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FFG goes Star Wars

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CplHicks:
Dem ist so.

AndréM:
Und die Minis in den Boostern enthalten andere Piloten/Werte/Astromechs. Preis bei uns dürfte UVP bei 30 Euro liegen.

AndréM:
Starfighters, Droids, Rookies, and Legends
A Look at Ship Cards and Upgrades in STAR WARS: X-Wing



“We’ll have to destroy them ship to ship. Get the crews to their fighters.”
    –Darth Vader, Star Wars: A New Hope

X-Wing™, the miniatures game of thrilling Star Wars space combat, is coming this summer at Gen Con Indy 2012. With its tense dogfights, intuitive rules, and stunning miniatures, X-Wing brings the magic of the movies’ most dramatic space battles to your tabletop.

In our earlier X-Wing previews, we’ve reviewed the rules for combat and explored how the development team’s commitment to detail led to the stunning sculpts for the game’s starfighters, including a TIE fighter produced accurately at scale for the first time in the industry. Today, we’ll take a look at some of the ways you can customize your experience.

Core Set and Beyond

From the first day X-Wing becomes available, you’ll have plenty of exciting choices to make as you build your squads. The Core Set, alone, comes with thirteen ship cards and five upgrade cards that can each lend a different tenor to the battles between your X-wing and two TIE fighters.

Expansion packs add even more options, allowing you to add more starfighters to your squadrons and to man them with a wide range of different pilots. Rebel players looking to free the galaxy from the iron grip of the Empire can draw upon a mix of sleek X-wings and rugged Y-wings. Single fighter expansions for each allow you to boost your squad with four ship cards and five upgrades.

Imperial players can call upon new starfighters and pilots to crush the Rebellion with single fighter expansion packs for the TIE/In and TIE Advanced. The TIE Fighter™ Expansion Pack adds six ship cards and three upgrade cards, and the TIE Advanced™ Expansion Pack comes with four ship cards, including one representing the fearsome pilot Darth Vader! It also expands your squad building options with five upgrade cards.



Starships and Pilots

Customization in X-Wing, however, isn’t just a matter of combining starfighters in different numbers; players will find plenty of ways to explore the game’s levels of customization as soon as they open a Core Set.

X-wings and TIE fighters function differently, and these differences are represented through their maneuver dials and on their ship cards. Each type of starfighter has its own maneuver dial, defining the maneuvers available to it each turn. No matter who pilots an X-wing or TIE fighter, each ship of a given type is capable of performing the same maneuvers. Because of this, the maneuver dial lends to a starfighter’s personality as it races through space during a game. Additionally, each ship card introduces a starfighter’s primary weapon, agility, hull, and shield values.


TIE fighters are nimble and quick but lack the X-wing’s shielding and heavier firepower.

Ship cards also indicate each starfighter’s available actions (highlighted in yellow above). You can see that TIEs can take actions to Focus, Barrel Roll, and Evade, whereas X-wings can Focus and Acquire a Target Lock.

Not all the information on a ship card is shared across all ships of the same type. Each ship card also shares information specific to its pilot: the pilot’s skill value, any unique ability the pilot might offer his squad, and the starfighter’s squad point cost. Any one of these differences can potentially provide the edge you need to emerge victorious in combat.

While neither a Rookie Pilot nor a Red Squadron Pilot has a unique pilot ability, the Red Squadron Pilot’s skill of “4” means that it will act later in the Activation phase and earlier in the Combat phase. Though it may seem a small gain for the two squad point cost increase, in the heat of battle, even a slight increase in skill can prove the difference between life and death. The Red Squadron Pilot’s increased skill means he can fire before the Obsidian Squadron Pilot. The Rookie Pilot, on the other hand, wouldn’t be able to fire until after the Obsidian Squadron Pilot.

The differences between pilots become more remarkable, though, when you consider the unique abilities of pilots like Luke Skywalker, who can convert a Focus die result to a Miss when he’s defending, and Biggs Darklighter, who can prevent your foes from firing at any allied ships within Range 1. Such abilities lend themselves to more fully developed strategies that can provide benefits to pilots flying in formation or that equip a lone pilot to strike out on his own.


Mauler Mithel costs five more squad points than an Academy Pilot, but his skill of “7” ensures he attacks much earlier in the Combat phase, and his unique ability adds extra lethality to his shots.

Upgrades

The bottom of each ship card also features an upgrade bar. Each icon in the upgrade bar corresponds to a type of upgrade available to that specific starfighter. Upgrades include secondary weapons, astromech droids, and elite pilot talents. Each upgrade requires you to spend some of your squad points but allows you to further specialize your strategy.


Upgrade cards provide you the means to customize your starfighters and squads.

As an example, you can pay three squad points to equip Luke Skywalker with Marksmanship to increase his chances of successfully hitting enemy TIEs. Or should you pay four squad points to equip his starfighter with R2-D2, an astromech capable of repairing damage to Luke’s shields? Or will you pay eleven squad points to equip Luke’s ship with both upgrades, as well as some potent Proton Torpedoes?


Imperial players cannot upgrade their TIE fighters with astromechs or secondary weapons, but some pilots, like Mauler Mithel, allow you to upgrade their ships with elite talents.

As you move toward advanced squad building, the choice becomes even more meaningful. Equipping Luke with Marksmanship, R2-D2, and Proton Torpedoes might make him capable of great deeds on his own, but it could also force him to take two twenty-one point Rookie Pilots as his wingmen rather than the veteran pilots, Biggs Darklighter and Wedge Antilles. We’ll examine squad building more closely in an upcoming preview.

Get to Know Your Squadron

The initial wave of X-Wing releases will open all kinds of early strategies, and as you seek to liberate or dominate the galaxy, you’ll need to strike the right balance between starfighters, pilots, and upgrades. After all, to gain an edge in the fast-paced dogfights of X-Wing, you’ll need to consider not only which starfighters to send into space but whether you’ll man them with rookies or with legends.

Stay tuned for more previews over the coming weeks. Until then…

May the Force be with you!™

AndréM:
Stay on Target

Star Wars: X-Wing™ is coming to Gen Con Indy 2012! As we count down the weeks to the release of this action-packed miniatures game of tabletop dogfights, we get ready to take another, closer look at the game’s dynamic starfighters.

In recent previews, we’ve reviewed the basics of the game’s dramatic and intuitive rules for combat, we explored how Fantasy Flight Games’ fastidious attention to detail is bringing the TIE fighter miniature to you at the correct scale for the first time in the industry, and we discussed how ship and upgrade cards add layers of customization and permit players to experiment with all kinds of different strategies.

Now, we’ll begin a series of previews that look at the upcoming expansion packs, their ship and upgrade cards, and the options they give players interested in customizing their squads. Today, we’ll start with a look at the starfighter that provides the backbone of the Rebel fleet, the X-wing.



The X-Wing™ Expansion Pack

Designed by Incom Corporation, the T-65 X-wing quickly proved to be one of the most effective military vehicles in the galaxy and a boon to the Rebellion. Their primary starfighter, the X-wing is a well-rounded machine that features powerful deflector shields and potent laser cannons, and can be armed with deadly proton torpedoes.

The X-Wing Expansion Pack contains one striking X-wing miniature, plus a maneuver dial and all requisite action tokens. It also comes with five upgrades and four ship cards, including two new unique pilots, one of whom earned a reputation as one of the Rebellion’s most distinguished and capable aces, Wedge Antilles.



A tremendously skillful pilot, Wedge’s pilot skill of “9” ensures that he’ll be able to take the first shot in nearly any situation, and his unique pilot ability helps him make every shot count. When Wedge is attacking, he reduces the defender’s agility value by one, to a minimum of “0,” thus denying his adversary one of his valuable defense dice.

Because Wedge’s ship card also features the elite talent upgrade icon (), he can use his action to concentrate on his Marksmanship. Or he can coax his X-wing into a barrel roll with some Expert Handling, an upgrade card unique to the X-Wing Expansion Pack. Few pilots can elicit such performance from an X-wing, and the trick gives Wedge tremendous versatility in the heat of battle, potentially allowing him to slip out of an enemy’s line of fire or to drop in behind an Imperial TIE fighter at close range.

One of the game’s deadliest aces, Wedge Antilles adds a tremendous punch to any Rebel squad, and you’ll likely want him to spend every instant in battle focused on destroying TIEs rather than going on the defensive. Fortunately, the X-Wing Expansion Pack provides a new astromech to reduce the impact of any damage Wedge may suffer.



It also introduces the versatile veteran, Garven Dreis, who can give Wedge his focus token () instead of spending it, so long as he keeps Wedge within range. If your deflector shields have been breached, an extra focus token may make the difference between life and death. With his ability to grant his squad mate a focus token, Garven Dreis is another reason the X-Wing Expansion Pack adds an exciting measure of flexibility and customization to X-Wing.

Keep your eyes open for future X-Wing previews. As we draw nearer the inaugural space battles at Gen Con Indy, we’ll look at the other single fighter expansions, we\'ll explore some of the options available with squad building, and we\'ll get you ready for the action with the game\'s core rules and tournament rules.

Next up? The talented pilots and tactical possibilities coming in the TIE Fighter™ Expansion Pack!

AndréM:
We\'ll Have to Destroy Them Ship to Ship



“Watch your back! Fighters above you, coming in!”
–Wedge Antilles, Star Wars: A New Hope

Gen Con Indy 2012 is just a few weeks away, and that means we’re closer than ever to the first fantastic space battles of the Star Wars: X-Wing™ Miniatures Game!

As we gear up toward the action, we’ll head deeper into our previews of the game’s upcoming single fighter expansions. Each single fighter expansion introduces a single, finely sculpted miniature starfighter, along with its maneuver dial, requisite tokens, new upgrade cards, and several ship cards, including unique and talented pilots only available in the expansion.

Recently, we took a look at the X-Wing™ Expansion Pack and the exciting strategies its skillful pilots, Wedge Antilles and Garven Dreis, open up for Rebel players. Today, though, we travel deep into the heart of the Empire, looking more closely at the nimble, mass-produced starfighter with which the Imperial fleet enforces its will upon the galaxy.

The TIE Fighter™ Expansion Pack

The Empire is the dominant power in the galaxy, and when they have the opportunity to press their advantages in combat, Imperial forces can overwhelm Rebel opposition with superior numbers. Accordingly, the Empire favors the fast, agile, and relatively inexpensive design of the TIE/In, developed by Sienar Fleet Systems. These nimble TIE fighters have the lowest squad point cost of all the starships in X-Wing and serve as the primary starfighters in the Imperial fleet.

The TIE Fighter Expansion Pack for the X-Wing Miniatures Game includes one pre-painted miniature, plus its maneuver dial and all necessary tokens. Players gain two upgrade cards and the ability to draw upon the services of six pilots, including the crafty “Backstabber,” one of Darth Vader’s wingmen in the Battle of Yavin.

Relying on speed and strength in numbers to overcome their enemies, TIE fighters have only a pair of laser cannons and lack shields of any kind, yet their dexterity makes them dangerous opponents. They offer terrific maneuverability, even at high speeds, and all TIE pilots are trained to focus, perform barrel rolls, and take evasive maneuvers.



Players fielding TIE fighters will want to take advantage of their full range of actions to outmaneuver, outflank, and overwhelm their Rebel counterparts. “Backstabber” provides Imperial players with extra incentive to draw upon the TIE’s maneuverability for all it’s worth; when he can slip behind an opponent, or line up a shot from anywhere outside his foe’s targeting arc, “Backstabber” rolls an extra attack die.

Another pilot in the TIE Fighter Expansion Pack, “Howlrunner,” can help “Backstabber,” and all your Imperial pilots, capitalize on such key moments. When “Backstabber” is within Range “1” of “Howlrunner” and attacks, it can reroll one of its attack dice. This is an excellent example of how Imperial pilots are trained to take advantage of their numbers, and it accentuates the strength the Imperial fleet can gain from Swarm Tactics.

Meanwhile, if you’re holding formations or maneuvering to keep your foes and allies all within close range, a third unique pilot from the TIE Fighter Expansion Pack, “Winged Gundark,” can change the course of battle by disrupting his foes as he damages them.



As we addressed in an earlier look at the game’s combat rules, each time a starfighter is hit, it gains a facedown damage card. However, if a starfighter suffers a critical hit, that damage card is placed next to the starfighter faceup, and the card does more than count toward hull damage; it adds a random detrimental effect. With his ability to convert a hit into a critical hit, “Winged Gundark” is bad luck for the Rebellion, but a valuable tool for the Empire.

Gen Con Indy 2012 gets closer every day, so keep your eyes open for more X-Wing previews! We still have two single fighter expansions to review, a tournament rules document is on its way, and we’ll cover the basics of building your own squad.

Stay tuned!

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