You're clueless. Now let the adults talk.

I think turrets are fun and interesting as long as they're not spammed. I think they were always intended to be used as a support ability, or as your one big hitter, but not both and not everything. The rule change I propose for tournament play is: One turret (PWT or equipped turret upgrade) per 75 squad points. And if this brings swarms back into competition, good. If it makes swarms too effective: Limit all generic pilot cards to a maximum of 2-of-a-kind per 75 squad points.

We already have subfactions in place if FFG wants to do something with them. We don't have to wait for a second edition of the game.

They'd still need new pilot cards with whatever icons FFG decided to use for the new subfaction. But we currently have no official rules that make a distinction between factions and their subfactions in play. Any cool ideas for that?

I like the Wookiee Winnebago.

Black yoga mat.

I'd like to see some Scum ships released with an Imperial mercenary pilot.

It doesn't need to take up 2 bomb slots, but that wouldn't surprise me. I would guess that it lets you remove shield tokens in order to drop the new bombs. The presence of (at least) 2 new bomb tokens is interesting. Being bomblets, they probably do detonate at a certain point during the round, so you probably only need 1 token for general use. If you can also place 1 of these bombs during setup (as hinted by one of the other upgrades in this expansion) then there's an actual reason why you might need to have 2 of these tokens on the table at the same time -- 1 for setup, and 1 for dropping on the first round of play, because you want to damage / stress / ion / tractor your own ships because janky list.

I was certain that there would be no third faction. Turns out I was partly right and they only wanted one faction for a while. In all seriousness, I've stopped assuming there are things FFG won't do with X-Wing.

I usually play a squad once or twice before moving on.

Blaster Turret is a really poor turret and no one uses it because there are better options. I like the new turret, but I want to see a general nerf to turrets before the end of the year. I don't care what form the nerf takes: restrict the number of turrets allowed per 100 points, change a hit into a focus when firing out of arc, whatever. Too many turrets in this game is the greatest contributor to "real X-Wing" being such a perversion of the core game experience. Fix that, FFG.

Ah. You should try it before the nerf goes into effect. Actually having that ability at my disposal was eye-opening for me.

A couple of times now I've seen OGP discussed like it's an additional cost for Palpatine, like all he does is ride around in it and it's not a 3-attack ship large ship with 10 hit points and a stop maneuver. In casual play, PalpShuttles can be strong enough to win matches without engaging the enemy much, which is part of Palpatine's game-warping effect. In competitive play, PalpShuttles have to work harder, and contribute to the focus firing and blocking so that the aces can do their work. The Lambda is a pretty good ship in that role, and cheap. It's still a 3-attack large ship with 10 hit points and a stop maneuver. And for just 8 points more, you got a guaranteed die result every single round that ship was alive. I wish I could get that much of an effect with Wild Space Fringer at 30 points. I think we'll continue to see PalpShuttles doing well in tournaments under the command of players who were out-flying their opponents anyway, but we'll probably see fewer Palps overall as players of more average skill find that they can't get as much out of him and his ride.

The 21-point OGP is one of the most cost-effective ships in the game, with or without Palp. The DoomShuttle remains fairly popular, too. It's a great ship in the early game -- stop maneuver, wide 3-attack forward arc, slow rolls with the best of them. Decimators are awesome all day and have the room to spare. Having to put Palp on those ships isn't a drawback.

Yeah, it was pretty broken. For 8 points (steep, it would seem) you got about 6 to 10 guaranteed dice results over the course of a typical 100-point match. If only 3 uses of Palpatine result in a hit point being lost or saved, it pays for itself in Hull Upgrades (yours or theirs). But most of the time, you got 6 to 10 guaranteed evades and crits. You usually got much more out of that card than what you pay for it, and it shows in the tournament results. You'll probably still get more than 3 good uses out of Palpatine even if you're not that good at knowing the best time to use him, so you're still getting your points' worth. He's fine now, really. He was embarrassingly easy to win with before. Maybe not, but when Imperials have showed up in the elimination rounds at tournaments over the past year and half, there's been about a 50% chance that Palpatine will be in their list. Very few cards have had such lasting popularity, and the reason is because it's easy to win games with it.

Certainly by now FFG realizes that many players would appreciate an easy way to get corrected cards, since there's a good handful of them. They have several options for getting those cards to us, but these things take a bit of time to put together, and I'm sure they'll want to see how their new rulings work out before they fully commit to them. In the meantime, there are a couple of decent workarounds. It's an inconvenience, but one solution is as easy as printing a few pages and cutting them with scissors. No one actually cares about the cards you use in tournaments as long as you have the originals. You can use your corrected custom alt-art cards without anyone saying a word beyond "cool card."

The cloaking nerf was pretty significant, even if it didn't target specific card text. Some players were winning matches with 86 point squads using nothing more than Echo and Whisper.

This tournament format works best with a relaxed group of 2-8 players who are willing to share game components with each other. The event organizer will need a large collection of cards in order to create the drafting packs, and may need to create proxies. The idea is that up to 8 players sit in a circle before the tournament (which can be a one-round event, if you like). Each player receives one drafting pack, being an envelope or baggie or something which contains 8 pilot cards and 16 upgrade cards, randomized. Each player chooses 1 pilot and 2 upgrades, then passes the remaining cards to the player to their left. Selection continues in this way until the packs are empty. Each player will now have 8 pilot cards and 16 upgrade cards, and can begin assembling a 100-point squad from that collection. Any unused cards are ignored. When everyone's squads are ready, run your event like any other tournament. That's the easy part. Preparing all this stuff takes a bit of work. For an 8-player draft, the tournament organizer needs to create a master card list of 64 pilots and 128 upgrades, which is just a fraction of the complete set available for this game. The organizer needs to make decisions about what to leave out, and it's easier to start with a short list of things you want to keep in. The first big decision is which factions to keep, and then divide your pilot cards as evenly as possible between them. For two factions, you'll want 32 pilots each. For all three factions, you'll want 21+21+22. Once you start getting into the process of looking at your card set in those sorts of numbers, you'll see that you only have room for a few ship types per faction. You'll also see that there are a lot of must-have upgrades dictated by your choices of ship types -- their titles, fixes, and available slots. For my store group's next drafting event, I'm going with a First Order v. Resistance theme. I used cards from my own collection, but I didn't have quite enough pilot cards to cover the 32 needed per faction. This turned out to be kind of cool, because it let me include a Bounty Hunter and couple of Patrol Leaders for First Order support, and a handful of older Rebel ships that might still be kicking around. The upgrades were chosen based on need, and then by "a little bit of everything." Enormous card list incoming, because folks have asked to see card lists for this sort of thing. IMPERIAL PILOTS 1x "Backdraft" 1x "Epsilon Ace" 1x "Epsilon Leader" 1x "Omega Ace" 1x "Omega Leader" 1x "Quickdraw" 1x "Zeta Ace" 1x "Zeta Leader" 1x Bounty Hunter 1x Kylo Ren 1x Lieutenant Dormitz 1x Major Stridan 1x Omega Specialist 1x Starkiller Base Pilot 1x Zeta Specialist 2x Patrol Leader 5x Epsilon Squadron Pilot 5x Omega Squadron Pilot 5x Zeta Squadron Pilot REBEL PILOTS 1x "Blue Ace" 1x "Red Ace" 1x "Snap" Wexley 1x Chewbacca (Heroes of the Resistance) 1x Chewbacca (Original) 1x Dagger Squadron Pilot 1x Ello Asty 1x Green Squadron Pilot 1x Han Solo (Heroes of the Resistance) 1x Han Solo (Original) 1x Jess Pava 1x Nien Nunb 1x Poe Dameron (Pilot Skill 8) 1x Poe Dameron (Pilot Skill 9) 1x Resistance Sympathizer 1x Rey 1x Wild Space Fringer 2x Red Squadron Pilot 2x Rookie Pilot 3x Rebel Operative 4x Blue Squadron Pilot 4x Red Squadron Veteran ASTROMECHS 1x BB-8 1x M9-G8 1x R2 Astromech 1x R2-D6 1x R2-F2 1x R3 Astromech 1x R4-D6 1x R5 Astromech 1x R5-D8 1x R5-K6 1x R5-P9 1x R5-X3 1x R7 Astromech 1x R7-T1 1x Targeting Astromech BOMBS 1x Conner Net 1x Thermal Detonators 3x Ion Bombs CANNONS 1x Heavy Laser Cannon 1x Ion Cannon 1x Tractor Beam CREW 1x "Leebo" 1x Bombadier 1x Chewbacca 1x Finn 1x Fleet Officer 1x Flight Instructor 1x General Hux 1x Gunner 1x Han Solo 1x Hotshot Co-pilot 1x Inspiring Recruit 1x Intelligence Agent 1x Kylo Ren 1x Mercenary Copilot 1x Navigator 1x Nien Nunb 1x Operations Specialist 1x Rebel Captive 1x Rey 1x Systems Officer 1x Tactician 1x Tail Gunner 1x Weapons Engineer 2x Recon Specialist ELITE PILOT TALENTS 1x A Score to Settle 1x Adrenaline Rush 1x Calculation 1x Crack Shot 1x Daredevil 1x Deadeye 1x Decoy 1x Determination 1x Expert Handling 1x Expose 1x Intimidation 1x Juke 1x Lone Wolf 1x Marksmanship 1x Opportunist 1x Outmaneuver 1x Predator 1x Rage 1x Ruthlessness 1x Squad Leader 1x Swarm Leader 1x Swarm Tactics 1x Trick Shot 1x Wired MISSILES 1x Adv. Homing Missiles 1x Assault Missiles 1x Chardaan Refit 1x Cluster Missiles 1x Concussion Missiles 1x Homing Missiles 1x Ion Pulse Missiles 1x Proton Rockets 1x XX-23 S-Thread Tracers MODIFICATIONS 1x B-Wing/E2 1x Hull Upgrade 1x Lightweight Frame 1x Smuggling Compartment 2x Autothrusters 2x Twin Ion Engine Mk. II 3x Guidance Chips 3x Integrated Astromech ILLICIT 1x Burnout SLAM 1x Rigged Cargo Chute SYSTEMS 1x Accuracy Corrector 1x Advanced Sensors 1x Collision Detector 1x Fire-Control System 1x Reinforced Deflectors 1x Sensor Jammer TECH 1x Comm Relay 1x Hyperwave Comm Scanner 1x Pattern Analyzer 1x Primed Thrusters 1x Sensor Cluster 1x Targeting Synchronizer 1x Weapons Guidance TITLES 1x A-Wing Test Pilot 1x Andrasta 1x Black One 1x Dauntless 1x Kylo Ren's Shuttle 1x Millennium Falcon (Heroes of the Resistance) 1x Millennium Falcon (Original) 1x Moldy Crow 1x Outrider 1x Special Ops Training TORPEDOES 1x Extra Munitions 1x Flechette Torpedoes 1x Ion Torpedoes 1x Plasma Torpedoes 1x Proton Torpedoes 1x Seismic Torpedoes TURRETS 1x Twin Laser Turret 2x Ion Cannon Turret

(unique) Deflection Shot: elite pilot talent, 2 points; Small ship only; When attacking in your primary firing arc at Range 2-3, you may roll 1 additional attack die (to a maximum of 3). What's it for? This sort of turns one of your 2-attack ships into 3-attack ship. It's intended to give pilots like Green Squadron A-Wing and Black Squadron TIEs a reason to exist.

I feel like this guy when I'm running a Rebel squad. I'm pretty sure they're all going to die, but we have no choice.

You could set a 2-of-a-kind limit on everything that isn't unique. This is my self-imposed squad-building rule as a way to take a break from spam dependency. It has resulted in squads that are not only more fun to play, but are more well-rounded and less likely to run into a hard counter.

-Nevermind-

I'm not too interested in talking about specific fixes, but I have a couple of ideas for how FFG might introduce squadron rules. The simplest would be something like creating a "squadron upgrade slot" just like titles and modifications, which are simply unprinted upgrade slots for all intents and purposes. Just say each ship can take 1 squadron upgrade card, and you're good to go. If FFG wanted to do something more complex -- like a new game format -- they could adapt the adventuring party cards from Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay 3rd edition. Imagine a 5" x 7" card called a "Rebel Command Panel" with appropriate Rebel artwork. On this card is a "mission tracker" (numbered 1 through 10), a space for "reserves," and 1 to 3 slots for "command upgrades." (Scum squadrons might not get as many command upgrade slots as Rebels and Imperials, but this wouldn't necessarily be unbalanced if you read on.) How this would all work is that you'd slot in command upgrade cards such as "Rogue Squadron, each time one of your Rebel Alliance X-Wings suffers damage from an attack, move the mission tracker up by 1" and "When your mission tracker reaches 4, you may remove any number of stress tokens from your ships. When your mission tracker reaches 8, you may flip one of your ships' faceup Damage cards facedown" and "During setup, you may place any combination of 3 focus and evade tokens in reserve. At the start of the Combat phase, you may place 1 token from your reserves onto a ship that does not already have that token" and "You may place 1 elite pilot talent upgrade costing 1 point in a command upgrade slot. At the start of the Activation phase, you may equip that card to one of your ships." Command upgrades could be set up to be Rebel-only or Imperial-only, or to only trigger when X-Wings or TIE Fighters do things, or what have you. The idea is that you can customize your squadron's benefits in lots of ways. How to pay for this stuff (in points) is the big question for me. I think you'd want to create a new format where each squad has the usual 100 points, plus a budget of 10 points for command upgrades or something like that.

Then you don't understand how internet forums work. When you show up in a "meta isn't fine, how do we fix it" thread and say "meta is fine, the problem is people who think it could be better" you're actually in the wrong place. It's clear that a lot of you numnuts didn't read beyond the thread title if you posted something like "whining should be banned hur dur." Half a dozen other people posted the same thing. Aren't you clever!

Generally, I'm in favor of doing more with obstacles, but I think 6 on the 3x3 foot playmat is just about right as a baseline. Seismic Torpedo and Rigged Cargo Chute are really fun, and I expect/hope we'll see more of that kind of thing. A pilot ability or EPT that lets you bring another rock is kind of interesting. It might be neat to be able to place bomb (mine) tokens during setup instead of obstacles. I'm just an amateur game designer, but something like that as an Imperial-only ability might make TIE Bombers and Punishers more competitive. Maybe a modification like "Clattertrap" -- 0 points, large ship only, when this ship is destroyed, drop (as in a bomb) this here special debris cloud that has template guides, forward or behind the ship.