X-Wing Card Packs

We suspected it. It was all but confirmed by X-wing Devs. But it’s now, finally, officially announced. Card packs are coming for X-wing in 2020.

The first set is not one card pack. Or one per faction. But three, each with items for every faction. This is a bit of a surprise but not an unwelcome one. We’ll deal with the unexpected first before getting to the meat, ie the one with the pilots we were all eagerly anticipating.

Never Tell Me the Odds Obstacle Pack

This pack gives us all access to extra copies of all the games obstacles. For those that want gas clouds, but didn’t buy into Republic or Separatists, or want Debris Fields that didn’t have them from 1.0. It also includes Rigged Cargo Chute and Spare Parts Canisters, the two upgrades that drop Debris Fields. Finally, it includes six new Environment cards.

We only have a little information on these Environment Cards and no idea if they are purely casual play or if they’ll be making an appearance on the tournament scene. They provide alternative ways of setting up the game board at the start of a game. The one we do know about, Asteroid Shower, involves setting up nine asteroids instead of six. Additionally, you don’t place them all at once but add a new one every round. This would make flying very interesting as you never know where a new rock might show up. Some ships (Han Solo, Vultures, Hyenas, Mining Guild TIE’s, Dash) will love this mode.

Do I need to buy this? That depends. If you have all the obstacles already then probably not. Unless the Environment cards themselves become a necessary component for tournament play, you could do the modes without the card itself.

If you don’t have all the obstacles, this is a great, and comparatively cheap, way to get them.

Fully Loaded Devices Pack

Bombs! Mines! Boom!

This pack contains extra copies of all the games deployable explosive devices. Including the reintroduction of Cluster Mines.  We don’t know at this moment if Cluster Mines (upgrade) is being released with anything else as it’s not been spoiled anywhere.

This pack also comes with new Environment cards. These are more themed around its contents. So instead of Asteroid Fields you’re running into Minefields. The one that’s been completely spoiled sets up an array of mines already in place on the game board along with a reduced number of regular obstacles. This adds a new twist to your deployment. Sadly, the few pilots (Cat/Nym) that would love having mines already on the table to enhance their abilities require Friendly devices. I don’t expect these will qualify.

Do I need to buy this? If there are tokens or upgrade you’re lacking, this is a great way to get more. If Cluster Mines doesn’t get released any other way and you’re really wanting to get those on the table, then get this. But if you already have all the mines and bombs, you can probably skip this one.

Hotshots and Aces Reinforcements Pack

Now we get to the pack we’ve all been waiting for. Access to brand new pilots without needing to buy a whole new ship. The introduction of this pack gives the game developers a lot more freedom in how they work Star Wars figures into the game. No longer are we stuck with a forever fixed set of pilots for a given ship. A new fan favorite pilot comes along for a ship that’s already been released, or if a character makes a dramatic change in factions, ala Agent Kallus from Rebels,  it becomes a simple matter to add that character to the game in the appropriate ship.

Or if FFG gets incomplete information about an upcoming movie and doesn’t include a particular pilot, they can correct that mistake. Even if the release of 2.0 already gave them the chance to correct that mistake and, for some reason, they failed to address it. Yes, of course I’m talking about K-2S0. And his ability looks great. Calculate when you get a stress? He won’t mind Panicked Pilot. He can Stop or Coordinate whenever he wants.

There’s not a lot of information on what the other new pilots do. Paige Tico becomes a Starfortress pilot and the first pilot to be able to drop two devices in a round. Morna Kee is boarding the Decimator and doing something in the End Phase. I’m not sure her canon role, but she’s a named Decimator pilot in Armada.

Each faction is gaining three new pilots, each for a new ship. Except Rebels, who get four. But K-2S0 doesn’t count. It was a travesty that Alan Tudyk in robot form was forgotten by FFG for so long. All of the ships selected are ships that have been rereleased for 2.0. Sadly, this means no Tycho Celchu for the A-wing or Fel’s Wraith in the TIE Interceptor. Yet….

Besides the pilots, the pack also contains all the new upgrades that have been released to date. This is the manner that FFG is allowing each faction to get all the upgrades without having to buy ships from the other factions. This is an acceptable approach and a nice boon on top of the pilots themselves.

But wait, there’s more! This pack also contains a new upgrade that is completely unique to it; Stabilized S-foils. It’s not confirmed, and we have no idea what they do, but these look to be the s-foil for the B-Wing. Now that it has fancy moveable parts and all it needed one. It is a bit odd that these weren’t included in the conversion kits, which meant they couldn’t be included in the B-Wing pack itself. We can only assume the design for them wasn’t finalized in time.

This precedent opens the door for these pilot packs to serve the same role as the old Aces packs. But instead of needing to buy new models to get fixes and upgrades, you now get stuff for a bunch of pilots at once and for much cheaper.

Do I need to buy this? Yes! Assuming you are not Republic/Separatists only you’ll get something out of this pack to fly. And priced the same as a single ship, at a very reasonable price too.