Something a bit different this week. Last week in Portsmouth I managed another 3-1 in Swiss and made the final at the Dice Cup’s Wave 1 Championship, losing out to my good friend Conor McNama’s Rebels.

I don’t know about you but I’m feeling like we’re in a bit of Limbo at the moment. We know that the new game mode Hyperspace is going to play a large part in Organised Play in 2019 and whether you love or hate the restrictions it will bring it’s likely you’re going to play it at some point. We also know that the points are due an update in January, which is just a few sleeps away.

The reason that these things combined makes me feel in limbo is that the game is going to change, I want to start playing the new mode and experimenting, but can’t really because I don’t know what the points are going to do? Has the First Order and Resistance stuff been pointed according to the points we currently have or is it going to change when we get the update? Or is it pointed to the changes now and those factions will stay the same when everything else goes up/down/stays the same?

In many ways it feels like the end of 1.0. The change is coming and it’s hard to be all motivated about playing now knowing that the game will be significantly different soon. For the last few weeks I’ve been looking at what I think hyperspace will look like and thought I’d share some analysis.

What follows is a break down of the five factions and the ships that make them up, I’m using the “four pillars” of X-Wing as my basis for evaluation. For those who don’t know the 4 Pillars they are: Turrets, Bombs, Jousting and Arc Dodging. And it’s as good a place to start an analysis of the game.

I’ve tried to make it as non-opinion based as possible, and to do that I’ve come up with a very simple maths formula whch I’ve applied to each pilot in each ship that is Hyperspace legal. Points costs are not factored in as they are up for change at the moment, so this is purely a look at how effective each ship in any given faction is for the roll of Jousting, Arc Dodging, Turrets or Bombing.

The Ships available in Hyperspace are as follows:

Rebels: X-Wings, Y-Wings, U-Wings (Saw’s Renegades not normal ones) and the YT-1200

Imperials: TIE Fighters, TIE Advanced, TIE Reapers, TIE Strikers

Resistance: RZ2 A-Wings, T70s, Starfortress, YT-1300

First Order: TIE Silencer, TIE FO, TIE SF, Upsilon Shuttles

Scum: Fang, Firespray, Mining Guild TIE, YT-1300, Escape Craft

Jousting

Jouster Base points Initiative 3 red dice 1 4 red dice 2 2 green dice 1 3 green dice 2 Reinforce 1 5 to 6 health 1 7 to 8 health 2 10+ health 3

For example: Wedge Antillies is Initiative 6 so base score is 6, he rolls 3 red dice so gets +1, 2 Green dice +1, and 6 health so another +1, giving him a rating of 9. Whilst Wedge has a great ability it is not really possible to quantify the value of how good his ability is against different ships so all ships, whether named or generic are all judged the same. I’ve gone through this process for every ship in Hyperspace and then created an average score for each faction based on these numbers. Put all that in a handy graph format and you get this:

Now, this is where I freely admit that my formulaic approach is ultimately flawed. It doesn’t account for list formation. I believe that the TIE swarms are going to be a huge player in Hyperspace, especially as only one ship will be able to throw bombs at them, so this is on an individual basis. A single TIE is worse at jousting than a T-70, but you could realistically be looking at 3 TIEs for a single T-70 on the table which is a very different equation to work out. I think the best list Imperials are going to have at their disposal is a 6 or 7 ship TIE Swarm with a whole load of synergy and interactions to make them pretty terrifying. We know from history that in a limited pool of ships (1.0 waves 1-3) Swarms took some beating.

Arc Dodging

Arc Dodger Must Be Able to Re-Position Base points Initiative red roll 1 red boost 1 white roll 2 white boost 2 double repo 2 Blue turns 2

So Kylo Ren is Initiative 5, he has a white Roll and Boost available to him, so plus 4 points, and he can do them both in the same turn, which gives him another 2 points. Finally he has Blue hard turns which for me is a key element in arc dodging, which gives him an extra two points. A total of 13 points for Kylo Ren then! Apply the same formula for everything and you get this:

The Resistance and First Order shine here thanks to the A2s and the Silencers being able to double re-position upping their averages across the board. No other faction has inherent double re-positions. The Imperials have the Striker with it’s Aerilons giving it a boost and roll but it’s not as versatile as the choice you get from the Silencer and their main Ace, Darth Vader only has the option to Roll. I can see Poe being king here, no other initiative 6 ship can boost and roll every turn, plus the incredibly affordable R4 astromech gives him those all important blue hard turns.

Turrets

Now we start to see things get interesting because not everything has turrets. I’ve also included ships with multiple arcs in this category, the Firespray is therefore counted for scum, and the TIE SF and A2 count for the First Order and Resistance.

Turrets Multiple Arc Options Base Points Intitiative Native 3 Upgrade Turret 1 Bowtie 3 Single Arc 2 Fixed Secondary 1 3 Red Dice 1

So Rebel Han Initiative 6, a Native Turret (as opposed to a Y-wing which has to buy an Upgrade) It’s a bowtie giving him 2 active arcs and rolls three red dice, giving him a hefty turret score of 13 points. And we get this graph:

The Falcon and the Y-Wing giving the Rebels a lead here, the Resistance Falcon gets marked down because it’s rotation is red, but the Resistance Starfortress is not to be sniffed at. It’s a ship I’m not fond of, but it’s 2.0 iteration is significantly improved from it’s first edition form. Imperials have a total lack of turret to play with while the first Orders score comes entirely from the TIE SF, it seems the more militant factions like shooting at what they can in front of them.

Bombs

And finally to Bombs. In 1.0 we saw list that could win games purely through the use of bombs, but I don’t think they are nearly as potent in 2. Yes they are very useful for control, they are a pain, but they aren’t game breaking. The changes to how they work for me is one of the best things about the new edition. They’re a threat but you can learn to play around them.

Bombs 1 slot 1 2 slots 2 Red Reload 1 White Reload 2

This doesn’t need a lot of explaining! The more bombs you can have the higher your rating will be. This is basically chassis dependent.

And now it’s the First Order’s turn to feel left out. The Starfortress catapults the Resistance to the head of the game, the Firespray and Striker keep the systems phase relevent for their factions and rebels get Y-Wings. I think it’s safe to say that Hyperspace Season one is not going to look too bomb heavy, personally I’m a fan of that notion.

Crystal Ball Time

Time to peer into the future and say what I think we might see doing well in Hyperspace. This is pure conjecture but there are a few trends I’m expecting:

Poe : Mr Dameron is king in hyperspace as far as individual ships go. The difficulty is working out what to fly him with. You can’t fit too much in with him in terms of kitted up toys. There are some impressive looking double T70 and A2 lists surfacing but do they have the stamina to take on swarms?

: Mr Dameron is king in hyperspace as far as individual ships go. The difficulty is working out what to fly him with. You can’t fit too much in with him in terms of kitted up toys. There are some impressive looking double T70 and A2 lists surfacing but do they have the stamina to take on swarms? TIE Fighters : Howlrunner is going to return to give you nightmares, but it’s not just the Imperials that are going to scare people with the screech of Twin Ion Engines. Scum have joined that party too. Andrew Pattison’s excellent article about Swarms may be worth another read. If you can’t out joust a TIE Swarm then don’t run a list that’s designed to joust. (unless it’s another TIE swarm)

: Howlrunner is going to return to give you nightmares, but it’s not just the Imperials that are going to scare people with the screech of Twin Ion Engines. Scum have joined that party too. Andrew Pattison’s excellent article about Swarms may be worth another read. If you can’t out joust a TIE Swarm then don’t run a list that’s designed to joust. (unless it’s another TIE swarm) A distinct lack of control : Only ONE ship in Hyperspace can take an Ion weapon, the Y-Wing. Unfortunately it’s just too vulnerable to, well, anything that shoots it, to be a main stay of most lists. Ion isn’t nearly as consistent as it once was to invest in. There is also not a lot of Jam (Upsilon Shuttle aside) and tractor whats?

: Only ONE ship in Hyperspace can take an Ion weapon, the Y-Wing. Unfortunately it’s just too vulnerable to, well, anything that shoots it, to be a main stay of most lists. Ion isn’t nearly as consistent as it once was to invest in. There is also not a lot of Jam (Upsilon Shuttle aside) and tractor whats? Fangs are back : Learn to range control those proton torps and factor in that only one ship has a trajectory simulator option and the Fangs are back. Fenn Rau is excited for hyperspace, if anyone can knock that Poe chap down a peg or two it’s the leader of Skull Squadron.

: Learn to range control those proton torps and factor in that only one ship has a trajectory simulator option and the Fangs are back. Fenn Rau is excited for hyperspace, if anyone can knock that Poe chap down a peg or two it’s the leader of Skull Squadron. Co-Ordinators are going to be super valuable : well, they already are, but as they are available in reduced quantities in Hyperspace to Extended game mode they are even more important.

: well, they already are, but as they are available in reduced quantities in Hyperspace to Extended game mode they are even more important. Big Ships are probably still not all that great: Falcons have struggled, the Upsilon Shuttle is a bit of a slug, and only the Starfortress looks worth investing in to me, but even that is likely to get torn to pieces by aces and swarms.

So anyway, there’s some musings and some thoughts, they may be right, they may be wrong, but the process of writing this has helped me work out what I’ll be flying at hyperspace events. Hopefully reading it has given you some pointers about what you’re going to go.

Next Time: CLOSING OUT 2018

If you’re looking for X-Wing events to go and play at then head over to the 186th Tournament Calendar.