I love today's update ! Can't wait to get my hands on this game! Now we have a better idea of ship/upgrade costs. Exciting!

Also, I think it's really cool and thematic how the Proton Torpedoes have a range of 2-3, so you can't use them at point blank range.

What are your thoughts on today's update?

Well, the first words that leap to mind are: I'm excited! The idea of using the squad points not just to build your squad of ships, but to upgrade those ships too, it really interesting. I think it'll lead to some difficult decisions about how to spend them! It's a nice design though, anyway. In fact, I think the whole thing looks like a nice design! I didn't think I'd be this excited about this game, but there we are!

One thing I found interesting in this preview. Upgrade cards do not have faction icons on them and while that could easily be restricted by the upgrade icons being unique to each faction we already have an example against this. Marksmanship and Determination both have the same upgrade icon. So I assume either Luke or Mauler Mithel could use either of these cards.

A question I would have though is can either of these pilots spend the points to equip both, or does a single upgrade card "use" the upgrade icon on the pilot. This would make sense, since you can't fit 2 astromechs into a XWing, but if I'm willing to spend the points why can't I have Marksmanship and Determination?

That is a very good question, Karrde. I can't wait to find out the answer. But I, like you, feel it will probably be one upgrade card per upgrade icon on the ship card.

The thing I thought was really cool was R2-D2's ability. I assumed all along that you would have to roll a certain result on the dice to regenerate your shields, but instead, you increase your current shields by 1 (up to your maximum) when you take a green maneuver. I love how this affects which maneuvers you'll take. I think the green, white, and red maneuvers are brilliant, and I'll be excited to see what other cards interact with those different difficulties.

EDIT: The other thing that struck me was the apparently few amount of upgrades in the Core Set. I'm betting that the limited upgrades is one of the ways they're hoping to sell multiple core sets to the same people.

Great update… Looks like you could have as few as two X-Wings in a 100 game if fully upgraded (and probably not more than 3 with one pimped out and two for support). Harder to tell for TIEs from the info provided, but I'll bet 4 or 5 would be a good number with the proper upgrades.

I remain glad I preordered two of everything (except the dice since I'll get two sets in the starters). But, it looks like even one of everything would give you lots of options.

I just looked at Proton Torpedoes and noticed that you have to discard them to use them. That means either A) you only get one shot, or B) you can equip multiple equipment cards of the same icon as long as they're not unique. I still think (A) because having multiple non-unique astromechs would just be weird.

I can't figure out exactly what Proton Torpedoes do, but I hope the one shot you get is worth their cost.

It's been too long so I can't edit my post, but I just realized that most of the cards mentioned in the article can be clicked on for a full view of the card. This article just got sweeter! Anyway, it looks like Proton Torpedoes cost 4.

I'm also guessing that hollow explosion symbols represent critical hits and solid ones represent normal hits. Look right to you all? In that case, isn't Marksmanship much better than Proton Torpedoes, since you don't have to discard, it costs only 3, and you can fire at short range? I guess that's why relatively few pilots will have access to those elite abilities.

Man, this is so exciting!

Yeah, in one of the earlier previews they said that the hollow blasts were special damage with effects and solid blasts were generic hits.

Also, in this preview they specifically mention that you could equip one pilot with all three upgrades (provided he has the icons). They didn't specifically mention if you could double up (proton torpedoes for example), but I get the feeling you can't (due to the astromech issue, but that part is just my own speculation).

Further evidence that you can only equip one upgrade per icon can be see on Horton Salm's card. It shows an ion cannon, an astromech, and two proton torpedo icons. I think that settles the debate. We may eventually see an awesome pilot that can take two elite pilot talents, but I doubt we'll see that in this first wave.

Budgernaut said:

Good catch on that. Pesky earlier previews providing answers we didn't know we had.

On the topic of Proton Torpedoes vs Marksmanship. The part you might be missing is the red 4 after the name on PT. I'm pretty sure that's how many dice you'll roll instead of the normal dice of whatever ship you're piloting. The Ion Cannon also has a "3" vs the YWing's "2". In the demo, getting a lock on a target also increased you attack dice. The question then is does spending the lock to activate this card lose the extra die?

And yes, Luke may not choose Proton Torpedoes over Marksmanship, but he may choose Determination over Marksmanship and still want the Torpedos. Also the Rookie pilot doesn't have access to elite talents and will probably go with the Torpedoes.

Aahzmandius_Karrde said:

You're full of good questions.

As for the torpedoes, I see what you're saying. With a 4-dice attack, it's worth a discard. And these games are supposed to go pretty quickly, so it's not like you'll be missing your torps for very long before you start a new game (considering a 30 minute game as short).

With all those Rebels wanting to use torpedoes, it makes me wonder how many are included in the Core Set. I'm guessing . . . 1.

Budgernaut said:

And with 2 PT icons on one YWing card I expect we'll see more in the pack, and look I've got 2 Y-Wings on order .

An earlier article stated that there are five upgrade cards in the base set. We saw four in the preview article. Also since there is just one X-Wing in the base set there is really no need for a second torpedo card. Hopefully the expansions will have repeats of the generic upgrade cards.

Looks good. Love the original trilogy so this game is a must.