There is a lot that has been said about 2.0 and I’m going to look at some of the things that have come up in recent weeks and seeing how creditable I think they actually are. All opinion inevitably to be proved wrong in the months to come so feel free to agree or disagree, this is just how I see things.

Swarms are King

Initially I fell into the trap of thinking that TIE Swarms are going to rule the roost in the early game of 2.0. Great squad synergy, a lot of red dice and a fair bit of health to chew through. However I now don’t think this is the case at all.

Every list I have looked at I’ve always had the question “how does it handle a swarm” in the back of my head, and the more things I look at the more things I think can do a great job of it. For a start any ship with a Tragectory Simulator and a Proton Bomb is going to be a deeply upsetting sight for a swarm player.

There are a lot of ships that can make a swarms life hard (hello Boba, 4 TIE Punishers with Traj Sim and Protons) and with the variety of swarms on display they are going to make each others lives hard. They’re certainly going to be good. Not sure they are going to be kings.

Learn how to fly them, then learn how to fly against them. (A lot more on this coming soon…)

Bombs are Bad Now

You may know where they are in the systems phase, but can you avoid them?

Emon is very much going to be a thing, with a wide configurations of build. Nym can still hold a bomb, Punishers essentially have perma bombs. Remember when people got fed up with infinite bombs from the bomblet generator? Well I hate to break it to you, but the punishers can do that with proton bombs.

With variance (to be discussed later) potentially going up a lot guaranteed damage becomes even more valuable. Bombs are going to be good from the off. Where Rebels were the bombers of the game in 1.0, 2.0 looks like Scum are going to be the home of the bombing inclined, or for the more uniform bomber there is the inevitable Imperial Punisher Spam.

Even the most agile of aces (looking at you Soontir) will have to compromise positioning to deal with bombs against a canny opponent.

It’s great that no bomber is going to be able to play with perfect knowledge anymore, Genius is still bust and I can’t believe it’s only ZERO points still. So learn to expect where the bombs are going to be and don’t be there!

Action Economy is Worse

Is it? I mean, we’ve lost Push the Limit, we’ve lost expertise, we’ve lost K4 security droids, and a lot of other things that manufactured action economy. But there are ways around that. You can now have the equivalent of a PS1 TIE Interceptor with Push the Limit. A-Wings can all Barrel Roll Boost. The amount of ships with linked actions means that Push the Limit is essentially baked into most of the ships you would want it on. Bigger ships have crew options galore. I’m opting for Han and Perceptive Co-Pilot on my Marauder titled Slave 1…. sure the fluff might be raging at my decision, but it’s just brilliant. I can boost then get two focus tokens for a stress in a turn before I shoot? Sounds a winner. The ability to fail an action is massive though, so learn to spot that a boost or roll won’t fit before declaring it….

I’m a firm believer that decision making has gone up in importance as one of the key skills at being good at X-Wing because of this. Having to chose where your turret is pointing, having to decide between a re-position and a token. This is a good thing. As was said by Travis Johnson on the 186th Podcast a few weeks ago: more decision points in a game make the game more interesting.

There are ways of making ships more economical, you just have to think about the build AND fly it well to get around this.

Positioning is Everything

This is a bit of a weird one because X-Wing has always been about positioning. In the past it has been a bit more forgiving to bad positioning, with double re-positions, or the ability to token stack to mitigate landing yourself in a bad spot.

Anyone who flew their ships disregarding position as being important in 1.0 probably didn’t win as many games as they would have liked. The lack of 360 turrets is probably the biggest factor in making positioning more important in 2.0 than it was in 1.0, but it was still REALLY important in 1.0.

As has been said before: The most consistent green dice are the ones you don’t have to roll. Almost like that Fly Better thing is a thing….

Too Much Variance

With action economy and positioning becoming more important to manage it is no surprise that dice variance is going to be a thing. We’ve all had the burn of hot dice/cold dice, but we’ve had that with target locks, focuses and evades when they haven’t made a difference. The variance has always been there, it’s just less obvious how to mitigate it now. Alex Birt has been (correctly) labouring this point for a few months when we’ve chatted about things. Yes, you will get the perfect position and blank out, it happens. But 9 times out of 10 if you are getting the perfect position you are likely out flying your opponent so should win that game.

Everyone has a crux roll in a tournament that cost them a game and they remember it with a healthy dose of salt. But you are less likely to remember all the times you got that hot roll that won you a game (meanwhile your opponent vividly remembers it). As people we like to attribute our wins to skill and our loses to luck, abdication of responsibility/patting ourselves on the back, this is pretty much just human behaviour. I’m guilty of it, and I don’t know an X-Wing player who hasn’t done this at one point or another. But learning to evaluate what put you in a place to need the dice roll is a key skill to not making the same mistake again.

Build your list well, fly your list well and you’ll be surprised how often the dice “reward you”. Alternatively we can reminisce about how much we miss Ghost Fenn with Ezra and Maul crew and how much fun that was to fly against….

Control Isn’t a Thing Anymore

Like many of the points above this is a yes and no. Control won’t be as easy anymore. No more R3-A2 stacked with a gunner, no more just taking a stress from things without any say in the matter.

Jam is less brutal than it has been, which is a good thing. Ion can now potentially get a big ship in one turn. Tractor beams are still annoying, and Stress will still piss off your opponent.

Again looking at scum here, because they’re who I’ve paid most attention to, spend a bit of time with 4-Lom (ion cannon, advanced sensors, 0-0-0) and Ventress with Latts, and then the other 50 points or so you have to play with and you can certainly ruin a ships day with a whole bunch of stress, and ion them at the same time. (maybe Dace would be a good third ship in that list).

Control is still there, it is just harder to enact, but has become more valuable because of other changes to the game.

X,Y,Z are so Much Better Now

This one I’ve heard particularly in relation to Guri (I may pay attention to things about Guri more than most other people do though) Yes she is I5 over PS5 which is big, but you’ll still need to arc dodge I6 ships with her or risk them ruining your day. Fenn, Wedge, Soontir, Han, Dengar… I’ve been working on it for months at PS5, I promise it’s not that easy! Guri is one example but there are many others that come to mind, the HWK-290 is another prime example. Just because it looks more powerful doesn’t mean it actually is, those HWK abilities are all harder to trigger than they used to be, a 2 dice gun and improved dial are great, but having to have arc and range to trigger your abilities is much more of a challenge than “Start of combat, you’re at range 2, I steal a focus”.

Remember everything is about context, where does it fit in the game when on the table? How many points will it cost? Compared to 1.0 it might look better when not loaded with stuff, but when you can’t have the upgrades that were there before is it actually going to be better?

Once again we come back to list building and flying. What is better in the hands of one person might not be in the hands of another.

A, B, C are so Much Worse Now

This argument basically goes like the above, but in reverse. However somethings clearly aren’t as potent in 2 as they were in one. Miranda, TIE Phantoms are two clear examples of the “nerf stick” being wielded. The Lancer has taken a hit with it’s auxiliary arcs getting one less dice, but that ship was always more about it’s control and ability to mitigate damage than it’s damage output. Ventress costs a lot but she’s still monstrous when used right.

The main question though, and you need to be answering this honestly, is “Do they maybe deserve a nerf?”. Which leads to a follow up question, “does their new points value reflect their drop in potency?” I think in every case they probably do, and that’s fine, it’s the developers finding balance between good and bust.

Force Users are Bust!

So far my experience on this says very much not. Vader can’t token stack or boost out of arc. Luke still only has 2 agility to modify with his free force token. The Inquisitor has no Focus/Evade/Lock/Autothrusters every turn, which means he is just a 4 health ship with some cool options. Force users are powerful and when the Clone Wars gets a visit in the future it will be interesting to see what the Jedi have to offer, but I really don’t think that they are broken in anyway. They cost a premium in points and the force generally gets used faster than they can generate it.

It will come as no shock to anyone that my thoughts about this are “build your list well, and fly better” and you should be able to handle things.

X-Wing will be More/Less Skilful Than it has Been

There are a whole host of things that go to making up a good X-Wing player. List building, anticipating your opponent, spatial awareness, decision making, the list goes on and on, as Janus Avivson says “Luck is one of my skills”.

I think 2.0 offers a rebalancing on where those skills need to be, whilst making them all more significant in the process. The thing to remember is that you as a pilot are unique. Even if you are using the same list as another person you will use it differently and play differently. 2.0. The human factor is heavily involved in the DNA of 2.0, theoretically every game, even those played against similar lists, should feel more unique. Despite a smaller card pool I think everything looked at should make for a more varied and diverse competitive environment.

The mantra of “flying what you love” has in the past implied that your list isn’t as good, but it’s OK cause you’re flying it for the “right” reasons. Now it looks to me that almost anything can be incorporated into a list that should do well. Some options aren’t as obvious as others but given time I’m pretty sure nearly any list will be able to function well at a tournament, even if it’s not going to be all conquering.

So yeah, go fly what you love and find a way to make it work.

(Except Nymanda. That will never work again.)

Next Time: A PROPER LOOK AT SWARMS

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