in terms of the EU I always felt the New Republic really failed to fire the imagination with new ship designs period - and what stand-out ideas they did have were often couched in terms of how buggy/problematic they were. I fault it as a blind spot in the authors who focused more on other elements (not saying those other elements aren't important or even more important, but that they drifted away from the WWII adventure serials Lucas drew inspiration from and that were an important bit to the movies).

I've always felt the INCOM design team that defected with the X-Wing apparently never doing anything afterwards was something of a wasted opportunity. Seeing the new stuff coming out of the Rebels fighter skunk works needs to be a thing.

You Rebels aren't happy enough with the B-Wing? I always figured that was the equivelant of the TIE Defender. Sure, not as meanuverable but it's a great deal heavier in armament and resiliency.

In part I feel those complaining about the TIE Defender are overlooking the fact that the Empire also operates multiple multi-kilometer long starships, built two planetoid death-moons, and has nearly the entire galaxy in a military stranglehold. If they have a resource base to do all of this comfortably, they should have the resources and technology to produce the best starfighter in the galaxy. Fortunately the TIE/D had a limited production run by the time of RotJ, which makes it into a ship to be avoided or circumvented rather than destroyed with direct firepower in a one-on-one match. Even Imperial pilots had to learn this lesson when the Nami pirates and traitors were flying TIE/Ds.

From a GM Standpoint, I'd use the TIE/D as a discouragement tool against the players. If they decide to hop to Coruscant and raid the Emperor's bank vault, not following the campaign I want them to follow, I'd throw an entire TIE/D squadron at them to emphasize it's a bad idea. If I want to give the PCs a challenege, I throw a TIE/D at them. TIE/Ds should be used as narriative obstacles, not cudgels to beat the players to death.

You Rebels aren't happy enough with the B-Wing? I always figured that was the equivelant of the TIE Defender. Sure, not as meanuverable but it's a great deal heavier in armament and resiliency.

The B-wing and the TIE Defender are two completely different classes of ships. The B-wing was designed as a bomber-type against capital ships, not a starfighter to combat other starfighters. To borrow from WWII like Lucas did, the B-wing is more like the old Dauntless to the P-51 Mustang that is the X-wing or TIE Defender.

Both of them felt heavily armed to me, just with different emphases. The B-Wing took strong hull and perhaps better turning while the TIE/D was faster but fragile. I thought the B-Wing would be a good counterpart to the TIE/D, but we'll see what FFG does with X-Wing where I was contemplating this.

On the other hand the Empire seems to take to extremes when making thier ships while the Rebels seem balanced. The Empire could either go ultra-cheap or ultra expensive while the Rebels have the perfect middle ground.

1 TIE/D = 2 TIE/LN as a minion.

it's not a sue.

1 TIE/D = 2 TIE/LN as a minion.

it's not a sue.

Currently, but there's a whole thread devoted to making the TIE-Defender into the Sue that the EU paints it as, being as fast and maneuverable as an A-Wing or TIE Interceptor with it's beefed up Armor and Hull/Strain Thresholds and packing obscene amounts of firepower.

That's mischaracterizing both me and the thread, although what you describe of the EU -- the canon issues (with timeframe and representation) -- is why you saw me actually (eventually) lean towards JP_JP's solution of simply replacing the TIE Defender altogether with the Assault Gunboat.

P.S. We can agree that FFG leaving out the TIE Defender would have been preferable, and I am sympathetic to those who already declared their intent to NOT include it (despite the contentious stat block, it seems even they are just envisioning the canon representation), so in a sense in backing JP_JP's solution I guess that I am proposing just that "leaving it out".