Norsehound said:

My thoughts exactly. The TIE bomber has to carry bombs (that's a no-brainer) or perhaps mines, and I think after seeing that anime styled TIE fighter video, we all want a TIE bomber to be able to carry missiles. But I think also agree that the TIE bomber is a great way to get Proton Torpedoes into Imperial squads. Maybe we'll see Heavy Rockets that fit into the "torpedo" slot.

I agree that the B-wing ought to have access to the Slave I expansion's Ion Cannon, so why not the Heavy Laser Cannon, and a new variety of cannon?

All excellent thoughts, Norsehound!

Delta Echo said:

You don't think it's going to have shields at all?  I'd think they'd want a little protection for all that ordinance sitting inside of it.

DailyRich said:

You'd think so, but per the Star Wars canon the TIE bomber does not have shields.

   I think that the only TIE with shields is the TIE Advanced, others don't have shileds, in the history, the Empire don't think it has to be necesary for the pilots, the ships even has Life support, greettings.

I think the Tie Bomber will be pretty close to a TIE, some less moves on the dial and torp/bomb upgrades. Maybe another hull…

B-Wing… I would assume it would be somewhere between a y-wing and x-wing with a turret or cannon upgrade slot.

The tie defender has shields. Very expensive ship

As with most things, Id defer to the TIE Fighter PC game way of displaying fighters: Cockpit at the top, cruciform arrangement. Easiest to package IMO.

Only Elite TIES of the Empire had shields. Since these fighters were costly to produce anyway, shields came standard equipped. Of course these shielded fighters were also particularly deadly in the hands of aces. TIE Avengers (TIE Advanced X5?), TIE Defdenders, and a few other specialized TIE Models were equipped with shields. For a time though, Admirals Zaarin and Thrawn equipped some of their normal TIEs with shields, particularly interceptors. With shield modifications now we can simulate this sort of.

For the way I'm imagining the Bomber I can see it offering a unique position in the game. It's a glass cannon… flinging proton torpedoes and other deadly ordinance but not having the hit points to stay in the game as long as the Y-Wing can. Combined with the ability to drop bombs, the TIE Bomber might be a smaller and chaper Firespray but with more slots given to warheads. We've seen similar transitions… the Falcon is a bigger Y-Wing that does the concept better.

To field these Bombers effectively you'd need a screen of TIEs or another kind of fighter to draw fire from them while the Bombers engaged at long range. They won't do well on their own at close range, but left alone they could probably pop a number of Rebel fighters from a distance. In fact, I wonder if I should try the double-torp strategy with Y-Wings now…

The B-Wng will probably have high health, high attack, but also Dodge 1. So unlike the Y-Wing which wallows about and fires an ion cannon once and again, the B-Wing comes equipped with dangerous natural guns and a cannon upgrade to enhance their attacks. They'd be high profile targets but can't evade a lot of the fire coming in their direction… and would probably be just as hated as the TIE Bombers for how deadly they can be if left alone. B-Wings might also lack K-Turns and quick turns so that they'd have a hard time positioning against more nimble enemies.

My take on the TIE bomber and B-Wing:

TIE Bomber 16 points base

A2 D2 H5 S0 Focus/Target Lock/Barrel Roll

Upgrades: Warhead/Warhead/Bomb   Warhead would be an upgrade slot that allows either missiles or torpedoes.

Manuever dial similar to Y-Wing but NO Koirigan turn

Pilots:

Skill 1 Beta Squadron Bomber 16

Skill 3 Gamma Squadron Bomber 18

Skill 4 Scimitar Squadron TIE 20 Add 1 vet upgrade slot

Skill 5 Captain Jonus 21 Other pilots may use his target lock

Skill 5 Major Rymer 23 Add 1 vet upgrade May generate target lock as a free action against fighter he just fired at.

Skill 6 "Deathfire McDibbs 25 Add 1 vet upgrade slot May fire primary AND secondary weapon in a turn

Heavy Rocket  Cost 4 (Torpedo) Range 1-2. 4 Attack dice. Change all hits to crits.

Countermeasure Launcher Cost 2 (Modification). May discard to gain 1 evade token for remainder of the turn

B-Wing 22 points base

A3 D2 H4 S4 Focus/Target Lock/Barrel Roll

Upgrades: Torpedo/Torpedo/Heavy Cannon

Manuever dial similar to X-Wing but NO Koirigan turn.

Pilots:

Skill 2 Shantipole Prototype 22

Skill 4 Blue Squadron Pilot 24

Skill 5 Ten Numb 25 Add 1 vet upgrade, pilot ability

Skill 7 Keyan Farlander 27 Add 1 vet upgrade, pilot ability

Autoblaster Cost 4 (Heavy Cannon) Range 2-3. 3 Attack Dice, may fire twice. Change Crits to normal hits.

Expanded Cockpit Cost 2 (Modification) Reduce Evade/Defence value by 1, add Pilot upgrade slot.

That is fantastic. I'm going to try these out tomorrow.

Why on earth are you and everyone else stat-ing B-Wings giving them Barrel Roll? That thing is hardly nimble enough to do so, and not even the A-Wing was given a Barrel Roll when it's the most nimble fighter in the Rebellion!

It appears to be strictly an Imperial function. It may or may not be conferred to the Bomber.

Also dumb down the dodge dice to 1. The B-Wing is NOT more nimble than the Y-Wing in any regard. Same goes for the Bomber. If the Y-Wing is dodge 1, so should they. Change expanded cockpit to say "Change the first Focus result rolled for this fighter on this turn to a blank."

I also don't see the need to pull more upgrade classes out of a hat when we already have some perfectly legitimate ones now. Bombers should carry Torpedoes standard with an upgrade option to switch them out to concussion missiles (say a 3-point modification card). They were designed with heavy ordinance delivery in mind and in a pinch go into combat dogfighting.

The Heavy Rockets look good though… I just hope it isn't too OP for the game.

Just my opinion, but I think the barrel roll is to replicate the B-wing's ability to have the fuselage roll around the cockpit pod as it moves. Its not exactly a barrel roll, but it gives the idea.

Something I was thinking about for a pilot ability was to gain an evade token when you acquire a target lock. Maybe that could be a "ship" ability in place of barrel roll?

Gullwind said:

I think a high agility or evade would be more appropriate, since rolling and barrel rolling are two different things. (Remember that maneuverability and agility are two different stats in x-wing.)

Anyway, seems that the conclusion is that in order to make these ships useful in dogfights new missions need to be introduced. Someone mentioned that the TIE Bomber is likely a lighter version of the Firespray, or a glass cannon, and as I see it its purpose must be to destroy big things.

So the question boils down to what wouold these missions look like? Support ships supplying bombers with ammunition is already mentioned. What would a strafing run mission look like? Any other missions you could think of?

tinnitus said:

Evade would probably make the most sense, because you would be concentrating on not getting shot while the body us moving around. The B-Wing was not agile.

tinnitus said:

Well, the bombers actually have the ability to fill 2 roles. Tie bombers will be able to carry torpedoes, missiles, or potentially bombs/mines. Likely 2, maybe even 3. It gives FF the ability to make objective ships, along the lines of bulk transports, freighters and things along those lines. Most likely they will be a cardboard counter unles there is overwhelming demand for something like that.

The missions themselves could be wide range of on board objectives in the vein of destroying some strategic target, even repurposing the asteroids as secret rebel communcation relays or listening posts or something. One we have been kicking around for future use is fighter escort of bombers to a predetermined line on the board which represents the optimum firing point for some sort of bombardment. You would score VPs for firing your torp loads which means you could use some of them in the dogfight on the way there if you wanted, and even try to have some act as decoys, or provide cover on the way out.

Luckily, I found one of those big blockade runner models for $30 and we will be using that for our next convention events. Although, without bombers it would have to be toned down so the fighters actually have a chance to stop it.

tinnitus said:

I feel I should point out that the X-Wing, standard ship and more manuverable than the B-Wing, has only Focus and Target Lock. Honestly I don't see how a rotating cockpit gives the pilot anything more than changing his perspective in relation to his fighter. I've never seen anywhere the magical barrel-rolling ability conferred to the B-Wing through any representation I've seen in Star Wars.

Because of how limited in space each expansion is I'm not expecting to see any scenarios attached to the fighters. Maybe I could be wrong and they could be included in place of the special ability cards, but if we're talking about objectives to shoot at (other than senator shuttles), I doubt we'd see them in the B-Wing/TIE Bomber expansions.

Norsehound said:

I admit that my knowledge of B-wing performance is limited at best, I was speaking generally. A hard to hit ship should have high Agility and/or Evade. Barrel roll requires a maneuverable ship.

If not new missions we are left with the original question, what would be their role in the game? On the other hand FFG have posted additional scenarios for several other games on their website, why not X-wing? Come to think of it, one fun way to go about it is to post the missions beforehand to show how esssential these ships are.