I was just entering my teen years when Star Wars first came out. I guess I was always inclined to science fiction - having loved the original Star Trek series, and even the original BattleStar Galactica which was obviously capitalizing the space opera theme in the wake of the unprecedented success of the first Star Wars movies.

So I can say I've been a fan since the beginning, not that it makes me any better or worse than anyone else who plays, but rather that it puts my story in its historical context. Like most of the fans my age, I had a few of those first flash-lights converted into "lightsabers" via a plastic, hollow, transluscent tube affixed to the end of the flashlight. Depending on the filter, you had either a blue, a green, or a red light saber. After the first few "battles" you had your own unique light saber - with plastic bend marks all up and down the "blade" - scars from you various physical victories and defeats. You had to fight with the lights off, or at night, for the effect to really sell you - and you had to vocalize your own light saber noises, but it was all fun.

After the third movie, I guess my interest waned. It happened in the same way the pain of an old friend moving fades. At some point, you're still friends, and would love to hang out - but they live on the other side of the map, so, you content yourself with the absence, and in time you don't really think about it any more - but it is there, waiting as if pregnant with the possibility of a reunion.

I was glad to see the franchise picked up again, but it was a lot like when Star Trek The Next Generation came out. I was pleased to see the rebirth of the franchise, but it couldn't quite capture the flavor of the original series - which is what I was (rather naively) expecting. TNG became great after I stopped trying to push Picard into Kirk's shoes, and Data into Spock's. The series had its own charm, and the sooner I saw that, the sooner I could appreciate it. So it was with the next batch of Star Wars movies. Even though the movies portended to tell what led up to the original movies, a lot had changed. Special effects were much better, as were the choreographed light-saber fights, and whatnot. The acting was mostly good, but mistakes were made.

In the meanwhile, I had been playing mostly role playing games, and then, as the technology allowed, video games. It wasn't until a friend invited me to play a game of Star Trek: Attack Wing with him that I became interested in the genre. X-Wing had been out and was already at wave 3 when I finally gave up on Attack Wing (long story short: too many expansions too fast, meant less testing, more imbalance - and the friend who introduced me to it stopped playing, and so I did to.)

So when my friend decided to go back to X-Wing - I decided to give it a shot. Frankly the models looked a whole lot better, I was already a fan of Star Wars. I was very hesitant - to invest in yet another hobby that would suck my wallet dry periodically - but I bit the bullet, and loved it.

Like many others, I went a long way beyond the over-spending border in the first few months - but I wanted at least one of everything. But it wasn't really the game itself or my fandom that drew me to invest - it was the fact that I had friends who were playing the game that drew me to it.

For this reason, I think it is important to play casually - to introduce others to the game. That is one way people are drawn to this game - by seeing it played, or by playing it.

So how you were drawn to it?

When visiting the LFGS for more star wars RPG books, my wife bought us a core set and two aces expansions, the rest is history.

Armada did. There's no one to play that with, though, so I wound up here. Years ago, I initially thought this was a Heroclix type of thing, so I looked away in disgust.

If only I had known then...

2 words.

Royal guards.

Its Star Wars, fun, and used to be simple to pick up.

Its Star Wars, fun, and used to be simple to pick up.

It's still simple to pick up.

40K was getting on my last nerve largely due to the 1 hour rules debates between turns and WAAC attitude of the people I played with. Same sense, wave 4 was announced and TIE Phantoms and Defenders really really got my attention.

Played the game. was hooked. played more, was hooked. got back into star wars, did D20 campaigns with x-wing bits on side. hooked.

I don't get to play as much these days, ships too fragile to my kids hands yet, and don't get to see my friends enough.

It's Star Wars and far and away easier and cheaper to pick up than 40k.

Not to mention prepainted minis.

Watched Will Wheaton's TABLETOP. Bought in to the Game January of 2015 and dwindling of account balances commenced. Never looked backed and NEVER kept a receipt.

For me the single biggest thing was that it looked like a way recapture the feel of playing X-Wing vs Tie Fighter.

mostly the gobsmacking quality of the pre-painted models (and thank god because I paint like a chimp)

which is also the same reason I'm playing the ARC right now

but really, it's the strength of the local community that has kept me in for so long

I was 7 when Star Wars first came out. I lived as a kid through all the original movies. Star Wars was like a religion for everyone...not just nerds at that time. I was a huge Star Wars fan.

I had been playing Warhammer Fantasy Battle for 13 years. I slowly saw the game go down hill and the game balance go out the window (again). The core rules got better, but the army books turned it into a game where tactics didn't matter much. I was very frustrated as a lot of Core units couldn't compete, no matter how many times you flanked someone.

I had heard about X-wing before it came out and a lot of people were raving about it. Some had tried it at GenCon and were itching for the game to come out. I was already over a thousand dollars invested into WHFB and didn't need a new game. I knew I couldn't play more than one game at a time. It looked great, but it was not for me.

I went to a two day tournament and lost every single game the first day. I was very frustrated. One guy had just bought the Core rules set and wanted to try it. I had wanted to try it and was just feeling glum. He got Luke w/ R2-D2 and I got two generic Tie Fighters. I don't know what it was, but....I just GOT the game. The spacial awareness or figuring out my opponent's moves? Whatever it was, it was easy to me. Luke died in 5 turns. I bought into the game right after that!

The local scene died out after Wave 3 as a new game store opened on the other side of town....where most people live. So, my local store dried up. I got into a couple other games for maybe a year until that game dried up. It was me and another guy left and he said he saw X-wing and was interested. I told him I had a ton of stuff. I brought it next week and we played some games. The next week and he had over $200 of ships!!! We slowly built up the local scene until now it's over 150 local players at about 5 different game stores in the area. You can play X-wing on any given week day night.

I am also an Attack Wing convert. I love both franchises, but the prequel movies soured me on Star Wars for a while. In the end, I didn't like the Star Trek version of the game for several reasons, but enjoyed the game system enough to give it another try. I like that the ships are pre-painted because I can take my time and re-paint the ones I like and leave the others as-is and they still look good.

I have an unreasonable love for the Lambda-class Shuttle. So when I searched for Lambda models, X-Wing came up. I decided to take a look at the game and I was hooked before I even had a core set.

My son at Gencon. He kept begging me to buy the game so he could play with the ships. This slick crack dealer at FFG booth talks me into playing the game. I tried to resist. "It's too complicated for my son" I say. "Oh no no, we can play the basic rules" FFG crack dealer replies. I gave in. 100+ ships later I should have just walked on by. But I'm not sorry.

I was also 7 when the first Star Wars came out and it's been a constant in my life ever since. When we met, my wife had never seen Star Wars and I had the pleasure of watching them with her and she's always been really good about buying me SW related stuff and she found the Core set in a Barnes & Noble as a gift one Christmas. Even though it took me more than a year to actually get a game in, I loved the models so much that I ended up buying pretty much one of everything, the plan being to keep them all in a tub for when my kids were old enough to play.

I had played the original Warhammer back in the 80's but, beyond board-games, hadn't done any table-top gaming since. And then I got a game in live and boom, I ended up buying multiples of each ship and storage containers and sleeves and realized I was pretty much hooked. Something about this really caught my imagination, and I would play a lot against myself after my wife and kids were asleep and even ended up building a gaming table for my office just to practice.

I have a bunch of Armada stuff but I haven't even unwrapped it yet. With my kids being so young and my job being so busy, I barely get any time to play X-Wing, not sure I even want to tempt myself with it at this point...

Edit: as an example of how awesome my wife is, she found this at an estate sale while visiting her dad in Texas - which reminds me, I should repaint that Falcon...

Edit #2: This was the original Warhammer game I played in high school. Happy times

The local X-Wing community.

Prepainted Xwing model looked really cool so I bought a starter set. I just hoped the game was ok. A little while later Darth Vader was released in my area and I was hooked.

Started with Armada, which I still love, but tried X-wing and fell in love with the quick, action-oriented dog fighting style.

Tantive IV model looked so cool that I decided to check out the game.

more of a startrek fan but starwars has routinely put out better games, and while i may absolutely hate the plot of starwars i love the aesthetics.

Originally grabbed Armada because BIG SHIP BATTLES but there was like 1 guy that played it, and we got tired of facing each other. Xwing was pretty popular and getting more popular in the area so i grabbed that.

Armada is more of my thing because im a trek nerd and capital ship warfare is actually how i predict the future to be. Training people to dogfight in spacefighters is not only manpower costly but expensive in literally every way: so i suspect it will be a rare thing to see 1man ships in battle in say 2150ish. Doesnt mean that i dont like xwing, in fact i love it purely because of its tactical mindset and its the first game ive played that despite being a dice game, flying proper heavily outweighs dice more often than not. I cant say that about any dice game, and ive played a lot of them. Ive finaly quit 40k because it just feels like im putting my shiny models on the table, move them forward, roll dice, get lucky. Its so RNG riddled that its boring.

for those wondering why i didnt play STAW if i love startrek so much, simple: starwars puts out better games - STAW sucks balls (ugly models, bad rules, imbalances between factions, scale issues, etc etc etc)

I was looking for a new game, something fast and easy. But I'm a fluff kind of guy. If it doesn't have a good backstory, likeable characters, etc., then I get bored. X-Wing is fun, light, quick playing and it has characters I like.

Like several others had said, I was a child through the original releases of the OT. As far as what got me into the game, I had looked into it before it's release and hadn't thought of it much since, then wave two hits and I saw a ship, we'll describe it as "she may not look like much, but she's got it where it counts kid". I grabbed it before I had a core set and my hangers have only grown since.

I have always been a star wars fan, but was born between the original releases and the clone wars releases, being born in the early 80's.

I played war games growing up, and wanted to get back into something to keep me entertained and the collector in me satisfied. Didnt want to invest heavily back into a system like 40k, mainly because even though i used to love to paint, i have no desire to ever paint and base up another 40k army. i love star wars, and after researching, it looked like a nice fit. Its been a perfect fit for me.

My first gaming love is and will probably always be Imperial Assault. The problem with Imperial Assault is the time commitment to play a campaign. So, I got X-Wing to get something that is quicker and easier to play and doesn't involve the time commitment. Also, X-Wing is easier to play with kids than Imperial Assault it.