So, I had planned to get this article out as soon as Wave 2 released all the way back in November or December, then FFG announced that the points would be updated in January. I decided to wait until the new point values dropped… which was then announced to be happening on the 28th. Once the changes were finally revealed, my life got too chaotic to actually write this article, so this is even further delayed than I wanted it to be. I can’t wait to continue the series with individual ships, but before I can, I had to update what I’ve already done.

There were a lot, and I mean A LOT, of changes in the first points re-balance. Several ships that were over-performing got knocked down a peg or 2 (or several.) Others which barely saw any table time saw their prices drop considerably (like half the Rebel faction…) Still others confused the player base as to why they were implemented. Rather than go over everything that has changed, I am instead going to focus on the individual ships I’ve already reviewed, and how the new wave and points adjustment affect them.

Another aspect of the game that has changed recently is the announcement of the Hyperspace format. Formerly known as the Second Edition (or 2E) format, Hyperspace limits the available ships and upgrades for each faction to allow them to be on roughly equal footing. I’m not going to go into great detail here, as only 3 ships I’ve looked at are even allowed in the format. However, in future articles, the “2E” notation will now be “HS”, and the “2X” (used before to denote “Extended” format,) will now be seen as “EX”.

Enough preamble, let’s get into the changes.

Imperials



The TIE Interceptor

The Squint, as anyone who’s read my blog at all up to this point knows, is by far my favorite ship in X-Wing. Luckily for me, this ship is pretty much unchanged as of Wave 2. While it didn’t get any cheaper, it also didn’t get any more expensive, and the only cards that were really good for it that changed were a couple of Talents, and the Afterburners modification (which actually got cheaper.) As such, the points made in my original article all still stand. Included is the new, cheaper version of the Hyper-Ace Soontir Fel, who now costs 72 points instead of 74.



The TIE Advanced V1

The Inquisitor’s TIE, now re-named the TIE Advanced V1, saw minor points reductions across all pilots: Baron of the Empire (33 vice 34,) Inquisitor (38 vice 40,) Seventh Sister (46 vice 48,) and The Grand Inquisitor (56 vice 58.) Unfortunately, that decrease came at the cost of a major nerf to the available Force talents, as Supernatural Reflexes is now priced according to Initiative value, and for the Grand Inquisitor, it means it doubled in point cost to 24. However, the old Block-Quisitor build should probably replace Sense with Supernatural Reflexes, as it costs only 8 points now for Initiative 3 (2 points more than Sense.)

That said, the TAP is the only ship on the list to gain any upgrade cards, as the First Order Conversion Kit includes the new cards Hate and Predictive Shot. Both are pretty solid cards for the TAP in general, and especially as replacements for the now hugely prohibitively costed SNR for The Grand Inquisitor. Swapping out SNR for Hate actually brings the cost down to well below what the old Untraceable Inquisitor build cost while not sacrificing much of its power.



The TIE/ln Fighter (Imperial)

At last, the humble TIE Fighter. The only thing that changed here were the costs of some of the better Talents for the ace pilots. Juke went up a point, and Squad Leader is now based on Initiative Value (primarily affecting Valen Rudor, on whom the price of the upgrade doubled to 8.) There isn’t even enough change here to include a new version of one of my old builds, just refer to the previous article.

Rebellion



The RZ-1 A-Wing

Fans of the A-Wing were very disappointed when Second Edition revealed the changes to the ship: Most of the great pilots were gone, the second Talent slot was gone, and the ship’s cost was way too high. Wave 2 fixes all that it can without a fresh release, dropping the price of 3 of the pilots (Green Squadron Pilot (32 vice 34,) Arvel Crynyd (34 vice 36,) and Jake Farrell (36 vice 40,) and granting all 4 pilots an additional Talent slot (meaning the above-mentioned pilots now have 2.) While this doesn’t help Jake or Arvel have more competitive abilities, it does make them easier to fit in a list, and with most of the rest of the Rebellion’s support roster going up in points (I cry not for the HWK-290 or Sheathipede,) they needed some fresh blood.

Since the same point changes that affected the TIE Interceptor also affect the A-Wing, there isn’t much to talk about, but one previous build stands to have a drastic improvement:

The older version of this guy cost 39 points and included a Homing Missile instead of Outmaneuver. In the new version, the 5 of these you can fit in your list can act as a beehive swarm, staying nearly completely out of formation and triggering Outmaneuver against your opponent with nigh-impunity. Their ability to ignore flying in formation will also help them survive against whatever bombers still see the table after their impressive price hikes.

Lando Calrissian (Rebel)

Oh Lando. If I had to give a trophy for “Most Improved” for Wave 2 and the points adjustment, it’d be a VERY hard decision between you and the E-Wing. I think Lando edges it out, seeing a MASSIVE 12 point reduction (80 vice 92,) the highest single reduction in the game. To add to that, a lot of the Crew and Gunner options (both Rebel and generic,) also saw reductions, though Nien Nunb remains the same. The Modified YT-1300 happens to be a Hyperspace legal ship, and when I was looking to update my old builds, I chose to hold myself to those restrictions, so that he’d be playable as written in either HS or EX events.

This modified General build replaces Squad Leader (whose cost leapt up to 12 from 4 for an Initiative 5 pilot) with Swarm Tactics, and the Hyperspace-banned Jyn Erso (yet Magva Yarro is legal? Why? Aren’t they from the same movie? Isn’t Jyn the main character OF that movie? Does Magva even TALK? What the heck?!?) with Leia Organa. Her viability is primarily due to another massive price drop (2 vice 8,) and she can allow your entire list to reduce the difficulty of their red maneuvers every 3 turns. With smart engagements, this means that your ships will never be denied their actions due to turning back into the fight, or can perform 2 K-turns, S-loops, or T-rolls in a row for only a single stress. This new version also has the benefit of being 15 points cheaper than the old build…

This is an update to the Ace build, though I’ve stripped it down further from the previous version. Trick Shot actually got more expensive, but the rest of the list remains the same. Losing the Hull Upgrade, Agile Gunner, and Homing Missiles (formerly 16 points total,) combined with Landos discount, allow us to upgrade Chewbacca to C-3PO and still reduce the cost of the build by 24 points total. Of note, if I don’t change out any of the upgrades, the original upgrade package now brings the build to 113 points.

Scum



Boba Fett

If Lando wins the award for “Most Improved,” then Boba Fett and his associated upgrades surely has earned the “Most Hampered” award. Not only did Fett himself earn a 6 point increase (86 vice 80,) but most of his popular upgrades were increased as well, most notably the Marauder title (6 vice 3,) Han Solo gunner (12 vice 4,) 0-0-0 (5 vice 3,) and Debris Gambit (3 vice 2.) In fact, Perceptive Co-Pilot is the only popular Fett card to receive a reduction (8 vice 10.) This means that even if I drop the Hull Upgrade from the old Token build, the cost has increased to 115 points (a total increase of 16 points!)

That said, most of the reason for this is Fett was dominating tournaments in both formats of the game. Since he, like Lando, is Hyperspace legal, I focused my efforts in re-designing my Boba builds under the applicable restrictions… and came up mostly blank. Truth be told, without the crutch of Han gunner (priced out with Marauder,) and IG-88D or 0-0-0 (both banned from Hyperspace,) I really don’t know what to do with the ship anymore. The only thing I could come up with that was even remotely interesting to me was a modified Ace build, focused on cheap modifications that can serve the entire game, and that help Boba’s mobility once he starts getting into the scrum.



The BTL-A4 Y-Wing (Scum)

The Y-Wing went to an interesting place for Scum in Wave 2. While the Rebel Y-Wing saw a unanimous price drop of 1-3 points across all pilots, the Scum version saw its unlimited pilots get cheaper (Crymorah Goon (31 vice 32) and Hired Gun (33 vice 34,)) and the named pilots get more expensive (Drea Renthal (42 vice 40) and Kavil (43 vice 42.)) This appears to be pushing the faction to focus more on its generic pilots over its aces, and while the ship isn’t HS legal, I think it is actually greatly improved due to its upgrades. Both turret options got 2 points cheaper, and the Veteran Turret Gunner dropped by 2 points as well. In fact, these price reductions combine together to create one of the most ridiculous lists in the Wave 2 meta-game:

First off, this list has 40 health to chew through. Better than that, it can also throw down 9 attacks each round (more than any TIE swarm,) though 4 of them are limited to Range 1-2. Like an Imperial TIE swarm, the generic Goons each can re-roll one of their attack die so long as their target is in one of Dreas firing arcs (a looser requirement than remaining Range 1 of their commander.) I feel like this list should be considered when testing any list for an EX event, as it’s sure to appear at least once (even if only because I’m the one flying it!)

The entire list of changes to point values has been consolidated by someone here, and if I can ever figure out who, I will be sure to include their name in this paragraph later for recognition. There’s a lot to sift through, and between the above list and the Hyperspace legality lists, (which serve to create the more popular format of tournament play recently,) Wave 2 of X-Wing almost feels like X-Wing 3.0… Almost.

Next time: Another Hyperspace event!