Greetings all.

I'm a nomad who travels the Earth in a backpack, also an artist who sometimes just can't help it not to alter or paint his miniatures. It seems that last year, my girlfriend, knowing that I love the Star Wars series and small, detailed things, gifted me a Tie Fighter expansion pack just because it looked good.. And from there on, there was no stopping it. We play all the time now, and our fleet has grown.

(Im still wondering where in the backpack will I find space for the coming transports. maybe I'll have them dangle on the outside attached, so that maybe other players could take note. So much for "miniatures", heh.)

But that's just my introduction. I'm here to present some musings over some Droid Starfighter models I came upon in Spain, who seem to share common scale with this epic game.

I won't spare words, just see the prototypes for yourself.

The cards I plan. All the stats are initial, up for discussion, testing, and tuning. I am intent on finding some good balance on them by having some discussions here. The card text speaks for itself, though. Insanely maneuverable, yet very low pilot skill, and cheap.

Field 11 of them in 100 Pt. games and rain hell upon your foes! ..Until someone detonates some bombs or something.

The plan is to have two versions. A Trade Federation version like the one above, at 9 points to field. And a more capable CIS version, now able to field one set of missiles and a Pilot Skill of '2'. That one would cost 15 points plus missile cost.

I'd imagine his card talent would be the ability to fire off secondary weapons without the need of using or spending Target Locks. Unless there was Target Locks added to their action bars, but I'm not too sure about that. What do you think?


There's more ideas.. Say, for example. A Remote Operator upgrade, making the droid remote controlled by actual pilots, which increases the Pilot Skill by '3', at a cost of 3 points. Droid only, of course.

The other one was Buzz Droid Missiles. Which if hits, gets the defender the Buzz Droid infliction card- Which destroys your Astromech at the first turn and has the afflicted roll a red die every turn and suffering the result. New transports be damned.
This could work at, say.. 6 points to field, and three die to roll? Like an Ion Cannon.

Enough ramblings, I bring pictures:

This is the Droid Starfighter's maneuver options/ Work in Progress.. I'm not sure about them yet, it feels like they should be more broken/overkill. I mean, it -did- say the maneuvers could kill living pilots. Open for suggestions here.

Note: This was my idea of working out some maneuver dial replacements. Same thing, but micro-sized. Thankfully, I never threw away those rounds of cardboard that come in the center of the base templates.

Comments, suggestions, ideas and tips much appreciated.

I almost forgot I happened to snag a -Scarab- model also, which I plan to have at 3 Attack, 3 Evade, 1 Hull, and 1 Shield.

But I'd rather focus on having these guys play-able right now, and paint them after.

Glad to be in the community.

a White K-Turn? That's rough

I always appreciate when people bring new things to the hobby.

Thanks for sharing!

Straight out the gate, I would say that as non-living pilots, these droids should NOT have the focus action, as the focus action implies that a pilot is focused on improving his flying to either score more hits or dodge more hits. Secondly, that's a whole lot of white for very little (1) red maneuver... I would suggest giving them something like a 1-bank red, and dropping the 5-straight from green to white. This will make them stupidly hard to chase down, which works well for the small, nimble little droids

a White K-Turn? That's rough

I would've gone 2, 3, and 4 white K-Turns after having them tested against a pair of Tie Bombers last night and being brutally annihilated by missiles (Assault Missiles, that is.) and Proton bombs/Seismic charges. 50 point game with my five experimental droids.

I don't know however if Focus would be fitting for our mechanical contraptions. It feels more like a living unit's ability.

Eriletho: Just as I was thinking about it you post it. It's out then.

EDIT: If anyone was ever curious abut the model, it's this one. Got them for an euro each on a store somewhere. Seemingly the only one that looked decent enough among the rest, who were bad quality.

http://www.rebelscum.com/swminiSB59vulture.asp

Pretty cool.

I would probably give it 2 hull and take the focus action off. Maybe make the 5-straight move white instead of green — otherwise, I think the dial looks good.

Oh, and Wookieepedia says they should have torpedo launchers, so maybe give them a torpedo?

What about 2 hull but they take double damage from Ion weapons?

The issue is that with more hull, there would have to be a point increase to balance things out. The little droids were feisty when I tried them, also, before being blown to bits. They managed to take down Captain Jonus by outmaneuvers. and that was without using any missiles.

The general idea I am aiming for is an incredibly cheap droid that you can throw by the dozen to enemies, just like it's used in the stories. Power by numbers to the limit beyond Tie's. If I up one hull, they'll start behaving more like an actual starfighter and feel overpowered at 9 points.

Something to consider, the Academy Tie being at 12 is not too far up.

Same attack, evade, and 3 Hull. But never as maneuverable as this.

Focus will be out alright.

#Deleted#

Why not give them all a free Expose action? Reduce agility by 1 and increase attack by 1? Since they don't care about survival?

Or perhaps a modified PtL? After an action, once per turn, you make take a free action. If you do so reduce agility by 1.

Actually that makes me think of another idea. Stress on driods does not affect actions but reduces agility and/or attack by 1, and when performing a green manoeuver all stress tokens are removed.

I'd actually increase the agility before increasing the hull... after all, they can perform actions that would kill a human, and effectively the hull is their "body" so their reactions would be natural (or as natural as a droid can be - think a birds flight maneuvering versus an airplanes). Agility 5 would make them more maneuverable than even a TIE and make that 1 hull point go a little farther, especially with the Evade action.

Actually that makes me think of another idea. Stress on driods does not affect actions but reduces agility and/or attack by 1.

What about keeping it the same but make it so that Stress not caused by Ion cannons has no effect on Droids, but Ion cannons cause 2 stress?

Was thinking this

I would possible remove the focus, that has generally been a common thread amongst all AI ships.. But then you could re-add it through a named "Drone Relay" unique character, that gives it out to all ships near him and also has it on his own bar..

That would help it feel like they are drones that are in control by something and commands are being passed through.

I don't think they need the extra rule Kyla, they have so much green (and so little red) on their dial they are going to shed stress really fast. And with 1 hull, why would you need any special rules for Ions, they can't get an Ion token without dying.

Now Agility 5 is very very high... I don't particularly like going above 3 as it makes them almost impossible to kill by some ships. What you could go with if you want to make them really hard to hit is a free Evade Maneuver every turn. This means they would have effectively Agility 5 for the first shot against them each turn, but then it would drop down to a more manageable 3.

Still need stress from manoeuvers to affect them, otherwise will be playing Koigoran tag all day which is really boring.

As to having higher agility, sure give them 4 agility.

4 Agility is a right pain, but I guess it only takes one tag to kill them.

With 4 agility how about disallowing modifications?

Yeah 4 Agility is a nightmare with Stealth Device stuck on top.

I don't think basic dice should go above 3 for either attack or defense.

I think I have to agree with Eruletho. They were competent with 3 evade and evasion action tokens. Add any more and we have a ridiculously overpowered 9 point unit.

Even as a moderately priced unit, 5 evade is insane. 6 evade at range 3, not to mention obstacles, and Evade action? I thought I was making the easily killable fodder ship that you'd dispatch by the dozen in the Jedi Starfighter games, haha.

I really suggest everyone to give them an actual quick try just to get a feel for them.

About modifications.. I'm all for disallowing them. Rather they have their own Droid only line of mods. What was said about the Drone Relay sounds brilliant also.

Here's some more tidbits of info.

A droid starfighter was capable of maneuvers that would kill an organic pilot, but they lacked the resourcefulness and cunning of living pilots, although they were capable of responding much faster.

Vulture droids were also capable of communication with one another, normally with chattering.

Vulture-class fighters were launched in overwhelming numbers and excelled in both atmospheric and space combat.

Greetings all.

But that's just my introduction. I'm here to present some musings over some Droid Starfighter models I came upon in Spain, who seem to share common scale with this epic game.

I won't spare words, just see the prototypes for yourself.

The cards I plan. All the stats are initial, up for discussion, testing, and tuning. I am intent on finding some good balance on them by having some discussions here. The card text speaks for itself, though. Insanely maneuverable, yet very low pilot skill, and cheap.

Field 11 of them in 100 Pt. games and rain hell upon your foes! ..Until someone detonates some bombs or something.

The plan is to have two versions. A Trade Federation version like the one above, at 9 points to field. And a more capable CIS version, now able to field one set of missiles and a Pilot Skill of '2'. That one would cost 15 points plus missile cost.

I'd imagine his card talent would be the ability to fire off secondary weapons without the need of using or spending Target Locks. Unless there was Target Locks added to their action bars, but I'm not too sure about that. What do you think?

There's more ideas.. Say, for example. A Remote Operator upgrade, making the droid remote controlled by actual pilots, which increases the Pilot Skill by '3', at a cost of 3 points. Droid only, of course.

The other one was Buzz Droid Missiles. Which if hits, gets the defender the Buzz Droid infliction card- Which destroys your Astromech at the first turn and has the afflicted roll a red die every turn and suffering the result. New transports be damned.

This could work at, say.. 6 points to field, and three die to roll? Like an Ion Cannon.

Enough ramblings, I bring pictures:

This is the Droid Starfighter's maneuver options/ Work in Progress.. I'm not sure about them yet, it feels like they should be more broken/overkill. I mean, it -did- say the maneuvers could kill living pilots. Open for suggestions here.

Comments, suggestions, ideas and tips much appreciated.

I almost forgot I happened to snag a -Scarab- model also, which I plan to have at 3 Attack, 3 Evade, 1 Hull, and 1 Shield.

Your minis are nice. They kinda remind me of the WOTC starfighter minis maybe even a Clone Wars battleship mini.

I like alot of the rules you posted. I don't think they should be as manuverable as you have them listed, based on their capabilities and Nabo Fighter capabilities. At the same time you do need to make them feel diffrent...

The Buzz missiles are good I would iqnore the part about them instantly killing the astromech though.

I have a bit of triva about that comment from IG 88 I will post to the other person I am quoting.

I'd actually increase the agility before increasing the hull... after all, they can perform actions that would kill a human, and effectively the hull is their "body" so their reactions would be natural (or as natural as a droid can be - think a birds flight maneuvering versus an airplanes). Agility 5 would make them more maneuverable than even a TIE and make that 1 hull point go a little farther, especially with the Evade action.

It was IG-88 that said what you have quoted above. He was saying this to Boba Fett while he was flying Slave 1. Their is truth in 88s comment but it wouldnt apply to star fighter pilots of the Dark times era and beyond. Maybe some star fights of the Clone Wars era as well.

Star Fighters by the dark times era, new modles, have antigravity systems for the pilot/s for protection against high +Gs.

Going by movies alone we see ep IV-VI doing greatly more impressive turns, dives, manuvers compaired to Rep and Confed fighters in ep I-III

Going the route you are going is fine just to make these fighters feel diffrent but by all regards they are outclassed in every way. The only good Droid Star Fighter was the TIE Droid. TIE M1-M5 where U.S/A.V.

I always appreciate when people bring new things to the hobby.

Thanks for sharing!

Ditto Bolda...nicely done!

While i appreciate your design and it's well done i have one major problem with your design and that's the points costs.

The reason why the Tie Swarm is one of the most powerful builds in the game is just numbers.. 6-8 ships against standard 3-4 ships is just too powerful because the initial attack is nearly guaranteed an early kill which puts the opponent on the defensive where only major luck and/or skill can get him out of.

Now having 11 ships with firepower 2 means 22 shots ( a little less usually) and that's something even the Falcon/Shuttle or the Firespray will keep away from much less any standard small fighter in the game.

There's not much skill involved in playing such a force.. rush towards your opponent in groups of 2 or 3 and concentrate on one ship until it's out (with this much firepower one volley should be enough), rinse and repeat.

Hull 1 only mitigates the problem and having Agility 3 makes them much more survivable so the opponent may not even hit a single one of them while you swarm him to death.

In this game where ships are costed usually somewhere around 20 points with some exceptions such cheap ships have the potency to really unbalance the game.

I'd be looking at increasing the points cost along with giving them an extra hull. As others have said, if they are too numerous, then they become too effective, and thus game breaking.

Also I'd look at keeping them at agility 3, any more and they are too hard to hit. If you want to emphasize their non human nature, allow them to generate multiple stress tokens, say allow them to have up to two stress tokens on them before they can no longer perform red actions. Sure it means you can K Turn twice in a row, but you'll have to spend two turns of basic maneuvers shedding that stress before you can take any actions.

Also keep the K turns as red as this extra rule would keep them agile but only over short bursts.

For dials, you can get a hole saw and cut dials from MDF. Then glue in a pair of rare earth magnets into the holes from the drill bits to keep them together. If you want to go really fancy, any place that does laser etching could knock some up for you with the maneuvers etched in.