Star Wars X-Wing Imperial Veterans unboxing and review

Imperial Veterans brings two repaints of a pair of Imperial ships.  The TIE Bomber comes in sporting a white stripe, and looking very cool, whilst the star (in my opinion) is the TIE Defender in all red, she just looks great.  These twin packs have always been a great way to fix issues with ships that do not always see the table, and these where unfortunately not top of the pile.  Will this set make these ships into Ace hunters to take on those pesky rebels?

As always with Fantasy Flight Games, the art and packaging is fantastic, and really show off the ship models.

So What comes in this pack to enhance the Imperial arsenal? lets see......

 As always you get all the components you need to play, including some scenario specific ones, bases pegs etc, all FFG high quality cardstock.

 You get 3 reference cards for the new weapons, on how to use cluster mines, the Tractor beam, and bombs.

 You also get a mission themed to the ships inside the pack.  Missions are a rare thing in X-Wing, and certainly welcome to add some variety to the game instead of the standard 100 point duel.

 For the TIE bomber we get two Gamma Squadron pilots. Named pilot wise we get Deathfire at skill 3 who is nice and cheap.  He lets you have a free action on your bomb cards after you move making him nice and efficient.  Tomax Bren is skill 8, so very impressive, and once per round can re-use an elite talent that you have already discarded making him very useful indeed.

 The TIE Defender comes with a pair of Glaive squadron pilots who at skill 6 are nice and solid.  Countess Ryad is my favourite in the pack, yes she is only skill 5, but with her ability it makes her so very slippery to track down, as she can count any straight manoeuvre when revealed as a K turn, letting you adapt to the moment.  Maarek Stele is a beast for causing damage as when you do you deal a face up damage you draw 3 and choose your favourite, letting you maximise the damage you can do, and potentially tailor it to your needs.

 This pack provides a huge amounts of upgrades to tailor these ships, and your provide more options for the rest of your collection as well.  You get 2 copies of the TIE Shuttle card which takes away the bomb, missile, and mine options but provides 2 crew slots converting the bomber into a crewed support craft. 2 sets of long range scanners allow your ships to get a target lock at range 3 and beyond only, but not at range 1-2 meaning you can tag your target early ready for a strike helping with the action economy of your bombers.  Crackshot is an elite talent that can be discarded to cancel an enemy ships evade result maximising damage potential.  Proximity mines, Tractor beam and cluster mines provide some hard hitting ordinance sets to create havoc to the Rebel scum and help you control the board.

 The TIE Defender gets 2 sets of titles each with 2 cards.  TIE/D turns your Defender into a power house of damage dealing by letting you fire your main guns after you make an attack with a cannon upgrade, so you can hit something hard with a heavy laser cannon doing damage, then fire the main guns of the defeneder to cause more havoc, or of course you could put an ION cannon on letting you shut them down, and stay behind peppering them with your main guns knowing where they end up due to being hit with the ION.  TIE/X7 turns your defender into a dogfighter supreme, by giving you a free evade token each time you perform a 3-4-5 speed manoeuvre, meaning if you keep your speed up your defence is raised letting you concentrate on target locking, or focus to bring down your target, move fast, hit hard, its the Defenders way.  Lastly for upgrades we have the Systems officer who is crew. after you perform a green move you can choose a friendly ship at range 1 which may then acquire a target lock for free. Combine this with long range scanners and you can support a ship to maximise its action output.

 The ships themselves are stunning, though we have already seen the models, the re-paints are excellent.

 The TIE bomber gets a white stripe down its side.

 The Defender comes in a stunning deep red really showing it as an elite.

The models look fantastic from every angle, and like all the other Xwing models, the paint work is so good it does not even need any work on it.

Its an excellent pack to pick up more ships, and some superb upgrade cards to really boost your ships, and turn your bombers and defenders into real beasts.

You can pick this set up by finding your local game store here with an RRP of £24.99 it will add a great pair of ships and excellent cards to upgrade your ships, with the Defender becoming a true fearsome beast with this pack and the bomber becoming a multi role ship.


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