lambda spent most of the game useless, circling the board attempting to face the enemy again, only to be foiled by the A-Wing intentionally causing it to crash near the end, but it still made a decisive turn early on.

Several times near the end, the A-Wing nearly finished off the one TIE that had been hit by a critical and was nearly dead, but even if it managed to take care of the TIEs, it scarcely would have stood a chance against the Lambda. Between its base stats and the upgrades I took, the thing was nearly untouchable. The A-Wing's only chance would have been to keep it circling and draw out the game for hours and hours.

Not to mention, it was actually worse than we thought. We allowed the HWK-290 to use its Blaster Turret on Dark Curse because we figured that the timing would allow it, and it made no sense that he could prevent a gun from even trying to fire on him. It still never mattered though, because I think the TIEs dodged every shot that was ever fired from the turret.

So I'm just wondering, is it possible to balance teams made of these ships? Or do the Rebels need a large ship or something of their own? I plan to expand my fleet at some point, but I can't really justify the price myself at the moment (the HWK-290 and Shuttles were a stretch as it was, but not only did I not want to risk my favorite ships disappearing, I essentially promised my local game store I'd buy them and didn't want to do that to them).

Well, I'm no expert as far as balance but, the shielding of the rebels should give them a buffer against the sheer numbers that the Empire can bring. I've played a few games as Empire and I usually decimate my Rebel opponent. This comes about more due to he swarm tactics that I employ and the fact that my opponent has a lower level of tactic acumen than I in all our war games.

It may just be the opponents facing each other. In addition, it is much more difficult to work as a team as opposed to being able to control all he ships alone Ito a cohesive force.

I would mix up the sides and the players to get a good mix. After a decisive win like that, allow the Rebel players to us the Empire ships an see if the result is different.

As a side note to beefing up your fleets, another starter is a good way to do it. When I started, I got the biz set and an extra xwing and tie. Then I went out and picked up another box set to give me a good mix of starting ships. Just recently picked up an interceptor, tie bomber, awing and bwing; giving me an impressive fleet for now.

Well, we did mix up the players a bit. Last time I was the A-Wing and the Rebels won. It's not me though, that game was actually insanely balanced. It ended with only the A-Wing left, at one hull point. That time, it seemed almost every combat roll equaled out completely until near the end

In my experience, keeping the game to a set number of points for both sides no matter what keeps the squad building aspect balanced.

In terms of gameplay, you can have a squad that should for all intents decimate or hold it's own against an opponent and then due to either worse maneuvering or bad dice rolls the game could go to the other side. Alternatively, you can have a slightly worse squad and pull off a win with better maneuvering and dice rolls.

For an example, I ran a squad of Darth Vader, Howlrunner, Dark Curse, and Backstabber (some upgrade to get a full 100 points. Most proved not very useful) in a 100 point game against Han Solo, Dutch Vander (Ion Cannon Turret) and Tycho Celchu. Somehow I won with that squad for once but boy was it a close game. Vader had 1 hull left and Dark Curse had 2 hull. My opponent was very new to the game but had an advantage in terms of the Squads. Only by a bit of good dice rolls and maneuvering was I able to keep Vader and DC alive.

Maneuvering and strategy comes with practice so continue playing and try to switch things up often. Try to vary the squads. Change who is playing in each team.

I definitely would suggest getting a second core set. I also intend to get a second one as well. My Imperial forces are at a disadvantage in terms of variety and number of ships.

Thanks for the responses everyone!

In hindsight, I'm really starting to think that this was more of a fluke than unbalanced ship choices, even if the ship choices did not help. I don't think the Rebel upgrades were ever especially relevant (making them essentially a waste of points), and a key tactical mistake that could not have easily been foreseen (due to luck) happened early on for the Rebels and really started a chain reaction. The Lambda, spending most of the game circling around, really was not that big of a deal in the long term anyway. Not to mention, again, the luck involved with both the dice rolls and the damage deck.

I think I am going to wait to get more variety before we play again though.

Except for myself most of the players in my area have limited access to ships so we tend to play smaller games. We find 66 points is a good number which will provide a good game with a number of options available but doesn't eliminate any great combos. With that said another core set would greatly expand your tactical options. I played around with some builds based at 66 points utilizing the 6 ships you currently have:

Rebels: Kyle supports the fighters passing out Focus tokens as needed allowing the fighters to Target Lock and Focus on the shuttle. The A-wing is agile enough to protect itself and R2-F2 should help out the X-wing.

• Hawk 290 (Kyle Katarn) w/Dead Eye and Moldy Crow upgrades
• Rookie X-wing with R2-F2
• Prototype A-wing

Imperials: The Black squadron TIE's are there to protect the shuttles 6 well it plucks away at long range with HLC and if something gets in close the Saboteur and Anti-Pursuit laser should make short work of them. Kagi has a bulls-eye painted on his back but the shuttles 5 hull and 5 shields should keep him in the fight

• Lambda Shuttle (Capt. Kagi) w/ HLC, Saboteur and Anti-Pursuit Laser
• Black Squadron x2

Well with only 2 Ties and a shuttle, pointwise this will be hard to balance.

Standard Tue fighters can be very strong for what they cost but it often happens that a rebel ship just vaporizes one in one attack. A range 1 attack from an X-Wing and even with evade you have to roll quite some good dice to keep the Ties alive.

It really is a luck based game you can't say balance is off just from 1-2 games.

Try to balance the squad points and make some more games. Then you will see that this game is not terribly unbalanced

I have to agree, as Jon said in an interview X-Wings are meant to be able to one shot TIEs. This is very noticable in how they play, TIEs are optimal at around 12-18pts, X-Wings seem to be optimal with some upgrades and can play well at 25-35pts. If you try to force all models up into the 25-30pt mark you end up with Rebels having a huge advantage as they are designed to play at that point cost where the Imperials aren't.

If you have to have equal models consider a Lambda and 2 Interceptors (though you may need to print out some of the upgrades like PtL to make it a fair fight)