BahnCalamari argues in his My-beef-with-the-huge-ships-and-the-state-of-the-game thread that our game is not competitive at tournaments unless you shell out tons of cash for huge ships with rare upgrades or pilots.

The premise is worthy of debate, and so I'm making a thread for it. (I'm sure it's been debated at length before, and I'm just too lazy to engage in thread necromancy. I'm also not the only offender.) Also, we're now into Wave IV and the huge ships have been bought and played with.

So, on the face of it, the permise is logical in the abstract. If you have fewer choices in your builds, your builds are not likely to be as strong. But what does the evidence say?

I do imagine that people who have spent a lot of money on the game are more likely to be good at it, but that may be because they're more invested into the game in terms of time and effort, and money spent is a byproduct of those.

What say you?

I don't find things fun unless a lot of money is involved.

I read your post and on page three you said it was pay to win by definition

But it's not

Collecting models does not mean pay to win

So ya you have to collect models, does not equal pay to win

People just like to have because it adds to the game.

It doesn't necessarily break everything previously which is what a pay to win model would

I'll take a swing. In order for More Squad options to = better chance to win, would presume that as you increase in options, you increase in quality. But that's clearly not true. It would also require a degree of imbalance that doesn't fit to X-Wing.

As long as 4 X-Wings or 7 Tie Fighters are viable lists, then more options don't really give you a huge advantage. Because more options don't always mean better options.

Yes, I do think you're right that as long as these two very basic builds remain competitive, then the money-to-competitiveness slope is fairly flat. (With money on the horizontal and competitiveness on the vertical.)

So, the question is, is it true? From the Regionals data that I've seen posted on this forum, it seems like the Howlrunner-led Academy swarm is still the build to beat. Do I have that right? What about 4X?

The issues with the Heavy Laser Cannon, Push the Limit, and Advanced Sensors is so overblown. Are those cards really good in combination with ships not in their pack (or, at least before Imperial Aces), sure. But, for it to be a true pay to win situation, those ships would have to be sooo crippled without those upgrades, that you wouldn't run the ship without them. Yet, B-wings and Interceptors still run perfectly fine without those upgrades.

I would say the fact that more often than not Interceptors are usually built with PTL and B-wing with adv-s supports some idea there is benefit to buying expansions you probably won't use nearly as much for the model then the upgrade card.

Not game breaking but it is there.

Yes FFG was awesome to include 2 PTL with interceptor aces.

Yet I have been seeing a pattern... in almost every guide, list build or tactics discussion getting more actions and prevention of action loss is a HUGE deal.

Then in a posts/threads like these all of a sudden these upgrades are not really that important.

So that either tells me one isn't true or the dice play a bigger role then people want to admit. I know I am simplifying the matter a LOT. It is just something I noticed.

Simply having access to more squadron builds does not equal a competitve advantage.

Okay - care to back up the assertion?

Because I have seen first hand people who use nothing but cards and ships from the basic set and x wing and y wing booster expansions come and WIPE THE FLOOR with people at a tournament using squadrons built from at least 5 diffrent expansions. Skill trumps everything in this game but luck.

Thank you.

Now, to what extent does squad building factor into competitiveness in your view? There's not a lot of thought or skill into a Howlrunner + Academies build, except maybe on the margins.

There's also the luck of the dice and the luck of the draw. The draw, I suppose is in your crit deck, but I'm referring to who you happen to meet on the battle field, in terms of a rock-paper-scissors sense of which build is good against what other build.

But how much of it is one's ability to dogfight with any old build?

I'm honestly quite amazed whenever I hear someone getting on their soapbox about how bad it is to have to spend what they feel is a large sum of money to play a collectible game at a competitive level. I feel like from an experiential standpoint, they must not have played a collectible card game or miniatures game in a serious setting. If they had, then I think it is clear that X-Wing is well below the curve on cost.

First, let's look at what it takes to be a competitive X-Wing player in broad strokes. You need materials to play, resources (ie-money) to buy the materials, and time to gain experience, through research and actually playing the game.

For playing materials, this is the entry point, and the resources you have to break into the game, as well as keep up with it in a satisfactory way, are going to be relative to the individual. In my own opinion, the cost in straight dollars spent and time getting models ready for the table, X-Wing is the sweet spot of a relatively low cost entry point (compared to other popular miniatures games like Warhammer), extremely low preparation time (models come pre-painted to a nice standard), and not dependant on the latest releases and upgrades to keep your tournament list competitive with the current meta game.

Let's rewind the clock to 2 years ago when the game came out. Here's a simple list you could have ran just using the materials contained in the first release offering;

Luke with R2D2, Biggs, 2 Rookie Pilots

In total, you would need to acquire 2 Core Sets, and 2 X-Wing packs. At MSRP, that's about $100-$110 right there, and if you're buying your product through one of the many discounted retailers, it's south of $100, and more like $80-90, so let's just meet in the middle and call it $100 flat.

That list, in the hands of an experienced player, would have played very well in Wave 1's meta, and would put up a good showing even with the release of Wave 4. So with that initial investment, you could have spent literally no more money on X-Wing and have been more than able to roll with the sharks at a tournament, but there's a catch...

Your ability to play the game will be a bigger asset to you than your ability to buy up all the components to make a powerful list using the latest releases. I have been with this game from day one, but have only tried a TIE Swarm (6+ TIE Fighters) once or twice. It honestly never appealed to me, speaking only from personal taste. However, that's a reliable list that's been winning tournaments from the beginning to present day. If I went to Regionals with that list, I would have gotten blown up pretty bad, because it takes a lot of skill to move those ships in the most optimal way. Your skills in this game take time to hone, and I'm not made of time, so I worry more about flying what I like, and going from there.

Full disclosure, I've only ever won a single tournament, but I've been to probably a dozen or so over the years. I flew my "winning" list a couple of weeks later in Regionals and lost my Top 8 cut slot because I let 5 games of X-Wing in a row get to my concentration, and I made a couple of small, but notable blunders in that 5th game. I didn't lose badly, and the dice could have still deserted me, but I know I could have flown better.

Now, going back to our Wave 1 list above, it was the better part of a year before Wave 2 hit the shelves and became tournament legal. All I would to that list above is drop in a "Drawn Their Fire" card to fill in the last point. That card comes only in the Falcon I believe, so that's another $25-$40 investment to get a single card. Now, I know that seems like a lot, but then with your extra investment comes a whole other ship, with its own upgrades and pilots. You can now make something other than Luke/Biggs/2 Rooks and start running the classic "Han Shoots First" build that became popular. It's basically Han and 2 X-Wings, season to taste with upgrades on Han.

Sticking with the notion of Rebels as your go-to faction, you could ride out the time between Wave 2 and 3 with two really solid tournament list archetypes to keep things fresh. When Wave 3 came out, the B-Wings hit the scene, which then allowed you to make a purchase of 2 B-Wings for $25-$30, and then go back to your 4 X-Wing list or your Falcon list, and sub in a couple of B-Wings with Fire Control.

I'm not saying everything above is the most optimal. B-Wing enthusiasts swear by their Advanced Sensors (available only with the Shuttle and E-Wing), but a B-Wing getting free target locks is still just as good as an alternative, it just requires you to play it differently than someone who uses the Sensors upgrade.

So just based on what I've suggested, spending anywhere from $130-$170, you have the makings for 2 solid Rebel list archetypes, that you can freely trade B's and X's out of to suit your play style.

Can someone tell me how spending, at the high-end, $170+applicable taxes over a 2 year stretch is considered expensive in the tabletop world? If it just comes down to affordability, and that's more money than you have, then you need to make your peace with the fact that you're trying to live outside your means, and you should consider other hobbies. To be honest, if you're just playing with friends, you can easily "pirate" this game with tokens you make out of paper, and a handful of D8's. If you're looking to play it at a competitive level, or at least not feel ashamed to bring a bunch of paper tokens to a game night at a store, then yes, believe it or not, you'll have to spend a nominal amount of money to play.

Additionally, I recognize that as this game becomes more popular, people will want to jump in 2 years after the party started, and feel like it's a huge cash sink. I just recently played a game against a friend who had just got into X-Wing a month ago. All he has is a Core, a Falcon, a B and a Firespray. I helped him make a decent list out of a Falcon, the X and the B and we played versus a Wave 4 trial list I made with a TIE Defender and friends. My friend didn't win, nor was either of us expecting him to, but it had way more to do with his own lack of experience with movement, making optimal targeting decisions with his Falcon turret, etc. The next time we play, even if he plays the same list, he'll do better than he did last time because he learned A LOT from that one game.

His experiences segue into another aspect of his weird "pay to win" misconception, which is the learning curve. When the match with my friend was over, we debriefed, and I showed him some basic tricks that any X-Wing veteran takes for granted. For instance, the 1 Forward is the exact length of a small ship base. When an X-Wing moves 1 Forward, it is also moving the length of 2 small ship bases. A large ship like the Falcon has a base the length of a 2 Forward, so the same logic applies; 1 Forward is the length of 3 small ship bases. I'm not ashamed to say I never knew that until I was at my first tournament, which was a Kessel Run, some 6 months after release, and I played a guy that used a 1 Forward template to proxy out his TIE Fighter so I could move my X-Wing easier. From that day on my movements have gotten way more precise because I can use that knowledge to better judge my distances. I just saved my friend months of wondering by giving him that basic trick right out of the gate.

So in this age of information we live in, you can read countless articles on X-Wing strategy with regards to movement, making good tactical decisions, and you can even use the Internet to scout the details of all the other ships you don't own, and practice how you would defeat them in a tournament with one of the builds I listed above. How would this person have worse odds of success in a tournament than someone who just walked into the store the morning of the event and dropped down the cash to buy a Core, a Falcon, 2 B's and 2 Shuttles to make a Bluebacca B-Wing build?

The sheer variety of options you have to play with are what keep people coming back. Your Wave 1 list can still hold its own today if you want it to, but if you're feeling bored after 2 years of running Luke/Biggs/2 Rooks, and have to spend some more cash, wasn't that good value for your entertainment dollars?

I must say, I'm quite surprised FFG hasn't started selling card booster packs yet. I think they could make a tidy profit if they sold packs with the cards that came with each wave. "Wave 1 pack", "wave 2 pack" etc.

That is, after all, what most of us are miffed about. I'm going to need a couple of Veteran Instinct cards soon, but 60 dollars for two cards and a pair of ships I don't know I'll field? Ehhhh, tad too expensive. And the prices for the new models (and thereby the cards) seems to be going more up than down.

Really, card packs would be the answer. Works for every other game they sell, works for the dice that this game uses, should work for the cards without much problems.

I'm going to need a couple of Veteran Instinct cards soon, but 60 dollars for two cards and a pair of ships I don't know I'll field? Ehhhh, tad too expensive. And the prices for the new models (and thereby the cards) seems to be going more up than down.

Devil's advocate: To what degree do you really neeeed those card though? I mean, if you really need them, won't you just go and buy some cool miniatures that you can enhance your games with in other ways?

Pay-to-play, of course it is. The other option would be free-to-play and that is not a sensible business model when applied to minis.

Pay-to-win, not a chance. FFG would need to start selling dice for $100 a pop that have extra crit/dodge or allow you to buy extra shields or higher attack on your ships at a tourney.

For me it works the opposite. the more stuff I have the worse I play. I have 2 of everything. But I don't have that much time to play(always working to pay for models). So when I do play, I want to use the new stuff instead of practicing one build.

I think I would be way better at this game if I just stuck with the core set and a couple x expansions.

I must say, I'm quite surprised FFG hasn't started selling card booster packs yet. I think they could make a tidy profit if they sold packs with the cards that came with each wave. "Wave 1 pack", "wave 2 pack" etc.

That is, after all, what most of us are miffed about. I'm going to need a couple of Veteran Instinct cards soon, but 60 dollars for two cards and a pair of ships I don't know I'll field? Ehhhh, tad too expensive. And the prices for the new models (and thereby the cards) seems to be going more up than down.

Really, card packs would be the answer. Works for every other game they sell, works for the dice that this game uses, should work for the cards without much problems.

Your sentiment expresses precisely what I find confusing about, if I can be a little hyperbolic here, all the bellyaching I hear over X-Wing and the costs associated with it.

First, understand that I'm not taking a dig at you at all. I'm not here to tell you how to spend your money.

If FFG were to, following your example, sell a Wave 1 booster pack with all the upgrade cards, you have to think a little deeper; what would the distribution be? Would it be 1 of each card, or would they put in multiples of some, but not others? How much would this all cost? Do you not think that if they went with a card distribution scheme that there would still be people upset that the card they wanted only came as a single while others didn't? If they were all just packs sold as a 1-of-each, what if you wanted, as you say, 2 Veteran Instincts? If the packs were $10 each, are you saying that you'd be fine with paying $20 for 2 cards, rather than ~$40 for the same 2 cards that also come with 2 ships, and a host of other upgrade cards that would be useful too?

I'm sure all of these ideas were considered, but ultimately, in the interest of taking a big license to market, were dropped in favour of creating less consumer confusion. The card pack would also provide the opposite problem if you later thought about jumping on some new ships. You would be getting less overall value for your purchases as you would ultimately develop a surplus of cards.

I might remember it wrong, but I think Veteran Instincts only comes with Slave I and the Falcon. The much-covetted Advanced Sensors that people like running on 4 B-Wings can be expensive to chase, because up until this week, you could only get them on the Lambda Shuttle. I have 2 Shuttles, and have thought that 4 Blues with AS would be a good tournament list, but I didn't want to buy the other 2 Shuttles to make it happen, because I didn't think it was worth it for me. Now, when Wave 4 hit my FLGS on Thursday, I snatched up 3 E-Wings, which come with the Sensors, so now I have 5 in total. Here's the thing; I've played in a few tournaments during the time the Shuttle/B's came out, and never once felt I needed the AS/B-Wing combo at all. My wife did alright with Biggs, a Rook and 2 B's with the AS while I was playing around with Firesprays.

That's the thing; you don't need all these upgrade cards and ships to begin with. See my post above, and you'll see all you need to get a solid competitive tournament list going. Everything I've bought after getting 4 X-Wings in Wave 1 has been for the pure love of the game, and having the option to play a large variety of lists with upgrades and ships from both factions, as I get the urge.

But that's my experience. If you feel you *need* to have Veteran Instincts, then I would point out that it's really more of a *want* and you just have that decision to make. As a player who has dabbled in all kinds of builds, I can tell you that if you're worried about not fielding a Firespray or a Falcon (which ones were you thinking you needed to buy?), the Firespray won't leave you in a rut. Even with Wave 4, I think it's still my favourite ship in the game. The Falcon is also great to fly, because it soaks up a lot of points, so if you're gaming on a budget, it's a solid purchase for Rebels to eat up about 50-55pts of your list.

I don't think card packs are the answer at all. This is a collectible game on a fixed distribution model. Tournament lists are inexpensive to make. If you're playing for fun, just proxy everything. Look at other "pre-painted" kind of miniatures games with a low cost entry point, like the Wizkids "Clix" series, or Star Wars minis from Wizards of the Coast. Cheap to start, but a tournament list would involve lots of blind buys from boosters, or purchasing singles online, which will get expensive very fast.

Fantasy Flight has obviously looked at the market, and have seen that there is a market for gamers that love playing card games and miniatures games, but don't want or have the time and money to spend on booster boxes, paints, and modelling/painting work involved bringing everything to a tournament in a competitive standard.

What they gave us was a way to spread around all of the content in a fixed method that will allow us to plan our purchases to the nickel if we want a specific list, and also allow a gamer on a budget to keep up in a tournament.

Compare FFG's LCG line to their competition, like the Magic the Gathering scene. People who play the LCG's (and I'll use Netrunner as an example here) lament that they have to buy 3 Core Sets to have the maximum amount of playable cards, because the Core Sets aren't just 3-of-each card. The Core Set is designed to allow people a gateway into card games if they haven't tried them before, and get an out-of-the-box experience, while allowing that serious tournament gamers will need to buy 3 if they want to get triplicates of every card, having a stack of cards left over that they can't use.

So quick comparison; $90 for 3 Core Sets to have all the cards and make whatever decks you want for that big tournament. How much would it have cost to get "all the options" for a game like Magic: The Gathering, assuming you were playing it at the same time in its life, when it came out in the 90's? You can't say, because it would involve buy a few booster boxes, investing $100's of dollars to "maybe" get it all, or spending way more than that to assure you get all the cards by scooping them up from the grey market.

So you're playing Netrunner, loving it all, and you decide that you just love running Anarchs and HB for your tournament decks. Most of the card pool that comes out down the line will be chum in your eyes, because you're not using them. However, each "cycle" of cards is 6 packs of different cards, all in triplicate (the maximum allowable number of copies of a card you can run in your deck). At MSRP, that's $90 a cycle, comparable to a Magic expansion set. How much are you spending on a full playable set of cards from a Magic set?

No matter what FFG does here, with regards to cost and distribution, there will always be people who aren't 100% happy with it. Instead, it might be worth taking a look at the bigger picture in the industry and trying to see it from the side of the business, and what's involved for FFG to conceive of, and release another wave for this game.

They need to make money first, otherwise none of us have X-Wing to play with, but they went about it in a way that makes many consumers happy, which is why X-Wing is like a license to print money for them.

Final thought; while you might think these mythical card packs of yours will be the answer, I can tell you that myself, and others, already have more than enough Proton Torpedos and don't want to be spending another cent on those blasted missiles we never use.

How is this different from any other living game? 40k comes out with a new $80 book every 2 years.

As for you need new cards to win the game is wrong. The basic Tie swarm is the most basic setup and is still winning most events based on the Skill of the players.

Dallas from Cali comes to mind.

And Mullen from Sweden.

So much so I went 14-1 with a basic wave 1 and 2 Tie swarm this past month. And in testing was still able to hold my own vs the new C3p0 Chewbacca.

For me it works the opposite. the more stuff I have the worse I play. I have 2 of everything. But I don't have that much time to play(always working to pay for models). So when I do play, I want to use the new stuff instead of practicing one build.

I think I would be way better at this game if I just stuck with the core set and a couple x expansions.

Ha!

Here it is - choices are overrated.

For me it works the opposite. the more stuff I have the worse I play. I have 2 of everything. But I don't have that much time to play(always working to pay for models). So when I do play, I want to use the new stuff instead of practicing one build.

I think I would be way better at this game if I just stuck with the core set and a couple x expansions.

Ha!

Here it is - choices are overrated.

Nah. As you can see from my sig, I like being able to build any **** squad I want.

So much so I went 14-1 with a basic wave 1 and 2 Tie swarm this past month. And in testing was still able to hold my own vs the new C3p0 Chewbacca.

This is exactly my point. I had a blast using the new C3P0 mixed in with Han, Gunner/PTL/Falcon Title, and if you can keep Han alive, he becomes a beast as a closer, if you've been keeping up with taking out your opponent's ships while you lose your escorts. But even my Han-3P0 list, while effective, can still go up against your TIE Swarm, and it's going to come down to which one of us is more experienced, how many mistakes we make playing (picking sub-optimal targets, actions, forgetting actions), and then, even if we're both of equal skill, and play perfect, the dice will figure it out for us.

This is what I like about playing in the later Swiss rounds in tournaments if you're going undefeated so far; you're likely going to be matched against those experienced players, and it becomes this methodical playing of your pieces, and when it's all over and one of you is victorious, you're both still reaching across that table with a smile to congratulate your opponent on that match.

The best games you'll ever have are the ones where you and your opponent can share this suspenseful experience of a tournament match for all the marbles, where the dice swing the game back and forth. It's like the plot to the original Rocky movie. When that final bell rang, it doesn't matter for the movie-watching experience whether Rocky or Apollo was the ultimate winner, it was the journey getting to that final table, and being able to metaphorically hug it out with your opponent as your ships lay bloody and dying on the playmat.

Shout outs to all my opponents I've ever faced; with a couple of notable exceptions, you've been gentlemen (and women) who have given me a good run, from that damned 4X list I've been facing since Day 1, to the newest chrome we bought the day before the event.

I'm going to need a couple of Veteran Instinct cards soon, but 60 dollars for two cards and a pair of ships I don't know I'll field? Ehhhh, tad too expensive. And the prices for the new models (and thereby the cards) seems to be going more up than down.

Devil's advocate: To what degree do you really neeeed those card though? I mean, if you really need them, won't you just go and buy some cool miniatures that you can enhance your games with in other ways?

Nope. The Firespray's just not my ship. But I do need those VI's to ensure my Phantoms won't get shot out of the sky by the high PS ships my friends love to field.

Pay-to-play, of course it is. The other option would be free-to-play and that is not a sensible business model when applied to minis.

Pay-to-win, not a chance. FFG would need to start selling dice for $100 a pop that have extra crit/dodge or allow you to buy extra shields or higher attack on your ships at a tourney.

Depending on your point of view, they already are. 3PO's a solid defence bonus, but in order to get him you're going to have to put down $90 first.

If FFG were to, following your example, sell a Wave 1 booster pack with all the upgrade cards, you have to think a little deeper; what would the distribution be? Would it be 1 of each card, or would they put in multiples of some, but not others? How much would this all cost? Do you not think that if they went with a card distribution scheme that there would still be people upset that the card they wanted only came as a single while others didn't? If they were all just packs sold as a 1-of-each, what if you wanted, as you say, 2 Veteran Instincts? If the packs were $10 each, are you saying that you'd be fine with paying $20 for 2 cards, rather than ~$40 for the same 2 cards that also come with 2 ships, and a host of other upgrade cards that would be useful too?

A lot of people prefer the ship with card combo. And that's fine. Consumer choice is a lovely thing. But in particular with the cards that come with the more expensive sets, I would rather buy cheaper card packs without the miniatures.

That's the thing; you don't need all these upgrade cards and ships to begin with. See my post above, and you'll see all you need to get a solid competitive tournament list going. Everything I've bought after getting 4 X-Wings in Wave 1 has been for the pure love of the game, and having the option to play a large variety of lists with upgrades and ships from both factions, as I get the urge.

It's not about "Do I stand no chance without these cards" it's about "I build this list I want to try, but I can't play it without paying $60 for two ships I won't even use, because that's the only way to get the cards."

Yes, that's a 'want' but the point is that the want is blocked by a 60 dollar paywall.

Fantasy Flight has obviously looked at the market, and have seen that there is a market for gamers that love playing card games and miniatures games, but don't want or have the time and money to spend on booster boxes, paints, and modelling/painting work involved bringing everything to a tournament in a competitive standard.

That's why I said card packs rather than boosters. Just the cards that came in a wave. Perfect clarity what you'll get, no randomness involved.

What they gave us was a way to spread around all of the content in a fixed method that will allow us to plan our purchases to the nickel if we want a specific list, and also allow a gamer on a budget to keep up in a tournament.

Or, if we're both going to play devil's advocate here, to sell more of each model.

Final thought; while you might think these mythical card packs of yours will be the answer, I can tell you that myself, and others, already have more than enough Proton Torpedos and don't want to be spending another cent on those blasted missiles we never use.

And you won't have to. That's the beauty of consumer choice. You're happy with buying the models along with the cards, and can continue to do so while those who are just interested in the cards of a wave can purchase those themselves.

Twice the happy people.

BahnCalamari argues in his My-beef-with-the-huge-ships-and-the-state-of-the-game thread that our game is not competitive at tournaments unless you shell out tons of cash for huge ships with rare upgrades or pilots.

The premise is worthy of debate, and so I'm making a thread for it. (I'm sure it's been debated at length before, and I'm just too lazy to engage in thread necromancy. I'm also not the only offender.) Also, we're now into Wave IV and the huge ships have been bought and played with.

So, on the face of it, the permise is logical in the abstract. If you have fewer choices in your builds, your builds are not likely to be as strong. But what does the evidence say?

I do imagine that people who have spent a lot of money on the game are more likely to be good at it, but that may be because they're more invested into the game in terms of time and effort, and money spent is a byproduct of those.

What say you?

I say it's complete garbage. Some of the most popular builds utilize ships from the first two waves: Three Amigos, TIE Swarms, and Han Shoots First. There exists small variations of each, but by and large they are some of the most long-running and dominant builds or build templates. Heck, you can run Three Amigos with a Core set and an X-Wing expansion. That's all of $35 before tax.

As for the people who say this game is pay to win, we all know that's not true. But really, if you think that way then it was silly of you to start a collection game hobby. They put a lot of effort into the models not just for play, but also so they'll look darn good on a collector's shelf.

I've been playing since September and, after reading this I sat down to calculate how much I've spent on this game. The "exorbitant" total came to about $15 a month. Now, I know what it's like to live on a budget. In fact, i live on a very tight budget (after bills i have on average $70-$100 a week to spend on all non-bill expenses, including food and gas). And yet I've still managed to spend about fifteen bucks a month on this game. I also am able to pretty much dominate my local league, with only one other player ever really giving me a consistent run for my money. So, prohibitively expensive? Hogwash.

This game isn't play to win because nothing really dominates the scene. The only squad that approaches domination is the Howlswarm, which costs $115 at MSRP (one Core Set, five TIE Fighter expansions). That's not bad at all when compared to TCGs like Magic or Pokémon, in which a single box of boosters costs just as much and probably won't net you all the cards you'll need for a top-level deck — you'll have to buy another $120 box of boosters, or pay extra for single cards.

Biggs Walks the Dogs isn't even bad. A Core Set, an X-Wing, two B-Wings and two E-Wings costs $115. When we had to buy two Shuttles for our AdvSens, it cost $145.

The most expensive 100-point squad off the top of my head is five Black Squadron Pilots each with Hull Upgrade and Predator. That'll require a Core Set, three TIE Fighter expansions, three Imperial Aces boxes and five TIE Defender expansions — $250 at MSRP, and I don't even know how well that squad would work. I suppose a more expensive squad would incorporate an upgrade or two from the Tantive and Rebel Transport, heh.

But the thing with X-Wing is that you don't have to shell out all that money to win. There are much cheaper options that do just as well, if not better.

Now I want to figure out what the most expensive squad list possible is, lol.

OK, so I've come up with a new, more expensive build, LoL:

Outer Rim Smuggler w/ C-3PO and Hull Upgrade

Outer Rim Smuggler w/ C-3PO and Hull Upgrade

Outer Rim Smuggler w/ Intelligence Agent, C-3PO and Hull Upgrade

TOTAL: 100 points

It should cost $475 MSRP (three Falcons, three Tantives, two Imperial Aces, one HWK and of course a Core Set because no matter what your ships are, you need the templates and damage deck from the Core Set).

But you can only have one c3po.

So you only need one tantive.

Named pilots and unique cards are limited one power squad

keroko,

Let me respond to your responses;

Nope. The Firespray's just not my ship. But I do need those VI's to ensure my Phantoms won't get shot out of the sky by the high PS ships my friends love to field.

You don't need VI to ensure anything. If you want to ensure your ship doesn't get shot, the only way is to do that is be out of sight. VI, Evades, Recon Specialists, etc just mitigate luck. You could run Whisper with VI and the Advanced Cloak and still get one-shotted by a Rookie Pilot at Range 1 if the planets align against you. I'll grant you that Phantoms want the high Pilot Skill for the Advanced Cloak to keep them safer from damage, but you're still at the mercy of Rebel Captives and other devices that can put stress on your ships, should you happen upon them. In those instances, you'll have to rely on careful flying to save the day.

Depending on your point of view, they already are. 3PO's a solid defence bonus, but in order to get him you're going to have to put down $90 first.

Correct, C3P0 is fantastic for defence, especially on a Falcon, but he's not the only game in town, and Falcon lists can get on fine without him. If all you wanted from the Tantive box is C3P0, then that's not good value. If you're not into the big ships and will never play them, then the handful of awesome crew cards are going to look like a steep buy.

A lot of people prefer the ship with card combo. And that's fine. Consumer choice is a lovely thing. But in particular with the cards that come with the more expensive sets, I would rather buy cheaper card packs without the miniatures.

I think you're misunderstanding consumer choice and how it relates to this desire for FFG to make these card packs. Your choice as a consumer is to look at a product and decide if it's right for you. In this case, the product is a collection of SKU's for a miniatures game with a transparent distribution model that is not likely to change to suit your own specific needs.

So, as a consumer, you can look at that and decide that you'd rather spend your resources elsewhere, or buy into the game system at a level you are comfortable with. The choice is that you vote with your dollars. The thing is, so are a lot of other gamers, and a smart business will be very democratic with how they roll out product to us.

Compare this to the video game industry. If you're into video games, you'll know that it's just a miasma of pre-order offers from retailers that take a large chart to review just to decide which store you should buy Call of Duty from. It sounds insane if you're on the outside looking in, but video gamers have voted with their dollars and continued to pre-order games that don't regularly sell out upon release anyways.

Should you pre-order your entire Wave 4 X-Wing purchase? I'd say yes, currently, if you like to keep up with everything, because they don't last. I went to my FLGS Thursday about an hour after they opened, and their 4 boxes (1 for each ship) were already half empty by then, and even more so by the time I was done with them. I'm pretty sure they're tapped out right now. Restock might happen, but it won't last and we'll go through some droughts on certain ships as we always do.

It's not about "Do I stand no chance without these cards" it's about "I build this list I want to try, but I can't play it without paying $60 for two ships I won't even use, because that's the only way to get the cards."

Yes, that's a 'want' but the point is that the want is blocked by a 60 dollar paywall.

I was skimming back through your comments and couldn't find any mention of how you go about playing the game, typically. I've qualified a lot of my remarks by referencing the need for making these purchases to satisfy tournament regulations, but if all you want is a Veteran Instincts card to play with your friends, then just proxy it in. For casuals, there's no need to have all the materials, and at a pick up game, I'm sure nobody would be that anal about it.

So keep that in mind; if you're playing casuals, the paywall as you see it, is only how far you're willing to go to show up with a bunch of random scraps of cardboard and post it notes. If you want to roll in the tournaments, and you are just hell-bent on running this list of yours, then you're going to have to spend some cash to do it.

Speaking of this list, would you mind posting it? I'm sure we could all weigh in on some cost-effective alternatives that still let you basically do what you want to do. Just give us the details and what you're essentially planning to do with it on the table.

That's why I said card packs rather than boosters. Just the cards that came in a wave. Perfect clarity what you'll get, no randomness involved.

This is still exactly what you're getting now, you're just really pressing the point that they need to adapt to your specific preferences for buying their products, which they may do if you can get another buyers to put a freeze on buying ship packs as part of a protest. Alternatively, there are places you can go to buy singles for your upgrade cards, just do some web searching. Again, you might find you're paying a premium for certain cards, but it goes back to the economics of the market and your choice as a consumer; spend $30 for the card you want, AND a ship with a bunch of other stuff you may get some utility out of one day, or spend $10 on one card, or ask around for a trade. Those are really the only choices you get, so pick one.

Or, if we're both going to play devil's advocate here, to sell more of each model.

Yes and no. Like I and others have mentioned, if you're going into X-Wing strictly in a play-to-win tournament fashion, then you would actually buy the bare minimum of models required; 2 Cores, 2 X-Wings. You would have got that 2 years ago and never spent another dime on the game since.

Since I play regularly with my wife, we just grab a bit of everything and we're free to play around with whatever looks fun, and have the materials to take a variety of list archetypes to tournaments, split between us. My buying motives for having, say, 3 Slave I's, are that 3 Bounty Hunters is fun to fly, and sometimes we both want a Firespray for an event. It expands the overall options we have to play with.

Taking it back to gaming on a budget, or someone who does not want a lot of excess product they have no interest in, you can always keep it simple with those Wave 1 archetypes. It just doesn't give you room to make new kinds of lists. So we're back to the central aspect of this collectible hobby; what's your playing situation like, and how often are you participating in organized events that require having all the goods, versus game nights where anything goes in that regard?

And you won't have to. That's the beauty of consumer choice. You're happy with buying the models along with the cards, and can continue to do so while those who are just interested in the cards of a wave can purchase those themselves.

I absolutely would have to. Let's say you like Rebels, and you're getting into X-Wing right now to play nothing but Rebels, and this whole card distribution thing is ruffling your feathers. So you got a couple of Cores, and maybe you heard B-Wings were mint, so you grabbed a few of those, and now you really want to get this card pack for a Swarm Tactics card. You've already got more Proton Torps than you'll ever use (which is to say, you have 1 or more Proton Torpedo card, because we all know how often we run those today), and now you're going to have even more. Same if you just wanted to get 2 or 3 R2 Astromechs, but you never wanted to spend the money on the Y-Wings to get them.

It goes back to my questions on what your vision for these packs would be. Are they upgrades and pilots, or are they two separate product lines, and then within that, how are the upgrades distributed. Would this Wave 1 pack have, say 1 Squad Leader and 2 R2's, or would they all just be loaded as 1-of-each for $10 a pack? What you're creating with all these extra SKU's is a lot of confusion for new gamers who don't know where to begin. There's 4 Waves on the market, plus Imperial Aces, the Transport, and the Tantive. Would these each get a pack for upgrade cards only? Would there be a similar product of just pilot cards and matching ship tokens? That's a lot of shelf space you're expecting your FLGS to devote to the game at that point, and if every publisher went that route with their expandable games, retailers would have to make some hard choices about what to present in their store visuals, and sales dollars would drive that. If the packs weren't selling regularly, they might just stop ordering them in.

Ultimately, debating this last point is fruitless, because we do not possess the proper market research to show whether or not the product line would be received well enough to devote company resources to develop, manufacture, and market it to the public, versus just keeping the distribution method business as usual.

I bet FFG has the market research, and that's what's guiding this. The LCG community has been lamenting a similar woe since the beginning, and the best they got was the monthly packs turning into 3 copies of 20 cards each for optimal playability, changed over from a 3:2:1 distribution of the cards, which required buying 3 of each pack to have the full set. You can read up on the history of Warhammer: Invasion to learn more.

That's a huge win for the customers, but FFG has still stood by their design of Core Sets, which is that they want them to also function as gateway experiences, so if you're going to be a tournament player, you would definitely need to get those 2 extra Core Sets and have a bunch of junk left over.

Remember, what you're seeing as an inconvenience and a waste of resources is but a paltry dose of what you could be experiencing with games that FFG's competition is producing, so right now, if you want to look at it as a negative, you're definitely taking the much lesser evil. It would take another company altogether to bring their system to the market, and go out of their way to cover all these niche bases with their SKU's, AND have it turn into a huge success for these market influences to switch.

It's crazy to me that someone could drop $200-$400 on some Magic singles, and that same amount of money would get you most of the Game of Thrones LCG collection. My feelings were shared by enough people that FFG took Thrones and Cthulhu off the CCG distribution model, and thus the LCG model was created to appeal to people that don't want to sink $100's of dollars every quarter year to stay competitive in a card game tournament scene.

The needle is moving more and more towards making this hobby as a whole, affordable to more people, and X-Wing is right there leading the charge. Over time it may continue to move even more towards game systems with even better value for your money, but it won't change with X-Wing without disrupting that revenue, and FFG isn't going to take a chance on that disruption being for the worse.

It's interesting that you bring up LCG's. One of the biggest hurdles for retailers is the sheer number of SKUs they would have to stock. You can bet FFG has heard about this. So, I don't see them adding any unnecessary SKU's to this game, which is slowly starting to build up a lot of shelf space (though Attack Wing quickly outpaced this game).

It's something that every player must decide for themselves. Is ONE specific combo worth paying the money for? Especially since FFG has shown a tendency to reprint a lot of the high demand cards. So, patience. I have to laugh at anyone pointing to the Tantive IV cards. C-3P0, R2-D2, Leia, and Han are all good cards. But no where close to a necessary buy for your Falcons. I mean, Outmaneuver is going to make that "$90 combo" worthless. Still good, but all the old Falcon builds will still work. As much as I would love to use the Transport upgrades, I am willing to wait until I can afford it.

Of course you pay to win- you can't win with only one tournament pack so you need more expansions!

Seriously, this is not a pay to win game. You don't pour money down the collectable hole to grab boosters hoping to get that one card essential to your strategy. I don't think you need to buy too many multiples of expansions to get the upgrade cards you need and even then, with those new packs you have new options for new stratgies.

The game certainly rewards the player who collects big. But if you're hyper-competitive and set on a list you need only get the items that you want for your list and just build it and ignore everything else.

It's more like "Pay to tinker" I think. If you like list building as an exercise with physical cards and wanting to test it on the table, you definately should go out and get the packs and spend the money to do that. But if you're poor and avoid the tournament scene there's more than enough material on the internet to proxy everything and play casually. Just don't walk into an FLGS unless you intend to make those proxies real

FFG is to be appreciated and treated with respect for all of the absolutely wonderful products they have made for us.

This is NOT FFG's fault.

It is your problem and you need to fix it.

ITT: It's unfair for businesses to charge more than I'm willing to pair for their goods/services.

While we're griping, I'd like to buy a Ferrari at cost. All that plastic can't really be so expensive, and what would they really be losing? They get my money, and I get a car. Everyone wins.

ITT: It's unfair for businesses to charge more than I'm willing to pair for their goods/services.

While we're griping, I'd like to buy a Ferrari at cost. All that plastic can't really be so expensive, and what would they really be losing? They get my money, and I get a car. Everyone wins.

A ny company should be able to charge the cost of production and a fair profit for their products!!!

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