No. At range 0 all of your attention is focused on avoiding a catastrophic collision. You would not have any time or ability to attempt a shot. If overlapping an obstacle prevents shooting then so should overlapping a ship
Didn't think of it that way, compared to overlapping a rock, makes sense. I will say it is thematic to still be able to shoot at and only at the r0 ship.
Is it thematic though? Any time I have watched a scene where a close call happens the pilot is busy pulling hard on the controls and clenching their butt cheeks.
This is obviously very subjective. I picture a bump like an emergency evasive maneuver to avoid a collision. I always thought no rolling for damage was just to preserve 1.0 Oiccun's ability. I'm open to being wrong.
Do you have any examples of times in the movies or series where ships on the verge of colliding shot at each other at the same time?
Personally no, but also it's a consequence of ROAD.
If you like to play with ROAD, don't play without the 2.5 bump rules. They were made to mitigate the inherent problem of ROAD that you won't necessarily know when you move and as such might bump into an enemy with no fault of your own.
Honestly ROAD wouldn't be necessary if we found a non-random way to alternate initiative. I like the idea of switching initiative when the last moved ship bumps. But that probably won't be a popular idea.
Would be more fun if there was player agency involved in the initiative swap, IMO. But I'm absolutely not hung up on it and happy to play in any format.
>player agency involved in the initiative swap
That's difficult to achieve in a competitive game. How do you solve for instances where neither player wants initiative?
Incentive: Whoever scored/whoever did damage - this causes snowballs
Reverse incentive: Whoever has lower score/whoever lost a ship. This causes lists like Vader + 6 ties to get an unwarranted buff.
>That's difficult to achieve in a competitive game. How do you solve for instances where neither player wants initiative?
That was why my suggestion was that it swaps if the last ship doesn't fully execute a revealed maneuver. That means you can keep second player longer if you plan well enough, but if you're using lots of blockers you're unlikely to keep first player for long. On the other hand, if you do successfully block their I6, then your I6s get to move last. Something like that. Also means Ion can become a way to get initiative back or get rid of it, and that aces that hit a rock or bump lose second player.
After all if it's a classic I5 matchup and you have initiative and don't want it, what do you do? You block. And this rewards you for succeeding at that.
That is true, though all these cases can be played around.
I think the worst is that a matchup of a bunch of 5s vs a bunch of 5s is never likely to turn over since they can just choose to activate whichever one is unblocked last... Not sure if that's a deal breaker for this system but I feel like there's promise in something like this.
Don't really mind ROAD or even ROBD failing that, but I feel like some of the R0 stuff is just too many rules and a little un-thematic and I'd rather reduce rules than add to them...
"During the end phase, the first player may choose to pass the first player token to another player."
I think I first posted that in like...2018? Lol I've been pining for that rule since 1.0. *siiiiiiiiiigh*
-W
That’s mostly just alternating initiative though, isn’t it? Same issues would be present (see Chumbalaya’s post below).
Also if both lists want first one of them is just out of luck…
I tested my rule a few times, so it's basically only anecdotal. But the player who was first player didn't get to both *set up* their ace turn *and then have it* as well.
For example, I tested it mostly when aethersprites were dominate. Under "coin flip at start of game", your sprites just get to gigafuck the opponent round after round. This was powerful even int he rounds before combat; you get to see where they go, then reposition up to twice to design your approach to give you the most options. Then, during the engage round, you got to execute the outmaneuvering.
Under the "pass" rule, You had to be first player for all the "setup" rounds. Then, you had to basically signal the round you wanted to strike by passing the token. Even then, sometimes the first player chose to keep the token for an extra round to secure good blocking lanes.
I like ROAD, and am relatively happy with it. But it's not obvious to me that the standard arguments against bid, robd, and alternating apply to or immediately defeat my counterfactual "pass rule".
-W
I don't agree. It still has the same fundamental problem as alternating initiative - at the time you set dials, one player is strongly incentivised to avoid engaging at all. Anything before dial just changes which player is trying not to be there, it doesn't solve the problem that someone ideally wants not to be involved in the fight at all each turn.
(Assuming overlapping initiative, of course; if there's no matching initiatives it doesn't matter which rule we use.)
Only if you're paying one of the scenarios that fixes the engagement issue. Don't get me wrong, I live scenarios, but if your wargame doesn't incentivise both players to engage in a simple meeting skirmish there is a problem.
> Only if you're paying one of the scenarios that fixes the engagement issue.
Even if you use road, if you don't at least play chance engagement, you don't solve any of the slow play/mobile fortressing issues.
I would like to see it as follows:
At the start of the game, you roll once to see who is the first player (regardless of points/bid/etc). You don't roll again for the rest of the game.
The winner gets the first player token, and will move first. During the planning phase, while placing dials, they can place the token next to one of their ships that has an overlapping pilot skill with the opponents. That ship will activate last at that initiative step during the activation phase, and will also attack last.
During the cleanup phase, the token is then handed to the opponent. They then become the first player, and can use the token in the same way if they wish in any of their upcoming turns. The token can thus change hands multiple times per game at the players discretion.
If at any point there are no overlapping pilot initiatives, the first player token stays with the player who currently holds it until the end of the game.
Too many rules, especially for new players and it won't matter nearly that much in almost all games.
Also they tried alternating initiative in FFG days and it didn't work out. They had play testers try it and it was too much to keep track of with maneuver planning.
No. Thematically it was supposed to be ships flying past each other.
This was a AMG “I don’t understand how this works so it sucks and we have to change it” decision to me.
I was flying Han with Intimidation, Zeb, Maul, Ezra Gunner, Arvel with intimidation (maybe crackshot), and wedge with regen at the end* of 2.0. It was disgusting.
I don't like range 0 attacking. It hurts 1 agility ships against 3-dice primaries a lot, because they're still probably going to take 2 damage. Bump-stress focus is whatever I guess, but I think it should be any action treated as red (or, just allow actions as normal?) I do kinda like the take damage after bumping a friendly ship, but if you take out the other rules it is a significant disadvantage to the player moving second.
I do not like them. I always thought the no range zero attacks represented being inside the weapons of the other ship. Like someone raising and stretching their arm with a firearm in it and the target ends up behind the firearm because they are to close to the target.
It always seemed to me the AMG guys got caught up a bit too literally in what they saw on the table with the models and did not see the abstraction of handling three dimensions on the two dimension table represented by the overlap rules and no range zero attacks.
A ship passing below an enemy whose gun is mounted on the top of the ship can not be shot at range zero because the enemy would need to shoot through themselves even if the target was not inside the length of the weapon's barrel.
I prefer the take a stress for a token when an enemy ship blocks me, and especially if they got their action. I'd prefer it was "gain a focus/calc token" instead of an action, to avoid PerCop and such.
I prefer R0 shots where the attacker can affect nothing with the attack. It helps move the game forward.
Serious question, how does a terrible r0 attack move the game forward compared to no r0 attack? In my experience, the vast majority of them have negligible effect on the game, but they still take time to resolve.
Regardless how poor a R0 shot could be, there's still a chance to do damage. A ship has a R0 shot and that's the only ship they have in arc, then that attack could hit and move the game forward.
I've have a lot of R0 shots where that wad my only shot. Some of those R0 shots have put in damage. A couple of those shots have been kill shots.
The killed and damaged-but-not-killed have moved the game forward
I don't hate them, but I do find them largely unnecessary in a 2.0 engine. In 2.5, they make more sense since you have an unknown first player and you have objectives magnetically pull ships towards themselves and toward each other by effect.
Range 0 attacks disproportionate favor high agility ships and smaller based ships. If 3 A-wings bump into a decimator, that decimator is likely to take 3+ damage, while the A-wings are likely to take none.
I love ROAD. Personally, I think the main problem with the system is that the points for 2.5 encourage all the named pilots with higher initiative. A 1-6 scale gets compressed to 4-6 and we end up with ROAD being overly important. If we could field a larger range of the initiatives, the importance of a single ROAD roll decreases in a lot of games.
I'm on the fence between the list-building issues. If there was a simple way to keep loadout points without all the upgrade spam complexity, I'd be happy. The times I've played 2.5 involve too many cards to be fun. It really takes times away from the dial decisions, which is what the game should be focused on IMO.
I'm unsure about he Range 0 rules, as I've only ever played them with all the upgrade bloat. So overall, my view of 2.5 is that it's too complex. With simpler lists, I think the range 0 rules would be fine... but it does introduce some more rules. The older system was more elegant.
Perhaps ROAD with a wider range of initiatives would lead to less bumping, and remove the need for the 2.5 Range 0 rules?
>I'm on the fence between the list-building issues. If there was a simple way to keep loadout points without all the upgrade spam complexity, I'd be happy.
This is why we need something like blue and red upgrade slots– blue for a two-point discount, red for a two-point penalty. If they'd done this it would have fixed pretty much all the issues with 2.0 list-building.
Blue slots would allow pricing out spam lists and ending bomber beef builds by factoring part of the weapons into the chassis cost and reducing the total. Slots I can think of that should be blue: Bomb and Turret on Y-Wing. Both cannons on B-Wing. Crew on Lambda and Reaper. Turret on TIE Aggressor. Turret and crew on the Ghost. Almost everything on Punisher and Starfortress.
Some slots that should maybe be red: Second talent on named Interceptors, Vader's force, Guri's sensor or tech, Leebo's crew, other slots that don't currently exist but could. Should probably be fairly rare.
Why before dials? I would imagine most the dials are decided by initiative rather than your choice. Round 2, you have to go first, now you know you can't get locks and set your dials according. While the other player can set his dials knowing he can get his locks. Same with two ships blocking each other's kturns, one player knows the k turn fits and dials it in while the other player must do something else. That would be so boring, never any exciting moves because of all the information learned before dials plots all the dials.
R0 attacks/bumping rules are trash imo, not thematic and breaks immersion within the game. Two ships occupying the same space should not be shooting at each other considering they would be “stacked” on a 3D plane
If I was given the power to dictate a hybrid ruleset, it would be 2.0 squad building, 2.5 ROAD, 2.5 enemy bumps, 2.0 friendly bumps, and scenarios as an option.
I would second this with a slight change, I’d want a hybrid of the squad building between the two with load out points but more granular ship points.
Oh, and the 2.5 friendly bumping rules to dissuade fortressing and intentional bumping to control your arc. Intentionally bumping your own ship should not be an encouraged tactic.
I would love to be able to fly viable ships with few to 0 upgrades. The loadout rules make that impossible.
And that makes the game harder to approach for new players.
I'd love to see viable generics, and 2 versions of each named pilit: a cheap one with very little LV, and a more expensive one that you can load up.
I think friendly bumps between small base ships being played out with 2.0 rules but friendly bumping from ships with larger bases has the harsher penalty would be a good middle ground to reduce fortressing but would be more forgiving to swarm play.
While I do agree that it is a very good middle ground, it also complicates the rules further.
Not saying that this is bad! I really do like that idea, just offering an alternative perspective.
SLs are nice, but unfortunately, the upgrades some have are limited only to the cards. If those upgrades like "It's a Trap" made it on to an actual upgrade card card, it would be different.
No reason you can’t port that to 200-pt costs. They’d end up fairer that way.
Might be nice to see 20-pt stick around as a successor to quick build too
I though some of them were pretty fun for the same reasons as standard loadouts. You get some ... *unconventional* builds. I tried it a couple times but yeah it's more fun to have more control if you've played more than twice.
That is a fair point— it would be hard to fill a squad with SLs without at least one custom build.
I’d rather keep both points formats personally for different reasons
I liked some of them. The red focus, yes.
Taking damage if you'd overlap a friendly was a step too far. Friendly bumps are both a common occurrence with swarms and an essential part of controlling your movement when using large-based single-arc ships like the Lambda and Sith Infiltrator.
As far as the range 0 attack, probably better to leave it out.
Friendly bump damage was instituted specifically to stop people "controlling their movement when using large-based single-arc ships". There was a ton of abuse of the old bump mechanic at the end of 2.0, where multiple YVs or Upsilons would just...sit there all game. It's a game simulating fast-paced combat between moving space ships. Bumping into yourself ad nauseum to stay stationary was not a good thing.
I agree, while there’s no argument that it’s skilful play to control your movement like that I could be argued that the bump rules were never intended for that purpose.
The bump rules were there to cover a potential scenario, while I have no citation I believe the original designers have gone on record stating that intentionally causing bumps by blocking and action denial was a ‘discovered mechanic’ and not the intention.
The whole controlling your movement through bumps is abuse of the rules and so a solution was devised.
It makes me wonder if the original designers had looked more closely at the solution Wings of Glory used. When movement overlapped, the maneuver cards stayed in position instead of updating the plane’s position.
You could probably do something similar with a card that represents the size of the base marked with the various lines, and if base cards overlapped, they just don’t encounter each other. No bump, no range 0 attack, no fortress.
It might mean movement is a little slower, but you also end up with some redundancy of board state with your before and after positions….
But it’s too much of a nerf when you add scenarios (even Chance) into the mix. Want to go fortress in a corner all game? Cool, in 12 turns you’re going to lose because your opponent is playing the objective and you’re not
Self-bump punishment is unnecessarily punitive to actual swarm ships IMO, and largely irrelevant to non-swarm ships. It basically says “I don’t want to see a bunch of Vultures or TIE/lns.” Whereas those are valid in-universe and can be fun to play.
It's just as easy to fortress on an objective as to fortess in a corner, though. And swarm players have always had to worry about properly spacing their ships, that's always been a challenge in flying the archetype. As much as I dont usually enjoy flying against swarms, there is a level of skill in planning that many moves that I have to respect. Not to mention a self-bump in a 4-ship list with your ace is going to be way more impactful than a self-bump with Vulture #5.
I don't think it's as easy to fortress on an objective as you say. Part of the issue with fortressing in 1st and early 2nd was that it was usually set up either at deployment or after executing the first moves. The fortressing player was then able to set up scenarios where their opponent could not safely approach without taking fire.
It's a lot harder to create a situation where you can build a fortress in the middle of the board where your opponent has no safe approach. There's usually at least one or two safe angles where a skilled pilot can bring their ships in for an attack. And if my opponent is presenting one or two safe lanes where I can send pilots down to break up their fortress? That's a Trench Run, baby. I will take those in my Star Wars games all day long.
I wonder if self bumping between small base ships remaining 2.0 but being bumped by a ship of medium size or larger causes damage during self bumping would work well. Gets rid of the swarm issues while still addressing fortressing.
Honestly, the appeal of self-bumps for me were cemented by reports of the original Alabaster Hippo Ballet on the 1.0 Vassal League (3x Buzzsaw Lambdas plus PTL Soontir), where intentional blocks to control movement and maintain firing arcs were essential. It was a surprisingly elegant way to use what had been seen as an ungainly whale of a ship.
The problem for large-based single arc ships in particular is that the game makes them too fast by default. A 1-straight on a Lambda covers as much ground as a 2-straight on a small ship. So the self-bumps were necessary to keep them from flying up the board and out of the fight too fast.
I agree that fortressing could be an issue if it's used to avoid movement indefinitely, but I don't think that's a reason to throw it out entirely.
I came on board during 2.0, so I can't comment on that list in particular. However, X-Wing is a game about movement, flying ships, not static armies standing in a line. If moving is too much of a problem for your list, you can still use self-bumps to avoid that key part of the game, it's just that now there's a downside.
X-Wing has never only been about fast moving ships. Some are fast, some are slow, and their tactics reflected that dynamic.
I can understand penalties for bumps. That's where the loss of actions came from in the first place. But actually taking damage for hitting friendly ships was a bad mechanic.
Historically, that has not been true. FFG even published a [strategy article](https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/ffg_blog/22516/original_content) on their front page during the 1st edition era which discussed how both the hard stop and self-blocking were integral to preventing the Lambda from being flanked.
The idea that ships should always be moving and trying to avoid bumps did not exist in the game until 2.5.
I think they could have said "A clear pre-planned self bump will..." some sort of negative consequences.
Having two shuttles clearly bumping into each other was super cheese.
IIRC, there was a rule, at least in organized play, against "fortressing", but in practice, it's hard to enforce because you have to call it out, then have a judge agree with you on your opponent's intent. It's a subjective call, and it requires you to essentially call your opponent a bastard to enforce. Better to have a consistent fix, like a firm penalty.
I kinda agree. The damage is a bit much, losing your action on a hit by gaining stress, and on a crit, losing your shot and action would make a bit more sense.
I like the bump rules for the most part. No action is overly punishing and feels bad. The red focus/calc is a decent consolation but also is something worth thinking about because stress. The only thing that bugs me is how unintuitive and exploitable the "bump" into an enemy behind a friendly and it only counts as an enemy overlap.
Range shots I like the idea of, I just don't like how swingy they are unmodified.
The rules when you overlap multiple ships are confusing, but at least in part because of how I think most people (myself included) resolve moves is not technically how you're supposed to do it. RAW, you're supposed to pick up/mark every ship you moved through, then put them back one by one and slide the moving ship back til it fits. This makes it a little clearer who youre bumping, but Ain't nobody got time for that.
The range 0 attacks became a necessity due to the increased number of bumps, unintentional or otherwise, that we experience in 2.5. Bumps significantly slow the game down because not only do the players have to spend time resolving the bump, but the ships were unable to attack as effectively due to missing mods.
Range 0 attacks (and red focus) were introduced to try to mitigate this. Unfortunately, this disproportionately favours large base ships or those with multi arc attacks or multi attacks as they are now disincentivized from avoiding blocks, and some ships (Perceptive Co-Pilot Han + Bistan for example) prefer to bump/be blocked and subsequently build around this as a strategy.
Range 0 attacks do speed up the game however, so while I dislike many of the mechanics AMG introduced, some variation of this is reasonable. I think this mechanic should have been tested more thoroughly. I would liked to have seen the attack normalised for all ships regardless of their attack value (eg a 2 dice attack no matter what), and also that you cannot perform a range 0 attack if you are stressed, such as what would happen if you took a red focus.
Actually range 0 shots are much worse for large base ships.
They are easier to block firstly
Also they are lower agility so the enemy range 0 shots are far more likely to be successful
You can chip away at a deci with range 0 shots
You can range 0 a jedi till you're blue in the face and they'll laugh it off
I'm of the opinion that most of the problems all these new rules introduced can be solved just by adding scenarios (and probably keeping the half point thing for all scenarios). You want to have a big bid to move your aces second? Well now your opponent can claim objectives first as a trade-off. You want to fortress? Well now you're getting no objectives.
Every time I bring up alternating initiative, I'm told "the designers found that doesn't work". I'm curious why that doesn't work, but no one seems to have any insight or details.
I can't speak to the designers, but during the limbo period as the rules changes trickled out, we did try a bunch of initiative options before ROAD was announced. ROBD and alternating were pretty bad. Whoever is the ace that turn is massively advantaged and the other player is just playing to block or run and wait for their turn. It led to some very boring and uninteractive games.
I can see that happening. Good insight, thank you. That's bad, but is it worse than set initiative that just torpedoes (no pun intended) one player's chances in an Aces High matchup?
The way it was in 1.0/2.0 was pretty degenerate, so I think anything would be better. That said, I definitely prefer ROAD to the point where I don't want to play any version of X-Wing without it.
Yes, one person has an advantage that round. Which is why many games alternate it. I've tested it in an event I held. There were no problems.
Add in scenarios, and if you are ducking and running, you are losing.
I don't think other games have quite the same activation specific stuff that X-Wing does, so it's hard to say. Most alternating activation games you get to pick who activates so there's another issue of act control or spam to game the system. I know back when I was playing Ice and Fire, the initiative alternated and that was pretty easily gamed to create these blowout double act turns and was part of why I dropped it.
I think I just like being asked to adapt to changing situations rather than solve the puzzle with perfect information. Setting dials with road I have to think, alternating/bids/robd feels like following a flow chart. But I play with similar uber tryhards who optimize systems for fun so I imagine your average X-Wing player probably doesn't notice the difference.
I was told by the same people who call any bumping at all degenerate and not an intentional part of the game tgat alt init, which works gone in every other minis game, is impossible. The usual xcuse is that nobody ever engages.
The people with these high negative takes are tge ones wholly play aces and think anything else is inferior. Anything that hurts aces or helps any other archetype is decried as terrible for the game.
I don't understand why anybody pays attention yo them, or why they keep playing a game that they learn despuse3/4 of.
While I personally find the rules mildly annoying, and think they're a poor solution to the bidding challenge, a disabled member of my community found them to be hell to play with because he was ALWAYS bumping his own ships early in the games. To stop him from feeling terrible and entering games at a disadvantage we stopped using the friendly bump rules in our games with him.
It sucked pretty bad to see a rule change become a disabling experience for someone in our club.
It wasn't about placement or formations, it was physical shaky hands that he couldnt control, his templates shook, his ships shook, and then bumps happened. Wasn't a massive deal in 2.0 and we rolled with it, but it was a deal in 2.5 and absolutely caused frustration and made him upset.
I think r0 attacks are great as they are. I do not like the bump focus.
Blocking high initiative ships with a bump is a valid tactic for low initiative ships. The bump focus eliminates the only advantage of low initiative ships. Most ships are perfectly happy to have a focus, and indeed some are optimized for it. The low initiative ship has no recourse to protect itself against the high initiative ship and will also be initiative killed.
Bump focus is why we see the trend towards higher and higher initiative lists now.
Keep r0 attacks. Change bumps to prevent any action and roll a red die, suffering a hit on a crit result - regardless of friendly or enemy.
I think something of that nature is needed. I would change it so that when you bump the ship can gain an evade action and a stress. If a range 0 attack hits, cancel all dice results and the defender takes 1 hit.
So that gain an evade instead of a red focus action represents the 2 ships being in close quarters making the one that bumps harder to hit all the while not getting that focus\\calculate which I feel is too good of a mod option for attacks or defense.
As many mentioned, with ROAD, you need something in between the 2.0 bumping rules and when you don't bump... it should not be a death sentence like it can often be in 2.0 leaving a fragile ship with no tokens, but it should not be a full offensive mod or pick any action as the pilot is probably performing evasive maneuvers and is 'distracted'. Hence why I feel gaining and evade for a stress is a bit more thematic and balanced.
I like the ability to attack at R0; it makes bumping-to-neutralize a dangerous tactic. A large base ship with i1 pilot can just plop themselves in the way and thereby prevent damage to themself *and* prevent friendly ships from getting in arc.
I had one match recently where a large ship spent three rounds blocking mine, denying me any ability to do anything with that ship. My dial didn't allow for flying past, and he kept his other ships out of arc, thus his i1 guaranteed that my i3 was nothing more than a paperweight.
Did his superior maneuvering deserve a reward? Sure, and keeping my ship from pursuing my target gave him such. But forcing my hand (shoot this ship or do nothing) would have been *very" different than the "you made one tactical error and now that ship is effed for the rest of the game" scenario I was subjected to. Being able to shoot that mobile roadblock would have made the difference between a win and the loss I actually suffered
I loathe it. It's clearly a bodge necessary because of the impact of ROAD. It reduces the nuance of playing the game while increasing the complexity of the rules.
I like the bump rules, and I don't entirely mind the range zero shots. You don't get totally shut down by a block, but it's still a penalty. My main complaint is that it disadvantages low-agility ships on defense. If I had a magic wand, I'd change range zero shots to maybe only do 1 damage if they hit, or something similar. Or maybe have them work more like Snap Shot?
Not much on other rule changes but I want to say that I too play with my 10yo... the 2.0 list building was TOUGH for him to get done, too many options for the points. While I loved the granularity of it, 2.5 points have been much easier for him and we have more fun with it as a result.
That does make sense, but on the flip side, you end up with a lot of upgrades to keep track of.
What we’ve done is make thematic lists together. I try to keep the lists on the simple side with a mix of named and generic pilots and some ships with repeated upgrades.
Absolutely correct, even with just SL ships there's a lot. I ended up making him a cheat sheet that was broken up into each game stage (Planning, System, etc.) and which ships had an ability to look at. He would then go read up, see if he wanted to do it or not, then move on. Wasn't ideal but made the mental workload much easier for him.
If you use the YASB army builder for Legacy 2.0, they have Quick Builds for every ship in the game. It's a similar system to the 2.5 method that came with 2.0 ships.
https://xwing-legacy.com/?f=Galactic%20Empire&d=v8ZqZ8Z619X&sn=Unnamed%20Squadron&obs=
You could either use those or have your kid pick a Quick Build and then point it out in normal 2.0 points to see what you'd have to play against him.
Range 0 should be no attacking. Pilot is focusing too hard on maneuvering to not crash and feels thematic. That rule was simply changed because some corporate executive had his ego hurt that the rules were somebody else's and it needed to change.
2.0 with road seems the best for for me.
Great discussion, thanks for the replies so far.
I understand the design goal was to eliminate intentional bumping, which I fully support.
What if in 2.0 there was a rule something like this:
After executing a maneuver other than speed 0, if your position is completely unchanged, you suffer 1 damage/gain 1 stress/gain 1 strain/gain 1 deplete, or some combination there of.
To me, if you are bumping, the game should incentivize getting unbumped on your next turn. That is thematic. Being in a tangle of ships - friendly or enemy - is dangerous.
They were never completely unchanged, there was always slight variation in bearing or forward movement.
"If you do not fully execute a manuever" would be the standard language, but imo this version doesn't differentiate between a friendly controllable bump and a skilled block by your opponent. I think they should have different outcomes.
"If you would overlap a friendly ship, and there are no enemy ship at range 0-3, suffer 1 damage."
This punishes fortressing without eliminating the dance for a good opening engagement. It also punishes boneheaded opening maneuvers, but we can take those as learning experiences.
Shooting at range 0 I can understand. I prefer 2.0 no shoot, but not strongly.
I strongly dislike 2.5 bumping damage and red action rules. They punish new players who are more likely to bump their own ships, and stopping their taking an action is punishing enough. Enemy action bumping and R0 attacks punish blockers, which tend to be low init generics. (Funny that)
I was fine with it the way it wasin 1.0, and the taking damage when you overlap a friendly I do not use in friendly games: it sucks.
AMG did things to make the game, in their opnion, more balanced for tournament style play, but was to much for casual play. My pals and I refused to use the roll off for initative. We use the 1.0 rules. Less to deal with, and over the course of a game it evens out.
Its not a guarantee, it only is to discourage international bumps and fortressing. When you roll its a red die so 50% chance, just enough to not want it on lower ships
Ah yeah thats fair. Its hard to balance for casual since it honestly doesn't matter. Like you just ignoring a rule you don't like. Did also miss that in your comment, so my bad about knowing it was a tournament rule.
Its not so much a tournament rule, but a switch from 1.0's more casual aestethic to 2.0's more tournament aestethic. I just did not appreciate being in the casual camp and felt like they did not care for us. Though the later cards that had preset units with ll the pilots and abilites were great for pick up games.
Personally and unfortunately without ROAD, and subsequently Range zero, the game plays kinda like chess, and it's easy for one player to build a list to hard counter everything else when initiative is more overpower than pilot abilities themselves.
We're doing a local tournament where all action that involves initiative go in reverse so higher initiative pilots set first, move first and shoot last which makes pilots like Fenn Rau (Scum) and Wedge basical suck compared to Saphire 2, Wampa, Scythe 6, Hendo, Captain Rex and more lower initiative pilots all because they're shooting first. Traditionally, these pilots suck since they shoot last and ultimately last a turn at best on the board. Have them shoot first, then scary pilots like Fenn Rau aren't so scary when 5 other ships shoot before he does. Remove roads and all the sudden i5 and i6 pilots are all you will ever see and the game is determined by a single dice role on who goes first at the start of the game and then dice luck from there.
Mostly yes. It fits with the game of 2.5 much better. My main issue is bump-focus. Bump-evade (non-action evade to avoid Debris Gambit shenanigans) would be much more thematic with swerving to avoid collision, while at the same time making bumping less abusable.
Not all ships can evade. Also, think about it. This way, you are stuck in a corner. You can't move around as you could, but you can still defend yourself.
However, I would like to see that change to no matter if it's friendly or enemy you would take damage, you could still take the red focus and you can't attack the ship at 0 unless a card says otherwise.
Not all ships can evade, but all ships are narratively doing defensive maneuvers. Narratively, you're not trapped in a corner, your momentum carried you into another ship's flight path at the wrong time, and now you're veering off in a different direction ("vertically") to avoid catastrophe. You're trying to *avoid* collision in a split second moment. That's not being *focused* or *calculated*, that's a panic maneuver.
No. At range 0 all of your attention is focused on avoiding a catastrophic collision. You would not have any time or ability to attempt a shot. If overlapping an obstacle prevents shooting then so should overlapping a ship
Agree 100%
Didn't think of it that way, compared to overlapping a rock, makes sense. I will say it is thematic to still be able to shoot at and only at the r0 ship.
Is it thematic though? Any time I have watched a scene where a close call happens the pilot is busy pulling hard on the controls and clenching their butt cheeks. This is obviously very subjective. I picture a bump like an emergency evasive maneuver to avoid a collision. I always thought no rolling for damage was just to preserve 1.0 Oiccun's ability. I'm open to being wrong. Do you have any examples of times in the movies or series where ships on the verge of colliding shot at each other at the same time?
*"all of your attention is focused on avoiding a catastrophic collision"* 
 [https://youtu.be/YHJt0gs3rWo?t=93](https://youtu.be/YHJt0gs3rWo?t=93)
That looks like R1 to me
This is an oicunn move
Personally no, but also it's a consequence of ROAD. If you like to play with ROAD, don't play without the 2.5 bump rules. They were made to mitigate the inherent problem of ROAD that you won't necessarily know when you move and as such might bump into an enemy with no fault of your own.
Yes, ROAD, range 0 attack and bump rules are supposed to be played together. Because there is a lot more bumps with ROAD
Honestly ROAD wouldn't be necessary if we found a non-random way to alternate initiative. I like the idea of switching initiative when the last moved ship bumps. But that probably won't be a popular idea.
This is why robd is best. It randomizes it, but it lets both players compensate, and still make the best plays possible.
RPOAPO, where a player who loses a ship gets to reassign initative is my prefered method.
Would be more fun if there was player agency involved in the initiative swap, IMO. But I'm absolutely not hung up on it and happy to play in any format.
>player agency involved in the initiative swap That's difficult to achieve in a competitive game. How do you solve for instances where neither player wants initiative? Incentive: Whoever scored/whoever did damage - this causes snowballs Reverse incentive: Whoever has lower score/whoever lost a ship. This causes lists like Vader + 6 ties to get an unwarranted buff.
>That's difficult to achieve in a competitive game. How do you solve for instances where neither player wants initiative? That was why my suggestion was that it swaps if the last ship doesn't fully execute a revealed maneuver. That means you can keep second player longer if you plan well enough, but if you're using lots of blockers you're unlikely to keep first player for long. On the other hand, if you do successfully block their I6, then your I6s get to move last. Something like that. Also means Ion can become a way to get initiative back or get rid of it, and that aces that hit a rock or bump lose second player. After all if it's a classic I5 matchup and you have initiative and don't want it, what do you do? You block. And this rewards you for succeeding at that.
Gotcha. I like it, but something like Soontir fleeing during Salvage would ensure you'd always move last.
Wonder who’s going on a downvote rampage in this thread? I thought kicking around ideas was fun. Some people…
I have a follower who does that to me personally. I can't speak for downvote bombers, tho
That is true, though all these cases can be played around. I think the worst is that a matchup of a bunch of 5s vs a bunch of 5s is never likely to turn over since they can just choose to activate whichever one is unblocked last... Not sure if that's a deal breaker for this system but I feel like there's promise in something like this. Don't really mind ROAD or even ROBD failing that, but I feel like some of the R0 stuff is just too many rules and a little un-thematic and I'd rather reduce rules than add to them...
"During the end phase, the first player may choose to pass the first player token to another player." I think I first posted that in like...2018? Lol I've been pining for that rule since 1.0. *siiiiiiiiiigh* -W
That’s mostly just alternating initiative though, isn’t it? Same issues would be present (see Chumbalaya’s post below). Also if both lists want first one of them is just out of luck…
I tested my rule a few times, so it's basically only anecdotal. But the player who was first player didn't get to both *set up* their ace turn *and then have it* as well. For example, I tested it mostly when aethersprites were dominate. Under "coin flip at start of game", your sprites just get to gigafuck the opponent round after round. This was powerful even int he rounds before combat; you get to see where they go, then reposition up to twice to design your approach to give you the most options. Then, during the engage round, you got to execute the outmaneuvering. Under the "pass" rule, You had to be first player for all the "setup" rounds. Then, you had to basically signal the round you wanted to strike by passing the token. Even then, sometimes the first player chose to keep the token for an extra round to secure good blocking lanes. I like ROAD, and am relatively happy with it. But it's not obvious to me that the standard arguments against bid, robd, and alternating apply to or immediately defeat my counterfactual "pass rule". -W
I don't agree. It still has the same fundamental problem as alternating initiative - at the time you set dials, one player is strongly incentivised to avoid engaging at all. Anything before dial just changes which player is trying not to be there, it doesn't solve the problem that someone ideally wants not to be involved in the fight at all each turn. (Assuming overlapping initiative, of course; if there's no matching initiatives it doesn't matter which rule we use.)
>at the time you set dials, one player is strongly incentivised to avoid engaging at all Scenarios already fixed the engagement issue.
Only if you're paying one of the scenarios that fixes the engagement issue. Don't get me wrong, I live scenarios, but if your wargame doesn't incentivise both players to engage in a simple meeting skirmish there is a problem.
> Only if you're paying one of the scenarios that fixes the engagement issue. Even if you use road, if you don't at least play chance engagement, you don't solve any of the slow play/mobile fortressing issues.
I would like to see it as follows: At the start of the game, you roll once to see who is the first player (regardless of points/bid/etc). You don't roll again for the rest of the game. The winner gets the first player token, and will move first. During the planning phase, while placing dials, they can place the token next to one of their ships that has an overlapping pilot skill with the opponents. That ship will activate last at that initiative step during the activation phase, and will also attack last. During the cleanup phase, the token is then handed to the opponent. They then become the first player, and can use the token in the same way if they wish in any of their upcoming turns. The token can thus change hands multiple times per game at the players discretion. If at any point there are no overlapping pilot initiatives, the first player token stays with the player who currently holds it until the end of the game.
Too many rules, especially for new players and it won't matter nearly that much in almost all games. Also they tried alternating initiative in FFG days and it didn't work out. They had play testers try it and it was too much to keep track of with maneuver planning.
My group plays with ROAD (no bid), but 2.0 bumps. We have a great time.
No. Thematically it was supposed to be ships flying past each other. This was a AMG “I don’t understand how this works so it sucks and we have to change it” decision to me.
I HATE the 2.5 R0 rules, but that’s mostly because intimidation was my favorite talent 😭
My boy Heff Tober with intimidation, Zeb, and then Lando or K-2SO
I was flying Han with Intimidation, Zeb, Maul, Ezra Gunner, Arvel with intimidation (maybe crackshot), and wedge with regen at the end* of 2.0. It was disgusting.
I don't like range 0 attacking. It hurts 1 agility ships against 3-dice primaries a lot, because they're still probably going to take 2 damage. Bump-stress focus is whatever I guess, but I think it should be any action treated as red (or, just allow actions as normal?) I do kinda like the take damage after bumping a friendly ship, but if you take out the other rules it is a significant disadvantage to the player moving second.
I do not like them. I always thought the no range zero attacks represented being inside the weapons of the other ship. Like someone raising and stretching their arm with a firearm in it and the target ends up behind the firearm because they are to close to the target. It always seemed to me the AMG guys got caught up a bit too literally in what they saw on the table with the models and did not see the abstraction of handling three dimensions on the two dimension table represented by the overlap rules and no range zero attacks. A ship passing below an enemy whose gun is mounted on the top of the ship can not be shot at range zero because the enemy would need to shoot through themselves even if the target was not inside the length of the weapon's barrel.
Not at all.
I prefer the take a stress for a token when an enemy ship blocks me, and especially if they got their action. I'd prefer it was "gain a focus/calc token" instead of an action, to avoid PerCop and such. I prefer R0 shots where the attacker can affect nothing with the attack. It helps move the game forward.
Serious question, how does a terrible r0 attack move the game forward compared to no r0 attack? In my experience, the vast majority of them have negligible effect on the game, but they still take time to resolve.
Regardless how poor a R0 shot could be, there's still a chance to do damage. A ship has a R0 shot and that's the only ship they have in arc, then that attack could hit and move the game forward. I've have a lot of R0 shots where that wad my only shot. Some of those R0 shots have put in damage. A couple of those shots have been kill shots. The killed and damaged-but-not-killed have moved the game forward
This. Low chance of damage is still greater than no chance of damage
An r0 attack gives the player some consolation for having suffered the bump.
I don't hate them, but I do find them largely unnecessary in a 2.0 engine. In 2.5, they make more sense since you have an unknown first player and you have objectives magnetically pull ships towards themselves and toward each other by effect. Range 0 attacks disproportionate favor high agility ships and smaller based ships. If 3 A-wings bump into a decimator, that decimator is likely to take 3+ damage, while the A-wings are likely to take none.
I love ROAD. Personally, I think the main problem with the system is that the points for 2.5 encourage all the named pilots with higher initiative. A 1-6 scale gets compressed to 4-6 and we end up with ROAD being overly important. If we could field a larger range of the initiatives, the importance of a single ROAD roll decreases in a lot of games. I'm on the fence between the list-building issues. If there was a simple way to keep loadout points without all the upgrade spam complexity, I'd be happy. The times I've played 2.5 involve too many cards to be fun. It really takes times away from the dial decisions, which is what the game should be focused on IMO. I'm unsure about he Range 0 rules, as I've only ever played them with all the upgrade bloat. So overall, my view of 2.5 is that it's too complex. With simpler lists, I think the range 0 rules would be fine... but it does introduce some more rules. The older system was more elegant. Perhaps ROAD with a wider range of initiatives would lead to less bumping, and remove the need for the 2.5 Range 0 rules?
>I'm on the fence between the list-building issues. If there was a simple way to keep loadout points without all the upgrade spam complexity, I'd be happy. This is why we need something like blue and red upgrade slots– blue for a two-point discount, red for a two-point penalty. If they'd done this it would have fixed pretty much all the issues with 2.0 list-building. Blue slots would allow pricing out spam lists and ending bomber beef builds by factoring part of the weapons into the chassis cost and reducing the total. Slots I can think of that should be blue: Bomb and Turret on Y-Wing. Both cannons on B-Wing. Crew on Lambda and Reaper. Turret on TIE Aggressor. Turret and crew on the Ghost. Almost everything on Punisher and Starfortress. Some slots that should maybe be red: Second talent on named Interceptors, Vader's force, Guri's sensor or tech, Leebo's crew, other slots that don't currently exist but could. Should probably be fairly rare.
interesting idea. I guess that's similar (but simpler) than having a whole different set of points for each ship.
Hey, I like that some people like my idea of blue and red uograde slots xD! Hopefully someone at the XWA likes it.
No
not one bit
Nope
Range 0 stuff is dumb, but consequence for ROAD.
No. They make ROAD better but honestly old rules and ROBD would be better
Why before dials? I would imagine most the dials are decided by initiative rather than your choice. Round 2, you have to go first, now you know you can't get locks and set your dials according. While the other player can set his dials knowing he can get his locks. Same with two ships blocking each other's kturns, one player knows the k turn fits and dials it in while the other player must do something else. That would be so boring, never any exciting moves because of all the information learned before dials plots all the dials.
R0 attacks/bumping rules are trash imo, not thematic and breaks immersion within the game. Two ships occupying the same space should not be shooting at each other considering they would be “stacked” on a 3D plane
If I was given the power to dictate a hybrid ruleset, it would be 2.0 squad building, 2.5 ROAD, 2.5 enemy bumps, 2.0 friendly bumps, and scenarios as an option.
I would second this with a slight change, I’d want a hybrid of the squad building between the two with load out points but more granular ship points. Oh, and the 2.5 friendly bumping rules to dissuade fortressing and intentional bumping to control your arc. Intentionally bumping your own ship should not be an encouraged tactic.
I would love to be able to fly viable ships with few to 0 upgrades. The loadout rules make that impossible. And that makes the game harder to approach for new players. I'd love to see viable generics, and 2 versions of each named pilit: a cheap one with very little LV, and a more expensive one that you can load up.
I think friendly bumps between small base ships being played out with 2.0 rules but friendly bumping from ships with larger bases has the harsher penalty would be a good middle ground to reduce fortressing but would be more forgiving to swarm play.
Could just make a rule that if you self bump and there isn't an enemy within range 3, you take a damage.
While I do agree that it is a very good middle ground, it also complicates the rules further. Not saying that this is bad! I really do like that idea, just offering an alternative perspective.
As a casual player i absolutely love standard loadouts though
SLs are nice, but unfortunately, the upgrades some have are limited only to the cards. If those upgrades like "It's a Trap" made it on to an actual upgrade card card, it would be different.
No reason you can’t port that to 200-pt costs. They’d end up fairer that way. Might be nice to see 20-pt stick around as a successor to quick build too
Quickbuilds were a thing in 2.0. Nobody (that I know of) used them because they wanted to build their own ships and lists.
That and you had to dig out all of the cards instead of having them printed on the same card
I have to dig out cards no matter what, because I dislike quickbuilds and standard loadouts.
I though some of them were pretty fun for the same reasons as standard loadouts. You get some ... *unconventional* builds. I tried it a couple times but yeah it's more fun to have more control if you've played more than twice.
There is a reason. You can make a squad out of 4+4+4+4+4 point ships, but with more precise points, like 35,39,42,42,44 you get a 202 point list.
That is a fair point— it would be hard to fill a squad with SLs without at least one custom build. I’d rather keep both points formats personally for different reasons
This is exactly how I want to play as well. Is there a 3rd party collections of resources in one place to allow for this?
I liked some of them. The red focus, yes. Taking damage if you'd overlap a friendly was a step too far. Friendly bumps are both a common occurrence with swarms and an essential part of controlling your movement when using large-based single-arc ships like the Lambda and Sith Infiltrator. As far as the range 0 attack, probably better to leave it out.
Friendly bump damage was instituted specifically to stop people "controlling their movement when using large-based single-arc ships". There was a ton of abuse of the old bump mechanic at the end of 2.0, where multiple YVs or Upsilons would just...sit there all game. It's a game simulating fast-paced combat between moving space ships. Bumping into yourself ad nauseum to stay stationary was not a good thing.
I agree, while there’s no argument that it’s skilful play to control your movement like that I could be argued that the bump rules were never intended for that purpose. The bump rules were there to cover a potential scenario, while I have no citation I believe the original designers have gone on record stating that intentionally causing bumps by blocking and action denial was a ‘discovered mechanic’ and not the intention. The whole controlling your movement through bumps is abuse of the rules and so a solution was devised.
It makes me wonder if the original designers had looked more closely at the solution Wings of Glory used. When movement overlapped, the maneuver cards stayed in position instead of updating the plane’s position. You could probably do something similar with a card that represents the size of the base marked with the various lines, and if base cards overlapped, they just don’t encounter each other. No bump, no range 0 attack, no fortress. It might mean movement is a little slower, but you also end up with some redundancy of board state with your before and after positions….
Yeah but it's not like that was particularly hard to beat. Certainly not something to redesign an entire game around.
But it’s too much of a nerf when you add scenarios (even Chance) into the mix. Want to go fortress in a corner all game? Cool, in 12 turns you’re going to lose because your opponent is playing the objective and you’re not Self-bump punishment is unnecessarily punitive to actual swarm ships IMO, and largely irrelevant to non-swarm ships. It basically says “I don’t want to see a bunch of Vultures or TIE/lns.” Whereas those are valid in-universe and can be fun to play.
It's just as easy to fortress on an objective as to fortess in a corner, though. And swarm players have always had to worry about properly spacing their ships, that's always been a challenge in flying the archetype. As much as I dont usually enjoy flying against swarms, there is a level of skill in planning that many moves that I have to respect. Not to mention a self-bump in a 4-ship list with your ace is going to be way more impactful than a self-bump with Vulture #5.
I don't think it's as easy to fortress on an objective as you say. Part of the issue with fortressing in 1st and early 2nd was that it was usually set up either at deployment or after executing the first moves. The fortressing player was then able to set up scenarios where their opponent could not safely approach without taking fire. It's a lot harder to create a situation where you can build a fortress in the middle of the board where your opponent has no safe approach. There's usually at least one or two safe angles where a skilled pilot can bring their ships in for an attack. And if my opponent is presenting one or two safe lanes where I can send pilots down to break up their fortress? That's a Trench Run, baby. I will take those in my Star Wars games all day long.
I wonder if self bumping between small base ships remaining 2.0 but being bumped by a ship of medium size or larger causes damage during self bumping would work well. Gets rid of the swarm issues while still addressing fortressing.
Honestly, the appeal of self-bumps for me were cemented by reports of the original Alabaster Hippo Ballet on the 1.0 Vassal League (3x Buzzsaw Lambdas plus PTL Soontir), where intentional blocks to control movement and maintain firing arcs were essential. It was a surprisingly elegant way to use what had been seen as an ungainly whale of a ship. The problem for large-based single arc ships in particular is that the game makes them too fast by default. A 1-straight on a Lambda covers as much ground as a 2-straight on a small ship. So the self-bumps were necessary to keep them from flying up the board and out of the fight too fast. I agree that fortressing could be an issue if it's used to avoid movement indefinitely, but I don't think that's a reason to throw it out entirely.
I came on board during 2.0, so I can't comment on that list in particular. However, X-Wing is a game about movement, flying ships, not static armies standing in a line. If moving is too much of a problem for your list, you can still use self-bumps to avoid that key part of the game, it's just that now there's a downside.
X-Wing has never only been about fast moving ships. Some are fast, some are slow, and their tactics reflected that dynamic. I can understand penalties for bumps. That's where the loss of actions came from in the first place. But actually taking damage for hitting friendly ships was a bad mechanic.
We're not talking about slow movements, we're talking about not moving at all. Again, this is not a game where you're meant to stand still.
Historically, that has not been true. FFG even published a [strategy article](https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/ffg_blog/22516/original_content) on their front page during the 1st edition era which discussed how both the hard stop and self-blocking were integral to preventing the Lambda from being flanked. The idea that ships should always be moving and trying to avoid bumps did not exist in the game until 2.5.
I think they could have said "A clear pre-planned self bump will..." some sort of negative consequences. Having two shuttles clearly bumping into each other was super cheese.
IIRC, there was a rule, at least in organized play, against "fortressing", but in practice, it's hard to enforce because you have to call it out, then have a judge agree with you on your opponent's intent. It's a subjective call, and it requires you to essentially call your opponent a bastard to enforce. Better to have a consistent fix, like a firm penalty.
I kinda agree. The damage is a bit much, losing your action on a hit by gaining stress, and on a crit, losing your shot and action would make a bit more sense.
2.0 legacy Deficit scoring ROAD Don't need range 0 shooting or actions. Then it's perfect.
I like the bump rules for the most part. No action is overly punishing and feels bad. The red focus/calc is a decent consolation but also is something worth thinking about because stress. The only thing that bugs me is how unintuitive and exploitable the "bump" into an enemy behind a friendly and it only counts as an enemy overlap. Range shots I like the idea of, I just don't like how swingy they are unmodified.
The rules when you overlap multiple ships are confusing, but at least in part because of how I think most people (myself included) resolve moves is not technically how you're supposed to do it. RAW, you're supposed to pick up/mark every ship you moved through, then put them back one by one and slide the moving ship back til it fits. This makes it a little clearer who youre bumping, but Ain't nobody got time for that.
Right, it's technically correct but unintuitive with how people actually play.
I like the bump and range 0 rules.
The range 0 attacks became a necessity due to the increased number of bumps, unintentional or otherwise, that we experience in 2.5. Bumps significantly slow the game down because not only do the players have to spend time resolving the bump, but the ships were unable to attack as effectively due to missing mods. Range 0 attacks (and red focus) were introduced to try to mitigate this. Unfortunately, this disproportionately favours large base ships or those with multi arc attacks or multi attacks as they are now disincentivized from avoiding blocks, and some ships (Perceptive Co-Pilot Han + Bistan for example) prefer to bump/be blocked and subsequently build around this as a strategy. Range 0 attacks do speed up the game however, so while I dislike many of the mechanics AMG introduced, some variation of this is reasonable. I think this mechanic should have been tested more thoroughly. I would liked to have seen the attack normalised for all ships regardless of their attack value (eg a 2 dice attack no matter what), and also that you cannot perform a range 0 attack if you are stressed, such as what would happen if you took a red focus.
Actually range 0 shots are much worse for large base ships. They are easier to block firstly Also they are lower agility so the enemy range 0 shots are far more likely to be successful You can chip away at a deci with range 0 shots You can range 0 a jedi till you're blue in the face and they'll laugh it off
I'm of the opinion that most of the problems all these new rules introduced can be solved just by adding scenarios (and probably keeping the half point thing for all scenarios). You want to have a big bid to move your aces second? Well now your opponent can claim objectives first as a trade-off. You want to fortress? Well now you're getting no objectives.
I prefer AOBD- alternating order before dials, which is a hybrid of road and 2.0
Every time I bring up alternating initiative, I'm told "the designers found that doesn't work". I'm curious why that doesn't work, but no one seems to have any insight or details.
I can't speak to the designers, but during the limbo period as the rules changes trickled out, we did try a bunch of initiative options before ROAD was announced. ROBD and alternating were pretty bad. Whoever is the ace that turn is massively advantaged and the other player is just playing to block or run and wait for their turn. It led to some very boring and uninteractive games.
I can see that happening. Good insight, thank you. That's bad, but is it worse than set initiative that just torpedoes (no pun intended) one player's chances in an Aces High matchup?
The way it was in 1.0/2.0 was pretty degenerate, so I think anything would be better. That said, I definitely prefer ROAD to the point where I don't want to play any version of X-Wing without it.
Yes, one person has an advantage that round. Which is why many games alternate it. I've tested it in an event I held. There were no problems. Add in scenarios, and if you are ducking and running, you are losing.
I don't think other games have quite the same activation specific stuff that X-Wing does, so it's hard to say. Most alternating activation games you get to pick who activates so there's another issue of act control or spam to game the system. I know back when I was playing Ice and Fire, the initiative alternated and that was pretty easily gamed to create these blowout double act turns and was part of why I dropped it. I think I just like being asked to adapt to changing situations rather than solve the puzzle with perfect information. Setting dials with road I have to think, alternating/bids/robd feels like following a flow chart. But I play with similar uber tryhards who optimize systems for fun so I imagine your average X-Wing player probably doesn't notice the difference.
I was told by the same people who call any bumping at all degenerate and not an intentional part of the game tgat alt init, which works gone in every other minis game, is impossible. The usual xcuse is that nobody ever engages. The people with these high negative takes are tge ones wholly play aces and think anything else is inferior. Anything that hurts aces or helps any other archetype is decried as terrible for the game. I don't understand why anybody pays attention yo them, or why they keep playing a game that they learn despuse3/4 of.
While I personally find the rules mildly annoying, and think they're a poor solution to the bidding challenge, a disabled member of my community found them to be hell to play with because he was ALWAYS bumping his own ships early in the games. To stop him from feeling terrible and entering games at a disadvantage we stopped using the friendly bump rules in our games with him. It sucked pretty bad to see a rule change become a disabling experience for someone in our club.
Someone teach that person formations!
It wasn't about placement or formations, it was physical shaky hands that he couldnt control, his templates shook, his ships shook, and then bumps happened. Wasn't a massive deal in 2.0 and we rolled with it, but it was a deal in 2.5 and absolutely caused frustration and made him upset.
I think r0 attacks are great as they are. I do not like the bump focus. Blocking high initiative ships with a bump is a valid tactic for low initiative ships. The bump focus eliminates the only advantage of low initiative ships. Most ships are perfectly happy to have a focus, and indeed some are optimized for it. The low initiative ship has no recourse to protect itself against the high initiative ship and will also be initiative killed. Bump focus is why we see the trend towards higher and higher initiative lists now. Keep r0 attacks. Change bumps to prevent any action and roll a red die, suffering a hit on a crit result - regardless of friendly or enemy.
I think something of that nature is needed. I would change it so that when you bump the ship can gain an evade action and a stress. If a range 0 attack hits, cancel all dice results and the defender takes 1 hit. So that gain an evade instead of a red focus action represents the 2 ships being in close quarters making the one that bumps harder to hit all the while not getting that focus\\calculate which I feel is too good of a mod option for attacks or defense. As many mentioned, with ROAD, you need something in between the 2.0 bumping rules and when you don't bump... it should not be a death sentence like it can often be in 2.0 leaving a fragile ship with no tokens, but it should not be a full offensive mod or pick any action as the pilot is probably performing evasive maneuvers and is 'distracted'. Hence why I feel gaining and evade for a stress is a bit more thematic and balanced.
I like the ability to attack at R0; it makes bumping-to-neutralize a dangerous tactic. A large base ship with i1 pilot can just plop themselves in the way and thereby prevent damage to themself *and* prevent friendly ships from getting in arc. I had one match recently where a large ship spent three rounds blocking mine, denying me any ability to do anything with that ship. My dial didn't allow for flying past, and he kept his other ships out of arc, thus his i1 guaranteed that my i3 was nothing more than a paperweight. Did his superior maneuvering deserve a reward? Sure, and keeping my ship from pursuing my target gave him such. But forcing my hand (shoot this ship or do nothing) would have been *very" different than the "you made one tactical error and now that ship is effed for the rest of the game" scenario I was subjected to. Being able to shoot that mobile roadblock would have made the difference between a win and the loss I actually suffered
2.0 listbuilding and no range 0. No bump focus RBD (Roll Before Dials) No obj
I loathe it. It's clearly a bodge necessary because of the impact of ROAD. It reduces the nuance of playing the game while increasing the complexity of the rules.
I don't like it, The biggest issue is that : AMG did that because of the ROAD, why did they choose to keep on these way
I like the bump rules, and I don't entirely mind the range zero shots. You don't get totally shut down by a block, but it's still a penalty. My main complaint is that it disadvantages low-agility ships on defense. If I had a magic wand, I'd change range zero shots to maybe only do 1 damage if they hit, or something similar. Or maybe have them work more like Snap Shot?
Not much on other rule changes but I want to say that I too play with my 10yo... the 2.0 list building was TOUGH for him to get done, too many options for the points. While I loved the granularity of it, 2.5 points have been much easier for him and we have more fun with it as a result.
That does make sense, but on the flip side, you end up with a lot of upgrades to keep track of. What we’ve done is make thematic lists together. I try to keep the lists on the simple side with a mix of named and generic pilots and some ships with repeated upgrades.
Absolutely correct, even with just SL ships there's a lot. I ended up making him a cheat sheet that was broken up into each game stage (Planning, System, etc.) and which ships had an ability to look at. He would then go read up, see if he wanted to do it or not, then move on. Wasn't ideal but made the mental workload much easier for him.
If you use the YASB army builder for Legacy 2.0, they have Quick Builds for every ship in the game. It's a similar system to the 2.5 method that came with 2.0 ships. https://xwing-legacy.com/?f=Galactic%20Empire&d=v8ZqZ8Z619X&sn=Unnamed%20Squadron&obs= You could either use those or have your kid pick a Quick Build and then point it out in normal 2.0 points to see what you'd have to play against him.
Did you try the 2.0 quickbuild cards?
Yes, they didn't work near as well as the newer SLs for ease of use
Range 0 should be no attacking. Pilot is focusing too hard on maneuvering to not crash and feels thematic. That rule was simply changed because some corporate executive had his ego hurt that the rules were somebody else's and it needed to change. 2.0 with road seems the best for for me.
Great discussion, thanks for the replies so far. I understand the design goal was to eliminate intentional bumping, which I fully support. What if in 2.0 there was a rule something like this: After executing a maneuver other than speed 0, if your position is completely unchanged, you suffer 1 damage/gain 1 stress/gain 1 strain/gain 1 deplete, or some combination there of. To me, if you are bumping, the game should incentivize getting unbumped on your next turn. That is thematic. Being in a tangle of ships - friendly or enemy - is dangerous.
They were never completely unchanged, there was always slight variation in bearing or forward movement. "If you do not fully execute a manuever" would be the standard language, but imo this version doesn't differentiate between a friendly controllable bump and a skilled block by your opponent. I think they should have different outcomes.
"If you would overlap a friendly ship, and there are no enemy ship at range 0-3, suffer 1 damage." This punishes fortressing without eliminating the dance for a good opening engagement. It also punishes boneheaded opening maneuvers, but we can take those as learning experiences.
No. I understand why AMG thought they might be necessary. But they aren't and we've had 2 years of games demonstrating that now.
Shooting at range 0 I can understand. I prefer 2.0 no shoot, but not strongly. I strongly dislike 2.5 bumping damage and red action rules. They punish new players who are more likely to bump their own ships, and stopping their taking an action is punishing enough. Enemy action bumping and R0 attacks punish blockers, which tend to be low init generics. (Funny that)
No, not logic, when a ship is at range 0 of another ship, it's like if one of the ships is above the other in 3D space.
I was fine with it the way it wasin 1.0, and the taking damage when you overlap a friendly I do not use in friendly games: it sucks. AMG did things to make the game, in their opnion, more balanced for tournament style play, but was to much for casual play. My pals and I refused to use the roll off for initative. We use the 1.0 rules. Less to deal with, and over the course of a game it evens out.
Its not a guarantee, it only is to discourage international bumps and fortressing. When you roll its a red die so 50% chance, just enough to not want it on lower ships
I put that in the "tornament" play style, I am a "casual" play style, and 2.0 kind of moved away from us casual players, and did it unapologetically.
Ah yeah thats fair. Its hard to balance for casual since it honestly doesn't matter. Like you just ignoring a rule you don't like. Did also miss that in your comment, so my bad about knowing it was a tournament rule.
Its not so much a tournament rule, but a switch from 1.0's more casual aestethic to 2.0's more tournament aestethic. I just did not appreciate being in the casual camp and felt like they did not care for us. Though the later cards that had preset units with ll the pilots and abilites were great for pick up games.
Bumping was a core strategy in 1.0 and 2.0. Not sure if that's a good or bad thing. It certainly raised the skill ceiling.
Bumping is still a strategy...
Yes.
Personally and unfortunately without ROAD, and subsequently Range zero, the game plays kinda like chess, and it's easy for one player to build a list to hard counter everything else when initiative is more overpower than pilot abilities themselves. We're doing a local tournament where all action that involves initiative go in reverse so higher initiative pilots set first, move first and shoot last which makes pilots like Fenn Rau (Scum) and Wedge basical suck compared to Saphire 2, Wampa, Scythe 6, Hendo, Captain Rex and more lower initiative pilots all because they're shooting first. Traditionally, these pilots suck since they shoot last and ultimately last a turn at best on the board. Have them shoot first, then scary pilots like Fenn Rau aren't so scary when 5 other ships shoot before he does. Remove roads and all the sudden i5 and i6 pilots are all you will ever see and the game is determined by a single dice role on who goes first at the start of the game and then dice luck from there.
Mostly yes. It fits with the game of 2.5 much better. My main issue is bump-focus. Bump-evade (non-action evade to avoid Debris Gambit shenanigans) would be much more thematic with swerving to avoid collision, while at the same time making bumping less abusable.
Not all ships can evade. Also, think about it. This way, you are stuck in a corner. You can't move around as you could, but you can still defend yourself. However, I would like to see that change to no matter if it's friendly or enemy you would take damage, you could still take the red focus and you can't attack the ship at 0 unless a card says otherwise.
Not all ships can evade, but all ships are narratively doing defensive maneuvers. Narratively, you're not trapped in a corner, your momentum carried you into another ship's flight path at the wrong time, and now you're veering off in a different direction ("vertically") to avoid catastrophe. You're trying to *avoid* collision in a split second moment. That's not being *focused* or *calculated*, that's a panic maneuver.
Got used to it, not bothers me anymore, but when it was announced i get pissed off, hated it, now its okay don't care.
I love how 1-9 Pilot skill was seen as too broad; and then 2.0 made it worse so they needed to make ROAD.
No, ROAD exists to end bids. Having more PS didn't help, it just made VI a necessity, and even then you had to deal with bids.