I know the rules state that the asteroids are placed but why are the asteroids stationary? By all accounts Asteroids do move in space so why are they stationary in the game? I have talked to a few who have played the game and they are working on ways to incorporate them moving at the beginning of each turn

Asteroids can enough of a pain without moving. Any competitive game will not have moving asteroids, but for casual games there's nothing to stop you from coming up with some house rules that allow movement. All you'd need would be a scatter dice and then decide on how far each one moves, and what happens if it drifts into a ship when it does.

At some point, theme has to start giving way to practical concerns. If the asteroids did move at the start of each turn, it would chew up valuable time and add another thing that could potentially ruin a game if forgotten. It wouldn't add enough to the game in return to be worth the hassle, at least for the base game.

I understand that tournaments have a time limit and I get that but for house games or missions I don't see how they will take away from it either. But would it really affect the tournaments time limit?

I understand that tournaments have a time limit and I get that but for house games or missions I don't see how they will take away from it either. But would it really affect the tournaments time limit?

Rolling 6d4 to determine in what direction the rocks slide, fighting over which edge to slide them from, then moving them...you're adding a-whole-nother set of Movements to the game. Now instead of getting ~15 turns per 60', you're down to closer to 10. As if the fragile Imperials weren't already underrepresented in the meta, this would ensure that a player's ability to buy enough HP and hide would be more valuable than blowing ships off the table.

I understand that tournaments have a time limit and I get that but for house games or missions I don't see how they will take away from it either.

It's not so much that it takes anything away from the game, because it really wouldn't and would add something pretty interesting. For house games and missions, go for your life. But in terms of standard* and competitive gameplay, it doesn't really add enough to get around the extra complications it could cause.

For example, let's say that the rocks move at the start of each round, before dials are set (so players can account for the new positions). Two people are playing, and late in the game they forget to move the rocks until they're halfway through moving ships. Now what do they do? They can't reset their dials because they each have information on what the other wanted to do. And if they move the rocks now then their maneuvers haven't accounted for them.

And then you have the extra time it chews up, which wouldn't be a huge amount but could easily be the difference in not getting that extra round that means the game ends properly instead of going to time.

It's a fun idea, but it's unfortunately impractical for standard*/competitive play.

* For lack of a better word.

You would be surprised, even with how quick this game can be, how fast tourney games can go.

Plus, I know I defo wouldn't want to have to deal with that at the start of each turn while stressing about the game I'm in.

As others have said, it would just pollute the game with more rules and more stuff to do each turn.

Part of the appeal of this game is that it is quick, with relatively clear rules and quick interactions. There isn't a lot of extraneous 'fluff' to bog down the game. Having the asteroids move would do exactly that.

As the good Dr says, moving asteroids would bog the game down. There's a whole bunch of things this game should have, but it's pretty clear they've been omitted in order to keep the gameplay moving at an acceptable pace. It's supposed to be representing the rapid dogfights of Star Wars, and it does that very well. Personally I don't like games with asteroids. I know there's asteroids floating around in space, but does every single battle have to happen in an asteroid field? I mean they call that big vacuum "space" for a reason right?

Static asteroids are far more believable than space combat in a fixed two-dimensional plane...

This topic has also been discussed many, many times before. A search on here will give you lots of ideas that others have come up with before, and you and you can use or modify to your level of satisfaction.

This topic has also been discussed many, many times before. A search on here will give you lots of ideas that others have come up with before, and you and you can use or modify to your level of satisfaction.

Will do thank you.

If the answer to the question 'Will this be fun?' is yes, then go for it.

At least one of the special missions that come with the large and huge expansions had moving asteroids if I remember correctly. Maybe the Raider?

Before that though, we played a game with this by just making up rules on the spot. Placed some asteroids on the table, left some off. Picked an asteroid edge and direction of travel. Each end phase one asteroid entered from the asteroid edge. We rolled a red die twice and the symbols that came up determined which portion of the edge the asteroid entered on and how fast the asteroid went - 1, 2, 3, or 4 straight. If an asteroid passed through or landed on a ship, use the overlap rules. We had asteroids moving at all different speeds making planning our moves tricky, and any maneuvers near the asteroid edge were very risky but thrilling because you never knew where the next asteroid would appear or how fast it would move. I highly recommend making up some simple rules and trying them out.

Ok, so this is interesting. First of all, the asteroids are just a game mechanic. But, the static asteroids in the game we have are generally unrealistic in real space, but moving asteroids that close to each other in real space is even more unrealistic, because of gravity.

Asteroids in asteroid fields aren't that close together. The local gravity of each asteroid would simply attract them to each other forming larger asteroids, until all the smaller objects in the local space have been consumed into one large rock. Then the larger rocks would slowly start to attract each other until there were no other objects in the largest object's sphere of gravitational influence. So, real asteroid fields have asteroids separated by thousands of miles.

You could see a somewhat static arrangement of space rocks within a planetary ring formation. In that situation the objects are being held in place mostly by the planets gravity, but even then the rocks will be mostly stationary in relation to each other as they orbit the planet.

Any asteroid field with rocks that are moving in relation to each other is an asteroid field with a very small lifetime. Movement of the rocks would only hasten the likelihood that the rocks would be propelled into each other. This would cause the asteroid field to quickly become an asteroid field of large rocks separated by thousands of miles between them, which is the natural state of things with asteroids.

So, thematically, the static asteroids actually make slightly more sense, if you accept that maybe the entire field is orbiting a larger planetary body (even then it's a stretch). But, moving asteroids are just very unlikely in a large field of them. So rare, that it would be unlikely that anyone would ever have the opportunity to have a fighter battle amongst them.

Empire Strikes Back asteroid field was flat out wrong. An asteroid field like that is very unlikely to exist. That doesn't make it a bad movie, in fact it's probably still the best StarWars movie to date. Nor does it make the asteroid chase scene faulty, it's a fun scene.

If you want to play with moving rocks, by all means do. Just realize that you are creating an even more unrealistic thematic experience.

But these aren't really very large asteroids. Most mention of asteroids in our solar system's belt only discusses those that are 1 km or larger. Those are undeniably millions of miles apart. Anything smaller must be difficult or impossible to see and catalogue, so aren't considered. The ones in X-Wing are a few dozen meters, and it doesn't seem implausible they'd be relatively close. For moving asteroids, maybe they're fragments from the collision of larger asteroids, or a larger asteroid hit by a comet passing through the belt.

How about moving debris fields? A ship traveling at some velocity was destroyed and much of its remains kept the momentum and are now drifting through the battlespace.

If you're bringing logic in why can you see more than one? In a real asteroid field you couldn't see the nearest neighbours with the naked eye.

This is why we refer to this as an "Asteroid Thicket": its far too dense to be an asteroid field.

You guys are bringing up some good points. Thank you for that.

wish there was no restriction on placement!!

I heard a guy moved all the asteroids in one direction at the beginning of each turn using the 1 straight template. I tried it once and didn't care for it too much, but have at it.

wish there was no restriction on placement!!

No, you really don't.

The restrictions on placement are there to ensure that the rocks actually take part in the game. If there were no restrictions then players would put them all together in a corner and ignore them.

I would place them along the sides to block the normally always open perimeter routes!!

Movement would all be relative and the ships would likely follow the same relative movement.

Static asteroids are far more believable than space combat in a fixed two-dimensional plane...

But technically aren't the static asteroids more fixed on a 2 dimensional plane than the other miniatures because they are 3 dimensional?