Star Wars X-wing core set review

[Commander Vyper]

Exactly.  No painting,  straight out of the box, zipping around in space in minutes. GREAT!!

[King Tiger]

with new movies in the works I suspect they might run out of ships to make some time in the year 3545

I don't think those movies will do anything positive for the franchise, 1 movie every year, J.J.Abrams and Disney....star wars is going to be killed faster than George Lucas did by doing the Emo prequels, if FF are smart they will not touch those new movies.

[Momotaro]

There's a LOT of gaming to be had from just the Wave 1 releases - as well as four ships, there are quite a few pilots and other options.

Each type of ship plays very differently, and the options for mixed forces with even just those four ships are pleasingly varied. I get the impression that a LOT of thought has gone into this game.

And as Commander Vyper says, you bring the box home, flip through the manual, and start playing - it's one of those games where you get the hang of the rules quickly, but then you start to think about tactics, upgrades, pilots...

Adding waves 2 and 3 feels a bit overwhelming...

[Momotaro]

when is the last time you said something positive?

KT posted some pics a couple of weeks back, of a damn nice Panther tank modified for use with his 40k Imperial Guard.  There was a decent discussion around it too.

I feel this place works best when everyone shares their games, conversions, new sculpts and paintjobs.  It's not about the attention, praise, or even feedback - the best praise you can get here is when someone says "you can consider that idea nicked".

So get painting Tigger...

[palaeomerus]

TIE fighters too small to have a jump drive too small to have shield generators yet according to FFG they dwarf the x wing that has all those things.  

I'm not sure that Lucas knew that X-wings and Y-wings have a jump drive in the first movie so the props and dialog might not fit well with the stuff in later movies. I think in Star Wars he was still in the 'fighters are carried or have a nearby base' mode.

I think he probably decided that the X-wings and Y-wings are hyperspace capable when the Rebel Fleet had to escape Hoth into deep Space without the fighters having time to land on a carrier craft and it would save Luke needing to take some other kind of ship to visit Degobah. If the X-wing could just jump there it made getting the fleet out and getting Luke where he needed to go cheaper and the movie would flow better and he wouldn't need a new full size prop for a ship.  

As for shields I know they get verbally mentioned but in movie terms TIEs, X-Wings and Y-Wings don't seem to blow up very differently nor does one seem to be especially fragile compared to the other, so I think TIE's not having shields might have just been something that came from the X-Wing Video game sometime after the original trilogy was already a little bit crusty. The Deathstar trench run played the X-wings and Y-wings as WW2 navy torpedo bombers on a bombing run and the TIEs as highly maneuverable naval air defense fighters picking them off from behind after they had lost their wingman escorts but were committed to the bombing run. I don't know though some of those details might have been pulled from the novelization of Starwars which has bits that were eventually cut from the script (including the Journal of the Wills stuff). I think I read somewhere that the novelization was ghost written by Alan Dean Foster which is why when Starwars was a success but before it was a hit Lucas asked him for a low budget sequel idea which became ' Splinter of the Mind's Eye'. Once he realized that he could do a bigger sequel Lucas dropped Splinter and commissioned a new script with huge walking APC's and arctic murder yetis in it.

It's fun to watch the original movies gradually evolve concepts from one to the next. The force starts out as intuition, calm, prescience, deception, and a little very local telekinesis(chokey chokey). It's zen swordsman stuff. By the second movie it's suddenly jumping forty feet in the air, throwing heavy things around, and blocking shots from a gun. By the third it's added flips, lightning, bouncing shots from a gun back to the guy who fired them, ignoring fatal pain, and near telepathy.

[Fusilier55]

I finally caved in and got into Star Wars X-wing the miniature game from Fantasy Flight Games. Having played it a couple of times I really saw the appeal, though it was - and is - quite expensive to get into.

Just read your review and enjoyed it.  I still haven't bought this game but no doubt will eventually.  My club plays and it is fun.  I do think it is  expensive however.  King Tiger mentions that they will be limited in what expansion ships they can make, I have no problem with that. (though like him I am not interested in them making new movie ships, Frank;ly sticking with the original three is fine with me!

The game is a lot of fun, even more so with the expansions of plazma guns and droids and fortunelty here in the US the game is actually carried by a major retailer which helps bring the price down.

Cheers,
Ron

[matakishi]

I've removed the most offensive bits of this discussion. I'm happy to lock it completely if things don't stay on track.

[Viper]

With all this discussion about the price I was expecting far far worse when I actually went and checked what the prices are.

£25 for a starter box isn't so bad, even if you need two and an extra ship that is about £60 which is comparatable to the other main example of "big box" starter sets, GW.

On top of which that gives you 7 ships, 2 "average" size forces. While yes the Imperial side is a little boring with just 4 Ties and the Rebel side might be the same way if you just get the X-wing pack you still get variation from the pilots and equipment cards and I assume you can manage a fair few of the different missions.

The single ship packs also don't seem that expensive either, at £10-12 for the more normal sized ones, I assume the Falcon and Slave-1 are larger and come with more cards seeing as they weigh in at a hefty £20-22.

Anyway, £10-12, to be honest I've paid more for less on numerous occasions when it comes to single miniatures I like and just want to have with no real idea of a game to use them for. 54mm scale minis, 28mm "ogre" sized stuff, even a couple of 28mm limited run figures I've bought have cost that much or more.

Also I assume a single different or additional ship will make a big difference considering the low model count of the game, so compared to games with larger force sizes which might have cheaper models you would need to buy a fair few of those models to have the same effect on the game.

To be honest this has all left me very tempted indeed.

[Thargor]

Tournament games run at 100pts.  For that you can take a TIE swarm (6 or 7 depending on how well you tool them up) or 4 Rebels, or if you're going for for the really expensive pilots with all the gear you could end up with 2 or 3 ships.

Millenium Falcon (YT1300)  and Slave 1 (Firespray) come with various pilots and upgrades and can easily be combined with the other ships from the respective fleets, but tend to be fairly expensive points wise.  I've seen a 2 YT1300 fleet and a 2 Firespray fleet (quite a few of these at the Nationals, one of which whipped my butt royally).