Begun the Clone Wars Have

Wave III for X-Wing 2.0 is now available. They even dropped the points lists a day ahead of time which was very nice. That’s my only issue with the variable point figures. If you’re pre-ordering a new wave, you’re not really sure how many you might want if you don’t know the points. You can, technically, fly five Jedi fighters apparently. But if you only wanted the 7B’s you can only field three.

Sticking with Republic, the Aethersprite comes into the game with both configurations being a variable cost, something we haven’t seen before. Since configurations, like S-foils, have been mostly about chassis abilities it’s a little odd that they went this route. It’s not a huge change, at least not for the 7B. Just one point per initiative value. And because the lowest Init is the Jedi Knight at 3, it’s really only a 4 point spread. The Calibrated Laser Targeting has a wider 6pt spread but that is appropriate given that it’s not very useful on a Jedi Knight but potentially amazing on Anakin.

I have to say, the Aethersprites are far more fun to fly than I anticipated. The Fine-Tuned Controls ability makes them incredibly slippery. And it’s all stress-free.

The V-19’s are an Odd Ball (pun intended). At 25pts, the Gold Squadron Trooper feels right. A little pricier than a Z-95 and trades two shields for three hull, a worse dial but a better action bar. Their top pilot is 13pts more expensive than their cheapest. I was not expecting to like these guys at all and I’m still only lukewarm on them. But for 25pts, they’re a reasonable filler. And a 32pt Dedicated escort as protection for you Jedi they aren’t to bad.

The ARC was a surprise. Half of them are under 50, which means you can easily manage four with named pilots among those four. And good named pilots. Jag, Sinker and some Squad Seven’s play nicely with group buffs and all being Init 3. Their special Seventh Fleet Gunner is a bit on the pricey side but for good reason. Four four-dice opening salvo attacks would be crazy.

Overall, the price gap between cheapest generic and the rest of the pilot for all of the Republic is larger than most others. For some, the Jedi in particular, this is reasonable given you’re gaining more Force for those points as well as Init and pilot ability. The V-19’s though, most of their named pilots just feel too expensive. Even the next generic with a 4pt cost increase feels like too much. Ironically, the TIE pilots, whose most expensive pilots are a whopping 17pts more expensive than the cheapest, do feel worth it.

Getting into the Separatists, damn those Vulture droids are cheap. Appropriately given how fragile they are with only three health and two agility. You can fly eight with Energy Shell Charges and a few points to spare. That’s a 24 dice opening salvo, assuming you don’t lose any before they get to fire. Which, would be pretty likely. You face off against a three-ship list and you’re almost definitely losing one, possibly up to three.

I was not originally interested in the Belbullab. I think it’s a pretty ugly ship personally. But looking at it inconjunction with Impervium Plating and it has potential to be pretty hardy. Just discarding two Ship crits (which are the majority of Crits). No more Direct Hit for the kill. They are also quite nicely costed at 37 for a generic. Captain Sear with a Vulture swarm could be quite nasty. It’s a good thing Grievous is Init 4 because him at Init 6 with Outmaneuver would be evil.

The Sith Infiltrator seems reasonably priced in the 50’s. Compare it to a Firespray and it’s got a bigger base, less action, less agility and no rear arc for 13pts less. Darth Maul will be interesting. With Palpatine and Dooku onboard, thanks to two crew slots, you can have 5! Force. Course, you’re going to burn through that fast. It actually makes me consider getting two so I could run Palpatine on the other ship to help Maul recover two Force a turn and get bonus actions. You could do Maul + Dooku (w/Palpatine onboard) + 3 Vulture droids. Or two Vultures and a bunch of upgrades on the Infiltrators. Hmm….

What’s more, the Hyperspace Format was shaken beyond just adding the two new factions. Unexpectedly, several ships, pilots and upgrades have been made Hyperspace legal.

TIE Bomber
TIE Interceptor
B-Wing
RZ-1 A-Wing
Starviper
All the missing U-Wing Pilots
Upgrades- Cassian Andor, Baze Malbus, Cienna Ree, Darth Vader, Dengar, Barrage Rockets, Biohexacrypt, Tractor Beam, Jamming Beam

Some of these ships were due out in Wave IV so that they were added now seems a bit odd. Honestly, I hadn’t even noticed tractor and jamming weren’t in hyperspace. Granted, there weren’t a lot of ships with cannons slots.

I wonder if we’ll see some bomber swarms or TIE Interceptor/TIE Striker six three-attack dice swarms?

Do I want to change the list I planned to take to a Hyperspace Trial this weekend? Definitely now that the Init 2 U-wing is available. Since I wasn’t using that Illicit slot it will be good to gain the Init. But what about a B-wing now? Or should I just switch to Starvipers because they’re hella fun?