Some interesting questions were raised last night during my weekly practice session with a fellow "competitive" x wing player. Does the introduction of prize rulers, templates, and other in-game tokens intimidate new or "casual" players?

Mynock Squadron Podcast mentioned this a while back where a guy showed up with his acrylic templates, range ruler, shield, focus and evade tokens all won from various tournaments. The opponent made the comment something along the lines of, "Oh, it's going to be that kind of game."

Does the introduction of usable in-game trophies cause an immediate intimidation factor to the opponent before the first dials are placed? Can using your spoils of war unintentionally ruin a players Fly Casual attitude in a non competitive game?

I, for one, am a huge fan of the acrylic prizes. They are so pretty. My attitude playing someone who has something I don't is... I want to be good enough to win what he or she has and I will practice my butt off until I have that. But I am a competitive person.

What is one to do when faced with someone who automatically shuts down any hope of a pleasant X wing game if he or she thinks you are flaunting your "better than me" prizes all throughout the game?

Anyway, interested to hear what the rest of you guys think... I'm bored at work and it's a Friday

The use of fancy in-game prizes don't intimidate me. They make me want them. They are........... precious

Given that so many of them are available on eBay I'd say not. However, I would be intimidated to find out that Paul Heaver is the guy on the other side of the table!

I prefer the "any given sunday" approach to all my games. Figure out what they are doing quick, counter it as best as you can with the tools you have.

I will say that if you are winning a TON, paint your ships. That releases any edge as people then have some common understanding that you just love the game, and will appreciate playing against such awesome looking ships.

Half of the swag out there is purchased from winners anyways. I don't bring mine to game night typically, but this is not the reason. I'm just tired of the slow bleed of accidentally-taken acrylic tokens.

Whenever someone comments on my regional templates, I assure them that I won them largely through luck. Which is true! I got tabled 100-0 in my first match at that tourney, and only made top two because Richard Hsu couldn't roll more than one hit with Wedge at range 1 against Boba Fett, even with a target lock.

I'd think "Cool, where can I get some?" To me your spoils of war would be less intimidating than seeing you lay out an expensive squadron which also happens to tell me you are willing to pay to win. When you can often buy those acrylics instead of needing to win them the stigma of using them goes down a little except it is still telling me that you are probably willing/able to pay more to play this game than I am.

I don't have a lot of X-wing "bling". And whenever I set up across from another player who has all the cool templates and tokens and alt. cards, I get excited thinking I'll be playing someone who's pretty familiar with the game.

I also get jealous....

Some interesting questions were raised last night during my weekly practice session with a fellow "competitive" x wing player. Does the introduction of prize rulers, templates, and other in-game tokens intimidate new or "casual" players?

Mynock Squadron Podcast mentioned this a while back where a guy showed up with his acrylic templates, range ruler, shield, focus and evade tokens all won from various tournaments. The opponent made the comment something along the lines of, "Oh, it's going to be that kind of game."

Does the introduction of usable in-game trophies cause an immediate intimidation factor to the opponent before the first dials are placed? Can using your spoils of war unintentionally ruin a players Fly Casual attitude in a non competitive game?

I, for one, am a huge fan of the acrylic prizes. They are so pretty. My attitude playing someone who has something I don't is... I want to be good enough to win what he or she has and I will practice my butt off until I have that. But I am a competitive person.

What is one to do when faced with someone who automatically shuts down any hope of a pleasant X wing game if he or she thinks you are flaunting your "better than me" prizes all throughout the game?

Anyway, interested to hear what the rest of you guys think... I'm bored at work and it's a Friday

It's important in this case to keep modest attitude, and not use them a sign of intimidation. Though I understand how it can be taken that way.

This is why I decided that in our league our kits would get distributed based on a participation system, this way everyone has an equal chance at the top stuff.

As far as Store/Regional and higher rewards, I'm sorry. Those are hard earned and there's no way someone should be leaving those at home to protect someones feelings. That sounds unreasonable.

Given that so many of them are available on eBay I'd say not. However, I would be intimidated to find out that Paul Heaver is the guy on the other side of the table!

I prefer the "any given sunday" approach to all my games. Figure out what they are doing quick, counter it as best as you can with the tools you have.

I will say that if you are winning a TON, paint your ships. That releases any edge as people then have some common understanding that you just love the game, and will appreciate playing against such awesome looking ships.

man i dunno if i could do better than the punishing one all the weathering got ****

It happens. I've gotten several comments on my Regionals dice when I dump them oout. My response is always, "Believe me, there's no reason to worry."

I wouldn't be intimidated, I just wanna have fun and learn.

It's not like the fate a planet is on the line or anything.

When I saw them .. I just thought "Huh, fella plays a lot more X-Wing than me ... lucky blighter!!"

People who make negative comments pertaining to snap judgments based on the swag the other guy has aren't flying casual.

Someone has some regional dice, and so they assume it's going to be an unfun game? Maybe, but not because of the guy with regional dice. Lighten up.

I have noticed this with new players in our playgroup. I introduce myself and we decide to play a game and I ask them what faction they want to play and picks a basic list of another faction and decide I will play a fair but not to hard against them since they are new. Then i put down all my "swag" regional templates, dice, tokens and all that. Of course it's a bit intimidating and some people comment on that like:
woah, so you have been playing for a while ey? or: oh so this will be a loss for me.

Everytime though I say the same thing, I talk about my fist gamenight with the playgroup. I got there played three games where I lost hard all matches but had a good time. Then later that same year I won my fist regional and got these templates, so anyone can do it. I can see how it can be intimidating to new players but It's fun to display some swag after playing for some years and it's a good conversation starter about tournaments and the like.

I'm lucky enough to own some prizes won in various tourneys, but if i meet a player i don't know i sometimes play the dumb noob role, pretending that's my first tourney and asking some silly dumb questions in the firts couple of turns (like... do i keep my TL or isit discarded at the end of the turn, for example). I simply say that my brother won them and gave them to me for my first experience.

My opponent will think he got lucky to play against such a noob and may be less focused then he should be, giving me quite a big advantage.

Yeah, i'm a bad person

I was trying to figure out how you could unintentionally activate the intimidate card.

I played a new kid a few days ago. Sadly I was gearing for super competitive games and it was moderately apparent he was kinda new. I think he was a little off put by some of the things we had. Though, I only have two litko non-prize rulers and some stress tokens.

I think he was more intimidated by the fact that we were so well versed in everything and were fast and everything was second nature.

Given that so many of them are available on eBay I'd say not. However, I would be intimidated to find out that Paul Heaver is the guy on the other side of the table!

If you know who Paul Heaver is, you probably aren't that new or casual a player.

If my opponent flashes any of that fancy acrylic stuff at me, I look him dead in the eye, wink, and say "I'm going to take you out sugartits... and I don't mean on a date"

There's a lot of those cool official FFG swag around here. I usually ask people about the cool tokens if it's not obvious where they're from (i.e. No point asking about 2015 national templates). I got some cool stories in exchange, some of that stuff is way more exclusive than we think and can't actually be won. Those tokens were gorgeous and I will figure out a way to get some!

I've been beaten by players with faded, beat up cardboard templates, and I've beaten players with fancy acrylic ones. If someone's going to decide "it's that kind of game" from your components, the problem is in their headspace, not with anything their opponent is doing.

usually when I take out my new acrylic templates (not prizes), many people concede on the spot. true story.

on the other hand, some people are just easily impressed. yesterday I took out my 2 ghosts and my opponent was intimidated as if I had been playing double ghosts for years, when it was just my first try.

I wouldn't say I'm intimidated, more excited. If I win against a player much more experienced than me: awesomeness! If I lose, I'll not only have learned a lot, I also have the perfect excuse: He's obviously way more experienced than me!

I've gotten a few comments about my Nationals templates and Regionals dice dice (2x12 of each type), but I always try to cheer them up telling them not to worry - and when they also beat me then I compliment them and when they don't, I ask if they want some advice/comments from my pov.

I did however grow tired of the look of the dice and swapped back to the good old core-set ones recently.

Why would anyone or anything intimidate you in an X-Wing game? Seriously now. If a piece of plastic gives you pause, I think you may be overthinking this by quite a bit.