"Power creep" is inevitable. But it doesn't have to be a bad thing if it's managed correctly. X-wing has had huge power creep but is still a very enjoyable game and most of my plastic ships are still relevant. That's a huge achievement for such a long lived game.

I don't play Xwing really, so I don't know much about it. How can there be "huge power creep" and yet still manage to keep most of your ships still relevant? I'm not saying you're not correct. I just don't understand how that could be correct.

-ryanjamal

The ships that are still widely relevant in the competitive environment are, unfortunately, I'm the stark minority. Anomalies happen, but in general, the meta is Jumpmasters, Palpatine Aces, Crack Shot TIE Swarms (TIE fighters aren't viable without Crack Shot), and TIE Defenders. 6-8 ships out of about 36 win tournaments regularly, and most of those have a loadout that is required or they auto lose to the preferred variant. Disappointing for me, as a long time player of X wing, to see so many ships in bad shape. Power Creep has absolutely happened, to a major degree.

IA is in a much better place as far as the competitive game. Trooper lists are dominant, but a solid majority of the figures in the game can be made to work well at competition, with the exceptions being most of the early unique characters.

I just wish they'd hurry up and announce the separate HK pack, so I can get more HKs without buying more Hoths, with it also including a unique HK47.

I would like to see that!

On powercreep, I linked this in another place but one of the original developers (Not Paul and Todd who are currently in charge) addressed some of the original imbalances and why. Very interesting to read and super glad he shared this!

https://www.reddit.com/r/ImperialAssaultTMG/comments/4u24y5/if_you_could_ask_the_lead_developer_of_imperial/d5mchyx

That's just the specific part of the thread, there's more places he comments in the overall one too. The whole thing is worth a read if you have time.

I just wish they'd hurry up and announce the separate HK pack, so I can get more HKs without buying more Hoths, with it also including a unique HK47.

I would like to see that!

I think there are so many other things to fix that would help the game more than duplicating figures.

I just wish they'd hurry up and announce the separate HK pack, so I can get more HKs without buying more Hoths, with it also including a unique HK47.

I would like to see that!

I think there are so many other things to fix that would help the game more than duplicating figures.

What like? Not being able to get more of my favourite dudes without buying a whole big box is the biggest problem I can think of, but I don't get to play all that often.

A game developer house rules his own rules? Snowballing is a huge problem for me and has led to my wife not wanting to play the game anymore. Might have to try this rule out.
We are big on Descent right now, and snowballing seems to be much less of a problem, at least for the first campaign.

A game developer house rules his own rules? Snowballing is a huge problem for me and has led to my wife not wanting to play the game anymore. Might have to try this rule out.

We are big on Descent right now, and snowballing seems to be much less of a problem, at least for the first campaign.

They said they balanced the game for both sides to be played by competitive players, which arguably most people aren't on their first go through (or more). So realistically, the better player has to be more of a GM style of play or is likely to destroy the hopes and dreams of the other side

If they hadn't balanced it at that level of play we would have some other problems with campaign, such as at a certain point one side or the other would always win if the players were evenly/competitively matched because the factions wouldn't be balanced in power.

It does seem like a fun house rule though

IA I think has better chance of avoiding power creep than xwing. Simply having multiple types of attack and defence dice gives it a lot of flexibility that x wing doesn't. X wing has a real problem costing out it's ships too and they aren't getting much better at that. I really wish they would just cut through the legal red tape and bring Major Juggler on as a consultant. IA though seems to be doing a much better job of managing point cost.

There needs to be a point errata to make IA balanced.

There needs to be a point errata to make IA balanced.

Depends. Right now it seems pretty darn balanced in that you can build a couple of different squads within each faction that is fairly competitive. It is true that each deployment card is not balanced against eachother, but we have know that for ages. They could errata, or they could not. Obviously it would be nice if they did and then put out a small 'booster pack' with Skirmish versions of those (and they could include the old errata as well).

It is unlikely though, because while they are not balanced, they are not so in an overpowering way like 4x4. The meta works just fine without an errata - but it is indeed a shame not to see more Han Solo in this game.

Who cares how balanced it is? Just us HKs all the time and enjoy how cool they look!

There needs to be a point errata to make IA balanced.

Depends. Right now it seems pretty darn balanced in that you can build a couple of different squads within each faction that is fairly competitive. It is true that each deployment card is not balanced against eachother, but we have know that for ages. They could errata, or they could not. Obviously it would be nice if they did and then put out a small 'booster pack' with Skirmish versions of those (and they could include the old errata as well).

It is unlikely though, because while they are not balanced, they are not so in an overpowering way like 4x4. The meta works just fine without an errata - but it is indeed a shame not to see more Han Solo in this game.

This is currently the most balanced of the three Star Wars miniatures games. Not all, but the majority of figures in the game can be used with success. The only really meta staples are Troopers and Gideon/Threepio. You can fill out your list with almost anything else and perform well. At this point it's likely we need to move on from most of the early unique characters, which is admittedly a shame, because they are the most iconic. The devs have gotten much better at developing the game since then, and the vast majority of figures can do very well, which cannot be said about X wing. Armada is certainly in a much better place after Wave 4, as well, but it's still a developing experience. All three games have their flaws, but IA is in the best shape for competitive balance in my opinion. Unfortunately, that still means you have to play it like a game and not really like a thematic Star Wars experience, but we also get quality, thematic campaign experiences in each boxed expansion. Who else here is hyped for the Jabba's Realm campaign! And skirmish will only get better once the new wave is on the shelf.

And skirmish will only get better once the new wave is on the shelf.

Huh? We already have HKs, how could it possibly get any better? (Other than a proper, unique HK-47, obviously).

And skirmish will only get better once the new wave is on the shelf.

Huh? We already have HKs, how could it possibly get any better? (Other than a proper, unique HK-47, obviously).

Because Jabba the Hutt, the Rancor, Jet Troopers, and Captain Terro.

Hmm... or ...

Sorry Jabba, but it's five groups of HKs for me! Look at that beauty! All he needs is his own private ARC 170 or Naboo Royal Cruiser...

Only £135 too! Bargain!

I think you suffer from New Millennialism or something. I haven't got to play the game in 24 days, you're concerned because someone didn't put out a blurb on the internet for your instant gratification. Not to be too condescending, but what did you do before the internet?

You gotta remember, we've got a generation that's never really been without the internet at this point.

..... yet.

Love from a History teacher.

X wing is quite balanced, engine25 is just bad at it and is bitter about that. Much like this game there are prevalent lists that win most of the time because people see they do well. It's like most games, there will always be net decking and FotM which skews the results. But, much like he said about IA, you can still do with ships in X-wing (except for the poor punisher, generic YTs, and imperial firespray), you can take pretty much any list and win with it. You just need to know it.

Power creep is none existent. What it is, is power rebalancing, and that is true for both games, for X-wing it's to get ships in line with the TIE fighters cost/performance. In IA it's getting uniques to be worth their generic weight in points.

It has now been more than a month since the last preview.

And how many does X-wing get?

To be fair we did get an article talking about skirmish..

To be fair we did get an article talking about skirmish..

1. That showed nothing new, not even any of the new skirmish cards.

2. Not everyone (including myself) even plays skirmish.

It has now been more than a month since the last preview.

And how many does X-wing get?

You can see the history of when articles come out for Imperial Assault. And I actually just wondered myself when the X-Wing news last week for the Heroes of the Resistance pack was announced to compare.

Heroes of the Resistance - announced - on May 4th.

First spoiler article after that? September 6th.

That's four months.

If you want, go put together a list like that for xwing and I know lots of people would love to compare how it works between two different lines of FFG games.

I'm betting though, it feels like Xwing gets more news because Xwing has more stuff in the chute at once currently. Imperial assault had a similar situation last year when the wookiees wave/bantha wave/and Hoth were all announced and none of them were available and we didn't have news articles yet for anything. And then it exploded.

If you want a good timetable for when we are likely to get some news that isn't an article about a game mode that you don't care about (because they are going to make another article for scum and rebels) then you have access to the best information we have without seeing internal deadlines from FFG for their article releases. I really do hope that helps because I love news articles too. And I'm not interested in any of the other FFG games because I picked one to stick with. So no news means literally no news for me. So being able to see what has happened in the past really helps me be patient and stay excited at the same time. That and getting on here and trying to help others out with things where I can Peace

not nearly as dead as any of the GW games...

https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2016/9/9/a-new-path-forward/

R.I.P. a f*ck ton of games

All I meant was that you have to play the meta, which is a lot narrower in scope in X wing than IA. I'm doing fine in X wing, got 3rd in a tournament just the other day, generally perform much better than I do in this game. Both are great experiences and I hope both continue for some time.

To be fair we did get an article talking about skirmish..

1. That showed nothing new, not even any of the new skirmish cards.

2. Not everyone (including myself) even plays skirmish.

Ok so right now there is a lot of Arkham Horror stuff, when we get closer to the release of Jabba's Realm I want you to watch how many IA articles there are versus AH. They aren't playing favourites, they are just playing up the current upcoming expansions. IA will get its time and most likely soon. Not sure why people are so offended by this.

You can only put out so many articles about the same thing, so why would they waste them now and let awareness/hype die down before the release? Instead get fast and furious before the product hits shelves to build sales. A lot of what people complain about on these forums is straight out of commerce 101.