Star Wars X-Wing Miniatures game TIE SF Special Forces Expansion pack unboxing and review
Once more we dive into the world of Star Wars for our continuing look at the latest wave. This time with the First Order (also usable in Empire forces) TIE SF (special Forces) First seen in the Force Awakens i have been waiting for this to hit the table to hopefully add some punch to the Empires TIE fleet.
Only the First Order's most elite pilots were authorized to fly the specialized TIE craft from the Special Forces TIE Expansion Pack. Outfitted with enhanced shields, weapons, and sensor systems, the ship had a dual heavy laser turret mounted to the bottom of its fuselage. In X-Wing™ this turret empowers the ship to launch a more potent attack from its primary firing arc or to fire from both its primary and auxiliary firing arcs in the same round. In addition to its pre-painted miniature, the expansion also contains four ship cards and five upgrades.
As always, in a nice clam shell pack where you get a good view of the ship... At first glance you may just think.. oh its JUST another TIE, but you would be wrong..... so lets look and see whats different!
Firstly the dial... its not quite as fast as normal TIEs and has a few more red moves, with no K-turns though she does have the talon roll giving her that edge.... the thing is you do not really need a K turn with this ship, as she has an auxiliary rear firing arc! so can always protect herself, and the K turns allow you to position yourself in ways your enemy may not always expect.
As always with FFG, unlike some other games... Star Trek Attack Wing i am looking at you!! you get ALL the tokens needed for your ship. Notice the rear auxiliary firing arc.... yes! thats going to make flying this a lot of fun.
Lets look at the ship and pilots though...... with 2 firepower, 2 agility, 3 hull and 3 shields shes suprisingly tough for a TIE variant, though slightly less agile then most, but that's understandable. Her action bar is focus, Target lock and barrell roll, so no evade, be careful with that one.
Quickdraw is a skill 9 pilot.. yes a skill 9 TIE pilot!! also with a rather nasty ability, that once per turn when you lose a shield token you get to attack, so you attack you target first usually being skill 9, they fire back, you then fire again! double attacks.. awesome, plsu this alwso works well with an upgrade we shall be looking at in a bit.
Backdraft is a still respectable skill 7, and when attacking an enemy in your auxilary fire arc you just add a crititcal to the result. Plain, simple, and rather effective.
Omega and Zeta specialists round out the pack with the generic choices.
You get some rather nifty upgrades in this pack.... the elite talent wired for example. An elite talent that if you are stressed whilst attacking OR defending you can reroll 1 or more of your focus results, handy if you do not have a focus token to spend.
Collision detection is a 0 cost mod that lets you overlap obstacles whilst boosting or barrel rolling and ignoring critical hits for object damage. Handy if you want to get somewhere, but not one i will be using too much, i like to keep my ships intact, well as much as possible anyway.
Now the next card... Special Ops Training.... its a title for TIE/sfs only and is 0 cost, and is a MUST include for me!! When you attack with your primary weapon from your main arc, you can roll an additional dice, making her a 3 attack ship, nothing to be sniffed at!, but if you do NOT, you can also perfrom an additional attack from your auxilary arc.... so you can slot into a formation and start hammering from both sides, or if no rear target is available, roll more dice to the front... love it! fits the background as well byu locking the rear turret to face front and add its firepower. Great upgrade.....
Lastly we have Sensor Cluster, that when defending lets you spend a focus token to convert a blank result into an evade, very useful.. as you are then getting at least one guaranteed evade if you have a focus token. As if you roll focus, spend it to convert it, if you roll blank, spend it to get one. Very good upgrade!
The ship herself is not just a lazy copy with a repaint, but a new sculpt, with plenty of little details that make it different.
The aeriel, enlarged pod, and guns on swivel mounting below the ship. A great model...
This is an excellent expansion for the Empire forces, it really provides a hard hitting versatile TIE with great pilots, at an affordable point level... I cant wait to plant it with a TIE horde to surprise Olivia.
Come and join us in all sorts of gaming chat in our Facebook group here, and come follow us on Twitter @rollyoursix and Instagram join the chat, and tell us about your games!
With an RRP £13.99, head over here to find your local game store and grab yourself one to add some real punch to your TIE horde.
Only the First Order's most elite pilots were authorized to fly the specialized TIE craft from the Special Forces TIE Expansion Pack. Outfitted with enhanced shields, weapons, and sensor systems, the ship had a dual heavy laser turret mounted to the bottom of its fuselage. In X-Wing™ this turret empowers the ship to launch a more potent attack from its primary firing arc or to fire from both its primary and auxiliary firing arcs in the same round. In addition to its pre-painted miniature, the expansion also contains four ship cards and five upgrades.
Quickdraw is a skill 9 pilot.. yes a skill 9 TIE pilot!! also with a rather nasty ability, that once per turn when you lose a shield token you get to attack, so you attack you target first usually being skill 9, they fire back, you then fire again! double attacks.. awesome, plsu this alwso works well with an upgrade we shall be looking at in a bit.
Backdraft is a still respectable skill 7, and when attacking an enemy in your auxilary fire arc you just add a crititcal to the result. Plain, simple, and rather effective.
Omega and Zeta specialists round out the pack with the generic choices.
Collision detection is a 0 cost mod that lets you overlap obstacles whilst boosting or barrel rolling and ignoring critical hits for object damage. Handy if you want to get somewhere, but not one i will be using too much, i like to keep my ships intact, well as much as possible anyway.
Now the next card... Special Ops Training.... its a title for TIE/sfs only and is 0 cost, and is a MUST include for me!! When you attack with your primary weapon from your main arc, you can roll an additional dice, making her a 3 attack ship, nothing to be sniffed at!, but if you do NOT, you can also perfrom an additional attack from your auxilary arc.... so you can slot into a formation and start hammering from both sides, or if no rear target is available, roll more dice to the front... love it! fits the background as well byu locking the rear turret to face front and add its firepower. Great upgrade.....
Lastly we have Sensor Cluster, that when defending lets you spend a focus token to convert a blank result into an evade, very useful.. as you are then getting at least one guaranteed evade if you have a focus token. As if you roll focus, spend it to convert it, if you roll blank, spend it to get one. Very good upgrade!
This is an excellent expansion for the Empire forces, it really provides a hard hitting versatile TIE with great pilots, at an affordable point level... I cant wait to plant it with a TIE horde to surprise Olivia.
Come and join us in all sorts of gaming chat in our Facebook group here, and come follow us on Twitter @rollyoursix and Instagram join the chat, and tell us about your games!
With an RRP £13.99, head over here to find your local game store and grab yourself one to add some real punch to your TIE horde.
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