Its ironic because everyone complained about swarmy all generic pilot builds with minimal upgrades before Wave 3. Now that named pilots loaded up with upgrades are good now, they complain about that.

I don't even understand what exactly the author is even criticizing? That you have to buy ships with their pilots and upgrades to play the game? Well... we live in a cruel world i guess!

Well he is right about the X-Wing being at the moment at the low performance end. But that's not a reason to dismiss the whole game and they will bring it up to par again, i know that. But he also talks about the lowly Tie Fighter pilot, and the AP is still a great choice and picked frequently, as is the Bandit. If he does not know that, well he probably has no plan about the gane anyway and should not open his mouth in such a fashion about it!

I'm not sure that the author of that blog post knows how to compare games. As someone who played Star Fleet Battles for nearly 20 years, the two games aren't really comparable. SFB is essentially a simulation, where 'realism' and detail are high, and ships are balanced to fight their (in-game) historical foes. You can easily get unbalanced scenarios if you attempt to fly ships ahistorically.

X-Wing, on the other hand, is much simpler and designed to be more broadly balanced, with lower detail but faster playability and a lower learning curve.

See...this gets into a very interesting conversation: Casual vs Competitive

If you are in this game to play for fun and at a casual level, then why are you also entering tournaments? Stay away from tournaments if competition is not what you are looking for. In my opinion a tournament is a completely different animal then casual/pickup play and your expectations should be different going into a tournament as a player. You should expect going in that everyone entering a tournament would like to win it. And as such, will bring their best lists.

If we were to take a professional Sports twist on this for just a moment, since the Super Bowl is looming soon... No Pro Football team is every NOT going to play their best players, or NOT run their best plays, or NOT take best matchups, or NOT take advantage of poor matchups on the other side of the ball. That is NOT playing up to their top level and NOT giving them their best chance to win the game. If they wanted to play the game for fun, they'd play in the PRO BOWL.

This game is not so different from that situation. A good/great player who enters a tournament is there to win, bottom line. He will have fun with his buddies playing the game he loves, sure, and this is very important to him as well. But he still is taking the game serious enough to be there to win. He will take the best list he can to put him in the best position to win, and will do the best maneuvers he can to increase the changes that he will achieve his goal, of winning the event.

Now, this does not include being a jerk or cheating, these are unacceptable and should be shunned at every level. But taking a game serious enough to want to do well at it and win at it is not a bad thing. Friendly competition help drive new ideas, new lists, new tactics, and overall increases the depth and enjoyment of the game.

Also, that guy most likely did not 'net-list' his squad that day and show up to the event expecting to win. Well, if he is any good that is. He researched it. Studied it. Flew it dozens or hundreds of time, against this match up or that. Studied the best ways to attack this list or that list, and what lists he needs to worry about and why. He tweaked that list to match his play style and do what he needed it to do. In short, he worked his butt off all before showing up that day to be prepared for that event and that tournament. He took the game very seriously, seriously enough to dedicate THAT much time to it to be ready for any and all situations. He knows every dial, every upgrade, every combo and what it does. He knows the FAQs by heart and can quote the rulebook to you, page and verse.

My point, someone who puts in that kind of time is far more prepared and should win an event. On the outside, to a casual player, 'that guy' looks like he is 'net-listing', or min/maxing... which is almost always completely false. In my opinion, these are terms used by those who truly do not know or understand what it take to win at the highest levels of this game.

Overall, this game has a great community! It really does, and you will find plenty of people willing to play at the casual level. Which, to me, is the best part of this game. The community. However, should you decide to throw your hat into the arena of competition, at any level, please have a reasonable expectation that everyone there wants to win it and will bring their best game to do so.

In fact - if you want balanced, look at 40K and try to do exactly nothing that it does.

I'm not a 40k player, but the number of Warhammer refugees we have in this community suggests you (and FFG) are on exactly the right track.

I have to point out that the TIE is still a very viable list, but most of us who flew it have moved on. Not because it doesn't work anymore, but because we wanted to play new things.

Finally I HAVE to point out anytime someone talks about the importance of any type of list building, that how you fly your ships is X-wing is at least as important as what ships you bring. If anything over the past two year some players have just gotten really really good at flying. These are the players that dominate my community.

Yeah, there's a reason the Chicago guys dominate so much of the competitive scene, both in the upper Midwest and nationally, regardless of what lists they're flying.

Also, every time I see someone complain about combos and named pilots, there's a little guy jumping up and down in my head yelling "French Nationals! French Nationals!" Just as you say, the unadorned TIE swarm still has a place in the metagame if people want to run it.

EDIT:

See...this gets into a very interesting conversation: Casual vs Competitive...

I like the sports analogy. The poster seems to be saying "I played some pickup football with my friend a few weeks ago and liked it, but then I heard about an NFL playoff game and was disappointed with where the sport was going. There's just too much focus on extremely talented players, and not enough on fundamentals."

If you are in this game to play for fun and at a casual level, then why are you also entering tournaments?

This

One thing I'm starting to get the feeling of... Is people who want to play casually, then have one of two things happen.

Either they enter a tournament, and are surprised when people aren't playing for the lulz... People actually want to win and so don't let someone take an evade token after they've been shot at, because they forgot to take an action.

If you want to play that way, cool. But then don't go to tournaments. It's a bit like a High School team showing up to play the Packers at the Superbowl and then upset because the Packers aren't playing down to their level...

The other thing that happens is they avoid tournaments completely because of horror stories they read on the net. So they avoid going at all, because that's a place filled with net-deckers and WAAC jerks who want nothing more than to smash you in game, and then gloat about it.

Or worse, they go to one expecting that and then magnify/ignore everything based on their preconceived notions.

So, if you want to play casual and find the idea of playing to win (not WAAC) distasteful, then avoid people or places like that. If you are going to try some sort of organized play, like a tournament or league try to have an open mind and accept that not everyone has the same opinion... Accept that for some people, playing to win is how they enjoy the game, because beating someone who isn't really trying, just isn't that much fun.

My only problem is That I have a friend that just got into the game and he wants to play Rebels and scum...while I have been playing since the game was released and have bought almost everything the game has came out with minus the epic ships and I play Empire and will soon get into S&V..I feel kinda bad because he is going to have to spend alot of money in order to catch up on cards and pilots to be where im at on build options....so untill he either dumps alot of money into the game as I have or just starts a new faction as I am with S&V we will either A. Have pirates vs bountyhunter fights or B. Im just going to have to handicap my lists to create a fair match up for a game with him. Or C. Play scenarios and various missions

eBay my dude, you can buy cards separate for like a buck or 3 bucks depending on which card. So if there is a particular card or cards you have that are op for what he can field then I would show him some cards to invest in for now until he can afford all the expansions.

You can obviously tell how much he actually knows about xwing when he thinks that you can field a transport in normal tourney play. Or that you can put darth vader on multiple ships. He's a unique crew so obviously he can only be used on one ship at a time. If he means he can be used on ships with the crew upgrade then that leaves only the slave 1, deci and shuttle since it would be crazy to put him on a phantom. I dunno his post seems pretty jaded to me like someone who wants to complain that he didn't buy in when he had the chance and now doesn't want to fork over the cash.

My only problem is That I have a friend that just got into the game and he wants to play Rebels and scum...while I have been playing since the game was released and have bought almost everything the game has came out with minus the epic ships and I play Empire and will soon get into S&V..I feel kinda bad because he is going to have to spend alot of money in order to catch up on cards and pilots to be where im at on build options....so untill he either dumps alot of money into the game as I have or just starts a new faction as I am with S&V we will either A. Have pirates vs bountyhunter fights or B. Im just going to have to handicap my lists to create a fair match up for a game with him. Or C. Play scenarios and various missions

eBay my dude, you can buy cards separate for like a buck or 3 bucks depending on which card. So if there is a particular card or cards you have that are op for what he can field then I would show him some cards to invest in for now until he can afford all the expansions.

Just proxy that **** son.

If you're playing at home there's no reason to mess with the actual upgrade cards unless you want to.

Pay to win eh? Ask a MTG player how much they've spent. Ask a WH player how much they've spent.

As an x-wing player, I own multiple of everything. Why? Because it lets me play with my friends who in turn don't need to spend a dime. You're still limited in the amount you can even field. That, and I love the way the ships look.

I think a lot of this stems from how completely different the casual vs. competitive mindsets really are. This post (the one the OP linked to) really seems to have the (unfortunately) common POV that if you are playing to win by the rules, and worse yet - holding your opponent to the rules, that you are a WAAC min/maxer that is everything that's wrong with gaming. The problems with that kind of thinking have been clearly stated elsewhere, so I won't bother except to say that 'flying casual' is supposed to be inclusive at it's heart..The poster then goes on to laughably say that a FOC (a la 40K) would fix the 'problems' he saw bringing it more on par with a 'simulator-style' Star Trek game from 20 years ago. Gimme a break. Why is this garnering discussion? It's clearly not serious. And I thought the armchair designers on these forums were bad.

Personally I play to win....I mean that is the intentions of everyone here right? If not then why ever play any type of game....us that have been with this game from thw begining have like the game evolved with it...X-Wing is ever growing and so are the people who play this game... we are going to fly that fat Han or fly that Super Dash. Or fly that phantom...it doesnt matter because we are playing with the pieces that we love. Using the cards and upgrades that we love. That is the heart and soul of the game you build your squad to custom fit you. How many Magic the Gathering players are out here in this forum? Do you not customize your deck to fit your playstyle ? Play to your strengths? Or play with the cards you like?

This is no different. This is the world that is X-Wing. We build to our needs and fly it to win and most of all to have fun.

You cant go and compare this game to something that complex like WH40k or Battletech or SFC. Those are totally different beast.

I stuck with this game because it is easy to learn . You can customize your ships..its STAR WARS! And I dont have to paint or assemble a **** thing but a base and pilot stat template. And love it even more now with S&V so I can play bounty hunters as a faction finally. Because mercs and bounty hunters have always been my thing not sith and Jedi or rebels and empire granted the empire has bad ass tech.

But thats my thought on the post from the Beast of War site.

Hasn't this been discussed on these FFG forums to no end before? And do we really need to link to another, possibly lesser, Beast of War forum to reopen this discussion once again?

I'd also want to add this to the discussion.

Meet my friend backstabber here "hello" backstabber has a decent pilot skill, and is awesome at shooting down x-wings from their rear arc "dakkadakkadakka". One day he wants to fly a tie advanced. <shoots backstabber in the face> except that he is just as killable as Academy pilot here "hello", Obsidian pilot "hello" and winged gundark "hello".

Special characters, with certain notable exceptions, are just as killable as their generic counterparts. Some (Biggs says hello) even more so. Some (Fels Wrath says hello then explodes) comically so.

Sure, you get arc dodgers like Soontir. You get Dark Curse and Carnor Jax who are a wee bit harder to kill. You even get evade ho's like Fat Han with C3PO throwing empty pie plates as chaff. But unlike certain other frequently referenced games set roughly 40 millennia into the future, a generic character is usually as killable as a special, with very very often the same base damage output. Unlike my friend Lysander here "Hello, I have eternal warrior and a strength 10 thunder hammer" and his sparring partner sgt genericus "hello, i just got smacked off of the 40k board all the way to the x-wing space table to simulate knocked into orbit by huge hammer".

What is this "force organization" they keep talking about as a fix to X-Wing?

It's a 40K thing

In 40K you have a Force Organisation Chart which limits the choices you can make to make up your army and at the same time makes you include several choices

You have/had (I stopped playing 40K around 6th, I heard that the FoC did change somewhere) to have 1HQ and 2 Core choices and a max of 2HQ, 3 Elite, 3 Heavy, 3 Fast and 6 Core choices when you build a 40K army.

Edit: I played a lot of 40K, but the continued powercreep, costs and hard meta shifts added with the fact that I'm just a huge Star Wars nerd made me switch to X-Wing.

I loved 40K until GW started ramping up the price for minis, and the rules just got whacked out. That and the whole shooty/tank build just killed my Black Templar army.

I loved 40k... can't even blame the price as i buy forgeworld.

stupid combos and rules getting too over the top, and too broken. All semblance of balance being utterly crapped on. and I'm not saying that 1st through 3rd were balanced, or even 4th-5th. 6th I could tolerate - barely, 7th just started getting too far. I will say i hope that the weakening of the codexes continues, and Eldar/Tau get brought down to manageable levels.

As a side note, I really do love Lysander. Charging him into close combat usually get's me giddy and in my head-canon he now flies a ram-decimator... But some of the unbalances in 40k have gone too far.

I came into X-wing late, and I was only expecting to buy rebel ships to play against my friend. But then I got hooked and developed my Imp fleet as well and I am glad I did.

Having said that, I think like some previous posters that the game is what you make it. The people I play with are more about having fun and testing different builds, and not all about using tarpits and deathstars to defeat their opponents. But I could see where some FGS or tourneys have players that absolutely must WAAC and piss off casual players.

I came into X-wing late, and I was only expecting to buy rebel ships to play against my friend. But then I got hooked and developed my Imp fleet as well and I am glad I did.

Having said that, I think like some previous posters that the game is what you make it. The people I play with are more about having fun and testing different builds, and not all about using tarpits and deathstars to defeat their opponents. But I could see where some FGS or tourneys have players that absolutely must WAAC and piss off casual players.

I will say once I win against my friends with a build i generally don't use that build again. I don't tourny much, rather I love star wars.

My only problem is That I have a friend that just got into the game and he wants to play Rebels and scum...while I have been playing since the game was released and have bought almost everything the game has came out with minus the epic ships and I play Empire and will soon get into S&V..I feel kinda bad because he is going to have to spend alot of money in order to catch up on cards and pilots to be where im at on build options....so untill he either dumps alot of money into the game as I have or just starts a new faction as I am with S&V we will either A. Have pirates vs bountyhunter fights or B. Im just going to have to handicap my lists to create a fair match up for a game with him. Or C. Play scenarios and various missions

eBay my dude, you can buy cards separate for like a buck or 3 bucks depending on which card. So if there is a particular card or cards you have that are op for what he can field then I would show him some cards to invest in for now until he can afford all the expansions.

Just proxy that **** son.

If you're playing at home there's no reason to mess with the actual upgrade cards unless you want to.

Haha that too! I've done that when I couldn't find a specific card, wrote it on a sticky note.

Thumbs down. That article was crap. The playable options for squads in this game number in the hundred thousands and many can be made "fluffy" while also remaining competitive. Breaking away from the tournament setting and playing Epic games or Team Epic games is another very easy way to generate fun, fluffy squads that offer the excitement and feel of the movies.

I couldn't make it all the way through the comments section. The comments seemed as though they had a bone to pick with X-wing players in general and stroking their own war gaming egos than anything really productive.

Thumbs down. That article was crap. The playable options for squads in this game number in the hundred thousands and many can be made "fluffy" while also remaining competitive. Breaking away from the tournament setting and playing Epic games or Team Epic games is another very easy way to generate fun, fluffy squads that offer the excitement and feel of the movies.

I couldn't make it all the way through the comments section. The comments seemed as though they had a bone to pick with X-wing players in general and stroking their own war gaming egos than anything really productive.

Speaking of fluffy: As a challenge, as me throwing down a gauntlet, can anyone think up a legal non fluffy list for X-wing? Factoring in the old 40K comment they used to use re special characters and there can be other people who fly just like biggs etc.

Thumbs down. That article was crap. The playable options for squads in this game number in the hundred thousands and many can be made "fluffy" while also remaining competitive. Breaking away from the tournament setting and playing Epic games or Team Epic games is another very easy way to generate fun, fluffy squads that offer the excitement and feel of the movies.

I couldn't make it all the way through the comments section. The comments seemed as though they had a bone to pick with X-wing players in general and stroking their own war gaming egos than anything really productive.

Speaking of fluffy: As a challenge, as me throwing down a gauntlet, can anyone think up a legal non fluffy list for X-wing? Factoring in the old 40K comment they used to use re special characters and there can be other people who fly just like biggs etc.

Do you mean a non-fluffy list full of x-wings, or a non-fluffy list of ships in the x-wing game? And by non-fluffy, I am assuming you mean no Biggs, Luke, etc....

Given you have to spend £80 on rules before you even buy a model for 40k I've never understood complaints about price, £80 easily buys you a great starting force.

The last thing you want is a force org, what's nice about x-wing is you can fly all generics, all named or a mix depending on what suits you.

It reminds me of a friend that slags off warmachine every chance he gets even though he's never played it, massive gw apologist who seems offended that people leave 40k to play warmahordes.

can anyone think up a legal non fluffy list for X-wing?

Closest I can think of would be a double YT-1300 named pilot list. I think having Chewie in another YT-1300 just seems off, fluff/lore wise.

It reminds me of a friend that slags off warmachine every chance he gets even though he's never played it, massive gw apologist who seems offended that people leave 40k to play warmahordes.

That kind of thing gets me. If someone hasn't actually played the game they should shut up about it. Because bashing something you have no clue of just makes you look like a massive idiot... Worse is they will seldom actually admit to that or recognize it. Just about everything they say is based on 'well I heard X', even though most times X was said by someone who was equally clueless about it.

Given the Mil falcon's unique modifications you got me.

For fluff reason alone, we kick off ever League Season with a massive 'Endor-like' battle to get everyone all geared up for playing X-Wing. There is no score, not really, and it is an event to just roll some dice and have some fun.

We will be having our next one in a couple of weeks and I am really looking forward to it!