I’d like to share my experience with X-Wing, as a new player, and long time collector. I hope this encourages folks new to the hobby to take part in events with others at your local game store, if you’re lucky enough to have one in your area.

I began collecting X-Wing miniatures back when it first came out. My background in gaming was specific to role-playing games like D&D and Pathfinder; however I loved miniatures games but really didn’t have the time to assemble and paint them. I would normally frequent my local game store for the latest rule book for whatever RPG I was playing and while browsing the store I came across the first wave of X-Wing miniatures and immediately drawn to them for two reasons. I was, and still am, a huge Star Wars fan. The other reason was the level of detail in the miniatures; I knew these would look perfect on my desk at home.

So now fast forward three years later, hundreds of dollars spent on miniatures and sets later, I finally gathered up my stuff and played X-Wing at my local game store this past Saturday. This would be officially my second game ever played and not only that, this past Saturday was the winter tournament for our store, just a friendly tournament nothing serious. So being nervous, I spoke with the organizers, letting them know I was new. Not only was it totally cool to be the new guy, but they overwhelmingly welcomed me and had no problems answering my many questions throughout the day. Each player I was paired up with was very welcoming and was glad to help me learn the system better.

I played a Han Shot First squadron, 100 points, taking the list from a PDF I found online as a nice easy squadron to play. So we began a little after 1PM in the afternoon with 14 players, if I remember correctly. This was the largest turnout for X-Wing players in the history of the store, so that was pretty awesome to see the community gathered together.

My first game was against a Vader squad and shockingly I won, didn’t lose any ships in the process. Second pairing was with one of the guys who help’s run the X-Wing group at the store. It was a well fought game, both of us ended up losing quite a few ships, but ultimately he won the game, but it was a learning experience and I was just shocked I made it to the second round. Points were calculated and I made it to round three. This time I was playing a friendly guy who had played in regional tournaments. In this game I was going up against a Tie swarm, named pilots but I don’t remember which ones. This game lasted the longest and ended up with my one Rookie Pilot X-Wing vs. one Tie Fighter; we both pulled K-turns and jousted. Apparently the dice were on my side, not to mention shields, but I managed to destroy him and won the round. The organizer calculated points again and I just managed to have enough to points to move to the final four.

So at this point it was about 6:30PM, I was having a blast and very humbled that everyone was awesome enough to help answer questions I had. I started the day convinced that I would lose all my games but just wanted to attend to get some games under my belt and meet the other players. I was also late for dinner with my family, so I conceded my place and let the next highest point total take my place in the final four. I left with a dice bag, munitions markers, and an alternate art Gunner card.

Bottom line, I had a blast playing and highly recommend anyone who has an interest in X-Wing to hunt down players and join them. I came home with a new confidence in myself and have re-read through the rule book a couple more times to make sure I understood things even better now that I have some experience. I now have a couple new squadrons and I’m eagerly looking forward to this Saturday and our official store tournament at the end of the month.

Hey GalacticGM

Thanks for taking the time to write that up. That's an awesome story and you certainly must be a pretty switched on player/gamer to be able to pick up from your second game and have a run of success like that! I'm planning on attending a few tournaments this year and hope to have some skill/luck like you.

Thanks again and great job!

Great write-up! I too am new and have spent $$$ in the last month to amass the ships I have. I'll be practicing a few times over the next three weeks before our store championship. There's another store championship that a buddy and I might go to at the end of March. Thanks for the story and I'm glad to see that longtime players were both encouraging and accommodating!!