Division 66 variant rules

By DagobahDave, in X-Wing

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The one thing I would say is that the Imperials will probably be hit harder by the no-duplicates than the Rebels.

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The one thing I would say is that the Imperials will probably be hit harder by the no-duplicates than the Rebels.

Sorry but I have to agree with this one as well. Even though I love balanced fleets and you can see from several of my posts that I like a variety of ships... Imperials by their very nature (and cost) will tend to field more of the same ships. Even if they don't many of their abilities center around similar traits.

Stealth is a good example.

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Swarm players are not going to like these rules, but I think there are plenty of low-cost generic Imperial ships to make them competitive in this setting.

It's one of those things that might look like a problem on paper, but might not be a problem in reality. What I mean is, these rules aren't necessarily any better than the standard 100-point setup. They're just different, and after a year of the standard 100-point thing I'm ready for something different. The grass isn't greener over here, we just have different problems. :)

Allowing unlimited duplicate ships means that Player X shows up with 6 basic TIEs in their fleet and 8 Academy Pilots in their card deck, and that's the sort of thing that I want to avoid -- boring, predictable, seen-it-a-million-times squads and tactics.

As a compromise, ship decks might be limited to 2 (or 3 or 4) of any generic ship card. That might work. I'll throw some dummy hands and see how it feels.

Edited by DagobahDave
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Love the squad-building rules. Definitely something different and a fun challenge!

On the other hand, I have a very mixed reaction to the scenario rules. For a game that already relies so heavily on the whims of the dice, adding even more completely random modifiers seems a bit much. The Conditions specifically seem a little over the top – I like a lot of the effects, but not that they are dependent on a random dice roll. If you changed it to a choice (ie, discard one of your upgrade cards at random before squad-building to force your opponent to take 1 damage) then that becomes much more interesting and fair!

I feel the same way about the scenarios. Cool ideas but for instance Blood Feud is basically a YT-1300/B-Wing death sentence. If I see one of those across the table from me, I basically know I never have to take the focus action because I can just pile on the shots until it's gone. Special Agent probably results in a lot of very short games (although, yes, I see that it's optional).

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I would offer the option of Two basic Ties up to 30 points as a single ship.

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Huh?

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I would just allow Imps to double up on non-uniques and upgrades and be done with that.. It would make some sense as TIEs are about half the cost of Rookies.

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It turns out that duplicated ships are no problem, so I'll change that with the next revision to the Squad Creation PDF. Since you have to represent at least 4 different ship types in your fleet and deck, right there you're limited to 3 of any one type actually making it into a squad.

No limits on unique pilots, either.

I think that allowing duplicates (even just 2 of a kind) in the Upgrade deck is going to make them too predictable. For now I'm going to keep the Upgrades deck the way it is (no duplicates). Season to taste.

Edited by DagobahDave
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Huh?

The imperials are hindered by the fleet size, so letting them have a pair of Ties(Maxing out at 30 points) allows the Imperial players to still play like imperials, and means picking cheap ships shouldn't short change them.

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Are the Imperials hindered by fleet size, though? Seems to me that Imperials will almost always field 1 more ship than the Rebels, which seems fair.

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The thing you have to realise is most Imperial ships have a lack of upgrade slots. The Interceptor and the standard TIE have none as standard, the Advanced only has a missile as an option. This is why you see so many imperials repeating upgrades. When you only really have a Modification Slot and only a couple of the things you can put into it work well you end up with the same upgrades used a lot.

You compare this to the X-Wing which has a torpedo slot, Astromech slot and the Modification slot as standard, or a Y-Wing that has a Turret, Astromech, 2 x Torpedoes and a Modification slot. It's much easier for the X-Wing or the Y-Wing to have a variety of builds.

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Yes they are at a disadvantage with fleet size. Imps are best outnumbering by at least two, but picking 3 different ties means it circumvents the rules. Besides which the game is somewhat designed to treat a single tie as half a ship. Squints, while cheaper than A-wings are super fragile for their points, Tie Advanced are near useless. Bombers are questionable(depending on your opinions on ordinance), and people loath the shuttle. If basic Ties weren't so good the imperials would be in real trouble. This way they have as much chance to be useful as anybody else.

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I appreciate your concerns, and now that duplicate ships are allowed in Division 66, it might not be an issue.

But I will say this: I trust player ingenuity over armchair theory. I think players who are looking for a challenge (and don't take the game too seriously) will look at these parameters and experiment until they find something that works for them. Coddling the Imperials is something I would do only if it became clear that ingenuity had failed.

Edited by DagobahDave
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I don't consider it Coddling the Imperials, it's understanding the differences between the two sides and trying to get something which is equally restrictive to each. You look at a Rookie Pilot against an Academy Pilots it has 3 times the options when it comes to things you can put on it, therefore you can get away with a bigger mixture of cards and still have options. This variance between the two side goes across the whole spectrum of fighters, the Imperials have less upgrades and the ones they have are generally shared across multiple different fighters.

Rookie Pilot 12 possible cards
Academy Pilot 4 possible cards

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Perhaps limit imps to 2 of each build?

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Another squad rules update based on testing and feedback. It was reasoned that if we're going to run a game night, we'd better stick with 100 point squads. It means longer games, but each player can still fit 2 games in a roughly 3-hour block. Not bad for a night.