Wave 3 Previews: The Moves and Grooves of the Wave 3 Ships!

Yeah, I don't know. Found it on the Gencon site just now. 

I'm working a split shift this week and next week at the plant (11:30 am until 9:00pm) and as I was killing a few minutes in the driveway while my wife got our barky-ass dachshunds hidden away back in our bedroom in an attempt to prevent them from waking up the kiddos when I opened the garage door, I checked my email and found that longtime reader Shane had emailed me to say the maneuver dials had been leaked for the Wave 3 ships at Gencon today. 

First, I came close to heading to Gencon this year. It's just right up the road from me, but ultimately, I had enough vacation days left to either hit Gencon or attend the USMNT v Mexico World Cup Qualifier in Columbus next month. Lest you think poorly of me dear readers, a thousand apologies, but I opted for the WCQ. In addition to being your Blogmaster General and a reluctant hipster, I'm also a member of both the USSSC and an American Outlaw (if any of y'all are going too, drop me an email and we'll meet up at the tailgate or something). Being one of the relatively lucky few to score not only 4 tickets to this sold out match, but tickets in the American Outlaws section... well, there's just no way I could pass that up.  

I figured people would leak all the Wave 3 info one way or another anyway, but it still would have been cool to attend and cover for the site. Maybe next year as it's not a World Cup year. :) 

Right on, enough blabbing- here's the skinny on the maneuver dials from the Wave 3 ships (and if you'd like to talk more about them than just my little comments section, Team Covenant and BoardGameGeek both have the info posted up. 

A user on BGG made some sweet visual templates, but as I'm always particularly careful about not jacking people's images and stuff, I'm not using them, so bear with me as I describe them to you. Figured I'd mention them though if you want to see them. 

I think the ship I was most curious about was the Lambda what with it's seemingly ridiculous low cost, so let's look over her moves- 

At Speed 3- Red Left Bank, White Straight, Red Right Bank
At Speed 2- Red Left Turn, White Left Bank, White Straight, White Right Bank, Red Right Turn
At Speed 1- Green Left Bank, Green Straight, Green Right Bank
At Speed 0 (not a typo)- Red Stationary

So this thing's got less moves than a white accountant in a disco. The whole stationary thing has everybody all a twitter tonight, as you might expect. Apparently the rules for remaining stationary are discussed in the little pamphlet thing that comes with the Lambda. I have no idea what they are at the moment (aside from the obvious, of course), but I'm sure someone will drop some science about it in the comments before too long. I wonder how much of this seemingly limited dial gets made slightly better by the fact that it's a big base? No K-Turn, but again, I think that's not that big of a deal. Y'all likely know my stance on the K-Turn, but in short, you probably don't rely on it a ton to begin with if you're past your first couple of months playing X-Wing Miniatures (or you've got some list cooked up that benefits from Stress), so I still think the Lambda is pretty nasty. 

Next up? How about the ship I forgot to write about (well, not really- truth is I left the Chromebook out in the car night before last when I was going to write about it and was too lazy to go and get it out after everyone went to bed- I'll cover it this Monday; I promise), the B-Wing? 

At Speed 4- Red Straight
At Speed 3- Red Left Bank, White Straight, Red Right Bank
At Speed 2- White Left Turn, White Left Bank, Green Straight, White Right Bank, White Right Turn, Red K-Turn
At Speed 1- Red Left Turn, White Left Bank, Green Straight, White Right Bank, White Right Turn

So if a Falcon and a Y-Wing had a kid, it'd be a B-Wing, more or less. More green moves than a Y-Wing, but less moves overall. The K-Turn at speed 2 is slightly eyebrow raising. Overall, for movement options while not taking into account colors (red, white, green) the dial is very similar to the YT-1300. Kind of the opposite of the way I feel about the Lambda though- I think without the big base and 360 degree turret of the YT, the B-Wing might be tougher to fly right off the bat than you might think. Of course, if you've got it penciled in for backline duty, it kinda doesn't matter so much, does it? 

Next on the list, the TIE Bomber- 

At Speed 5- Red K-Turn (Huh?)
At Speed 4- White Straight
At Speed 3- White Left Turn, White Left Bank, Green Straight, White Right Bank, White Right Turn
At Speed 2- Red Left Turn, Green Left Bank, Green Straight, Green Right Bank, Red Right Turn
At Speed 1- White Left Bank, Green Straight, White Right Bank

I have no idea what to make of the K-Turn at 5 with no corresponding straight move. Don't even ask. That said, the fact that you can green move straight at speeds 1, 2, or 3 as well as bank left or right at speed 2 gives you a lot of functionality for losing that speed 5 K-Turn Stress Token, so if you do enjoy the K-Turn, you ought to be able to make fairly good use of it in a Bomber. I still think the TIE Bomber will be the belle of the Wave 3 ball. 

Lastly, the ship some random guy on BoLS got offended over because I labeled it "Most Likely To Be Slightly Underwhelming", the HWK-290- 

At Speed 4- Red Straight
At Speed 3- Red Left Bank, White Straight, Red Right Bank
At Speed 2- White Left Turn, White Left Bank, Green Straight, White Right Bank, White Right Turn
At Speed 1- Green Left Bank, Green Straight, Green Right Bank

If my math is right (big if there- as we've discussed in the past, the maths are not exactly my strong suite), the HWK is tied with the Lambda for fewest moves of any ship in the game (12 total). Also like the Lambda, no K-Turn available. Skimming the threads on both Team Covenant and BGG before writing this, I read people talking about how the HWK is effective out to Range 3 (I guess in terms of pilot card text and that blaster turret) as kind of a way to make up for the rotten dial. Again, maybe I'm completely missing something obvious to everybody else, but I'm just not feelin' this ship on any level. Oh sure, I'll probably buy one because I'm a big dork like that, but I just don't see the viability of this ship in any kind of remotely competitive setting. Don't take my word for it, play around with it when it comes out, I'll do the same, and maybe we'll figure out what I'm missing here. I mean, the Y-Wing has a (somewhat debatably, but not very)  better movement dial than this thing. You ever use a Y-Wing and think to yourself, "Good Lord, this thing has just got moves for days and one too many Attack dice!"? Yeah, me neither. 

So there it is, y'all. At this point, there's not much left we don't know, and I'm sure by the end of the weekend, the rest of the proverbial beans will have been spilled (if they haven't already). I made this joke already in my reply to him, but allow me to say, Danke Shane for giving me the heads-up that the dial info had leaked. 

I know, that's a terrible joke and you're likely rolling your eyes, but hey- it's me. :) 

More Wave 3 Reveals- Lambda Shuttle, Part 3

Originally, this wasn't really meant to be a multi-part set of articles, but I got really sidetracked on what became Part 1 and here's Part 2. 

Last of the named Imperial Shuttle pilots is the ubiquitious Captain Yorn. And by ubiquitous I mean... I don't know. I'm pretty sure that word doesn't mean what I thought it meant. In any case, here's this Captain Yorr fella. 

So, 24 points. Not bad for a PS 4 ship with 10 HP (Hull + Shield). Holy mackerel. Same price as a Red Squadron X-Wing, same PS... I can't wait to see the maneuver dial. I'll just leave it at that. 

All right- card text. Oh Captain, my captain says that when another friendly ship is Range 1-2 and would receive a Stress Token, The Good Captain can take it instead, assuming he has 2 or less Stress Tokens to begin with. Funny, with Kath Scarlet on the Gear Team, this guy seems like he'd see way more action on the Rebel side of the Mason-Dixon line, but whateva. 

Does that do any good? Think of some situations where it could help- any nearby pilot who can take Push The Limit basically doesn't have to worry about the downside of that card. Aaaand- oh! Anybody doing a K-Turn! 

Ok, so that's actually pretty nasty when I stop and think about it. 

I've talked about K-Turns on here a little before, generally I feel it's suited either to the super aggressive or the new player- losing your Action just to get an enemy in your sights I generally feel is too much to trade. In any case, this guy more or less makes me reverse the opinion now that's essentially a white maneuver for the (up to) two other pilots besides him. Note that this isn't an Action for Yorr, nor is there any timing confinement to the Activation or Shooting phases. 

Past that, he's the same as the other Shuttle pilots- he can take up to 2 Crew Members, secondary weapon systems symbolized by the funky raygun, and the new fangled System Upgrades. Maybe I'm missing it, but nothing jumps out to me as super-useful on Yorr. Again, what I mean by that is I don't see anything that meshes particularly and/ or uniquely well with his special card text, not that you shouldn't take any of the available upgrades to him. As he's likely to be a pretty high priority target for your opponent (or should be, in any case), I'd personally lead more towards defensive upgrades like Rebel Captive or good old Shield Upgrade. Maybe you could talk me into a Weapons Engineer on the notion that if you TLed a couple of ships, you could take Stress from other ships and yet still make use of the Target Locks. Yeah, you probably could talk me into that. Mainly though, he oughta be the support ship he's supposed to be. Of course, sometimes the best defense is a good offense, and all that. 

At some point, it's probably occurred to you that interaction between green maneuvers and Stress Tokens really makes a difference on this dude's effectiveness. Namely, if you do a green does it remove one Stress Token or all Stress Tokens? Well, depending on your faction, you'll be happy to know that in the rulebook towards the bottom of the left column on page 7 under the 4. Check Pilot Stress heading, we find that performing a green maneuver removes a single Stress Token from the ship. So there ya go. 

So what's my overall take on Captain Yorr? Kinda silly name aside (is it just me? It's not, right? Kinda sounds like a B-Movie monster or something. Definitely one of those monsters that like, is named for what it says- YYOOOORRRRRRRRR...), Yorr has a pretty solid special ability that doesn't rely on Pilot Skill or phases and is driving a pretty salty ship for 24 points. I'm down with that. 

More Wave 3 Reveals- Lambda Shuttle Part 2

Originally, this wasn't really meant to be a multi-part set of articles, but I got really sidetracked on what became Part 1, so here's Part 2. 

Aiight then, let's talk about another Lambda Shuttle Pilot, the middle Pilot Skill version, Colonel Jendon. First thing that jumps out at me? He's only one point less than our ould (wow- is that a typo or like some ye olde school Scottish Auld Lang Syne type shit? Still very tired, apparently) sorry- old pal Major Kagi. Kagi, as you'll recall had a PS of 8, and as they have the same icons in their upgrade bar, we better be looking at a better card text ability, right? 

The ability is interesting. Especially since Lambda Shuttles can't even take Torpedoes or Missiles. As I'm sure you'll recall, lots of Imperial ships can't. Target Lock is as standard as power windows and locks on Rebel ships, but only half of the (current) Imperial ships have the option. 

Thinking about this made me remember a thread on the rules section of the FFG X-Wing forums. The question, at the time, was could Dutch Vander pass on a Target Lock to a ship that couldn't normally take a Target Lock Action. I have no idea how the question even came up- I guess maybe folks were speculating that the A-Wing wouldn't have Target Lock or something. I remember thinking at the time, "Christ. We really have nothing to talk about if people are arguing over stuff that's not even likely to effin' happen." 

Color me wrong. Lols. 

So I guess Colonel Jendon answers that question, or maybe not- I don't know. I guess he could pass along a TL to a TIE Fighter or Interceptor if they're friendly and they don't have a blue TL, right? I don't see why not really, and I can't remember what the line of thinking was in that rules debate for why Vander couldn't pass his along now. 

Anyhizzle, ok, so obviously Jendon's meant to be used with the forthcoming TIE Bombers, which seems fairly scary at a glance. The wording on Jendon's card is a little different than Dutch's text- Dutch passes along what is effectively an additional TL, and by additional I mean Dutch still retains his, while Jendon actually gives his away. Jendon's also happens later than Dutch's and at a different range- Dutch at the time he acquires his (i.e. the Activation phase) and 1-2, Jendon at the start of the Combat Phase, Range 1 only. Is that significant? I don't know, kinda, yeah. The range thing for obvious reasons, the timing because you could conceivably have a higher PS ship too far away from Jendon to get the lock during Jedon's activation phase, but then have it close enough at the start of the combat phase to benefit. Is that a big deal? I don't know- if you're talking about a ship that can Boost or Daredevil into Range 1, I guess it could be, sure. It's also worth noting that the way the text reads, Jendon's actually giving away one of his blue TL tokens to the other ship. What I mean by that is it doesn't let the ship make a TL of its own- it gets whatever enemy ship was TLed by Jendon for it's Target Lock. 

The best way to utilize this off the top of my head would be to roll a Weapons Engineer as a Crew Member in Jendon's ride. That way you've always got a TL to dish, and yet you've also got the option of keeping one for Jendon to use if the opportunity presents itself. Of course, if you can pass that TL to a Bomber, especially a Bomber that Focused (preferably with Deadeye as an Elite Pilot Skill if any of them can take Elite Pilot Skills), you can bet you're going to put the maximum hurt on somebody. 

Another option would be installing a Fire Control System as Jendon could then use his Action as contextually appropriate (i.e. not always TLing to pass it along). Fire Control Systems- it ain't just for B-Wings anymore. 

So we said yesterday that Kagi debatably works better as more of a hang back support ship than one that's actively trying to smoke fools off the board. I think Jendon could work in either role. I mean, with all those shields and hull, you could make a case for him playing a little offensively to get those ships in TL range, and with his middle of the road Pilot Skill, I think you could make a strong case for Anti-Pursuit Lasers. 

Another card you could perhaps make a case for use with Jendon in a more offensive role would be that Recon Specialist Crew Member chick. 

Jendon can't give away the Focus tokens or anything, but if you think you're going to get shot at by several ships in the Combat round, it could be pretty handy to have a couple of Focus tokens lying around to try and mitigate that lousy 1 Defense. 

Any big ship that might be getting up close and personal with the enemy would also do well to consider another card I didn't really touch on yesterday- the Saboteur Crew Member. 

Admittedly, it doesn't appear to be the easiest card in the world to use, and it's almost exclusively going to be worthwhile only against other big ships (and who knows if the current big ship meta will stick around as prominently as it is now post-Wave 3), but as I've been saying on here for several months, the easiest way to try and deal with a big ship is to throw some d's on that bitch, I mean, throw some crits on that bitch. Saboteur does that and does it well, not to mention does it in the Activation phase rather than the Combat Phase, which is just icing on a tasty cake. Not the easiest cake to bake, if I can mix the metaphor, but for only 2 points, I think it's certainly worthwhile to at least consider. 

I kinda mixed up my Crew Members and System Upgrades there, and while the above reads fairly coherently, we still should talk about funky raygun and the remaining Crew Members. Sorry for being a little scattered with this, but bear with me and we'll get through this together. 

So remaining stuff that work better than usual with Jendon? To be honest, nothing else really jumps out at me. As usual, if I'm planning on hanging out in the backfield and passing along TLs to a couple of Bombers while my other ships mix it up, I'd go HLC, with the Mercenary Copilot Crew Member. If I were wanting to get a little closer, Ion Cannon with Gunner. Assuming of course I've got points to burn and I want to use the shuttle in an offensive role. 

That said, I think you can get away with relatively few upgrades on Jendon and still have him be worthwhile. If you could find the points, having him fly around with Kath Scarlet could be pretty nasty, as she could Focus or use Marksmanship for her Action, then get a TL from Jendon, and get pretty mean in the Combat Phase with none of that really requiring much forethought or planning. In other words, you could likely do it just about every round you wanted to. You could save a couple of points and use it with Trelix in a similar fashion, but I think it's almost overkill with him considering his built-in card text. Of course, he could always select Evade for his Action instead too. Either way, you've got a couple of high HP ships flying around both with Attack 3 primaries which can't be ignored by the enemy very long. I've talked about dual Firespray lists before, this setup would be kind of similar except of course you're looking at a much cheaper Firespray type ship in the Lambda Shuttle, so you'd have more points to play with than usual. Or you could get really silly and go 2 Bounty Hunters with Jendon instead of 3 Bounty Hunters and end up with 7 more points left to spend on upgrades, but with similar staying power and improved functionality. That could be interesting. 

More Wave 3 Reveals!- Lambda Shuttle, Part 1

I figure most of y'all have already seen the new Wave 3 Reveals on the FFG site (I was notified by Bikini Aficionado Daniel Valenta back on Thursday via email), but now that we know much more than what we did previously, but still not quite enough for me to give her the full-on, traditional, TheMetalBikini.com breakdown treatment, we'd spend a little time today talking about the Lambda, her pilots, and some of her upgrade cards in light of the new info. 

Pilots

Captain Kagi has the highest Pilot Skill of the named Lambda shuttle pilots and has a Biggsish special ability to pull Target Locks to himself instead of his pals. Note I said, "Biggsish"- it's not exactly like Biggs' ability, but it's kinda similar in that it forces the opposing player into changing his gameplan in regard to target priority when Kagi's floating around the board. 

So, again, I can't do a for reals breakdown yet since not all of the Wave 3 cards have been revealed, but I can tell you a couple of things that jump out at me. 

First off, note the way that text is worded- there's no Range associations like there is with Biggs' ability- just if somebody could lock onto you, they have to instead of another ship. Remember, this is a big base ship we're talking about here- think back to that picture I ran with the Falcon, Range ruler in that "Han Shoots First- Why Is It So Good?" article a little while back? 

So, that's basically the area you can have your ships flying around without having them Target Locked. Scary, huh? I'm sure there's much deeper strategy than this, but flying Kagi with a couple of named pilot Interceptors as wingmen seems even harder to shoot down than usual. 

Looking at the upgrades, you see perhaps a bit of why the ship is relatively cheap- no Elite Pilot Skills. Still though, two crew members, the funky raygun, and the System Upgrade icons shouldn't be dismissed. It just means you can't pack on Elusiveness or Draw Their Fire or whatever. 

So there's only been a couple of Systems Upgrade cards revealed, right? I wonder if any of those dovetail with Kagi? 

Sensor Jammer works pretty well with Kagi's ability. With all those Target Locks he's pulling, somebody's bound to snap off a torpedo or missile at him, right? Well, the long story short version of this is if your target doesn't have a Focus-type ability/ Action declared, you get to change a hit result to the eyeball. 

I confused myself on the original write-up of this paragraph, so let me put it more simply for hopefully both of our benefits, but if nothing else, at least my own. 

From the BBB-"The Combat Phase Explained!" article- 

3. Modify Attack Dice
This is where you can spend action tokens and resolve abilities that re-roll or otherwise modify attack dice results. I don't think it could happen in Wave 1, but in Wave 2, there are some defender abilities that resolve against the attack dice. If you're in a situation where both the attacker and defender have abilities that modify the attack dice, the defender resolves his modifications first, then the attacker resolves his.
So yeah, unless they've got a Focus-type ability kicked on, this actually does kind of neuter stuff as lots of people fire off shots with just a Target Lock instead of a Target Lock + Focus/ Marksmanship. The way this would go down is: 

1. Attacker rolls attack dice. 
2. Kagi changes 1 <filled explosion> to a <eyeball>
3. Attacker modifies results, but can't re-roll the die changed by Kagi due to card text on Sensor Jammer. 

Fire Control is a more offensive ship type System Upgrade, so I'm not immediately a fan of that on Kagi. As usual, not saying it can't work, just saying it doesn't work particularly well. 

Moving on to Crew Members, I don't see anything obviously beneficial between Kagi and the Wave 2 guys, but we have seen a few of the Wave 3 Crew Members.

If I'm the Rebel player going against a Kagi Lambda, I'd probably just bite the bullet and try to get him off the table as quickly as possible like I would with Biggs. This Rebel Captive card makes that a much less appealing option. Oh sure, you might have Tycho Celchu buzzing around in which case it's not that big of a deal, but if you don't, it does put a hitch in your giddy up. 

The 2-for-1 Focus Tokens from a Recon Specialist is going to help anybody able to take a Crew Member in post-release Wave 3, and it could help keep Kagi alive a little longer to offset that 1 Defense, so that's always an option too. 

There were a couple of other Crew Members revealed in this same FFG article too- 

Yup, ol' Annie himself is now available as a Crew Member. At first glance, it seems a fairly steep trade-off, but dig on the fact that it explicitly says, "Suffer 1 critical damage." Maybe I'm crazy, but to me, that goes through shields even. Note: I'm probably crazy. That said, it's still pretty doggone nasty. Would also work even if another ship in range of the intended target had Draw Their Fire. Still doesn't let you stick a crit to a Chewie Falcon or Determination though. It also wouldn't kill a Stealth Device if you're wondering. Also note that it doesn't say anything about that attack actually hitting the friggin' target. Hoo boy- that card's only 3 points? Thank God it's dotted.

I'm not nuts about him on Kagi, though because there's this guy- 

So that's pretty cool, right? Again, big base ship so that Range 1-2 is pretty significant really. Kinda pales in regard to Vader, but I think on Kagi, you might get more use out of Intelligence Agent. Especially if the other side is flying Han, Wedge, or some other high Pilot Skill pilot and you pair Kagi with- 

Blocking big ships with some dipshit Academy or Gray (Grey? I think it's Gray in X-Wing) isn't going to be quite as valid anymore. Yeah, admittedly, it's a modification, so you wouldn't be able to take the other usual suspect Mods (Stealth Device and Shield Upgrade, of course), but on a big ship with low Pilot Skill (read that first sentence closely), this 2-point modification could be a massive game-changer in the current meta (oh my God, y'all- remember that 3-ship Outer Rim Smuggler list I mentioned before? Holy friggin' mackerel!). Note again, we have a card that's doing direct damage- similar to the way Assault Missiles works, so defense rolls and Evade tokens need not apply!

Wow, so originally I was going to talk about all the different pilots for the Lambda, but that got a lot more in-depth than I'd planned. I'll talk about the other pilots tomorrow, and who knows, maybe even the next day if those articles go long too- they might, they might not. We'll just have to see. 

Lambda Shuttle, Wait, What?

I'm still trying to decide whether or not I'll pre-order the Wave 3 stuff or wait and pick it up at my FLGS, and as such, I was looking at pictures of the ships and cards this evening, when I noticed something...

Now, I know what you're thinking- "Oh dude, those are just some mission-specific tokens. They're right next to the Tracking Tokens from the box set." 

Entirely possible. 

Although... 

The Slave I contents on TheWarStore.com specifically call out the fact that there are new rules and a new mention in the product description, which seems to be some rather canned text as very similar copy is repeated over on the Slave I page at MiniatureMarket.com as well. 

Ok, so what about the Falcon? 

Doesn't specifically call out new rules and a new mission like Slave I, but does say, "New rules expand the X-Wing galaxy to include large ships and modifications." 

The Lambda's canned text says nothing about any of that. From TheWarStore.com's product description page- 

"Noted for its tri-wing design, the Lambda-class shuttle served a critical role as a light utility craft in the Imperial Navy. Now you can use this utilitarian ship to strengthen your Imperial squad for X-Wing! The Lambda–class Shuttle Expansion Pack includes one large-base Lambda-class shuttle miniature at 1/270 scale, its maneuver dial, all necessary tokens, four ship cards, and a whopping twelve upgrades, which afford Imperial players an astonishing level of customization and control of their squads."

MiniatureMarket.com's entry is exactly the same text as above. 

So... if it's not some included scenario token, what could it be? 

Only thing I can come up with is it's the cockpit in escape pod mode. I remember reading somewhere- maybe one of those big Star Wars ship schematics books, maybe it was one of the sourcebooks for the old West End Games' Star Wars RPG; can't remember now, that the cockpit of an Imperial Shuttle could detach from the body of the ship and act as an escape pod. Maybe FFG included some rules for that? 

So what do you think? Am I off my proverbial rocker as usual? Whatever it is, it seems to have an Agility Value. Past that, I can't make out anything else.