Give me a currently viable list you can make from wave 1&2.

TIE Swarm.

With or without Howlrunner.

8 Academy Pilots would do very against this meta - they block the crap out of Scouts and Aces while torching Shuttles and Ghosts more efficiently than any other ship.

Honestly, in casual games I often don't even ask whether friends have the cards. For most people I know it's not an issue, and a lot of us just bring squad-builder lists anyway. It saves some time and effort putting a list together and breaking it down if you don't have to dig all the stuff out of your binder.

^this^

In my usual (if not only) gaming-group we have agreed to use the squad-builder to play whatever you want.

No proxying miniatures.

Maybe use the wrong base-cardboard to test a pilot you don't have.

Yep. Totally agree. I proxy stuff all the time in casual games by just bringing a squad builder printout. Especially if a card or few comes from spoiled (but not released) components. For tourneys I regularly lend out items I don't use in my list to help others.

I will never proxy a model.

When ffg starts selling gold ammo then x-wing becomes pay to win.

Are guidance chips not gold ammo? ;-)

I get what you mean, but you seem to ignore the standpoint of the "other guys".

As pay to win is a term without fix definition there are a lot of grey areas. For me Warhammer is over the line, never bothered with that, and I completely admit that the only reason I don't fly x1s is because I am pissed at FFG for placing that upgrade were those are, which is reason enough for me not to buy the raider nor TIE/AD, but as several people pointed out: I don't have to buy those, because the game offers plenty of strong options. Sure, a competitive list is usually around $200, but I am rather free in what I buy with that money and I am basically paying for the models, can freely use proxy cards in most situations and can just fine rent upgrades for tournaments as well. So from my perspective it is fine. Others might think different and buy games which don't have a business model which tries to force you into constant upgrades to play competitively. Because we need to be clear about that, the ever changing meta of X-Wing is part of the business model, it quite a healthy model imo, but it is clearly a business model aiming at our wallets.

I played a guy tonight he used a micro machine Z95 and proxy cards mixed with some real ships and I had two very enjoyable games. What does it really matter? Is not the game to have fun and why should only people that have disposable income play. I know a lot of guys that are not well off and it has never bothered me at all. If it bothers you do not play with them.

I played a guy tonight he used a micro machine Z95 and proxy cards mixed with some real ships and I had two very enjoyable games. What does it really matter? Is not the game to have fun and why should only people that have disposable income play. I know a lot of guys that are not well off and it has never bothered me at all. If it bothers you do not play with them.

There is a simple answer to that:

The business model of FFG for X-Wing seems to require that people buy upgrade cards for tournaments. It might be not the best reason, but it is not totally unreasonable either. Considering how cheap X-Wing is, I can give you as well a very good reason why you should not play it if your disposable income does not even cover for that: Getting more disposable income should be a priority over playing X-Wing.

I know, I am cynical jerk, but at the same time you can not deny that we are talking here mostly over just a few hundred dollars to get your first (few) competitive lists, and very low monthly investments to keep expand your available list over the years or update to current meta. Outside of ridiculous cheap video games very few hobbies are really as cheap as X-Wing.

I played a guy tonight he used a micro machine Z95 and proxy cards mixed with some real ships and I had two very enjoyable games. What does it really matter? Is not the game to have fun and why should only people that have disposable income play. I know a lot of guys that are not well off and it has never bothered me at all. If it bothers you do not play with them.

If you're going to go with proxies you should go all in.

I'd prefer people didn't proxy inserts or ships, but I really don't care if they don't have the cards outside a tournament. As long as they have a printed list I'm good.

Really, no need to be retentive about such things.

FFG's model only punishes tournament players if your playing at home there's no need to buy a raider just for the advanced fix as its easy to find the cards rules online.

Sure it's rough if the guy opposite you has a bigger budget and is running a list you'd like to if you had the macaroons but he's not automatically won, you might be the better player and out fly him, his actions may anger the dice gods and they curse his dice.

I never run top tier lists myself but I've faced them with my defenders and still got victories.

Skill and luck win battles not your list, this isn't warmahordes or 40k.

Then by all means prove me wrong. Show me a list like that in the cut at a regional or better.

That'd assume that every possible competitive list is represented.

What's the cheapest competitive list? I don't know, you don't know. Because pretty much nobody's looking for it. High level players have usually been at this for a while and have no qualms about buying a lot of stuff. The only players looking for the cheapest competitive list are the new ones, and they're not likely to be making cuts at regionals because they're new.

Cost is no issue for High level players, only effectiveness, I agree. Therefore, if high level players don't use a listthinkn hink of no other reason than they think it's not good enough.

If Han/Poe is not showing up at the top, it means that either top players aren't fielding it (because they consider it weaker than whatever they decide to field instead) or they are fielding it and losing, proving that the list is weaker than what their opponents are fielding.

Again, you're assuming every top tier list is known/every possible list is tested.

Given top tier players usually have all the stuff the chances of them making a list that doesn't require a lot of expansions is low simply because of the way the upgrade cards work. Consider every possible list there is. The overwhelming majority are cross expansion. I'd run the numbers if I had the time, but if you have all the stuff anyway then the chances of you building a list that only draws from a small number of expansions is fairly low.

I generally don't like proxy. In any game, in any hobby. I came from wargaming (I have also played MtG but with no OP ambitions). For me the cards are "upgrades". The essential part of what you've got is the ship and the pilot.

Now, my opinion is slightly different for Casual and Organized play:

Casual:

When you don't have the upgrade, you shouldn't play it. There is enough upgrades on every ship so you can use your imagination and use the upgrades you have bought along with your ships. It will even make the game a little more interesting.

Tournament:

I think it's just decent behavior to own the cards you are here paying, in order to honor the TO and other players who payed for their upgrades. I don't really care about the money - if I don't want to pay, I just don't - but it seems unfair to me when I see a guy who bought Rebel Transport for R5-P9 and another one boasting about printing it. It's esspecially unfair when the proxy guy wins and go home with the prize, while the one paying is just... not. But that's another story. So... be fair, buy the cards you want to play on competetive level.

One more thing, that's a testing. I understand when you want to try something out before you make the purchase. But when you find out it works well for you...GO BUY IT! Don't show me the same proxy on 6th or 7th game we play together.

And there is one thing that drive me nuts. Playing with cards, not yet released. I don't care it's "on the boat". I just don't like it. Really I don't like proxy. Like... a lot.

I don't understand this logic. The guy who bought the card "deserves" to win because he paid money for it. The guy who printed it does not. Is that what tournaments should be about? The who who paid the most money for cards deserves to win? Never mind that the printed card guy played better? How on earth does paying for a rebel transport honour the TO anyway?

It's quite not what I said. I don't really care about the money. I care for the fair rules for everyone (FFG included). If I would be runing a race against Usain Bolt and I had the best running shoes ever and Bolt would go bare foot, he would still be better and noone cares. On the other hand, on the olympics, the rules say you should have shoes... If you catch my drift.

The same way I am sure Paul Heaver would destroy my tournament list with just three cartel spacers without upgrades. I'm not trying to say "Who pays wins." I am saying: "Who pays has the cards." That's a difference.

I don't understand this logic. The guy who bought the card "deserves" to win because he paid money for it. The guy who printed it does not. Is that what tournaments should be about? The who who paid the most money for cards deserves to win? Never mind that the printed card guy played better? How on earth does paying for a rebel transport honour the TO anyway?

The outcome of a lottery is determined randomly based only on a purchase. How that relates to X-Wing in an way whatsoever is beyond me.

Just go steal something from someone else and leave the fans of this game alone to live in our fantasy where people are good and got each other's and FFG's back. Plain enough

Sorry for saying our fantasy.. I meant my fantasy.. it's this place I live where people enjoy each other's company with out wanting to take advantage of anyone. I can't expect many of you to understand that. It's a choice, to be honest one that has left me with very little. You go ahead and take pride in taking from someone else... Justify it however you like but 14 pages. I'm ashamed for you if you steal, It's not because you need it

Oh, poor you: so honest and kind you're left with little, thanks to your generous heart, while you're surrounded by treacherous thiefs who even dare discussing their evil deeds here!

Seriously?

I find you to be very pedantic.

As long as it's a casual friendly game I never care about proxying cards or miniatures. Nor the quality of them. Sometimes a friend has just torn a piece of paper and just written on it "Tie X1 + Advanced Targetting Computer" and it's fine, we both know their cost and effect. And one time I used a tie interceptor miniature instead of a tie fighter one since I didn't have one on hand at the time I improvised the list.

It just boils down on what's more important to you. Having fun with a friend or promoting a hostile competitive atmosphere. I'm glad I don't demand my friend to purchase a $100 raider to get two cards and I'm glad he didn't send me home to pick up one of my tie fighters.

On tournaments I agree on enforcing all genuine materials, if only to make sure no shenanigans are in play, like a ship card with altered stats that lead to verifications and waste of time.

I'll be damned if I'm reading all 14 pages, but I have a question for the community...

When you proxy a card, do you have a physical proxy? I mean a slip of paper with "Palpatine" written on, or a glass bead, or a distinctive dice or whatever?

I play the game because it's fun and have only recently dipped my toe in the tournament scene (watch me get wrecked at Regionals on 2nd July) but I like having the cards in front of me during a game. For me, they're the physical representation of the upgrade and having an empty void in their place just seems weird.

I'll be damned if I'm reading all 14 pages, but I have a question for the community...

When you proxy a card, do you have a physical proxy? I mean a slip of paper with "Palpatine" written on, or a glass bead, or a distinctive dice or whatever?

I play the game because it's fun and have only recently dipped my toe in the tournament scene (watch me get wrecked at Regionals on 2nd July) but I like having the cards in front of me during a game. For me, they're the physical representation of the upgrade and having an empty void in their place just seems weird.

I just print the cards as part of my printed list. Except for tourneys, because than I bring the cards anyway. ;-)

TL:DR all 14 pages but felt like chiming in.

Me personally, I don't proxy. If my opponents want to, its fine.

Standard caveat. Sanctioned tournaments all materials necessary.

Sorry for saying our fantasy.. I meant my fantasy.. it's this place I live where people enjoy each other's company with out wanting to take advantage of anyone. I can't expect many of you to understand that. It's a choice, to be honest one that has left me with very little. You go ahead and take pride in taking from someone else... Justify it however you like but 14 pages. I'm ashamed for you if you steal, It's not because you need it

Aaand welcome to my ignore list.

I'm going to stay out of the PTW side of the pool and say that while I do usually have all the copies of the cards I need for the squadron I build, I wouldn't bemoan somebody who wanted to run 6 Alpha Squadrons with AT and only had 1 AT card in his hand.

I personally refuse to play FFG's game of buy X of A faction to get an upgrade generally needed for Y of B faction. I'm an Imperial player. My cousin plays Rebel. We've pooled our funding together in order to get the expansions we want for each faction. We use eBay to buy the cards we want from the expansions that we don't want because it is simply cheaper to do so at the bottom line. We don't care that you get an extra model or cards that we don't want for our builds. That's pretty much a waste of plastic, cardboard, and most importantly money that we could spend on other things (like the expansions that we DO want).

This is really one of the weaknesses of a card based game. Hate on it all you want, but 40k has an excellent way of fixing imbalances introduced to the game. Just release a new round of codexes that put out new rules on how the miniatures perform. GW sucks at doing this (or at least treats customers like idiots when doing so), but at least you don't have to buy a pack of Tyranid models in order to get the latest round of Gray Knight figures to keep that your GK army competitive.

In a similar fashion, I'm not going to buy multiple Starviper expansions just for the AT cards that they contain. I can get more than twice as many for the same price online and not have a small flock of butterflies sitting in my case weeping about their lack of use. Every model in my case gets used once in awhile (my cousin even brings out the E-Wing, God bless Corran Horn).

I bought the Raider because I wanted to use the Raider. The T/A cards were certainly icing on the cake, but I would never shell out that kind of money for something that stays on my shelf instead of getting time on the table. This means that I'll certainly buy Imperial Veterans since I already have 2 Defenders and would like to try fielding 3. But unless I plan on sending a Defender blob into epic (and I just well might), the extra title cards are going to come from online instead of buying a second IV set because I don't want a model that is going to just sit around gathering dust because it is impossible to field in a normal 100 point game. Having bought Imperial Aces, I HAVE to go the online route if for whatever reason I wanted to go the 6 Alpha route because FFG didn't include the cards in the expansion.

I'll also point out the other good reasoning behind proxying. Stuff gets lost. Stuff gets damaged. Stuff gets stolen. FFG doesn't have a method of replacing a single card that slipped off the table or into the maw of the Rancors that we call toddlers. I personally have had to replace one of the AT cards I bought. I'm not going to hold others to that standard in a casual game because I'd rather have more people playing the game than giving up on it because they don't have the slip of paper necessary to field the squadron they want to play.

I had to do that myself at a tournament because all of the sudden I couldn't find my cloak token for my Phantom. I told the TO and my opponents that I'd be using my Raider brace token in lieu of the actual one. If any flips were given, they weren't voiced. In the end it was a distinct symbol to show that my plastic ship got 2 extra green dice and couldn't shoot.

I'm also not going to fault a guy for giving me a written out list as long as I understand how all the upgrades work and they're accurate. Heck, there's a player at my LGS that even prints out the errata for the upgrades on his list on the same sheet. That makes it extremely easy to see what the latest changes to the cards are without flipping out your phone and scrolling through the FAQs.

I myself draw the line at proxying the ships and bomb/mine tokens. It's not WHF AOS where you have to bankrupt yourself of money and time buying and painting dozens of models. But that sentiment is shared by all the X-Wing players at my LGS. Haven't yet had a guy put in Micro Machines so I'm not sure how I would react to that.

I guess there's different levels of proxying and in casual play it just depends on where you put the boundaries of fanboyishly handing your money over to FFG, acceptable standards of play, and facepalm levels of cheapness.

On tournaments I agree on enforcing all genuine materials, if only to make sure no shenanigans are in play, like a ship card with altered stats that lead to verifications and waste of time.

If intentional acts are your concern, then what stops someone from producing a modified duplicate that appears to be original? Do you think that allowing proxies would, in some way, increase the likelihood of intentionally modifying card text? Do you even consider that a reasonable option for cheating (particularly when, as X-Wing tournaments randomly match opponents, the offending individual could end up playing someone with the exact same card)? Wouldn't people be more likely to discover such stupid cheater if they knew that the card was a proxy and were, therefore, on notice that it, if the individual who created it is a full blown moron, modified in some way?

Sorry for saying our fantasy.. I meant my fantasy.. it's this place I live where people enjoy each other's company with out wanting to take advantage of anyone. I can't expect many of you to understand that. It's a choice, to be honest one that has left me with very little. You go ahead and take pride in taking from someone else... Justify it however you like but 14 pages. I'm ashamed for you if you steal, It's not because you need it

Aaand welcome to my ignore list.

It is always amusing when people feel the need to share that they are ignoring someone. You don't actually care to ignore him - this is the internet and you can scroll right past whatever you do not feel like reading. You just wanted to say that. This may come as a surprise to you, but no one cares.

why not take it to extremes? would it be acceptable if somebody showed up with a bunch of micro machines and printed cards, home made cut up brown cardboard templates and 8 sided dice that had home made scribbles on them to represent the various hits crits etc? now would it make a difference if the person could actually afford the real thing? or would you rather just have the "Mooch" player who wanders in and always asks to use your stuff but never buys his or her own stuff? but still manages to get the latest "magic" packs every week?? I personally dont mind lending my stuff as i think it will help grow the game.However usually when I go to a game store to play I only bring my travel pack which usually has only ONE list and or a few extra cards at best..