The latest points update for Star Wars™: X-Wing is now live! These updates include slight changes to the ships and upgrades of every faction as well as tweaks to generic upgrades. Learn more about these changes directly from X-Wing developer Max Brooke today as he runs down the major adjustments and the thinking behind them. Then, visit our X-Wing page to take a look at the changes for yourself! 

Because of the ongoing Covid-19 crisis, there has been relatively little competitive X-Wing in 2020. The development team conferred with Organized Play about whether there even should be a July 2020 points update and Hyperspace rotation. Both teams agreed that an update was worth implementing, but with the following guidelines in place:

• Nothing will be removed from Hyperspace in July. We want to give players a chance to use Hyperspace lists they may have built but not had a chance to play yet.
• However, some new elements will be added to Hyperspace in July to keep the game mode fresh. Players should note that this is an exception to our usual process. Normally, we would not add content during the twice-yearly updates without rotating out other content, but because many players haven’t yet had a chance to use lists they built in the first half of the year, we don’t want to cut people’s options at this point. Some content will rotate out of Hyperspace again in the next update.
• Points changes will be incremental and focused on conclusions we can draw from existing data, especially that coming from the second half of 2019.

With those general principles for this update established, let’s delve into some specifics.

High-initiative, high-mobility aces, especially in the Imperial and Republic factions, have been consistent performers across Second Edition. Pilots like Obi-Wan Kenobi, “Whisper,” and Soontir Fel have had strong showings in the competitive scene, and this update is bringing modest increases to these pilots and their favored upgrades, often in the 1–3 point range. With a lot of new content on the horizon and fewer recent tournaments from which to draw data, these changes are generally cautious. This set of changes isn’t meant to push such ships out of viability, just make their points better reflect their value as it has played out so far.

Some other popular ships and upgrades are also seeing small increases for much the same reasons, though they fit into a slightly different archetypes. Boba Fett and the Slave I title are seeing an increase in their respective points for much the same reason. The Separatist Drone and Trade Federation Drone are each increasing by one point as well, based on the strong performance of these ships in many builds.

A number of ships and upgrades that have struggled competitively through the life of the game are similarly seeing decreases, most small and a few more substantial. Large ships have struggled throughout all of Second Edition, and a number of large ships such as the VCX-100 and YT-2400 are receiving significant points cost reductions in this update. Additionally, certain upgrades that could help large ships but have never been popular on them, such as Veteran Turret Gunner, will now scale inversely with base size, helping large ships get value out of them while discouraging use in spam lists.

Finally in terms of points updates, we have reevaluated the Nantex-class starfighter’s points. The change to tractor tokens and points increase in last update proved enough to push the Nantex out of the competitive scene completely. This isn’t entirely surprising that the ship would need a points revision after a rules change with implications on its primary build (the Nantex equipped with Ensnare). The new value for the Nantex shifts a larger percentage of its points onto the Ensnare upgrade, still keeping some compositions impossible, and also opening up possible builds for Nantex-class starfighters without Ensnare.

The other interesting piece of news for this update is that we are pleased to announce the newly reorganized points PDFs. These updated spreadsheets have a dedicated space for subtitle, something that is increasingly necessary to display as multiple versions of pilots within the same faction become available, as well as a dedicated space for “builder keywords” such as Light Side and Dark Side. While Light Side and Dark Side are currently the only keywords used by upgrade cards, these keywords will allow us to create other interesting, thematic restrictions for future upgrades.

Thanks Max! Be sure to visit our Star Wars: X-Wing page to download the new points lists and for full rules, Quick Builds, and all things X-Wing!