X-Wing Points Update- Hot Take

It finally came. The first points update of 2.0. Was it everything we expected and will save X-wing from the downward spiral of 1.0? I think so. You can agree or disagree with the changes but either way, they were fairly significant changes. I think this will have a meaningful impact on the meta going forward. And then there will be another change in six months.

Let’s take a quick dive through the changes and see what benefited and what’s been nerfed into oblivion.

Biggest Losers

Supernatural Reflexes/Squad Leader/Primed Thrusters/BB Astromechs

The biggest change was the introduction of upgrade cost tied to a pilot’s Initiative. This is a rather ingenious solution to the problem of imbalanced upgrades. To understand it, think about Sabine pilot. She was never a major problem because she’s always been middling Init/PS. Supernatural Reflexes was essentially giving her ability to I5’s and I6’s who could truly make good use of it. Tying some upgrades that are disproportionately powerful on high Init to Init allows this to be brought in line. Vader can still Supernatural Reflexes but it’s going to cost you an entire ship.

Was this an overreaction? Maybe a little. The idea is sound but 32pts for Supernatural Reflexes might be a bit on the extreme side. Squad Leader and Primed Thrusters have a more reasonable scaling, though, those were never broken.

Prediction– Supernatural Reflexes will be treated like Luke gunner; costed into oblivion now and then slowly nudged downward.

Redline, TIE Punisher, TIE Bomber, Proton Torpedoes

Redline was way to cheap for what you got; free locks with any action. And it wasn’t an action to do so he could bypass Advanced Sensors one action limitation. Double modded ordinance is bonkers good and Redline gives you that. Now his cost is more in line with his value. Some would argue he’s still too cheap and others say he’s now overpriced. I think he’s still valuable at his price point. Much more and you get into 1.0 overpriced Punisher that no one flies. Now, he’s worth considering but is not a no-brainer addition to your squad.

Similarly, the rest of the Punishers and the Bombers all went up in price. As did their staple ordnance, Proton Torpedoes. For the most part, the total increase is only around 5 points (+3 for protons, +2 most pilots) which doesn’t put any one of them out of line. It does hurt the Bomber swarm, which was never a big thing anyways.

Whisper and TIE Phantom (Plus Juke)

Phantom’s got quite a nerf. Only Whisper went up in price but they all lost their Crew slot. This is pretty big because it locks them out of a lot of their old options. Krennic, Vader, Sloane, Kallus all gone. For most of these, this was needed. Whisper/Juke/Vader was too powerful a combo. Likewise, Sloane on a tough to pin down Phantom made her far more valuable than she should be. With Vader and Sloane on something easier to target, they give your opponent a tough choice, kill the annoying crew on the slow ship or the valuable offensive ship?

The loss of Krennic and Kallus is disappointing though. Both added a balanced boost to the Phantom without being OP. There is also the loss of other utility crew. The addition of the Gunner slot remains to be seen. Only Fifth Brother even does anything currently so right now, its kind of a useless slot. We’ll see what the future brings though.

While none of the rest of the Phantom’s had a point change, Juke went up a point, preventing anymore four generic Phantoms all with Juke. Interestingly, the Defenders all went down by two points, so any of them equipped with Juke are a net one point cheaper.

HWK-290 and Moldy Crow

The brightest stars burn the shortest. The HWK, long a failure of a ship, came into 2.0 with a hot passion to redeem itself. Moldy Crow made this ship amazing. Sadly, maybe a little too amazing. It was inevitable that it would see a points increase. But I think they went a little too far. Both pilots and the title went up in points. Most pilots were just fine on a baseline HWK. No one wants to fly them without Moldy Crow because it’s just too good. Just increasing the title, and maybe a few of the more egregious pilots (cough Palob cough) would have been enough to balance it out.

Prediction- We’ll see these all but disappear again, aside from Palob. Eventually, their points will come back down some, though Moldy Crow will probably remain close to where it’s at.

Boba Fett/Marauder/Han Solo (Gunner)

Yeah, we all knew this was coming. Some think it didn’t get hit hard enough. Some think it needed more. I’d say it seems fair. Han gunner went up by the most (4 to 12 a 200% increase) but, he was essentially Push the Limits for anyone with a Gunner slot. And they really wanted to avoid must have upgrades. He was a must have if you had that slot. Marauder was mostly good because of him. It doubled in price but still is only 6 so not terrible.

Trajectory Simulator

This had to go up too. It feels like it shouldn’t be a valuable upgrade. But the ability to chuck bombs front or back can be used to great effect. As we’ve seen. Now you have to really want to use it rather than tossing it on as an afterthought.

Ezra Bridger

No Ezra cards came down in price, despite most Force users coming down. What gives? His pilot isn’t worth his the high premium and his Gunner is worthless. You’re paying 12pts over Veteran Turret Gunner for the same effect with the questionable addition of being able to reroll a dice IF you are also stressed. WTF? Ezra needed a major price reduction. On the order of 50%.

Big Winners

Large Base Ships

Oh boy did these ships need a price reduction. They were all overcosted, by FFG’s admission, deliberately in order to reign them in. But the switch to 2.0 took away most of what made them OP; 360 turrets, TLT and boosting. Now they look more appealing. Aside from a general price reduction, a few ships had some upgrade changes as well.

VCX-100- Gained the Sensor slot back. With the reduction in price to turrets on top of the VCX’s average of -2 it’s more appealing than before. Though, still too expensive. It should be in line with the Upsilon, maybe 60 base cost.
YT-2400- Leebo saw a huge price reduction of -10 but also lost his Crew slot. No more Leebo C-3P0 shenanigans.
Rebel YT-1300- You can now run two YT-1300’s with a reasonable amount of upgrades. This feels like a good price point for them.
Jumpmaster- Still hot garbage but more affordable hot garbage.
YV-666- Traded a Crew for a Gunner slot. If this ship were in any other faction, a non-mobile arc ship with a Gunner would be “so?”. But Scum actually has some good Gunners.
Decimator/Resistance Bomber/Lancer- All cheaper and more appealing.

IG-88

A small change but a welcome one. All the pilots are no longer priced the same. You can also fly three of them, with title, in a list. With Jamming Beam being zero points you can even use IG-88B’s ability.

E-Wings

Hot-damn did these need a reduction. And FFG delivered. They went down 7 point, a 10% reduction. Even with the increase in price of Proton Torpedoes, it is now possible to run three Knaves with torpedoes in a list. Not sure it’s any good but its possible.

Cheaper Upgrades

Engine Upgrade- only 7 points to make the Falcon’s boost white. It was still worth bringing before, now even more so.
Afterburner- 8 points always felt like a lot. 6 feels great. But its possible it should have stayed at 8. Expect this one to possibly go back up.

Lots of Rebel crew suddenly became much more affordable. Imperial crew also went down but not as drastically.

Leia- For two points, Leia is a real bargain. She’ll probably come back up in the future.
Lando is worth the gamble at 2pts.
C-3P0 was actually pretty decent now, even more so for four points less.
Baze still kind of sucks but for only 3pts he’s not a bad filler slot. Extra focus tokens are always nice.
Seventh Sister and Fifth Brother, at 9 points, are the cheapest Force point. Worth considering just for that now. What the hell Ezra?
Tarkin is still so so but 6points is more in line with his value.

Cheaper Small ships

Lots of small ships saw a price reduction across the board.

A-Wings are more in line with the Resistance version and gained a second Talent slot
You can now afford five Y-wings with turrets and Veteran Turret Gunner, or four decked out with upgrades thanks to their cost reduction plus the drop in price to VTG and turrets.
TIE Defenders actually came down. Not by much but even getting a little slimmer makes them more fearsome.
M-3A’s are getting more in line with TIE Fighters and Z-95’s, which is where they should be.
TIE Advanced X1, Vader included, got cheaper. Which makes sense. They aren’t as good as X-Wings but were always priced the same. Now they feel better.

Final take? FFG set the right tone with this first point balance. A good mix of improvement and nerf without very little feeling out of place.