We got our hands on one of the new T-65 X-Wing expansions for X-Wing 2.0! Watch the unboxing video and read the accompanying transcript here! Download a complete PDF of the T-65 Expansion contents by clicking here!

What is in the Box?

Inside the box we will find the new miniature with moving S-Foils, ship base, stand and dial connector. For cards we get six pilot cards, five upgrade cards, and two Quick Build cards for the four named pilots in the expansion. We also have the cardboard sheet containing the new dials, base chits, shields, and other tokens.

The New X-Wing Model

The first thing that jumps out at us is the new, beautiful X-Wing model. Now, I know you’re asking, why is this important? Look at this. Look at this. Aside from the new S-Foils, though, honestly there isn’t really much different about the new model. The sculpt looks very similar if not identical to the old one, and it still retains some of the old spotty washing issues of just about every FFG model out-of-the-box. Mine also didn’t sit straight ahead on its peg right away, an issue I have with multiple out-of-the-box X-Wing models. That doesn’t outweigh the positives though, this thing is seriously cool and fun to play with.

Dial Comparison

The new dial for the T-65 X-Wing is a mashup between the old T-65 and the T-70 and gives us X-Wing pilots more options to play with! Every maneuver from the original dial is still present, but we get some new toys in the 3-Speed Tallon rolls and the 2-banks are now blue because very green maneuver is now blue, because colorblind people deserve to play X-Wing too. Inclusion, Yay!

Other than that, it’s pretty standard! It’s worth mentioning the new dial design out of the box sort of mirrors the ethos of the dial upgrade kits, allowing us to see all the maneuvers a ship can perform at once. It does take a little getting used to rotating it from the bottom, and remember that the white indicator at the top chooses your maneuver, not the notch, as before.

Pilot Cards

We get six individual pilots in the new expansion: Wedge Antilles, Thane Kyrell, Garven Dreis, Biggs Darklighter, a Red Squadron Veteran and the lowest Initiative generic, the Blue Squadron Escort. The new X-Wing’s stats are basically what you would expect, but we get one additional hull compared to the original, for 4 hull and 2 shields. Still at 3 attack and 2 agility, the X-Wing also gains the Barrel Roll action on its action bar!

Wedge’s pilot ability remains the same as it was in the original X-Wing: “When you perform an attack, the defender rolls one fewer defense die.” With the exception that now it affects additional dice rolled due to range or obstruction, as 1.0 Wedge only “reduced the defender’s Agility.”

Thane Kyrell makes an appearance at Initiative 5 and his ability states, “While you perform an attack, you may spend one Focus, Hit or Critical Hit result to look at the defender’s facedown damage cards, choose 1, and expose it.” Thane’s ability makes him a finisher to cripple an already hurting enemy ship, although the timing on spending his results is a little nebulous. Does he have to spend uncancelled results after the Neutralize Results step? Or can he do so before the opponent rolls dice? Even so, he is sacrificing outright damage to get a shot at disabling or crippling an enemy fighter. However, there is one terrifying possibility: If a facedown damage card is a Direct Hit, Thane Kyrell could repeatedly expose this card, causing the defender to repeatedly suffer damage until they are destroyed, without doing a single point of direct damage through dice. Thane Kyrell is a very scary pilot.

Red Leader Garven Dreis is now at Initiative 4 with a functionally identical ability to his 1.0 iteration: passing off spent Focus tokens to friendly ships. IT does gain a range extension out to Range 3. Note the language of “Range 1-3.” X-Wing 2.0 introduces “Range 0” to denote yourself and ships you are touching, so “Range 1-3” does in fact exclude Garven, since unlike 1.0, a ship is no longer at Range 1 of itself, but Range 0 instead.

Biggs Darklighter in 2.0 is an Initiative 3 pilot in 2.0. His ability states, “While another friendly ship at Range 0-1 defends, before the Neutralize Results step, if you are in the attack arc, you may suffer 1 Hit or Critical Hit to cancel one matching result. Pretty much what you would expect, like a more flexible version of 1.0 Draw Their Fire able to soak up hit results as well, but only if you are also able to be attacked.

Finally, we have the 2 generic pilots: the Initiative 2 Blue Squadron Escort and the Initiative 3 Red Squadron Veteran. Basic, dependable, no-frills X-Wings. Keep in mind that we do not know the point costs of these ships until the squadbuilding app releases, and therefore it’s tough to think about their utility in the context of a full squadron.

Upgrade Cards

The T-65 Expansion Pack includes 5 upgrade cards, now standard card size.

The only EPT included with the package is Selfless, which states: While another friendly ship at range 0-1 defends, before the Neutralize Results step, if you are in the attack arc, you may suffer 1 Critical damage to cancel one Critical Hit result. Basically, Draw their Fire from X-Wing 1.0: foisting a critical hit off onto another ship next to you. Note also that this upgrade is restricted to Rebel Only.

There are two Astromech upgrades in the expansion, both of them generic: R4 Astromech and R2 Astromech. R4 Astromech states, “Decrease the difficulty of your Speed 1-2 basic maneuvers. Turns, banks, and straights.” So, red become white and white become blue. This astromech does not, however, explicitly change the color of maneuvers, simply make them one step easier. It also will not affect K-Turns, Tallon Rolls, Segnor’s Loops, or any other “advanced” maneuver that might be introduced. It is also restricted to “Small Ship Only.”

R2 Astromech, once the maneuver-easing specialist, is now a generic shield regeneration droid. Its ability states: “After you reveal your dial, you may spend one Charge and gain one Disarm token to recover one shield.” R2 Astromech comes with 2 Charges to spend, meaning you will be able to regenerate 2 shields over the course of the game. Just like the new R2-D2, you have to gain a Disarm token to complete this regen, though – meaning you cannot regenerate and be firing, requiring you to make choices about when to recover your shields.

A new version of Ion Torpedoes is included in this expansion. It states: “Attack, Target lock: Spend 1 Charge. If this attack hits, spend 1 hit or Critical Hit result to cause the defender to suffer one damage. All remaining Hit and Critical hit results inflict Ion tokens instead of damage.” It has icons on the card denoting that it can be fired only in the forward firing arc, at range 2-3. The little red Missile icon next to the range also indicates that the munition ignores range bonuses. It also has 2 Charges, so you can fire 2 Ion missiles per game. This torpedo reveals how assigning ion tokens will work in 2.0: The first uncancelled result inflicts damage, and any subsequent ones inflict ions. This means that it is possible for an ion weapon to hit and hot inflict any ion damage at all – or hit and inflict 3 Ion tokens in one shot, in the case of this torpedo.

Finally, we have Servomotor S-Foils. Servomotor S-Foils is limited to T-65 X-Wing only and has two sides, open and closed. When the S-Foils are open, there is no additional effect – the ship performs exactly as written on the card. Before you activate, you may flip the S-Foils to the closed position. This adds the boost action to the action bar, and also gives the X-Wing the ability to take a Focus action and link it to a red Boost action – meaning it will gain a stress if it executes this chain. This comes at the cost of rolling one fewer attack die on a primary weapon attack, but not a secondary weapon. Once again, when the X-Wing activates, the pilot may flip the S-Foils card back to the open position.

Quick Build Cards

One of the new listbuilding features of 2.0 is the Quick Build cards. When creating your squadron, you can either use the app to free-build to a predetermined points cost, or you can use these quick build cards to build to a predetermined “threat level.” There is one Quick Build for each named X-Wing pilot with associated upgrades, and a threat level for each one. Both Thane Kyrell and Wedge Antilles are Threat 3, and Biggs and Garven are Threat 2. So, if my friends and I wanted to play a Threat 8 game, I could pick any three of those pilots! For example, Wedge, Thane and Biggs add up to Threat 8. Interestingly, these Quick Builds contain upgrade cards that are not included with the basic expansion, such as Outmaneuver, Afterburners, Proton Torpedoes, Elusive, and Shield and Hull Upgrades. I would assume these upgrades are included in the core set and/or the 2.0 conversion kits. It is also possible that all the cards will be accessible in the app, and you will only have to input that you are flying Thane Kyrell into the app to bring up all those cards. Once you become more familiar with the cards, too, you could play with them from memory and not have to look at (or get out) any of the upgrades, making for a quick-to-setup game.

I have to say, I am not a fan of having Quick Builds with upgrades not included in the package. Unless, of course, they are included in the core set as well so everyone is guaranteed to have them. I also wish that there would be Quick Builds included for generic pilots as well, but that’s a minor gripe.

New 2.0 Bases

I do want to take a moment and talk about the new cardboard bases of X-Wing 2.0, using this one as an example. Note that all stat information is removed from the base except for Initiative. The primary firing arc is exactly the same size and shape as the firing arc in X-Wing 1.0, but gains the Bullseye firing arc, for the purpose of many card effects. Additionally, each base now has several white lines on its base, used for different purposes. Every ship now has a marked rear arc and side arcs, even if they cannot typically fire from those arcs. Lines also divide the base into quadrants and are used for aligning the base during bumping along the new lines on 2.0 templates. Finally, the lines on the side are used for aligning the barrel roll templates under the new, restricted 2.0 rules for barrel rolling. To conclude, there is more granularity to the base which allows every ship to refer to different arcs, quadrants, and more without introducing special and wordy language on cards or needing to print specialized bases.

To print and proxy the 2.0 X-Wing, Print the PDF!