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I've been watching a lot of X-Wing videos on YouTube lately and it seems like it could be good fun. I have a background in W40K, and this seems like it could be a great alternative for QUICKER gameplay.
Anyways, I bought into it. My first purchase has been 2 core boxes (force awakens) I'm still waiting for them to arrive, but I'm feeling a bit excited, so I decided to look here and ask some general question.

Will the 2 boxes be enough for me and my cousin to play a proper match with?

Where do I go from here? I'm certain I'll enjoy the game, and from what I've read it seems well balanced. Will I be able to basically pick the ships that tickle my fancy like the yt-2400 with dash rendar? God I miss my n64. Or is there usually a meta?

Without having had the benefit of holding a model in my hands, do they look good? Will they be something shelf worthy if I never talk a friend into buying into it with me?

Welcome to X-Wing, you have taken your first steps into a more balanced game

2 core boxes is a good start, from there you can mostly pick up anything (although the Starviper,and Scyk as best avoided)

There is a kind of meta, but if you are just playing for fun don't over worry about it, FFG usually FAQ or provide nerfs and bumps for over or undertuned ships

The models are passable decent for pre-paints, and a quick wash and drybrush will lift them to quite nice

The only other thing to watch for is upgrade cards, some of the best upgrade cards don't always come with the ships that want them, outside tornys you can proxy but something to know about

Also using a squadron builder is really helpful, there are many, my fav is http://xwing-builder.co.uk/build

Best of luck, any questions just ask, this sub-forum is fairly calm by Dakka standards

There is a meta. Some ships are better than others, but skill in predicting moves of opponents and spatial awareness are good things to have. Overall the models look pretty good.

X Wing is balanced enough that you can usually roll with what ships you like and not have to worry about getting stomped (provided that you're not jumping straight into a tournament, of course.)

My personal favorite is the TIE Punisher, it just looks like pain incarnate. Also makes for a fun missile boat when used alongside certain unique TIE Bombers.

Also, one last thing, check out this site: http://xwing-builder.co.uk/build

It works great as a squadron builder.

You will need more than just 2 core boxes, but only 1 or 2 more ships per faction.

 Meatloafwarrior wrote:

Where do I go from here?

Buy everything. It happens eventually.

Oh yeah the yt-2400 is a good ship, most of the large base ships are solid choices. The Imperial version of the Slave One is a bit lacking but you can still win with it, and the Scum version with Kath is one of my favs.

From personal experience on the rebels side starting out, since you'll have two T-70s, I'd get a HWK-290. Kyle Katarn is FUN.

Imperials, I adore the Phantom, the Tie Advanced is meh. And defenders are sweet.

If you go Scum, grab Most Wanted, a Slave One, and Protectorate and you are in good. An extra Y-wing won't hurt either, and can go to bat as rebel or scum so there's that.

Even if they aren't 'good' the Starviper's upgrade cards are great, especially autothrusters.

As far as the meta goes, yeah there is one, but you can win with any ships in the game with good practice, so if you like a ship go for it. It's almost a point of pride to use subpar ships and win against the big dogs.

At least that's my two cents on the matter.

Kyal Katarn is really fun, and Jan Ors is fantastic. If you want to play rebels and want to use the Outrider, it's awesome. Dash is super useful. Even if the Scyk isn't very good, it has cards I personally like, Mangler cannon, Flechette cannon, and Ion cannons, and Stealth Device is nice too. And yes, the Autothrusters expansion is great, it comes with a ship and everything!

There is a meta, but use what you want man, it's fun, have a ball, you can always work your way up to tournaments and such if you want to get into the meta more.

How important is the meta?

If you're playing in a competitive environment there absolutely is a tournament meta, and it can be brutally unforgiving to weak lists. Don't go into a tournament expecting to fly any random set of ships and succeed, the gap in power level between your list and the meta is going to be way too much for even a good player to overcome. Innovation is always a good thing but expect most of your ideas to turn out to be failures.

If you're playing in a more casual environment then the meta is less of a problem, especially if people are willing to tone down their lists against less-optimized competition. Most of the powerful meta lists are built around combinations of specific ships/upgrades, as long as you aren't taking the whole package at once the game moves back to much more of a "any reasonable list can beat any other list with skilled flying" kind of thing like people will often promise.

How nice are the models?

Really good, especially for pre-painted miniatures. The level of detail is great, casting/assembly quality is usually just fine, and the out-of-the-box paint is better than most people can do. It's certainly way above previous Star Wars miniatures (the WOTC game, for example) and the various small-scale toys. Just be aware that the models are very small and set your expectations appropriately for the scale.

 KingmanHighborn wrote:


From personal experience on the rebels side starting out, since you'll have two T-70s, I'd get a HWK-290. Kyle Katarn is FUN.


At least that's my two cents on the matter.

Kyle Katarn, like from Jedi Academy, and dark forces? This gets better and better.

Does this game have the Ebon Hawk too? The nostalgia is already getting to me.


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 Turnip Jedi wrote:


Also using a squadron builder is really helpful, there are many, my fav is http://xwing-builder.co.uk/build

Best of luck, any questions just ask, this sub-forum is fairly calm by Dakka standards

This seems really helpful, thanks.

No 'official l' Revan-mobile (the game broadly covers about -5 BBY to TFA 'present') but there some fairly spiffy conversions and there may well be a 3d printed version somewhere, it wont be tourny legal but would make a nice 'counts as YT'

A word of advice, wear your thick skin with Peregrine. He always means well. He is one of the best tactician that can nitpick your list apart and gives solid advice. I personally value his input above almost everyone else. Azreal13, ScootyPuffJunior (who's been missing lately) and Crazy_Carnifex are all solid players too. You'd do well to heed their advice if you decide to hit the tourney scene.

Poe is a good ship at first, until people find ways to make you spend your focus token, so don't rely on him too much.

 Meatloafwarrior wrote:

 KingmanHighborn wrote:


From personal experience on the rebels side starting out, since you'll have two T-70s, I'd get a HWK-290. Kyle Katarn is FUN.


At least that's my two cents on the matter.

Kyle Katarn, like from Jedi Academy, and dark forces? This gets better and better.

Does this game have the Ebon Hawk too? The nostalgia is already getting to me.

Yup that Kyle Katarn, and the Moldy Crow.

If the HWK-290 is the lynchpin of your list, however, your opponent will figure it out and take it out first after a few games.

Since the game is not as expensive as 40K or WHordes or other mass games, you aren't wed to a list as much. Someone earlier said you'd just as well go and buy everything, well it allows you a lot of flexibility.

The HWK is a fun ship, both Kyle and Jan are decent enough pilots and their crew card versions are usable, also if you want to play Scum the faction has two wonderfully obnoxious HWK pilots

I keep playing games with Jan Ors and Rey, recently, and although my friend keeps saying that he ought to get rid of the HWK first, he keeps shooting at Rey.

If you can stack focus and TL, or similar effects, Jan will make that slew of red dice hurt, no doubt about it.

 Meatloafwarrior wrote:

Where do I go from here? I'm certain I'll enjoy the game, and from what I've read it seems well balanced. Will I be able to basically pick the ships that tickle my fancy like the yt-2400 with dash rendar?

Pretty much, there is a fair degree of power creep which means more recent releases tend to be more powerful than older stuff. Some older stuff has been "refreshed" by the addition of ship-specific upgrades called titles to bring them back up to speed. The YT-2400 is one of the better ships in the game so if you like it, by all means get it. If you fancy playing competitively, I have listed some of the "best buys" for each faction below.

Rebels
YT-2400 (Super-Dash), Heroes of the Resistance (Double pack with new T70 pilots and the Falcon), Ghost (from the Rebels show), K-wing (best bomber in the game)

Empire
Imperial Veterans (double pack with upgraded Tie Bomber and Defender), Tie/FO expansion (contains extra pilots and upgrades that work with the Ties from your core sets), Upsilon Command shuttle (Kylo Ren's pimped out ride) and the Decimator (if you want to run the Empire with a big turreted ship).

Scum
Punishing One (the JumpMaster 5000 is probably Scum's best ship and you can easily build a list based on 2 or 3 of them), Lancer (fast as an Interceptor and tougher as Freighter), Protectorate Starfighter (a great Interceptor and Fenn Rau is one of the best pilots in the game).

So this is a long overdue post. I finally was able to play a game with my cousin and a few other friends. Had a blast. My cousin and I are heading to the local shop this Monday to pick up some more ships.
Thanks for all the input fellas.

Do you have a plan? Never go into a FLGS without a plan!

Well, my cousins plan is to get the heros of the resistance pack because he loves the falcon and he really likes poe. I'm probably going to buy the outrider, or any imperial ship that tickles my fancy. Maybe the assault carrier? That thing looks pretty neat.

Come to find out there is NOBODY in our FLGS that plays xwing. So, there's no meta at all. So that was a bit of a surprise.

The Assault Carrier can only be used in Epic. Although it has some useful cards for regular play, such as Agent Kallus, and new TIE pilots, the bulk of the cards and the huge model will rarely see play.

If you want to buy a big box, you might want to look at Imperial Veterans instead.

Oh, I see. Well thanks for the info. I'll have to pay more attention.

I feel like we're in a bit of a unique situation seeing nobody else plays in our area, but that's not necessarily a bad thing.

You need to act as a geek grenade, then.

Drop by the FLGS, set up your game (remove the pin) and just throw dice (blow them away).

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
You need to act as a geek grenade, then.

Drop by the FLGS, set up your game (remove the pin) and just throw dice (blow them away).

I'm afraid the geek grenade has already gone off. Unfortunately it was a stink bomb. What we really need is a deodorant bomb that's pit seeking.

In all seriousness, yes, that would be great. Our local shop has one of the cardboard play tables that must have come with some sort of promotional, but unfortunately it's just a junk holder. It may be time to clear off the junk.

Any tool they can use to jazz up sales, they should want to help you use it.

Here's another update, because I'm bored during my lunch break.

Yesterday my cousin and I went to the shop.
He picked up the quadjumper, protectorate, khiraxz, and the most wanted pack.

I picked up the imperial aces pack, only because they didn't have the veterans bundle, the rebel aces pack, and a y-wing.

We played few games of my rebels and imperials against his scum. It was a lot of fun and we stayed even as far as win-lose.

My cousin said his next purchase is going to be punishing one, and slave one. I'm pretty sure the next thing I'll purchase will be the imperial veterans, and possibly the decimator. I feel like I lean towards empire more than rebels.

I really enjoyed the speed and agility of the interceptors, but I honestly thought they'd be "better" than my ties. The ties did do a good job​ of helping break up formations and blocking while the interceptors zipped around.

All in all it was very enjoyable.

Good to hear it! If its empire your after then id certainly suggest the imperial veterans box and one each ot the individual defender and bomber packs. If you ever played the 90's x-wing and tie-fighter pc games you'll be drowning in nostalgia in minutes.

All interceptors pale in comparison to Soontir Fel, especially in his classic PTL, title, Autothrusters, Stealth Device build. For fun, sure you can run the other ones.

welcome to X-Wing! I've had a fun enough time playing competitively, but my group and I REALLY enjoyed the fan-made co-op campaign: Heroes of the Aturi Cluster.

You can find the rules and files here: http://dockingbay416.com/campaign/

The AI that they came up with is surprisingly effective even if you don't play the campaign. It can be fun to test lists against or just mess around solo.

 Praxus wrote:
welcome to X-Wing! I've had a fun enough time playing competitively, but my group and I REALLY enjoyed the fan-made co-op campaign: Heroes of the Aturi Cluster.

You can find the rules and files here: http://dockingbay416.com/campaign/

The AI that they came up with is surprisingly effective even if you don't play the campaign. It can be fun to test lists against or just mess around solo.

This looks really cool. This could be an awesome way to introduce some of our gaming group to X-Wing. I'm glad you posted this.


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 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
All interceptors pale in comparison to Soontir Fel, especially in his classic PTL, title, Autothrusters, Stealth Device build. For fun, sure you can run the other ones.

Bummer, I figured the double pack would be the way to go. Oh well.

In all honesty I bought the pack because I love the look of the red interceptor, and the fact that they didn't have the imperial veterans box set. Otherwise I would have bought them.