The problem is (as with 40k and other hobbies) is that you are on the website for the game. This means you, and everyone else on here, has already gone one step beyond merely PLAYING the game, and are looking to IMPROVE at the game. People who simply buy the models, chat bollocks with their mates, and have fun once a week on a dining room table are ABSOLUTELY having just as much fun as people who play competitively, and getting as much out of the hobby, and so on.

But you won't see them on the forums, because unless they want to ask a rules question they can't work out themselves, they won't ever come online. It's not something that either enters their head, or that they want to spend time doing.

That means the forums tend to be skewed (however heavily, depending on the hobby in question) towards those who take it more seriously, and consequently there is less focus on designing plot-central lists such as Rogue Squadron, or building the second Death Star run with Tycho, Wedge and Lando, or the Imperial 181st over Brentaal, and more focus on abusing Whisper, Fat Dash and Howlrunner. That's what I've picked up from spending just a couple of days on here.

So long as people remember that everyone has a valid view of the game, whether it's efficiency or narrative, we can all get along and have a good time. Start threads that interest you, or contribute to others. Ignore ones that don't. When someone posts something that runs counter to your outlook, say "Thanks very much for your input, but..." instead of getting all elitist about it. You can all have different opinions and no-one has to be right or wrong, unless you're talking mathematics.

I don't play in tournaments ever I play with friends once a week and don't use meta lists yet I'm here on the forum.

I played 40k with the same friends once a week until 7th ed came out and I was on all kinds of forums.

I know I'm not alone here in being a non tournament player who likes talking about the game, now as I play with friends I'm free to proxy stuff as long as it's been spoiled so I don't need to buy the raider or any other ship just for the card.

So while it may be a few tourney players that feel hard done by I don't think you can say it's all competitive players moaning.

Never said "all".

Said "Skewed".

I think I needed to clarify why I feel the way I do about this, rather than sounding like a troll. I used to play 40k. A lot. It got to the point that I felt that I had to "net list" in order to win against some players, who are friends of mine. I made the Vulkan spam list and finally beat my friend. The thing was that I really, really, REALLY didn't feel good about that win at all. I didn't do it. The list did.

I eventually won with a random Tyranid list with no character creatures, etc. It felt like a much better accomplishment since it was more me than a list I built. I get really bummed when I read a lot of analysis posts that break down maths, etc. Mathhammer (and the pricing, lets be honest here...) ruined the game and I sold every single model I ever bought. I've never gone back to 40k since.

My main gripe is that I see the same thing happening with this game, and it creeps into the play of the local community so much that there really is no room for people who just want to play a game. Everyone has to bring optimized lists, which means that there really is no variation or creativity, or just saying "Eff it" and throwing something together. Sadly, that is my local meta, and it means I play once or twice a year at best and just collect. It turns into a money sink with no entertainment value.

So my choices are "net list" so I can enjoy my game I bought, or accept it and quit, as I have seen some suggestions. Neither appeals to me. Creating option three wherein you create a new community is **** difficult, especially when the wider meta is so competitive at the ground level. That's what has really colored my opinion of point values and statistics when it comes to the game.

I am sorry that it is an offensive opinion to the community here. I really, truly am.

My main gripe is that I see the same thing happening with this game, and it creeps into the play of the local community so much that there really is no room for people who just want to play a game. Everyone has to bring optimized lists, which means that there really is no variation or creativity, or just saying "Eff it" and throwing something together. Sadly, that is my local meta, and it means I play once or twice a year at best and just collect. It turns into a money sink with no entertainment value.

What we do is new squads every game. No repeats.

X-wing has a strong random element and a good degree of balance. Even Worlds, where you'd expect netlists to be rife, had a huge variety. To a significant extent you can just throw stuff together provided you know what you're doing (ie: avoid Expose like the plague).

That being said, if you want to be free of netlisting and statistical analysis, my strongest recommendation is to move out of 100pt. All the analysis is based around that. Push to 150 or play Epic and all the bets are off.

Another thing worth remembering is that the designers actively attempt to kill off (or at least shove back down to normal effectiveness) any ship or list that gets too dominant. They want variety and they do care about the game as opposed to the contents of your wallet.

I feel your pain, and can only offer a suggestion of scenarios. There are plenty of missions out there that have nothing whatsoever to do with killing 100pts worth of stuff, and everything to do with escorting a Lambda off the table. Change the paradigm, and suddenly all those netlists can't perform.At least in 40k tourneys you had 3+ deployment types and victory conditions, MINIMUM. X-wing doesn't yet have such a motive for a generalised list, which is why mono-tactic builds like fat han or swarm are competitive. Throw in a mission with a SUN in the middle of the table instead of rocks. See what happens. ;-)

I got one for y'all. FFG shout just s#*t-can Epic and focus on X-wing being a dogfighting game. Don't get me wrong, I loves me the big girls too...but that is what Armada is for.

In all seriousness, this is a kinda shady blemish on the part of an otherwise sterling reputation. The Advanced was effectively broken. This is a bug patch. You shouldn't have to buy the DLC just be able to fix a bug. Even if that DLC is sweet as hell.

No way, roll on epic. It's still dogfighting around the big ships, just like in ROTJ. I can't wait for the raider.

I also agree with TIE pilot. My friends and I rarely play the same list and if some one wants to field 105 pts or 155 we just balance up and go for it.

I am looking forward to the advanced improvement a lot as I play vader often with either his Ep IV wingmen or 2'nombers. Even won a couple of games with em.

Don't you want to pick up a Raider anyway?

Don't you want to pick up a Raider anyway?

No. I don't. That's kind of been the whole point of the discussion. I want my TIE Advanceds to not suck, but I have precisely zero interest in epic ships.

I got one for y'all. FFG shout just s#*t-can Epic and focus on X-wing being a dogfighting game. Don't get me wrong, I loves me the big girls too...but that is what Armada is for.

In all seriousness, this is a kinda shady blemish on the part of an otherwise sterling reputation. The Advanced was effectively broken. This is a bug patch. You shouldn't have to buy the DLC just be able to fix a bug. Even if that DLC is sweet as hell.

Your analogy is weak.

A bug fix is an FAQ document making something work the way it was intended. Things can work as intended and still just not be particularly good.

You often pay for DLC that adds something new that makes an exsisting class, unit, whatever better by extension. They call those expansions, typically they cost money.

More than weak, I think analogies between tabletop miniature games and video game software are fundamentally flawed from the very basis.

I think I needed to clarify why I feel the way I do about this, rather than sounding like a troll. I used to play 40k. A lot. It got to the point that I felt that I had to "net list" in order to win against some players, who are friends of mine. I made the Vulkan spam list and finally beat my friend. The thing was that I really, really, REALLY didn't feel good about that win at all. I didn't do it. The list did.

I eventually won with a random Tyranid list with no character creatures, etc. It felt like a much better accomplishment since it was more me than a list I built. I get really bummed when I read a lot of analysis posts that break down maths, etc. Mathhammer (and the pricing, lets be honest here...) ruined the game and I sold every single model I ever bought. I've never gone back to 40k since.

My main gripe is that I see the same thing happening with this game, and it creeps into the play of the local community so much that there really is no room for people who just want to play a game. Everyone has to bring optimized lists, which means that there really is no variation or creativity, or just saying "Eff it" and throwing something together. Sadly, that is my local meta, and it means I play once or twice a year at best and just collect. It turns into a money sink with no entertainment value.

So my choices are "net list" so I can enjoy my game I bought, or accept it and quit, as I have seen some suggestions. Neither appeals to me. Creating option three wherein you create a new community is **** difficult, especially when the wider meta is so competitive at the ground level. That's what has really colored my opinion of point values and statistics when it comes to the game.

I am sorry that it is an offensive opinion to the community here. I really, truly am.

I have to disagree with this, at least from my opinion.

Yes you need to be able to cope with certain lists, and the easiest way of coping with that list is to do what the internet says. However flying something original, that people haven't flown against, is a tactic too, I've only played in a few tournaments, and haven't done great in them, but I managed to win my last one with my 3 alpha, 2 academy and howl swarm.

I too have moved away from 40k, and mathammer (I hate mathammer), and I like x wing for the skill it requires in predicting your opponent, and planning your moves.

Yes the new title and sensor for the advanced will make it better, but will I use it often? probably not, because I hate the dial. If I wanted a ship with an x wing's dial I'd fly an x wing

And as I'm sure its been mentioned on here before, the raider comes with 4 of each card, meaning you should be able to buy them, and they'll surely be cheaper then trying to buy C3PO

If it caused you some sort of emotional turmoil to use something that alot of people determined was good (in this case, Vulcan spam) after they then shared information that it was good on the internet then the issue really lies solely with the emotional baggage you bring to a game about toy soldiers or space jets and has little to do with the guy across from you. If someone using math to demonstrate why X is better than Y at doing job Z hurts your feelings because you have purchased alot of unit Y then the real issue is your feelings and how easy it is to apparently get you to quit a game. Frankly, if you're so invested in the analysis of a game, you should read up on it alot before you buy anything. I suspect your real problem is people coming to conclusions similar to things that you like are bad but I digress.

This may come as a surprise but the internet has a lot of people on it. A lot more people than you and your friend, or you and your two friends, or you and your playgroup of a dozen people or whatever. There are going to be a lot of people playing games, determining what works and what doesn't, and then presenting that consensus to other people via this extremely effective form of mass communication that we all know and love. They are going to do this for any game that gets enough people playing it to be worth talking about. Games usually contain subgroups of people like talking about their games and getting better at them. There are usually people that like learning from those conversations too. You can choose to not use the things other people have determined are good, and that approach might work, it's entirely up to you. If you feel you have to use only the things people on the internet have said are good or quit the game then that's not really the fault of the people that find X-wing an entertaining game. You are free to use things that are not good. If you want to win, you will be more likely to do so if you use things that are good.

If you have decided that your fun is going to be diminished somehow by the fact that some guy in Minnesota or Phoenix or Egypt or wherever typed something on his keyboard about how one ship is better than another, that's nobody's fault but yours.

May I present to you

Blahahahaha

The aftermarket has to this point failed to be a good solution for players. There's really not any money in it after the initial excitement of a wave wears off. 3PO normally sells for 40$ USD and is out of stock (as is R2 crew) at most sellers, which means Tantives aren't worth buying at 60 bucks at a discount even when you can sell a single piece of cardboard out of the box for 66% of that. So you've got a price point, 40 dollars, which some (not all) people will pay for 3PO at, but which is still too low to make it worth the effort of buying the Epic ship in the first place.

Some people will buy raiders to part them out, and if there are good crew cards for 100pt play to offset you'll probably see around 15-20 bucks + shipping for a 'set' of TIE X1 upgrades (1x title and targeter), which doubles the price of a single ship to correct FFG's design errors. Demand for epic ships up to this point has been low and shipping something as big as a raider is enough of a pain to offset any discounts so you would have to hope the other stuff is worth moving during the excitement of the new release to even see that. If the rest of the kit sucks or is mostly epic stuff then the already limited amount of resold Advanced upgrades will be even lower.

It is disingenuous to claim that you will be able to easily and affordably buy the cards online. At best, it's extremely optimistic in the face of previous epic ships telling you otherwise.

The aftermarket has to this point failed to be a good solution for players. There's really not any money in it after the initial excitement of a wave wears off. 3PO normally sells for 40$ USD and is out of stock (as is R2 crew) at most sellers, which means Tantives aren't worth buying at 60 bucks at a discount even when you can sell a single piece of cardboard out of the box for 66% of that. So you've got a price point, 40 dollars, which some (not all) people will pay for 3PO at, but which is still too low to make it worth the effort of buying the Epic ship in the first place.

Some people will buy raiders to part them out, and if there are good crew cards for 100pt play to offset you'll probably see around 15-20 bucks + shipping for a 'set' of TIE X1 upgrades (1x title and targeter), which doubles the price of a single ship to correct FFG's design errors. Demand for epic ships up to this point has been low and shipping something as big as a raider is enough of a pain to offset any discounts so you would have to hope the other stuff is worth moving during the excitement of the new release to even see that. If the rest of the kit sucks or is mostly epic stuff then the already limited amount of resold Advanced upgrades will be even lower.

It is disingenuous to claim that you will be able to easily and affordably buy the cards online. At best, it's extremely optimistic in the face of previous epic ships telling you otherwise.

The secondary market will always fail to be a good option for high demand cards in a game like X-Wing, precisely because of the economics you note. This isn't Magic, where the price of a card on the secondary market can float freely to achieve proper market value because it is the only guaranteed way to get a particular card. X-Wing imposes a price ceiling on the secondary market by virtue of the fact that you can just buy the right ship and get the card at a fixed price. Add in the fact that only a percentage of the cards in the pack are going to have enough demand for reselling, and it makes it even harder for a healthy secondary market to develop.

The Tantive IV pack has 26 cards in it and one model. Only 4 of those are potentially worth reselling, since the other 22 are epic only and largely specific to the Tantive. Most of them are also Limited, so getting multiple copies isn't even worth it. Of those 4 cards that are potentially resalable, C-3PO is the only one that has a serious demand. With a setup like that, it's almost impossible to make a profitable resale business, since the profitable price for 3PO is going to very nearly approach the price of the ship pack, at which point people will just buy the ship pack.

The aftermarket has to this point failed to be a good solution for players. There's really not any money in it after the initial excitement of a wave wears off. 3PO normally sells for 40$ USD and is out of stock (as is R2 crew) at most sellers, which means Tantives aren't worth buying at 60 bucks at a discount even when you can sell a single piece of cardboard out of the box for 66% of that. So you've got a price point, 40 dollars, which some (not all) people will pay for 3PO at, but which is still too low to make it worth the effort of buying the Epic ship in the first place.

Some people will buy raiders to part them out, and if there are good crew cards for 100pt play to offset you'll probably see around 15-20 bucks + shipping for a 'set' of TIE X1 upgrades (1x title and targeter), which doubles the price of a single ship to correct FFG's design errors. Demand for epic ships up to this point has been low and shipping something as big as a raider is enough of a pain to offset any discounts so you would have to hope the other stuff is worth moving during the excitement of the new release to even see that. If the rest of the kit sucks or is mostly epic stuff then the already limited amount of resold Advanced upgrades will be even lower.

It is disingenuous to claim that you will be able to easily and affordably buy the cards online. At best, it's extremely optimistic in the face of previous epic ships telling you otherwise.

And being so sure it won't is missing the bigger picture. Why do you think and how can you prove epic sales were "low" or didn't meet expectations? We don't have access to their forecasting data and sales figures.

The c3po example can only tell us part of the story. Here you have a unique upgrade that can only be used once per list and comes in a single copy per box. With the TIE upgrade you get 4x as many and can use it as much or as little as you want...you think that isn't going to make a difference?

The main issue myself and I think most had with epic was the fact that it was one sided.

Mobileissueswillfinishpostlater

Formatting issues here. I posted a full response later down the page but frankly if you think that we can't ever make any sort of educated assumption because FFG's accountant, owner, sales manager, and maybe a guy from the pizza company they call aren't sitting at your desk having a personal Q&A session then you could probably skip the whole thing since you know, everything is literally completely unknowable or whatever.

No freaking way.

I been wanting huge imperial ships for a long time.

To me this is just extra gravy.

If you don't want the huge ship I believe there are sites that sell cards only.

Gravy??? Lets not under sell this...its the turkey, dressing, potatoes w/gravy, and a bottle of johnnie walker blue!

The aftermarket has to this point failed to be a good solution for players. There's really not any money in it after the initial excitement of a wave wears off. 3PO normally sells for 40$ USD and is out of stock (as is R2 crew) at most sellers, which means Tantives aren't worth buying at 60 bucks at a discount even when you can sell a single piece of cardboard out of the box for 66% of that. So you've got a price point, 40 dollars, which some (not all) people will pay for 3PO at, but which is still too low to make it worth the effort of buying the Epic ship in the first place.

Some people will buy raiders to part them out, and if there are good crew cards for 100pt play to offset you'll probably see around 15-20 bucks + shipping for a 'set' of TIE X1 upgrades (1x title and targeter), which doubles the price of a single ship to correct FFG's design errors. Demand for epic ships up to this point has been low and shipping something as big as a raider is enough of a pain to offset any discounts so you would have to hope the other stuff is worth moving during the excitement of the new release to even see that. If the rest of the kit sucks or is mostly epic stuff then the already limited amount of resold Advanced upgrades will be even lower.

It is disingenuous to claim that you will be able to easily and affordably buy the cards online. At best, it's extremely optimistic in the face of previous epic ships telling you otherwise.

And being so sure it won't is missing the bigger picture. Why do you think and how can you prove epic sales were "low" or didn't meet expectations? We don't have access to their forecasting data and sales figures.

The c3po example can only tell us part of the story. Here you have a unique upgrade that can only be used once per list and comes in a single copy per box. With the TIE upgrade you get 4x as many and can use it as much or as little as you want...you think that isn't going to make a difference?

The main issue myself and I think most had with epic was the fact that it was one sided.

I think being so sure it won't actually includes the bigger picture. I think it's missing the bigger picture to say "FFG's accountant hasn't showed up to an internet forum to independently verify every single guess about sales figures so we might as well just assume whatever outcome that supports our argument is the one that will happen" when you trip over boxes of Rebel Transports at most Barnes and Noble stores (literally they are on the floor) and you can't buy a red A-wing in half the country.

I think it's missing the bigger picture to assume there's this giant silent throng of people who bought their rebel epic ships and just really wanted a tiny imperial ship that didn't exist yet until FFG literally invented it and told us about it a couple weeks ago to show up so they could actually play their epic games.

I think it's inclusive of the bigger picture to see FFG include an advanced and a huge number of titles in the Raider and conclude that they want to bolster raider sales by including things that people who own the Tie Advanced would need. I think it's inclusive of the bigger picture to look at a strategy like that and conclude that epic ships do not sell well enough in their own right to warrant selling them in supplements that are 100% for epic play.

I think it's missing the bigger picture to assume that since there are 4 titles they will always be readily available for sale - they will hit a price point at which it is worth it to part out a raider or they won't. If they don't, there won't really be that many for sale. I think it's missing the bigger picture to assume that there will be a ton of raiders sold and all of those owners will turn to third-party outlets to offload their huge piles of TIE Advanced titles.

I think it's inclusive of the bigger picture to look at Armada and conclude that FFG thought it was more worthwhile selling a totally different game with Star Wars capital ships rather than to plan on indefinitely supporting Epic play for X-wing as a legitimate going concern. I think it's inclusive of the bigger picture to assume that they treat Epic supplements as expensive limited releases for the game they really sell (similar to an approach like 40k Apocalypse) but included cards for normal play because they understood that Epic play would not be a big enough draw in it's own right to warrant selling Epic-only packages.

I think it's inclusive of the bigger picture to understand that the C3PO example is great because you see how Tantive boxes without 3PO in them are virtually worthless. You might draw your own conclusions about why they are worthless but I don't think the ''groups of people that want to play epic" and "groups of people that wanted to play epic but only if they also had an Imperial ship to play epic with so both sides could have totally awesome big ships" are going to converge in some tremendous explosion of X-Wing Epic play.

Nice to see you think you are seeing the bigger picture. But you are overlooking a good number of things and making quite a few assumptions about both mine and your arguments...all while mocking the very real fact that you have NO hard data.

I'll respond to your post when I get home posting long winded responses tends to go best wrong on my phone...

These cards will also not be available in another package. Why would they be? Was C3PO? It's how they sell the epic ships.

History of this game has proved you wrong on this point.Here's a list of upgrades that have appeared in more than one expansion.Recon SpecialistFire Control SystemOutmaneuverFlechette TorpedoesAdvanced SensorsIon CannonIon Pulse MissilesMunitions FailsafeProton BombsGunnerMercenary CopilotHeavy Laser CannonThen there's all the upgrades that have 2 copies in a package with a single shipRuthlessnessTactical JammerCountermeasuresSo yes in fact, based on FFG's track record we can expect to see the Tie Advanced fix in another package at some point. Did you honestly expect to see C-3PO in another pack about 6 months after the CR-90 was released?

To be fair, I can't think of an example where a title card has been reprinted in another pack, or in 3po's case, any unique upgrade card.

Nice to see you think you are seeing the bigger picture. But you are overlooking a good number of things and making quite a few assumptions about both mine and your arguments...all while mocking the very real fact that you have NO hard data.

I'll respond to your post when I get home posting long winded responses tends to go best wrong on my phone...

Nobody is disputing that we don't have hard data, but people are disputing that you need hard data to make reasonable conclusions in the first place. Saying "But we don't have the data!" is merely a refuge to avoid having a discussion - you retreat there when you could engage with what somebody is saying, and attempt to understand it, and think, and try to create reasonable bounds from which to draw a conclusion, but you don't want to; Instead you say "FFG's accountant didn't personally tell me every single sales figure for the past 3 years so I am free to assume anything, like that there is a secret underground majority of Epic players that will all buy hundreds of raiders and it will be easy to get a cheap one on the internet for example" and expect that to be equally as useful or relevant to a discussion.

We don't have the data. That does not mean nobody buys epic ships. It does not mean that a ton of people buy epic ships. The fact that they have to package good cards in epic ships is a good reason to believe that a ton of people don't buy epic ships. The fact that people that are already selling upgrade cards cannot reasonably assume they will earn a return on a Tantive after making 2/3 of it's cost back on one single upgrade card is a good reason to believe that a ton of people don't buy epic ships.

I look forward to you getting to a keyboard so you can point to the vast number of legitimate realistic things that I actually overlooked and really hope that you won't just spit out something really banal and worthless like "C3PO is only used on one ship" since that doesn't actually matter for anything that was being said, and I hope that when you get to a keyboard, seeing all the keys in front of you actually helps you understand how your comment about 3PO was literally irrelevant. Because I would hate for you to sit at your keyboard, think to yourself "Aaaah now I can finally type all the things he overlooked!" and then see more stuff vomited in my direction that continues to be irrelevant and doesn't actually address or understand what anyone was saying.

The fact that they have to package good cards in epic ships is a good reason to believe that a ton of people don't buy epic ships.

That's not a fact, that's an assumption.

It's a fact that they do put good cards into epic ships, but it is not a fact that they have to, or that the ships wouldn't sell well enough without them to make a profit, that all is an assumption.

It is a fact that if I were to buy a Raider, I could sell the 8 Tie Advanced cards for $10 a piece, and break even, that means if I could find someone to buy the raider itself for $10 I've made a profit.

That doesn't mean we'll see a ton of Tie Advanced cards for sale on the secondary market, but it's a much better possibility then C-3PO, which comes 1 to a pack and no one needs more than 1 of that card.