So with the 2.0 list building holiday season upon us, now is the time to reflect. To consider what we have learned.

What ship or pilot were you wrong about in 2.0?

Everyone could sense barrage Jonus Bombers looked good. Supernatural Luke seemed potent. Palob looked like a right bastard.

But what ship, or pilot, that you initially dismissed have you come around on?

Example: Duchess. I flew tons of 1.0 strikers. I loved 1.0 strikers. I never flew Duchess. Her ability seemed so much less interesting than the 22 points of hate that was Pure Sabaac, or the annoyingly unkillable Countdown. Even the lowly Trainee saw time. But never their supposed ‘ace’.

But in 2.0 she got cheaper, and better. Now you can aileron at will, stress or no stress. Initially I still scoffed. But then I was building a trip aces list with Soontir and Rexler, and decided to give her a go. Purely because of the initiative 5. Throw a seismic charge and Marksmanship (may swap for crack shot later) and flew several games with her.

Holy cow is she good, and fun. Try blocking her. Go ahead, try it! You will need at least 3 ships to block my 46 point 2 agi ship with max speed 3 maneuvers. You can’t slow roll to get behind her, the weakness of other strikers. Once I get flank, it’s hard to shake. And then I can 1 bank or 1 hard to victory. And if we joust, next turn I can 1k or 2 sloop behind you, from so many angles.

Plus when I do, I’ll drop a bomb on your face before I do it.

Duchess, I was wrong about you. You are quickly becoming one of my favorite ships in 2.0. My opponents, generally, do not agree. I believe the phrase ‘how did you get there!’ Should be your flavor text.

Autopilot Drone

Its a proper PITA

I was initially sort of "Meh" on Whipser. But once I put her on a table and got a feel for the economy she's a terror for 56 points(+4 for Juke Talent).

On the flip side I was initially very high on punishers and TS + bombs. But other than Seismics bombing is completely toned down in 2.0 since you usually have an opportunity to react to them with most ships in 2.0.

Kestal wasn't the first thing I reached for in second Ed, but I had vaguely remembered wishing that her anti-green dice ability had been more viable in first Ed

With that + that tourny where you had to use ruthless, a star was born

Also not sure if it counts, but I thought r5-p8 was a steaming **** pile because my luck dictates guaranteed self damage. But a r5-p8 cartel executioner finds its way into most my lists now. Full mods, plenty of health, priced like Biggs, guaranteed to shoot before it kills itself you got Mux around

Oh, and Seri. I put her in some Palob + Sabine tacticak scrambler jank where you just push a wall of scum mods at your opponent, where I learned she's pretty dang good

Makes the moldy a downright nightmare to try to get rid of

Y-wing.

I thought the turret changes were going to hit it to hard. After a few games with ion turret y-wing under my belt they are fast becoming my favorite ship. (And I did not really like them in 1.0)

The lowly Z-95: having a red barrel roll and being to move out of range of a bomb is very neat! Adding a 3 straight blue manoeuver helps to recover as well, so it was a nice discovery for a ship which previously had no repositionning.

The quadjumper: at 2 evade dice in V1.0, this one was pretty useless. In V2, it lasts a lot longer, which makes it something an opponent must constantly be wary of. Add Tobias if your opponent thinks he's clever by placing his asteroids in corners so you can bring them back into play.

That's it for now. Have had limited time to test.

Major vermeil. we knew that reapers were tuned down a little from their 1.0 counterparts, but vermeil brings the heat. pair with intimidation and see how far those ailerons get you.

@millertime059 I approve of your analysis on Duchess!

Captain Feroph was a surprise. She is tankier than a 1 agility ship has a right to be, up there with Norra for damage mitigation, but not quite as good. Captain Feroph has given me a little more confidence to wade into battle against 2 attack dice ships, even though she's usually equipped with a high-value crew member.

@nikk whyte Well, I guess Vermeil is next on my list to try!

2 minutes ago, Parakitor said:

@nikk whyte Well, I guess Vermeil is next on my list to try!

He starts to get pricey, but slap vader crew on there for the LOL's and try that a few times while you are at it.

15 minutes ago, viedit said:

He starts to get pricey, but slap vader crew on there for the LOL's and try that a few times while you are at it.

You let his jam or team mates take care of clearing the green tokens, vermeil doesn't need much to get his ability going.

I'm going to have to say that the T-65 X-wing really had me double taking. I mean, I figured it would be good since it was so bad for so long. It's really good now and Luke is a tanking monster with the force.

Vader on Vermeil serves a lot of purposes.

- Still works if you are bumping something

- Still works if you are stressed

- Can use it to range 2 vs 1 of jam

- Can use your action on evade or a red coordinate if you need to

- Autodamage on something without a green token is savage

- Strip a token at start of combat so an enemy can't use it all is even better than having a teammate clear it

- If nothing is in arc you have a baked in soft focus with Vader force charge

Yes, it's expensive. But that's more of a "funsie" build. With the speed of the Reaper and ability to AA he can be in a lot of places and put vader to work.

Thing about strikers that annoys the everliving **** out of me is their 2k turned into a 1k.

You have any idea how rarely i slooped with those things? I had pure sabaac in almost every 1.0 list since he showed up and i almost ALWAYS did the 2k because it was easier to switch up my gameplan mid-turn than sloops.

That 1k makes it nigh impossible to skirt by ships. I actually thought they added the 1k i didnt even notice until i started playing they lost the 2k.

Theyre still amazing ships but good god that irritated me. Got myself screwed so many times because i went to set the dial and "oh...right...FML" lol.

Duchess is pretty amazing now too. Her ability in 1.0 was overpriced, the simple "May instead of Must" alone was not enough. Now she can still use it while stressed and it is just superb. So dang fast now w/o any stress-down-time.

Not a ship, but the Death Trooper upgrade worked way better than I expected. I just tossed them on a decimator because I had the points to spare, wasn’t expecting a whole lot, but they kept stress from being discarded a dozen times. Had my opponent breaking off attacks to go chase something else just so he could clear stress.

TIE Reaper in general, thought that the combination of Jam just being worse and the dial nerf would make it not so good but I just flew a Palp Aces list ( Vizier with Palp and Tactical Scrambler, Sontir with Predator and Grand Inquisitor with Super Natural Reflexes, Fire Control System and Proton Rockets) and it did very well. I did end up flying if off the board after misjudging the range of a sloop close to the corner which made me bump into a YT-1300 and due to the turns now being red it was impossible to get out after that. Still not used to medium base ships. Still won the match in the end which was a against Luke (Super reflex, R5, Adv Prot) + Lando (Title, Perceptive co-pilot, Jyn Erso, Trickshot, Hull upgrade)

Oh and btw, the Grand Inquisitor is really good. He is definitively going to be my ace of choice going forward. Not sure if kitting him out fully like I did or run him mostly bare (maybe just FCS) is the right thing to do but I think both are valid options.

4 hours ago, SOTL said:

Autopilot Drone

Its a proper PITA

This. It's an AMAZINGLY cheap upgrade and can provide an absolutely gold amount of bonus for its price in a pinch: 2 extra shields (exactly when you need them to avoid crits), 2 rounds of Coordinate, a key block, AND a bomb effect that goes off in the SYstem phase without any recourse for opponents to respond to it if they didn't get out of the way last round. It's vicious.

Beyond that, I don't think I've really spotted much that's been a real *surprise*.

Maybe TIE Phantoms? The loss of that 4th die felt like a huge nerf, but the 1 bank is a REALLY useful addition to the dial, the synergy with Juke is great, and it's SO freaking cheap.

Soontir Fel. I had him as one of the biggest losers of 2.0 a couple of months ago, and am pleased to say I was wrong. The changes to his ability actually mitigate his two biggest weaknesses in 1.0: blocking and stress stacking. In first edition, getting a block on Soontir or getting him double-stressed meant that you'd be able to line up a ton of shots against his unmodified green dice. Now he can be saved from that fate as long as some enemy finds themselves in his bullseye arc. Plus, he's cheap enough to be annoying without being the focal point of your list.

It'd be nice if he had some cheaper modification options, as 15 points for Shield and Hull just feels steep to me even if it's only 0.5 points about the 1.0 equivalent.

Ps1 U-wings with deadman switch can gank imperial aces so hard.

Whilst only had a couple of games - unbelievably the G1-A now seems to have a place.

The dial changes with 2k instead of 3k and the all stop are improvements whilst the 3 & 4 straights having a higher difficulty aren't too bad.

I tried both Zuckuss and 4-Lom with Advanced Sensors, 000, Mist Hunter and Elusive.

000 really makes opponents think and Zuckuss just wrecks face at Range 1.

4-Lom just piled the stress onto any available High Initiative ship giving great positioning control.

The G1-A does crumple under heavy focus fire but elusive helps a lot as does 5 hull - 4 shields.

Will see how it goes in coming games.

1 hour ago, Hugeman said:

Whilst only had a couple of games - unbelievably the G1-A now seems to have a place.

The dial changes with 2k instead of 3k and the all stop are improvements whilst the 3 & 4 straights having a higher difficulty aren't too bad.

I tried both Zuckuss and 4-Lom with Advanced Sensors, 000, Mist Hunter and Elusive.

000 really makes opponents think and Zuckuss just wrecks face at Range 1.

4-Lom just piled the stress onto any available High Initiative ship giving great positioning control.

The G1-A does crumple under heavy focus fire but elusive helps a lot as does 5 hull - 4 shields.

Will see how it goes in coming games.

Good to know; Zuck, 4-LOM, and Palob was one of my favorite 1.0 lists and I love the G-1.

Trying Fearless on Zuck with Unkar Plutt, and 4-LOM with 0-0-0, Debris Gambit, and title.

I'm still surprised that the phantom surprised people

Stygium array is just the best thing ever

2 minutes ago, ficklegreendice said:

I'm still surprised that the phantom surprised people

Stygium array is just the best thing ever

I’m going to be honest, I thought the lack of FCS and the fourth die would hurt it more than it did. But it’s done more from me than I expected.

6 hours ago, Icelom said:

Y-wing.

I thought the turret changes were going to hit it to hard. After a few games with ion turret y-wing under my belt they are fast becoming my favorite ship. (And I did not really like them in 1.0)

Tell me your ways. I too am loving the 2.0 Y wing, but I'm using it as exlusively a torpedo boat in rebels; usually on a leash with Dutch.

What are the turret builds that you're having success with? And how does it fly compared to a jousting Y-Wing build? I see a lot of people hyping up turret Ys, but torp boat Ys are so much fun that I haven't gotten a chance to try them yet.

26 minutes ago, ThinkingB said:

Tell me your ways. I too am loving the 2.0 Y wing, but I'm using it as exlusively a torpedo boat in rebels; usually on a leash with Dutch.

What are the turret builds that you're having success with? And how does it fly compared to a jousting Y-Wing build? I see a lot of people hyping up turret Ys, but torp boat Ys are so much fun that I haven't gotten a chance to try them yet.

BTL-A4 Y-wing - Norra Wexley - 63
•Norra Wexley - Gold Nine (43)
Expert Handling (2)
Ion Cannon Turret (6)
Shield Upgrade (4)
Veteran Turret Gunner (8)

Total: 63/200

View in the X-Wing Squad Builder

Very hard to escape the ion turret and once something is ioned it's hunting season.

36 minutes ago, Icelom said:

BTL-A4 Y-wing - Norra Wexley - 63
•Norra Wexley - Gold Nine (43)
Expert Handling (2)
Ion Cannon Turret (6)
Shield Upgrade (4)
Veteran Turret Gunner (8)

Total: 63/200

View in the X-Wing Squad Builder

Very hard to escape the ion turret and once something is ioned it's hunting season.

For me it was Horton Salm. I loved my “38 Special,” a 38pt. build Horton that never missed a TLT shot. I figured it was over for him. But I’ve really been enjoying this:

BTL-A4 Y-wing - Gray Squadron Bomber - 37
Gray Squadron Bomber - (32)
Seismic Charges (3)
Skilled Bombardier (2)

RZ-1 A-wing - Jake Farrell - 42
•Jake Farrell - Sage Instructor (40)
Composure (2)

BTL-A4 Y-wing - Gray Squadron Bomber - 40
Gray Squadron Bomber - (32)
Proximity Mines (6)
Skilled Bombardier (2)

BTL-A4 Y-wing - Horton Salm - 80
•Horton Salm - Gray Leader (38)
Lone Wolf (4)
Ion Cannon Turret (6)
Adv. Proton Torpedoes (6)
R4 Astromech (2)
Proximity Mines (6)
Shield Upgrade (4)
Bistan (14)

Total: 199/200

View in the X-Wing Squad Builder

Your opponent either takes his ships through your minefield or follows the path you lay out for him, right into an ion trail that pushes him into the second round of bombs.