X-Wing 2.5 - First Step into a Larger World

Toward the end of last year, the AMG X-Wing devs dropped a few bombs about upcoming changes to the X-Wing rules. I discussed the upcoming ROAD rules briefly but never got into the broader changes discussed in their next stream, preferring to wait until they were officially announced. Now that we’re here, what’s my hot take? Cautiously optimistic? I’ve tried a few games with parts of these but not the full picture. I like the intention behind them at least. But let’s get into it.

ROAD

I’ve already spoken on this some but to reiterate, Random Order After Dials (ROAD) is the new way of determining initiative. Initiative is rolled for every round, after players have set their dials so they don’t know who moves first. This makes some difficult choices when you’re facing an opponent with the same pilot initiative and are in close proximity. While this can be problematic it adds a needed element to better balance the face off of two aces. No longer will the second player have a tremendous advantage for an entire match.

In games where there is no initiative cross over, ROAD has no impact on the game.

Bumping

Bumping, or overlapping in technical game terminology, has been a tactical element of the game since the beginning. Force your opponent to collide with you and they get no actions and can’t shoot you. Bump your ships into each other, they lose their actions, but they may get to stay in a far more favorable position. All of that’s changing.

Now, if you bump into an opponent, you can still get an action, though it is limited to a red focus/calculate. But you also get to shoot them as range zero shoots are a thing now. This seems like a major change, but thinking closer about it, it’s not that different. Tactical bumping can still be a thing. If you force your opponent to bump you, they did not complete their maneuver, which negates many abilities. They also don’t end up where they wanted to go. And they can’t escape with boost/barrel roll. You two can shoot each other but it’s not range 1. I will always prefer to trade range zero shots with Fenn Rau than range one shots.

The biggest change is bumping into your own ships. Now, instead of annoyance as your formation broke down and you lose actions, it could be disastrous. You have to do damage to yourself. When you screw up, you’re giving your opponent free damage. This will be especially frustrating for newer players. Will it turn them off to the game? Maybe. But if you’re coming into the game with having never played it, running into something and taking damage feels like a natural consequence. For older players, especially swarm players, this will be a greater divide between skill levels. It takes practice to move a 5+ ship group in formation without bumps.

Were these rules needed? On their own, I would say no, but in the greater context of scenarios yes. Tactical self-bumping becomes a major tactic in a situation where you need to control an area of the board. You can still do it, but it has a consequence.

The door is open for new tactics to emerge. Z-95/Fireball Suicide Squad should be fun now that they can bump into each other to trigger a deadman’s switch chain reaction.

Obstacles

Obstacles rules have also been tweaked and generally made more punishing for overlapping them. I like that idea. Obstacles don’t mean anything if there isn’t a downside to flying over or landing on them. Asteroids were always the most severe so the least used. Now, they are still the most damaging, but the loss of your attack from landing on them applies to debris clouds as well, which dramatically changes their utility.

While I’m in favor of the fixed consequence for landing on the obstacles, I’m not much of a fan that they kept the dice roll for added effects. Saying, you fly over this, X happens is clean and means they always carry a consequence. But needing to roll a die too, keeps the extra step. It’s not a big deal, but since they were changing the rules, it would have been cleaner to just make it a straight forward single affect.

Objectives

Objective play has been something missing from X-Wing since the beginning. Dogfights are fun, but having goals aside from “kill each other!” tweaks matches just enough to add more variety to the games. By having other objectives, and ways to score points, it also messes with tactical plans. You can’t just flit around, waiting for your opponent to make a mistake before engaging. If you just don’t head toward the objective, you’re giving your opponent free points.

The four that have been announced as of now are all classic objective styles we’re all familiar with. Each requires players to play a little differently. The details will take some time to remember and the tactics needed to succeed with each will be an ongoing learning process.

Squad and Loadout Points

Now we come to the biggest, and most unexpected change. Everything above had been discussed, at least in part, by the devs before the official release. But the dramatic change to how squads are assembled come as a complete surprise. In hindsight, clues were there. They talked about with scenarios, games operating under a 20 point scale. That translated easily to the old 200 points squad system and there was some speculation about how that would all work.

Instead of squads consisting of a 200 point mix of ships and upgrades, squads will now be assembled from 20 points worth of ships. Each pilot has been priced within a much narrow range of 2 to 11 points. Upgrades have broken away into a separate ship specific pool called Loadout Points. From now on, you can assemble a squad of pilots that you like, and they will always fit together regardless of the upgrades you take on them.

This is a fundamental change to how the game is played. Far more than almost any of the other rules discussed so far. I can not say what kind of impact this will end up having on the game. It may be positive, it may turn the game into a broken pile of debris. But, I can say my first impressions are very positive about the idea itself.

Building squads has always been one of the things I enjoyed most about X-Wing. You can probably gather this from my article history. There are squad lists going back years. I never fly the same thing more than a handful of times.

From that experience, one of the most disappointing aspects of the games has always been how you are actively discouraged from taking upgrades. Anything more than 20ish total points spent on upgrades was usually a waste, as that could translate into another ship. Extra bodies were almost always the right choice. So many times I would tweak out a fun upgrade combo I wanted to fly that ended up getting trashed because it was too expensive to justify. The more expensive the base pilot, the more you were discouraged from dropping more points into them with upgrades. The coolest pilots often had the fewest upgrades. But not anymore.

From now on, every ship is going to have upgrades on them. With only a few exceptions, every pilot has a pool of Loadout Points. There is no penalty for using them. You’ll be at a disadvantage for not using them So take the gloves off and load up your ships with all those upgrades you’ve been afraid to play with!

This does remove some granularity in list building. No longer can you trim fat from your list to squeeze in another ship or a better pilot. There is a risk that, now that Loadout Points are free, pilots will become must-haves with meta-defined Loadouts. One big concern I have is that with Deficit Points being a thing, if you find a group of pilots you want to fly that comes out to 19 points, you’re giving away a free point. I have already built a few combos that came out to 19. I had the option to bump up a pilot, but in a few cases, my only options to keep the same ship type was a generic that cost me more squad points but gave me less Loadout Points.

Summary

A lot has changed in a short time for X-Wing. We even have new ships and card packs dropping soon that will get lost in the massive rules update. Get your ships onto the table. Try things out before you judge too harshly. Whether you end up liking the changes or not, it is an exciting time to fly.