Date: September 13, 2018

Today was the day; launch day for X Wing 2e! I was stoked the entire day, and ripping at the cord to go play in my home store’s Launch Party tournament. The event would be a quickbuild only event, for concerns regarding the availability of the app combined with the expected glut of new players entering to play for the evening. The TO set the three round event to threat 6 and allowed players to switch their lists each round. After all, the events was all about testing out the new game.

So without further ado – and especially for Frank who demanded a “full write-up” – the results:

Round 1: Loss

The first round I decided I wanted to put some X Wings on the table, so I naturally gravitated to the Wedge-Luke combo. My opponent was flying Wedge and Thane Kyrell. We started in opposite corners and engaged in the center. My Luke was able to get a good torpedo shot onto his Thane, but I was unable to concentrate my fire there for long. His Thane was able to bail to my right, and the asteroids blocked any good pursuit lanes, so I shifted my fire to Wedge. I was able to bring him down, but only after giving up my own Wedge.

That left Thane one on one against a now-unshielded Luke. So I did what any self-respecting Rebel player with regen would do: I ran. As fast as I could, I got away from the rocks to create some space from Thane to get healthy and get turned around. I did both of those things, but we each exchanged fire and brought one another down to just one hull. Another pass and his I5 Thane killed my I5 Luke, who in turn killed his I5 Thane.

That threw us to final salvo! So, for those keeping track at home, my last ever 1e and my first ever 2e games of X Wing went to final salvo. I lost on the dice roll, but the irony was not lost on me in that moment.

Round 2: Win

Initially, I wasn’t going to switch my lists around, but even with the final salvo ending, my round 1 finished with about 20 minutes left on the clock. Plenty of time for me to put away Luke and Wedge and prep the combo of Garvin-Biggs-Dutch for the next round. I checked pairings and sat down across from a player returning to the game after a hiatus; he was flying Vader and a pair of Obsidian TIE Fighters.

I placed my trio directly across from his TIE Fighters, and placed Vader at about the middle of the board to flank me. We both slow rolled, engaging all our ships simultaneously. Dutch grabbed locks on Vader and one Obsidian, while passing a Vader lock to Garvin. Vader dumped a good shot on Dutch, but between Biggs and his equipped Selfless Dutch only took one damage. Garvin fired on Vader and wiped all three shields in one go, passing his focus to Dutch. Dutch then dropped a lock/focus torpedo onto the locked Obsidian, who rolled all blanks. Next round Vader dumped more dice into Dutch, but I was behind Vader now. He died the next round, and the last Obsidian thereafter.

Round 3: Win

Final round of the night I again switched my list, this time to Norra-Luke. The force mechanic on Luke was too much fun in the first game for me to turn down. My opponent fielded the Luke-Wedge combo I played in my first round. We started in opposite corners, engaged in the center, and through a hilarious exchange of fire, both of our Luke’s died. So it was Norra against Wedge.

The ion turret was key on her, being able to fire from an additional arc or to fire twice with Veteran Turret Gunner certainly made an impact. I was eventually able to nestle in behind Wedge after ioning him. Then it was just a matter of throwing enough attacks to finish him off.

Conclusion

The game feels very different. Sure, the movement is the same, the dice are the same, and even most of the tokens are the same. But the game feels like an entirely new game. There is little to no action efficiency baked into single ships. There are few times where there was an objectively better choice between options. 1e was largely strategic, as so many in-game choices were made for you by how you built your list before you put it on the table. Contrarily, 2e feels much more tactical. Not that the game isn’t still strategic in nature, just that the tactical choices that disappeared toward the end of 1e are now revived and running at you with a fury.

Sure there are kinks, and a learning curve, and the inevitable brain dump of “crap that card isn’t the same as in 1e,” but by and large I think 2e took the better parts of the game and either improved them or placed a higher emphasis on them.

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