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Hey Dakka,

Weve been taking a break from the old western front with a long delayed spout of Xwing. I gotta say that it is one of the most fun games I have ever played. We generally like quick games so have been sticking to around 50 pts not playing any scenarios just place by skill and have at it. We are looking into some of the bigger ships/transports now. How differently do these make the game play?

Also we have had nothing but rebel wins in the few games we've played (even though we switch player control). I know that 6 games is a bad way to look for an average but is this common? My theory is that TIEs are meant for hit and run and thus the imperials are just not using the appropriate play style.

Anyways I'm really critical of game design and I gotta say that Xwing exceeds my expectations. It takes the cake for simple to learn, hard to master.

Looking foward to playing lots more.
Tucker

Edit. Also we have had a 3 to 4 point difference in some of our games. I've noticed that the points cost are really close ship to ship. Is 3 to 4 points much of an advantage?

The game is balanced for 100 points, outside of that you can run into issues. TIEs' main strength is numbers and maneuverability, so the more the better in general.

What ships do you have? I feel that Rebels have an advantage when starting, simply because either ships can survive a mistake thanks to shields.

Like Chumbalaya said, games balanced for 100 points. Couple points difference here isn't a problem, thanks to choice on initiative, but is probably a bigger issue.

Just a bunch of TIEs, 2 Xwings, an Awing, and a Bwing ( my personal favorite so far). We will bump up the points to 100 then and see how it plays.

Quick question. Can you spend a focus token after you have rolled the dice or do you have to declare spending it before the roll?

You spend focus after you roll.

And yeah, that definitely sounds like a list that can handle a few mistakes for the Rebels. For imperials, make sure to concentrate fire on one ship at a time to bring it down faster.

Cool. Thanks man.

A 4 point difference in a 50 point game is huge, the equivalent of an 8 point handicap in a standard 100 point game (more than a rookie vs Luke or a blue vs Keyan). Most of the game has pretty tight balance with even the most over/underpowered ships only being off a point or two.

For the stuff you might not know, the tie expansion has "Howlrunner" who lets all friendly ships in range 1 reroll one attack dice, and there's a system upgrade in the shuttle that makes the B-wings one of the best knife-fighters in the game, as it lets them do an action before moving (i.e. focus/target-lock then k-turn or 1-hard). I assume you have the A and B from Rebel Aces, and I can't remember if it has Push the Limit in it. The regular A-wing expansion has PTL and Tycho as a pilot who can use actions even when stressed.

As far as list building goes as long as you stay away from the one-shot weapons like proton torpedoes (the game's one real weakness) pretty much everything works well enough in a fun environment. Also try not to put 50 points into a single B-wing

There should be a full restock of all the ships within a month or so as its all held up in the West coast ports.

Play 100 point games, get at least 1 of all the expansions as soon as you can. It opens the game up a ton when you have access to more upgrade cards.

Thanks for the help guys.

Man this game is addictive! Since our collection has pretty much ballooned over the weekend we bumped games up to 100. It plays a lot better than 50. I've had some pretty good success so far with the following Imperial list.

4 x Academy Pilot

Lt. Lorrir

Carnor Jax with PTL (this guy is my favorite. I feel so slippery getting him nestled among rebel ships to deny all those focus tokens!)


Also I'm thinking of picking up the outrider soon because at 23 bucks free shipping, why not? Who knew that making affordable, awesome models easily available would make people impulsively buy them. Looking at you GW.
But seriously, we cant get our grubby paws on these things fast enough.

Any advice for a decent rebel 100 point counter to mine?

Depending on the ships you have, a pretty basic one is:

Han Solo with Veteran's Instincts, C-3PO, Gunner, and Falcon title
2x blue squad b-wings

Pretty easy for beginners to fly this one and han is a beast.

 Gemini wrote:
Depending on the ships you have, a pretty basic one is:

Han Solo with Veteran's Instincts, C-3PO, Gunner, and Falcon title
2x blue squad b-wings

Pretty easy for beginners to fly this one and han is a beast.

This build will actually hurt a new player in the long run. It ignores some basic rules and concepts from a large ship to small ships. What I mean is with a 360 arc on the 'Falcon, you never really worry about fire arcs, so you never learn to maneuver to get someone in your arc, or to stay out of their arc. You never worry about your opponent's arc due to the defense the 'Falcon has, C3-PO, and the shields and hull. In other words, it's a brick that will never die. Then you have the B-Wings with a completely different role in the list. They are the flankers and attackers that will have to be maneuvered in a completely different way from the Falcon to be effective.

I mean, let me back up- this is a tournament level list, not one I'd see a new player use trying to get the rules down. There are some complicated concepts and rules interactions that would make it difficult for a new player to get down by using this list. I'm not calling new players dumb or anything, but you start small with a couple ships- X-Wings, or TiE fighters, no upgrades, play some games. Add some upgrades, play some games. Then add a big base ship to see how they play.

The other thing about this list is that it uses nothing from the starter set (except the templates, dice and damage deck). It's not a list I would recommend to a new player.

I've found that using large and huge ships create an interesting atmosphere for objective based games and scenarios. Convoy escort missions with generic ships like HWKs, both YTs & a GR-75 as targets being played by one player while a second player runs a group of rebels and a third player runs a group of Imperials on the attack. The Imperials would get as many points as equal to the convoy and the rebels combined.

 Tamwulf wrote:

 Gemini wrote:
Depending on the ships you have, a pretty basic one is:

Han Solo with Veteran's Instincts, C-3PO, Gunner, and Falcon title
2x blue squad b-wings

Pretty easy for beginners to fly this one and han is a beast.

This build will actually hurt a new player in the long run. It ignores some basic rules and concepts from a large ship to small ships. What I mean is with a 360 arc on the 'Falcon, you never really worry about fire arcs, so you never learn to maneuver to get someone in your arc, or to stay out of their arc. You never worry about your opponent's arc due to the defense the 'Falcon has, C3-PO, and the shields and hull. In other words, it's a brick that will never die. Then you have the B-Wings with a completely different role in the list. They are the flankers and attackers that will have to be maneuvered in a completely different way from the Falcon to be effective.

I mean, let me back up- this is a tournament level list, not one I'd see a new player use trying to get the rules down. There are some complicated concepts and rules interactions that would make it difficult for a new player to get down by using this list. I'm not calling new players dumb or anything, but you start small with a couple ships- X-Wings, or TiE fighters, no upgrades, play some games. Add some upgrades, play some games. Then add a big base ship to see how they play.

The other thing about this list is that it uses nothing from the starter set (except the templates, dice and damage deck). It's not a list I would recommend to a new player.

He asked for a list that would counter the one he posted. It seems like he has enough games under his belt that he could expand out. I didn't mean for to be a list for someone who just bought the core set and has never played obliviously. There is nothing hard about this list, in fact it's a very common list you'll see with a lot of little variations. If you don't have all the upgrade cards you can certainly find others that work well. One of the greatest things about this game is the squad building and the sooner you try it the better the game will be. I'd give this list to a newer player and not worry about it.

FWIW I think that lists looks very fun for a newer player and may encourage a friend of mine to give it a try. I like that Han gives you room to really think about your B-Wings.

I keep going back to the old advice of 2 cores and X-wing and TIE expansions. To that, I'd add 2 of each expansion if you have the money.
Keep an eye on Miniature Market... they have X-Wing stuff on their Daily Deals often enough. Right now CoolStuffInc has good prices on the Decimator and YT-2600. Though, if you have a local store BUY LOCAL FIRST.

Thanks everyone.

Well I buy local but it is from Barnes and Noble so that might be defeating the purpose . Charleston's FLGS scene is dismal.

Were about to crank the X-wing up to 11 all day Sunday so I thought I would run a list by you guys and ask a few opinions. Hopefully I will have the chance to run rebels with the following list:

PS 2 YT-2400: Lando and Heavy Laser cannons.

Rookie Pilot with R2 astromech

Rookie Pilot

Green Squadron Awing with refit.

The plan is to place the awing further out from the other ships and fly it full speed ahead with no intention of engaging. Hopefully it it will look like a weak target and tempt the opposing player to split his forces. I think after a few turns of 5 maneuvers and boosts it will have bought the others some time while avoiding any real damage. The X-wings will go hey diddle diddle up the middle while the freighter makes a slow sweep from the flank thru the middle, making the best of the HLC. Lando will be there to help him shake off some hits in the case that he gets swarmed.

I'd mostly like to know what y'all think about the heavy laser cannons.

The HLC is arguably the best secondary weapon in the game, and the YT-2400 is actually modeled with them equipped (just look at the size of those guns).

As for your list, without changing any ships, drop the A-wing to a prototype and get rid of the R2 unit and put an experimental interface on the YT-2400 so you can add in another action (ie, target-lock, barrel roll) and still use Lando in the same turn.

Edit:
Oh, hold up. You don't have Outrider on the YT-2400. You really want Outrider when using a HLC on a YT-2400. I don't know what other ships you have to suggest a different list, but dropping Lando lets you keep 2 X-wings and an A-wing

You can still make the above changes though, and run that.