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Aside from the total disregard for the canon/fluff, would a combined pirate/bounty-hunter/Black Sun-style faction "break" the game on a game-balance level?

With recent releases allowing Rebels to field swarm-type armies and Imperials highly elite armies in mind, I feel that the differences between the factions ,and what kind of ships they have access to, has been reduced quite a bit. This I feel opens up the possibility of making a combined faction, but would this ruin the balance of the game?

Please, note this is mostly motivated by a desire to re-paint the models to present a cohesive force of various different ships, and allowing for greater variety in selecting your squadron.


What do you guys think?

I think FFG has said they are sticking to two factions, so right now it seems unlikely. However, there is nothing preventing individual players from experimenting with their own factions. I know people have made cards for uglies, z-95s, and y-wings and combined them with the official cards for the YT 1300, Firespray and Hwk-290 to created a bounty hunter/smugglers faction,

Personally i would not mind seeing a 3rd faction. But that is just me.

FFG just needs to be careful in their quest for our dollars they don't break their primary game the same way GW did with 40K.
Now, if FFG wanted to get real clever, they get the Galactica franchise and start producing Vipers and Cylons...but set them very carefully so they can logically mesh into the X-Wing system.

Of course their is nothing that doesn't let you create a pirate force with stolen TIEs, salvaged X-wings, and all the uglies you can kit-bash together and play them to your hearts content. 100 points should translate pretty closely even among mixed forces.
Han in the stolen Lambda being escorted by a Lando-Falcon. Kill the TIEs before they get to your edge and back or else the empire learns of the trick and allows Vader to trap the Lambda as soon as it arrives at Endor.

I know for one league at my FLGS, they did allow a Pirate faction that could run any ship, The stipulation was you couldn't use any of the Unique pilots or ships.

I think mixing ships can be fun for scenario play. I would not be for FFG releasing a third faction.

I'd be more concerned about how they would handle Clone Wars ships, since the Republic ships were, you know, the ancestors of both faction's ships. Of course, the Z-95 and Y-Wings are overlap ships, but it would be weird to see Anakin in a Jedi Starfighter vs. Darth Vader in a TIE Advanced.

OK, now I'm uncomfortable.

I would highly doubt that they would release prequel ships. They seem to want to stick with the original stuff and onwards, timeline wise.

I would certainly hope so. Makes things a lot cleaner, if nothing else.

I believe the next two factions we see released will actually be the Confederacy of Independent Systems and the Grand Army of the Republic. There are too many fighters in the Clone Wars era for FFG not to take notice and start producing them.

If they do, I can't wait to see what Jedi Starfighters turn out to be!

The only way I'd want older ships to be available would be if some sort of timeline rule was implemented - a bit like Battletech.

Sure, you can have your ARC-170 flying with your Z-95 and Y-wing, but forget including a B-wing in the mix.

The only problem is that faction wise, the guys flying those ships ended up in...

Tie fighters...

So, on second thoughts, forget that whole idea - it would be an unholy mess!

Remember, the Clones were trained by Mandalorians. Stormtroopers were trained and lead by political appointees. Also, except for a very small few, the Imperial pilots were volunteers or conscripts.

Yeah, sorry... didn't actually mean that the GAR pilots ended up in Ties (except for the odd testing of the T.I.E.), it was a bit of a woolly statement, I admit.

But as far as political factions go, the Imperials evolved from the GAR, so combining Clone Wars era with Rebellion era ships would be a mess, fluff-wise (and FFG do seem to be keen on keeping things pretty fluffy!).

The other problem is that keeping the eras separate limits the ship choices massively as far as new releases goes:

CIS:

Vulture druids
Hyena bombers
Tri-fighters

GAR:

ARC-170s
V-29s
Z-95s
Y-wings
And the two Jedi fighters (which are pretty much Tie fighters with astromechs...)

Unless I'm missing things...

Oh, hang on...

Grievous, Ventriss, Magnaguards... Okay, there a few things to release; question is, would it be worth their effort?

If they do come out with Jedi Starfighters, I can see them possibly coming out with "Jedi Powers" cards. It would be similar to the powers in Jedi Starfighter and some of the minor abilities from the RPGs.

dkellyj wrote:

Now, if FFG wanted to get real clever, they get the Galactica franchise and start producing Vipers and Cylons...but set them very carefully so they can logically mesh into the X-Wing system.

Oh god, yes please. Dont they already have that license though? Could have sworn they produced the board game/games.

chaos0xomega wrote:

dkellyj wrote:

Now, if FFG wanted to get real clever, they get the Galactica franchise and start producing Vipers and Cylons...but set them very carefully so they can logically mesh into the X-Wing system.

Oh god, yes please. Dont they already have that license though? Could have sworn they produced the board game/games.

They did indeed do the board game.

The only problem, again, is the lack of available ship types - three (four if you include the stealth ship) for the colonials and two (three if desperate and go old school) for the Cylons. Kind of makes it a bit of a developmental dead-end.

As far as the original post goes, I'd be rather interested in a pirate/merc faction. It would basically be a few of the rebel ships, but with the Firespray added - doesn't strike me as being especially broken. Obviously restrict the named pilots, but it could be cool.

Considering that the list of ships Chillreaper posted doesn't include the Torrent, CIS Dropship, J-Type Nubian, Anakins bucket of bolts 'thing'(Can't remember name), N-1 starfighter, LAAT/i Gunship, and a few obscure ones on the side, and even before those additions to the list there were at least two waves of releases on that list. If you tally the list like so:

Separatists:
Vulture Droid
Tri-Fighter
Strike Bomber/Grievous's Fighter
Ventress's Fan shape Fighter
Magnaguard Starfighter
Sith Infiltrator(Large)
CIS Dropship(Large)
[Plus other obscurities]

Republic:
V-19 Torrent
Y-wing
V-wing
Actis ETA-2
Jedi Starfighter
ARC-170
N-1
J-Type Nubian(Large)
LAAT/i Gunship(Large)
[Plus other obscurities]

You find some 4 waves of releases to play with, more if you want to dig even just a little. thats two years minimum of game life. So really what we're looking at isn't a problem with what design space is available. It may be imbalanced as to how many ship types are available to each faction. It's just a question of how do you go about it, and only if you do? And there are a great many way's they could, time will tell. /offtopicrant

I do not want BSG games period. Sad but true. I do not believe mixing the factions is to anyone's benefit from an official design standpoint. House rule, go for it.

Well, there are 7 marks of Viper, 2 versions of the Raptor, and the Stealth Viper/Stealthstar, as well as the Blackbird stealth viper, 2 versions of raider, the heavy raider, and recon drones.

BSG could always be a single wave stand alone expansion in a single large boxed set. I'd buy it.

Tbh I wish FFG had done star trek rather than wizkids. I think it would be more quality.

As far as prequels... sure why the hell not? The ships eye really cool even if the acting, story, & plot were so so. But for God's sake please no jarjar!

YES! Jar Jar would have some awesome stupid dodge ability as like a crewmember card! He'd be like:

JarJar Binks, Crewmember, 5pts
"When ever you are attacked, you may choose to roll evade dice equal to one less than the attackers current agility. If you do receive a stress token. You cannot gain a third stress token this way."

Now I really want this to happen.

Ugh- Jar Jar's law- all blanks are hits or dodges.

Steelmage99 wrote:
Aside from the total disregard for the canon/fluff,

Aaron Allston already beat FFG to that: Wraith Squadron ends up using a mix of TIES and X-wings while disguised as an Imperial unit.

He also has Wedge pilot a Corellian Corvette(they apparently have optional manual controls in the form of a flight stick), so I want that card for my Corvette.

Well, wasn't Wedge's father or uncle or something Captain Antilles?

 Lorek wrote:
Well, wasn't Wedge's father or uncle or something Captain Antilles?

No relation. Raymus Antilles is from Alderaan, Wedge is Corellian. Wedge's father owned a gas station.

I guess all good things comes to those who wait.

Steelmage99 wrote:
I guess all good things comes to those who wait.

Sort of.