Ok, you might disagree from the start. But i honestly think the Y-Wing is the Stepchild of game design in X-Wing. I will say it: it is drastically underpowered.

It has truckloads of hull and shield. But even against standard Tie fighters that cost 1/3 less than you, you do not stand a chance whatsoever. Your statline and manoeuver Dial is just not good enough. He can stay in track easily, and 2 attack dice chew through 8 HP surprisingly fast if paired to agility 1. If anything happens to have 3 or 4 attack dice, well bad luck you're dead and in Wave 2 even Imps get these options. Just compare the Base Tie Interceptor to Gold Y-Wing. Now tell me how you wanna defeat a ship of the same cost in the Y-Wing. In reality, you lose in a Y- Wing to a standard Tie fighter but the Interceptor will outmanoeuver, outdamage and outdodge you in a way that is not even funny. Fact is, Even 2 attack dice hit you consistently, and you cant hit back against 3 agility possibly with evade.

Options you say? Yeah sure you have options, but even the symbols on your bar seem to make the ship more expensive, even if you don't use them (why exactly???).

Overcosted proton torps that are one use and hardly ever make up for their point cost.

Droids that are certainly a very useful toolbox, but make more sense on your X-Wing that actually does some damage occasionally. Also they don't fix the fundamental flaws of the Y-wing which are a lack of base firepower paired to poor agility. And you can't fix them both!

And the only one that makes some sense, the 360 degree Ion turret. The ion turret is a Y-Wings bread and butter. But hey even your Gold Squadron now costs 23 points, and does a maximum of one damage per turn. 23 points is one point less than 2 Academy Pilots. Have you tried pitting a Y-wing with ion cannon against 2 Ties? Well i have, and there is no way you come out victorious here. Chances are piled against you and i have yet to see a Y-wing win this situation! The Ion turret is about to get more useful with wave 2 possibly, since an ion token on a Falcon or Slave 1 makes a lot more sense than on one of eight Tie Fighters. More elite lists have to fear Ion tokens that is quite true.

In larger fights, Smart Imperial Players at the moment just ignore Y-wings. They kill the X-Wings which are the only real danger to them and then mop up the remaining Y-Wings. I have done this and people have done this to me. Works about every time.

So after extensively outlining why i think the Y-Wings make little sense in current, and possibly future meta, what could FFG possibly do about it?

1) Alter the stat line. I don't really think it is possible. It has been printed on every Y-wing sold and errataing it makes little sense to me. So i guess we have to live with it.

2) Reduce the point cost. Seems logical. The Y-Wings cost is not justified by what it can do for you in many ways, so this would be a possibility. But again it has been printed on a lot of issued cards, so not realistic.

3) And this is by far my favorite possibility. The Y-Wing has 2 pilots. But can shoot with one weapon per turn. This makes no sense (same thing for other ships with multiple pilots). In any game you can play a Y-Wing it has decent firepower since the pilot can lock the turret forward or the gunner uses it while the pilot shoots the lasers. Make it possible to link your turret to your main guns so you can shoot both weapons in one turn if you have a target in front of you. This makes a difference especially against agility 3 ships with evade and would give you a chance at least. After all the turret costs 5 points. It also gives you a reason to manoeuver you main guns in position at all!

I have playtested this via house rule in some games and the Y-wing does not even get overpowered. It just gets more dangerous, and you stand a chance against swarms finally because they can't ignore them like before.

Now if you do this for turrets only it would be a necessary and aimed buff for the Y-Wing. If you would do it for every secondary weapon, you buff Turrets, cannons, torps and missiles. These all cost a lot and are arguably not worth their point cost. I have not seen a lot of competitive lists using secondary weapons at all. So why not guve them some kind of buff. I recognize the Firespray with HLC being a bit ridiculous with my ruling though, so this would need some further balancing.

This also would require just a few erratas and updates for the rule book and a few cards possibly, a rather small and simple change to game rulings.

I know a lot of people won't agree to this, but as it is now the game has quite some balancing issues, and FFG should adress these. Also i don't think wave 2 will fix these issues. Also with wave 2 coming, the Y-Wing will become a very rare sight on the table if nothing happens about it soon.

I'm afraid I have to disagree 100% on the power level of the Y-Wing, having won many games running 4 Y-Wings and a few running 5(!) Y-Wings.  From my experience, the Ion Turret, when combined with target lock, frequently hits a tie.  Once you've got an ion token on a tie, you can line up another ship to shoot the tie at range one and kill it.  in general, ties just don't have enough firepower to chew through all the shields and hull on the Y-Wings (1 Agility still rolls evades every now and then) before the Ties numbers have been reduced. Once you've gotten down to an equal number of ties vs Ion Turrets, the Y-wings are pretty much guarenteed the win.

I don't run many y-wings in my squads, though I know the y has its place in the game. The y is a support ship, it is meant to shoot torps and ion ties so the x can finish th off. If u try to use it as your main offensive weapon, yes you will lose more than you win. Use it as a support ship and you will thin out a swarm very quick. 

Endgame124 said:

Well i have seen 4 Y-Wing builds, and you can kill a Y-Wing quite easily every turn with 7-8 Ties focus firing, especially if they target lock (and its really difficult to kill a Tie for the Y-wings if they evade on average i saw them do 2-3 damage per turn against Ties in total). Yes you will win if you can wear the Ties numbers down to an equal level, but generally that is not what was happening when i played.

Anyway, play Y-wings versus another rebel list, which happens on tournaments and they will just melt away. Interveptors and Heavy laser cannons will also just stomp them.

I believe that you made some good experiences with them but i can not see a competitive imperial or rebel list lose to them consistently. Dice are just against them and while dive and averages are not everything in this game, they do play a crucial role

I see these posts all the time. The y-wing is a durable little ship and I believe my experience with them has told me otherwise then the 'theory has'.

Of the 4 Kessl runs in the area : Rebels won 2 and imperials one 2. One of the Rebel lists was the covetted 4 X-wing build, but the other was 2 x-wings and a 2 Y-wings. The Imperial list swere both 6 tie swarms that won.

I have played a lot with my Y-wings, a lot of games. In a game of Dog fighting 360 degree firing is awesome to say the least. I know it only does 1 damage, but it also defines where your opponent is going to be another great side affect. Also you don't necessarily fire the Ion every turn, only the turns where you are out of line of site, or not in range one. I have cranked a few Ties in games because of that extra point of damage at close range when I was on their 6.

You really cannot compare a single ship to a single ship. The balance isn't broken down like that. You have to consider how both ships perform at 100 points. You have to consider what the Y-wing can be paired with(x-wings, a-wings, YT-1300s). It can be a great set up man for another ship to knock down. I will use a Hockey metaphor, but I bet most of you aren't going to relate "You don't make a line up of Three shooters. That never works cause everyone is doing the same thing wants to be in the same spot. You need balance for a line to work. It's best to have a guy who wants to pass the puck with a guy who wants to shoot the puck, and throw in a guy who wants to go into the boards and fight for the puck". What I am saying one of the Rebels strengths is that they have 4 ships that all do different things, fly at different speeds, take different armaments. This is an advantage and I think the points reflect this. If I could Ion a ship to set it up for a bunch of 2 attack dice shooters maybe I am over coasted, but because I can set them up so a bunch of 3 attack dice shooters can take them down I feel the cost is right. I got destroyed by a list that had Dutch, Chewie, and rookie pilot. I knew I needed to kill Dutch as fast as possible cause his handing out target locks like candy ruined my day. Both of these three dice shooters where focusing and getting free target locks at the moment they needed it. I fired a cluster missle and an X-wing , a-wings into that ship and it was able to absorb the damage and keep going all the while I was losing ships. To make matters worse Dutch was Ioning me at the same time ruining my attack patterns. Y-wing was the set up man and the threat in that game.

Meta wise. YES the tie swarm dominates the Y-wing squad, but you said in Wave two you won't see the Y-wing anymore. Well I think you won't see the Tie swarm dominate imperial builds anymore, and that is exactly what is going to bring the Y-wing into the mix. Without having to worry about mass co-ordinated fire, or having that A-wing flying around with an assualt missle causing the swarm to break up you will see Y-wing come into play. With Push the limit being on everyone mind and in their list, the Ion cannons are going to be even more tempting.

Will I take a bare Y-wing the answer is no. I will grant you that. Are they worth their points. I think yes, simply because of the upgrades they have access to, and how they synergize with the rest of your squad.

First off, check out my battle report of 1 Y-wing vs. 2 TIE fighters. I know it's just one isolated instance, but Y-wings aren't defenseless.

Second, I think there is this mentality that the Y-wing needs to be a viable, even attractive fighter to field in this game. The thing is, this was Star Wars first, and then turned into a game, and in the Star Wars mythos, the Y-wing was superceded by the X-wing in every way. They were older and cheaper, which is why the Rebellion used them. Really, there's no reason to expect them to rock the house. From that point of view, I think that the developers did a great job at converting this ship into a working piece for this game. The inclusion of the Ion Cannon Turret is a bonus that gives your squad added strategy.

Overall, I don't think it needs to be fixed because it's supposed to be a rickety old thing, and I feel like I am really immersed in the Star Wars galaxy when I play.

I like to fly 2 gold Y-Wings with Ion Cannons and one X-Wing and an A-wing. Taken together it is formidable. I've also seen 4 Y's flown with great success. None of these ships are great alone, cleverly matched a squad can be hard as nails.

I also fly 2 X and 2 Y with cannons, equally nasty. Even the big ships won't like it.

Just my 2 cents.

Parakitor said:

But I think the OP's primary mistake is to conceive of Y-wings in a vacuum. As previous posters have said, they're support ships, so they need to be considered in as part of a squad--and in that context, their value is in their ability to distract, delay, and disrupt your opponent's movement and actions in order to set up the other ships in your list for their best attacks.

If the OP is correct, a squad with 4 X-wings should consistently outperform a squad with 3 X-wings and 1 Y-wing. Since that's not the case, I can't get behind the premise that the Y-wing has to be fixed.

Well i do in fact think the best squad Rebel can field at the moment consists of 4 X-Wings indeed. At least against Tie Swarms. You desperately need to kill 2 Ties in the first encounter and even the odds. And you just wont with Y-Wings.

6 Ship imperial builds can be beaten by rebels. 7-8 are very unlikely. In all my games i have not seen it. Not once! Not at home not at a tournament. A real Tie swarm remains undefeated by rebel lists around here. The best result i saw was a 4 X-Wing list with Wedge, Biggs, two Rookies. There were two ties with one hitpoint remaining at the end. But still, lose is lose…

6-Ship imperial builds can beat the swarm though because 2 Attack dice versus 3 evade is always a lottery, and the higher initiative can make a difference here. That explains some tournament results. It depends on pairings and also of skill and luck of course.

Support ship you say. Yeah well take the Y-Wing how you want it. It is still 23 points at least and gets outnumbered. The Ion turret is nice, as i said, but even if you manoeuver the next turn to kill the ioned enemy, the swarming Ties still kill you as fast as you kill them. Most of my games have just ended with Imperials and Rebels killing each other at a 1:1 rate. Just that imperials have more ships. Them having less hitpoints does not mean they have less durability, not at all!

Also, i don't say Rebels have no nice synergies, but so do the imperials.

From whatever side you see it, the odds are stacked against the Rebels most of the time unless you take a subpar imperial list on purpose. Less attack dice, less Agility dice nearly every time for Rebels and evade as a very powerful tool for the Empire. And don't tell me this does not matter, it most clearly does matter a lot. And those are the important stats. They can hurt you but you cant hurt them back fast enough to win, thats the feeling when playing Rebels atm. That's just the way it is. You need better luck or more skill to win nonetheless. But that is not what i call balance. If you like ithatbecause it's fluff or for whatever reason, okay! But i would rather see the factions on equal footing. The game also is not broken unbalanced, but it is by a fair margin.

The X-Wing in this context is a lot more competitive than a Y-Wing. With its 2 agility it can at least survive some fire unscathed, and it can put some hurt on the enemy also.  And that's why i would like the Y-Wing get some love since right now it is just an overpriced ion cannon delivery device.

For wave 2 we can't really say yet. It seems some of you have all the ships  they need of wave 2 already, well i don't. But i doubt that the new missiles alone will balance the game out. It is still difficult to hit with them and they are very expensive one use. If you miss, 5 points are gone for nothing. And your enemy will probably outnumber you even more if you take lots of them. They also limit your ship choice a lot. 

The Y-Wing with Ion Cannon (even piloted by the basic Gold Squadron pilot) is a great little ship.  As an Imperial player I don't dare ignore them, as they can send my Tie fighters slamming into obstacles if I'm not careful.  The ability to direct traffic without having to worry about facing is AWESOME.  Make them any cheaper or increase their agility and I think they become broken. 

There is a great balance and synergy in the Wave 1 ships.  It's obvious that FFG did their due diligence in developing and testing this game's components.  No change necessary for Y-Wings, IMO.  If they were that obviously outclassed, you wouldn't see at least one on 90% of the Rebel builds out there.  I expect that number will drop somewhat when Wave 2 hits and more people start running the Falcon, or go for speed with A-Wings, but the Y-Wing will still have its place and will see plenty of play.

Well right out of the gate with just reading your first paragraph your problem is comparing a Y-wing directly to a TIE.  You can't really compare ship to ship in this game because if you want to do that, then compare an X-wing to a TIE and the X-wing is far superior. The factions as a whole are balanced IMO and in my experience rebels win as often as imperials.

You say that you can't mitigate the agility weakness of the Y-wing. I disagree. There are plenty of options to do so. Biggs for one thing helps that because with him in range 1 you can't even shoot the Y-wing.  R2-F2 and R5-D8 are other options, sure they cost points but that is one of the rebels strengths, the abiltity to take several cards to boost the ship. Steath in the new wave is another possibilty(though maybe not a great one). A Y-wing with an Ion Cannon is a dangerous thing because wounded TIE's have virtually no where to hide other than to flee the vicinity of combat. If most people focus on killing the x-wings, fine just continue to fly the Y-wing around picking on wounded targets and ships that you could force into an asteroid or another ship.

"Also, i don't say Rebels have no nice synergies, but so do the imperials."

Really? What synergies do the Imperials have? Aside from taking Squad leader on someone I see only Howlrunner who has synergy with other ships. Where as the Rebels have Dutch, Biggs, and Garven all of whom provide a good bonus to another ship(s)

I think you are too focused on the individual ships instead of the game as a whole. Y-wings as have been said are support ships. Try to keep them out of the furball. If the Imperials want to go after it they are now splitting their fire which means all your ships will live longer. I don't see the Y as needing improvements and remember that not all Y-wings have 2 pilots so shooting two weapons isn't always possible. (not to mention that having 5 dice on someone every turn is a bit much)

ForceM said:

You keep stating your personal opinions as fact but, even though there's not much available, the data that [i]is[/i] absolutely does not support your opinion.

I'm more than willing to accept that [i]you[/i] aren't able to make Y-Wings work, but that's more a case of personal ineptness that a fundamental problem with the game.

I dont run rebels often but when i do my squad is 2 - xwing rookies, 1 Wedge, 1 Gold y wing and the y wing has been the diffrence between win and lose every time. The last time i ended up circling the big asteroid pecking away with my ion cannon , destoryed 3 ties with the y wing.  Cant wait to add a firespray with ion cannons to my imp squad.

MikeT said:

1. I say that "i think that…" Now if that is stating an opinion as a fact, we have nothing to discuss anymore.

2. You cant compare a ship to a ship? Well damn sure you can. Especially they are similarly costed you can. Well of course i know that numbers and stats don't mean everything, skill and luck counts. But there is nothing mythical or magical about it like you suggest. There is not more about a Y-Wing than its stats suggest. And they're mediocre at best. And other ships have better stats. And to make it clear that is not a "mistake" on my part, that is sound logic. I am a competitive player and if i can get something better for the same cost, i take it.

3. Support ship. Well if you have a support ship for that cost, your main force is weaker. And thats why a skilled enemy will blow apart your outnumbered X-Wings and then your support ship. Also apart from Dutch a Y-Wings only support is the Ion cannon which has its own flaws. And with Dutch you can't stay apart like you suggest to hand out the target locks.

4. Synergies. Okay so the rebels have 2 more synergies than Empire. But hey there is squad leader that probably has printed "put me on Vader please" somewhere on the card and swarm tactics that is certs efficient on both sides. And Howlrunner of course, the only real printed imperial pilot ability synergy. But its the single best one out there in all the game since multiple ships can benefit from it every turn and it is not an action.

5. Balanced game? Okay i know very well it is only my personal experience and perhaps that of my group of local players, but i can only wonder what people tell me here. A balanced game… About an equal win/loss rate for Rebel/Empire. That is what i would like to see. But around here that is not happening, not at all i am afraid. Playtestimg for the first tournamend showed me the imps might have the edge. I playtested 7 and 8 Tie swarms against pretty much every possible rebel build (okay thats perhaps an exxageration) but i always plain won. And my enemy is a well versed player i can tell you that. On the tournament itself i did not see a single rebel victory except one. And that was a 5 ship imperial with two Tie Advanced. Well on the second tournament i can assure you we had not many rebel players left. But also in casual play, i always have a feeling the Rebels are at a disadvantage whether i play them or my enemy. It is always that odds against you in the crucial moment. You need more luck and skill to win as rebel player. I know this is all based on personal/group experience but how could i say this game as balanced if all i see is Empire winning if it has a decent list.

ForceM said:

1) In your previous post, you said:

• "You desperately need to kill 2 Ties in the first encounter and even the odds. And you just wont with Y-Wings."
• "6 Ship imperial builds can be beaten by rebels. 7-8 are very unlikely."
• "From whatever side you see it, the odds are stacked against the Rebels most of the time unless you take a subpar imperial list on purpose."
• "They can hurt you but you cant hurt them back fast enough to win, thats the feeling when playing Rebels atm. That's just the way it is. You need better luck or more skill to win nonetheless."
• "The game also is not broken unbalanced, but it is by a fair margin."

Well since the forums ate my post I'm g;ade Vorpal Sword is of the same mind.

It's frankly really illogical and arrogant to acknowledge that you are speaking from limited personal experience in a limted play group, and then feel comfortable applying your experience in a broad stroke manner.  There was evidence you could have looked for to corroborate your experience, but you didn't.  Had you loked for that evidence you would have seen, as the above poster notes, that niether factions has shown to edge the other out in the Kessel Run results.  But you didn't look and decided that your opinion corralates to fact.  It doesn't.  Your own experiences aren't in keeping with the larger sample size we have available to us tp look and and conclude from.  Therefore your conclusions based on only your personal experience can only be true in your own corner of the world, it does not mean they are even remotely true for the rest of is as you've put forth here.