X-Wing: Stress Happens
As part of our continuing X-Wing 2.0 speculation, ChahDresh projects what might be happening with those burdensome stress tokens.
Stress is one of the defining mechanics of X-Wing. Push your ship to the edges of its capabilities, and you pay a price. (You were expecting a Push the Limit joke, weren’t you?) For the first six years of X-Wing, there have been mainly three strategies for coping with stress: avoid it, wallow in it, and foist it on your opponents.
What we’ve seen of X-Wing 2.0 seems to tone down all three choices. Stress looks like it will be a fact of life for many more ships than at present, while the most excessive forms of stress-stacking and stress-dealing are likely to be reined in.
THE STRATEGIES DEFINED
There are a number of ships in X-Wing that would prefer to go through a game without ever taking a stress token. They can do it, too! The TIE Phantom is the extreme example: a single stress token on Whisper takes away the ability to use Advanced Cloaking Device, which in turn takes away most of her repositioning and defense. Nope nope nope. A Y-Wing has such limited green options that stress is extremely debilitating; you don’t want a Y-Wing to take stress because it might never be able to de-stress. Meanwhile, ships like the Decimator, K-Wing, Gunboat, and Auzituck can’t stress themselves without certain upgrade cards. These are exemplars of the Avoidance strategy.
Other ships wallow in stress. The simplest example is Push the Limit aces like Soontir, Jake, or Fenn Rau (either version), who are expected to end every turn with a stress token. The Lambda Shuttle and the HWK end up stressed all the time, whether because of dial limitations, pilot abilities, or both. That just scratches the surface, though, because some ships stack stress to the moon. Tycho is the innocent version of this because he was limited by the A-Wing chassis. More sinister are the Maul/Ezra crew combos, R3-A2 in either the “Stresshog” or “Ezra bunker” configurations, and the entire Dengaroo/Zuckuss/Party Bus ecosystem of Scum waves 7-9. All of these were able to stack stress to absurd degrees, taking what was supposed to be a penalty and extracting value from it. FFG had to take aggressive action against Manaroo and Zuckuss to tone this down, but the other examples remain (like Hera Syndulla crew).
R3-A2 is the prime offender of the “stress the other guy” strategy, but not the only one. Tactician, Trajectory Simulated Thermal Detonators, and Assajj Ventress/Latts Razzi all made stressing the enemy a primary focus, to great effect. During the heyday of two-ship big/small lists (waves 5-6), Rebel Captive was a very popular upgrade for the same reason, especially because the Phantom is so allergic to stress.
NEWS FLASH: YOU CAN’T AVOID STRESS ANY MORE
X-Wing 2.0 thrusts stress and stress management right in front of you. The clearest example is in the red actions and linked actions now available to nearly all ships. They present an enduring temptation to reach for that extra bit of power, no matter the cost. In some cases, doing them sooner or later seems almost unavoidable. The Jumpmaster can’t rotate its turret except as a red linked action. What are the odds you can get away all game without rotating arcs? That’s what I thought.
The dial upgrades given to many ships and the increased emphasis on positioning both amplify this trend. While much of the attention has been given to ships that got more white and blue than before (the HWK can fly now!), I’d like to draw attention to how many more red maneuvers there are.
Six ships have received new S-Loop or T-Roll maneuvers, which makes me unreasonably happy. First off, they’re fun. I think it’s no coincidence that FFG, seeing people pronounce Segnor’s Loop as “Sloop”, named their next maneuver something that can be pronounced “Troll”. Unexpected K-Turns are some of the game’s most thrilling moments; unexpected T-Rolls and S-Loops are pure delight. Second, they’re dynamic and skillful: 3-bank and 3-turn are some of the hardest maneuvers to visualize, in part because they throw your ship around so far. Knowing when to break out these exotic options, either to get a better angle or to avoid an anticipated block, is sure to be a distinguishing feature of high level play.
Let’s not forget that, with overall offense being tuned down, more ships will be surviving to turn around, giving them more chances to use those shiny new reds.
I’m not saying we should expect every ship to be lugging around a stress token at all times a la Jake Farrell. It’s still debilitating for many ships, even with dial upgrades, and if positioning matters more than before then having dial limitations is more damaging than before. I do think it’s safe to say that more ships will be taking stress more often.
I expect that wallowing in your stress won’t be viable for much longer. One of the stated objectives of 2.0 is to remove “infinite stacking”; FFG said so explicitly in the live stream, and the evidence is before us. Moldy Crow’s token-stacking is capped at two rather than “how many rounds is the game” like it is now. The new Bomblet Generator will run out of bomblets, if only when you run out of shields to feed it. It appears they’re making no exception for stress tokens, either, since this is apparently the new Hera crew:
seems legit
The key to this would be in limiting or reducing things which can give you stress while stressed, as well as things that allow you to function indefinitely while stressed. We’ve seen indications of both these approaches. Take the new Predator, for example: it only works in bullseye, but achieving and maintaining bullseye is harder if you can’t turn around or reposition. Afterburner lets you boost while stressed, but only when you’re going fast and only twice. Ezra’s ability works while stressed, but it’s limited by his Force charges, putting a hard cap on how many times he can use it. (I’d say with some certainty that his crew card will work the same way.) And Maul is completely different in 2.0.
If stress is a harsher penalty than before, then stressing the enemy seems more effective than before. Is it little wonder, then, that we’d expect to see fewer effects that stress the enemy than before? 4-LOM retains his, but it’s already restricted in its usage by its range and self-stressing requirements. Thermal Detonators are still around, but with bombs moving to the Systems phase (instead of being dropped at PS) they’ll be harder to use effectively and, anyway, limited-use effects are generally more palatable than infinite-use ones. Asajj still deals stress, but her effect was double-nerfed: not only is that mobile arc itself less effective now, but Asajj spends a Force to use the ability, and the opponent can counter by giving up a green token. I would definitely not expect to see R3-A2 again, and Tactician is questionable for me.
Honestly, I’d be okay if this becomes a matter of faction distinction. Debuffs have generally been a Scum thing, and if most stress-inducing effects reside with Scum and Villainy then it becomes somewhat more flavorful. FFG might disagree; the new Admiral Sloane delivers stress for the Empire. Then again, she imposes stress as a price for losing ships, so there’s a rather definite limit to how often she’s triggering.
~We can put this a different way: if 2.0 comes out, and there are ways to pile stress on your enemies, take them, because they’re likely to be more impactful than ever.
