There's a great disturbance in the midichlorians of X-Wing 2.0

Games
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X-wing 2.0 is here! And it is good. Launch week was a series of events, which in Portland has meant that I’ve had the chance to go to a different store every night.

It plays very differently. Even flying old favorites is such a different experience. The Phantom feels unique, and Whisper with Vader crew is a nasty piece of work. The space cow can really unlock shenanigans. The x1 is not just Vader, a 55 point Marek is a viable component. TIE swarms are everywhere, X-wings are strong, Luke may be the best pilot in the game, the HWK is a legitimate powerhouse.

But nobody knows what they’re doing. Games take longer these days because slight rules changes make some interactions hard to parse in early days. What happens if you coordinate an ioned ship? When multiple ships have actions ‘at the beginning of Engagement phase’ what happens? Wait, so my ship doesn’t have the evade action anymore, hold on.

But the crowds have been strong, and the games have been interesting. So far the balance seems pretty good, as most things I’ve seen have at least been competitive matches.

Except the two Arc-170’s and an X-wing against a Howl/Iden swarm. That… was not good. Sorry Arc, you are in contention for the worst ship early days.

Now excuse me, I’m going to futz around with the list builder. I’ve got an idea for a Seventh Sister list…

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Hey is that the ship that whatshisname from the Jedi Knight games flew next to the Y-Wing?

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Yup, the HWK-290 from Dark Forces. And it was… not good in 1st edition. Outside of Jan and Kyle Katarn having amazing abilities, it never saw play.

It is probably the most improved ship for 2.0. It got better, and cheaper.

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This looks so cool! That makes me want to get a core set to play with my kid and nephews. But knowing FFG, getting just a core set is going to set me up for a bare bone gaming experience. Do you think I should get 2 core sets or get a core set and mix it with other expansions?

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If 1.0 was any indication, getting a core set and a few expansions is likely the better pick as you’ll get greater card variety, with a second core set being more valuable for padding out your ship count at a later time (i.e. getting three ships for less than the price of three separate expansions after you already have all the different cards to use with them).

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So @Otagan is right, variety is the spice of the game. One X vs two TIEs would get old, even if you doubled those numbers. Plus it’s not particularly balanced that way, Luke is very very good.

So really a few expansions is the way to go. Though there is a third, potentially better, option. With 2.0 many people are selling part, or even all, of their collections. They’ve shuffled factions a bit and so some people have ships they can’t use without going into more factions than they want/ are willing to buy. The Firespray (Boba Fett’s ship) launched Imperial, but the Scum faction didn’t exist. In 2.0 they’re making it Scum only, so pure Imperial players either can’t use it or have to get Scum as well. The Resistance and First Order are being separated into their own distinct factions now as well, no more Kylo Rem and Darth Vader pairing up.

So a lot of people are selling factions and ships they can’t use. Search e-Bay and local stores and you can probably find used lots of ships for cheap. Then the conversion kits can be used to bulk convert 1.0 ships. The trick is the conversion kits are $50. They’ll convert 30 some odd ships each, if you maximize them, but you can see where this goes.

So it’s a question of how far down the rabbit hole. More ships, more ship types, equals more variety of squads, which makes the game better. But it can become a big initial outlay. As for core sets the only reason to get two is for the dice, mostly. However it is also a decent price for three ships, but just note Imperials can field up to 8 TIEs in a standard 200 point game.

What I really reccomend is finding a local store with an X-wing game night and tells them what you’re thinking. They’ll almost certainly share some tips, and ships with you, for the night. Teach you the ropes. Also it’d be a great way to find someone trimming their collection, maybe dropping Rebels for Scum and Imperials.

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Thanks guys! I’ll get a core set first and see whether I’d enjoy it with my family. Luckily 2.0 is so new I can just gradually add on expansions from either Rebel or Empire factions as I see fit to add spices to the game.

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But, seriously, find a local store with a regular X-wing night. Say ‘I like this ship, would you mind letting me fly one tonight’ and I guarantee they will. Name a ship, name a pilot, and someone will br more than happy to let you ‘test fly’ it.

Yesterday I flew someone who just had a core set, so I hooked him up with an additional X-wing and a Y-wing and loaded them out. Luke, Wedge, and Dutch did a Death Star fight against a group of TIE’s, a Lambda, and TIE Advanced. And I walked him through what his ships could do. It worked out great. And most people, I’ve found, will be more than willing to do the same.

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I have a 1.0 collection that I plan to purge. A lot of stuff. The game didn’t hit the table enough without kids around.

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Calling @Nightgaunt. I saw he has X-Wing v1 and curious if you’ve followed this/ considering an upgrade. I’ve got a bunch of v1 myself and it got very unwieldy trying to play with my nieces/nephew. Curious if it’s a bit easier to play, or if there are even more exceptions etc that make playing with non-professional gamers means having to keep their noses buried in rules.

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The answer is a bit mixed. They streamlined and made more consistent the nomenclature. For example anything red gives you a stress. Red maneuver? Stress. Red action (linked actions are now a thing, and some ships get red actions alone for things they can do but are less good at like Dash’ barrel roll)? Stress. All round tokens go away at the end of the round, all square ones stay until a game condition clears them. There’s less ultra modded dice, and less persistent card combos in general. Finals are easier to read due to the redesign, so you see all moves at once when setting the dial. There are quick build threat cards, which rank a ship from one to five threat, that allow you to get a prebuilt ship flying without messing with list building. Set a target, say five or eight threat to a side, and have at it.

There are charges for things like force and munitions with consistent iconography. Shoot a torpedo, spend a charge. No charges, no torpedo. Use the force to do something, flip the force token. If they can recharge, it has an arrow on the card to show it.

360 arcs are gone, now there is a turret indicator, and you can only shoot where it is pointed. Infinite regen is gone. TLT is gone. Ships have generally less shields and more hull. Running ships without upgrades is not only possible, but downright viable. Soontir Fel with no upgrades was unfathomable in 1.0, but downright solid in 2.0.

Ships now frequently have unique abilities, but these are printed directly on the ship cards. You can fail actions if you don’t meet the conditions, such as range. Ships may have different attack values out of different arcs. The bullseye are is a thing.

So the TL;DR is it didn’t get less complex really, but it did get more consistent. From a holistic ‘these ships can do these things’ it did, as unique ship abilities are a significant impact. But from the on the table experience, it got simpler and more understandable in the discrete match setting.

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I haven’t ended up playing enough of X-Wing to consider 2.0. My kids liked the more tactile miniatures and shoot-dad-out-of-the-sky gameplay for awhile, but didn’t call it back to the table much.

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Oh good, just enough time has passed for me to again forget that this thread is about the board game and not a sequel to one of my favorite space sims ever.

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Well it is about one of my favorite physical games ever so…

Though I also have a find place for the video game, and it has a not small part in my affection here. And many who play. To this day the thread for GUNBOAT is either the most popular, or second most popular, threads on the entire FFG website.


Gunboat!

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Sorry if this has been asked before but whats the cost for entry for 2.0?

Say i want a decent/flexible set for both sides, couple star destroyers and comparable calamari deals plus fighters and misc.

$200? $600?

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Well… your question is unanswerable. Nothing bigger than the Tantive IV (Leia’s ship in ANH) exists in the game. It is one of 5 ships categorized as ‘epic’. Including the GR-75 transport for rebels, and the Gozanti carrier for Empire.

But that format is not supported in 2.0 yet, and may not be.

So if you want Mon Calimari cruisers, ISD’s, and the newly announced Executor SSD then Armada is thataway.

X-wing is a dogfight game, with the largest ships in 2.0 being the VCX-100 from Rebels and the VT-49 Decimator for Empire. Basically frigate class and below. And the answer is… it depends. Right now more so than ever.

The core set is $40, and is the minimum needed. Individual ships run $20 (though stock of 1.0 ships are $15, more on that later). Large ships like the Falcon run $30-40.

So the question depends on what faction you want to play. In 1.0 I could set you up for a single faction with reasonable variety for $100. Dual faction $150-200. That’s a bit harder in 2.0 at the moment due to there being a limited number of ships individually in 2.0.

However there are conversion kits. They run $50 each and are single faction. So Empire only is core + conversion + ships. Or just but 2.0 ships (basically just TIE fighters and Vader’s TIE Advanced x1 currently). So if you wanted to play the breadth of Imperial ships today? That’s $90 plus ships. Yikes. But possibly not much more as 1.0 ships are easily gotten at steep discount, some for even $5 or less a ship. You might be able to but a complete faction set for a decent price, and jump start to a huge fleet for $50-100 for 20-30 ships.

And really, that’s the rough bit. With so few official 2.0 releases yet it’s either limited fleet or conversion kit + buy old ships. For me, a no brainer. I have a decent collection, get the conversion. And I could probably get you set up for any individual faction for $100 + core set. Each addditional faction another $100. Not as great as it was pre-2.0 where aces packs and combo ships made it easy to get a decent variety for cheaper. Plus the $5 per ship price increase to 2.0.

Anyhow if you were actually interested I could definitely give a more detailed look, and point to the kind of discount fleet jump starts of 1.0 stock to maximize value.

Your other option is get a core set, and visit your FLGS during regular X-wing nights and I’m sure that you can find someone willing to lend you everything you need to run any ship. Just say ‘I’m new and would like to try flying a list with the Falcon/ Slave 1/ Defender/ Interceptor/ insert favorite ship here’ and I can almost guarantee that someone will lend you a list and all the ships you need.

All you’d need is the tokens dice and rulers from the core set.

That way you can decide if you want to do more. And that way when and if you jump that rabbit hole you’ll know what ships you really want.

Other than all of them, naturally.

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Oh, and for reference, here is a comparison.

Armada

X-wing

Armada you set maneuvers several turns in advance (the bigger the ship, the more turns) while X-wing is more reactive. Strategy vs tactics, really. X-wing also seems to have a larger and more active community, and lower cost of entry (Armada core is $90-100).

Also in armada? See those little things? Those are squadrons of fighters. To give you the scale.

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Oh im sorry, totally got the two confused.

Please disregard and thanks for your answer.

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I’d buy a few Gunboats (or Avengers) if they ever released them. They’re the only models I’d want that aren’t actually floating around out there.

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Yeah, they’re going for crazy money on the secondary market these days. $50? No thanks. It’s as bad as Y-wings were last year.