Lit Fantasy Flight Games and the Star Wars TCG

Yeah tomorrow - it's 1 May here but obviously not there.

Their Twitch should be live streaming it.

 

Hmm... if I get a Dornean gunship and U-wing combo pack, I'll be beyond stoked!

If it is jumping into the Sequel Trilogy era... I'll be equally excited!

--Adm. Nick

 

yeah I'll be keen to see where they go next with the RPG too. They're somewhat era bound to OT/ST because of the mechanics of Force users - to make them badly written, one-dimensional space wizard ninja Jedis like the prequels you need to reconsider on a fundamental level the way in which Force Ratings are handed out. Plus padawans, in the prequels, aren't starting characters. So they can't, thankfully, do the awful prequel era easily.

There are therefore two options - more adventures for each of the three games, or more sourcebooks a la Dawn of Rebellion. My money is on the latter, looking at the post-ROTJ era and the birth of the resistance. But, with the new show coming, that could also be a little while off.

 

Reaper expansion looks sweet

 

Oh Eagle. I thought they were releasing the SSD Reaper for Armada.

Sigh

 

I cannot believe they'll do an SSD sorry. Wouldn't fit the playmat.

 

Ender. I believe that too.

Doesn't change the fact, that when I saw Reaper, I thought of Reaper.

Now shoo. I never said I wanted a dose of truth or reality.

I'm my own Eeyore and wet blanket.

 

[Ralph Wiggum] I'm helping! [/Ralph Wiggum]

 

//Krennic voice//

"Oh...it's beautiful."

 

I still like the idea of releasing a SSD as the playmat, for X-Wing. Though I admit I haven't bothered to crunch the numbers on how much sense it would make (not that that should necessarily even matter).

 

So... yeah... X-wing 2.0. Interesting.

Oh, and live link to the stream - I can't make it work!

 

What a let down. Only X-wing 2.0 announced, they billed the event as one to discuss their "games", not just one game.

--Adm. Nick

 

It is a big announcement though, because it's taking a hugely popular CMG and doing a rewrite on the rules. This has been popular...

//checks notes

Almost never in history because of the sunken cost associated with out of date models. FFG address this via the FAQs:

What about my existing ships?

X-Wing Second Edition offers full backwards compatibility with the ships from the game’s first edition. Conversion kits available at launch will allow you to bring your entire collection of Rebel Alliance, Galactic Empire, and Scum and Villainy ships into the game’s second edition. These kits contain everything you need to build your own custom X-Wing Second Edition squadron, including new ship cards, tokens, upgrade cards, and maneuver dials. What’s more, all of these ships will be fully supported by the X-Wing squad builder app upon launch. Follow these links for more information about the conversion kits for the Rebel Alliance, Galactic Empire, and Scum and Villainy factions.

How many ships does each Conversion Kit convert?

The number of ships supported (by maneuver dials included) in each Conversion Kit are:

Rebel Alliance Conversion Kit

3 – A-wing
2 – ARC-170
2 – Auzituck Gunship
2 – B-wing
2 – E-wing
2 – Ghost
2 – HWK-290
2 – K-wing
2 – Millennium Falcon
2 – Phantom I
2 – Phantom II
2 – Sabine’s TIE Fighter
2 – U-wing
2 – X-wing
2 – Y-wing
2 – YT-2400
4 – Z-95 Headhunter

Galactic Empire Conversion Kit

2 – Alpha-class Star Wing
3 – Inquisitor’s TIE
2 – Lambda-class Shuttle
2 – TIE Advanced
3 – TIE Aggressor
3 – TIE Bomber
2 – TIE Defender
4 – TIE Fighter
3 – TIE Interceptor
2 – TIE Phantom
2 – TIE Punisher
3 – TIE Striker
3 – VT-49 Decimator

Scum and Villainy Conversion Kit

2 – Hound’s Tooth
2 – HWK-290
2 – IG-2000
3 – Kihraxz Fighter
2 – Kimogila Fighter
4 – M3-A Interceptor
2 – Mist Hunter
3 – Protectorate Starfighter
2 – Punishing One
3 – Quadjumper
2 – Scurrg H-6 Bomber
2 – Shadow Caster
2 – Slave I
2 – StarViper
2 – Y-wing
4 – Z-95 Headhunter​

So to play your older ships you still need to spend cash to convert them to the 2.0 compliant format. Understandably there's some negative reactions on the FFG Facebook page.

They're also splitting Resistance and First Order into new factions:

What is happening with the Resistance and First Order ships from the game’s first edition?

Rather than remain as sub-factions of the Rebel Alliance and Galactic Empire, the Resistance and the First Order are being expanded into their own fully-fledged factions for X-Wing Second Edition. They will not be included in the Rebel and Imperial conversion kits. Instead, both factions will have their own conversion kits when they are reintroduced to the game during the second wave of expansions.​

You do get some pretty art on the announcement page:

 

Very mixed about X-wing 2.0- some bits I like, some I'm unsure about. I'm really going to need more information before deciding one way or another

 

I'm annoyed that I'll have to spend $200 just to keep playing the game with the factions I fly, but this hopefully streamlines the game and fixes a few things that had been difficult to patch before. The Jumpmaster was ALWAYS broken, and turrets needed the mobile firing arc thing. We're also getting Inferno Squad, which cancels my evening plans of trying to make custom cards for those guys.

Also, my goodness that is some pretty artwork.

 

Well the base set was I think US$60 for XW2.0; the conversion kits I didn't see price listed though?

 

As Anakin thought in the Revenge of the Sith novel ....I guess there's no accounting for taste.

 

$40 for the starter like the old ones, $50 per conversion kit is what I saw discussed elsewhere.

 

The conversion kits seem like the best approach but the problem when the two factions have too many ships is that the kit has to cater to about a million variant ship collections. Instead it's a one size for all. Unfortunately that size isn't good for my collection. Speaking in terms of just the ship components, half of the kit contents are useless to me and the other half isn't enough to cover what I have. Looking at the Rebel kit for example, out of the 37 ship parts provided, 14 I can't use at all and a further 7 are extras. That's a lot of excess stuff for $50. To add to that issue, having a standard 2x ship regardless of the size is bonkers to me, and so I'll need to buy another kit (or find them on ebay) for the extras that I do need. The upgrade cards are another big question. There will apparently be over 100, but how are they split over the kits, how many duplicates, etc.

Not sure I even like the new card designs either to be honest.

 

See if you can find a local X-Wing group on social media. My gang down around Harrisburg already has a pretty active swap and trade scene going.

 

I know there will be a lot of pushback on the idea of X-Wing 2.0, because of money spent to date, but I think if you've played any form of miniatures game in the past, be it metal wargaming minis or CMGs, you know that evolution renders part or all of sets obsolete. It's just the effect of a living game; things change so much that the game isn't what it was, with no fault on anyone's end, and it needs to reboot. I would submit based on everything to date, FFG have not demonstrated a history of taking its customer base for granted and would be deserving of the benefit of the doubt.

 

FFG RPG question: If you're running an Edge of the Empire/Age of Rebellion and a player who's started out in a non-Force career decides that they also want their character to become Force sensitive after the fact (such as buying one of the universal Force user specializations from those core books), are you also suppose to give them the Morality mechanic from the Force and Destiny materials as well, or does that only apply to characters who start out Force sensitive (like for example a player who choses a Sentinel career?).

 

The problem is that say Warhammer, the models are the primary game pieces- where the physical model and how it is built (and sometimes colored) determines the gameplay function, and when there is an update, you justy need to replace the various rule books. With X-Wing, the models are honestly just pretty placeholders- the dials, cardboard bases, cards, and upgrade cards are all the actual game elements, not the models themselves.

For me personally, having played and owned X-Wing from the original starter, instead of a couple of books being invalidated, it's several binders of cards, dials, and bases.

FFG already has the problem that the mix of upgrade cards and models meant that to get the best results out of an individual ship, one needed to purchase multiple other ships for the upgrade cards, pushing for completionism in a game with multiple factions. And now all of those upgrades are gone. For a game marketed as a miniatures game, this is basically all the old cards being rotated out like Magic sets instead.

And they didn't bother to announce anything for the other games, especially Armada, which is in limbo right now.

 

Your call. The mechanic doesn't mesh well with the Duty/Obligation ones, and the intent was not to include it with those universal specs. However, if the player wants to, why not?

 

FFG's official Twitch has the X-Wing World Championship final on it. I'm halfway through the match - Jelte de Boer of the Netherlands (Hup Holland Hup!) vs Simeon Dellapina of the UK. Jelte is running an Imperial squad - Lambda, Inquisitor's TIE, FO TIE vs the IG88B and C of Simeon.

I'm thinking

Spoiler

Simeon

will win it...