Fantasy Flight recently release the first information about the much anticipated, much speculated about third faction for X-Wing:

Scum and Villainy are coming to a galaxy near you soon.

Existing players, prepare your fleets for engagements against new ships with entirely new moves and abilities. Undecided players, get off the fence – if the light side of the Force was too lawful-good and the Dark side a little too lawful-evil, you now have the option of a chaotic-neutral faction.

Plus Boba-Fett’s just got a lot cooler.

Four separate expansion packs introduce the galaxy’s Scum to X-Wing:

Most Wanted Expansion Pack StarViper Expansion Pack M3-A Interceptor Expansion Pack IG-2000 Expansion Pack

Note that one of the above (the IG-2000) is a fairly small ship on a large base, which is new to X-wing. Let’s have a closer look at what’s coming, starting with the man himself:

Boba Fett

Boba already exists in X-Wing, but as an Imperial faction option. The problem is that it’s not a well-kept secret that his ability is alright for the price but nothing special, and the other Firespray pilots like Kath Scarlet and Krassis get a lot more use.

(Tournament players are probably aware of the same issue with Luke Skywalker – Luke’s above average survivability is not nearly enough to make him as popular as Bigg’s with his ‘Kick Me!’ ability to draw enemy fire to himself)

Comparing the old and the new:





When attacking or defending you may reroll 1 of your dice for each enemy ship at Range 1.

How good is that? For a ship likely to be stuck in the middle of things, firing from either front or rear arcs this is extremely good. In fact it’s good enough to consider smashing Boba into a swarm of enemies and using it as an alternative to the actions he’d miss out on from the impact.

The observant will have noticed Scum Boba has also gained an additional Scum upgrade slot (it’s the galactic credit symbol 7) while keeping all the ones Imperial Boba has.

Most Wanted

Perhaps the most surprising thing about the new “Most Wanted” pack is that it doesn’t come with any new ships at all. This pack instead has three ships from the Rebel stables: a Y-Wing and two Z-95 headhunters in alternate Scum paint themes.

A lot of players already have Y-Wings and Z-95s, but if you’re wondering why you’d want to pick up this pack the answer is in the huge variety of cards, characters, dials, tokens and upgrades it comes with. This is not a games company gouging its customers IMHO, this is a value pack for quick entry to the ranks the most wretched hive of scum and villainy.

One Y-wing miniature with an alternative, Scum-themed paint scheme

Two Z-95 Headhunter miniatures with Black Sun paint schemes

Four Scum faction Firespray-31 ship cards

Four Scum faction HWK-290 ship cards

Six Scum faction Y-wing ship cards

Six Scum faction Z-95 Headhunter ship cards

Nineteen upgrade cards

Maneuver dials and tokens for your Scum Firespray-31, HWK-290, Y-wing, and Z-95 Headhunters

Scum also get access to a new kind of droid upgrade called the Salvaged Astromech.

A final note is that while access to Headhunters give Scum a way to get a cheap, reasonably durable blocking ship into their lists, their brand new M3-A Interceptor can do a similar job, but access to Y-Wings mean this faction starts with a hardy, cheap turret platform.

Even at first glance, this faction looks likely to possess an excellent blend of Rebel and Imperial abilities, and shake the meta-game up.

New Ship: StarViper

This is a 3 shot, 3 evade, 4 hull 1 shield ship at a decent price. Information about it is still limited, but I am a fan of the fact that it has barrel roll and boost (a virtual equivalent of the expensive engine upgrade) built in.

This is going to be extremely maneuverable and should really appeal to players who focus on positioning.

The PS7 Starviper pilot is Prince Xizor, and his ship card could open up some really interesting builds. He’s sort of an anti-Biggs, and I can envision pairing him up with low-evade ships with lots of cheap hull/shields like a Y-Wings. Do you shoot the 3 evade pilot who can palm off a hit anyway or shoot the chunky 1 evade ship with loads of hull to get through and risk facing a StarViper in the late game?

New Ship: M3-A Interceptor

Every faction now gets a cheap ship, and this is the Scum’s one. The statline puts it almost on par with a Tie Fighter, both have 2 attacks, 3 evade and 3 hit points, although the M3-A’s hit points are slightly superior as 2 Hull 1 Shield is better than 3 hull.

(The difference is larger than you might think; basically the Tie is twice as likely to take a crit during its lifetime, as the M3-A ignores the crit effect of the 1st hit it takes (because of the shield) and the 3rd hit (because… well work it out for yourself).

I’ve not seen a points cost, but with slightly better survivability, the focus, barrel roll and evade like a Tie Fight AND target lock like an Xwing, the basic PS2 version of this ship should be in the region of 14 points.

New Ship: IG-2000



This is a unique, characterful and extremely well-designed ship.



The IG-2000 is a ship piloted by droids like IG-88, and FF have created something both special and appropriate for its rules.

‘Because IG-88 had no need for life support systems and no reason to fear the gravitational effects of maneuvers that would kill organic pilots, the majority of the space within the IG-2000 was devoted to engines and weapon systems, making the starfighter every bit as fearsome as its ruthless pilot.’

The first practical effect of that is that it gets a new move called Sengor’s Loop that allows the pilot to throw the ship around with reckless abandon.

That is a K-Turn with a twist.



The second unique feature of this ship is that all IG-2000’s in your fleet can share a single mind. They all operate at PS6, and with the addition of the (free!) IG-2000 title card every one of them gets to use the effects of every pilot ability they have between them.

It’s a terrific implementation of an electronic hive-mind, and makes it almost certain that fleets have have an IG-2000 will feature several to cash in on this effect – provided of course that the points value allow this, as the most expensive is 36pts so there’s not much leeway if they intend 3 ship fleets.

This is likely to be another great release from Fantasy Flight, and I can’t wait to get my hands on it.

In the words of Lando Calrissian, “Shut up and take my money”.

-Matt