X-Wing: Bewegung und Schaden mit großen Schiffen

In einer neuen Vorschau für die zweite Edition von Star Wars X-Wing zeigen Fantasy Flight Games die Bewegung von großen Schiffen und wie sich Beschädigungen auswirken.

In the Captain’s Chair

Preview Huge Ship Movement and Damage in Star Wars: X-Wing

„Stay sharp, there’s two more coming in; they’re gonna try and cut us off.“
—Han Solo, Star Wars: A New Hope

You’ve led squadrons of starfighters into the battles of Star Wars™: X-Wing, coordinating their movements and unleashing deadly bursts of fire on your opponents. But are you ready to take command of a fully operational warship? Huge ships are coming to X-Wing, bringing powerful new options for your squadrons, including new upgrades like Commands, Teams, Cargo, and potent Hardpoints.

But before a captain can start outfitting their ship for battle, they need to know how that ship operates. While these hulking ships can function similarly to standard starfighters, they also lumber into battle using a special tool to direct their movements. Once they enter combat, these massive craft won’t be brought down easily. Due to their size and unique capabilities, huge ships also use a unique damage deck that rewards shots taken from certain angles.

Veterans of X-Wing’s first edition can find these tools, along with everything else they need to bring their huge ships into the game’s second edition, in the Huge Ship Conversion Kit. In addition to a huge ship maneuver tool and huge ship damage deck, this kit also contains ten ship cards and five ship tokens that allow you to fly a huge ship in each of the game’s seven factions, a huge ship range ruler for launching powerful attacks beyond the range of standard fighters, 82 upgrade cards that invite you to customize the loadouts of your huge ships, ten Quick Build cards with helpful combinations of ships and upgrades, and much more.

New players, on the other hand, can start building their collection of huge ships with the Tantive IV Expansion Pack in the fourth quarter of 2019, followed by the C-ROC Cruiser Expansion Pack and the Imperial Raider Expansion Packin subsequent months. No matter which huge ships you add to your collection, these massive vessels are an excellent addition when playing the scenarios contained in the Epic Battles Multiplayer Expansion.

Join us today as we take a closer look at huge ship movement and damage!

Man Your Stations

Unlike smaller starfighters, huge ships like the Raider-class corvette and CR90 Corellian corvette require dozens of personnel to operate. From navigation to weapons, these larger crews give their ships some advantages, such as the ability to perform two actions each round and recur shields at the end of each round. To make full use of their huge ships, however, a crew must work together as a single unit, beginning with carefully moving their ships into position to open fire.

Due to their immense size, huge ships are less agile than standard ships and typically react to the movements of approaching starfighters rather than attempt to outmaneuver them. As a result, every huge ship card has a separate initiative and engagement value, separating the moments when it activates and when it engages. Crews must plan ahead, keeping these values in mind as they carefully plot their course and choose their potential targets.

When they are ready to enter the fray, huge ships are limited to straight, bank, and stop maneuvers, all of which are performed using a plastic maneuver tool specifically designed for the task. But huge ships don’t always need to be moving forward. Not only can they perform stationary maneuvers to remain in the same position, they can also execute speed-zero banks, rotating the ship to bring their most powerful weapons to bear on any incoming enemy craft.

To perform a speed-two bank with the Imperial Raider, a player positions the maneuver tool by sliding its hook underneath the opening of the huge ship’s base. Then, they place the huge ship so the front corner of its base is pressed into the corner of the maneuver tool corresponding to the speed-two bank.  

Executing these maneuvers can make for shrewd strategic decisions, but they do come with costs. Crews of huge ships are not immune to stress and putting your ship through extreme maneuvers can drain your precious energy supply. Unique to huge ships, energy can be spent to resolve various effects on ship, upgrade, and damage cards. However, when a huge ship would receive a stress token—such as when they execute a speed-0 bank, or overlap an asteroid or debris field—the ship must spend an energy to remove a stress token. Huge ship commanders should take care to maintain their energy while maneuvering into position, or they could find themselves without the energy they need at a crucial moment.

Once they’ve moved into position, huge ships have an array of weaponry at their disposal. Like standard starfighters, every huge ship has at least one primary weapon that allows it to attack enemy ships from various arcs. But huge ships also feature hardpoints that can be outfitted with a dizzying array of weaponry to reshape how the ship operates in combat.

Not only do these hardpoints unlock new weapon options from new arcs, they also open up bonus attack opportunities for huge ships. Unlike a standard ship, a huge ship may perform any number of bonus attacks before or after its standard attack. If you’re willing to spend some of your ship’s energy, a  Point-Defense Battery can perform up to four bonus attacks, perfect for fending off any starfighters that may venture too close.

Alternatively, a  Turbolaser Battery can pack quite a punch, adding three regular damage results if the bonus attack’s initial volley hits its target.

The T-65 X-wing lands critical damage against the Imperial Raider. This attack comes from the Raider’s side arc, so it must apply the precision shot effect in addition to its primary effect, flipping its Turbolaser Battery upgrade to its offline side.

With so many powerful weapons available to their enemies, it’s only a matter of time until your huge ships run out of shields and begin taking damage. When this happens, they are assigned cards from their own huge ship damage deck, instead of the standard damage deck used by other ships. Huge ships take regular damage facedown in the same way as other ships, but when they are critically damaged, there’s a chance the attack could knock out more of the ship’s systems. For example, a critical hit could not only damage a ship’s circuitry, but a precision strike from one of the ship’s side arcs could also disable a turret installed in one of its hardpoints, taking it  Offline.

While these attacks can put a huge ship at a serious disadvantage, supplementing your crews with teams can help these systems run at peak efficiency. With the help of a Damage Control Team,  for example, you can quickly mitigate the critical damage you take and get your systems back online.

Despite their prodigious firepower, huge ships don’t just have to be gunships. They can also be the nerve centers of your squadrons, coordinating your plan of attack with other ships. A  Strategic Commander on the bridge, for example, can redirect friendly ships—including their own ship—into better positions.

Similarly, a Comms Team can coordinate with an entire group of friendly fighters to make sure they’re ready to engage the enemy.

Take Command

A new breed of ship is ready to bolster the squadrons of X-Wing with massive firepower and tantalizing new ways to approach space combat. Take your place at the helm of huge ships and enter bigger battles!

Star Wars X-Wing ist unter anderem bei unseren Partnern Fantasy-In und Taschengelddieb erhältlich.
Der deutschen Vertrieb der Fantasy Flight Produkte liegt bei Asmodee.

Quelle: Fantasy Flight Games