Today Fantasy Flight Games posted a brand new preview of their upcoming Star Wars: X-Wing miniature space battle game. This sneak peek offers a very general look at what an average turn in a game might look like. Each turn consists of three phases: Planning, Activation, and Combat.
During the planning phase players will select from a number of maneuvers available to their fighters. Each maneuver has a speed (the distance your ship will travel), a bearing (what direction the ship will be facing when the maneuver is over), and a difficulty (more difficult maneuvers can cause stress to the ship preventing the pilot from taking an action during the Activation phase). Each ship has a dial which displays the maneuvers for each each ship and the varying speeds and difficulties; each ship has its own unique set of maneuvers. Each player sets their maneuvers in secret.
Maneuvers are then revealed during the Activation phase. Movement distance and angle is calculated using “maneuver tracks.” These are game pieces that you’ll place at the front of your ship’s original location and where the track ends is your ship’s new location. After each ship moves, its pilot can take an action. Actions can be anything from selecting an upgrade to focusing on the combat about to take place.
During the combat phase the ships all get to fire at each other. Starting with whichever pilot has the highest skill, they can each target any ship within range. The attacker rolls a number of special attack dice (determined by the ship’s attack value and modified by range) which will come with the core set while the defender will roll a similar number of defensive dice (determined by the ship’s agility value). Damage is determined by the number of damage symbols that turn up on attack dice minus the number of evasion symbols on the defensive dice that were rolled. If ships have shields, those are depleted first and the hull damage is kept track of by damage cards. each ship has a number of cards equal to its hull strength. However, should a critical hit symbol appear on the attack die and the defender is unable to evade it, when the ship receives a damage card, it will be flipped over with an extra effect revealed. These extra effects include things such as a pilot losing consciousness or equipment on the fighter becoming damaged, making maneuvering or combat more difficult.
Fantasy Flight promises to have more previews such as this one in the future featuring various ships and pilots from the Core set and new ships to be released in the expansion packs. Star Wars: X-Wing does not have an exact release date beyond sometime this Fall; however if you happen to be attending GenCon in August, you’ll be able to test out the game have a chance to participate in the first ever X-Wing tournament.