NEW X-WING STUFFFFFFF!!!!!!!!
Today I'm doing a quick(ish) look over the new cards revealed from the upcoming squad packs! I'll be comparing them to some of my predictions from my last look at the squad packs when they were revealed.
The Rebels:
First up we have Syndulla herself, flying the RZ-1 A-Wing sporting her new initiative and pilot ability. This makes Hera an amazing addition for the rebellion's A-Wings as up until now they have sorely lacked a decent initiative valued pilot.
Her ability also will work even better on the A-Wing compared to her spot in the B-Wing as she has better access to evade tokens for her allies. This makes her perfect to lead a squad of A-Wings into battle, especially if Jake Farrell is flying as her wingmate.
His ability lets her gain access to the focus that I'd normally give to himself. However, that focus isn't lost to Jake because if Hera doesn't use the token she can pass it off to Jake for his attack or defence.
Next, we have the Vectored Cannons, an upgrade I've wanted in the game since the second we saw the RZ-2 for the first time. I will admit I prefer my version of this upgrade because of the fluff I put in of getting the cannon stuck, however, I can appreciate the direction they went with on this upgrade.
This will be an amazing upgrade for the RZ-1 letting it act more and more like its younger and currently all-around better sibling the RZ-2. However, this card doesn't upstage the newer A-Wing as you must decide to use your boost or rotate during the system's phase, a distinctive downgrade, but I can see ways around this with cards like Sense and Cassian Andor.
The Vectored Cannons also finally let the RZ-1 use the new Starbird Slash upgrade to its full potential, letting you rush past your enemy and then make use of the strain token you handed out to them. This along with the Hera's pilot card seems to be leading towards a bright future for the RZ-1!
Finally, for the Rebellion we had the B6 prototype revealed.
Although I'm sad we can't use it in standard play, I more than understand why because it would be far too strong in the standard game that is already unkind to low agility ships!
With the gunner slot, the new Weapons Systems Officer will make a massive difference on this B-Wing, letting you spend your lock to modify its title's attack then recovering the lock to be able to perform a cannon attack with its S-foils! I love the idea of this ship running straight at a capital ship, just like in Rebels, using it's title attack and then a Heavy Laser Cannon both attacking to deal out stupidly fun amounts of damage! This can even be aided with ships like Hera (in either B or A-Wing) or Dutch, to keep you supplied with locks for the next rounds attacks against the same ship.
As a beloved fan of the B-Wing and epic games, This is everything I wanted!
The Empire:
Vult's pilot card is wonderful! His ability is practically just an advanced version of Passive Sensors, letting you put off your action until before you engage with the cost of a strain token. This may seem like a meh ability at first, but along with a solid coordinator to aid him, he can do the following:
-Firstly performs his action before he activates via a coordinate.
-Lose his strain from a blue manoeuvre.
-Gain an evade from the Full Throttle ability.
-Then perform a standard action like a focus.
-And then before he attacks he can use his ability to perform one final action.
Tie Defenders were deadly before with only two actions, but imagine them with three!
I could see a deadly Vult + Vader + coordinator ship list in the Empire's near future.
If Vult made you happy for the Defender, the next upgrade will make you ecstatic! The Tie Defender Elite is wonderful in every way. This upgrade will return to us the Tie/D upgrade from 1.0, sacrificing its Full Throttle and white K-turns to give us access to a bonus primary attack after a cannon or missile attack. This is wonderfully powerful as is, but it holds a very special place in my heart as the first tournament I won back in 1.0, after I rediscovered the game, was a grunts only tournament where I flew 3 generic Tie Defenders all with Tie/D. This opens this list back up to me (well, with 2 defenders because of point prices), letting us to use a Tractor Beam to hold our opponents down so that our second attacks hit even harder.
And for those who are worried to lose their white K-Turns, good old Ryad will potentially let you keep them with her ability. However, there is a lot of debate currently if that is the case. I can see it going either way, so hopefully, there will be confirmation on it soon!
Finally for the Empire is the upgrade I'm personally least existed for.
Sensitive Controls is a cool ability, letting you potentially boost or barrel roll to block an opponents movement during the system's phase, however it comes at the cost of losing your Autothrusters ability. That being said with a Sense carrier it could be used to great effect to reposition your ship before you move, and if you dialled in a blue manoeuvre, you would end up unstressed unlike with Autothrusters.
I also like the fact this will work on the Tie Silencer as it also has Autothrusters ship ability, giving Kylo access to this upgrade which leads me into believing there is a chance we'll see the Second Sister in an interceptor. This would mean both her and Kylo could use this and Sense together more effectively than most other Interceptor/Silencer pilots. Actually, I've changed my mind, it's a pretty cool upgrade!
The Scum And Villainy:
Alas, all my guesses for scum are yet to come true, however, what we got was just as good, if not better!
First up we have Padric. Although we know almost nothing about him, I'm happy to see there is a trend in this pack for characters from the wonderful Bloodlines book (definitely worth a read). His ability is a little strange with the lock requirement, however, this makes his allies devices amazingly powerful, making all enemy ships that were caught in the blast of a bomb, even sadder and easier to hit.
Although you have to "waste" a lock to trigger this, he can get around it by having an R3 astromech on board so he can either lock multiple devices or use one lock on a device and the other on an enemy ship for his attack.
With him on the horizon, maybe I should look back into Nym...
Next, we have a strange but fun upgrade, the Tierfon Belly Run. This is interesting in concept because of the Y-Wings thin space frame, it can easily stick close to obstacles, making it harder to hit. Because of this, the defence bonus it grants you make a lot of sense, and it is sorely needed for these poor low agility bombers.
This is aided by the fact you can still perform your turret attack while hiding on asteroids. However, I'd say it would be more beneficial just to take gas clouds and avoid any risk of damage!
The final card we have today is a card I plan to put into a list I will call, the Immortal Tel! Cutthroat is a wonderfully scummy card, letting you gain an advantage out of your allies deaths, in a very similar way to the Scavenger Crane from 1.0. This works as an amazing ammunition restocker, however the combination I'm most excited about is with Tel Trevura. Tel's ability to resurrect themselves is already a lot of fun with a hull upgrade to aid them, however with Cutthroat and a swarm of cheap ships (let's say Black Sun Soldier + Deadman's Switch + Cutthroat) Tel can be reborn multiple times! That being said, its unlikely to happen a lot, but that's the fun of scum, stupidly over-complicated idea's that shouldn't work, but when they do it's amazing and hilarious!
Conclusion:
Before yesterday I existed for the new packs but I was going to have to be sensible and hold off buying them. NOW I NEED THEM, ALL OF THEM!!!
All the card and ships seem to be pure fun and except the Vectored Cannons, I still feel none of these are meant as fixes to any of these ships. These cards are more interesting options we can take over the standard ship's ability, in a similar way to the Alpha-class Star Wing's two configurations, they both lead the ship in different directions.
Overall I think I'm most excited for the Tie Defender Elite upgrade for its power and the Cutthroat upgrade for its pure fun!
Thank you all for reading,
Watcher Leader out.
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