Last Update: 02/02/2019 with 2.0 Wave 2 and Points Update 1.1.
X-wing 2.0 launches with a wide variety of upgrades carrying over from 1.0. Similar to the guides we did for 1.0, we’re going to start looking at making sense of all of the new upgrades and how they will function in 2.0:
- Ranking– We’re going to rank each card within an upgrade slot. This is an imperfect ranking as the usefulness of any card is mostly determined by how and where you use it. But it’s an easy number to grasp and can serve as a starting point when trying to pick your upgrades.
- Comments- Some general thoughts about how to use this upgrade. If this upgrade had an equivalent in 1.0, we’ll give a few notes about how it plays differently.
- Combos– If there are any noteworthy cards this upgrade combos with it will be noted here. Not all cards have this section.
Other Guides
- Personnel
- Pilot Upgrades
- Ship Upgrades
- Devices (Coming Soon)
- Illicit (Coming Soon)
- Modifications (Coming Soon)
- Sensor (Coming Soon)
- Tech (Coming Soon)
- Weapon Systems
Force Powers
Brand new to 2.0 is the concept of Force-sensitive characters. Aside from gaining the powerful Force token, these characters also gain access to Force Powers, replacing the usual Talent slot. Most of these are real “break the rules” kind of abilities, which is appropriate for the Force.
Pilots with Force Powers
- Rebel
- Ezra Bridger (Attack Shuttle, Sheathipede, TIE Fighter)
- Kanan Jarrus (VCX-100)
- Luke Skywalker (T-65 X-Wing)
- Imperial
- Darth Vader (TIE Advanced)
- Grand Inquisitor (TIE Advanced Prototype)
- 7th Sister (TIE Advanced Prototype)
- Inquisitor (TIE Advanced Prototype)
- Scum
- Asajj Ventress (Lancer Class)
Ranked List
- Hate
- Sense
- Heightened Perception
- Supernatural Reflexes
- Predictive Shot
- Instinctive Aim
Force Powers (listed alphabetically)
Hate (Wave 2)
Cost: 3 points
After you suffer 1 or more damage, recover that many Force.
- Ranking- 1
- Comments
- Take damage, get Force tokens back. This makes spending them on Force on defense a no brainer. Either you avoid damage or get the token back.
- Why ranked number 1? Because it doesn’t cost any Force to use so you’re free to use your Force for other things.
- Note, there are still no official rules about Dark Side as of this writing.
- Combos
- Darth Vader (Pilot)- with three Force tokens and lots of reasons to use them, Vader is often in need of ways to recover Force.
Heightened Perception (Wave 1)
Cost: 3 points
At the start of the Engagement Phase, you may spend 1 Force token. If you do, engage at initiative 7 instead of your standard initiative value this phase.
- Ranking- 3
- Comments
- So far, 2.0 has no upgrades that allow you to change your initiative during the maneuver phase. That form of shenanigans made everything a race for pilot skill in 1.0. Changing shooting order isn’t quite as powerful surprisingly. Still useful though.
- Combos
- Works best on the lower initiative pilots, like Ezra and Inquisitors, as they get the most gain.
Instinctive Aim (Wave 1)
Cost: 2 points
While you perform a special attack, you may spend 1 Force token to ignore the Focus or Lock requirement.
- Ranking- 6
- Comments
- This is essentially Deadeye, except few pilots can take it and you don’t even need a Focus token.
- This is also the first Force power we really see in Star Wars, Luke using it to blow up the Death Star.
- Unlike in ANH, this one really isn’t all that helpful. You could get a shot off with a powerful weapon; but without mods, it’s questionable how worth it would be to shoot said weapon.
- Combos
- Cluster Missiles + Inquisitor. Your second attack is already going to be unmodded, so why not make both attacks unmodded? If you’re facing higher Init pilots, Focus, and use this to get that double missile shot off when it’s opportune.
Predictive Shot (Wave 2)
Cost: 4 points
After you declare an attack, if the defender is in your Bullseye Arc, you may spend 1 Force. If you do, during the Roll Defense Dice step, the defender cannot roll more defense dice than the number of your Hit/Crit results.
- Ranking- 5
- Comments
- Bullseye is hard. Therefore, this works best on a high Init pilot whose better at getting a ship into bullseye.
- Combos
- Anything with two Attack value- Instead of 2 die vs 3, your opponent is never rolling more than you.
Sense (Wave 1)
Cost: 6 points
During the System Phase, you may choose 1 ship at range 0-1 and look at its dial. If you spend 1 Force token, you may choose a ship at range 0-3 instead.
- Ranking- 3
- Comments
- 1.0 Intelligence officer! Only better. This makes it useful for more than just the ship it is attached too, as your other ships gain the benefit of that knowledge.
- This is the first Force power that doesn’t require you to spend a Force token in order to use it. That’s kind of cool.
- Combos
- Now that almost every ship has a reposition action, this is beneficial to everyone. Look at a dial and block or escape.
Supernatural Reflexes (Wave 1)
Cost: 4/4/4/8/16/24/32 points
Before you activate, you may spend 1 Force token to perform a Barrel Roll or Boost action. Then, if you performed an action you do not have on your action bar, suffer 1 damage.
- Ranking- 3
- Comments
- This might be the best Force power but it is also the most expensive. That combined with Sense benefiting the rest of the squad pushed it down to second place. But its still really good.
- Update 1.1- This went from an expensive upgrade on anyone to an affordable upgrade on low Init and an overpriced upgrade on hi Init.
- Combos
Darth Vader. With all of his Force points, and his ability, you can pull some crazy shenanigan level maneuvers.- TIE Advanced Prototype. All the Inquisitors can use this to barrel roll or boost, link to a Focus, take a blue maneuver and then get their regular action to take another maneuver, lock or token stack an evade.
Talents
For all your non-Force sensitive pilots, we have Talent slots. Called Elite Pilot Talents in 1.0, these serve the same function, adding an additional ability to your ship. Other changes from 1.o are almost all named pilots now have access to this slot, as well as a generic pilot for each ship. This makes the slot far more ubiquitous. However, in general, the talents themselves are far less awesome.
Pilots with Talents
- Most pilots beyond the cheapest generic have a Talent slot.
- Exceptions exist, such as the K-Wing and TIE Punisher still lack any Talents.
Ranked List
- Trickshot
- Crack Shot
- Expert Handling
- Juke
- Elusive
- Debris Gambit
- Predator
- Swarm Tactics
- Selfless
- Marksmanship
- Daredevil
- Outmaneuver
- Fearless
- Lone Wolf
- Squad Leader
- Intimidation
- Ruthless
- Saturation Salvo
- Composure
Talents (listed alphabetically)
Composure (Lando’s Millennium Falcon)
Cost: 1 points
Requires: Focus
If you fail an action and don’t have any green tokens you may perform a Focus action.
- Ranking- 19
- Comments
- For a brief time, this talent looked game breaking. Fail a linked red action and gain a focus instead. Fortunately, FFG quickly clarified that this doesn’t work. If you try any linked action you’re going to get the stress, which means no using composure after deliberately failing a boost.
- Useful mainly as a safety talent for newer players who don’t know how to judge barrel rolls/boosts very well.
- Combos
- Quadjumper- Trying to tractor something that is just out of range one sucks. With composure, you could at least get a focus out of it. But, who flies anything but the Init 1 Quads?
Crack Shot (Wave 1)
Cost: 1 points
Charge: 1
While you perform a primary attack, if the defender is in your Bullseye Arc, before the Neutralize Results step, you may spend 1 Charge to cancel 1 result.
- Ranking- 2
- Comments
- A very popular upgrade in 1.o, this version effectively got cheaper and is very similar. Now it requires Bullseye arc and only on primary weapons. Those really limit its effectiveness.
- At one point, it’s still worth throwing on if you have a few spare points. Bullseye is hard but it does happen.
- Combos
- Chopper (Astromech): You can burn some shields and use Chopper to get more than one use out of this card.
- Tomax Bren (TIE Bomber): Tomax can still recover charges on his equipped talents. As Crack Shot is one of the only talents with a charge, it’s still a good choice.
Daredevil (Wave 1)
Cost: 3 points
Requires: White Boost and Small Base
While you perform a white Boost action, you may treat it as red to use the 1 Turn template instead.
- Ranking- 11
- Comments
- Works very similar to 1.o version. Hard one turns after maneuvering can put in you in some cool places.
- I personally would love to pay more for this if it didn’t make the boost red.
- Combos
- Advanced Sensors (Sensor)- Taking a hard 1 before you maneuver allows you to change your angle by 90 degrees before maneuvering. You can also clear that stress you gain if you took a blue maneuver.
Debris Gambit (Wave 1 Conversion Kits)
Cost: 3 points
Requires: Small or Medium Base. Adds Red Evade:
While you perform a red Evade action, if there is an obstacle at range 0-1, treat the action as white instead.
- Ranking- 6
- Comments
- Good for adding evade to ships that don’t otherwise have it.
- Combos
- TIE Aggressor/Attack Shuttle- These ships have Evade as a linked action after a barrel roll. With Debris Gambit, you can link for no stress if you’re near obstacles.
Elusive (Wave 1 Conversion Kits)
Cost: 3 points
Charge: 1
Requires: Small or Medium Base
While you defend, you may spend 1 Charge to reroll 1 defense die. After you fully execute a red maneuver, recover 1 Charge.
- Ranking- 5
- Comments
- 1.o Elusiveness sucked. This is nicer because its effectively cheaper and using it doesn’t stress you.
- It is the only Talent with a Charge that can be recovered but, interestingly, is not technically reoccurring.
- For ships with a lot of red maneuvers, this is a nice addition to add some defensiveness.
- Combos
- Chopper (Astromech)- You can use this to continue to recover shields since the charge is technically non-reoccurring. Works great on Porkins who can recover the charge and ignore the stress.
Expert Handling (Wave 1)
Cost: This upgrade has a variable cost, worth 2, 4, or 6 points depending on if the ship base is small, medium or large respectively.
Requires: Red Barrel Roll.
Adds: White Barrel Roll.
- Ranking- 3
- Comments
- This upgrade is a combination of Expert Handling and Vectored Thrusters from 1.0.
- Combos
- Y-Wings/Kimogila- These ships are small base and have red barrel rolls. Right now, two points for a white barrel roll is the best use of their Talent slot.
Fearless (Wave 1)
Cost: 3
Scum and Villainy only
While you perform a Forward Arc primary attack, if the attack range is 1 and you are in the defender’s Forward Arc, you may change 1 of your results to a Hit result.
- Ranking- 13
- Comments
- This is a noticeable downgrade from 1.0 Fearlessness. That just required your target to be in your attack arc and you to be in their attack arc, neither specifically forward arc. This change makes it useless on anything with a turret or 180 arc.
- 1.0 also added a Hit result, this just changes one die. It is also effectively more expensive.
- This is the Scum theme card, showing them as just a bit crazy and reckless and not someone you want to mess with.
- Combos
- Fang Fighter- Still the best pairing due to Concordia Faceoff. But the combo is expensive.
Intimidation (Wave 1)
Cost: 3
While an enemy ship at range 0 defends, it rolls 1 fewer defense die.
- Ranking- 16
- Comments
- Pretty much identical to 1.0 version. The wording is a little better because it avoids any potential corner cases of a ship gaining green dice that aren’t technically “agility” dice.
- Bumping is surprisingly hard when you want to make it happen. Especially since any ship with a Talent slot is most likely Initiative 3 or higher and bumping is easier the lower the initiative.
- Combos
- Captain Oicunn/Arvel Crynyd- Both of these pilots can perform range 0 attacks.
- Zeb (Crew)- Zeb allows you to perform range 0 attacks.
Juke (Wave 1)
Cost: 5
Requires: Small or Medium Base
While you perform an attack, if you are evading, you may change 1 of the defender’s Evade results to a Focus result.
- Ranking- 4
- Comments
- Pretty much identical to 1.0 version.
- Best used in swarms or in conjunction with something that makes ships burn a Focus (or not ever get a Focus).
- Combos
- TIE Defenders/TIE Phantoms- Both ships have built-in ways to get Evades on top of regular actions, helping them use Juke and modify their attack.
- Palob (HWK-290)- What better way to ensure Juke pushes a damage through then having Palob steal their Focus?
Lone Wolf (Wave 1 Conversion Kits)
Cost: 5
Charge: 1 (reoccurring)
While you defend or perform an attack, if there are no other friendly ships at range 0-2, you may spend 1 Charge to reroll 1 of your dice.
- Ranking- 14
- Comments
- This is terrible compared to 1.0 version. Primarily because you can use it a maximum of once a round, instead of infinite. You can use it on any dice, rather than just blanks though.
- The range restriction from allies combined with the use limit really makes it kind of limited. Multiple charges would be nice. Still only get one back a round but would be more useful for that one important round.
- Elusive is cheaper, has no range restrictions, is not limited but only works on defense and is harder to recharge.
- Combos
- N’dru (Scum Z-95)- Still likes this because his ability has the same range restrictions.
Marksmanship (Wave 1)
Cost: 1
While you perform an attack, if the defender is in your Bullseye arc, you may change 1 Hit result to a Crit result.
- Ranking- 10
- Comments
- Marksmanship was terrible in 1.0. This is much nicer by comparison.
- For one point, you gain better crit chance when you line up bullseye shots. Not something you build around but worth the point if you have it to spare and have no other need for the Talent slot (which is common so far).
- Combos
- Seyn Marana (TIE Fighter)- Seyn’s ability requires crits to trigger. If she can get bullseye, she gets to give you a damage card, almost guaranteed.
Outmaneuver (Wave 1)
Cost: 6
While you perform a Forward Arc attack, if you are not in the defender’s firing arc, the defender rolls 1 fewer defense die.
- Ranking- 12
- Comments
- Very similar to 1.0 version but is more limited.
- Unusable on anything with a turret or 180 arc because, while those can be fired out of the forward arc, they are not Forward Arc attacks.
- Combos
- Guri (StarViper)- With the crazy barrels rolls of StarVipers, they are very good at arc dodging.
Predator (Wave 1)
Cost: 2
While you perform a primary attack, if the defender is in your Bullseye, you may reroll 1 attack die.
- Ranking- 7
- Comments
- This is a shadow of its 1.0 version. The rerolls only work in Bullseye and on primary attacks. But it’s a lot cheaper.
- Despite not being as powerful, this is a good balance for 2.0.
- Combos
- Soontir Fel (TIE Interceptor)- His ability triggers to give him a free Focus when a ship is in Bullseye. Paired with Predator you can boost, barrel roll as actions and then still get rerolls and Focus.
Ruthless (Wave 1)
Cost: 1
Galactic Empire Only
While you perform an attack, you may choose another friendly ship at range 0-1 of the defender. If you do, that ship suffers 1 Hit damage and you may change 1 of your die results to a Hit result.
- Ranking- 17
- Comments
- This is quite a bit different from its 1.o counterpart. Instead of AoE damage potential, it’s an accuracy aid.
- This is the Empire theme card, showing them as determined to do whatever it takes to win.
- It’s a shame the Empire doesn’t have access to Illicit slots because Deadman’s Switch would love this to combo with.
- Combos
- Swarms- Get a bunch of ships with this upgrade, use one to block and then switch out your blocker to spread the damage around.
Saturation Salvo (Wave 1 Conversion Kits)
Cost: 6
Requires Reload
While you perform a Torpedo or Missile attack, you may spend 1 charge from that upgrade. If you do, choose two defense dice. The defender must reroll those dice.
- Ranking- 18
- Comments
- The 1.0 version of this is completely unrelated.
- Burning charges to help push through damage is an interesting mechanic. If it only rerolled one defense die I think it would be pointless but two–now its a consideration.
- Combos
- Limited to TIE Bomber, TIE Punisher, K-Wing, Y-Wing, Kimogila, Andrasta equipped Firespray
Selfless (Wave 1)
Cost: 3
Rebel Alliance Only
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 Crit damage to cancel 1 Crit result.
- Ranking- 9
- Comments
- Essentially Draw Their Fire from 1.0.
- This is the Rebel theme card, placing them as noble heroes looking out for each other.
- Combos
- R2 Astromech- Recover shields that you spent on saving allies from Crits.
Squad Leader (Wave 1)
Cost: 2/4/6/8/10/12/14 based on Initiative
Adds Red Coordinate
While you coordinate, the ship you choose can perform an action only if that action is also on your action bar.
- Ranking- 15
- Comments
- This is in some ways worse than the 1.0 version. You don’t have pilot skill limitations, which means you can throw this on a low Initiative ship, but it does limit what actions you can pass and stresses you.
- Combos
- Tactical Officer (Crew) – Embrace the coordinate.
- HWK-290- It’s a support ship. Now it could coordinate and has a decent selection of actions, only missing Reload, Calculate and Barrel Roll.
Swarm Tactics (Wave 1)
Cost: 3
At the start of the Engagement Phase, you may choose 1 friendly ship at range 1. If you do, that ship treats its initiative as equal to yours until the end of the round.
- Ranking- 8
- Comments
- Same as 1.0.
- Combos
- Howlrunner (TIE Fighter)- Howl likes swarms already.
Trick Shot (Wave 1)
Cost: 2
While you perform an attack that is obstructed by an obstacle, roll 1 additional attack die.
- Ranking- 1
- Comments
- Same as 1.0.
- Great filler Talent as it’s cheap and any ship has the potential to make use of it.
- Combos
- Han Solo (Scum or Rebel pilot)- This really jives with Scum Han’s ability (it’s identical) but Rebel Han likes to hang out near asteroids so has a good chance of triggering it.
- Dash (YT-2400)- Dash also likes to hang out in asteroid fields.
Wayne Basta
Latest posts by Wayne Basta (see all)
- X-Wing Tier List – Rebels - May 10, 2023
