Line #75 TabletopGame/XWingMiniatures


1	[[quoteright:350:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/star_wars_xwing_miniatures_game.jpg]]
2	%%[[caption-width-right:350:some caption text]]
3
4	A miniatures {{Wargam\|ing}}e by Creator/FantasyFlightGames based on ''Franchise/StarWars'' and inspired by the star fighter battles within. The game is focused on the Galactic Civil War of the original trilogy and features most of the fighters from the films and many of the fighters from [[Franchise/StarWarsLegends various other sources]], including comics and video games. It is the sister game to ''TabletopGame/StarWarsArmada''.
5
6	There were originally two factions, the Rebel Alliance and the Galactic Empire. While all types of ships are on both sides, Rebel ships tend to be tough, but with high point costs, while Imperial ships tend to cost few point, but are expendable. Wave 6 introduces a third faction, Scum and Villainy, based on various third-party characters and factions from the Galactic Civil War era, including a few characters already in the game, including Boba Fett and Kath Scarlett, both of whom were originally added as Empire aligned pilots of the Firespray-31, as well as a few ships recycled from the Rebels, including the Y-Wing and HWK-290. Wave 8 added [[Film/TheForceAwakens the Resistance and the First Order]], sub-factions that for gameplay purposes are considered extensions of the Rebels and Empire respectively.
7
8	The game is very streamlined with every ship using a series of templates for movement and shooting as well as using specially designed dice for determining shooting results. This simplifies the game considerably and means that the game takes minutes to learn, but much longer to master. The core set comes with an X-Wing, two TIE Fighters and everything else needed to play a small two-player game. A second, updated core set (accounting for various additions and alterations to the game rules over the course of the first 8 waves) does the same, but instead comes with a T-70 X-wing and two TIE/fo Fighters.
9
10	[=WizKids=] licensed the X-Wing Miniatures system from Fantasy Flight to make a version of it based on ''Franchise/StarTrek'' called Star Trek Attack Wing.
11
12	A second edition was announced in May of 2018, and was released in mid-September of that year. It revamped the rules and increased the number of factions to five (separating First Order and the Resistance from their original trilogy counterparts) and later to seven (introducing the Clone Wars era factions, Separatists and the Republic).
13
14	In November 2020, Fantasy Flight Games' parent company Asmodee USA reorganized their subsidiaries to create specialization. As such, Fantasy Flight lost control of Star Wars Legion, Star Wars: Armada, and Star Wars: X-wing the Miniatures Game to Atomic Mass Games. Shortly thereafter, AMG released their own "update", [[FanNickname termed 2.5]] to the rules to bring it more in line with their other table top games. These changes were controversial within the community itself and as such there remain strong followings for both
15	----
16	!!This game exhibits the following tropes:
17
18	* TwoDSpace: As a tabletop game, this is to be expected. However, the flavor text describes ships that "collide" in 2-D space as dodging each other on the Z-axis, thereby avoiding any actual damage (with a few exceptions).
19	** Played with under AMG's 2.5 rules. Now friendly ships, at least, can slam into each other if they "bump" on the tabletop and would have their bases overlap.
20	* AceCustom: Can be invoked on a number of ships using available 'Title' upgrade cards. While not all of them do this, and a few actually downgrade ships to represent prototypes and such (the benefit in that case being reduced point cost to play the ship), at least half give the ship a significant boost along with the name. The Millennium Falcon herself is a double example, not only having the available boost from the "Millennium Falcon" title upgrade, but the YT-1300 is the only example in the game so far where the lowest cost 'generic' pilot has different stats, significantly lower from any of the named pilot versions.
21	** The "Heroes of the Resistance" gives the Falcon a second title card (with the same name as the first, meaning only one "Falcon" title can be played in a given game), as well as a "Black One" title card for Poe Dameron's T-70 X-wing (and an accompanying miniature in his custom black and orange colors from ''Film/TheForceAwakens'').
22	* AcePilot: Numerous. Every ship has at least two named pilots, each boasting a [[ActionInitiative higher Pilot Skill value]] than the generics and a unique pilot ability. The highest base Pilot Skill value is 9, which is held by ten pilots: Darth Vader (TIE Advanced x1) and [[ComicBook/XWingRogueSquadron Soontir Fel (TIE Interceptor)]] for the Empire, Han Solo (YT-1300) and Wedge Antilles (X-wing) for the Rebellion, Dengar ([=JumpMaster=] 5000) and [[VideoGame/StarWarsGalaxies Talonbane Cobra (Kihraxz Fighter)]] for Scum and Villainy, the "Heroes of the Resistance" version of Poe Dameron (T-70 X-wing) for the Resistance, Kylo Ren (TIE Silencer) and "Quickdraw" ([=TIE/sf=]) for the First Order, plus [[WesternAnimation/StarWarsRebels Fenn Rau]] who's available for Scum (Concord Dawn Protectorate Starfighter) or Rebellion (Phantom II) . Thus, every faction has three or four options for Pilot Skill 9 - although with Heroes of the Resistance, the Rebels get two different abilities for Han.
23	** Inverted in one notable case for "Wampa", a named "ace pilot" with [[LethalJokeCharacter the lowest pilot skill possible]] for the standard {[=TIE=]} fighter. So low he's even lower than the Obsidian Squadron generic pilots!
24	* ActionBomb: Ships with Illicit upgrades can equip the Deadman's Switch, which means that they explode when they die. The card even includes the pilot holding a Thermal Detonator, giving a whole new meaning to TakingYouWithMe !
25	* ActionGirl: Quite a few. Rebels have [[WesternAnimation/StarWarsRebels Hera Syndulla (the 'Ghost'' and ''Phantom'') & Sabine Wren]] (the ''Phantom'' and TIE Fighter), [[Film/TheForceAwakens Rey (YT-1300), Jessika Pava (T-70 X-Wing)]], [[ComicBook/XWingRogueSquadron Ibtisam]] and Nera Dantels (B-Wing), [[VideoGame/DarkForcesSaga Jan Ors (HWK-290)]], [[Literature/BlackFleetCrisis Miranda Doni (K-Wing)]], [[Literature/StarWarsAftermath Norra Wexley]] and [[ComicBook/StarWarsShatteredEmpire Shara Bey]] (ARC-170), and [[WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars Ahsoka Tano]] and Sabine Wren again (Sabine's TIE Fighter). The Empire has [[VideoGame/StarWarsGalaxies Kath Scarlett (Firespray-31)]], [[VideoGame/StarWarsGalaxies "Howlrunner" (TIE Fighter)]], "Echo" (TIE Phantom), [[VideoGame/TheForceUnleashed Juno Eclipse (TIE Advanced)]], [[VideoGame/StarWarsGalaxies Countess Ryad (TIE Defender)]], Major Vynder (''Alpha''-class Star Wing), and "Quickdraw" ([[Film/TheForceAwakens TIE/SF]]). And the Scum have Serissu ([=M3-A=] Interceptor), [[Literature/DarkDisciple Latts Razzi (YV-666)]], Kath Scarlett again, [[Literature/ShadowsOfTheEmpire Guri (StarViper)]], [[WesternAnimation/StarWarsRebels Ketsu Onyo, Sabine Wren again]] and [[WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars Asajj Ventress]] (all on the ''Shadow Caster'') and [[Literature/TalesOfTheBountyHunters Manaroo (Punishing One)]]. Not always obvious due to the 'pilot cards' showing only the ship, but can be seen on the 'crew' cards and Armada cards. A number of the crew cards also count, including Leia herself and Mara Jade.
26	** Second Edition adds [[VideoGame/StarWarsBattlefrontII2017 Iden Versio]], [[ComicBook/PrincessLeia Evaan Verlaine]], and others.
27	** ActionMom: Both ARC-170 pilots mentioned above are the mothers of other pilots in the game. Norra Wexley's son "Snap" Wexley and Shara Bey's son [[BadassNormal Poe Dameron]] pilot T-70 X-Wings.
28	* ActionInitiative: Pilot Skill determines which ships move first and shoot last. Ships with a lower Pilot Skill move first (much like LeeroyJenkins), and ships with a higher Pilot Skill shoot first (and thus have the potential to destroy lower Pilot Skill ships before they get a chance to return fire). There are several cards of varying kinds that allow you to change your Pilot Skill, including one that lets you move at Pilot Skill 0 (useful for bombers that want to make sure they have a target).
29	* AscendedMeme: The Anakin Skywalker pilot for the Naboo N-1 Starfighter allows him to spend a Force token to perform a free barrel roll before revealing the maneuver dial. In other words, [[Memes/ThePhantomMenace spinning really is a good trick]]!
30	* AsteroidThicket: The game features a set of six asteroid obstacles, each placed on the board in turns by the players. Flying into one of them during the game is ruinous.
31	** Expansions later added debris fields, which are less damaging but can be more disruptive to a stressed pilot
32	* AwesomeButImpractical: zig-zagged as the game has gone on. Initially Luke Skywalker, Ordinance, and other "high cost" units were this trope. As PowerCreep set in, and new releases came about, many examples lost their "awesome", while others got upgrades that allowed them to offset the "impractical" part. Eventually, in fact, two particular pilots used Ordinance to completely break the entire meta [[https://old.reddit.com/r/HobbyDrama/comments/cx47pe/xwing_the_miniature_game_how_two_idiots_youve/ over their knees]].
33	** Consciously averted with AMG's changes to 2.5 edition. Most notable has been the re-costing of generic pilots to be the same price as named ones, making generic pilots objectively useless over named pilots. On top of this, upgrades no longer cost points for the overall squadron, instead filling up each pilot's individual allotment of upgrade points. As a result it's now far more practical to field [[Film/ANewHope Luke Skywalker with R2D2 in an X-wing and a pair of proton torpedos]] than it would be otherwise
34	* AwesomenessByAnalysis: Official tournament rules prevent players from pre-measuring their maneuvers. To get great at this game, players need to learn how to judge maneuver distances at a glance.
35	* BalanceBuff: While nerfing errata is more common, they do this occasionally - while they prefer to release specialist kit to improve a weakened ship (new Title upgrades or modifications, mainly), they changed the "Heavy Scyk" Title to grant a bonus point of hull when it became clear that the Scyk was badly underpowered.
36	** 2.0 was created, in part, to allow this to happen on the fly. The switch to a largely digital list building system allowed FFG (and now AMG) to actively update points costs in real time to balance the performance of builds and lists. In addition, it meant everyone had access to upgrades without necessarily needing to purchase the set the physical cards came with.
37	* BoringButPractical: The TIE Swarm list. The most popular variant is Howlrunner equipped with Swarm Tactics and accompanied by [[ZergRush as many Academy Pilots as can fit under the points limit]], but other variants include every named TIE (no longer possible with the Assault Carrier, because even without upgrades every named TIE now comes to considerably more than 100 points) and mixing all three types of generic TIE in varying amounts.
38	** The Rebel equivalent, the BBBBZ list, doesn't even have upgrades or named pilots - it's just four Blue Squadron B-Wings and a Bandit Squadron Z-95 - but the ships together have 14 hull and 22 shield and only the Z-95 has a primary weapon rating below 3, meaning it can dish out a surprising amount of damage and soak up a ton of punishment despite bringing nothing but PS 2 generics.
39	** Rebels can field a Z-95 Swarm list similar to the TIE Swarm and with the same per-ship cost: Airen Cracken with Swarm Tactics plus a bunch of Bandit Squadron Pilots. But this has never been as popular as the TIE Swarm.
40	* BribingYourWayToVictory: Was a relatively large issue in 1st edition, as the only way to get access to upgrades was to hold the physical cards containing them. Since cards came only with specific releases, in some cases the [[ Huge Ship only]] releases, a sizeable investment was necessary to ensure your squadrons had the upgrades necessary to stay up to date with the current meta. The release of the [[Film/TheLastJedi Star Fortress Heavy Bomber]] notably sold out specifically because of how one of its upgrades completely broke the game (as mentioned above under AwesomeButImpractical).
41	** Thoroughly averted with 2.0, however, as the only physical purchases necessary are to fly whatever ship you'd like to have in your squadron. All of the other information, from the movement dials to the upgrades, is available for free online. Even buying the conversion kits for 1.0 to 2.0 turned out to largely be unnecessary if a user was willing to simply manufacture or print their own conversion elements from online information thanks to the Open Gaming License.
42	* BroadStrokes: The game takes inspiration both from the new Disney canon as well as the old ''[[Franchise/StarWarsLegends Legends]]'' [[AlternateContinuity continuity]]. So if you've ever wanted to see how [[VideoGame/ShadowsOfTheEmpire Dash Rendar]] would fare against [[WesternAnimation/StarWarsRebels the Inquisitor]], or pit [[ComicBook/StarWarsCrimsonEmpire Kir Kanos]] against Hera Syndulla, you can do so here.
43	** There are also a few characters assigned as pilots to fighters they were never associated with in canon. This was somewhat inevitable given, for example, the lack of named E-wing pilots in ''Legends''. Corran Horn has always been primarily an X-wing pilot (and even personally owns his X-wing), while Etahn A'baht is not known to have been a pilot at all (his sole known connection to the E-wing was commanding a fleet that used them as their main fighter); oddly enough, Luke, who ''did'' own an E-Wing for a while (he gave it back) is not one. The upcoming ARC-170 expansion also contains entirely pilots who are not yet known to have ever flown one. Surprisingly enough, Airen Cracken is not one of these; while he's better known in both Legends and the new canon as the head of the Rebel spy network and it's his son Pash (not yet in the game) who's known as a fighter ace, he really did (at least in Legends) fly a Z-95 Headhunter in the early days of the Rebellion.
44	* CastFromHitPoints: When Darth Vader is taken as a Crew upgrade, the ship he is in can take two points of damage to deal a critical hit to the ship that was just attacked.
45	** The crew version of Unkar Plutt allows the ship he is in to take damage to take an action after overlapping another ship.
46	** Moff Jerjerrod can toss crew members (including himself) out the airlock to negate a critical hit.
47	** Miranda Doni may remove a shield token in order to roll an additional die on her attacks. She may also remove a die from an attack to regenerate a shield.
48	* CanonImmigrant: The Imperial Raider was designed in collaboration between Lucasfilm and Fantasy Flight Games as an original ship for this game to give the Empire a Huge ship that could compete in the game on the scale of the other ships (that is, a ship that was big, but not as [[MileLongShip ridiculously big as a Star Destroyer]]). They originally considered the ''Lancer''-class frigate, but decided that at 2/3 longer than the ''Tantive IV'' it was still way too big. The fact that the Raider was designed [[TwoDSpace for a tabletop game instead of real space combat]] is somewhat obvious, on account of it having six turrets ''that are all dorsal''. It would be helpless against anything that goes underneath it. The ship has since appeared in later works in Canon, such as ''VideoGame/StarWarsBattlefrontII2017'' and the newer ''Thrawn'' novels.
49	* CloseRangeCombatant: Anyone at range 1 gets attack bonuses, but there are pilots and upgrades that encourage closing beyond this, whether it is bonuses (Mauler Mithel, for example, or virtually anyone in a Protectorate Starfighter), obnoxious penalties for the other side (Carnor Jax, Mara Jade), or just a plain short-ranged, high-damage secondary weapon (Proton Rockets, which get up to ''five dice'' when mounted on a sufficiently agile ship).
50	* CoolStarship: Imagine that.
51	* ConfusionFu: [=TIE=] Phantoms can "decloak" in three (four with Echo as your pilot) different directions (thus changing their start positions before maneuvering), creating a guessing game for their opponents. Ships that can take the Boost and Barrel Roll action can also reposition themselves after maneuvering. High Pilot Skill ships in particular can take advantage of this to choose a final position for the turn on the fly after every other ship has finished maneuvering.
52	** TIE Interceptors, Protectorate Starfighters, and A-wing pilot Tycho Celchu specialize in this. An Interceptor or Protectorate fighter can have a whopping 27 different potential positions after it has moved if it is equipped with the Push the Limit upgrade. Tycho Chelchu, on the other hand, can combine the Daredevil and Push the Limit upgrades to achieve 19 different potential positions with his actions, but can achieve a much wider range of orientations thanks to the extra 90 degree turn from Daredevil.
53	** The Imperial "Fettigator" build pairs Boba Fett (able to choose which direction he banks after revealing the dial) and the Navigator crew upgrade (able to spin the dial to another move with the same bearing) to ensure that while you know he's probably going to bank, even his player won't know which way and how far until Pilot Skill 8 rolls around.
54	** The TIE Striker pilot "Duchess", unlike every other TIE Striker with Adaptive Ailerons, gets to choose whether or not to apply their free range 1 straight or bank move, meaning that if she's not stressed she can be in four different positions before she even starts properly moving. The Striker was already hard to pin down with the Ailerons (giving it three different starting positions), Duchess just makes it weirder.
55	** The Scum crew Azmorigan and Cikatro Vizago allow ships to trade out equipment mid-game.
56	* CriticalHitClass: Several ship pilots and upgrades boast an increased ability to score critical hits:
57	** The E-Wing pilot Etahn A'baht can convert any one regular hit roll into a critical hit, both for himself and his allies, as long as the target is within his firing arc.
58	** The Decimator pilot Rear Admiral Chiraneau can convert a single "focus" die result into a critical hit, both bolstering his attack accuracy and making each attack hurt more.
59	** Any ship with a cannon upgrade slot can equip the "Mangler" cannon, which converts any one regular hit roll into a critical hit.
60	** The TIE Advanced/TIE Defender pilot Maarek Stele gets to draw three damage cards and choose one whenever he scores a critical hit.
61	** The TIE Advanced/x1 is the only ship in the game that can equip the Advanced Targeting Computer - an upgrade which straight-up ''adds'' a Critical result to an Attack Roll if the attacker has a Target Lock on the defender.
62	** The TIE/fo pilot known only as Omega Ace can convert a target lock and a focus token on the same ship into every die scoring an automatic critical. This gets a lot more practical when combined with Push the Limit, allowing this pilot to do this on any turn where you have no stress at the end of your move.
63	** Darth Vader's crew version can CastFromHitPoints to inflict critical damage on the target, even if the shot misses by miles.
64	** A number of pilot talents, crew members, and equipment upgrades improve your critical hit rates, such as Marksmanship, Calculation, Mercenary Copilot, and Guidance Chips.
65	* DeathOfAThousandCuts: Any ship cheap enough to fly in a swarm of 5 or more (most notably the TIE Fighter and Z-95 Headhunter) only has 2 attack dice (compared to the usual 3) and few options to make those dice more likely to roll hits. However, since they are cheap enough to field en-masse, it's possible to get a total of 8 attacks per round. Thus, swarms are highly effective against low agility ships with a limited number of attacks (like the ''Millennium Falcon''), and even against high agility ships one of those attacks is bound to hit eventually.
66	* DifficultButAwesome: The Lambda-class Shuttle is the most difficult ship to fly in the game by far, but offers amazing stats for its price and can host some of the most powerful upgrades in the game.
67	** Arc dodging requires you to be good at predicting where your opponent is going to go, avoiding lines of fire, and protecting ships with tiny hull totals that cost a third of your points. If you ''are'' good at all of those things, you can fly in circles around your enemies, or at minimum force turreted ships to waste their actions trying to turn their guns to fire on you.
68	* TheEngineer: Several droids (and most notably, R2-D2) have the ability to repair damage or restore shields to their ships in the middle of combat. Chewbacca's first pilot version is immune to critical damage because of this, while his crew card lets you discard a damage card and restore 1 shield.
69	* ExtraTurn: The E-Wing's most elite pilot, Corran Horn, can attack a second time after everyone else has shot - however, he must sacrifice his next turn of attacks to do so.
70	* FactionCalculus: While progressively less rigid over time due to factions intermingling, there are still fairly clear delineations in the way factions want to behave:
71	** Rebellion are the Powerhouse Rangers when it comes to fighters, with Generalist when it comes to Large ships. They want to cooperate with one another to keep each other alive, with a large emphasis on becoming a MightyGlacier, StoneWall, or LighningBruiser through their individual abilities.
72	** Empire are the Subversive, with their tricks coming mostly from their Large ships. They rely on speed, unusual abilities, and other quirks in their small ships, and their large ships are enormous usually a MightyGlacier that wants to use their crew slots to trade expendable mooks for high value targets on the enemy team
73	** Scum And Villainy used to be the Balanced Gimmick faction, but have slowly slipped into the Gimmick Cannons, with their exclusive access to illicit upgrades allowing them to punch '''way''' above their weight class on ships that are otherwise laughably underpowered. Their sub factions flit between Subversive (Star Vipers) and Balanced (IG-2000s)
74	** Resistance are the Balanced Specialist faction. While they have a low variety of ships, each one can fill a solid role, but will struggle outside its intended usecase. Their fighters behave like Large ships and their Large ships behave like fighters often, as well.
75	** First Order are Subversive Brutes, they can throw hordes or elite squadrons, but in all cases their intend function is to smash, often by using the bodies of their own ships as the club. Best exemplified in the General Hux crew card which allows him to hand out free actions to far more allies than the Coordinate action usually would...at the direct expense of all the people following those orders
76	** Confederacy of Independent Systems are the Horde. Their entire army relies on throwing as many redundant bodies at you as possible, with a particular dependence on abilities that allow them to repeat, regenerate, or share Calculate tokens to offset the fact that all their pilots are largely droids who need to spend Calculates at 1:1 for results while organic pilots can spend Focus at 1:all dice
77	** Galactic Republic are the Balanced Technical faction. All their ships are overpriced and/or underpowered, but they all have abilities that make them work together to become far, far more dangerous. In the entire faction there are just 7 pilots available who don't have an ability that either actively or can be upgraded to benefit their team mates. As such they always want to stick together, even if they're not necessarily a swarm.
78	* FixedForwardFacingWeapon: One third of the ship types, which includes the titular X-wing, as well as a significant amount of other ships. The others are Turrets, such as the Millennium Falcon, who rotate their active combat arc, and [[FanNickname Bowties]] like the ARC-170, who have a pair of opposing 90 degree arcs that are either fixed or mounted to a turret, allowing them to have tremendous coverage against enemies trying to outmaneuver them.
79	** Second Edition added a "bullsey" arc, straight down the middle of the front of every ship. While not every ship can innately use it, there are many upgrades and pilot abilities that rely on it, either their own or the enemy's.
80	* FragileSpeedster: A-Wings, E-wings, TIE Interceptors, TIE Reapers and Strikers, Star Vipers, Protectorate Starfighters, etc
81	* GameplayAndStoryIntegration: The Rebellion only has a handful of retrofitted ARC-170 fighters. How does Fantasy Flight represent this? By not including any generic pilots, meaning that even an entirely ARC fleet can't contain more than four of them. Similarly, the Rebel TIE Fighter represents a stolen ship, which they don't use often and even then only for specific situations, so there are also four named pilots and no generics (which also means that Rebels can't create their own TIE swarm).
82	* GameplayAndStorySegregation: The E-Wing was more durable than the X-Wing in ''Franchise/StarWarsLegends''. The one in the game has the same total hull and shield, and can die to any effect that gets critical damage through the shields, because it only has 2 hull points and Direct Hits inflict 2 damage.
83	** Multiple ships in "Legends" material such as ''The Complete Guide to Vehicles and Vessels'' are said to have a sublight speed comparable to a Y-Wing. And in-game, basically every ship has access to its 3 and 4 straights, with their biggest benefit coming from the lack of stress these speeds put on the pilot compared to the "slow" Y-wing.
84	* GlassCannon: The TIE Phantom has the highest primary attack value in the game, at a stunning 3 attack. However, it only has 2 Hull, 2 Shields, and 2 Agility - compared to other ships of the same value, it is remarkably fragile. Most Phantoms take advantage of [[StealthInSpace cloaking]] to augment the Phantom's poor agility value.
85	** The TIE Interceptor has three attack dice and three evade dice, but only three hull and '' zero'' shields, making it as fragile as a bog-standard TIE. Interceptor builds focus on staying out of enemy firing arcs completely, because a single attack can easily cripple or destroy the ship. Subverted with the TIE Silencer, which is as durable as a TIE Defender.
86	** The Concord Dawn Protectorate Starfighter has very similar stats as the Interceptor, except for one more hull. And this is a ship designed to go nose-to-nose with the enemy.
87	** While the VCX-100 brings a lot of hull and shield along with its four-die attack and usually wouldn't qualify, its agility score of ''zero'' means that it tends to fake its way into this trope by taking damage very quickly.
88	** TIE Strikers have three red dice, but only four hull and two green dice, three against an attack rolling three or more red dice. This is particularly the case for "Pure Sabacc", who gets bonus red dice until he takes damage.
89	** Most CIS and GAR ships fall into this category as well, boasting impressive abilities to deal damage, but substandard ability to dodge or tank for their points costs. The ARC-170 is of particular note, boasting only 1 shield over the Y-wing, but also being 50% larger and therefore a much easier target on the same comparatively substandard dial.
90	* HighSpeedMissileDodge: It is possible for a high agility ship to completely avoid damage from a missile or torpedo. It is also possible for a low agility ship to dodge the same if the attacker rolls nothing but blanks.
91	** Evade Tokens, usually gained from the Evade Action, directly invokes this trope, with the pilots supposedly juking their ships slightly to avoid fire at the last second.
92	* JackOfAllStats: The eponymous X-wing in all its forms is absolutely this, boasting decent durability, attack, dodge, dial, and mobility actions innately, with the pilots supplementing it further. Every faction in turn has their own equivalent, from the {[=TIE=]} Aggressor, to the Bellbullab-22, the {[=TIE=]}/sf, and the V-wing.
93	* LastChanceHitPoint: If a YV-666 with the ''Hound's Tooth'' title is destroyed, the pilot launches in the ''Nashtah Pup'' Z95, allowing them to continue the fight in a much smaller and weaker fighter.
94	** Tel Trevura, when "destroyed" for the first time, discards all damage in favour of four face-down damage cards.
95	* LightningBruiser: The Firespray-31 (made famous by the ''Slave 1'') and the YT-2400 boast some of the strongest weapons in the game and have 10 hit points to chew through, bolstered by 2 Agility. The YT-2400 pilot Dash Rendar in particular has a habit of easily getting to places no other pilot can reach.
96	** Because a ship's base is part of its movement, all large ships become Lightning Bruisers with the engine upgrade. This is particularly important for the Lambda shuttle, as otherwise the ship boasts a very poor turning ability.
97	** The {[=TIE=}]/Defender also was and remains an absolute lightning bruiser, with high stats, enormous speed, and an array of upgrades allowing it to deal ludicrous amounts of damage.
98	** Thanks to the availability of [[ZergRush generic Jedi]] pilots, the Delta-7 Aethersprite also is very much this. Its inherent stats are comparable to an A-wing, but with the ability for affordable and mass-capable force powers on the field, it can hit far, far above its weight class. Even more so if certain named Jedi are included, given the GAR's emphasis on cooperative buffing.
99	* LuckManipulationMechanic: The two default mechanics for direct dice manipulation are Focus (spend a Focus token to convert all "eye" dice results to a hit or evade result) and Target Lock (spend the Target Lock to reroll any number of attack dice, so long as your ship is firing at the locked-on ship). Some upgrades and pilot abilities also offer a more limited option to alter dice results.
100	* MightyGlacier: The Decimator, YT-1300, Lambda shuttle, TIE Bomber, Y-Wing, M12-L Kimogila and B-Wing all have fairly poor movement without upgrades, but a lot of HP and/or shields. For example, both Y-Wings and B-Wings have a total of 8 hull and shield points, but very few green manoeuvres (making it hard to recover stress) and lots of red ones (making it easy to gain it), while the Kimogila has no forward move faster than speed 3, but can reload its ordnance and has that bullseye arc to be dealing with.
101	* {{Nerf}}: The entire purpose of 2.0's implementation was to allow FFG (and now AMG) to do this more effectively. In 1.0 errata could be released to nerf effects, but this was difficult to effectively police outside of a tournament setting. With 2.0's switch to all-digital list building, cards can be updated in costs and wording in ''real time'', allowing far more effective balancing.
102	* NoSell: The Determination elite talent discards any critical damage with the Pilot trait that affects the ship, while Chewbacca's first pilot ability basically means all critical damage is downgraded to regular.
103	* ObviousRulePatch: 2.0 is essentially this writ large. When the game first released, the list of available actions could be counted on one hand, and the variety of available ships was similarly threadbare. As time went on, PowerCreep resulted in a number of problems cropping up (Large ships got barrel roll actions, necessitating a rules change. Cloaking was broken upon implementation and needed a change. Several upgrades interacted in unexpected ways, leading to the Nym/Miranda dominance mentioned in AwesomeButImpractical above, and turrets outright broke the game's entire playstyle by ignoring arcs entirely) that 2.0 eventually implemented changes to fix. Among them:
104	** Medium bases were added, so that ships that were too big to be on Small Bases, but too small to be Large Based, had somewhere to fit. This acted as a rework, as the larger base upped their speed by 50% but also made them 50% larger as a target to get into arc.
105	** Turrets were changed, so that an action had to be spent to turn the arc of the turret. This meant that turrets could still compensate for poor movement, but were no longer an InstantWinCondition by allowing users to outright ignore an entire game mechanic
106	** Tokens were changed to be stackable. This meant that new synergies for smaller ships were possible, by giving them exclusive pilots or upgrades focused on allowing them to shuffle and trade around tokens. It also meant pilots could inflict new punishments on opponents by stacking stress and other negative tokens on enemies to limit their abilities to behave over time
107	** Ship frames were given individual abilities, on top of the abilities afforded by pilots. This allowed ships to not have to use title slots, or otherwise receive buffs that had been implemented retroactively in 1.0
108	** Force powers were added, to allow pilots new options and abilities to represent how they should have been flying the whole time
109	** points costs and upgrade slots were removed from cards and placed online. This allowed ships to be updated in real time, avoiding the issues that had plagued 1.0 all the way back to the original nerfs to Deadeye on the Jumpmaster
110	** Ion abilities were changed completely, usually receiving far more dice, but now Ion had to deal at least one damage before it could start giving out ion tokens, and the larger a ship was, the more tokens were necessary to fully ionize it.
111	** Every ship now had every arc (including bullseyes and centerlines) added to its base so that any relevant abilities that referened such markers later could use them
112	** Barrel Rolling was ''again'' updated, to force it to conform to a specific written behavior of 1 input and 3 outputs, rather than the previous theoretically infinite variation in where a ship could end up
113	** Secondary weapons were reballanced to allow some of the weaker ones to benefit from range bonuses and penalties at close and long range specifically, encouraging using them up close for maximum effect
114	** Most ace pilots were given "linked actions", adding extra options for actions onto their action bar and allowing them theoretically more actions in a single turn compared to generics and low skill pilots.
115	** "Discard" was universally replaced with "charges". This acted as a nerf to some abilities that could trigger an indefinite amount of times, and a buff to others that triggered only once as they now had charges that were spent every time they were used. It also meant the reload action was easier to keep track of since you didn't need to go sifting through discarded cards
116	* OldSchoolDogfighting: Every ship (except the tiny handful of ships with a 0 move, and Scum ships with Inertial Dampeners) must move forward during each turn, creating a SpaceIsAir simulation - just like in the movies!
117	* OnlyKnownByTheirNickname: Quite a few of the unique TIE pilots are only given nicknames (indicated by their "name" being in quotation marks). While some never had their real names identified anywhere in canon ''or'' Legends (the only other "name" being an operating number like DS-61-3 or OS-72-7[[note]]"Backstabber" and "Winged Gundark", respectively.[[/note]]), some such as Civé Rashon ("Howlrunner") and Dodson Makraven ("Night Beast")[[note]]Incidentally, Rashon/Howlrunner's wingman in Legends.[[/note]] simply never have their real names mentioned in the game. This continues with other TIE designs, especially newer ones that haven't had time to build up equity in the Disney expanded universe continuity - TIE/fo ace pilots are generally known as "[Squadron] [role]" (e.g. Omega Ace, Epsilon Leader), while the TIE/sf and TIE Striker have nicknames ("Backdraft" and "Quickdraw" for the /sf, "Duchess", "Countdown" and "Pure Sabacc" for the Striker).
118	* PowerCopying: The IG-88 pilots have, via the IG-2000 title card, the option to share their pilot abilities with each other. Though in standard 100 point games it's only possible to have two IG-88s in a squad (point cost of 36 each), under the 300 point Epic rules it's very possible to run all four of them together. Indeed, this would be the primary reason for a Scum player to play in an Epic rules game, since the faction doesn't yet have any huge ships. And with the introduction of an IG-88D crew card in the ''Shadow Caster'', those Scum players can even slap those pilot abilities on one other ship with a crew slot.
119	** ''Guns for Hire'' adds Thweek, a Starviper Pilot who can assign either the "Shadowed" or "Mimicked" condition cards. These respectively match the pilot skill and copy the pilot ability of an opponent's pilot.
120	* PowerCreep: Eventually became an insurmountable obstacle for 1.0, as there just weren't enough upgrade options that could be released to bring old ships in line with new ships in a way that couldn't be used to buff new ships as well.
121	** Second Edition can be called this compared to First Edition in regards to certain abilities. Several popular upgrade cards from 1E are now applied automatically. TIE Interceptors instantly get two Modification slots, something they would have previously needed to take the Royal Guard TIE title to get, all torpedoes, rockets, and bombs act as if they have Extra Munitions with the Charges rule, etc.
122	* QuantityVsQuality:
123	** In standard tournament rules, players are given 200 points to spend to build their squad, with pilots generally being cheaper than they used to, but upgrades now having proportional costs to the skill of the pilot, making Quantity squads conspicuously different from Quality squads.
124	** 2.5 has largely reversed this, putting a hard upper limit on the number of ships that can be fielded at 8 (compared to the 11 it was under 2.0 or the 9 under 1.0 through points limitations) and recosting generics so that they are objectively nonviable compared to named "quality" pilots.
125	* RammingAlwaysWorks: Technically, ships that "collide" with each other are considered to be dodging each other in 3D space. The near-miss between the two ships means that neither can fire upon the other. However…
126	** Because a ship that would overlap another ship skips its perform action phase, the practice of blocking with cheap, early moving ships is popular. While the ships aren't actually colliding, the effect is similar.
127	** The A-Wing pilot Arvel Crynyd (best known as the pilot who crashed into the bridge of the Super Star Destroyer ''Executor'', thus disabling and ultimately destroying it) ''can'' shoot enemies he collides with. This encourages players to fly him straight into enemy ships as frequently as possible.
128	** The Decimator boasts a number of abilities that hamper ships touching it. The pilot Captain Oicunn specializes in ramming, since he deals unavoidable damage to any ship he collides with.
129	** The Intimidate Elite upgrade, which comes in the Decimator's pack, lets you add an Agility penalty to the usual consequences of overlapping the ship with it.
130	** Chopper as a pilot of the Ghost gets to dispense stress tokens to any ships that he's touching, and Zeb as a crew card will let you shoot at them (although they do get to shoot back).
131	** Inverted when your large ship has Anti-Pursuit Lasers or Ion Projectors, meaning your strategy is based around encouraging others to crash into you.
132	* RunningGag: Sabine Wren is the most-featured unique character in the game, with 3 different Pilot cards (Attack Shuttle aka The Phantom, Rebel TIE fighter, and The Shadow Caster), 1 Crew Card (Sabine Wren, from the Ghost expansion), 1 Title named for her (Sabine's Masterpiece, a title for the Rebel TIE), and the Rebel TIE's expansion is even called "Sabine's TIE Fighter Expansion," of course featuring the loud repaint Sabine gave it in ''WesternAnimation/StarWarsRebels''. So, of course, "Sabine's (insert ANY object) Confirmed" has become something of a meme among the fanbase whenever anything even remotely references the petite Mandalorian, leading to InsaneTrollLogic speculations of garish repaints of ships.
133	** Surprisingly to some, the Phantom II expansion did not come with a Sabine pilot card.
134	* SpamAttack: Any card or ability that allows for "bonus attacks", such as Veteran Tail Gunner, Snap Shot, Foresight for Force Users, or Stabalized S-foils.
135	* StealthInSpace: The TIE Phantom. With the Mist Hunter, the Scum faction also get a Cloaking Device Illicit upgrade that can allow temporary stealth, but (in keeping with Scum's risk-based mechanics) has a chance of breaking down each turn.
136	** Most ships can equip a Stealth Device that doesn't grant full cloak but does temporarily enhance agility... until they're hit. It's particularly popular on TIE Interceptors.
137	* SupportPartyMember: the Lambda-class Shuttle, U-Wing, Upsilon Shuttle, and HWK-290. The Quadjumper can also do this for the Scum, although in their case it's more of a debuffer for the enemy that tractor beams the living hell out of anything that comes near it.
138	* SuspiciouslySimilarSubstitute: B-wing pilot Keyan Farlander did not make it to 2nd Edition upon the initial release. [[Literature/StarWarsBladeSquadron Braylen Stramm]] did. They're both high initiative for the craft, have an ability involving attacking while Stressed, and are represented by the same picture.
139	* TacticalRockPaperScissors: The three primary flavors of Arc dodging allow for this. Turrets can rotate to account for people trying to dodge, but often have to sacrifice the tokens they'd use to buff their attacks to do so. Bowties can punish those who try to get behind them while still dealing damage to those in front of them. Flankers try and use their fixed firing arcs (often with the bonuses afforded by abilities or cards tied to their bowtie arc) to engage enemies outside where they can do damage. Bowties punish turrets, flankers punish bowties, turrets punish flankers. Because of the changes to the game as well, all three can still counter their "weaknesses" in the right contexts as well, creating a fluid game of rock paper scissors.
140	* TakingYouWithMe: The Deadman's Switch upgrade allows Scum players to rig, for example, a Z-95 Headhunter to explode when someone kills them. Several pilots also have abilities which let them finish their turn to make an attack even if they've been destroyed in a previous engagement.

Context TabletopGame / XWingMiniatures