So I love X-Wing, been playing since the game came out, and I'll stick with it for a long time to come. I'll probably be sinking way more money into X-Wing than IA.

That said, the future of IA seems way more exciting.

We're going to be getting annoucments for Boba Fett and Princess Leia and endless cool expansions.

X-Wing's expansions at this point are more interesting than exciting. They've exhausted all of the recognizable ships, so while the new mechanics and stats and abilities are exciting, the ships themselves aren't.

Know what I mean?

When new stuff comes out for X-Wing I expect to be like. "Huh. That's interesting. Can't wait to see how that turns out."

With IA it'll be like "YEAH! Boba Fett finally! Woot!"

Boba? Where did you hear about him? He's definitely at the top of my want-to-see list.

I didn't hear about it. But it's super inevitable isn't it? He might not be in wave 2 or anything, but he'll show up eventually. Same with all of the other bounty hunters I expect.

I agree with you.

The expanded universe never really did anything for me, although the wave 4 ships were pretty cool because they all have strong tie-ins to the original trilogy designs (Defender/Phantom have TIE fighter qualities, Z-95 is the older X-wing...)

The same can’t be said about the scum and villainy ships, which don’t even look like they belong in Star Wars. They are really scrapping the bottom of the barrel for new ships where IA has the opportunity to introduce characters we all love (Leia, Boba, Obi-wan…)

Besides the Raider which I need for Epic Play and a few upgrade cards, I’m done purchasing X-Wing stuff.

I’m ready for that Hoth Campaign expansion for Imperial Assault. I’M READY.

I agree with you.

The expanded universe never really did anything for me, although the wave 4 ships were pretty cool because they all have strong tie-ins to the original trilogy designs (Defender/Phantom have TIE fighter qualities, Z-95 is the older X-wing...)

The same can’t be said about the scum and villainy ships, which don’t even look like they belong in Star Wars. They are really scrapping the bottom of the barrel for new ships where IA has the opportunity to introduce characters we all love (Leia, Boba, Obi-wan…)

Besides the Raider which I need for Epic Play and a few upgrade cards, I’m done purchasing X-Wing stuff.

I’m ready for that Hoth Campaign expansion for Imperial Assault. I’M READY.

I can already see some new Condition Cards (Freeze, Chill) coming from a Hoth setting.

Boba + enormous Sarlacc pit tile...can't wait.

I hope they have some ability to mix in the 'new canon' so we aren't in a similar situation to X-wing where the first expansions cover all the nostalgia stuff and then everything else is new/obscure.

I really get the sense that they're going to stick with canon characters and characters they make up themselves. No Legends. We'll see I guess.

A lot of the ships produced for x-wing are already "Legends" anyway, including various pilot names, and several Armada ships are too. I wouldn't be surprised if this happens in this game eventually. However, yes, I suspect they will try and stick to established and made up characters first.

I'll agree in a sense. X-Wing still has it's Epic game to develop still, so it's still very young in it's overall life cycle. That being said, IA is even younger and I'd love to see some official multiplayer skirmish ideas or something in that department. Also love to see an AT-AT someday in the future (Not anytime soon however).

Imperial Warfare anyone? Army scale star wars using the Dust Warfare rule. That would give us AT-ATs. Although we need a lot more rebel models.

Salcor

How are the Dust Warfare rules? I am familiar with WH, WH40K, WarmaHordes.

I was thinking along similar lines, but that the larger-scale Star Wars ground game would be based on the Battles for Westeros /modified Battlelore rules. It seems like this would work well due to the importance of strong characters as leaders in Star Wars.

XWM is a great game, but I am mostly glad that its success has paved the way for Armada and Imperial Assault (and hopefully one more!). I will always be of the mind that the best way to simulate a Star Wars dogfight is to get out my joystick and play X-Wing Alliance

From everything I have heard it is a very good system, it is written by Andy Chambers. I have not played it, but everyone who I know who has loves it. The problem is twofold. 1) FFG has never provided sustained support for an army scale game (AT-43, Dust Warfare) and 2) they would have to give up their GW licenses. (Rumor is that GW threatened to pull there license since FFG was directly competing with them. Thus the sale to Battlefront)

Salcor

With all the Star Wars stuff coming our way (in general, not just from FFG) and with GW waning to a certain extent I can't imagine that being a tough decision if it came down to it.

The problem I have with a tabletop scale SW game is that there aren't a lot of iconic ground battles in the movies. Playing out the assault on Hoth would be fun...but it's ultimately the Empire steamrolling the Rebels.

I'm sure the EU has introduced more unit types for the Rebels, but none of that really exists anymore until we are told it does.

I think there's a lot of potential there, but you'd be hitting the same wall as Xwing in terms of that nostalgia mine running dry, only much more quickly.

On another note I just realised that a little Yoda miniature is very likely at some point and got inexplicably very excited.

Apparently I've carried a secret longing for my childhood Hasbro Yoda this whole time.

X-Wing's expansions at this point are more interesting than exciting. They've exhausted all of the recognizable ships, so while the new mechanics and stats and abilities are exciting, the ships themselves aren't.

With any luck, this will cease to be true in, oh, ten months or so.

X-Wing players will outnumber IA players for the foreseeable future, and yes I know there will be a fair amount of crossover, and that goes for Armada as well.

The success of X-Wing did open the floodgates for Fantasy Flight to put other games systems into development and production, IA and Armada have X-Wing to thank for their inception, let us give credit where credit is due.

That being said, what RogueLieutenant alluded to in his post has a ring of truth though, while I will continue to pick up X-Wing models, I may start to cherry pick now instead of being a completest as I have been in the past, and I am far more excited about IA expansions that have yet to be announced than I am for new waves of the progenitor game X-Wing , I check the IA forums far more serendipitously than the X-Wing forums.

It's not indicative that I love X-Wing any less, it's more along the lines that I am checking out the hot younger cousin IA .

X-wing > IA. IA is amazing, but I forsee myself only playing campaign modes for a while. I find the game a blast to play but I find X-wing is still more fun due to it being my particular style. I have no problem with EU ships and characters (If I did I wouldn't be playing Soontir, Howl, Kath, Keyan, etc etc), so as more ships come out I will still be getting them.

Xwing will be the game for competitive play, IA will be the game for scenarios and campaigns. Armada will likely be more towards the casual and scenario driven end of the spectrum for me due to low levels of interest locally for competitive play (at least for the near future).

IA I think has by merit of being the newer game more room to pull things from the IP while Xwing has already mined most everything within reason. My guess is FFG is fully aware of this and that is a major reason for Armada coming out now vs 2 years ago. They know the market can support both but they will do better when not so heavily competing. I would say its a reasonable bet that FFG will be pushing IA and Armada hard over the next few years while Xwing is likely going to see a significant drop in development. Don't get me wrong I think Xwing is great and I hope to play in tournaments for years to come, but FFG is a business and they can only make do so much within the limitations of Star Wars fighter combat (like I'd bet 2-3 more waves at most).

X-wing should get more interesting come the end of the year with the release of Episode 7 and any ships that come with that.