by JustTee
charlest wrote:
JustTee wrote:
foulksy wrote:
ferris1971 wrote:
After playing a few My problem with the OP is the same problem I have with every post on every new game by a new player stating that in their 2 hours of reviewing the game they've decided that it's broken. Go look at every single game in BGG and you'll find someone trying to apply 'balancing' house rules after a hand full of games. The truth is it's just usually not necessary. USUALLY, a few more plays is all they really need. It gets a little old, so if I seem a little snarky, you'll just have to excuse me. I've heard this song and dance a few too many times... I'll bet a million dollars/deutsche marks it'll happen again.
This 100% - it seems someone would have have to have huge levels of hubris to decide after a couple of games that they had discovered that a game (a game with probably hundreds or even thousands of platest hours) was fundamentally flawed.
Just look at the math. It's pretty clear that, in particular, TIE fighters and named TIE fighters are drastically underpriced, and Y-Wings are drastically over priced. X-Wing vs Tie Advanced and Named X-Wing vs Named TIE/ad seems to be more balanced than I gave it credit for.
Oh, and for the people disparaging me for playing "2 hours" and calling this broken - I play in a group of 6-8 players. We assign teams randomly. We have all played both sides. We have tried assorted squad tactics. Imperial Swarm is undefeated by a hefty margin. We have played at 100 point, 105 point, and 150 point squad levels.
Rebels won once. When the empire used a stupid strategy.
2 things I've noted about the people saying their Rebel squad has won. First, they have been over utilizing TIE/ad. This speaks to the above point - these ships may be more balanced, cost wise, than the lesser ships in the Imperial fleet.
Second, I think that the losing imperial fleets most likely underutilized Evade. 3 defense dice + Evade is an incredibly difficult target to hit without Target Lock + Focus + 4 dice. This may speak to how broken Evade is defensively, considering that for every thing else, this game is kind of a dice storm, and being the only side able to mitigate the randomness, to some degree, is pretty broken.
This may be the crux of my issue with the cost values.
Perhaps the best fix would be simply to make Evade a point value upgrade that the Imperials would need to equip. This would reduce the swarm, AND reduce the value of their regular 12 point TIEs.
The funny thing I keep hearing is that the key to rebel victory is out maneuvering your opponent.
I stated that in my post.
The problem with that is that TIE fighters are all *more* maneuverable than X-Wings. They have more varied and better options than you do. So given equal pilot skill, they will have more options to end up in better position than you do.
So....yeah. You need to be tricky and clever and sneaky and unpredictable. Your opponent does as well. Only he has more tricks up his sleeve. And he has more ships to use them with.
Do you evade with all of your TIEs in range of the Rebel force? You every single action you evade with is wasted if you're not fired upon. That's why those of us who have won have said you need to focus fire. You fire at a single TIE, and then every other TIE that evaded threw an action away.
My Rebel victories were also not against TIE Advanced heavy forces. They had Vader and the rest were TIE swarms.
The Imperial forces have the option, in movement, to Evade, Barrel Roll, or Focus. All 3 of these are extremely valuable decisions that can make a HUGE impact on the incoming combat round. Making the correct decision will often result in massive dividends being paid for the pilot in question. This is a meaningful, good mechanic, and its a slick bit of design that I think is really, really good.
The Rebel forces, on the other hand, Focus. Sure, there is occasionally an argument to be made for Target Lock. Sure, it is slightly more effective for offensive purposes. However, since there is ZERO defensive use for it, 9 times out of 10, focus is your better option. Since by the very nature of being out gunned, you will often be taking multiple incoming shots from enemy ships, it is often better to use a defensive option rather than going all out to try to blow something up. Honestly, this decision does not feel as meaningful to me.
To me, I think the Imperial action options are much stronger, overall. Evade, in particular, is extremely, extremely powerful. The imperials have more meaningful choices for their actions, even on their crappy 12 point ships.
So like I was saying - maybe make Evade a 2 point upgrade option on basic TIE fighters. And maybe make it free on the TIE advanced. That would equalize the point value between the two ships, and probably bring things more in line.