X-Wing: Tantive IV Preview, Part 2

Picking up where we left off from previously, let’s squint real hard and make some guesses about what all comes in the box with the Tantive IV Expansion. 

Starting on the left, you’ve got the model itself, which appears to be really nicely detailed and painted, especially when you consider the asking price for everything in the box is less than a Benjamin. The CR90 has always been one of my favorite Star Wars vehicles, so while some folks are worried these big- scratch that- Huge ships are going to wreck X-Wing, me personally, I’m super excited to see it.

Next, you have the maneuver dial which again, if you look really closely, it seems to have the movement maneuver as well as an Energy rating of some sort associated with it. I talked about my best guesses as to how the CR90 moves in Part 1 so I won’t rehash here. 

Next you’ve got the big range ruler and the movement template. Going up, a pair of Target Lock Tokens (can’t tell the letters- Z maybe?) a bunch of other tokens, one pile of which seems to be Energy Tokens. This is kinda interesting because while we knew that Energy was a commodity to be spent as well as earned somehow (through card text like Tibanna Gas Supplies or maybe just through the ship itself almost like an Action that bestows a token), we still kinda don’t know the actual mechanism. Or at least I don’t. 

Above the tokens and whatnots we see the cards. It looks like there’s just one Fore card and just one Aft card, which kind of bums me out. I was really hoping for like an awesome front end and/ or back end at higher PS to make things interesting since I’m guessing that the two halves of the ship will function as seperate entities for the Combat Phase. Ah well. There’s also some sort of rules card (which, I may be nuts, but looks like the Ion rules card), and another art card nestled in there. At first I thought maybe this was some kind of Energy management card- like maybe the card gave you a designated place to stick your Energy tokens or maybe by following some instructions during the game, spawned Energy tokens, but I don’t know. Whatever it is, it’s not a pilot card. 

Moving right but staying up at the top, we see a big card that looks like to me is either a space container or an escape pod. In any case, it seems to have an Agility rating and a Hull value. My guess is it’s for one of the six Scenarios that FFG says comes with the ‘Vette, but who knows- maybe you buy it with points or something. Moving on, we’ve got a veritable pile of Shield tokens and a ton of Ion tokens. Safe to say, in addition to the Single Turbolaser and Quad Laser Cannons that the Tantive will be able to equip some sort of Ion weapons too. 

Beneath, we see the 24 upgrade cards included with the Tantive IV. It’s tough to actually make out what any of them are, but I see what appear to be (in no particular order) a couple copies of Comms Booster, what might be a copy of Flight Instructor, some Tibanna Gas Supplies, Ion Reactor, Engine Booster, 3po, R2, three Single Turbolasers, a couple of Quads, the Dodonna’s Pride Title card, and some other stuff I can’t make out, though I swear that looks like Leia on the right end of the upper row. 

Anybody else betting on an actual Tantive IV title card as well as Dodonna’s Pride? The article repeatedly refers to the CR90 as does the wording on the Fore and Aft cards, and the reveal article from FFG even makes a statement there towards the end about “… throughout any combat featuring the Tantive IV or any CR90 Corvette”, so I figure there’s a Tantive IV title as well. 

Below the upgrade cards, you’ve got the Fore and Aft specific damage decks. 

Is it just me or do those Single Turbos on the sides of the Fore seem to be detachable? Maybe it’s a mistake or maybe it’s just my dirty contacts magnifying my astigmatism, but I swear if you look at the pics of the ship in the box and the pic of the ship in the movement example, then compare with the 360 degree rotating picture posted with the reveal article, it seems like the cannons are absent, absent, and present respectively. If that’s the case, I like that. I always liked the WYSIWYG weapons in games like 40k. 

All in all, I’m stoked for the Tantive IV, y’all. I’ve always liked the aesthetics of the ship, I like that it brings a couple new modes of gameplay, I like that it has different mechanics, I like the looks of the model. I’m very eager to pick this thing up and fly it around the table. I always get excited to check out the new stuff for X-Wing, but this time much more so than usual- I really think the CR90 is going to add some interesting new angles to this game. 

That said, I can’t help but wonder how exactly it’s going to work! 

What I mean by that is, the thing looks friggin’ huge. I wonder how hard it’s going to be flying it around while trying to keep it on the table. Of course it’s possible that Epic and/ or Cinematic modes might have a larger playing field, but if they don’t, it could get really interesting really quickly. That, or you just will hardly ever use anything but a 1 Straight. 

I wonder how it deploys. As big as it is, it almost has to come on from a table edge somehow, right? 

As it seems there’s some kind of different rules for a Huge ship overlapping a starfighter, I wonder if it handles rocks and other Obstacles differently as well. I wonder if it Overlaps (in the rulebook sense of the term) at all or it just plows stuff out of its way- friend, foe, or inanimate object. 

I’m curious too to know how card text from other allied Pilots affect the CR90 (and for that matter, the GR-75). Like, can Lando pull a green at Range 1 and give it a Free Action? Can Dutch pass it a Target Lock? Can Dreis dish it a Focus? Can Elusiveness pull a hit from it? Can Kath Stress it?

I have a ton of questions like this- how does Ionizing work on a Huge ship? Can you Ionize the Aft separate from the Fore? Can they even be ionized? Can they incur Stress? Can one end of the ship be Stressed while the other end is not? Can they use Modifications? Can they use Big (as opposed to Huge) Ship Only Modifications? If you have a Saboteur in the Fore, does his ability work from the Fore or the entire ship’s profile? 

Last thought and then I gotta hit the sack- you know how you wish you could use Bombs better? It’s not just me, right? Or at least find some reason to justify them points-wise in your list, but it’s just too hard/ unpredictable/ difficult to set up properly? 

Don’t sell those Bomb cards and tokens on eBay just yet folks- I think we now know why only Imperial ships have the ability to take Bombs…