Facing Up to 2.0

So, XWing 2.0 is here! I had my first chance to play on Sunday at 4TK in Colchester and although it didn't go so well for me it was a useful start to learning what works and what's different from 1.0.

The Imperial conversion kit is the only one I've had time to sort out so far, and I've been playing the Empire all year (with the regular addition of Omega Leader) so that's the faction I stuck with. The list I took was:

Face Up!
Rexler Brath (Optimised Prototype)
 - Juke
 - FCS
Major Vermeil
 - ISB Slicer
 - Director Krennic
 - Elusive
Zertik Strom
 - FCS

It's all about being able to flip damage cards face-up - Rexler should get two chances to do this, once from OP and once from his own ability, and Zertik gets to do it in the end phase. On paper, this should work pretty well; on the table, not so much...

(I was bad at noting down what upgrades people had on their ships...)

Game 1
I had a bye for this round so played a friendly against TO Steve, who had:
Duchess
Whisper
Soontir Fel

Zertik blanked out two turns in a row and died without firing a shot, and was closely followed by Major Vermeil. Which left Rex with it all to do - and he proceeded to clean up, killing everything.

Game 2
Fenn Rau
Old Teroch
Guri

Early on in this game I was feeling fairly good - I punched Fenn out in the first two turns of shooting, and then went after Guri. Vermeil went down, but Rex put the Disabled Power Regulator crit on Guri with her facing to fly off the board. But I couldn't leave her to fly off on her own, so I had to keep the pressure on to keep flipping the crit, until the turn before she'd have gone off she died. Which left Rex and Zertik to take down Old Teroch, which should be straightforward, no? Well... Rex was down to one shield, and two turns later Teroch got a crit and three hits on him - and Rex blanked out. Which left me a lot less confident that Zertik could pull it off given he was firing second, and he didn't, Teroch killing him fairly quickly.

Game 3
Luke Skywalker
Wedge Antilles
Dutch Vander

At some point I will learn not to try jousting X-Wings any more, but for this game I stuck to my broken-ass plan... I intended to try and focus fire on Luke first and overwhelm him, but his ability fended off nearly all my attacks, taking just his shields. Vermeil went down (do you see a pattern emerging here?) while I tried to put a bit more damage on Luke to no avail. So I gave up on Luke and started in on Wedge, who doesn't have the Force to aid him and subsequently went down, however by this time I only had Rex left. It was somewhat amusing though to see my Defender doing 4-speed K-turns and the Y-wing doing the same thing! Rex managed to get the Y-wing down to 2 hull left before he died...

Game 4
Guri
Sunny Bounder
Boba Fett

It was only in this game that I started to realise the Defender dial and action bar isn't quite the same as the First Edition Defender - it also has a 2-speed K-turn (though it's red and you don't get the Full Throttle benefit), and it has Boost. Wish I'd spotted those earlier in the day.
I set out to kill off Sunny Bounder, Shaun having boasted that she hadn't been killed all day. And I did get a couple of good licks in before she started to use her Ion cannon on me, she had lost her shield and taken a crit plus a damage. Which meant in the End Phase, Zertik got to use his ability! The only opportunity he had all day! All he needed was for his ability to reveal a Direct Hit and Sunny would be gone! He detonated his target lock to reveal... Panicked Pilot. So Sunny went off stressing, and I was left a bit out of position but with a shot on Guri, which went nowhere. The game ended up with Rex on his own facing all three opposing ships, Sunny having come back into it, which went the way you'd expect and the only points I scored was half of Sunny.

What Did I Learn From All This?
So what can I take from these first 2.0 games? Well, Rexler Brath with Juke is a bit of a beast, he was by far my MVP across all four games. But I do need to understand the changes to the dial and action bar. Zertik Strom I think was a bit unlucky with dice so I might try him again. The TIE Reaper, even with Elusive which only worked for me once, with only one green die goes down far too quickly and with Lightweight Frame not being a thing anymore right now I'm unlikely to play it again for the foreseeable future. And tied into that I didn't get the mileage out of Optimised Prototype that I wanted - I may stick with Krennic but put him on a different ship. I'm also unsure about the value of Fire Control System at the moment, but I think I need to get more used to it taking an action to kick in.

All Glory To The Emperor!