Hey everybody,
It’s Monday, time for me to jibber jabber. I don’t have any big site news to reveal, so I’ll talk about what I’ve had on my mind lately:
Fantasy Flight Games’ X-Wing Miniatures.
A little history first. When Fantasy Flight Games got the Star Wars license, I was cautiously optimistic. I know that FFG always produces great looking games which I mostly enjoy, but Star Wars is a tough franchise to nail properly in games (at least for me). Of the first three games they announced, I was most intrigued by their cooperative living card game (LCG). I had next to no interest in their roleplaying game system since I already have two fully fleshed out RPG systems already. X-Wing Minis was somewhere between the two, but I’ll admit I was leaning towards “meh” since Wizards of the Coast’s attempt hadn’t exactly been a rousing success. Ultimately, the LCG was delayed because they scrapped the original concept (which I liked) and started over with a competitive game (which I was a little less plussed about).
X-Wing was released last fall. I bought the starter at Montreal Comic-Con. I delayed on the purchasing of additional ships because I didn’t want to sink too much of con budget in one product. I could buy those from my local gaming shop. When I got home from the con, I looked through the components and then put the game on my shelf.
I’d read that a lot of players were suggesting buying two starters as a cost efficient way to double up on ships, and the extra cards, dice and templates were always useful. My local gaming shop had the starter so I picked up a second copy some time later. I asked my friend who owns the store if he was going to get the expansion ships and he assured me he would. Fine. The second copy remained unopened in my computer room (it didn’t even make the gaming shelf). I should point out that this happens to a lot of the games I buy, because board games require people getting together which isn’t always easy to schedule.
Finally, about a month ago, I decided to open the second starter and then organized all the components which got me jazzed to actually try the game. At our last Age of Animus Storytelling Game playtest (hey, look at that, I worked the site into this entry after all), I discovered that my local gaming shop had finally received the expansion ships, so I picked those up and told my friend Frank (the biggest Star Wars fan in my circle) that we were going to have to play and he agreed.Usually, when I suggest something like that, nothing ever comes of it, but this time! Oh this time! I was determined.
So three weeks ago, Frank, Melanie and I got together to play. The first hurdle was that Melanie doesn’t speak/read English and the game was…well in English. No problem, most of the components used easy to remember symbols. Explain things once and we’re mostly good to go. The second hurdle was that I hadn’t pre-constructed teams. We did that on the fly. I played 150 points of Rebels against Melanie and Frank who each had 75 points of Imperials. I ended up losing the game and we screwed up a number of rules (mostly my fault), but we had a lot of fun. A good sign that they would be up to play again.
And play again we did on Saturday. Frank wanted to try the Rebels, so we played the same setup, with him and me switching places and again the Empire prevailed.
These two sessions have sold me on the game. It’s a lot of fun. From what I’ve read, it plays a lot like Wings of War (for those who are familiar) with some neat little innovations (like using templates for movement rather than cards). The ships are incredibly detailed. The one thing I liked about WotC’s game was that the ships looked good (although the plastic had a tendency to warp) and these minis blow the old minis out of the water. Frank compared the Slave I mini to his Code 3 Slave I (the most detailed repro on the market) and it came out surprisingly favorably in the comparison (for the price point).
The other thing I took from our games is that I need more ships. I have two starters (which gave me 2 X-Wings and four TIEs) and one of each of the expansions except for the solo X-Wing and the solo TIE which weren’t in stock at my local gaming store. At 150 points, the Rebels need to use at least four of the five ships I own (Frank used all five, but he had no points left for upgrades). On the Imperial side, both games left out two TIEs. The only variety was from our choice of pilots and upgrades. With more ships to choose from, I imagine the dynamic would be quite different. I joked on Facebook that I wanted enough ships to reenact the Battle of Yavin, but ideally, I’d like two more Y-Wings, A-Wings and TIE Interceptors, and the solo X-Wing and two TIEs to get the exclusive upgrades (WEDGE!!!!!) and round out complete wings of each (I’d have two complete TIE wings). I just need to get back to Steve’s to make it so.
I plan on bringing the game to my regular gaming group to see what they think of it. They REALLY dug Quarriors. I’m curious to see how X-Wing will rate compared to it.
Oh, and I hope they make a Z-95 Headhunter.