Unlike most other wargames, X-wing does not have a competitive objective-based play format. Yes, the missions included in many expansions do include objectives, but in reality these missions are seldom played, and never played competitively. Ditto for scenarios on Mission Control. Objective-based play has little or no place in X-wing play as of right now - Why?

It’s a question I’ve been asking myself for a while now, and apparently one that has also occurred to the game designers.

I think X-wing doesn’t lend itself to objective based play the way other game systems do in part because of the movement system at the game’s core. Ships almost never occupy the same space on the board for consecutive turns, so holding territory – a common objective, is not feasible. The theme of the game; starfighters dogfighting in space, doesn’t readily lend itself to many classic objectives, in fact. Starpilots can’t lean out of their cockpits to grab important items, for example.

Additionally, players do not seem to be tiring of the deathmatch format, although there is significant noise about the current metagame’s perceived ‘rocks-paper-scissors’ aspect.

So what could objective based play bring to the game? I can think of several areas of the game objective based play might affect, for better or worse:

Gameplay Variability:

Postive: The most obvious difference. We would be looking at a variety of missions in addition to the standard deathmatch, opening up new styles of gameplay. Dogfighting should always be at the core of a game, but control of certain areas of the map would become important, and strategic planning would take on a different flavor as options to win besides destroying the enemy emerge.

Negative: Game balance, up to this point centered on dogfighting, could be seriously disrupted. For example, if speed becomes a key selling point for a ship – perhaps for grabbing distant objectives while evading the enemy, cheap A-wings could become seriously overpowered.

Negative: The game would also lose a valuable piece of its DNA – predictability. We all know what we have to do each time we put our ships on the table: blow up the other guy’s ships. If our objective is changing from game to game, list-building could become a serious headache.

Altering Build Dominance:

Negative: Swarm! In a game that is about taking and holding various points on the table, or performing actions in a location or for many other objectives, the more ships you have, the better. Swarms, already a quite powerful archetype, could become completely dominant. Adaptable to deathmatch or many objective missions with little loss of efficiency, swarms could perhaps rule indefinitely.

Positive: Killiness vs. Toughness vs. Objectives. Victory in X-wing is measured by what you kill and how little you lose. Under an objective based system, your ability to interact with objectives becomes a key part of the equation. This could shake up list-building.

Greater Game complexity:

Negative: Higher bar for entry. The more complex the game is, the harder it is to recruit people. Even the most simple objective-based game is by definition more complicated than a straight-up deathmatch.

Positive: Raises ceiling for innovation, strategy. With more ways to win, there are more strategies to explore, and more possibility for innovation and clever play. Playing different missions regularly would probably lead to more creativity in list-buiding and playstyles.

Negative: Loss of ‘chess’ dynamic. X-wing is known for being easy to learn but difficult to master. Adding another dimension to the game could change that to: not too hard to learn but difficult to master, which may not be a good idea.

Epic Play:

Positive: Fertile ground for objective-based play. The size and scope of epic games lends itself very well to the idea of objective-based play.

Positive: Spread it out! Many epic games are epic traffic jams, with double the normal number of ships crammed into the same table space, because it is sound strategy to keep your force together. If objectives were spread across the board, that changes this calculus, and we could easily see a transition to a more spread-out battle, with multiple groups engaging each other across the whole length of the table in high-stakes dogfights. This sounds good to me.

Negative: Few people play epic regularly.

It's Not Official:

Everything here is hypothetical. Nothing is official, and I don’t harbor any illusions that these ideas are going to set FFG policy. But the game designers have thought about this, and so have I. I think a discussion of this wouldn't be the worst thing in the world, don’t you? What do you think about objective-based play, in tournaments or on casual tables?

Objective Play can work within a Death-Match setting.

Completion of an objective would grant bonuses at end game. Or a bonus deduction.

It would make margins of victory more dynamic. A player has less reason to achieve their margins and be completely evasive since their Objective for the match might negate that margin due to failure.

And of course the secondary objective of "destroy all opposing targets" would result in endgame and secondary bonuses.

I do not see objectives working for X-Wing in the same way they do for games like 40K and Warmachine (a set objective shared by both players).

However I have had good success running missions like those in Malifaux for X-Wing. The way they do it is a randomly generated primary objective for both players (worth up to 4 points) and a randomly generated pool of 5 secondary missions from which both players select two. These may be shared, kept secret, or made public (advantages and disadvantages for certain missions here). Each 2ndary is worth up to 3 points, so 10 points possible in total.

My favorite secondary mission (which actually works great in X-Wing) is Frame for Murder. You secretly nominate one of your models (ships). It it is killed by the enemy, you get 1 point. If it happens before a specific turn +1 point. If it was killed by the enemy leader (or Squad Leader), +1 point.

Missions like this, bounties, escorts, breakthroughs, and the like work very well in X-Wing, and I think would help to diversify some lists.

Missions create a barrier to entry, in that now not only do you have to learn the base rules of the game, you now also need to practice for whatever the specific mission or objective is. That doesn't mean you can't have tournaments that feature objectives, but I think it will prevent objective tournaments from becoming the main format as long as objectives are not a core part of the rules.

That being said, I think X-Wing has become popular enough (in some places) that it could comfortably support objective based games as a secondary format alongside standard play, the same way MTG has multiple competitive formats available for players to choose from based on their preference.

I you were going to run an objective based tournament, I would recommend making the objectives the same for everyone and making them public well beforehand. Randomly generated objectives are not a good fit for competitive play, it could mean that one player does poorly because the random objectives they got were a bad fit for their list, and vice versa. It's important to maintain a level playing field for everyone.

The problem is that currently balance is on a hair thin line. Make the area larger and all of a sudden phantoms get a significant boost and blockers get decreased power.

However j would be fully in favor of attempting to develop some objective based missions and tournaments.

Perhaps someone who has played imperial assault can comment on how balanced objectives can be achieved.

As for listbuilding, Infinity uses objective-based play. The way they handle it is you know what scenarios are going to be used at a tournament ahead of time, and you bring 2 different squads (for example one squad heavy on specialists for objectives, and one kill-em-all squad). That may be a way to alleviate at least the listbuilding negative.

I do agree that Epic would be the best place to try this. I know epic isn't played regularly, but I personally love the format, and am hoping the release of the Raider will bring more people into trying it

My biggest concern for objectives - that is, the hardest thing to get around - is that objectives often have you diverting fire from the enemy. Most current missions have a difference in total points to offset that decrease in attack, and that's something you can't do in a tournament. The alternative is that both sides have the option of taking the objectives, which is the more natural fit, but kind of gets in the way of immersion for me.

Though, come to think about it, fighting every single battle in an asteroid field lacks some measure of immersion, too...

My biggest concern for objectives - that is, the hardest thing to get around - is that objectives often have you diverting fire from the enemy. Most current missions have a difference in total points to offset that decrease in attack, and that's something you can't do in a tournament. The alternative is that both sides have the option of taking the objectives, which is the more natural fit, but kind of gets in the way of immersion for me.

Though, come to think about it, fighting every single battle in an asteroid field lacks some measure of immersion, too...

Tournaments are not known for their high levels of immersion...

At the moment, one of the reasons we have a meta in the state that it is in, is that tournament play rewards durability above all else.

You can happily spend 60 points on a Han or Decimator, or 40+ on a Phantom, because those ships are excellent at surviving 60 minutes of game time. Even if it's only on 1hp, if you're alive, your opponent gets nothing. Likewise if your swarm loses a couple of 12pt ships but manages to drop a 50pt ship it can then rest relatively easy (although not too easy, there are dice involved!).

I would like to see objectives that change this equation, or an alternative way to score points that doesn't equate to "Toughness = Point Denial = Winning". At the moment the ships that seem to be suffering are the "light" ships such as A-Wings and Interceptor, and the small based "heavy" ships like the Y-Wing and the Defender. However I feel the latter are held back by their point cost rather than the game victory system, and the former due to the prevalence of turrets that render arc-dodging irrelevant.

However I'm at a loss as to how you'd implement something in the game that rewarded taking such ships that didn't also benefit current favourite meta choices such as Phantoms. Some kind of "Space Race" perhaps? A very dense asteroid field that required you to navigate from one end to the other while exchanging fire with the enemy? But then you're using scenario design to cover the weaknesses of ship design, and I'm not sure that's a great way to go either.

A "protect your own objective while destroying the enemies" would actually be interesting to me. Have a token representing a Hypercomm Relay/Sensor Station/Weapons Platform with X HP and X Attack that cannot move but can take actions. First one to lose theirs loses the game. Do you rush all out at the enemy and sacrifice defence? Play heavy defense and rely on a single HLC flanker to go after their objective? I think it could be interesting.

There's also potential for including the objective in the list building stage, such as "In this tournament you have 15pts to spend on upgrading your objective. It has 5HP, 5 Shield, 1 Agility, and has a Crew, System and Cannon slot, no faction-specific cards allowed". Obviously it's more complex, but if you're going to a tourney you can deal with that, right?

I think the biggest barrier to having objective based play and competitive level play intersect is that we don't actually know what a good universal objectives based ruleset looks like for X-Wing. The missions in the core set feel like they were tacked on as an afterthought, and are pretty specifically designed to be played with X-Wings and TIE Fighters. The missions in the other expansions are usually designed for that expansion. Mission Control is the wild west, there could be a great objectives game in there but who knows, hopefully FFG is using it as a crowd sourcing tool to come with their own objectives based rules.

If FFG wants the competitive community to accept objectives based rules as a legitimate format, they really need to endorse an actual objectives based game that is balanced for X-Wing as a whole, not just for the core set and one expansion.

At the moment, one of the reasons we have a meta in the state that it is in, is that tournament play rewards durability above all else.

So, interestingly, objectives based games actually exacerbate this problem rather then fixing it. Objectives games usually require a physical presence on the board to score points, which means durability is more valuable then offense, because offense becomes a means to an end rather than the goal itself.

If you're playing a game that requires you to keep a ship next to an objective for a certain amount of time, you probably want a ship with a lot of HP that can soak up lots of damage without dying and shoot in any direction since it's forced to fly in circles around an objective... Sounds kinda similar to what everyone is currently complaining about right?

I tend to view mission systems as an unmitigated good. Of course, that's assuming they are implemented well. Typically there'd be the standard kill objective, that some lists would remain very good at, but ancillary objectives would open up the tactical options significantly, which at this point is purely a good thing.

Imagine a mad scramble by the DeciPhantom list to murder the X-wing list before it can nab some key objectives, or the trade-off for a swarm between concentrating fire to get kills and scattering to get objectives.

I personally wouldn't mind some sort of objective play Tournaments

CHanges things up some.

Builds that are currently very popular may not do so well

May help other ships that dont see much table time bombers for example.

Maybe the generic ewing pilots will do well in this format

I wouldn't want the current tournament format to disappear, but to have an organized play kit with some cool stuff as prizes under a different format would be a nice change of pace.

Also players who maybe don't do so well in the current format may do better in this format. Different strategy would need to be applied

Current store championship, regional etc etc would stay The same

I believe it was mentioned in the Alex Davey interview post that he did mention something about this.

He liked the idea or something along those lines.

However that doesn't mean it'll happen, but if ffg did come out with something I think it would work well

I would like objectives that you have to attack and destroy rather than objectives you just have to park next to. Each objective destroyed would give you MOV points equal to the opponent's ship with the highest points cost.

That would really turn the Fat Han/Decimator meta on its ear.

At the moment, one of the reasons we have a meta in the state that it is in, is that tournament play rewards durability above all else.

So, interestingly, objectives based games actually exacerbate this problem rather then fixing it. Objectives games usually require a physical presence on the board to score points, which means durability is more valuable then offense, because offense becomes a means to an end rather than the goal itself.

If you're playing a game that requires you to keep a ship next to an objective for a certain amount of time, you probably want a ship with a lot of HP that can soak up lots of damage without dying and shoot in any direction since it's forced to fly in circles around an objective... Sounds kinda similar to what everyone is currently complaining about right?

It depends on the objective. For example, do you just need to reach it as fast as possible (reward straight line speed)? Do you need to reach multiple smaller objectives within a turn limit (rewards maneuverability)? Do you need to stay close to it for consecutive turns (rewards turrets)?

And then of course you can mess with the ability of people to fulfill it. For example, you can reward multiple smaller ships by having the Objective create a stacking debuff on anything that stays near it too long (-1 Attack dice for every turn spent within R1-2 of the objective after the first), or have it surrounded by debris clouds that anything circling it needs to drive through... You could run an interesting "King of the Hill" scenario where the objective is at the centre of a ring of asteroids all at R1 of it, and you get a point if you have the ship closest to it. Good luck circling that with a Decimator... You could reward people for attacking it to bias people towards swarm builds that don't mind chucking a single ships attacks at it, because they have 6 more where it came from, but a two ship list is wasting half it's firepower... There are plenty of ways to reward things other than sheer ship durability.

At the moment, one of the reasons we have a meta in the state that it is in, is that tournament play rewards durability above all else.

So, interestingly, objectives based games actually exacerbate this problem rather then fixing it. Objectives games usually require a physical presence on the board to score points, which means durability is more valuable then offense, because offense becomes a means to an end rather than the goal itself.

If you're playing a game that requires you to keep a ship next to an objective for a certain amount of time, you probably want a ship with a lot of HP that can soak up lots of damage without dying and shoot in any direction since it's forced to fly in circles around an objective... Sounds kinda similar to what everyone is currently complaining about right?

It depends on the objective. For example, do you just need to reach it as fast as possible (reward straight line speed)? Do you need to reach multiple smaller objectives within a turn limit (rewards maneuverability)? Do you need to stay close to it for consecutive turns (rewards turrets)?

And then of course you can mess with the ability of people to fulfill it. For example, you can reward multiple smaller ships by having the Objective create a stacking debuff on anything that stays near it too long (-1 Attack dice for every turn spent within R1-2 of the objective after the first), or have it surrounded by debris clouds that anything circling it needs to drive through... You could run an interesting "King of the Hill" scenario where the objective is at the centre of a ring of asteroids all at R1 of it, and you get a point if you have the ship closest to it. Good luck circling that with a Decimator... You could reward people for attacking it to bias people towards swarm builds that don't mind chucking a single ships attacks at it, because they have 6 more where it came from, but a two ship list is wasting half it's firepower... There are plenty of ways to reward things other than sheer ship durability.

Well, if it's an objective that rewards linear movement speed, then it will still favor Falcons, Decimators, Outriders and Phantoms over small ships. A large ship with a 4 forward and a boost goes just as fast as a small ship with a 5 forward and a boost. The Outrider with Push the Limit and Engine can go even faster by boosting right and barrel rolling left or vice versa.

If the objective is surrounded by asteroids but just requires I have a ship parked there the longest, I'd still take a Fat Han over a swarm, Fat Han is way easier to navigate through asteroids than multiple small ships and is just as durable even when he goes over a rock.

Like I said, if you want to give small ships an edge over turrets, give the objectives a hull value and 0 agility make the turrets pay a higher price for their low offense / points cost. Although even then it would just cause the Turrets to just blow up the small ships that are attacking the objective instead of trying to blow it up themselves.

Missions/Objectives can be awesome. No you may not want to start teaching with an objective and perhaps tournaments will always be mostly (not all) based on total point kill but missions turn the same ole into something cool.

[Edit] rethinking my comments, perhaps a Mission/Objective based is an excellent way to teach a new player. It possibly gives them a simpler squad/ship and a goal. Not that dog fighting isn't fun but so are missions.

Let's keeping asking Fantasy Flight to continue to make improvements to Mission Control

I'd LOVE to see a book or preferably downloadable PDF full of single missions (some campaigns) with pre-built squads.

What if there was a craft each side had to protect.

The craft can move and evade, but no attack.

Objective.

Destroy the craft.

If time is called and either is destroyed, then count ships destroyed.

Kind of like Protect the leader

Maybe there is a new named pilot on the craft. Gives a range buff/debuff to your, or opponents forces.

Just an idea

Or

good ol fashion capture the flag.

Each opponent is given a token that is 3 inches diameter

From there they can set it up anywhere on their side of the board, but has to be range 1 off the edge

Place a crate in the center of the board.

Set up as usual

Ships has to get in range 1 of the crate and us an action to pick it up.

There can be no enemy ships in range 1 of the crate in order to pick it up. So if both are there, you have to kill the other ship(s), or let him fly away, if your now the only ship within range 1 of the crate, you can now use action to pick it up

Destroy a ship carrying the crate, the next ship to get within range and use its action to pick it up gains control over it

Return to the token you placed on your side of the board for 5 pts.

Crate goes back to center if board

Any ship destroyed get 1 pt

If your opponent ship becomes destroyed he can gain a rookie, or academy or cartel spacer within range 1 on his side (depending on what faction your playing)

(the ship reinforcement needs work. Each faction gets ship of equal value.

Z95 fir rebel, scum and tie for imperial maybe)

if you take dmg, fly off your side of the board, and come back next round healed up.

time limit 60 min.

Unlike most other wargames, X-wing does not have a competitive objective-based play format. Yes, the missions included in many expansions do include objectives, but in reality these missions are seldom played, and never played competitively. Ditto for scenarios on Mission Control. Objective-based play has little or no place in X-wing play as of right now - Why?

It’s a question I’ve been asking myself for a while now, and apparently one that has also occurred to the game designers.

I think X-wing doesn’t lend itself to objective based play the way other game systems do in part because of the movement system at the game’s core. Ships almost never occupy the same space on the board for consecutive turns, so holding territory – a common objective, is not feasible. The theme of the game; starfighters dogfighting in space, doesn’t readily lend itself to many classic objectives, in fact. Starpilots can’t lean out of their cockpits to grab important items, for example.

I really liked the OP's post. Well... I completely agree with the OP's original comments, at any rate but I think he is looking in the wrong place or for the wrong thing, Re: Objective Based Games.

X-wing is a dogfight game set in space. If you want to look for ways to make Objective Based Gaming work for X-wing, you need to look at other dogfight games, not land based games. Don't look to WH40K... (well... for anything... IMO). Don't look to Flames of War... Look to aerial combat games like CheckYour Six or Wings of Glory or Richthofen War or Dauntless. Controlling territory is an in appropriate goal/objective for dogfight games without a very specific scenario based reason and specific mechanics for determining such control. Now that I think about it, naval wargames may have some good ideas to borrow, as well.

That said, I think what X-wing needs is more... Reason. More Reasons that the combat is taking place other than the typical no reason at all tournament game. More reason-able objectives. More thought about "Why" things are in the SW universe and how to translate that into a game. A little more thought about this game as a simulation (although a very loose one) of the SW universe and less about XWM as a GAME played with ships from the SW universe. Treat it more as a traditional wargame and less of a competitive boardgame.

Well, that is the way I feel, at any rate... many of you will probably disagree.

Babaganoosh (love the name), keep working on it, I think you are on to something important.

I played a couple scenario games at an FLGS with a friend last year. It was neat. Custom designed, with the big ending being an escort mission, trying to get my shuttle from the previous round across a 3x6. It was fun, but there was a point where the other guy's B-wings just couldn't keep up.

Likewise, tat summer, my secondary playgroup decided we would have an epic chase on a ping pong table. They had a force start on the middle line with reinforcements against the far edge. We had to escort the transport (because it was before Corvette release) to the far side of the table, through a field of mines included with I think the transport. Borrowed some elements from various scenarios, but it was kinda biased. Hard to come up with appropriate point assignments

I've got a few ideas about what kind of objectives could be introduced. Many favor a large number of small ships rather than one big one, but I wouldn't get caught up too much in the current meta while thinking about objective-based play. The metagame will change, as it always has. Objective-based play can exacerbate or ameliorate the rough edges of the metagame, depending on what the objectives are. It's hard to say with absolute certainty exactly how things would play out, but I am confident that a variety of missions could be introduced that promote a variety of lists, rather than reinforce the dominance of one or two list archetypes.

One such objective would be something like the rule I based my 'Vendetta' scenario on in Mission Control. Essentially, the highest PS pilot on each team is worth double the points for MOV. This highly discourages players to spend a lot of their points in one ship, as they often do in the current meta. (This is a little amusing to me since I wrote that mission before the current super-dash v. phantom meta emerged, and maybe before Fat Han was a really big thing).

Another cheap small ship - favorable mission might be one where the objective is to control several satellites spread across the board, which can be captured and re-captured via an action from a nearby ship. I'm cooking up a tournament-compatible scenario involving just this mechanic right now.

I really think the best way to implement objective-based play is in the Epic play format. It really can make use of the extra space of an Epic table, and break the gameplay up into several manageable engagements across the board instead of one big mess.

Don't look to WH40K... (well... for anything... IMO). Don't look to Flames of War... Look to aerial combat games like CheckYour Six or Wings of Glory or Richthofen War or Dauntless. Controlling territory is an in appropriate goal/objective for dogfight games without a very specific scenario based reason and specific mechanics for determining such control.

That said, I think what X-wing needs is more... Reason. More Reasons that the combat is taking place other than the typical no reason at all tournament game. More reason-able objectives. More thought about "Why" things are in the SW universe and how to translate that into a game. A little more thought about this game as a simulation (although a very loose one) of the SW universe and less about XWM as a GAME played with ships from the SW universe. Treat it more as a traditional wargame and less of a competitive boardgame.

Well, that is the way I feel, at any rate... many of you will probably disagree.

Babaganoosh (love the name), keep working on it, I think you are on to something important.

Any insight from those game systems? I've never played a flight-path style game before X-wing and I didn't know they had objectives in other similar games. I'll look into it on my own if you don't know/ can't remember.

I'm with you 100% on the 'Reason' aspect. I write a lot of scenarios on Mission Control and keeping the mission thematic and believable from an in-universe perspective is one of my top goals each time. I end up with a lot of missions involving an attack on small space stations, supply depots, shipping lanes, etc.

Here's a short list of the objectives I've used or plan to use in future MC scenarios:

assassinate: destroy a specific enemy ship

Reconnaissance: fly a ship to a point, perform a 'recon' action, and escape off a friendly table edge

Target attack/defend: Destroy a specific container/ immobile huge ship counting as a space station / minefield

Satellite Control: Take control of one or more satellites via slicing and hold it for a length of time

Escape: Fly ships off an enemy table edge

Jam*: disable enemy defense systems (turrets?) to allow other ships to make an attack run *-best in multi-objective epic scenarios

Grab: Fly over a container to steal it and escape off a friendly board edge

Another way to add variety is of course to introduce different terrain and deployment configurations, such as more or fewer asteroids/debris fields, minefields, larger/smaller deployment zones, etc. An impractical favorite of mine is a drifting derelict freighter I came up with for my 'Junkyard' scenario.

Here's a nice goofy one I came up with the other day:

Catch The Pigeon.

Rebel Squadron.
Tycho with Refit, PTL, Expert Handling, Experimental Interface.
3 x Gold Squadron pilots with Ion Cannon Turret.

Opposing Squadron - any 100 point squadron of a single faction.

Objective.
The opposing player must destroy Tycho before the Rebel player runs out of stress tokens.

Special rules.

Gold Squadron pilots may not perform primary weapon attacks and may not attack ships that have already been assigned an Ion token.
The Rebel player starts the game with 33 stress tokens (this is probably not enough) - each time one of his ships gains a stress token it is added to his pool of used tokens, each time he sheds a stress token it is put back into the unused pool.

Once the Rebel player has no more stress tokens left in the unused pool the game ends and the Rebel player wins.

If the opposing side destroys Tycho before all the stress tokens are used up, then he wins.

It's interesting. Looking at Imperial Assault and Armada, it's clear that FFG is now thinking in terms of objectives whereas they weren't doing that for X-Wing. Personally, I think Epic format sounds fun (if I ever get enough ships for it) and the scenarios are entertaining diversions, but I don't mind if X-Wing stays primarily a dogfighting game. We have Armada and Imperial Assault to quench our objective-seeking thirst.

I actually think the fact that we're all playing deathmatch shows how good the game is. I couldn't stand regular death match formats in other table tops and I suspect Im not alone there. For me to see x wing be fun on such a simple level is great.

For a long life I think this game needs objective play. If you take a look at most competitive games the "death match" is usually the most popular game type. I play a lot of FPS Video games and the death match is always far and away the most popular style of game format. For me though I find death match uninteresting and I rarely ever play it. I need some sort of other objective to make it interesting. I get tired of death match in X-Wing also. I have played most of the scenarios from the core set through wave 4. The lambda scenario is especially well designed and very fun and I have played it a number of times. We need an official campaign!!!