I had heard talk about ships being in reserve. Since I haven’t been able to watch any live streams or videos, could someone explain what this is?

More or less a special "out of play" area that won't interact with anything normally until certain conditions are met to bring it into play.

A good example that we are all familiar with is Zeb shuttle.

1 hour ago, ObiWonka said:

More or less a special "out of play" area that won't interact with anything normally until certain conditions are met to bring it into play.

Everything is a reserve ship if your opponent tries hard enough.

Any ‘docked’ ship is considered in reserve, I think.

Oh. Ok. Thanks guys.

Yup. A ship which is out of play, and enters play on certain conditions. Usually out of play at the start of the game, but not always (Moralo, for instance).

So far we've seen docked ships, Boba crew and Moralo Eval all use the Reserve mechanic, but I'd not be surprised to see a lot more (Dormitz, maybe, TFA Han maybe).

One great thing is that this rule opens up the possibility of incorporating reinforcements into more mainstream games ("warning 2 new Assault Gunboats at 5KM! :) )

4 hours ago, princeyg said:

One great thing is that this rule opens up the possibility of incorporating reinforcements into more mainstream games ("warning 2 new Assault Gunboats at 5KM! )

Only 2? We need to talk to your requisitions officer.

Comes from other miniature games such as 40k. These are the units that are not placed in the play area at the start but rather placed in the play area during the continuity of the game. For X-wing that means docked ships but there could be something similar to Armada when the Hyper Space Assault Objective is selected.

Strategically depending on how they enter depends on how would you use them. For example you could have a unit of archers that are either fragile or break easily. So you would keep them in reserves in hopes that they come out when any fast enemy unit that can threaten them has already been dispatched with. Or there could be a surgical strike unit that can be placed anywhere in the play area. Naturally you would want these to enter at key locations being very flexible and able to react to the map situation.

Now for X-wing it is a little different. In terms of the 1st strategic condition to protect fragile units was with 1st edition epic in which you could put Soontir or Canor on a Gozanti to deploy at a later time when a lot of the firing arcs have been cleared. For standard well you have a discounted ship in terms of the Nashta pup, or a situation where reserves actually confers an ability to deployed units just like the Ghost and Phantom titles. Now the core set suggest something similar to Armada where you can just pop out a ship at a table edge after a die roll. Now will that be in standard, and upgrade, or only in the core mission is anyone's guess.