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How are you guys feeling about this?

Traditionally in star wars games I've always played as a neutral/criminal organization character. In the old West End RPG I played a bounty hunter. In SWG I played a Trandoshan bounty hunter and spent a lot of time at Jabba's Palace! In SWTOR I played a bounty hunter. In Star Wars Empire at War I loved the Black Sun expansion. And lastly, I have some shelves above my PC at home that are filled with Boba Fett and Mandalorian figures. So, I will buy lots of these ships and they will probably become my main fleet.

That being said....is FFG pushing too hard? I've read lots of posts and articles worrying that if they do this, the main two forces will lose their flair.

Anyway...I turn the floor over to you!

This is the first time I am not super excited about X-Wing release news. Time will tell. I hope a campaign book is in the works at least.

For me, it isn't about Rebels and Imperials losing their flair. It's about how to balance releases within a wave. I see it a lot with Warmachine/Hordes. If one side gets 5 releases in a book, and another gets 2 or 3, then there is a perception of imbalance. As it is right now actual waves (meaning not Aces/Transport/Corvette) have been evenly divided between Rebels and Imperials at 2 ships each. What will wave seven look like? Will it have an overabundance of S&V to further catch them up to the number of main faction releases? Rebels and Imperials have 9 ships for use in regular play as of Wave 5, S&V will have 7 available ships when it is released, will it always have fewer available ships? Should it? I thought the divide between Imperial aligned independents and Rebel aligned ones worked well. I'm disappointed if further releases along these lines are all just shoved into the Scum and Villainy faction. Dual faction would be my preference in those cases.

I'm generally a big fan of mercenaries in all settings, and I enjoy the grey areas of the Star Wars universe so this expansion is great for me. In terms of balance and playstyle I'm not too fussed, the Rebels and Imperials have somewhat lost their elite ships vs horde that both sides had respectively, so I don't imagine a third side will cause any further flair loss. If anything they should game should gain flair with some pimped out HWKs.

 derek wrote:
For me, it isn't about Rebels and Imperials losing their flair. It's about how to balance releases within a wave. I see it a lot with Warmachine/Hordes. If one side gets 5 releases in a book, and another gets 2 or 3, then there is a perception of imbalance. As it is right now actual waves (meaning not Aces/Transport/Corvette) have been evenly divided between Rebels and Imperials at 2 ships each. What will wave seven look like? Will it have an overabundance of S&V to further catch them up to the number of main faction releases? Rebels and Imperials have 9 ships for use in regular play as of Wave 5, S&V will have 7 available ships when it is released, will it always have fewer available ships? Should it? I thought the divide between Imperial aligned independents and Rebel aligned ones worked well. I'm disappointed if further releases along these lines are all just shoved into the Scum and Villainy faction. Dual faction would be my preference in those cases.

What makes you think S&V will need to catch up? Imps and Rebels currently each have 9 ships. S&V will have 7 after their first release. That's pretty much right up there with them from the get-go. Also if people think one side having more ship options than the others then they are sorely mistaken.

I was initially concerned, but after reading the news article and seeing the contents, I'm feeling a lot better.

For established players, simply buying the Most Wanted box gets you a Scum & Villainy fleet of 2 Z-95s, 2 Y-Wings, a Firespray and a HWK-290. For new players, this is basically a Core set and good value on the number of models you get. It's a nice touch that the box comes with enough dials, cards and tiles to support the additional ships.

On top of that, the new ships look great. Bringing this new faction up to 7 ships sets them up well for competing right out of the gate.

As far as playstyle goes, based on what I've seen, S&V look to fill their own niche. The Illicit upgrades look to be a lot of fun, new pilot abilites, upgrades and the like should make things interesting. It appears they'll have numbers, some shields but not too many, elite units, agile units, tanky units and a good variety of potential builds.

I'm really looking forward to this.

Has this officially been announced as a third faction? I think it's great. Something different. It's not like Star Trek Attack Wing where they are just throwing everything out there and seeing what sticks.

I am happy about how they are doing the most wanted expansion. The fact that it is mostly cards to replace your current models, so they can be played as S&V is great. No need to buy new versions of old models.

The nice thin with Scum is that now they can add dual-faction ships to various waves- say the Skipray blastboat as Imperial/Fringe, or the Baudo-class Yacht as Rebel/Fringe. And there are a ton of cool ships that do not fit the Rebel or Imperial faction that can now be added.

If your worried about balance of future releases they could do 1 imperial, 1 rebel, and either 1 scum and just have three models per release now, or do two scum to get them caught up quicker for a total of four still. I like a third faction, I just hope they don't come out overpowered and dilute the game.

 Godless-Mimicry wrote:

 derek wrote:
For me, it isn't about Rebels and Imperials losing their flair. It's about how to balance releases within a wave. I see it a lot with Warmachine/Hordes. If one side gets 5 releases in a book, and another gets 2 or 3, then there is a perception of imbalance. As it is right now actual waves (meaning not Aces/Transport/Corvette) have been evenly divided between Rebels and Imperials at 2 ships each. What will wave seven look like? Will it have an overabundance of S&V to further catch them up to the number of main faction releases? Rebels and Imperials have 9 ships for use in regular play as of Wave 5, S&V will have 7 available ships when it is released, will it always have fewer available ships? Should it? I thought the divide between Imperial aligned independents and Rebel aligned ones worked well. I'm disappointed if further releases along these lines are all just shoved into the Scum and Villainy faction. Dual faction would be my preference in those cases.

What makes you think S&V will need to catch up? Imps and Rebels currently each have 9 ships. S&V will have 7 after their first release. That's pretty much right up there with them from the get-go. Also if people think one side having more ship options than the others then they are sorely mistaken.

It's not what I think, it's about perception. I posted the same numbers you repeated, and it isn't hard to predict the responses. And yeah, I know no matter what they do there will be complaints, but it seems like they're setting themselves up here. I'm betting that by early next year we'll be seeing:

"When will S&V have the same number of ships available as Rebels and Imperials"

"Where is the epic ship for S&V"

"Why does FFG hate S&V only players"

 wikkedj wrote:
How are you guys feeling about this?

I'm surprised they didn't do it earlier. I always wondered why they didn't do card-pack releases that come with new pilots and upgrades independent of miniature releases. It'd be a great way to expand the game and get further use out of older units. This "Most Wanted" thing kinda does that job, giving new cards for not only the minis inside the box for for other things as well. It's a good way of expanding the game.

I'm more pumped about S&V than I have been about any x-wing release so far.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I'm surprised they didn't do it earlier. I always wondered why they didn't do card-pack releases that come with new pilots and upgrades independent of miniature releases. It'd be a great way to expand the game and get further use out of older units. This "Most Wanted" thing kinda does that job, giving new cards for not only the minis inside the box for for other things as well. It's a good way of expanding the game.

I've been saying the same thing for months: Just give me a booster pack of Pilot Cards! Other than that This wave really worries me. Far easier to balance a game on a two faction fulcrum, adding a third one opens some cans of worms I think. Am I opposed to it? meh. I'll eventually get a second version of Dash Rendar though! I am intrigued to see one thing come out of this. And thats what do the good guys we have now do when they're acting as true scum or villains?

The whole 'scum and villainy' thing is at the core of the star wars mythos. It's as much a tale of smugglers, bounty hunters, mercenaries and crime lords as it is of the Rebels against the Empire. I'd been planning some sort of 'pirate/smugglers' list based around The Falcon, Hawks and Z-95's anyway, but now this new faction gives me a chance to do it properly.

This is a great move and one that I think will give the game allot more scope. This and Armada are going to dominate my 2015 gaming habits.

 derek wrote:

 Godless-Mimicry wrote:

 derek wrote:
For me, it isn't about Rebels and Imperials losing their flair. It's about how to balance releases within a wave. I see it a lot with Warmachine/Hordes. If one side gets 5 releases in a book, and another gets 2 or 3, then there is a perception of imbalance. As it is right now actual waves (meaning not Aces/Transport/Corvette) have been evenly divided between Rebels and Imperials at 2 ships each. What will wave seven look like? Will it have an overabundance of S&V to further catch them up to the number of main faction releases? Rebels and Imperials have 9 ships for use in regular play as of Wave 5, S&V will have 7 available ships when it is released, will it always have fewer available ships? Should it? I thought the divide between Imperial aligned independents and Rebel aligned ones worked well. I'm disappointed if further releases along these lines are all just shoved into the Scum and Villainy faction. Dual faction would be my preference in those cases.

What makes you think S&V will need to catch up? Imps and Rebels currently each have 9 ships. S&V will have 7 after their first release. That's pretty much right up there with them from the get-go. Also if people think one side having more ship options than the others then they are sorely mistaken.

It's not what I think, it's about perception. I posted the same numbers you repeated, and it isn't hard to predict the responses. And yeah, I know no matter what they do there will be complaints, but it seems like they're setting themselves up here. I'm betting that by early next year we'll be seeing:

"When will S&V have the same number of ships available as Rebels and Imperials"

"Where is the epic ship for S&V"

"Why does FFG hate S&V only players"

Gotcha. Only thing is, this is happening already with X-Wing. The FFG forums are currently full of threads with people trying to convince themselves that their Imps or Rebels will get access to some of the Scum only stuff. There's a lot more about how a huge Imperial ship will never happen now because it didn't happen at GenCon. At a lot more jumping the gun and being really silly. X-Wing has a much better community than other games IMO, but you are right; it is very prone to stupid leaps of logic and whining about nothing. That being said, for each person that does this, there are 4 that give them the slap on the nose and tell them to cop on, so it works out.

KnuckleWolf wrote:

 H.B.M.C. wrote:
I'm surprised they didn't do it earlier. I always wondered why they didn't do card-pack releases that come with new pilots and upgrades independent of miniature releases. It'd be a great way to expand the game and get further use out of older units. This "Most Wanted" thing kinda does that job, giving new cards for not only the minis inside the box for for other things as well. It's a good way of expanding the game.

I've been saying the same thing for months: Just give me a booster pack of Pilot Cards! Other than that This wave really worries me. Far easier to balance a game on a two faction fulcrum, adding a third one opens some cans of worms I think. Am I opposed to it? meh. I'll eventually get a second version of Dash Rendar though! I am intrigued to see one thing come out of this. And thats what do the good guys we have now do when they're acting as true scum or villains?

Unlikely that you will get a second Dash, given that they would never have him paired with Xizor.

I like the idea of the faction itself, it fits well with this scale of combat. If they had released just the cards from Most Wanted on their own, I would have been all over it, but as it stands, I have a Y-wing and a z-95 for my rebels and I don't really want more models. Especially when I'm not fond of the paint scheme on the new Zs.

True, but the fact remains that Dash was a Smuggler and is totally worthy of a S+V version. So is Han, Chewie, and Lando. This goes back to another idea I had for FFG to follow their faction breakdown from their Star Wars LCG, where Bounty hunters and Smugglers were two of the factions. I feel like that would have been the better move still. Too late now I suppose

KnuckleWolf wrote:
True, but the fact remains that Dash was a Smuggler and is totally worthy of a S+V version. So is Han, Chewie, and Lando. This goes back to another idea I had for FFG to follow their faction breakdown from their Star Wars LCG, where Bounty hunters and Smugglers were two of the factions. I feel like that would have been the better move still. Too late now I suppose

Whatever Dash is, it still would leave him and Xizor in the same faction despite being enemies.

S&V versions of Han, Chewie, and Lando might have lower PS than their Rebel versions. Different abilities would also be interesting.

The more I read and the more I think it over, I'm a little excited I guess. Especially considering the things like Y-wing and Z-95 being able to use the ones I already have. Not to mention new Boba! Also, if not named characters directly I hope we do see S&V generic pilot options for the YT-1300, YT-2400 and Firespray.

The Firespray at least is getting a new S+V generic. Its the last one on the left in the top rrow of the picture and appears to be a Mandalorian Pilot card! With PS 5!

Back to the other subject yes Dash and Xizor are opposed but Biggs was dead before the E-wing was made and they fly together. Bobba Fett and Han Solo aren't exactly bff's and if we could get both in the same list, sure it would be weird but not out of the question. All I'm saying is it's design space that absolutely could be used.

This is actually pretty simple.

The Alliance to Restore the Republic and the Galactic Empire are in-universe affiliations. Working for one is mutually exclusive with working for another, barring espionage/sabotage/etc.

"Scum & Villany" is NOT an in-universe affiliation. It's a meta-category covering any character who has engaged in shady, dangerous spacefaring. Han, Chewie, and Lando all fit into that category. Saying that Dash and Xizor are enemies is not an argument against either of them falling into the S&V category.

The proper argument against producing a S&V version of Dash would have something to do with game mechanics or marketing.

Thank you Manchu. That was what I was trying to convey. Obviously badly.

I was just trying to support your point.

On this theme, one of my old ideas for an expansion is the Rogue Shadow, which would come cards to be used by either the Rebellion or the Empire.

Everything.

 Manchu wrote:
This is the first time I am not super excited about X-Wing release news. Time will tell. I hope a campaign book is in the works at least.

Same here as well. I have no interest in any of the scum villainy ships and will just skip them completely. I already ironically enough planned to run a "smuggler" rebel list with z-95, y-wings, yt1300, and yt2400 when I get the latter. The only ships from the EU rebellion era were coered (defender and z-95) so I'm good until they switch over (if they ever do) to the clone wars era fighters.

I also have no interest in the descent style board game nor in armada for a variety of reasons. While I'm glad they're coming out with both as fans of the universe deserve them, they're simply not for me.