Star Wars: X-Wing 2.0 Movement Matters
Fantasy Flight Games has made a conscience effort to refocus the game of X-Wing back to the core concept of ships dog fighting in space. While the basics haven’t changed, a lot of the extras have and today we’re taking a close look at a few examples.
Star Wars: X-Wing 2.0 is a game that will reward precision flying like never before. The movement and action phases are tighter and less forgiving. If you declare an action, like a barrel roll, and you can’t complete the action without bumping a ship or hitting an obstacle you now lose you action. There are lots of these little tweaks that are going to make the game harder in some ways but much more rewarding if you can actually ‘fly’ your ships.
The New Barrel Roll
We’ve talked with the developers about these changes, but here is a really great mock-up from FFG of how the new Barrel Roll works:
via Fantasy Flight Games
“When the Academy Pilot barrel rolls to the right, it can move slightly forward, slightly backward, or straight across.”
When you declare a Barrel Roll, you now only have 3 spots you can land per side. The new 1 straight template has some extra hash marks and so do the bases – these are included to help you line everything up correctly. This was done to bring Barrel Roll more in line with movement actions like Boost which only had 3 locations to account for. Gone are the days when a player could precisely land in the middle of two objects due to the sliding scale of a barrel roll.
The Better Bullseye
via Fantasy Flight Games
“The T-65 X-wing has the TIE fighter in its bullseye arc, so it can use Marksmanship to turn one of its hits to a critical hit.”
Every ship base has a new Bullseye firing arc. While this doesn’t trigger anything innately, it allows the designers to create new versions of cards that reward you for getting enemies in that sweet spot of shooting.
Marksmanship allows you to change a hit to a crit when the target is in your Bullseye arc.
Predator has been reworked as well. It’s no longer as strong of an option and yet, it’s still worth taking. Now it allows you to re-roll an attack die only if the defender is in your Bullseye firing arc.
And as a final example, Crack Shot has also been reworked. Now Crack shot has 1 Charge – this represents the fact that it’s a one use ability (unless you have a way to get charges back). But now, you can only spend the charge token to cancel 1 evade result IF the target is in your Bullseye arc.
New Dials Coming At Your Way
With these tweaks to the extras, FFG has also gone back and re-evaluated the dials for the ships. The Iconic T-65 X-Wing has a new dial and it’s pretty impressive.
via Fantasy Flight Games
“Fittingly, a number of ships releasing at the launch of X-Wing Second Edition have revised maneuver dials that give them new life in X-Wing Second Edition, beginning with the T-65 X-wing. This iconic fighter becomes a bit more maneuverable in second edition—the speed-two bank maneuvers on the T-65’s dial are now blue, which means this maneuver can be used to remove stress from the ship. More importantly, the T-65’s dial gains speed-three Tallon Rolls and its action bar gains the barrel roll icon, giving it plenty of options for getting enemy ships into its line of fire.”
“On the Imperial side, the TIE Advanced x1’s maneuver dial gets a similar update. Like the T-65, the TIE Advanced x1 now sports blue speed-two banks and speed-three Tallon Rolls, but it also picks up the speed-one forward maneuver. This gives your TIE Advanced x1 the ability to slow down just a little bit and wait for enemy ships to cross its path before launching a devastating salvo of laser fire.”
These changes all combine to create a game that is much more about flying your ships in a way to out maneuver your opponents. It feels less gimmicky or one-trick pony as the game is less about creating a silly combo and more about actually getting a firing solution. That’s what it’s all about and X-Wing 2.0 delivers!
Star Wars: X-Wing Second Edition
Enter the next era of interstellar combat in the Star Wars galaxy! Out of the X-Wing Second Edition Core Set, you can start to assemble your own squadron of iconic starfighters from across the Star Wars saga and engage in fast-paced, high-stakes space combat with iconic pilots such as Luke Skywalker and Iden Versio. With refined gameplay that focuses on the physical act of flying starships, X-Wing Second Edition lets you create your own Star Wars space battles right on your tabletop. Intuitive mechanics create the tense atmosphere of a firefight while beautifully pre-painted miniatures draw you deeper into the action. Man your ships and enter the fray!
The X-Wing Second Edition Core Set contains two TIE/ln fighter miniatures and one T-65 X-wing miniature, along with all of the maneuver templates, dials, cards, dice, and rules that you need to play the game.
The X-Wing Relaunch comes out officially September 13th, 2018!
