But the Defender doesn't rotate around the cockpit. Why is it daft?

It doesnt seem like a well thought out design to me. Not enough power for the number of weapons. And aesthetically unattractive. Just my opinion. I know the majority of people dont agree.

I'll throw my words into this thread, for what it is worth:

I am not married, nor do I plan on it any time soon. However, I am the GM of a small gaming group my brother and I founded. The first gaming session it was just the two of us and two male friends. The next time my mother joined the game, and was hooked (followed shortly by my father). After that another friend and his wife were invited over and both of them got hooked (then they went and moved to NY). Probably of the 6 girls that have been invited into the group 5 of them love the game. The key is to just ask, and then don't force it on them if they don't enjoy it. It holds true with both genders.

But the Defender doesn't rotate around the cockpit. Why is it daft?

It doesnt seem like a well thought out design to me. Not enough power for the number of weapons. And aesthetically unattractive. Just my opinion. I know the majority of people dont agree.

I feel like I have to come to the defense of the

...umm... TIE Defender.

Armament

• SFS L-s9.3 laser cannons (4)
• Borstel NK-3 medium ion cannons (2)
• SFS M-g-2 general-purpose warhead launchers (2)
  • Standard load: 4 concussion missiles or proton torpedoes each
• Tractor beam projector (1; optional)

The four lasers are on the bottom four fins, the two ion cannons on the top two, and the missile launchers under the cockpit. Try to put all that on a regular TIE fighter and you begin to see what the idea was. And as for Asthetics, that's very subjective; it looks like a predator to me... Polyraptor.

So to the topic...

I am a gamer, my wife is not a gamer.

I have 70+ games in my collection, so who do you think is my most frequent opponent.

I bought X-wing because I was in the market for a new game and I am a Star Wars fan. She is also a Star Wars fan in her own way but she prefers games more like Settlers of Catan, Risk, and Trivial Pursuit. Oddly her favorite Wii game involves shooting terrorists while avoiding shooting hostages. She isn't a very coordinated person, nor does she have a good spacial perception or direction sense. Having qualified that I can add my wifes reply to my query. I prompted her with questions, so patched together it reads simple, but she's a medical professional

I play because my husband loves the game, and I love him, and I love spending time with him.

It's genuinely fun, I like shooting, and I like winning, but even if I lose and if it's close I'm alright with it,

You have to be on your toes, and keep and eye on all your cards, maneuvers, strategies.

I like being in the heat of the battle, the first two turns are boring; no shooting, and I like shooting.

I have some insights, and the most obvious have been expressed in various ways, but I still fall back on the basics of the evolution of men and women. Hunters and Gatherers. I think generally it is masculine to be interested in the hunt, and it is feminine to be interested in conflict resolution. I think generally males are more aggressive, females more passive, and I am not theorizing there, it basically boils down to testosterone.

So you are going to get people who are not interested in games of battle, and I think a greater percentage of those people are going to be female. The X-wing miniatures game is not about flower arrangements or knitting, but about the proverbial upper cuts and broken noses. So if a spouse has fundamental problems with unnecessary conflicts, unreasonable conflicts, or even seeking out conflicts of any kind, then the game will be pointless to them.

Getting past that point, if you have a spouse that is willing to see past the violence and see it the way a chess player would see it, as a strategy or problem solving puzzle, then you have a hope.

Having said that, there is a lot to grasp in this game in terms of concepts of strategy, even after a year of playing casually I'm still learning. One game is hardly going to cover it. And two games may help to only begin to cement the rules and game mechanics. The red and the green are not black and white concepts. Some people can't have it too simple nor too complex, and this game does has layers,,,

If you want your spouse to be interested in the game you have try to highlight defense verses attack in all it's dimensions, otherwise it's just another dice game (I was trying to remember Yahtzee.) There are a lot of other game dimensions that could be highlighted or contrasted. Contrasted hull with shields otherwise it might as well be a block a wood (There are droids now that repair hull but far less than the shield ones). Maneuvering is probably one of the more difficult things for my wife, it comes down to her poor spacial perception, but it's one of the pillar elements of the game, and it can't be viewed as just a game element, it hast to be highlighted as a player skill with practice required, otherwise it's will become a source of frustration. For a beginner I would guess that the maneuver dial cheat sheets are mandatory in their essentialness.

With this I reminded myself of the fact that you don't have to start off with all the rules for a beginner. The Quick Reference list makes you go through everything, but for a beginner I would think it would be immeasurably help full not to have to use the dial but rather just play chose your move when it's your turn to move and try out the different templates while you're at it. Sort of like a dial-less Fettigator handicap. hiding maneuvers is a level of strategy that isn't necessary for beginners.

Another thing that help my wife enjoy the game more was to watch the movies with me again and my pausing the movie to point out the ships as they came on screen. I think this might have been part of her becoming enamored with the Firespray. She has to always have a minimum of three attack dice, and now she's replaced the interceptor in her favorite build with a Phantom. She saw me use it to good effect and had to have it.

I have things I have to get done today, or I would ramble on, but I will edit this when I have time later.

To do list: Make a variant quick reference phase list.

I was thinking of the Quick Reference round phases list. But I had to dig up another copy of the "Quick-Start Rules" to see what could be improved.

Quick Start SETUP

(1) Choose a Faction

(2) Gather forces

(3) Assemble ships

(4) Establish play area

(5) Place Forces

(6) Prepare gathered cards

(7) Activate shields/energy

(8) Prepare other components

I think its bizarre how many people I come across on Vassal who insist on Tournment specs.

(1) I really dislike the •Luke Skywalker battling •Luke Skywalker that you get in tournaments.

It's not that I don't get why, I just also get that it's an abnormality that's forced on the game.

(2) Less is better with beginners: doesn't get much simpler than 2 Academy Pilots versus 1 Red Squadron Pilot.

(3) This at first glance seems like the simplest step, but it should actually be the most drawn out step for a beginner. If I were to teach someone else I would stop here to expound on the levels and dimensions of everything.

(4) I understand the need to constrain the play area, but ships being destroyed for a piece of the base leaving it has always seemed absurd to me. We started off playing on a black picnic table cover and didn't worry about boundaries.

(5) I think of placing first as an advantage, same as not having the initiative when movement comes up. The quick start rules make placement simple.

(6) As in step 2, three cards for beginners is plenty.

(7) Probably simpler to call it 5 damage for the X-wing.

(8) For the deck, it's probably simpler to count critical hit as normal hits.

Quick Start Rounds.

(A) Plannig Phase

• I wouldn't use this step with beginners.

(B) Activation Phase

• I would get beginners to try out different maneuver templates and then choose they one they like. As always by order of Pilot skill. I didn't remember that the Quick Start rules don't bother with actions.

(C ) Combat Phase

• Since actions are ignored in the the Quick Start game, it would probably be simpler to count focus results as hits/evades. Probably simpler to count critical hit as normal hits.

(D) End Phase

• Not really relevant in Quick Start mode, especially since with a simple set up it's obvious who has won.

I like moving and shooting, and how the other player moves, and winning. It's challenging. Gamers have good spacial perception usually, and [by playing] you are increasing your skills of strategy and spacial perception. And the challenge of beating you.

I don't have a wife. Can I play with one of yours?

I feel pretty strongly that this is the exact kind of vaguely skeezy stuff that makes it undesirable to be the first female to join a gaming group. It's couched in "it's just a joke, lighten up" deniability, but the underlying theme is "interaction with a woman is predicated on permission from her husband." Plus, there's the whole sexual undertone to the word "play" adding another layer.

Obviously, not all women are put off by this kind of behavior, but my money would be on it being a non-trivial filter.

And like I said in the Howlrunner thread, it's not the content that's objectionable, it's the fora. Dark, twisted humor is great in the privacy of one's own home, but in a public space like this, it's not cool.

So, please stop.

I will share what I find so despicable and nefarious about this reply to WW's post, but first to explain why I waited till now to respond and then a little bit of why you are probably annoyed this thread is being resurrected. When I got to this post and the subsequent convo I felt rage, I took a breath and waited a day...then two days and now three days. Still very angry but I must address the personal attacks and the attack on our community.

A straw man was created by Wicked as a soapbox from which to pontificate and rail against something that was not said. What happens is some people want to feel superior to others and they create injustices in their own minds to attack from a moral high ground. In our want-it-now society it is difficult for these people to wait to come across such a victim-what-needs-rescuin' and decide it is easier to just create a problem so as to deploy their pre-made moral solution.

With indignant righteousness, the narrative has our moral Paladin strike a position that no one would argue against and claim moral superiority over others. This is a trap with a long history and most of you fell into it. It is easy to attack someone you do not know over something they didn't say and this kind of thing just turns my stomach. I can’t stay silent!!

Yes, I could let the thread go like many of you wish, but then people like this get the satisfaction of a false "win" and will do this in other places and to other people. As you can see, it is Wicked that attaches a false meaning to an otherwise innocuous statement and then you all thump your chests and howl with nerd bravado “HOW DARE YOU “MYSOGINY” MY WIFE!!!”

Wait, what? People bragging about their awesome gamer wives and someone says they don’t have the cool gamer wife, can they game with one of yours? You have been drawn in to a cheap stunt that was designed to benefit only one person at the expense of us all, WW being the most hurt. In a thread supposedly about inclusion and respect a character assassin snuck in and was able to create the very division some of you preach against.

I am ashamed of most of you for falling for this; especially those who jumped on the bandwagon of flog the straw man. This is also why many of you will have wished this to go away, I think some of you figured out the deception but, while correctly feeling something was wrong, couldn’t put your finger on it. Well there it is.

Those of you who hit the like button on this trash should be doubly ashamed, that you didn’t get at first (that’s understandable) but to stand by it to this day(still liked)…I don’t care if I get banned or warning points or whatever, your pile on posts are disgusting, despicable, mean-spirited and they fed the ego of a depraved individual. You have been tricked into battering the very thing you are trying to nurture, the community.

Who would want to join a community where your words could be intentionally misconstrued and then used to damage your character with everyone else piling on???

Oh, and if you guys and gals turn this forum in to a thought-police state then expect this site a die a very rapid death.

In response to Invest FDC (too much text to reasonably quote).

We, as a community, are trying to figure out a tone for our conversations that will be inclusive to everyone. This thread was LITERALLY started to try and figure these sorts of things out. Asking someone politely to consider their words is hardly setting up a "strawman".

I'm not going to comment on the thread past WickedGrey's initial post since I believe it devolved somewhat overall.

I DO want to be part of a community where we try to consider our words and are willing to call people out when their words can be misconstrued. I am not ashamed of that, even if I don't always have the courage to call people out myself.

The first time I read WWs comment I thought it was unfunny and sleazy, but I also recognized that the perspective was subjective and the insinuation was from my own experience, so I left it alone, and was surprised by the outrage.

But because it keeps coming up I have to point out that the Terms and Conditions of Use for members states "You are at least 18 years of age." So absolutely if we were all five year olds and someone said, "I don't have a wife can I play with yours," there's nothing of harm in it because children are innocents. But lets' not kid ourselves, we aren't innocents and WW is not an innocent and he full well meant all the insinuations that we can imagine. I don't need to take any higher ground or having at him to boost my own sense of self-worth or self-esteem, I have enough experience with WW that he had to be put on my ignore list, and it doesn't surprise me that he'd make such a sleazy comment.

In response to Invest FDC (too much text to reasonably quote).

We, as a community, are trying to figure out a tone for our conversations that will be inclusive to everyone. This thread was LITERALLY started to try and figure these sorts of things out. Asking someone politely to consider their words is hardly setting up a "strawman".

I'm not going to comment on the thread past WickedGrey's initial post since I believe it devolved somewhat overall.

I DO want to be part of a community where we try to consider our words and are willing to call people out when their words can be misconstrued. I am not ashamed of that, even if I don't always have the courage to call people out myself.

Do you see what you did there where you say "Asking someone politely to consider their words..." followed by "I'm not going to comment on the thread....it devolved somewhat overall."

Fortunately, we can all review what was said earlier in the thread and there was little that was polite and the "somewhat" in "devolved somewhat" is a bit of an understatement.

Basically, the community had a discussion, a certain comment was made and several posts came after, then Wicked commandeered WW's words and assigned their own meaning to them along with a made up intent (the straw man) and mob justice took over.

Here's an idea, let's imagine WW's coment was made by one of our wives or sisters ("Oh, another woman gamer, can I play with your wife?") and it was their first or second post to the forum. Then some faceless creep highlights their comments and announces to the whole Forum that perversion is the true source of the comments and that they were intended to harm. Then the mob descends upon our wife/sister. Is that the kind of place you want this to be?

Notice how Wicked started this whole thing and is now no where to be found.

i must have missed something by not goiing back far enough. i just wanted to expand on the virtues of my wife because i love and appreciate her.and will talk about her any chance i get. Whatever the weird turn the thread evidently took that is what matters to me

Internet 101, don't get upset over typed words from strangers over the internet.

Internet 101, don't get upset over typed words from strangers over the internet.

Amen. There's plenty of actual injustice in the world to spend your righteous indignation on.

Internet 101, don't get upset over typed words from strangers over the internet.

Amen. There's plenty of actual injustice in the world to spend your righteous indignation on.

But the words, and the injustice and the indignation! If I do not valiantly fight them, then surely the internet shall fall and be lost forever. And then how shall I get my cat pictures and know what other people are eating?!

Okay 52 people who are following this,

I'm requesting some on topic appraisal of

my answer to Michael's original post.

Haven't watch these three videos yet,

but someone following this is bound to enjoy them: