I have a couple of friends who recently moved back to town, with whom I have a long history of gaming. Before they left, our game nights were usually Arkham Horror, Federation Commander, or the Lord of the Rings Strategy Battle Game (from Games Workshop). Now that they've come back, I've started introducing them to some of the games I've picked up since they left, and tonight's agenda was X-wing.
Of course, the core set gives a nice little tutorial set up; two TIEs vs 1 X-wing, but I figured if I'm teaching two people, I can make it more interesting, and showcase some of the mechanics a little better.
I set them up with a 113 point Rebel squad, featuring Luke Skywalker, Jake Farrel, one Red Squadron X-wing and 2 Green Squadron A-wings. For my part, I took the Empire, with Turr Phennir, a Saber Squadron Interceptor, a Black Squadron Striker, and three Black Squadron TIEs. Everything was naked, as I didn't want to get into secondary weapons, EPTs and other upgrades for an intro. I just wanted them to get a feel for the core mechanics (including firing arcs, hence NO BLOODY FALCON!), and for the fact that different ships have different capabilities. The A-wings gave them awesome maneuverability, with weak fire power, while the X-wing boasts a modest dial with better guns. It came out to 113 Rebels vs. 108 Imperial.
Of course, having the benefit of experience, I ended up tabling them, but we all enjoyed it. When all that was left of the Rebel Squadron was Luke Skywalker, I offered to let them concede, rather than dragging out the slow but inevitable death of the Jedi, but they were determined. They knew they were doomed, but wanted to see if they could at least take down a TIE or two with Luke before he died.
Luke failed. Miserably. In what they thought was a clever maneuver, they ended up putting Luke at range 1 and in arc for both Interceptors, and at range 2 of 2 TIE fighters and the Striker. That's a lot of fire to weather.
What came of this cruel, one-sided stomp? X-wing has moved to the top of their gaming request list. They want a rematch next week, using exactly the same squads, now confident that they understand the mechanics and tactics well enough to make a better go of it.
I patiently explained a few core concepts over the course of the game. As one of them lined up a template to check maneuver options, I politely mentioned that for now, I was okay with that, but only because they hadn't had the experience to even try to make a good guess at where a maneuver would land them yet. However, as I told them, pre-measurement is generally not allowed in X-wing, except to determine if a target is eligible to shoot or to target lock. They accepted this and neither asked nor tried to pre-measure any further, choosing instead to embrace the challenge and see what they could do.
What struck me was how much fun they had losing, and in a landslide, playing a fairly simple, streamlined game of X-wing. I think the reasons were as follows:
1. No abusive combos were in play; in other words, I didn't explain that the mechanics of the game work like this, except for now since I have this crew member on this ship, and this talent lets them break the core mechanics. Hence, they felt that they lost simply because I outmaneuvered and outplayed them. They weren't beaten by squad building and rules lawyering, but rather by simple, sound tactics.
2. In such a simple environment, Luke can be a pain to kill. Luke doesn't feature much, if at all, in the competitive meta, but at this level of play, he is a very effective pilot. If they had R2-D2, it would have taken even longer to kill him. This, of course, speaks to the Star Wars geek in many players. Luke was the last Rebel on the map, and easily the hardest for me to take down. Like the Rebel Alliance, my rookie opponents were watching Luke and finding him offering some vague shadow of hope, even as they felt they were certainly doomed. Until the last die roll that obliterated his T-65, my Rebel opponents were able to hold onto the hope that Luke might redeem their otherwise one-sided loss.
3. As a tool of introduction, it helped that every ship on the table was familiar. The standard TIE, the Interceptor, A-wings, and X-wings all appeared in the original trilogy, and the Striker was recently added by Rogue One. Of course, as both of these players are familiar with the PC flight sims, a great many more of the ships in my X-wing collection were also quite familiar, and one of them is eager to field some B- and E-wings.
What do I read as the moral of this night of tactical joy? People really ENJOY X-wing when it plays like a Star Wars game. If I had thrown some carefully crafted tournament list at them first thing, they'd have probably hated the game and never played me again. Instead, they've now whetted their appetites, and want to start trying out new ships, add upgrades, and graduate to epic. One of them also has it in his head to try it out out TableTop Simulator and get some practice there before coming back to the table with me. (If he starts to discover meta-lists, then I'll have to start playing a little more ruthlessly with him, of course...)
As it stands, I can be confident that I have two people who will at least play casual and epic games with me. They may or may not take an interest in 100/6, optimized and efficient competitive lists. If they do, I'll up my game to meet whatever style they want to play me in, if I can. If they get better at list building or at flying than me, that just challenges me to get better, too. In any case, I now have two more people I can play X-wing with, and as I live in a small town with no FLGS to speak of, I think it great any time I can get somebody else to appreciate this game and play it with me.
I also thought it was a good time to put something on this forum that showcases fun with our little toy spaceships, free from stress over FAQs, the meta, and so on. X-wing is still an awesome game, and lots of fun.
my ONLY issue is my painting skills are, well... god awful. I'm good with building props and electronics. I draw the line at sewing and painting XD I'd also need to make some stats for the frigate as well as firing arcs and upgrades...
