Tuesday, April 2, 2019
X-Wing: Second Edition Is On The Way!
 |
| Feeling fresh. |
Oh man, I'm excited. I haven't played X-Wing in a while because the competitive meta was just so stagnant with all the health regen, turrets,and bombs. Now that they rebooted the entire game, I'm really pumped to get back into it.
The official announcement is here:
https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2018/5/1/x-wing-second-edition/
There's a thread on the FFG forums that has all the consolidated info:
https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/274813-consolidated-x-wing-20-changes-thread/
Here's a quick run-down of what changed and what didn't..
These things have not changed in 2.0:
- Models carry over (some models may be re-released with new sculpts/paint/features)
- Dice are the same
- Range ruler is the same
- Range bonuses and obstructions work the same (except turrets)
- Templates are the same size -- but have a line down the center for alignment on nubless bases
- Basic game flow (but phases are renamed; some new phases)
- Maneuver driven by hidden dials plus actions
- Actions include: Focus, Target lock, evade, boost, barrel roll, cloak, reinforce, jam, coordinate, rotate arc (specific action mechanics may change)
- Upgrade slots: EPT, modification, title, torpedo, astromech, bombs, missiles, crew, system, turret
- Some upgrades will still take two slots
- Tokens (some art changes, shape): focus, evade, target lock, cloak, stress, tractor beam, jam, shield, ion
- Conditions are still a thing (Director Krennic)
- Setup Phase is largely the same
These things have changed in 2.0:
- New phases/phase names ("Strategy Phase")
- Medium ship bases (confirmed: U-wing, ARC-170, K-wing, G1A, Kimogila, Scurrg, Firespray, TIE Punisher, TIE Reaper, TBD)
- The new templates have a centerline that aligns to hash marks on the base and assists with bumping.
- Green maneuvers become blue
- Red actions which gain a stress after taking
- Push the Limit is gone; some ships may "link" a first action into a second and gain a stress (example: focus into target lock linked action)
- New tokens: Force, charge
- Force tokens which power force abilities for some pilots; they may also be used to change one Focus result
- Charge/surge tokens which power some pilot abilities and ordnance
- Token shape now indicates when removed: "End of Round" tokens are round; square tokens have other triggers to remove (e.g. ion, stress)
- Evade tokens to not add evade results; they just change green dice to evades.
- No costs on pilot cards or upgrades; these are in the squad builder app. Baseline is now 200 points.
- Each ship base has a bullseye arc and quadrants marked
- Turrets adopt mobile arc mechanics
- Turrets also get ranged bonuses and penalties, Ordnance does not.
- New upgrade cards are full sized, landscape
- New upgrade slots: Force Abilities ("Instinctive Aim"), Configuration ("S-foils")
- Resistance and First Order will now be separate factions
- Firespray-31 is no longer Imperial; Scum only
- New pilots
- No upgrade bar; either use ship build cards from the core set or the squad builder app
- Pilot skill is now called Initiative and goes from 1 to 6 [Wedge Antilles: 6]; no Veteran's Instincts or ability to change
- Damage deck - new. Repairing damage is now a thing. New cards ("Fuel Leak", "Panicked Pilot", "Wounded Pilot"); only 5 Direct Hits in the deck now.
- Regen exists, but is powered by charge tokens and nets a weapons disabled (R2 astromech)
- Decimator gets Reinforce and a red Coordinate
- Some ships have built-in abilities: Phantom (Stygium); TIE Advanced (Advanced Targeting Computer)
- Ordnance appears not to spend target locks (e.g. Proton torps);
- Ion tokens: 1 for small ship, 2 for medium ship, 3 for large ship
- Bombs can blow up obstacles (and do damage in the process)
- New abilities will affect the Setup Phase
- They will introduce new obstacle types
- Shield levels have been reduced on many ships
- Barrel roll is not adjustable; they use the hash marks on the bases for alignment.Barrel Roll now only has 3 positions per side (6 total) – makes Barrel Roll more inline with Boost as you only have 6 total positions.If you declare and action and you can't do it (ie Barrel Roll would land you on a rock), you just lose the action now
- There is a "range 0" for own ship abilities.
- Target Lock is now just Lock – and you can Lock on to objects as well as ships (friendly and enemy).
- Certain ships have different attack values for different arcs now.
Took inventory last night. Looks like I'm going to have to do some massive trading when the game comes out.
Rebels:
3 A-Wing (2 Aces)
4 B-Wing (2 Aces)
4 T-65 X-Wing (Core)
2 Z-Wing
1 HWK-290
1 Y-Wing
1 E-Wing
1 K-Wing
1 YT-1300 (Heroes)
1 YT-1300
1 YT-2400
1 Sabine's TIE Fighter
Imps:
3 TIE Interceptors
2 TIE Advanced
1 TIE Phantom
7 TIE Fighters (Core)
4 TIE Interceptors (Royal Guard)
4 TIE Interceptors (181st)
3 TIE Defender (Veterans)
3 TIE Bomber (Veterans)
1 TIE Advanced (Raider)
1 TIE Advanced Proto
1 TIE Aggressor
1 VT-49 Decimator
1 Lambda Shuttle
Scum:
2 BroBots
1 Slave I
1 H-6 Bomber
Resistance:
4 T-70 X-Wing (Core)
1 T-70 X-Wing (Heroes)
First Order:
7 TIE F/O (Core)
1 TIE Silencer
Monday, April 1, 2019
A Sense Of Wonder And Magic In AD&D
You might get the impression, if you hang out on reddit and Facebook AD&D groups, or on some of the AD&D focused forums, that there is no way but THE RULES AS WRITTEN AND THE HOLY WRIT OF GYGAX AMEN!!!!!
Pffft.
Let me say again, PFFFFT!
I can see the reaction now...
Yea, I've not been one for doing RAW or BtB so much. I mean, my houserules document is quite a few pages long (one of my new Discord players was quite gleeful about that... funny!) and I've long said that my "version" of D&D is called "D&D".
To me, the rules are a starting point. A common starting point so that we're talking the same language, but just as I want a world to explore, I want to explore the ruleset as well. I want to push it, expand it, contract it, simplify, but then find new ways of expression in letting imaginations run wild.
One of my best players for that is someone that you'd not expect, but he's provided more opportunities for me than anyone else. He does things and asks questions that provoke me to explore the rules beyond what I may envision, and that's a good thing!
For me, the rules provide the way to experience the world of myth, magic and wonder - and that implies that the rules are going to be broken, remolded and remade! It's the world of the Hobbit ... where you think you know what's going to happen, but then there's that ring that just manages to break the rules.
I want that sense in my game.
So what prompted this soap box? The use of find familiar.
In my world, I run wargames as well as RPGs. One of the miniatures that I have in my collection that I use quite a bit in Chaos Wars is a winged panther. I almost always start this guy off close to the mage(s) that are also in my wargames... but why? It occurred to me that perhaps these panthers are preferred familiars in my world! How would that work, given that the spell that AD&D has produces results like this:
So while I could easily adapt/adopt this table and plug in creatures from my setting, something else tugged at me.
Imagine a magic user who wants to connect with a beast as a familiar. It's more likely they'll have a youngling, or an animal already present. The spell, as written, summons something from the ether.
So this then makes me think that this spell should be more of a framework. And that kind of gets to how I tend to see spells... as frameworks or commonalities of how mages approach what they do. Sure, everyone has a sleep spell, but Wizard Frizzat may have worked out how to sleep creatures, but Magetrix Yeena may have done it slightly different. Those expressions of spells in the books are how the mages themselves interpret the twisting of these awesome energies to do what the caster wants. The formulae are more art than science.
So for me, having the mage's intent and desire be as much of a driving force for how the spell works, as the RAW itself. So, for find familiar, I told the player that they could focus the energies and magicks towards binding an existing creature that they'd already befriended. The roll was still a d20, and if they'd rolled the 16-20 result, it meant that their initial attempts were unsuccessful... try again in ten days. He rolled a 3, and it worked brilliantly. Now he has a young winged panther bound to him as his familiar.
I'm sure that a great many DMs already do this flexing, but I also get the feeling that a lot don't OR that those new to D&D and perhaps OSR/AD&D may think that there's no room for flexibility, of there has to be a new spell or new mechanic or new RULE to make things work.
I say, let your imagination make it work. See the rules, spells and mechanics as tools to get to the effect you want - let the rules promote wonder, magic and little mysteriousness, versus a lockstep "ve must march zis vay!" parade.
Pffft.
Let me say again, PFFFFT!
I can see the reaction now...
Yea, I've not been one for doing RAW or BtB so much. I mean, my houserules document is quite a few pages long (one of my new Discord players was quite gleeful about that... funny!) and I've long said that my "version" of D&D is called "D&D".
To me, the rules are a starting point. A common starting point so that we're talking the same language, but just as I want a world to explore, I want to explore the ruleset as well. I want to push it, expand it, contract it, simplify, but then find new ways of expression in letting imaginations run wild.
One of my best players for that is someone that you'd not expect, but he's provided more opportunities for me than anyone else. He does things and asks questions that provoke me to explore the rules beyond what I may envision, and that's a good thing!
For me, the rules provide the way to experience the world of myth, magic and wonder - and that implies that the rules are going to be broken, remolded and remade! It's the world of the Hobbit ... where you think you know what's going to happen, but then there's that ring that just manages to break the rules.
I want that sense in my game.
So what prompted this soap box? The use of find familiar.
In my world, I run wargames as well as RPGs. One of the miniatures that I have in my collection that I use quite a bit in Chaos Wars is a winged panther. I almost always start this guy off close to the mage(s) that are also in my wargames... but why? It occurred to me that perhaps these panthers are preferred familiars in my world! How would that work, given that the spell that AD&D has produces results like this:
So while I could easily adapt/adopt this table and plug in creatures from my setting, something else tugged at me.
Imagine a magic user who wants to connect with a beast as a familiar. It's more likely they'll have a youngling, or an animal already present. The spell, as written, summons something from the ether.
So this then makes me think that this spell should be more of a framework. And that kind of gets to how I tend to see spells... as frameworks or commonalities of how mages approach what they do. Sure, everyone has a sleep spell, but Wizard Frizzat may have worked out how to sleep creatures, but Magetrix Yeena may have done it slightly different. Those expressions of spells in the books are how the mages themselves interpret the twisting of these awesome energies to do what the caster wants. The formulae are more art than science.
So for me, having the mage's intent and desire be as much of a driving force for how the spell works, as the RAW itself. So, for find familiar, I told the player that they could focus the energies and magicks towards binding an existing creature that they'd already befriended. The roll was still a d20, and if they'd rolled the 16-20 result, it meant that their initial attempts were unsuccessful... try again in ten days. He rolled a 3, and it worked brilliantly. Now he has a young winged panther bound to him as his familiar.
I'm sure that a great many DMs already do this flexing, but I also get the feeling that a lot don't OR that those new to D&D and perhaps OSR/AD&D may think that there's no room for flexibility, of there has to be a new spell or new mechanic or new RULE to make things work.
I say, let your imagination make it work. See the rules, spells and mechanics as tools to get to the effect you want - let the rules promote wonder, magic and little mysteriousness, versus a lockstep "ve must march zis vay!" parade.
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