X Wing Musings

With STO done and Adepticon / Worlds on the horizon, I’m in a bit of a funk. I’m not going to Worlds, so the next “Big” event in my diary is the UK Games Expo at the end of May. Before then, there’s a few store events (including the Mandos Spring Event on the 18th April!) but more importantly there is likely to be a points update! Since I did so well in predicting what would happen at the STO (*cough cough*), it might be fun to predict what’s coming up!

Just to preface this, I have no solid information about what’s coming. I’m not involved with the XWA. I don’t hang out with any of the XWA on a regular basis. All of this is pure speculation – I might have heard things around and about, but nothing recently (I’ve not been to an in-person event since early February), so this is all Just For Fun! So without further ado, here’s what I think is coming!

Mystic Dave’s Points Update Prediction (Q1 2026)

• When will the new points land?
  • All we’ve been told for definite is that they will land “sometime after Worlds”. However I suspect that it will be pretty soon after Worlds. There’s been more that enough time to gather data over the last 6 months and STO alone was a Data Goldmine!
  • Things I heard in February suggested that things were pretty far along, so I would be hopeful that they could land within a week of worlds.
  • If I was the XWA, I’d probably play on the fact that 1st April is on the week after worlds and drop a spoof points drop as an April Fools gag! e.g. ” We thing Vader has been underperforming, so he’s coming down to 13 points…”.
  • However, funnies aside, It’s likely to be that week – maybe even earlier!

MYSTIC DAVE PREDICTS: 31st March

• What new stuff is coming?
  • So far, we’ve had 2 teases:
    • Carnor Jax (TIE Interceptor)
    • Thweek (Starviper)
  • However, we’ve not seen the “V2” version of these pilots, only the V1 versions, which are STUPIDLY POWERFUL. Remember these?
  • 
  • Tweek is insane as his power allowed him to copy an ability (“Mimicked) or copy an Initiative (“Shadowed”) of an enemy ship. This potentially allowed for an I9 (or even up to an I11 if the opponent had Veteran Instincts!) Starviper… or just the ability to copy the most powerful ability on the table (e.g. Fenn Rau’s 5 dice at Range 1!!!). It’s possible that a V2 version of Thweek could be charge based e.g. during the system phase, spend a charge and copy a pilot initiative. We’ve seen this twice already (Nom Lumb in the Rogue fighter and BoE Lando in the Falcon) and it’s a decent ability, although rarely game breaking.
  • Carnor Jax effectively blocked the most popular defensive mods in the game. That’s huge, especially since he’s a pretty high initiative pilot. And it doesn’t have to be when he attacks – just if he’s near! There are worse abilities out there (e.g. Old Teroch just removes the green tokens altogether… but only from 1 ship), however, it’s still very powerful. I wonder if we see it slightly reduced… either by making it charge based, or make it so that it has to be in his arc at range one.
  • We also know that some new cards are coming. These would be completely new cards that could be used with the existing “BYO” ships.
    • Personally, I would LOVE to see some new cannons. The current selection is OK, but there’s room to do more in this space.
    • Also, how about some cheaper Tech cards. There’s a lot from V1 that didn’t make it over… e.g.
      • Comm Relay (which allowed a ship to hold over an evade token),
      • Sensor Cluster (allowed a ship to convert a blank to an evade for the cost of a focus token),
      • Threat Tracker (allowed a small ship to spend a lock on a ship that moves into your ark at R1-2 to perform a boost or barrel roll).
    • What I would love the most is some new configuration cards for the unloved ships out there… E-Wings, Kihraxz, or M3As. These are in dire need of some love due to poor V1 to V2 transition logic (e.g. most ships got linked actions, these guys either didn’t or got the crappiest action options!). I have a feeling this might not be on the cards, but a guy can dream!
  • In addition, there have long been rumours that there are some new Resistance Ships coming. These could be the Racer ships from the Resistance cartoon show. I’d be really excited to see these in the game, but finding models for them might be interesting!
  • The interesting thing here is that there has already been a LOT of new Scum stuff and Republic stuff recently, and there is already tonnes of Imperial stuff out there. It’s actually Republic and CIS that probably need more content, and Rebels have been struggling lately. However, if you are looking at a “theme” to hang all this on, I would guess we’re going to see “Hotshots and Aces V3”

MYSTIC DAVE PREDICTS: Hotshots and Aces V3, with some top tier pilots for all factions, some additional extra upgrade cards (including Cannons, Tech and Sensor cards) and maybe even Resistance Racers!

• What points changes will we see?
  • XWA have had a while to play around with the system. We’ve seen 50 points become the new squad standard and this will be the second update since the shift. I think we should see some fairly comprehensive changes to existing points to achieve a bit more balance. Don’t get me wrong – things are generally in a really good place right now – but there is a staleness creeping in, as certain pilots are appearing a LOT and very few archetypes are making an appearance… most lists seem to be Ace-y, or Ace Heavy. A few folk are still flying Bomb lists or Beef lists, but Ace seems to be the most popular… although a generic swarm did just win STO…
  • Straight off the bat, Scum Fenn Rau is going up. Both “BYO” and SL are going to head up because he’s just too damn good. I suspect BYO will go to 15 (maybe with a point or two more loadout) and SL to likely 17. SL Fenn has effectively 6 hull with great damage mitigation at range 1 and huge damage output. Plus has a means of turning without taking stress. He is probably the most popular ship in the game right now, and is distorting the game in favour of Scum.
  • Scum in general have too many really efficient, high initiative ships. There’s 6 I5 aces available at 12 points or less (4 are actually 11!). Rebels and Imperials similarly have a lot (mostly due to the volume of printed sets over the years), but over factions aren’t so lucky – CIS barely has 3! I fully expect we might see a shift in this next update to reduce the number of big hitting aces and force choices elsewhere – either a point or two up for some very popular pilots, or a reduction in loadout.
  • First Order have been struggling a lot lately due to the “Chassis Tax” we see on their faction. Because their ships are very good (being solid Imperial ships but with shields), they are typically 1 or 2 points higher than their Imperial cousins. This limits build options a lot, since you can’t spam a load of “cheap” ships, as they aren’t “cheap”… giving you a lower number of space for ships. At the top end, their ace pilots generally all have poor abilities – the best being Quickdraw, who’s ability (getting a bonus attack if you lose a shield) effectively rewards failure! If you compare this to Soontir, or Vader… there is no comparison. They also have a “Kylo Problem” – their best pilot is found 3 times in ships and has a crew card which is great… but he can only appear once in a list… and he’s not cheap in any version. I think we need to see a point or two drop from some of their key ships, but ideally let’s see some lesser used ships getting a discount… especially Upsilons! They are so rarely seen… it would be great to see some Batwings on the table.
  • In general, there is a still an issue where we see mostly the same pilots appear in lists and have done for a while… Han, Wedge, Fenn, Luke, Vader, Anikin, Obi Wan, Soontir, Sun Fac, Boba, Mando… All generally high initiative and efficient. What we aren’t seeing much of is the lower initiative ships… Graz the Hunter, Biggs, Luminara, Jay Versio… all those mid-tier pilots are getting very little love now. It would be great to see them on the table, but players need to be incentivised by having more loadout or a cheaper base to chose from. I’d love to see some tweaking in this space.
  • On the flip of this, some ships are very, very good value. TIE Fighters start at 5 points are are silly good for the points. I think we need to see either a limit (as per TIE FOs) or a slight dampening of Loadout (e.g. Obsidian Squadrons have 2… Academy Pilots have 0…. maybe that should be reversed?). Not saying that we’re seeing a lot of them around, but compared to Vulture Droids, they are the same price and are notably better (more green dice!). I don’t think we should see swarms blocked, because they are a great archetype to fly and see flown, but they just need to be tweaked a little maybe to stop abuse?

MYSTIC DAVE PREDICTS: Excessively good value pilots reigned in. Some mid-tier pilots buffed. All we are saying is give Batwings a chance…

So, that’s about it. I’m sure there’s a load of other things that might be happening, so feel free to drop me a message if you think I’ve missed something. I’m really excited to see what shows up in a few weeks, and hoping you are too! Until next time…