X-Wing minis questions

[kidnicky]

1.is the core set an actual fun complete game for two people, or doyou basically need more ships?
2. Is this something the players are expected to out-spend each other on, like MTG, or are the expansions just expansions to the communial supply of ships?

[Dynodragon]

The core set contains 2 TIE's and a X-Wing, it also comes with 3 or 4 prepared missions so works as a 2 player game for a limited time.

The squadron building rules use a default 100 points for which you will need 3-7 TIE's or 3-4 X-Wings, the other ships provide different tactical options.

The tournament rules require each player to provide all their own stuff but this is of course just applies in tournaments.

The game is quick and easy to learn and has some depth but is still fun to play.

[Seatbelt]

I own multiples of everything, because everything is awesome.

But to answer your question the core set is a complete game. But it comes with 1 X-wing and 2 tie fighters. So the possible pairings and combinations run out quickly. You don't need more ships. But if you want variety, you should buy a few extra ships of the type you like.

It's not a CCG where you buy boosters and make a $1500 deck. You buy a Y-wing expansion. Now you have a y-wing and the cards that come with a y-wing. Every y-wing comes with the same things. So if you buy 3 y-wings you get 3 copies of the same card. Spending more money gives you more options to fill out your 100pt squad. But it only puts you at a disadvantage if you play with more than 100pt squads and you can't fill your points while your friends can.

Although I don't think the base game has enough ships to fill out a 100pt squad for LS or DS.

[kidnicky]

So in other words we can play this as a board game to wbich we occassionally expand, as opposed to something like Heroclix where I'm buying my L @@K R@RES and my friends are buying theirs, and the guy with the most $ wins?

(And yeah, I understand about tourney rules, but in our case this game would be like when we don't wanna do D&D some night.)

[Seatbelt]

There is no randomized boosters. A y-wing comes with the same stuff as every other y-wing. A tie-bomber comes with the same stuff as every other tie bomber.

You would only be at a disadvantage if your friend bought four tie interceptors and you bought four b-wings and he used those four interceptors better than you used your four b-wings. B-wings are tanks. Interceptors are the anti-tanks. *shrug*

There are advantages and weaknesses to each fighter. But there are no chase rares. Dark Confidant and Mox Opal are not things. Your sweet FNM deck doesn't fold to the arse who dropped 1500 on a sweet legacy deck. There is only the inherent weaknesses of a given class of ship, and your ability to maximize the inherent strengths in a given class of ship.

[iyaerP]

I will say one thing about this game and one thing only. House-rule the ramming and collision rules, otherwise the game will devolve to retarded games of bumper-car-chicken where nobody has any fun.

[Dynodragon]

I will say one thing about this game and one thing only. House-rule the ramming and collision rules, otherwise the game will devolve to retarded games of bumper-car-chicken where nobody has any fun.

Could you please explain this one, what do you not like about the collision rules?

[Seatbelt]

Could you please explain this one, what do you not like about the collision rules?

If two ships are touching bases neither ship is allowed to take an action (shooting or whatever else). So Tie Swarms for example want to play in such a way that at any given time half their ships are touching yours while the other half are killing yours. I watched a Tie Swarm collision swarm a YT-1300 off the map in a tournament and the YT player could literally do nothing about it.

[GungHo]

If only the Emperor knew that he could have won the battle of Endor by playing a superscaled game of "I'm Not Touching You"...

[Dynodragon]

If two ships are touching bases neither ship is allowed to take an action (shooting or whatever else). So Tie Swarms for example want to play in such a way that at any given time half their ships are touching yours while the other half are killing yours. I watched a Tie Swarm collision swarm a YT-1300 off the map in a tournament and the YT player could literally do nothing about it.

Thats not quite right, if a ship moves and ends up touching it doesn't get an action but if the 'touched' ship moves after and moves to a 'empty' space it gets an action.

In the combat phase you cannot attack a ship you are touching (unless you have a special ability) but you can attack any other valid target. The only time you can lose your attack is if you end your movement with any part of your base overlapping an obstacle, like an asteroid, other ships are not obstacles.

[Seatbelt]

Thats not quite right, if a ship moves and ends up touching it doesn't get an action but if the 'touched' ship moves after and moves to a 'empty' space it gets an action.

In the combat phase you cannot attack a ship you are touching (unless you have a special ability) but you can attack any other valid target. The only time you can lose your attack is if you end your movement with any part of your base overlapping an obstacle, like an asteroid, other ships are not obstacles.

I haven't actually played the game since January. So i might not remember all the rules. :P ty for clarification

[kidnicky]

Let me ask this. The X-Wing is obviously better than a TIE in most regards, hence why the starter set gives you 1 vs. 2. Let's say Ireally get into the game and blow the 20 bucks on Sla e I. Would Boba be an even (or close) match for Luke, or would I have to get another 20 dollar mini to fight Boba.

Basically my questions all boil down tk this :I'm the one who's going to be buying this stuff. I don't begrudge the fact that the game is expandable, but I worry about how fun it will be between getting started and "catching em all" . Would this be a fun game to play once every week or two for a couple months without breaking the bank? We're all just casual players who like Star Wars and pewpew guns, not people who are going to go participate in tourneys and so on.

[Seatbelt]

Let me ask this. The X-Wing is obviously better than a TIE in most regards, hence why the starter set gives you 1 vs. 2. Let's say Ireally get into the game and blow the 20 bucks on Sla e I. Would Boba be an even (or close) match for Luke, or would I have to get another 20 dollar mini to fight Boba.

Basically my questions all boil down tk this :I'm the one who's going to be buying this stuff. I don't begrudge the fact that the game is expandable, but I worry about how fun it will be between getting started and "catching em all" . Would this be a fun game to play once every week or two for a couple months without breaking the bank? We're all just casual players who like Star Wars and pewpew guns, not people who are going to go participate in tourneys and so on.

The core set is balanced to be played with only the core set. But the game assumes you can build 100pt squads and balanced ships accordingly. Empire can make an 8 Tie squad at 100pts. Rebels can make a 4 ship squad at 100pts. You can use better pilots and gear to increase the value of your squad and thus need fewer minis to fill a 100pt squad.


You can of course set higher or lower values. 50 or 25pt squads or whatever you want. If you field Slave 1 + Boba at some point value, the Alliance player needs to be able to field about the same amount of points.


edit - also Luke's ability is fine but it's very tanky. So he might have a hard time killing things.

[Cikomyr]

Is it only starfighters, or the game count Capital ships as well?

[Philistine]

Just fighters - the largest ships modeled so far are the YT-1300 and the Firespray-31. I'm not sure a capital ship would even fit on the battle map, given the disparity in sizes between fighter and cruiser scales; and I can't imagine how a capital ship would function under the rules given the disparity in capabilities.

[Dynodragon]

Is it only starfighters, or the game count Capital ships as well?

Fantasy Flight have announced plans to release a figure of the Blockade Runner and the Rebel Transport, these will be non-tournament use only and are not to scale.

A Super Star destroyer to scale would be about 800 metres long.

[Cikomyr]

Fantasy Flight have announced plans to release a figure of the Blockade Runner and the Rebel Transport, these will be non-tournament use only and are not to scale.

A Super Star destroyer to scale would be about 800 metres long.

You just need to explain that the models aren't to scale. That every starfighter represent a squadron. Etc... no?

[Cristo Meyers]

You just need to explain that the models aren't to scale. That every starfighter represent a squadron. Etc... no?

Not really going to work. The larger ships like the Falcon or the Lambda shuttle are pretty large. The Falcon is about the size of my hand, if I remember correctly. Even a not to scale cruiser is going to need to be huge to not look absurd next to the smaller ships.

And that's not even getting into how the rules would probably need to change to accomodate the new ships.

[kidnicky]

At the LCS today I saw a Star TREK game that looked a -lot- like this but wasn't the same company. What's the deal? Are they compatable? The ships were bigger than the SW ships, but obviously Enterprise would be giant compared to an X-Wing, they were nowhere near the same scale.

[Philistine]

The "deal," presumably, is that Paramount also licensed someone to make a minis combat game based on their big-name SF franchise. I can't think of any reason why the two games would be compatible.

[kidnicky]

But I'm saying from what I could see, it looked VERY similar. Turning a dial to select which movement template you're using. I'm not saying it was just a Trek minis game, I'm saying it looked specifically made to cash in on the SW game's success. The packaging was even similar.

[Seatbelt]

I was at GenCon watching that game be demo'd. I heard one of the demo guys say that it plays exactly the same. It certainly looked that way to me.



See the trick here is that you can't copyright game mechanics. So it is perfectly legal for them to use the exact same rules and apply Star Trek paint.

[Keris]

See the trick here is that you can't copyright game mechanics. So it is perfectly legal for them to use the exact same rules and apply Star Trek paint. Though in this case WizKids did actually license the rules (http://wizkidsgames.com/blog/2013/03/11/neca-wizkids-announce-star-trek-attack-wing-heroclix-board-game/) (or at least the 'FlightPath™ maneuver system') from FFG.


Are they compatable? Apparently yes (http://boardgamegeek.com/thread/1033257/star-trek-attack-wing-vs-star-wars-x-wing). I imagine there'd be some balance concerns down the line though.

[kidnicky]

If it's wizkids balance has to be a little wonky. I've had many games of heroclix where we wondered how Punisher could take out Wonder Woman. It's a great game but it's a little fast and loose with who can do what.

[Philistine]

Well, maybe. 4 SW starfighter-sized ships vs 3 ST capital ships sounds like they have the balance about right so far.

[Cristo Meyers]

The Star Trek version plays almost exactly the same as X-Wing. Ships are in general slower and a little less manueverable, but other than that they're the same.


If it's wizkids balance has to be a little wonky. I've had many games of heroclix where we wondered how Punisher could take out Wonder Woman. It's a great game but it's a little fast and loose with who can do what.

We've only played a game or two, but one thing that became apparent really early was that being able to cloak was really powerful. As in, "there's no reason to not be cloaked" powerful. You're rolling an additional four defensive dice when cloaked and many other ships just aren't rolling enough attack dice to punch through that kind of defense.

Especially bad in the Klingon ships since they have an upgrade that allows them to fire while staying under cloak, essentially removing the biggest weakness of cloaking.

[kidnicky]

The Star Trek version plays almost exactly the same as X-Wing. Ships are in general slower and a little less manueverable, but other than that they're the same.



We've only played a game or two, but one thing that became apparent really early was that being able to cloak was really powerful. As in, "there's no reason to not be cloaked" powerful. You're rolling an additional four defensive dice when cloaked and many other ships just aren't rolling enough attack dice to punch through that kind of defense.

Especially bad in the Klingon ships since they have an upgrade that allows them to fire while staying under cloak, essentially removing the biggest weakness of cloaking.
Well, in the fkction wouldn't you say Trek's ships are slower and less manueverable? And the cloaking thing seems to hold true to the Trek movies/shows, too, at least IIRC. I enjoy the series, but I'm no Trekkie. I did't even understand what the guy above you meant by capitol class.

[Philistine]

"Capital ship" just means a large warship (generally a heavy cruiser or better). It's a RL term, and as such is not specific to any franchise.

[GungHo]

The term capital ship is very loosely applied in sci-fi. In Star Wars, it's basically anything larger than a heavy frieghter (http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Capital_ship), and was really used as a dividing line created by WEG (and later WotC) to denote what used Starfighter Scale combat and Capital Ship Scale combat, as they needed to find a way to simplify dice roles and basically put a rein on bloodthirsty GMs to keep them from blowing every X-Wing out of the sky in the first round of them being pursued by a Star Destroyer.

In the real world (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_ship), there are pretty specific definitions as to what qualifies as a capital ship (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Naval_Treaty), and basically they were the ships of the line around which entire battlegroups were fielded. The only thing we have that are considered capital ships now are aircraft carriers. No one floats battleships or battlecruisers.

[kidnicky]

Well I ordered the core set, the A-wing, and the Interceptor. I'm excited to get started. I know conventional wisdom would be to play the core game first and see if I like it, then expand, but the game is getting such good press, and a miniatures game with cool ships from the original SW trilogy would have to be PAINFULLY bad for me not to like it.

[kidnicky]

Well I got the game. So far I've only been able to "play" it once by myself just to get the rules down for when we really play. I loved it. It really captures the feel of a Star Wars dogfight with very little rules.

One question for those who have the game and some expansions:

The rules say if you're using the core box, build your team to 31 points. I have the core set but I also purchased the A wing and Interceptor. Now this doesn't give me enough for the reccomended 100 point game, so what do you think would be a good point total for a balanced game? 50?

[kidnicky]

One more quick question:
Can a pilot only fly the ship he comes with? Like could Biggs fly an A Wing while Tycho flies the X-Wing? Could Luke fly a Y Wing? Or the Falcon?

[Seatbelt]

The stats on a card are for the ship. Compare a Luke card to any other X-wing card. The numbers are all the same and the only difference is the Initiative, special ability, and cost. Luke flies an X-wing. Tycho flies an A-wing. Period.

[Dynodragon]

The stats on a card are for the ship. Compare a Luke card to any other X-wing card. The numbers are all the same and the only difference is the Initiative, special ability, and cost. Luke flies an X-wing. Tycho flies an A-wing. Period.

I believe Luke also appears as a possible crew member for the falcon, if a name has a dot to the left of it you are limited to 1 version in your 'squadron' in whatever form but your opponent(s) could also have 1 Luke as well.

If your playing a social game with friends feel free to select any points limit or try going to wookiepedia and looking at some of the battles listed there and try gaming those.

[kidnicky]

I played this a couple times and loved it. I'll probably end up with the Falcon and Slave 1 at some point, and probably the Trek version as well.

You MUST move during a turn, correct? That's how we've been playing, and it makes sense in the setting.

[Seatbelt]

I played this a couple times and loved it. I'll probably end up with the Falcon and Slave 1 at some point, and probably the Trek version as well.

You MUST move during a turn, correct? That's how we've been playing, and it makes sense in the setting.

You must select a maneuver from the dial. There are no "stop" maneuvers as far as I know.