2 minutes ago, Kaptin Krunch said:

Miranda can go die in a fire. Her ability is probably offense only.

Seeing as the K-wing was the most obscure EU ship they released with the most unheard of characters, the fact that it was also one of the most popular ships sales-wise shows just how much it dominated/warped the game since release.

****, nearly 100% of K-wings are Miranda, might as well just sum it up as "Miranda ruined the game"

I actually don't mind the K-Wing, and I found the spend/regen shield potential interesting - more the spend side of things... but I won't for a moment miss it considering I know what we had.

Has there been any 2.0 news about the Tie Advanced Prototype?

27 minutes ago, Boom Owl said:

Has there been any 2.0 news about the Tie Advanced Prototype?

Only that there are going to be generic force user inquisitors for it I think.

3 hours ago, LagJanson said:

I actually don't mind the K-Wing, and I found the spend/regen shield potential interesting - more the spend side of things... but I won't for a moment miss it considering I know what we had.

K-Wings are cool.

Miranda and TLT are certainly not.

I might finally buy a third K-Wing when 2.0 arrives, just because I like the look of a medium-base swarm.

so i got to the part of episode 61 the podcast where you guys talk about splitting the episode, refresh itunes and NOW episode 62 shows up.

well played.

20 minutes ago, RynoZero said:

so i got to the part of episode 61 the podcast where you guys talk about splitting the episode, refresh itunes and NOW episode 62 shows up.

well played.

rekt

21 minutes ago, RynoZero said:

so i got to the part of episode 61 the podcast where you guys talk about splitting the episode, refresh itunes and NOW episode 62 shows up.

well played.

I agree

8 hours ago, Boom Owl said:

Has there been any 2.0 news about the Tie Advanced Prototype?

8 hours ago, mdl0114 said:

Only that there are going to be generic force user inquisitors for it I think.

One of the dials shown in the Imperial conversion preview article sure looked like the TIE Adv Prototype... except with added 2 Talon Rolls.

11 hours ago, Makaze said:

Completely agree. The question is what form is the downturn going to take? Because it's not going to hit everyone evenly. Will it hit the big names hardest or sweep away all the brand new minor players and kickstarters? Guessing the biggest casualties will be FLGSs that have just been hanging on as is.

Full disclosure: I used to be part owner and director of a small (600'ish person) board gaming convention. Board gamers are an incredibly hard to understand group as a whole. And the industry in general is very weird as there really is *no* marketing or advertising for it. It's almost entirely word of mouth and experience based buying. The advertising goes in the way of winning awards (Spiel des Jahres) sending out free copies to bloggers, youtube channels, and conventions as play to wins. They also have some envoy programs where people can put a game on a table and teach others to play it for credit to use to buy games.

Board gamers are very faddish. Games blow up and get played a lot. And then it's like they never existed. We may have had a game (like Smash up) where it was a huge tournament draw for a year or two, and then we couldn't sell a ticket. Same with King of Tokyo. And dozens of other games. There are a few steadfasts like Catan and Ticket to Ride that maintained momentum and attendance over the year, but that's a couple game out of thousands.

I really don't know how the empire is going to crumble, but I do think it starts with the consolidation of IP like Asmodee is/has been doing. It's a lot like EA consuming smaller studios and forcing out content year after year to put something new on the shelves. Or what InBev does in the beer industry. They buy up all of the independent brewers and then control the distribution market. Asmodee has slowly been acquiring companies (FFG, Mayfair, Zman, Days of Wonder, ect). They are starting to strong arm retailers and slowly strangling small market shops by not restocking inventory or underdelivering stock. There's been a big push towards "expansions" as easy and lazy ways to produce content without doing new themes or mechanics. I did not like where things were going and exited out of my role as the board game convention director.

I just got this gut feeling that we're at the top of curve and the push for easy and lazy content by the corporate masters is going to begin turning away buyers. Many of the previously independent and creative studios (Days of Wonder and Plaid Hat for example) are caught up in this mess and will be victims of the fallout. Maybe the creative minds in those groups retreat to Kickstarter and end up putting out one good game a year through that market. But I do think that the LFGS will be a victim as well. It's just too hard to compete with online vending prices and trying to predict/follow the fads in gaming and knowing when to buy and when to exit. Magic has been a major anomaly and is the sole means of sustaining many gaming shops. They entirely exist on the backs of Magic the Gathering gamers. X-wing is nice for them, but it's very spikey based on wave releases and very few stores have a consistent and sustained community to capitalize on organized gaming in our community. I don't know enough about WarHammer to comment other than their approach to online sales heavily favors FLGS. They punish online discounters.

But all of that being said - if you look at the data it's hard to argue that it's not a growing industry. Just look at the year after year growth of Gencon. Even my own convention was seeing annual growth year after year. But do those datapoints represent the industry as a whole? I don't know. It's a lot like X-wing. Does a 500 person system open in Europe mean X-wing is healthy? Do 150+ regionals here in the US mean it's growing? Or are those just noise? I don't know.

Oh wow, I've missed Krayting about a game I actually know...

Just listened to the 2.0 PodCast and really empathize with this being released 3-4 months from now. I went to my local gaming night last night and not a single person was there. Granted there's probably a Worlds hangover since a bunch went there, but I don't think that's it. I think the community is going to dead until this stuff is available. I went to so far as to warn the gameshop owner last night to buckle down and be prepared for a very quiet 4 months. There's zero reason to buy current inventory. Short of Saws renegades which I think is going to be a bit of a dud knowing it's a transition piece in a now dead format there's no new content coming. And the community in general is going to do a detox period as we purge 1.0 from our systems and wait for 2.0 to hit the streets. Unless you can get a lot of support and interest in proxying what we know about 2.0 into a prep for 2.0 format it's going to be a very low energy summer for X-wing.

Just now, viedit said:

Just listed to the 2.0 PodCast and really empathize with this being released 3-4 months from now. I went to my local gaming night last night and not a single person was there. Granted there's probably a Worlds hangover since a bunch went there, but I don't think that's it. I think the community is going to dead until this stuff is available. I went to so far as to warn the gameshop owner last night to buckle down and be prepared for a very quiet 4 months. There's zero reason to buy current inventory. Short of Saws renegades which I think is going to be a bit of a dud knowing it's a transition piece in a now dead format there's no new content coming. And the community in general is going to do a detox period as we purge 1.0 from our systems and wait for 2.0 to hit the streets. Unless you can get a lot of support and interest in proxying what we know about 2.0 into a prep for 2.0 format it's going to be a very low energy summer for X-wing.

My local group wants to start proxying and playing 2.0, but ran into the problem that all we really know, for list-building purposes, are the 5 demo lists. We'll probably play those some, but we want more.


MORE!

Yeah, I feel like FFG needs to pump out a big *** PDF full of the quick build cards and some guidelines on squad building to keep lists comparable. Give us pilots, a reference to understand upgrades and just enough info get some plastic on the table. Something that we can pick up and run with to maintain some momentum over the summer.

And here I am, thinking up all the most toxic lists I could bring to close 1.0 store championships with a bang

I mean, it'd be very thematic to do so. I need to figure out a way to get my Kath a second plaque too...

1 hour ago, viedit said:

Magic has been a major anomaly and is the sole means of sustaining many gaming shops. They entirely exist on the backs of Magic the Gathering gamers.  X-wing is nice for them, but it's very spikey based on wave releases and very few stores have a consistent and sustained community to capitalize on organized gaming in our community.

Anecdotally, the FLGS where I was the TO told me that Magic is not doing them favours. The kits don't bring them any money and the market is so saturated here that players showing up may just be touring all the shops to play but only buying from one.

Asmodee Canada screwing them on the shipping of ALL their games has really, really hurt them. It's not just X-wing and other FFG games, it's all the board games random buyers may come in looking to buy being perpetually "we were supposed to get some last week..." They got the BSF 5 months after release, in Canada's capital, 200km from the Asmodee Canada warehouse. They obviously didn't sell out at that point, since everyone that really wanted one found other ways to buy it.

I feel bad for all the stakeholders in this, from the players to the Asmodee folks, but that is what private equity is meant to do, to optimize a business and sell it at a profit. Where optimize means making the company look like a good buy for the next owner, not long term survivability.

Interestingly enough, though we all can't wait for 2.0, my local group was out in full force this week, though they were all flying super wholesome lists to practice. Among other things we're wondering how the Store Championship season will play out in regards to cancer: will people fly turret-wing in one last hurrah or will they start switching it up to get reps in.

13 minutes ago, viedit said:

Just listed to the 2.0 PodCast and really empathize with this being released 3-4 months from now. I went to my local gaming night last night and not a single person was there. Granted there's probably a Worlds hangover since a bunch went there, but I don't think that's it. I think the community is going to dead until this stuff is available. I went to so far as to warn the gameshop owner last night to buckle down and be prepared for a very quiet 4 months. There's zero reason to buy current inventory. Short of Saws renegades which I think is going to be a bit of a dud knowing it's a transition piece in a now dead format there's no new content coming. And the community in general is going to do a detox period as we purge 1.0 from our systems and wait for 2.0 to hit the streets. Unless you can get a lot of support and interest in proxying what we know about 2.0 into a prep for 2.0 format it's going to be a very low energy summer for X-wing.

It seems like this sort of reaction is varied from community to community. Ours has actually be thriving more than it has in the year and half since I started playing. I'd recommend purposefully trying to inject some 2.0-type meta into the community, if you can draw people out. Proxy Saw's until it comes out, because 5 rookies is kinda great!

17 minutes ago, Tlfj200 said:

My local group wants to start proxying and playing 2.0, but ran into the problem that all we really know, for list-building purposes, are the 5 demo lists. We'll probably play those some, but we want more.

But. Wait. I thought you don't go to game nights. Or play casually. Are you suggesting that 2.0 has you excited enough to play casually?!

Everybody at my store is still all in on HotAC... Instead of talking 2.0, I've spent most of my time convincing a player to put Stay on Target, Hobbie ability, PTL, Targeting Astromech and Kyle Katarn crew on his Arc 170. No real reason, but the interaction is hilarious.

I probably need to go back to Vassal to try any 2.0 stuff, but I really hate that program.

6 minutes ago, impspy said:

Interestingly enough, though we all can't wait for 2.0, my local group was out in full force this week, though they were all flying super wholesome lists to practice. Among other things we're wondering how the Store Championship season will play out in regards to cancer: will people fly turret-wing in one last hurrah or will they start switching it up to get reps in.

If the prizes are 2.0, but 1.0 formats, and the 2.0 prizes are cool enough.... people will play cancer.

The cartel will falter.

3 minutes ago, gennataos said:

It seems like this sort of reaction is varied from community to community. Ours has actually be thriving more than it has in the year and half since I started playing. I'd recommend purposefully trying to inject some 2.0-type meta into the community, if you can draw people out. Proxy Saw's until it comes out, because 5 rookies is kinda great!

But. Wait. I thought you don't go to game nights. Or play casually. Are you suggesting that 2.0 has you excited enough to play casually?!

Yes.... for now...

2 minutes ago, Tlfj200 said:

If the prizes are 2.0, but 1.0 formats, and the 2.0 prizes are cool enough.... people will play cancer.

The cartel will falter.

It's true. @Heimdall Ulf

6 minutes ago, Tlfj200 said:

If the prizes are 2.0, but 1.0 formats, and the 2.0 prizes are cool enough.... people will play cancer.

The cartel will falter.

**** I suck at foruming.

Yes, it's true. Myself, @abell19 and @Heimdall Ulf have already been plotting out our otherwise wholesome local approach to turn cancerous if the loot is good. Someone will show up and still wreck us with just arcs, though. @Biophysical

Enforce the cartel with our own prize support for being in the cartel.

Just now, Kaptin Krunch said:

Enforce the cartel with our own prize support for being in the cartel.

That.... actually might work?

For instance, I do not have enough models for each conversion kit, and if the store threw in the possibility of winning old expansions/models (no need for cards at this point) for playing wholesome lists...

I should push for an objectives tournament at my local store...

2 minutes ago, Tlfj200 said:

That.... actually might work?

For instance, I do not have enough models for each conversion kit, and if the store threw in the possibility of winning old expansions/models (no need for cards at this point) for playing wholesome lists...

But...what if there are range rulers which I can pair with these?

15 minutes ago, Tlfj200 said:

That.... actually might work?

For instance, I do not have enough models for each conversion kit, and if the store threw in the possibility of winning old expansions/models (no need for cards at this point) for playing wholesome lists...

Cards cost 7.5 cents each to produce.

For $30, I can produce 400 2.0 promo pilot cards that will only be given to those flying lists that don't make me want to drive into traffic. Say a pool of participation and a pool of top 4 prizes. Maybe say if No-one flies cancer, everyone gets an extra card from the top 4 pool for extra peer pressure.

For those that say "But I only want 1.0 cards!", I will drown you in 1.0 **** if it's what I need to do to get you to stop flying cancer.