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Not Sure where I can find any positive statements any longer, this game is going to the dogs. I predict it may go extinct in a year or 2. Your opinions? So much potential but was left in the hands of Wizkids, FFG could have and would have done better. IMO again

I think we are doing better than we were this time last year when the Borg were running around stomping everything in site. The game was hurt a lot by the Borg and it is taking some time to recover but I feel that things are getting better. Remember the changes to the Borg and FAQ were only released in April 2015. There have also been a plethora of other games released since the Borg drove people away so that has to be factored into the recovery.

As a whole I think the game is getting better. Yes there have been some meh, releases but when I think about it I would rather have some mediocre releases then Waves like #4 (Voyager & Sphere) that turn the game upside down every month. There have been some little tidbits here and there in the newer releases and prize ships but nothing that ROCKS the meta. Even if you consider the Hood, there hasn't been a prize ship or retail ship that "you have to buy to compete" for quite a while. WK has done a lot to bring the game back form the brink it was at in February and March. That being said there is still more that needs to happen:

1) More needs to be done to the Tournament Rules, either moving to more faction restrictions or an increase in the faction penalty. I know a lot of big Trek fans that are turned off the game by the idea of mixing everything together. Myself and several of the guys I play with stayed away from Nationals and Worlds because we didn't want anything to do with the shenanigans that we knew were going to go on there. The first couple Regionals had 60ish people. Each one after dropped and dropped. Nationals only had 16 people and worlds 14. The player based wants more structure, look at X-Wing, didn't their World Championship have something like 200 people.

2) Upgrades in expansions need to be more appropriately cost based for what they do. It is good to have packs that don't turn the meta upside down, but there should be a reason to WANT TO USE each card in a pack. This doesn't require much just some points shaving or minor tweaks.

3) TOs need to do more to take control of their stores. WK purposefully gives space on the event system for house rules. If players want to change anything they don't like, LET THEM. Many TOs and stores are reluctant to do anything that isn't official WK scripture. This is a mistake, WK wants stores to do whatever they have to do to keep people playing, they don't care as long as folks are buying product. Players need to be more demanding on the TO, you are paying to play not the other way around. It is your game, if the TO won't listen go to the store owner.

4) WK needs to give more attention to the FAQ and rules forum. They built it, we want to use it, so just maintain it. WK has a regular release schedule, the rules forum should be regularly updated to reflect that. I don't mean they need to be on there everyday changing things, but every 2-3 months they should be answering questions as issues with newer releases/prizes come up.


In all this game is still a blast and I will be playing it for years after it goes out of production. There are still plenty of ships to go and people are still playing. Andrew Parks said when the game first came out that WK was committed to a firm 4 year business model, so we have nothing to worry about until August of 2017. Now if WK takes the proper steps they can make that a great time between now and then and maybe it will be worth it to them to do another 4 years. We as players need to do our part too. We need to go an play at stores, let people see you play. Play casual games, bring extra ships for passers by. Do your best to draw people in, do what ever it takes to discourage WAAC players that drive off newbees. The state of the game is in the players hands just as much as it is WK.


As for FFG doing a better job, nobody can say for sure. There is a lot more going on in ST than SW that had to be addressed in the game. FFG has done a great job with X-Wing, but it is really just the same thing over and over again, blow up the other guy. Most OP scenarios aside STAW ships and upgrades are doing more than that. So does FFG have the skill to write that, WHO KNOWS. At the end of the day it does no good to dwell on it, because they don't have the license. I could say that Privateer Press could do 40K better than GW but I don't really know.

I think the curse of this game is everyone's expectation of WK events as the only way to ever play it. As a casual game, coming from the colossal deadweight of 40k rules, it's a pleasure, it's like getting out of an overloaded milk float and climbing into a dodge charger. Wife and I have had many games now and really enjoy it, little scenarios and have even had friends pick up a little force each and come to play.

It's a real shame we don't see more of what Baldrick is doing from anyone else, or even people in stores running thematic events and tourneys, constantly adhering to WKs open field WAAC and often very poorly written OP events is what's destroying it.

People complain about FFG games getting tons of expansions, but Wizkids has been even worse. This game is falling apart under the weight of the deluge of poorly-written expansions and OP scenarios. I have become more and more convinced that Wizkids is treating this game as shovelware and are just churning out junk until their license runs out.

The number of expansions has nothing to do with the quality. I will agree that more attention needs to be given to the quality of cards in expansions. However the game is not "falling apart under the wight". If anything people are just not using the cards they don't like. I see a lot of people using the Thunderchild & Phoenix, which are newer ship. I have also see the Vrax and Bioship Beta used. I haven't been to an OP since November wave was released, but I can see the Hathaway and skill 7 Riker becoming very popular.

I'll be the first to admit that the Rotarran and Talvath were disappointing, but there are still some great ships coming out. Also the new blind boosters are some great releases. Yes they are blind boosters, but they will be available for a year so people have lots of time to get them.





Automatically Appended Next Post:

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:
I think the curse of this game is everyone's expectation of WK events as the only way to ever play it. As a casual game, coming from the colossal deadweight of 40k rules, it's a pleasure, it's like getting out of an overloaded milk float and climbing into a dodge charger. Wife and I have had many games now and really enjoy it, little scenarios and have even had friends pick up a little force each and come to play.

It's a real shame we don't see more of what Baldrick is doing from anyone else, or even people in stores running thematic events and tourneys, constantly adhering to WKs open field WAAC and often very poorly written OP events is what's destroying it.

Thanks for the shout out. You are absolutely right, this game rocks. There is too much concern over how something will perform in the limited confines of an OP as opposed to just having fun. There is so much potential in this game for scenario building and imagination. We don’t need WK to tell us how to play. Get out there write up some scenarios and have fun. First and last run in gaming is always have fun

 MeanGreenStompa wrote:
I think the curse of this game is everyone's expectation of WK events as the only way to ever play it.

There is truth in that, and if we had people that played it I might feel differently. we just lost 4 people for event play and down too 2. I feel they are justified in their concerns, constant releases that have no real value or cards. For me on this next releases the Dreadnought has no value and all the card are meh or horrible, so its $15 for 1 meh card? Why spend money on crap. I've liquidated much of my stuff I'll continue to buy Klingons at the very least. but where does it go from there, it'll be totally dead here soon.

Millage will very. I went to an OP yesterday and we picked up 2 more people

You can't have it both ways though. Either people want releases were the whole meta is tossed upside down every month or they want releases that are ok to meh and don't upset the apple cart. I don't understand why the release schedule would make people quit, it you don't want it, don't buy it. I have a friend who only plays feds, so he only buys fed releases. There is a guy at one of my venues that only plays Klingons, Kazon, Independents, and Dominion so if it isn't one of those he doesn't buy it.

I was pretty disappointed in the Talvath, Rotarran, and Scorpions, but it doesn't kill the game for me. I find ways to make them work. For home games we may errata some things and for OPs you only have a 90-120 points anyway so it's not like you can take every upgrade. Some upgrades just aren't going to work for OPs even for the right point cost. My wife doesn't play in OPs, but she likes to put a Red Shirt on her Fed ships whenever we play. Are they worth the points, NO, but they are fun and thematic. Will I ever use Romulan Commander in an OP, probably not, but I use him a lot in casual play.

I am looking forward to the Dreadnought. Can't wait to take it up against Voyager.

I have actually been running alternate scenarios with my shop, rather than running the OPs unless some one really wants the OP event. Once I have more current OP kits, I intend on issuing the prize ships as prizes for the over arcing narrative.

I agree with Mr. Baldrick and Stompa: the game is in the hands of the players, and its up to us to make certain that this game can be played to the extent we want to see it played.

I never leave home with less than my full small ship collection, and at one point I was supplying three different players their forces at the same time. It's a great way to teach people how to play. Hell, who wouldn't want to have their favorite captain, one or two of their favorite crew, and then the ship that they love at their command?

The quality of the releases is really in the eye of the beholder I have found: some of the guys near where I player were really excited for the Rotarran, and One even bought two sets of scorpions.

The rule of life is that the situation is truly controlled by our perceptions, because our perceptions control reality.

Is the game dead? Nah, not really. Is it moving in the wrong direction? Yes, yes it is and it has been for a while now. I compare it to a small snowball rolling down a hill. As it rolls, it picks up more snow and grows bigger, and moves faster and gets bigger, and moves faster until it hits a wall and SPLAT!

When I got into STAW, it was quite literally a group playing Dominion War OP 2, and they needed an extra player. My buddy convinced me to join, no one had any extra ships, so I bought a starter set and the Breen ship. Had no idea what the cards did, but threw a fleet together and played. Had a blast! Played a couple more games, and kinda figured it all out. Then I went and played the Tholian Event at another store that had a very competitive meta, and the Borg just game out. I got my butt curb stomped into the ground. So many cards I had never even seen before, OP resources, etc. etc. That was a rude awakening to me, and it was the release of the Voyager and Borg that the game started down hill.

There are many people, myself included, that felt Wizkids had no plans for STAW after the Dominion War and Wave 8. After wave 8, Andrew Parks, the main guy at Wizkids that worked on STAW, moved on to D&DAW, and suddenly, there was no one person working on STAW, and we got a new campaign, which had a lot of issues. I really think things came to a head in August at Gencon 2014. Borg fleets dominated and steamrolled all the tournaments being held, and their were players (myself included) that made it very clear what we thought about the Borg. Shortly thereafter, we got the eventual announcement by Wizkids of a FAQ "Team", new tournament guidelines, and The Great Borg Nerf. Suddenly, it felt like Wizkids was listening to us! That they had a plan, and that the game was changing course for the better! An accelerated release schedule, a new campaign, new blind ships, etc. etc.

I refer to the period of Oct 2014 to about Oct 2015 as the "Golden Year" of STAW. Sure, some questionable ships came out, the OP's started to feel kinda cookie cutter, but there was some optimism there until the FAQ's started to make no sense, with rulings contradicting previous rulings, or rulings that made no sense. And then it was reveled that the FAQ "Team" was one man who was also one of the developers on Heroclicks. The FAQ Team wasn't even his "Full Time Responsibility" and to this day, we still don't know who is at the helm of STAW at Wizkids, because the ships rolling out now lack focus in terms of what they are meant to do on the table, with just plain bad or unplayable/unusable cards.

STAW is, in my opinion, bursting at the seams. It's a great time for the ships that are available, the cards and designing a fleet! However their is a large disparity between the "Good ships" and "Bad ships", as well as captains, crew, tech, and secondary weapons. From a game designer perspective, the game is a disaster with no clear thought placed into the direction of the game itself. Is it trying to be a beer and pretzels game, a competitive game? Both? Neither? A new rules mechanic has been introduced that doesn't replace the old action economy, but is not in widespread use, nor did it address the major issues of the rules it replaces. Imbalance between factions seems larger then ever before, with the newer ships widening that gulf. Certain cards are still "must haves" and are found in every single fleet. There are about 100+ named Captains in the game right now, yet you only ever see the same four captains in every fleet- Picard, Martok, Donatra, and Khan. Certainly, there are fleets that do not use all those captains, but here's a challenge: Build a 120 point tournament fleet (3+ ships, no more than 50 points on a ship) that does NOT use those captains, and go against a fleet that does use those captains and you will see what I mean.

The numbers don't lie right now. STAW Regional and "Worlds" tournaments are only getting a handful of people, while FFG's X-wing, a game built on the same play mechanics, is attracting HUNDREDS of people to similar events. If you would have asked me last year which game was better, I would have said STAW based on the amount of variety of ships/equipment and Wizkids OP support. X-Wing has ALWAYS been weak on OP's and prize support, and it still is! Yet more and more people are playing it- without the variety of fleet customization you get in STAW, the lack of ships, and the attraction of ships/cards you can only get by playing in an event! So what's going on here? How is it that a similar game with 1/4 the ships and cards that STAW has, and has been out for a similar length of time, is doing so much better? Then there is the fact that I walk into Target, Walmart, or any other big chain store, and I see X-wing. I walk into Barnes and Noble- a book store! and find X-wing. STAW? Only online or the LGS- if I'm lucky. Most LGS's I've been to don't even sell STAW- but they sell X-wing.

My answer: #1 A development team dedicated to the game, issuing FAQs that make sense, errata of cards, and oh hey! Did you catch the fact that they just released X-Wing 2.0 with the new Starter Set, updated rules, and new models? /mind blown They still support the "old" game- heck, it was a seamless transition, and better yet, the new(er) rules make some of the older stuff better! It's like FFG turned everything up a notch, and made a better game. I hope Wizkids is paying attention, because yeah, FFG has the whole "Episode VIII" and Star Wars revival thing going for it, but next year is a new Star Trek TV series, and a new film. There is no reason why Wizklds couldn't do the same as FFG just did. #2 a marketing department dedicated to selling models. STAW could be the flagship game for Wizkids, yet they stubbornly cling to the idea that all their games are #1.

Talk about a game company that just doesn't "get it" and probably never will. /shrug Oh well.

Personally, if STAW 2.0 doesn't come out next year, I'll probably be done after the Temporal Cold War OP.

 Tamwulf wrote:

There are many people, myself included, that felt Wizkids had no plans for STAW after the Dominion War and Wave 8. After wave 8, Andrew Parks, the main guy at Wizkids that worked on STAW, moved on to D&DAW, and suddenly, there was no one person working on STAW, and we got a new campaign, which had a lot of issues. I really think things came to a head in August at Gencon 2014. Borg fleets dominated and steamrolled all the tournaments being held, and their were players (myself included) that made it very clear what we thought about the Borg. Shortly thereafter, we got the eventual announcement by Wizkids of a FAQ "Team", new tournament guidelines, and The Great Borg Nerf. Suddenly, it felt like Wizkids was listening to us! That they had a plan, and that the game was changing course for the better! An accelerated release schedule, a new campaign, new blind ships, etc. etc.

I don't always agree with the rules team, but I think what they have done for the game has greatly improved the game. They have cut out a lot of the over powered stuff that crept into the game under Parks and Guild. Personally I think that Parks era was the worst for the game because he would let himself be influenced by the WAAC ex-Magic Players that dominated BGG at the time he was doing the FAQ.

The rules team has cleaned things up a quite a bit. They do need to attend to things more regularly but gone are the days of Borg Missiles and Weyoun/Verel Cubes and the game is better for it.

 Tamwulf wrote:

I refer to the period of Oct 2014 to about Oct 2015 as the "Golden Year" of STAW. Sure, some questionable ships came out, the OP's started to feel kinda cookie cutter, but there was some optimism there until the FAQ's started to make no sense, with rulings contradicting previous rulings, or rulings that made no sense. And then it was reveled that the FAQ "Team" was one man who was also one of the developers on Heroclicks. The FAQ Team wasn't even his "Full Time Responsibility" and to this day, we still don't know who is at the helm of STAW at Wizkids, because the ships rolling out now lack focus in terms of what they are meant to do on the table, with just plain bad or unplayable/unusable cards.

The "one guy thing" was never proven, it was just the rambling of one very disturbed individual. If you read the rulings closely there are clearly different writing styles.

 Tamwulf wrote:

STAW is, in my opinion, bursting at the seams. It's a great time for the ships that are available, the cards and designing a fleet! However their is a large disparity between the "Good ships" and "Bad ships", as well as captains, crew, tech, and secondary weapons. From a game designer perspective, the game is a disaster with no clear thought placed into the direction of the game itself. Is it trying to be a beer and pretzels game, a competitive game? Both? Neither? A new rules mechanic has been introduced that doesn't replace the old action economy, but is not in widespread use, nor did it address the major issues of the rules it replaces. Imbalance between factions seems larger then ever before, with the newer ships widening that gulf. Certain cards are still "must haves" and are found in every single fleet. There are about 100+ named Captains in the game right now, yet you only ever see the same four captains in every fleet- Picard, Martok, Donatra, and Khan. Certainly, there are fleets that do not use all those captains, but here's a challenge: Build a 120 point tournament fleet (3+ ships, no more than 50 points on a ship) that does NOT use those captains, and go against a fleet that does use those captains and you will see what I mean.

A lot of this is going to depend on the local meta. I just wen to an OP over the weekend and the only one of the big 4 above to see the table was Donatra and she was in one near Romulan pure fleet. It was nice to see an 8472 pure fleet, Korok, Tuvok, Kar and others on the table. I think we are in a good spot right now because there are less of the meta changing ships coming out and we are getting more upgrades coming out that beef up older ships that you hardly ever saw before.

Type 8 phasers are making all kinds of ships usable, especially the Defiant. Additional Phasers are making D'Deridex' better. The shield upgrades from the Delta Flyer have made the Equinox playable, Dorsal Phaser Array has boosted Nebula classes.

I would like to see more of these cards coming out in retail packs, but time will tell on that one and TOs should be asking players if they want to allow proxies so everyone has access

 Tamwulf wrote:

The numbers don't lie right now. STAW Regional and "Worlds" tournaments are only getting a handful of people, while FFG's X-wing, a game built on the same play mechanics, is attracting HUNDREDS of people to similar events. If you would have asked me last year which game was better, I would have said STAW based on the amount of variety of ships/equipment and Wizkids OP support. X-Wing has ALWAYS been weak on OP's and prize support, and it still is! Yet more and more people are playing it- without the variety of fleet customization you get in STAW, the lack of ships, and the attraction of ships/cards you can only get by playing in an event! So what's going on here? How is it that a similar game with 1/4 the ships and cards that STAW has, and has been out for a similar length of time, is doing so much better? Then there is the fact that I walk into Target, Walmart, or any other big chain store, and I see X-wing. I walk into Barnes and Noble- a book store! and find X-wing. STAW? Only online or the LGS- if I'm lucky. Most LGS's I've been to don't even sell STAW- but they sell X-wing.

You are 100% right, more needs to be done to attract people to events. Everything from OPs to Worlds. I say at least once a week on the boards that I have never seen a person quit X-Wing because they can't put Darth Vader in a Rebel fleet and it is true. WK should take that as a hint that players want a tighter tournament format rather than a looser one. Now that could mean a simple increase in the faction penalty or more drastic changes such as faction or penalty pure. Something needs to be done, 14 players at Worlds and 16 at Nationals is just sad . However if such a change was made I'm sure WK would pick up 10 players for each ex-Magic player they loose.

 Tamwulf wrote:

STAW could be the flagship game for Wizkids, yet they stubbornly cling to the idea that all their games are #1.

Talk about a game company that just doesn't "get it" and probably never will. /shrug Oh well.

Personally, if STAW 2.0 doesn't come out next year, I'll probably be done after the Temporal Cold War OP.

We are never going to see STAW as the WK flagship game, that will be Heroclix forever. At the GAMA trade show last year WK showed some of their financial info. Even at the height of STAW (Dominion War- The Collective), STAW only made up 17% of WK profits and it was originally projected to be 10 or less. So they are happy on their return. As long as things stay with in a margin of flux without dropping they will not change things too much.

I am not opposed to a STAW 2.0 but it needs to be subtle changes that allow people to use all of the cards and ships that they own. Drastic changes that make people spend larges amount of $$ is a definite way to kill a game.

WK has the game on the right track, they can and should do a little more, but it shouldn't be anything drastic.

 Tamwulf wrote:

If you would have asked me last year which game was better, I would have said STAW based on the amount of variety of ships/equipment and Wizkids OP support. X-Wing has ALWAYS been weak on OP's and prize support, and it still is! Yet more and more people are playing it- without the variety of fleet customization you get in STAW, the lack of ships, and the attraction of ships/cards you can only get by playing in an event! So what's going on here? How is it that a similar game with 1/4 the ships and cards that STAW has, and has been out for a similar length of time, is doing so much better? Then there is the fact that I walk into Target, Walmart, or any other big chain store, and I see X-wing. I walk into Barnes and Noble- a book store! and find X-wing. STAW? Only online or the LGS- if I'm lucky. Most LGS's I've been to don't even sell STAW- but they sell X-wing.

I think that you are hitting on two things here which most people would say they want, but actually end up being detrimental to the game.

1) Prize support. Getting new ships and stuff is cool for a tournament player. However, having to participate in, and in some cases do well at, events to get all the cards. Assuming the event cards aren't universally trash, this puts newer and more casual players at a disadvantage vs more competitive players. In contrast, X-wings prize support tends to just be bragging rights (Alt-art cards and tokens), meaning you aren't at a disadvantage if you don't go to events. The closest X-wing has come to offering an event-only upgrade will be the 2015 store pack including C-3P0 as a participation prize, instead of making him only available with an epic ship. So prize support serves to make cards easier to get, not harder.

2) Variety. Attack wing releases stuff at such a rate that it not only suffers quality-wise, but also becomes an intimidating blur of very similar looking ships, which seems to intimidate new players. There are also a lot of factions, which due to the cross-over of cards end up blurring together. In contrast, X-wing has kept to the two main factions, plus a third faction for anyone who just wants to run space pirates, with very little blur between factions (4 of 26 ships). For the main ships, as of now (Starter Set #2) over half of their ships appear in at least 1 movie (counting Episode VII). This leads to sharper lines of What's-What, and provides an easier "In" for players. The slower release rate also allow time for some hype to build, and players to budget and plan for the next set.

In short, I think that these are not flaws, and are instead design features which have allowed X-wing to develop a more stable base than STAW.

 Crazy_Carnifex wrote:


I think that you are hitting on two things here which most people would say they want, but actually end up being detrimental to the game.

1) Prize support. Getting new ships and stuff is cool for a tournament player. However, having to participate in, and in some cases do well at, events to get all the cards. Assuming the event cards aren't universally trash, this puts newer and more casual players at a disadvantage vs more competitive players. In contrast, X-wings prize support tends to just be bragging rights (Alt-art cards and tokens), meaning you aren't at a disadvantage if you don't go to events. The closest X-wing has come to offering an event-only upgrade will be the 2015 store pack including C-3P0 as a participation prize, instead of making him only available with an epic ship. So prize support serves to make cards easier to get, not harder.

So what you are saying is that the Wizkids prize support, while excellent, is bad for the game in that newer players will never have a chance to "catch up" to the veterans? Which I casually agree with, but the prize support is why a lot of people got into STAW in the first place. I know it was a big thing for me- I show up, get cards and a participation prize, and if I play well enough, a new ship? Awesome! Take that away from STAW and I bet you would lose a lot of players, even if it was a good thing in the long run. My angle in the above post was to point out that X-Wing has NEVER had strong prize support, has no participation prizes, and no OP ships. So a whole class of player is eliminated from the player base (those that play for prizes only) and yet X-Wing still attracts more people. Why?

2) Variety. Attack wing releases stuff at such a rate that it not only suffers quality-wise, but also becomes an intimidating blur of very similar looking ships, which seems to intimidate new players. There are also a lot of factions, which due to the cross-over of cards end up blurring together. In contrast, X-wing has kept to the two main factions, plus a third faction for anyone who just wants to run space pirates, with very little blur between factions (4 of 26 ships). For the main ships, as of now (Starter Set #2) over half of their ships appear in at least 1 movie (counting Episode VII). This leads to sharper lines of What's-What, and provides an easier "In" for players. The slower release rate also allow time for some hype to build, and players to budget and plan for the next set.

I can see how intimidating a large selection of ships and cards can be for a novice player. But after playing for a bit and getting the hang of the game, STAW offers way, way more in customization that X-Wing ever will. The accelerated release schedule and huge selection is the only thing that keeps a lot of players around for STAW. Here, I think it balances itself out. It's bad for new players, but gives depth of play to veterans to stick around. FFG has long had production issues. I'm sure they would release more expansions if they could, but they just can't seem to meet production or delivery goals. :(

In short, I think that these are not flaws, and are instead design features which have allowed X-wing to develop a more stable base than STAW.

The OP kits could just very much be a money, time, and investment thing for FFG. FFG is a HUGE company, and it seems like they are constantly expanding, picking up new licenses, and cranking out games like there is no tomorrow. To make a dedicated OP and prize support takes resources that FFG just may not have, and after this long, and X-Wing being this successful despite not having a strong OP system, they probably think they don't need it, which is true. The long delays between ships is straight up production issues, and has nothing to do with a more "relaxed" release schedule. Both Wizkids and FFG have ships planned out 12+ months ahead of time. The difference is, Wizkids has a strong production system, and FFG doesn't.

That's all conjecture on my part, but the idea that FFG planned it this way seems non-credible from what I know of the company.

This is an interesting discussion! I wonder what would happen if Wizkids went to a quarterly release schedule of only 3 ships, cut the OP prizes, and only gave out promotional stuff? It could work, IF Wizkids overhauled the rules and addressed the points issues on ships. But that brings us back to STAW 2.0 and how much it would wreck veteran players.

Well, the obvious explanation for why X-wing gets more players is that Star Wars is cooler

Or maybe people just associate it more with mass combat than Star Trek. Who knows. Point is, I think FFg may just have hit on a better formula than Wizkids. Rock-solid, balanced rules and modest prize support for the tourney players, and compact size and ease of access for more casual players.

 Crazy_Carnifex wrote:
Well, the obvious explanation for why X-wing gets more players is that Star Wars is cooler

Or maybe people just associate it more with mass combat than Star Trek. Who knows. Point is, I think FFg may just have hit on a better formula than Wizkids. Rock-solid, balanced rules and modest prize support for the tourney players, and compact size and ease of access for more casual players.

Now that I can agree with! I go and play X-Wing: I have a small tote case with everything I need. STAW? I bought a huge fishing tackle box from Walmart and lug that with me to every OP. Now, if I planned my fleet out more carefully and didn't wait until the last minute, then it would be a small tote as well, but, hey! Why do today what I don't have to do until tomorrow? Point is, I have way, way more STAW then X-Wing.

The one thing I wish FFG would have done was added Force Dice: A white die, and a black die. You can roll the white die in place of an attack or evade die, and it has all good stuff, but your opponent gets to roll the black die, which has all bad stuff on it. Yeah, they would more than likely cancel each other out, but that's the one thing X-Wing is missing: The Force.

As someone who likes both Star Wars and Star Trek a lot and played Attack Wing first, the explanation is simple: writing quality and balance. Attack Wing has been consistently worse at balance and overall writing quality since day 1 and I think its seriously hurt the growth of the game. I've gone over to pretty much exclusively playing X-Wing mostly due to frustration with how bad Wizkids is at writing their game.

 Tamwulf wrote:
So what you are saying is that the Wizkids prize support, while excellent, is bad for the game in that newer players will never have a chance to "catch up" to the veterans? Which I casually agree with, but the prize support is why a lot of people got into STAW in the first place. I know it was a big thing for me- I show up, get cards and a participation prize, and if I play well enough, a new ship? Awesome! Take that away from STAW and I bet you would lose a lot of players, even if it was a good thing in the long run. My angle in the above post was to point out that X-Wing has NEVER had strong prize support, has no participation prizes, and no OP ships. So a whole class of player is eliminated from the player base (those that play for prizes only) and yet X-Wing still attracts more people. Why?

As a person who use to collect both STAW and X-Wing, I have to say that I think FFG handles prize support much better. Personally, I'm not a very competitive person who does not have a lot of times on his hands, so I always go into a tournament thinking that I'm not going to place; my goal is simply to get games in and to have fun. So the fact that Wizkids tournaments have ships that I can most likely never get unless I buy them off of eBay is a HUGE turnoff for me. I don't even bother with STAW tournaments out of spite really. I honestly think that is the main reason why X-Wing tournaments attract more people; the prizes are unique but not 'must haves'. This then creates a more relaxed environment for me so I don't feel that I must win the tournament. I don't think I would be able to say the same for STAW. At the same time for those more competitive people, this gives them something to win and brag about.

With FFG, you would think that the prizes are not that great; you get some alt cards, some acrylic tokens, some different looking dice, or the chance to get a ship from an upcoming wave before anyone else. But at the very least, I can eventually get those ships when they come out in stores. How many people have complained about not being able to get any of the OP STAW ships and cards without going onto eBay? And here's the odd thing; all of those alt cards, tokens, and dice? For some bizarre reason, they can go for some really crazy prices on eBay. Why? Hell if I know. But people seem to like 'unique' stuff and are willing to pay crazy prices for them. And personally, I'm fine with that. You want to spend crazy money for special dice? Go ahead. My dice set that came with the game is fine for me; I'm not losing out on anything. On the other hand, I need to spend crazy money to get a ship and cards that I'll never be able to get unless I do well in a tournament? 'Eff you, Wizkids.

Oh and X-Wing does have participation prizes, depending on how many people are in the tournament. That's how I got an Z-95 alt card.

 TheWaspinator wrote:
As someone who likes both Star Wars and Star Trek a lot and played Attack Wing first, the explanation is simple: writing quality and balance. Attack Wing has been consistently worse at balance and overall writing quality since day 1 and I think its seriously hurt the growth of the game. I've gone over to pretty much exclusively playing X-Wing mostly due to frustration with how bad Wizkids is at writing their game.

Growth may depend on your area. Yes the Borg rules and Borg OPs hurt the game, but there were also other things going on in the gaming world at that time, WH End Times, 40K 7th, Kings of War had a big push. People only have so much $$ to go around. So I can understand how games will ebb and flow. WK took the correct steps, there was an errata on the Borg and we are getting some more interesting OPs. I have to say the TCW has been fun so far.

I play at 3 different stores, two of them have picked up 2 new players each (not the same guys) and the 3rd has picked up a person. Each is up to 5-6 depending on what is going on that weekend. I am the only one that goes to all 3, there is one other guy that goes to 2 out of the 3 stores. The game is attracting people, at one of my OPs this weekend a guy walked by and said "I didn't know you guys played attack wing here, I will try and drop in on the next one". So that could give us another person.

A lot has to do with the players in your area. Thankfully there are none of the crazy WAAC shenanigans going on in my area. We police ourselves pretty well and that is what WK wants. They want TOs and Stores to run their events how they see fit. If some combo or play style is bring down your venue, put in a restriction. Make it faction pure, make it penalty pure, make it era pure, use the WK suggested format., etc. All games can get out of hand if you let them, WH, AoS, 40K, MTG have issues and require some tweaking for the tournament scene. Even X-Wing has restrictions, you can't use the epic ships in a tournament. Take control of your game.


As for prize support, I actually like the prize ship method. After the Dominion War WK has done a decent job making sure that there is a retail version of the ship classes from the prizes. The Nebula class took the longest to come out, but I know lots of people that have them and they hardly use them. None of the prize ships come with anything that is "must have to win". There are some nice cards out there, but there is nothing that is game winning. Even the dreaded Barrage of Fire from the early days was not an auto win.

The thing that I have seen is that balancing between the different ships within factions has been fairly off: each faction has at least 1 or two ships that you NEVER play, and each one has ships that you ALWAYS bring to the field competitively. Variety wise, unless you get creative, most of the time, the same half dozen builds are run with little variation, while in X-wing, you see EVERYTHING... the entire GAME has maybe one or two dump ships that aren't worth it, but then the FFG team addresses them with specific upgrades that make then BETTER.

A Prime example: A-Wings were often seen being left off to the side and not used. To address this, FFG released Chandaraan Refit: a card that reduces the cost of the ship it is equip to by 2 points. It occupies the missile slot, and can only be used on A-Wings. Suddenly, A-Wings saw a massive uptick in use. The development team noticed that most people didn't take secondary weapons, so they introduced a 2 point weapon upgrade that allows you to use all of your other secondary weapons twice. Its a game of watching, testing, and developing plans to deal with things not being played. There are so few ships in X-wing that you simply do not want... they almost don't exsist.

 Corpsman913 wrote:
There are so few ships in X-wing that you simply do not want... they almost don't exsist.

I can attest to that.... lol

Another thing that FFG does well is reintroduce cards. Pretty much every new card is exciting to get due to the synergy of the game. The new Tie Fighter pilot wampa allows other Tie Fighters within range to use his elite pilot skill that is an action. So there are currently 5 cards with the Action: which see little use, but the wampa pilot is a must for tie swarms so this pilot opens up new possibilities for these somewhat meh cards! FFG only realy major FAQ'd thing was the phantom / cloaking, otherwise they have done a superb job adding new cards and pilots that synergize together but not really over powered, and some of these pilots/cards are designed to reinvigorate existing cards that may not see much use.

 easypeasylemonsquezy wrote:

 Corpsman913 wrote:
There are so few ships in X-wing that you simply do not want... they almost don't exsist.

I can attest to that.... lol

Another thing that FFG does well is reintroduce cards. Pretty much every new card is exciting to get due to the synergy of the game. The new Tie Fighter pilot wampa allows other Tie Fighters within range to use his elite pilot skill that is an action. So there are currently 5 cards with the Action: which see little use, but the wampa pilot is a must for tie swarms so this pilot opens up new possibilities for these somewhat meh cards! FFG only realy major FAQ'd thing was the phantom / cloaking, otherwise they have done a superb job adding new cards and pilots that synergize together but not really over powered, and some of these pilots/cards are designed to reinvigorate existing cards that may not see much use.

It's Youngster. Youngster is the guy who passes talents.

As for the power of ships in X-wing, the following are where FFG made Errors:

Phantom- Over powered, nerfed by changing the timing of one ability.

A-Wing, TIE Advanced, TIE Interceptor- Underpowered, but fixed with later upgrade cards.

X-Wing- Has fallen behind due to FFG getting better at balancing ships, and adding new abilities on old ships. Will be getting patched soon.

Y-wing- Has kinda bounced in and out of power, depending on the meta/available upgrades. Currently Very good due to the Twin Laser Turret and Stressbot.

Scyk- The one ship that is currently in the "Completely useless" category.

So, 7 out of about 30 ships fall seriously off of the power curve at some point in the games history, but are all brought back into line at some point.

WK is releasing upgrades that make older ships better too. The new shield upgrades from the Delta Flyer make the Equinox a playable ship. Disruptor beams make every ship with a weapon slot a threat. Reliant with Disruptor Beams is nasty. Kazon Particle beam is just as good and cheaper. So there are things there we just have to thing a little more outside the box.


I myself even fall into the trap sometimes is that we all expect WK to make upgrades for specific ships and their approach is more general to make upgrades that are more general so they can be applied to more ships. Now one thing that hangs up STAW especially with weapons and tech is that they are faction specific just like everything else in the game. I don't play X-Wing so someone can correct me if I am wrong, but it looks like most of the weapons can be used by any faction. I think STAW should star to take the same approach. Lots of different races in ST us disruptors and photon torpedoes. Yeah there are some things like Quantum torpedoes and Energy Disapators should be restricted, but more weapons should be errated to be faction neutral. It wouldn't even require a full FAQ TOs could decide it on their own.

I can agree with that: most of the weapon upgrades aren't particularly specific, yet they are treated that way.

I don't know how you guys do it. I soured a bit on X-wing (despite being one of if not the earlier supporter here on dakka) because of the Pokemon gotta catch'em all! style card spam. Admittedly, a large part of my current disinterest is that I already have all the rebellion era fighters (both canon and EU) I actually want and am not interested much in the even more obscure offerings for the most part. I can't imagine playing STAW as you're apparently on wave 27+ with 3 ships per wave while X-wing iirc is on wave 8 with 4-6 ships per wave. That's a whole lot of spending to keep up with the jones'. Does STAW have the same upgrade card mechanic where you have to buy a ship you don't want just to officially get a card that you do?

I was excited when STAW was announced. I watched a bunch of Origins videos previewing the new mechanics and liked what I saw in that regard. When it actually was released locally, I looked at that initial roll out and saw clix quality prepaints sold at the same cost as the same cost as the much better models and paint schemes of x-wing and passed. There also didn't seem to be any consistent application of scale in the game which bugged me as a primarily minis gamer. Have those phsyical aspects improved?

Then with my monthly trip to the game store I saw too many ships to keep track of personally instead of the more measured x-wing releases I was buying right next to it on the same FLGS shelf. And then there were the online reports of poor balance, lack of any adherence to canon (wtf is picard captaining a non-federation ship? i.e. the vader in an x-wing issue above) and especially pay to win league support brought over from clix (not shocking but I was hoping for something different) like exlusive ships and better dice. I actually really like that the FFG support gave you visual alternatives that weren't providing ingame benefits.

Those are basically the reasons why I did NOT start to collect/play this game. Locally, there is an active x-wing scene and used to have a heroclix scene as well but I've never seen anyone buying or playing those locally and I can't help but think they might have had the same reasons. It sounds like there was some inconsistent thought put towards balance (both OP and useless ships) but did the rest get addressed?

This game should be on top, Star Trek ship battles have always been exciting and had a larger following than Star Wars Ship fanatics (Star Wars was more about characters, Star Trek was more about a ship/entire crew).

The state of the game does not surprise me however. As a gamer who was brought into Battletech, 40k, Dust, etc, by the single game: Mage Knight, I am well aware of what wizkids is capable of. They generally have a great idea, make a good game, and some great units (gotta love those Draconum). However, they always release more, fast, and with power creep. This is a great way to drive sales short term, but drives folks out of their games due to rising cost, attainability, sustainability, and balance issues.

This is another historic cycle of wizkids... maybe they will realize this and fix it before it follows down the line of heroclix, mage knight, 2.0, MechWarrior, crimson skies, etc.

In a pervious thread I mentioned Generic Upgrades and was snubbed, now it seems more people are in agreement. Funny how things change after a bit.

what would have helped:

Releases limited to at least every other month
Generic Ships with Unique Titles and each pack would have benefited from multiple less over all releases needed
Generic Upgrades with some exceptions as mentioned above and others not mentioned especially unique Crew
Releases of Unique crew should synergy in-faction only, but if it happens to have 2 uses one in-faction one cross then so be it.


Example of a well needed generic crew card:

Damage Control Team SP 3, Action: remove one hull or critical damage card from this ship or discard to remove 2 hull or critical damage from this ship
No ship may have more than one Damage Control Team.

All those useless cards for repairing damage solved in one card.

Or this

Security Team SP 3 Roll 2 evade dice against any attempting to discard, steal, or disable an upgrade, admiral, or captain on this ship. Stop that effect if you roll at least one evade.

Or this

Weapon Officer SP 3 Ignore "disable" on all secondary weapons

Torpedoes solved no need for time tokens or fracking time token mitigation cards


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 455_PWR wrote:


This is another historic cycle of wizkids...

Do not for get the Heroclix mantra

We released Cheese? Well, no worries. We'll release more cheese to top that cheese so that, that cheese is no longer good cheese. If new cheese is to cheesy we'll make a newer shinier cheese to top cheese that already topped cheese.

and not so surprising, anyone playing Wizkid games has become victim to....

CheeseBAY

why not, tired of playing that cheesy ultra hot rare your friend won/bought from ebay, and will not stop using even in fun events. Well then go to ebay and level the playing field for $100+.

Funny you mention the Damage control teams: The action you list is almost identical for the Micro Power Relays from the Lakota...

But I agree with Rune: EVERY faction needs more GOOD Generic captains (Skill 3 or 4, cost 2 points, no ability), and more Generic crew like the Romulans have.

Micro Power Relays is pretty good, but I still thing Glin Daro is the best repair card in the game. 1 action to repair a shield or hull for 3 points Though I could see good argument for Micro Relays being that it is not unique and Glin Daro is. I am keeping my fingers crossed that we actually get a good Chief O'Brien in the Robinson


I think we have plenty of named captains for the bigger factions, but some of the more obscure could use some generics. Some generic 8572 would be nice. I want more Breen generic or otherwise

We really haven't seen the Power Creep that is present in Heroclix or their Dice Masters game. I made the prediction earlier this year that we would see a ship with a Primary Attack Value of 8+, and we haven't. What we have seen is the ability of more ships to get 6+ attack dice.

After the release of the Scimitar, (the best ship in the game IMHO), I thought we would start seeing more and more ships like that, and we haven't. We've only seen a couple big ships, and they are nothing compared to the Scimitar. Instead, Wizkids seems to have taken a step back, throwing out more mediocre and sub-par ships with a lot of good upgrades that influence the meta (ways to deal with fighter stacks, more 360 weapons, and discard for more attack/evade dice).

I predicted power creep and we haven't seen it yet, so there is still hope for the game. Unfortunitly, Pandora's Box is already opened, and certain ships, Captains, and upgrade cards are so useful/good that you see them in every list. The only way to close that box would be a new edition, or even more heavy handed "Suggested Tournament Rules" limiting them in Organized Play.

The big names do have plenty of captains, but I was thinking some Non-Unique skilled captains, like the Alpha Hirogen.

The generic crew that the Romulans have makes their ships numerically superior...