6 hours ago, Astech said:

Porkins isn't the worst X-wing pilot. That distinction would belong to the EPTless either Hobbie or Garven. Garven's even the same price. Still, a 50% win record is quite outstanding using such a pilot.

Thank you for the praise, but Hobbie is one of the best X-wing pilots. Garven is about on a par with Jek in terms of his performance on the table but has the critical advantage of being cheaper. This means he fits in more lists (as a 4th ship, for example), whereas to make Porkins work at all, he needs his 3pt droid plus a useful EPT. Which makes him cost as much or more than Wedge, Wes, or most versions of Luke. And this is why I say that he's the worst X-wing pilot: for his cost, you can get a better pilot, without needing to choose a better ship either.

If Porkins' final cost were around 28pts (like Hobbie) whilst still getting his droid and a 1pt EPT, he'd be decent - and Renegade Refit doesn't count because it also makes the other pilots cheaper too. The new PS7 pilot really shows how weak Jek is in comparison.

I'm so glad that in 2.0, R5D8 no longer needs a dice roll!

On 6/3/2018 at 10:44 AM, Embir82 said:

I agree with original poster at least in one thing: I hate app requirement. I get involved in unplugged games in the first place beceause of the fact that I didn't want to spend my free time staring at the monitor all the time. App requirement for X-Wing 2.0 would be fine if it would come with removal of card requirement - as it stands FFG restricitons made no sense at all - we have to use app, yet we can't go to tournament without redundand piece of paper that brings no unique information at all.
Also worth noting is the fact that with fully unplugged game, like X-Wing 1.0, you will be able to play it long after it stopped being published - with X-Wing 2.0 it won't be possible because sooner or later app will go out of compatibility with operating systems.

I don't get people who say things like this.

For one, it's not just an app, but also a web page and a PDF that you can download. So...no matter what OS someone is using, there will always be the web version for as long as FFG is an active company. Even then, you will still probably find fans that would keep up the last known version. Still....let's say even then that the game dies....you can always download the PDF version to use. So, it's not like you will ever not get the rules.

What the flexibility of the app format brings is not something that can be printed on a card. To make the costs of upgrades such as Ordnance flexible is part of the art of 2.0. Bombers get cheaper Torpedoes than fighters.

4 hours ago, Gilarius said:

Thank you for the praise, but Hobbie is one of the best X-wing pilots. Garven is about on a par with Jek in terms of his performance on the table but has the critical advantage of being cheaper. This means he fits in more lists (as a 4th ship, for example), whereas to make Porkins work at all, he needs his 3pt droid plus a useful EPT. Which makes him cost as much or more than Wedge , Wes , or most versions of Luke . And this is why I say that he's the worst X-wing pilot: for his cost, you can get a better pilot, without needing to choose a better ship either.

If Porkins ' final cost were around 28pts (like Hobbie ) whilst still getting his droid and a 1pt EPT, he'd be decent - and Renegade Refit doesn't count because it also makes the other pilots cheaper too. The new PS7 pilot really shows how weak Jek is in comparison.

I'm so glad that in 2.0, R5D8 no longer needs a dice roll!

Hobbie's pilot skill really cripples him - PS5 on an action-dependent ship like the X-wing is just about the worst place to be - high enough to get stomped by dedicated blockers, low enough that he can't deal with aces in any respect. I believe Garven's actually the same price as Jek at 26 base, but his ability is just so weak, and he doesn't have the crucial ept slot.

Of course, now that we know the PS1 Zealot is 22 points and has an EPT, we can safely say the Rookie pilot is at the bottom of the barrel. To my mind, the order (after refit) goes:

Wedge
Wes
Zealot
Luke
Tarn
Biggs (still up there)
Jek
Hobbie
Garven
Kullbee
Leevan
Red
Rookie

In descending order, of course.

I too am very excited for the removal of pointless dice rolls. Weapons failure in particular has been my bane. I've had two of them on Asajj at once, and failed the roll for four turns in a row. It seems that the developers have realised that reliable cards are just better for everyone, for the most part.

12 minutes ago, Astech said:

Of course, now that we know the PS1 Zealot is 22 points and has an EPT, we can safely say the Rookie pilot is at the bottom of the barrel.

I'm not sure about this, since you can't get 5 zealots with astromechs, and you lose integrated astromech. The zealot is going to have a place but personally I'd rather have 5 rookies with FAA and Integrated Astromech than 5 Zealots with Crackshot or VI.

On 6/3/2018 at 6:38 AM, heychadwick said:

Here is the part that best sums up the whole article:

If you haven't played other mini games and been through a change of editions, you might be really unhappy with how this is done.

If you have played other games that have changed editions you probably think this is not so bad.

For me, I was about to quit the game. I have spend hundreds of dollars and a lot of time on this game. I was ready to quit my podcast and move on to another game. My many ships and pounds of cardboard were ready to sit in the closet. Now, I can spend $190 and get to have fun playing the game again. Oh, I will have a bunch of cards and cardboard I won't use anymore. I will have a ton of plastic ships I will still get to play with. I'm thinking it's well worth it to buy into another 5-6 years.

I had already effectively quit the game. Had been well over six months since I've played X-Wing. Now I'm at least intrigued by the game again because it seems like it could be X-Wing again and not the "A bunch of strange looking ships I'm told are Star Wars while they drop bombs and stuff" game like it had become.

I'm glad I read the comments here before the article, so I could just skim it instead of read it. I can't find myself lamenting some guy's loss on the speculative X-Wing promo card market, lol.

And if he really bought 20 X-Wings, and they're never going to be used in anything other than "for fun" Epic play... he doesn't need official upgrade kits for all of them. Could literally just print out copies of the bases with the new arcs.

I guess he'll have to write another article down the line because he still has a lot of lessons to learn.

16 minutes ago, apoapsis said:

I'm not sure about this, since you can't get 5 zealots with astromechs, and you lose integrated astromech . The zealot is going to have a place but personally I'd rather have 5 rookies with FAA and Integrated Astromech than 5 Zealots with Crackshot or VI .

Adding predator to a ship is a massive boost to dps though, so rookies are a good deal worse in everything except the mirror match, and only costs 2 points. Crack shot at 0 points is also fairly spectacular in large swarms. 5 Crack Zealous X-wings would be a force to reckon with, probably worse than Integrated Astromech for a lot of lists.