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So, we rarely see the T65 x-wing nowadays. Unless the pilot has a mustache. Then we see him a lot. This presents an entertaining challenge to an armchair game designer. How does one buff the T65 X-wing, without buffing an already S-tier pilot (Biggs)? I present a novel solution, inspired by recent previews for X-wings sister game, Armada. In the preview for the Hammerhead Corvette, it was revealed that there will be two generic titles "Task Group Antilles" and "Task Group Organa", which allow you to exhaust the title of a nearby ship with the same title, to gain some benefit for your ship. An exhausted card comes with some drawback for its owner. I propose a similar mechanic for X-wing, which I will call the "Squadron Card". These are not titles, but a similar "Symbol-less" upgrade, to allow potential use with ships that already have a title (Say, the TIE Interceptor, which has similar issues).

Squadron Card
All squadron cards are dual cards. However, "A" and "B" sides are more clearly delineated, with the "A" side having all the information needed for squadron building, including points cost, ship symbol(s), and any other restrictions to the ship. The ship symbol(s) are printed in the lower left hand corner of the card. Ships may only equip a squadron card if their ship symbol matches one on the card (this is to bypass the fact that the T70 X-wing includes the full text of the X-wings name). Ships may only equip a single squadron card. Squadron cards will refer to other squadron cards. A squadron card must contain the entirety of the reference text to be the target of the effect.

So, I propose the following three squadron cards to be the first cards for this new mechanic. The exact text is not important, as these are merely meant to represent the gist of what I feel these fixes could be.


Rogue Squadron Rookie: -3pt. X-wing only. May not equip this card if your pilot skill is 5 or higher. This ship cannot equip a [Modification] upgrade worth more than 2pt.
Side A: At the end of the combat phase, if there are no friendly ships at range 1-2, receive a stress token.
Side B: This ship is never treated as being within range 1-3 of a friendly ship. During the end phase, you may receive 1 stress token to flip this card.

The idea with this is to both provide a way to run generic X-wings for cheap, as well as a cheap fuel for stronger Rogue Squadron pilots. The PS cap prevents you from running it on Biggs. Getting stress and being limited to cost 2 or less modifications are both very minor drawbacks, considering that you will probably be taking an Integrated R2 unit.


Rogue Squadron Pilot: 0pt. X-wing only.
Side A: After you perform an attack, you may flip any Rogue Squadron title card equipped to another friendly ship at distance 1-2. If you do, you may modify your attack dice as though you had spent either a [focus] or [target lock] token, in addition to any other tokens spent during this attack.
Side B: This ship is never treated as being within range 1-3 of a friendly ship. During the end phase, flip this card.

This is the one squadron card which can be taken on Biggs. However, it doesn’t really do much for him. Because it provides a purely offensive buff, it doesn’t make Biggs harder to kill, so is not playing into his job as a tank. It is useless if Biggs is the only X-wing that you are running, and if he isn’t, then the drawback of separating the ship from the others by treating it as being beyond range 3 prevents Biggs from protecting it.


Rogue Squadron Ace: 1pt. T-65 X-wing only. This card may not be equipped by a ship with a pilot skill less than 7.
Side A: Action: flip any Rogue Squadron title card equipped to another friendly ship at distance 1-2. If you do, you may perform up to two of the following as free actions: Focus, Evade, Boost, or Barrel Roll.
Side B: This ship is never treated as being within range 1-3 of a friendly ship. During the end phase, flip this card.

This card serves to give X-wing aces some fairly impressive action economy, as well as access to Boost and Barrel Roll, for fairly minimal cost. Again, the “B” side forces you out of range of Biggs, so doesn’t work with him.

Why not use this as a title?

You mention the TIE Interceptor, but that title only applies to PS5 and above (iirc), which are usually pilots that have a pilot ability on top of those 2 mods they can tap. There is nothing in what you describe that couldn't work with what you have worked out from a mechanics point of view.

For the idea at hand: it could be fun in a casual setting, or in Epic (boo! hiss!), but with most lists being made of of only 3 ships (4 if you really push it for Rebels) I don't think it's going to be that big of an edge.

Say you give this to Skywalker, with Expertise, an R2 with IA, he still pops up at 34 pts...


Automatically Appended Next Post:
If you give aces those cards and Intesity as an EPT... lulz. They can boost, barrel roll and still have a token to modify dice rolls. Or just one re-positioning move, a TL and either that evade or focus.

Furthermore, BB-8 gives you all 4 actions when taken with Intensity.

Meh. Too much work to keep track of. Specific title cards would be better. The t65 struggles with lack of ship quantity and limited firepower.

I think pilot specific titles would be awesome. Something like Luke's x-wing, minus x amount of points and you auto focus each round (something to represent him using the force). Can only equip to the matching pilot, don't give Biggs one and that problem is solved. Could do generic titles for the generic ships too, same thing can only put it on the matching generic, but non unique so you could do multiple titles on generics.

That's pretty much what he proposed.

And the mechanic dovetails into the mechanic spoiled in Armada. So there is precedent.

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
Why not use this as a title?

1) By creating a new slot, I can link the "X Ship Only" Requirements to the ship symbol, allowing for the creation of upgrades that only affect the T-65 X-wing, without having to errata the name of the X-wing. The same logic applies to potentially making a Squadron for TIE Fighters.
2) There are quite a few ships that have titles, that could still use a little something, and creating a new slot could be useful for these (TIE Interceptor, TIE Striker, TIE/sf). In the case of the interceptor, I would want to avoid making players choose between the current title and squadron card if they bring an ace. In the case f the TIE/sf, the title is a 0-point text booster, and the ship assumes that you are auto-including it. Yes, you could make it like the new Starviper title, and allow players to run an extra title, but that would require some clunky mechanics to stop people from taking multiple squadron cards.

Basically, it comes down to making a new slot instead of titles saving a lot of clunky text, including what would likely be a hard-errata on the X-wings name.