wow, where to start...

> fixing useless/ underused ships and cards. Things like Maarek, Winged Gundark, TIEadv in general, Ywings without EPT, Awings, Daredevil, elusiveness, etcetc....

> Missiles and torps need some major buff

> being more realistic about crits, and how useless they generally are. 3 points for marksmanship is seriously not worth it. Same for Winged Gundark and merc copilot.

> on the topic of crits, we need more variations that could also target the new ship upgrades, eg. sensors, mines, etc

> PTL is too strong. absurdly strong in fact. There are so many things that must use PTL nowadays it isnt even funny. TIEint, Awings, Xwings with engine upgrade, Bwings, TIEbombers, and we have not touched on ships that COULD consider PTL, ships like falcon + MF title for eg.

> I'm ok with pegging upgrades to a specific type, but do also come up with new stuff for them. We havent had a new astromech since wave1

> Could do with more drastic variations in maneuvers between ships. Like right now Awing and TIEint is so similar that there's virtually no difference, same for TIEadv and Xwing, Ywing and HWK, etcetc

> Bwing and TIEbombers has waaaaaaay too much hp. TIEbombers should have 5 hull and Bwings 4 shields

I like a lot of your points, some I disagree with though.

Agree on everything except possibly elusiveness. It costs an EPT but not an action. PtL on ships with evasion is better (elusiveness is only 2 points), but for ships that don't have evade, elusiveness might still make sense.

Daredevil is really interesting and deserves some love, but I'm not sure exactly how to fix it. Lower the damage to 1 dice instead of 2? It is useful on Vader's T/A with Engine Upgrade because he can already do 2 actions, but that is a corner case.

Missiles and torpedoes are OK, and are very good at range 3. Cluster Missiles is fairly useless against ships with decent agility. You could make the argument for a -1 point reduction across the board for all missiles and torpedoes, but I would rather not yet. There was a top 8 bomber squad at worlds that used missiles/torpedoes. I will put a pin in this and do some MathWing analysis on it later. Bottom line, they are not fundamentally broken so I wouldn't be so hasty to buff them, you would likely make worse imbalances.

Crits can be game changing! When you see a PS9 ship suddenly become PS0, or a 4-dice focused attack suddenly have to roll 0 attack dice, or a HWK/Y-wing has to discard it's Ion Turret, or your TIE gets a direct hit... well you get the idea. Crits are nasty. A new damage deck that includes new types of critical effects would be cool though - after wave 4 when we see some new abilities to tie in with.

Marskmanship - sorry, but you are wrong on this one. Even without the added benefit of getting a crit vs a hit, it would still be worth taking on any ship with Gunner, or Cluster Missiles, or HLC, or probably a few other cases. You might be able to argue for it costing only 2 points, but Han Shoots first is already a very strong list. (Han + Marksman + Gunner etc). I wouldn't touch it. Merc co-pilot is weird - maybe change the range requirement to 2-3 instead of just 3. Winged Gundark's ability should probably be changed to range 1-2 or even range 1-3 instead of just range 1, I think he might get used then. Bear in mind that PS5 abilities generally stink across the board, with the exception of Biggs.

More unique stuff = good. We see this in the upcoming Aces pack.

The dial is fundamentally pretty limited so there's not much you can do there. The A-Wing and TIE Interceptor have very similiar maneuverability, so I think they are fine the way they are. Strongly disagree on B-Wings and TIE Bombers. If you look at the TIE Fighter PC game as a reference, the values are pretty spot on. Imperials have PS1 TIE Fighters @12 points, and Rebels have PS2 X-Wings @21 and B-Wings @22. I think these are fairly well balanced. The B-Wing and Bombers have 1 less agility than their counterparts, so their survivability is not significantly higher than their counterparts. Bombers in particular NEED to be able to survive longer to get their ordinance away. It's fine.

Balance changes. After wave 4 comes out, and has some time to let the new abilities settle down, I would be OK with a giant balance "patch" that fixes a lot of various things all at once. This isn't like Starcraft 2 where you can roll out a new balance patch every month, but the game tactics and squads would become much more diverse if everything was properly balanced. The obvious downside is that the old printed cards would be inaccurate, which can be annoying if you're talking about ship point costs, the way abilities work, etc. Still, I think it would be worth it, if done correctly.

I am OK with TIE Fighters costing only 12, and PtL being amazing at 3 points, these are kind of the golden baseline to base everything else off of. I would rather buff the abilities and ships are extremely overcosted, or fundamentally broken and will never see use competitively.

A few that come to mind:

• Expose (absolute garbage, see my detailed post in the other thread)
• Opportunist - not as bad as Expose but it's still inferior to PtL in almost any scenario. I'll make a more detailed post on this later.
• TIE Advanced - this is absolutely the worst ship in the game by points, by far. Even the shuttle has its uses and can actually be competitive (doom shuttle, suicide Vader).
• TIE Interceptors are slightly overcosted, though not nearly as bad as the TIE Advanced.
• A-Wings are slightly overcosted.

There are quite a few more. I have been thinking about making house rule modifications to some of them, just to make them useful.

Amen and amen. Especially about the TIE Advanced. That ships cost is, put plainly, a mistake. I can forgive the mistake though. It was part of Wave 1 and the game was very young (still is) and not a lot had been released to play test it against. But as time goes on, it becomes painfully obvious a change is needed. I just don't know how likely it is that FFG will change existing point costs to already printed cards. Same goes for the Interceptor and A-Wing.

Amen and amen. Especially about the TIE Advanced. That ships cost is, put plainly, a mistake. I can forgive the mistake though. It was part of Wave 1 and the game was very young (still is) and not a lot had been released to play test it against. But as time goes on, it becomes painfully obvious a change is needed. I just don't know how likely it is that FFG will change existing point costs to already printed cards. Same goes for the Interceptor and A-Wing.

Yes, if they had me working for them, then I would have run the numbers and been able to tell up front that the TIE Advanced was way overcosted. It's bad enough that you can tell this without even having played the game, if you know how to analyze statistics. The Interceptor and A-Wing suffer from the same problem: agility dice aren't as good as attack dice, and their cost doesn't quite reflect that. Prototype A-wings are a corner case, in that they let you run a 5-ship rebel swarm easier, so I see them as being slightly less useless than Interceptors.

Amen and amen. Especially about the TIE Advanced. That ships cost is, put plainly, a mistake. I can forgive the mistake though. It was part of Wave 1 and the game was very young (still is) and not a lot had been released to play test it against. But as time goes on, it becomes painfully obvious a change is needed. I just don't know how likely it is that FFG will change existing point costs to already printed cards. Same goes for the Interceptor and A-Wing.

I'm really not sure A-Wings and Interceptors are overcosted, risky as a bad roll could take you out of the air. But they have generally done well when I've played them. They are definitely a finesse ship though, and I could see a lot of people not getting the best out of them.

I've run 2 Alphas as support, and they can be amazingly devastating. They can be rather nasty while the opponent is focusing on your big ol' Firespray.

The "bad" ships really just need some support. Look at the new life the Royal Guard Interceptor title brings to some of the Interceptors. More "Aces" packs will be the best, to keep the interest in the movie ships.

-A new damage deck would be an easy way to spice things up. Only one of you would need to have it as well so it doesn't offer an advantage to those who buy it over those who don't.

-More unique things tied to ships, simple title modification cards like the RGI, would diversify the game immensely. They don't have to be uber powerful, just ship-specific changes like allowing another kind of upgrade slot of -1 to all upgrades of a certain type. Might even help out the underused ships.

Torps and missiles would be perfect if FFG steals something from Attack Wing*gasp*.... Turn the card face down and use an action to reactivate the missiles/torps.We're not talking about magically reusing the same torpedo over and over. Its called ammo. The X-Wing carries 6 torps, the Y has 8. Personally, I'd let a player put as many Torps on a ship as he wants, but limit the rate of fire to the # of torp icons on the ship's card. So an X-Wing could fire 1 torpedo/turn while a Y could fire 2. (that would give the gunner something to do )

Same deal with mines/bombs.

-I like ^this^ idea. Wouldn't need to alter cards, just update rules. Might need to do some work with pricing or types of ordinance though. In the PC games you carried fewer secondaries if they were more powerful I think.

-Did anybody play SWCCG? Towards the end of their run you could add Objective cards to your deck that set up goals and rewards for you to fulfill. You built your list around it. Make it like the Boost and Bomb rule cards. Different backing, some basic rule/reward dynamic for you to build toward and your opponent to deny. Instant narrative. Things like:

Objective: Hit and Run

-Eliminate two enemy ships without suffering a loss

Success: Unspent focus tokens are no longer discarded.

Failure: You may no longer benefit from +1 range bonus.

Or something like that. You know what I'm saying.

-At a smaller level, I'd love to see something like EPTs that reflect the dynamics of dogfighting and not a particular skill. It would inject a narrative into the game AND change the way lists are built. This would create unique dynamics that promote the use of lesser used ships and perhaps go a long way toward countering default list syndrome. Instead of being ELITE pilot talents they could be RST's: Role Specific Tactics. Something like:

Role Specific Tactics: Fighter Cover

[TIE/B, Y-wing, B-wing Only]

-You may use the number of attack dice of a friendly ship in range 1 instead of your defense number. The friendly ship's defense is lowered by the covered ship's defense to a minimum of 1.

Role Specific Tactics: Combat Air Patrol

[TIE/F, X-wing Only]

-You may add 1 focus to attacks against bombers.

This would give you some narrative to spice up the typical head to head fight. Imagine bringing your Fighter Cover list against somebody's Combat Air Patrol. Instant storyline. If they were cheap enough or balanced correctly, you wouldn't even need to change stat cards to make less popular ships more playable. They'd be justified by Objectives, Role Specific Tactics, and other dynamics that alter the ways we build lists. Right now it's all about putting red dice on target. That sole dynamic is governing everything. Change it up.

-I agree ships like the TIE/Adv and A-wing need tweaking, but rather then make the ship cards obsolete or force us to buy new ones, I'd rather they be altered by something like the above that not only make them playable but add narrative. Because we're not just here for the dogfighting, it's the Star Wars storyline. We love that abilities are tied to the story (sorry Biggs), lament when an Academy TIE kills off the mighty Falcon, and gloat when Wedge visits his badassery on his target. It's all character driven story telling right now. Let's put in the situational story now. Protect the Bombers, Target the Hero, etc.

I think I am okay with missile and torp costs, especially since the bombers came out. For the cost of one 16 point ship you can load 4 bombers with 1 missile each. If you alpha at range 3, you have one round of significant advantage as you roll 4 dice against no bonus defense dice while your opponent attacks with likely 2-3 dice primaries vs your bonus dice. That in my opinion brings more to the game than one more fighter. Surrrrre you can roll bad and waste 16 points. But the same goes for your 16 point unit who could roll bad defense and die before shooting.

I personally would not change any gameplay rules, as nothing really strikes me as completely wrong. The tie advances is probably the only unit I have an issue with since the cost for what you get sucks. They cost 4 pts more than the a wing, with only 1 more hull. If they were lowered just 1 or 2 points, I could find use for them. I imagine they just didnt want 5 tie advanced in one squad. That seems tough to kill.

Another crit deck would be cool. I love the interaction they bring to the game.

Randomness is really what makes games like this exciting. If I drew the exact same hand every game of magic the gathering, half of the fun would be gone. no epic upsets would occur, like drawing no lands passed turn 1 when your deck is far superior, etc. Just like rolling dice, no upsets would ever happen, as you could map out every game once the initial engagement happens, mihht as well quit before the game starts if that is the case.

I'm all for making the game easier to play with easier ways to move tokens, etc. Though notching them on the base scares me as you can cause bumps so easily. It is really frustrating when your hand smacks 4 ships, integrity of the game gets ruines.

Try Darth with an engine upgrade and possibly squad leader as well. It makes him incredibly potent.

true that makes him amazingly versatile to play with BUT its a lot of pts to invest in one ship.

wow, where to start...

> fixing useless/ underused ships and cards. Things like Maarek, Winged Gundark, TIEadv in general, Ywings without EPT, Awings, Daredevil, elusiveness, etcetc....

> Missiles and torps need some major buff

> being more realistic about crits, and how useless they generally are. 3 points for marksmanship is seriously not worth it. Same for Winged Gundark and merc copilot.

> on the topic of crits, we need more variations that could also target the new ship upgrades, eg. sensors, mines, etc

> PTL is too strong. absurdly strong in fact. There are so many things that must use PTL nowadays it isnt even funny. TIEint, Awings, Xwings with engine upgrade, Bwings, TIEbombers, and we have not touched on ships that COULD consider PTL, ships like falcon + MF title for eg.

> I'm ok with pegging upgrades to a specific type, but do also come up with new stuff for them. We havent had a new astromech since wave1

> Could do with more drastic variations in maneuvers between ships. Like right now Awing and TIEint is so similar that there's virtually no difference, same for TIEadv and Xwing, Ywing and HWK, etcetc

> Bwing and TIEbombers has waaaaaaay too much hp. TIEbombers should have 5 hull and Bwings 4 shields

"I'm ok with pegging upgrades to a specific type, but do also come up with new stuff for them. We havent had a new astromech since wave1"

im guessing they will address this in the new epic format with the new x-wing pilots and upgrades that it comes with

TIE advances need to be reworked some how. They are just not worth taking."

yes! totally agree with this. I wonder if u could get a double use out of missiles somehow? just thinking out loud of ways to make missiles more potent. perhaps a title card for tie-advanced ships that gives them a cheap/free missile/double use missile?.

Hidden Arsenal [cost 2].

Title Card or ship upgrade.

This ship may equip one additional missile for free.

This missile does not count towards tournament points.

Tie Advanced or Tie Bomber only.

So effectively u r getting a 4-5pt missile for 2pts (saving 2-3pts) which does not count towards tournament points in a tournament match. Its still a one shot deal. You have to have a tie-advanced or bomber. Seems balanced to me. Thoughts?

You could make it a Title Card which costs 1 or even free for a Tie Advanced ship. Wouldn't that encourage people to play them?

I think I am okay with missile and torp costs, especially since the bombers came out. For the cost of one 16 point ship you can load 4 bombers with 1 missile each. If you alpha at range 3, you have one round of significant advantage as you roll 4 dice against no bonus defense dice while your opponent attacks with likely 2-3 dice primaries vs your bonus dice. That in my opinion brings more to the game than one more fighter. Surrrrre you can roll bad and waste 16 points. But the same goes for your 16 point unit who could roll bad defense and die before shooting.

I personally would not change any gameplay rules, as nothing really strikes me as completely wrong. The tie advances is probably the only unit I have an issue with since the cost for what you get sucks. They cost 4 pts more than the a wing, with only 1 more hull. If they were lowered just 1 or 2 points, I could find use for them. I imagine they just didnt want 5 tie advanced in one squad. That seems tough to kill.

Another crit deck would be cool. I love the interaction they bring to the game.

Randomness is really what makes games like this exciting. If I drew the exact same hand every game of magic the gathering, half of the fun would be gone. no epic upsets would occur, like drawing no lands passed turn 1 when your deck is far superior, etc. Just like rolling dice, no upsets would ever happen, as you could map out every game once the initial engagement happens, mihht as well quit before the game starts if that is the case.

I'm all for making the game easier to play with easier ways to move tokens, etc. Though notching them on the base scares me as you can cause bumps so easily. It is really frustrating when your hand smacks 4 ships, integrity of the game gets ruines.

how about a new critical deck for missiles, torps, mines and bombs.

u deal normal crit damage with ur primary weapon and reusable secondary weapons like blaster turret/Heavy Laser Cannon but when u get a crit with a missile, torp, mine or bomb u get to draw from the new crit deck that will have different and more devastating crits.

thoughts?

Could FFG already be thinking along these lines with the new epic rules and super large ships?

I've run 2 Alphas as support, and they can be amazingly devastating. They can be rather nasty while the opponent is focusing on your big ol' Firespray.

The "bad" ships really just need some support. Look at the new life the Royal Guard Interceptor title brings to some of the Interceptors. More "Aces" packs will be the best, to keep the interest in the movie ships.

yes, but if you used the exact same support to buff better ships, these better ships become even stronger, whereas your bad ships only become soso

marksmanship is only good if you have multiple attacks/ can generate multiple attack results, eg cluster, han solo, gunner. Anything else, probably a very bad idea, since it is half a focus in terms of usage

I really like this idea, the current use of torps and missiles is just too strange.

I think I am okay with missile and torp costs, especially since the bombers came out. For the cost of one 16 point ship you can load 4 bombers with 1 missile each. If you alpha at range 3, you have one round of significant advantage as you roll 4 dice against no bonus defense dice while your opponent attacks with likely 2-3 dice primaries vs your bonus dice. ..

that's kind of stressing the point, I wouldn't call a bomber with one torp/missile a bomber, at least not at the relative small strength of the missiles. If a bomber has just one missile I would it expect to have the strength to wipe out all ships on these relative small battlefields in one sweep - call it a nuke or whatever, single missiles that do a bit more damage are just silly for a bomber.

Given the current rule set none of the ships in x-wing, except perhaps a fully loaded tie bomber (not really cheap for 40+ for an unnamed and 50+ for named pilot), is really a bomber - just fighters with an extra torp...

PS: the forum software is just too strange with editing posts with quotes.

It's one of those times you have to ask, are the popular units being used because they're noticeably more powerful than everything else, or are they being used because everything else is simply worthless?

It reminds me of another game I play. There's this one, cheap defense item people use to the exclusion of the original, iconic one, and that abandonment is often used to "prove" that the new one is overpowered. However, the real problem is that since launch, the original, iconic item has had so many counters to it introduced, that it is almost literally useless. Weakening the cheap one wouldn't get people to use the original, it would cause them to abandon defense entirely.

In other words, my opening question is something we should consider when deciding how to balance things. Generally my stance is to buff alternatives rather than weaken the standouts, but it's not always just a matter of perspective.

I definitely don't have enough depth or variety of experience with this game to offer any more specific balance feedback.

-A new damage deck would be an easy way to spice things up. Only one of you would need to have it as well so it doesn't offer an advantage to those who buy it over those who don't.

An alternative would be pilots that change certain face up cards.

(If you suffer a direct hit, flip it down and take a stress-token)

What if missiles dealt two crits instead of one and applied BOTH results? it would be possible to inflict two direct hits with single crit. This would make missiles worth the points investment wout changing their cost.

A-wings, Slave1s, Falcons and Tie-Advanced ships would all benefit with arguably the A-Wings and Advanceds getting the biggest boost.

I am not saying that this game is perfect, but It is sooo smooth and simple, while at the same time tactically complex. And super fun.

I do think there are a few upgrades that I would never take, but I don't think that is so much a problem, I just don't take them.

As for ships. I am not convinced that the prices are really that far off. Could almost randomly pick your ships (no upgrades of course) and end up with a relatively competitive list. I find the balance really good. I'm not saying it's perfect but at least as good as any other table top mini game I have played.

There are a few things that I like in Attack Wing that X-wing doesn't have. I would love to be able to separate the pilots from the ship. Put Vader in a TIE Interceptor or Wedge in a A-wing etc.

this thread has been buried so am bumping it up for more discussion.

this game is clearly designed to cater for casual players and tournament players - which are you?

casual players are more likely to try new combinations of ships, pilots and upgrades whereas competitive players more likely will opt for something tried and true.

i think i fall in between these... the casual-competitive player

I'm a casual player with a competitive attitude . I don't get to play too often, usually only once a week with the same guy, but I haven't yet played the same list twice over the past two months-ish. I think the system has a ton going for it, in that there really are so many viable combinations out there. Of course there are some options that aren't optimal, but you'll see that in any system.

Despite the fact that I participated in the first X-wing Tournament ever at Gen-Con, and I won my LGS Kessel Run tournament, I would have to say I am more of a casual player. There just aren't very many tournaments where I live. (The Attack Wing tournament support kinda killed the organized play for X-Wing at my LGS.)

Actually two of my favorite things about X-wing are that its pretty cheap - so I can own everything. And that it is really simple to pick up. These two things combined mean that I can own Imperial and Rebel forces and get my friends to play with me, and they don't need anything on their own. I would say that the vast majority of the games I play are games where I provide all the ships. The only down side of this is that as my skill improves, it becomes less fun to play with people who are just learning the rules.

Despite the fact that I participated in the first X-wing Tournament ever at Gen-Con, and I won my LGS Kessel Run tournament, I would have to say I am more of a casual player. There just aren't very many tournaments where I live. (The Attack Wing tournament support kinda killed the organized play for X-Wing at my LGS.)

Actually two of my favorite things about X-wing are that its pretty cheap - so I can own everything. And that it is really simple to pick up. These two things combined mean that I can own Imperial and Rebel forces and get my friends to play with me, and they don't need anything on their own. I would say that the vast majority of the games I play are games where I provide all the ships. The only down side of this is that as my skill improves, it becomes less fun to play with people who are just learning the rules.

Just play with a handicap, one extra ship on their side should balance the game out a bit.

You could go with 110 points vs. 90 points.

You'd want to be careful with how you suggest something like that, it could very easily sound condescending.

You'd want to be careful with how you suggest something like that, it could very easily sound condescending.

Is this so? You mean you have to take care of your opponents' feelings as well? Are you playing with your girlfriend? ^^

Well ... in this case ... drink a couple of beers or whatever you need to get shitfaced enough to equal the chances.

You'd want to be careful with how you suggest something like that, it could very easily sound condescending.

If it's their first couple of games? I don't see that as an issue...

You could always run 4 Brights, They are around 10pts more than they should be.

But anyway if it's their first couple of games I would just ask them what they liked from the films, give them a good crew with that and then take a crew which is going to be fun to play against it, maybe with less points.