Star Wars X-Wing: Meet the New Damage Deck
X-Wing has an all new damage deck. Here’s what Fantasy Flight Games changed and WHY!
Hello again BoLS Readers, AdamHarry back once again with more X-Wing goodies. This time I wanted to go over the new damage deck for Star Wars X-Wing. For those of you who don’t know, the Force Awakens Starter Box contains a new damage deck that fixes some cards and completely removes others. FFG breaks a lot of these changes down so lets take a look:
The Developers Address the Impact of the New Damage Deck on X-Wing
First and foremost among these changes is a revised damage deck. The old damage deck, while fun and functional, had two cards in it that varied far too wildly in their effects: Injured Pilot and Munitions Failure.
Depending upon your squad composition, these cards were either totally devastating or effectively blank.
For example, Munitions Failure could single-handedly nullify a HWK-290 upgraded with an Ion Cannon Turret , and Injured Pilot could wipe out your investment in Darth Vader’s unique ability in one painful shot. On the other hand, an Academy Pilot would have nothing to fear from either crit.
The New Damage Deck
We believe that critical damage should be devastating no matter what squad you bring, and that players should not be unfairly penalized for choosing to bring unique pilots or specific upgrade cards. Therefore, Injured Pilot has been replaced by Shaken Pilot , a milder and more universal effect, and Munitions Failure has been replaced by Loose Stabilizer , a universally devastating crit.
Two other cards have also been replaced: Minor Explosion and Minor Hull Breach . These cards were thought to have too minimal an effect and have been swapped for cards that will have more of an impact. Major Explosion applies a critical damage when triggered, and Major Hull Breach can cause a chain reaction of devastating critical effects if it is not quickly addressed.
AdvertisementFurthermore, a number of damage cards have retained their basic function but had their language upgraded. Blinded Pilot no longer requires a ship to make an attack before it is flipped facedown; it’s now flipped facedown after you pass your next opportunity to attack (even if there was no target for an attack). Damaged Sensor Array now applies equally to all actions, and secondary weapons are no longer immune to Weapons Failure .
Even as these changes result in better critical effects, it’s important to note that the ratio of the damage deck has been preserved. We kept exactly seven Direct Hits in the damage deck, and there are still eight cards with the Pilot trait and twenty-five cards with the Ship trait. This means that upgrade cards like Determination and Salvaged Astromech will still have the same probability of triggering.”
So for those of you keeping track at home:
Injured Pilot was replaced by Shaken Pilot
Munitions Failure has been replaced by Loose Stabilizer
Minor Explosion was swapped for Major Explosion
Minor Hull Breach was replaced for Major Hull Breach
Damaged Sensor Array has been reworked
Weapons Failure works on Secondary Weapons now too
Those are some great changes to the Damage Deck and the fact that they were able to maintain the ratio didn’t diminish the effect of other cards. Fantasy Flight Games has a great track record when it comes to fixing things that need to be fixed/rebalance. Every now and then they come up with fixes most players don’t even know they needed. These changes to the Damage Deck are good for the game because critical hits should equally effect every ship that gets hit by them.
So fly safe and try to avoid those crits, eh?
I can handle it!
