I see where you are coming from Ben, I have stinker favorites too and it's not really about winning but balance. Regardless of what that article says this game is not balanced, at least not in the sense all ships are equal. Aces require serious movement prep, bombers require action economy, turrents well turrents don't require much but you get the idea. It might be fun pushing your favorite ship around and winning may not be important but shouldn't the goal be for the player to connect with their ship? I love squints, love the look, love what they are and what they do but I bloody suck at using them and win or not it's like beating my head repeatedly into a wall trying to make them work. Winnng is irrelevant, I don't enjoy flying such a fragile unforgiving ship.

This game isn't typical wargame expensive but learning some of the hard lessons in ship flying can add up. I strongly encouraged my friends that unless they really love something they play of mine don't spend money on this game. I don't want them wasting money because well they are my friends and this game is a luxury. I want new players in the game, I hate tournament mentalities, and I think casual play is the superior format. That all being said, I don't want people to leave this experience if they choose to try it with a bad taste in their mouth. I truly hope you don't buy a car without researching it a bit, same mentality here knowledge is power.

This game is not beginner friendly. Anything but. If you want to introduce a beginner, you have to put in an effort and construct two balanced squads and then let the rookie choose. You can give him a couple of X-Wings with Rookie pilots, but then you have to set up a squad as opponent that sucks as bad. FFG seriously screwed up the balance and it takes an experienced player to remedy that.

If you want the beginner to really have fun, you skip everything they added that wrecks the core mechanics and it is back to outguessing, not outrolling your opponent.

It might be fun pushing your favorite ship around and winning may not be important but shouldn't the goal be for the player to connect with their ship? I love squints, love the look, love what they are and what they do but I bloody suck at using them and win or not it's like beating my head repeatedly into a wall trying to make them work. Winnng is irrelevant, I don't enjoy flying such a fragile unforgiving ship.

This is a pain I understand all too well. We often play Epic, where arc-dodgers can't arc-dodge, and I began to get very frustrated that my fav ship "wouldn't work." I switched to Defenders, which are either much more forgiving or a better fit for Epic. In any event, I will never be a good dial-jockey, I will never go to a tournament, and I will probably win ~5% of the time.

But the point is to spend a night with friends and to pew-pew in the universe of Star Wars. X-Wing feeds that craving, and, lucky for me, Wave after Wave is just 3-4 more choices of molded plastic I can have fun with, angst-free of what they will do to the meta.

Again making the tourney X-Wing player sound more like an addict than someone you'd like to spend some social time with.

*grin*

If you think that plastic crack is the bad stuff, you stay better away from sex and sugar. Now those two can really mess up your brain. Plastic crack is not even close to high-performance sport.

Which makes me wonder: Should we really call it plastic crack? Maybe plastic pot would be more appropriated?

Again making the tourney X-Wing player sound more like an addict than someone you'd like to spend some social time with.

, you stay better away from sex and sugar.

TOO LATE!!!!!

Honestly, I've been so back and forth about this game. I've decided to stick it out and get back to the basics. But my local meta isn't newbie friendly. Even casual play around here is just practice for the next tournament which happens pretty much every weekend.

However, that being said, I still do enjoy the game at it's core. And like so many, my goal is to fly around in the Star Wars universe and have fun. I'm beginning to have a paradigm shift when it comes to tactics and strategy if I want to try my hand at playing competitively. But just for fun? Han, Chewie and Luke are at it again!

This game is not beginner friendly. Anything but. If you want to introduce a beginner, you have to put in an effort and construct two balanced squads and then let the rookie choose. You can give him a couple of X-Wings with Rookie pilots, but then you have to set up a squad as opponent that sucks as bad. FFG seriously screwed up the balance and it takes an experienced player to remedy that.

If you want the beginner to really have fun, you skip everything they added that wrecks the core mechanics and it is back to outguessing, not outrolling your opponent.

I don't know of any game of custom squads/armies/decks that doesn't require extra effort to make sure new folks don't get steamrolled.

This is some bad advice, lol.

If you like Rebels, buy a second X-Wing and a Y-Wing! Uh, it forgot to mention that X-Wings are terrible and that you're Y-Wing is pretty useless unless you buy a Rebel Transport (R3A2), a K-Wing (TLT), or whatever the hell has the autoblaster.

They recommend more basic TIEs (though without Crackshot) or an Interceptor but no Starviper (Autothrusters) or A-Wing/ImpAces (PtL).

The truth is, X-Wing is not a game for beginners, so it's bit of a disingenuous article to make the entry bar sound so darn low. It's not a game for beginners in the sense that your available lists will always be strictly inferior to the general meta unless someone is willing to invest $300-500 dollars at the outset. So, no article, they should be afraid to play in tournaments if all they've bought is a Core, a TIE, an Interceptor, and a Slave-1... hah! Dat Krassis!!

Yeah, no, you're wrong. On so many levels.

But you're also probably the type of WAAC player who watches the results of National level events and then just copies the winning list.

X-wing is absolutely a game for beginners.

I can't imagine how you can fool yourself into thinking you weren't one at some point.

Eh. it's a lot different if you started in Wave 1 and spent ~$50-100 twice a year on each new Wave and have been playing in tournaments for four years. That's not even comparable to trying to start out now from square zero. To say otherwise is, I think, optimistically naive. It's like starting to play Magic now: sure, it can be done, but it takes a hell of a lot of commitment and investment to catch up to vets who have been playing for years. You can't just buy a a few packs and go expect to win. This isn't a bad thing , it's just the nature of the game. But to publish an article that says the opposite is, I think, questionable.

Atlanta has first hand evidence of guys stumbling up at regionals, saying "whoa this looks fun what is it" and then being regional competitive before the next year.

So get out of here with all that mess.

Wait, do you think that player accomplished that with minimal purchases and without committing themselves?

Yeah. He bought 4 b-wings and rolled us for half a year with solid fundamentals.

Oh God.....I still have nightmares about my first match against him. I got completely wrecked.

I see where you are coming from Ben, I have stinker favorites too and it's not really about winning but balance. Regardless of what that article says this game is not balanced, at least not in the sense all ships are equal. Aces require serious movement prep, bombers require action economy, turrents well turrents don't require much but you get the idea. It might be fun pushing your favorite ship around and winning may not be important but shouldn't the goal be for the player to connect with their ship? I love squints, love the look, love what they are and what they do but I bloody suck at using them and win or not it's like beating my head repeatedly into a wall trying to make them work. Winnng is irrelevant, I don't enjoy flying such a fragile unforgiving ship.

This game isn't typical wargame expensive but learning some of the hard lessons in ship flying can add up. I strongly encouraged my friends that unless they really love something they play of mine don't spend money on this game. I don't want them wasting money because well they are my friends and this game is a luxury. I want new players in the game, I hate tournament mentalities, and I think casual play is the superior format. That all being said, I don't want people to leave this experience if they choose to try it with a bad taste in their mouth. I truly hope you don't buy a car without researching it a bit, same mentality here knowledge is power.

I definitely agree the more balanced the better, it would be hard to argue that balance is bad for a game. I still have yet to regret any of my ship purchases as evidenced by the fact that I have multiples of them. I honestly just wish I got more time to get them all on the table. I can say with 100% certainty though that if I played against someone using Palp Aces, even though I could field any Palp Aces list imaginable, I would instead would fly my Quad TAP list simply because I love the way those little things play and I would still have fun losing, especially if I am playing with a friend (or a cool stranger). I also focus far more on how I flew and predicted movements than the outcome, which helps with a dice game. I don't expect everybody to feel the same way about it as I do. I am just trying to point out that people making the absolute statement that "X-wing is not beginner friendly." is simply ridiculous, even more so when there are beginners on here absolutely disagreeing. I think a lot of fun can be had with this game even for a beginner just buying the ships they like depending on the person. I also think that someone that wants to be ultra competitive and be able to field any list imaginable has it extremely easy from a financial standpoint than many other hobbies, and it's not crazy that one should have to invest more to do something competitively as opposed to casually. When I enjoy something I want to invest in it so that it continues to grow, so even if I had access to a friends ships to play whatever I wanted; I would still personally buy ships if I enjoyed the game. We just possibly have differing views, which is okay. I have no problems with anybody else's motivation for playing X-wing, but some of the other posters on here are assuming that everybody else is like them or their community and deciding that, based on their very limited viewpoint, X-wing is not for beginners which I can say as a beginner is not true for me so it might not be the case for some others as well. With the right attitude we can continue to build the game and the community. The article had the right attitude, some of the posters on this thread don't come across as if they have an attitude that would be very effective at building the community which is unfortunate.

I hate the term "competitive"....because I'm competitive no matter what game I'm playing. I'll try to win that Chutes and Ladders game. It's the same for Epic and Missions and HotAC. I do want to win.

TOURNAMENT is the word I like to use as it's all about the tournament and tournament meta. That's the better word.

I think there is no word for the actual issue, but IMHO the notion is:

"I'm not having fun if I don't win nearly every time."

I have seen any number of posts indicating that if you lose, you did not have fun. Complete malarkey--I rarely win, and I love this game.

Excellent post, you nailed the key issue. Some of the best games I've had have been losses. Winning is not that important. I give it my all to win every time but I play for the fun of PLAYING not WINNING.

That's where the "viable ship" argument falls apart. If you love the T-65 or generic E-Wing, fly it. Why does winning matter outside of tournaments? Simple answer, IT DOESN'T.

Coming to this forum and seeing the daily new threads by mathwingers b****ing about "OMG FFG fix this" or "<insert any ship here> is so broken" is, for me, THE LEAST fun thing about this game... but still I drop in on the off-chance there might be some good discussion, advice, or a fun repaint, etc.

I'd honestly just rather not play a fun game I enjoy against someone who has the time and energy to be vocally cynical about an article welcoming newcomers; and this coming from a professional cynic.

But Palp Aces is very broken and it ruins the game.

You'd have more fun if the mathwingers got their way and we had a better balanced game. More ships would be viable and there would be less need for complaining. There would be less of a dichotomy between 'fun' lists and competitive ones.

Honestly, I've been so back and forth about this game. I've decided to stick it out and get back to the basics. But my local meta isn't newbie friendly. Even casual play around here is just practice for the next tournament which happens pretty much every weekend.

However, that being said, I still do enjoy the game at it's core. And like so many, my goal is to fly around in the Star Wars universe and have fun. I'm beginning to have a paradigm shift when it comes to tactics and strategy if I want to try my hand at playing competitively. But just for fun? Han, Chewie and Luke are at it again!

Missions are your friend for some pause from the tournament play. They change the playing field significantly.

Of course the dirty little secret, that Fantasy Flight aren't going to promote and the community has a bizarre aversion to, is proxy/printed cards. Sure, Fel may not be at his best if he doesn't have autothrusters and Palpatine nearby, but that doesn't mean you need to buy a Starviper and a Raider. Find one of the many places on the internet, including FFG's own website, that shows images of the cards and print yourself one off.

You can't do it at official tournaments, because FFG make the rules, but anywhere else it shouldn't be a problem. New players would still have to learn what the good combos are and buy the ships for the squadron, but it removes much of the financial hardship of building a competitive list.

I see where you are coming from Ben, I have stinker favorites too and it's not really about winning but balance. Regardless of what that article says this game is not balanced, at least not in the sense all ships are equal.

You know, I've found that as long as you just stay away from the "netlists" then the game actually is pretty balanced. I find that there are some pilots or card combos that are better than others. Those are the ones used in tournaments. One can call them OP or broken or competitive. If you play games that avoids such ships/combos, then the game is doing a lot better. From my perspective, there are just certain things that are too powerful and if you avoid them, the game balance improves drastically.

This game is not beginner friendly. Anything but. If you want to introduce a beginner, you have to put in an effort and construct two balanced squads and then let the rookie choose. You can give him a couple of X-Wings with Rookie pilots, but then you have to set up a squad as opponent that sucks as bad.

OK....what game isn't like this, though? Any game that you want to pull people in and teach them requires you to take it down a notch and teach them. You get some basic lists to learn the basics of the rules. That's just how it is for any game.

The TIE Punisher is not considered a very good ship, but I have 3 of them because I love them or at least the idea of them.

There is a local guy that also loves Tie Punishers. I love Bombers and I agree that there are few places where the Tie Punisher is preferred. So, I thought about what would be the ideal situation for a Tie Punisher. It inspired me to make a mission that was totally about some tooled up Tie Punishers blasting a Pirate Base apart. I'm still tweaking it and play testing it for balance, but it's been a lot of fun. Here's the thread with it.

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/226174-mission-punish-them-a-tie-punisher-mission/?hl=punish+them

My offer of helping you find local casual players is still out there.

I've just persuaded my first person to get into the game. He's going to spend about 120 bucks and will have iconic, fun ships to fly.

I'll show him this article. I think it's great! There's no tourney scene here (yet). I've told him to proxy any upgrade card he wants to use, such as PTL or astromechs. There's absolutely no need to buy ships to get cards at entry level!

Well done FFG for this article.

Coming to this forum and seeing the daily new threads by mathwingers b****ing about "OMG FFG fix this" or "<insert any ship here> is so broken" is, for me, THE LEAST fun thing about this game... but still I drop in on the off-chance there might be some good discussion, advice, or a fun repaint, etc.

I'd honestly just rather not play a fun game I enjoy against someone who has the time and energy to be vocally cynical about an article welcoming newcomers; and this coming from a professional cynic.

But Palp Aces is very broken and it ruins the game.

You'd have more fun if the mathwingers got their way and we had a better balanced game. More ships would be viable and there would be less need for complaining. There would be less of a dichotomy between 'fun' lists and competitive ones.

But you play Palp Aces. And in another thread that discusses the TIE/sf (or rather, doesn't) had people casually discarding the ship because they don't think it's good and (I love this) has no place in the meta of the game. Well, duh. It has no place in the meta BECAUSE IT JUST CAME OUT. And since no one will fly it, it will never have a meta.

You say you want balance, but then only play the same proven lists, because you will not risk losing. Then you complain the game is not fun, not balanced, and poorly designed.

Coming to this forum and seeing the daily new threads by mathwingers b****ing about "OMG FFG fix this" or "<insert any ship here> is so broken" is, for me, THE LEAST fun thing about this game... but still I drop in on the off-chance there might be some good discussion, advice, or a fun repaint, etc.

I'd honestly just rather not play a fun game I enjoy against someone who has the time and energy to be vocally cynical about an article welcoming newcomers; and this coming from a professional cynic.

I've never played in an X-wing tournament, but I don't hink new players should be afraid of them.

Backn in the nineties, I got into magic at university. I bought some fourth edition and Ice Age. I traded my Hypno Spectre with a mate for General Jarkeld cos he was the "white" general and I loved white weenies. I made a deck of over a 100 cards with all my favourite weenies and no control, went to a tourney... And got trounced (obviously). I was astounded by the cards people had, the combos they pulled. I lost every game, but I met cool people (and a few TFGs) who guided me in how to build better with what I had. Some gave me cards like Lightning Bolt as they had spares...

Then I found a local store with four "Swords to Plowshares" (pre net shopping) and an Elder Dragon. I was hooked!

There are all types of people at tournaments, it is good that FFG encourages people to go.

Coming to this forum and seeing the daily new threads by mathwingers b****ing about "OMG FFG fix this" or "<insert any ship here> is so broken" is, for me, THE LEAST fun thing about this game... but still I drop in on the off-chance there might be some good discussion, advice, or a fun repaint, etc.

I'd honestly just rather not play a fun game I enjoy against someone who has the time and energy to be vocally cynical about an article welcoming newcomers; and this coming from a professional cynic.

But Palp Aces is very broken and it ruins the game.

You'd have more fun if the mathwingers got their way and we had a better balanced game. More ships would be viable and there would be less need for complaining. There would be less of a dichotomy between 'fun' lists and competitive ones.

But you play Palp Aces. And in another thread that discusses the TIE/sf (or rather, doesn't) had people casually discarding the ship because they don't think it's good and (I love this) has to place in the meta of the game. Well, duh. It has no place in the meta BECAUSE IT JUST CAME OUT. And since no one will fly it, it will never have a meta.

You say you want balance, but then only play the same proven lists, because you will not risk losing. Then you complain the game is not fun, not balanced, and poorly designed.

1.) It won't have a place in the meta because it isn't an Acewing. No one flies T-70's without regen and Autothrusters, and an SF is a T-70 without Regen or Autothrusters. Rear arc is a useless 2 attack dice. I've never played with the SF and I know I'll be completely right about this. Maybe you'll see the occasional Rage Baffles Quickdraw for a few weeks, then it will be back to standard Palp Aces for everyone.

2.) Well yeah, I only play the same proven lists because those lists are broken and they're hard to lose with. They're broken and hard to lose with because the game is not balanced and (somewhat) poorly designed. Don't blame me for that, blame the idiot who designed the Palpatine card.

Coming to this forum and seeing the daily new threads by mathwingers b****ing about "OMG FFG fix this" or "<insert any ship here> is so broken" is, for me, THE LEAST fun thing about this game... but still I drop in on the off-chance there might be some good discussion, advice, or a fun repaint, etc.

I'd honestly just rather not play a fun game I enjoy against someone who has the time and energy to be vocally cynical about an article welcoming newcomers; and this coming from a professional cynic.

But Palp Aces is very broken and it ruins the game.

You'd have more fun if the mathwingers got their way and we had a better balanced game. More ships would be viable and there would be less need for complaining. There would be less of a dichotomy between 'fun' lists and competitive ones.

But you play Palp Aces. And in another thread that discusses the TIE/sf (or rather, doesn't) had people casually discarding the ship because they don't think it's good and (I love this) has to place in the meta of the game. Well, duh. It has no place in the meta BECAUSE IT JUST CAME OUT. And since no one will fly it, it will never have a meta.

You say you want balance, but then only play the same proven lists, because you will not risk losing. Then you complain the game is not fun, not balanced, and poorly designed.

1.) It won't have a place in the meta because it isn't an Acewing. No one flies T-70's without regen and Autothrusters, and an SF is a T-70 without Regen or Autothrusters. Rear arc is a useless 2 attack dice. I've never played with the SF and I know I'll be completely right about this. Maybe you'll see the occasional Rage Baffles Quickdraw for a few weeks, then it will be back to standard Palp Aces for everyone.

2.) Well yeah, I only play the same proven lists because those lists are broken and they're hard to lose with. They're broken and hard to lose with because the game is not balanced and (somewhat) poorly designed. Don't blame me for that, blame the idiot who designed the Palpatine card.

How to fix X-Wing, multiple choice:

A. I only cheat because I have too.

B. You can be part of the solution or you can be part of the problem.

C. You can't hold the high ground if you are in the valley with the rest of them.

D. All of the above.

While that poster is certainly not a stranger to doing so, flying a legal list is not in any possible way cheating.

Players should not be required to house rule a game in order for it to function well. Games that require that type of treatment aren't worth playing.

I don't believe this game is anywhere near that point however.

While that poster is certainly not a stranger to doing so, flying a legal list is not in any possible way cheating.

True, the hyperbole is mine. OTOH, if you feel a game mechanism is broken but are willing to use it to win, you might be splitting hairs on the ethics of the situation.

While that poster is certainly not a stranger to doing so, flying a legal list is not in any possible way cheating.

True, the hyperbole is mine. OTOH, if you feel a game mechanism is broken but are willing to use it to win, you might be splitting hairs on the ethics of the situation.

What's next? Tell me to start paying taxes I don't have to? That would be crazy … ;-)

While that poster is certainly not a stranger to doing so, flying a legal list is not in any possible way cheating.

True, the hyperbole is mine. OTOH, if you feel a game mechanism is broken but are willing to use it to win, you might be splitting hairs on the ethics of the situation.

What's next? Tell me to start paying taxes I don't have to? That would be crazy … ;-)

Naw, this is America. No one uses the library, public schools suck, and everyone is their own personal police force. The last step is "hey, if your house is on fire, that's your problem."