I don’t mean First Order, etc. I mean they imply different play styles for each faction. So what are they? I guess see no distinct pattern in new cards and pilots.

I am not sure they said, but I am sure rebels help each other out, imps hurt each other and scum steal your tokens, or something along those lines.

From what we've seen:

Rebels - Teamwork, ships helping each other out individually. Think Garven Dreis.

Imperials - Regimented discipline: stick together and work as one. Think Howlrunner.

Scum - As before, Rebels in reverse. Screw over your allies for personal again.

seems about the same as 1.0

except the theme of "super turrets that do literally everything amazingly, often better than dedicated specialists" has been gutted so that the other themes can actually shine a bit

I realize that there will always be exceptions, but even the initial releases for 2.0 don’t follow those patterns. Much less conversion kits.

Rebels: 2 Y wings buff others, 1 Xwing does. One Xwing debuffs oppnnentsnand one is a defense-oriented Pilot.

Imperials: Squad buffing, solo pilots intended to operate without support, and way to hurt your enemy more.

Scum: Eh...? Boba Fett doesn’t screw your opponent, just encourages brawling and collisions (sort of)

just to clarify: I sold all of my XWMG stuff because I saw nothing but the balance lurching from one busted build to another. This 2.0 actually has me engaged enough to consider starting over. It’s just that the particular claim about factions with distinct identities sits wrong with me as it comes off like BS from my previous experience. I’m looking to see what’s different if anything for faction identity.

rebel buffing seems a lot more long range than imperial's generally closer-knit "bubbles"

don't see much if any scum buffing. they're all relatively self sufficient, with the crucial exception of IG-88A (because he's an IG, they're sorta linked it's their thing)

12 minutes ago, Firespray-32 said:

As before, Rebels in reverse. Screw over your allies for personal again.

I think he is aiming at abilities like this...

although it's funny that imperial Ruthlessness is now "damage a friendly at range 0-1 of the defender to re-roll an attack die"

that's REALLY screwing your buddies over

I think it'll break down like:

Rebels: Close-range synergy and defesive mitigation.
Imperials: Mini-swarms and aces, and/or multiple ace builds.
Scum: Self-harm abilities and very expensive strong upgrades.
Resistance: Super-aces and tanks.
First Order: Elite swarms and super-aces.

And I can only hope:

Republic: Ultra-fast aces and low-attack-high-defence swarms.
CIS: Huge droid mechanics and cheap, cheap ships.

I would imagine the Rebels will be more focused on modifiers to defensive stats, like evades and passing around damage that is inflicted.

Empire will be oriented on modifying offensive stats and red dice like hits/Crits/TL

Scum will be janky? Weird moves and countermeasures and traps and stuff?

This is definitely a question that interests me. In the thread about the live stream they had something up about the Resistance and First Order at least. Resistance will be predominately 2 - 3 ship lists while First Order will likely fly elite smaller swarms. 

1 hour ago, ficklegreendice said:

seems about the same as 1.0

except the theme of "super turrets that do literally everything amazingly, often better than dedicated specialists" has been gutted so that the other themes can actually shine a bit

We will see about that. Remember that the Shadow Caster has a mobile turret and it is even more devastating than PWTs because it does count having ships in arc. ?

3 minutes ago, SEApocalypse said:

We will see about that. Remember that the Shadow Caster has a mobile turret and it is even more devastating than PWTs because it does count having ships in arc. ?

PWTs, yes (except rey)

TLTs? Miranda?

...definitely no

but given a lot of upgrade cards seem to be "bullseye arc only" I don't think they'll be mobile-arc compatible

And the Shadowcaster has an extra fixed primary arc AND a way to rotate mobile arc for free.

All I know is RIP Imperial Firespray, you will be missed.

35 minutes ago, SEApocalypse said:

We will see about that. Remember that the Shadow Caster has a mobile turret and it is even more devastating than PWTs because it does count having ships in arc. ?

Except that only mattered because there were upgrades and abilities intended to counteract primary weapon turrets (cough, authothrusters)... and those no longer exist...

2 minutes ago, WAC47 said:

Except that only mattered because there were upgrades and abilities intended to counteract primary weapon turrets (cough, authothrusters)... and those no longer exist...

Indeed, but it does highlight how easy it is to get shots with a mobile fire arc. And no autothrusters means no extra defense against secondary weapons on those mobile fire arcs.

2 hours ago, ficklegreendice said:

although it's funny that imperial Ruthlessness is now "damage a friendly at range 0-1 of the defender to re-roll an attack die"

that's REALLY screwing your buddies over

It's not a reroll, its change a die to a hit.

Just now, SEApocalypse said:

Indeed, but it does highlight how easy it is to get shots with a mobile fire arc. And no autothrusters means no extra defense against secondary weapons on those mobile fire arcs.

True. Not saying it won’t still be powerful (and hopefully costly).

However, the mobile arc was only part of what made the shadowcaster so powerful. The multiple mods and ability to get more evades than dice rolled was a real issue, and the new rules make that much more difficult from what we’ve seen so far.

I don’t think there has been any official comment, this is all just speculation. The one official thing I recall seeing is a statement that one of the imperial shticks is speed.

19 minutes ago, SEApocalypse said:

Indeed, but it does highlight how easy it is to get shots with a mobile fire arc. And no autothrusters means no extra defense against secondary weapons on those mobile fire arcs.

Rangebonus however

Just now, Commander Kaine said:

Rangebonus however

Depending on the weapon, aye.

5 minutes ago, SEApocalypse said:

Depending on the weapon, aye.

well, all turrets and cannons have now range bonuses. Plus even turrets can be dodged now, so they should be a lot tamer.

1 hour ago, Astech said:

I think it'll break down like:

Rebels: Close-range synergy and defesive mitigation.
Imperials: Mini-swarms and aces, and/or multiple ace builds.
Scum: Self-harm abilities and very expensive strong upgrades.
Resistance: Super-aces and tanks.
First Order: Elite swarms and super-aces.

And I can only hope:

Republic: Ultra-fast aces and low-attack-high-defence swarms.
CIS: Huge droid mechanics and cheap, cheap ships.

Or boiled down:

CIS/Imperial/FO = Swarm faction - Super cheap large swarm/Swarm with leading ace/Small elite swarm.

Republic/Rebel/Resistance = Tanky Faction - Jedi Ace protected by Clone tanks/Fewer Ace tanks supporting each other/2-3 Super tanky ace.

Scum = Wild card - Harm allies and enemies for self benefit.

4 hours ago, Animewarsdude said:

Or boiled down:

CIS/Imperial/FO = Swarm faction - Super cheap large swarm/Swarm with leading ace/Small elite swarm.

Republic/Rebel/Resistance = Tanky Faction - Jedi Ace protected by Clone tanks/Fewer Ace tanks supporting each other/2-3 Super tanky ace.

Scum = Wild card - Harm allies and enemies for self benefit.

come to think of it, I could even see Scum broken down to a trilogy of sub-factions in 2nd edition:

Mandalorians (Bounty Hunters in genenral?) focusing on devastating - but difficult to pull off - offensive jank. Few betrayal mechanics.
Hutt Syndicate focusing on incredibly expensive, yet uber-powerful abilities. Some betrayal mechanics.
Black Sun, focusing on controlling the battlefield, win conditions and the opponents ships (like Thweek). An enormous amount of self-harming betrayal.

You'd then be looking at 3 factions with 3 distinct subfactions each, giving the game of X-wing much more room to spread its wings.