I am sure this has probably been asked I have seen that in Dust it is done but wanted to ask about it for X-Wing. Is there any chance that the Elite Pilot cards, Modifications, and Missile/Torp cards being sold separately? I am not keen on the idea of buying models that I might not ever use just for some of the cards.

Team Covenant, I don't think I'm supposed to link it so just look up Team Covenant X-wing upgrade cards

It's done in Dust because the game is now in its 3rd iteration, being produced by another company, with completely readjusted stats and point values. I don't think that's a direction we want to go with X-Wing.

There's no real precedent for it, and there are a couple of good arguments for why we're unlikely to see it.

(1) With the exception of the upcoming Most Wanted--which is helping jumpstart an entire faction--it's impossible to buy cards you can't use. As this was presented to me, suppose your non-geeky grandfather wants to buy you a birthday present, and picks up an X-wing item at random from Barnes and Noble; at the moment, there's no way for him to buy you something you can't legally put on the tabletop. If there were a pack of new pilots and upgrades, that would no longer be the case.

(2) We don't have the internal breakdown of FFG's costs, but I'd be willing to bet that materials are a much smaller proportion than most of us would guess. We typically assume that we're paying for a miniature, which comes with a bunch of cards--but I suspect we're actually paying for the design and development of new game elements, which are delivered along with some plastic. And if leaving out the mini typically saves FFG $3.50 per unit, but people aren't willing to pay $11.50 for a bunch of cards, then they'll never produce card-only expansions. (That's all speculative, of course.)

Thanks, for the responses. I love this game though I am still getting used to the low number of models(Coming from a 40K background.) and the cards and the difficulty of getting the older minis(Can't find an Interceptor anywhere local and the prices on Amazon are insane.) is the only gripe I have about it.

Thanks, for the responses. I love this game though I am still getting used to the low number of models(Coming from a 40K background.) and the cards and the difficulty of getting the older minis(Can't find an Interceptor anywhere local and the prices on Amazon are insane.) is the only gripe I have about it.

I understand you when it comes to the low model count...I too am a gw refugee.

Don't worry about not finding the older minis...nothing has been classified out of production. They are making more.

Its always easier if you've a group of you.

Some cards you'll all want. Others you can swap or co-buy with friends.

I bought my second TIE expansion a while back and pased on the unique pilots and there chits to a friends who already has six TIEs via co-buying core sets but wanted howlrunner.

You might struggle a bit with upgrade cards but with regards to pilots im nearly always happy to give away duplicates of unique pilots.

AS long as you're playing friendly casual games, proxies of cards are accepted by most everyone. There are some however who believe that making lists based on only what you have is a exercise in list building.

Personally I'm not sure I agree, because that's only an issue if you don't have access to the cards, myself I own so much there it's at most a question of having enough copies of a given card.

I think the fact that some people just can't get some models makes proxies even less of an issue. It's not that you won't buy them, just that you won't pay more then MSRP for them.

. . .

(1) With the exception of the upcoming Most Wanted--which is helping jumpstart an entire faction--it's impossible to buy cards you can't use. As this was presented to me, suppose your non-geeky grandfather wants to buy you a birthday present, and picks up an X-wing item at random from Barnes and Noble; at the moment, there's no way for him to buy you something you can't legally put on the tabletop. If there were a pack of new pilots and upgrades, that would no longer be the case.

. . .

With the exception of additional copies of unique cards.

There's no real precedent for it, and there are a couple of good arguments for why we're unlikely to see it.

(1) With the exception of the upcoming Most Wanted--which is helping jumpstart an entire faction--it's impossible to buy cards you can't use. As this was presented to me, suppose your non-geeky grandfather wants to buy you a birthday present, and picks up an X-wing item at random from Barnes and Noble; at the moment, there's no way for him to buy you something you can't legally put on the tabletop. If there were a pack of new pilots and upgrades, that would no longer be the case.

(2) We don't have the internal breakdown of FFG's costs, but I'd be willing to bet that materials are a much smaller proportion than most of us would guess. We typically assume that we're paying for a miniature, which comes with a bunch of cards--but I suspect we're actually paying for the design and development of new game elements, which are delivered along with some plastic. And if leaving out the mini typically saves FFG $3.50 per unit, but people aren't willing to pay $11.50 for a bunch of cards, then they'll never produce card-only expansions. (That's all speculative, of course.)

I think the first point is a big kicker here. I would gladly pay $15 or even $30 if a card pack came out, assuming the contents matched the price to some degree. For example if they gave every ship 2 new unique pilots, a similar amount of upgrades.(as 2- or 3-ofs) and had any new/necessary tokens needed, I would pay a 1-time $30 for that. It would shake the game up a lot, I seriously doubt it will ever happen.

I think the reason they won't is because you are right, everything is playable, to one degree or another, fresh out of the box, which is a huge selling point to a lot of people. If you put out a card-only expansion, people would complain they will never use X,Y,or Z and shouldn't have to pay so much for it.

Another point is that if you look at what they are doing with the 'aces' they are essentially doing card packs, but throwing in a new repaint and charging exactly the price a good amount of people would pay for an all card xpac. If you think about it, we are now paying lets just say $180 for the cards with some models we may or may not need thrown in. This also allows FFG to spread out the releases in to smaller chunks. This is a better business model for FFG.

I do hope we get more packs like Most Wanted. A few new models, but a ton of cards for ships that are not in the pack.

Thanks, for the responses. I love this game though I am still getting used to the low number of models(Coming from a 40K background.) and the cards and the difficulty of getting the older minis(Can't find an Interceptor anywhere local and the prices on Amazon are insane.) is the only gripe I have about it.

I understand you when it comes to the low model count...I too am a gw refugee.

Don't worry about not finding the older minis...nothing has been classified out of production. They are making more.

But I need more interceptors now. Actually I need them for the pilot cards mainly. Though this weekend I will be snatching up a Tie Advanced and a friend is getting a pair of Y Wings because he wants to do something he is calling Rolling Thunder. We are both using a droid App for the moment to list build since we don't have all the cards we want. Either way I am looking forward to Scum and Villainy.

Thanks, for the responses. I love this game though I am still getting used to the low number of models(Coming from a 40K background.) and the cards and the difficulty of getting the older minis(Can't find an Interceptor anywhere local and the prices on Amazon are insane.) is the only gripe I have about it.

Miniature Market usually the older models like that in stock for standard prices.

As YwingAce said, Team Covenant is selling all the upgrades except the ones that come in the Huge ships seperately.

Rather than make a new thread about the learning curve I will toss it in here. One thing I have to wrap my head around besides the low model count is that one ship can't do nearly as much damage as one character in 40K. A lowly Tie Fighter/Z-95 pilot has just as much chance of doing damage as their named counterparts. Just a matter of the right support behind them. This weekend after we pop over to pick up some minis we are playing and right now we decided to do two rounds. first being 100pts and the 2nd being 150pts. I find my old 40K habits creeping back in as I list build trying to get as many shots out as possible(Imperial Guard Player here). But I am forcing myself not to do that an opting for a Phantom and Defender list just to see how things go.

A lowly Tie Fighter/Z-95 pilot has just as much chance of doing damage as their named counterparts.

True, but that's at least in part due to the Star Wars feel, where you had a lot of unnamed people being part of the battle. If you think of a single ship being the same as a 40k squad then that might help you wrap your head around it better.

I list build trying to get as many shots out as possible(Imperial Guard Player here).

That's a long standing and completely valid method, especially with Imperials. Thinking of them like the Imperial Guard can be a good way of thinking of it. The Empire was very much about quantity being a form of quality.

That's why the 7-8 Tie Swarm has been considered a apex predator for quite some time.

But I am forcing myself not to do that an opting for a Phantom and Defender list just to see how things go.

Here's where things really change from a 40k mindset. In 40k you have 1, maybe 2 and in some cases 3 army lists you may play. Normally though many of them are just lower point values. Some people may even have 2 or in some cases 3 factions they have armies for.

In X-Wing however, many if not most of us collect both sides, and may end up buying a fair amount of the 3rd faction when it comes out. Part of this is because of the upgrade cards, but also because at the model count for X-Wing you can do that.

That means where in 40k you might have 2-4 army lists, in X-Wing many of us have 50+ So there's no reason to pick one and stick with it, play a game with a tie swarm, then play one with a Phantom + Interceptor, then Bombers and shuttle, then a XXBB then XXZZZ then Falcon + A's, and so on.