X-Wing is a much more successful product line than Imperial Assault. The X-Wing boards have 1 million posts and we have yet to break 100k. That is quite a difference. I don't know what the sales figures are, but I would venture a guess they are similarly scaled in difference.

What is your explanation/speculation for this discrepancy in popularity? They are both miniature games, both Star Wars, with similar(ish) mechanics even.

Is it really all down to the fact the X-Wing minis are pre-painted?

I am interested in your insights and opinions.

X-Wing was first

It has a lower initial buy in cost

Pre-painted

Tournaments are bigger

We're the few and the proud, though

Comparison leads to Rivalry
Rivalry takes you to the dark side.
Do not Lure us to that path

I made a similar thread awhile back you can check out:

If IA was released before X-wing…

Ultimately, I think it comes down to the fact that the IA community is split between campaign players and skirmish players (not a bad thing, but it is what it is).

But you’re also basing popularity on forum activity. I think a lot of people that pick up IA just want a fun, out of the box experience that they can run through a couple of times before moving on to other games. This traditional board game type of mentality doesn’t exactly encourage endless online discussion. I find that the majority of new users to the IA board just want a quick rules clarification without delving into the meatier topics.

As someone who started in X-wing, I'll say it's the fact that IA is primarily marketed as a Campaign-based game (I didn't even know Skirmish mode existed for the longest time). That pushes away most of the competitive players. Consequently it doesn't get played much inside game stores since Campaign is primarily a kitchen table game you play with your friends. This means it doesn't get nearly as much exposure as a game like X-wing does where some random guy walking through the game store can look at you playing your game of plastic spaceships and go "hey, that looks cool, what game is that!?"

X-wing, meanwhile, has a huge competitive scene in addition to being highly accessible to casual players. If Skirmish mode was given more spotlight early on I'm sure IA would be a lot more popular than it currently is. But the problem right now is that you're not always guaranteed to find someone to play IA with at your FLGS as you are with X-wing.

Y not both?

I play both, they are just different itches to scratch. The games are different enough but I would say that X-Wing is much easier setup. I just finished running a big-ish weekend long tournament and out of 8 spots, I filled 5 for IA. Out of 40 spots, I filled 32 for X-Wing. They happened on the same day. Around here, Imperial assault is a tough sell and I think its because of the map setup. The missions are more fun, the squadbuilding has more pieces on the board, even though its less cards to reference. It doesn't help that IA feels more like a cash grab even now with the maps you can pre buy that rotate out after some number of months. Since FFG has no bearing on my tournament I went ahead and printed the maps for everyone to ease setup.

If FFG ever wanted to get IA more main stream I'd suggest this: Starter skirmish packs, and maps you can print on Letter sized paper (even if you have to print 4 pages per map). Make the game easier on the player for tournaments and you'll see big returns.

22 minutes ago, jonnyd said:

If FFG ever wanted to get IA more main stream I'd suggest this: Starter skirmish packs, and maps you can print on Letter sized paper (even if you have to print 4 pages per map). Make the game easier on the player for tournaments and you'll see big returns.

I've never had a problem crafting the map, if you have all the necessary tiles at hand you can almost build it without a reference if you've played enough. But yeah, starting out, it's much more attractive to roll out a mat and then start setting up map components. Our group does a lot of printed maps, I think it does help keep players from getting frustrated at setup.

Nice. I love X-Wing. I think he sells more for the game style that is 1x1 only. But I do not think the comparison with IA is fair, the right thing would be to buy with the Armada. AI is a boardgame that has an option for a 1x1 game.

To play the IA skirmish you have to have the big expansions because of the tiles, while the x-wing just buy 3 blisters of ships and you are ready to play.

x-wing is cheaper because it does not have to buy big expansions and is an exclusively skirmish game, it was made for that.

x-wing 2 people play IA needs more players.

But, I love them both and the Armada too.

Another thing, the X-wing was released in Brazil at a certain time, since the IA did not. For me to buy the AI I have to import the game, which does not come cheap to Brazil.

X-Wing is prepainted, has less sticker shock, and is marketed primarily as a competitive 2-player game and not as a RPG style dungeon crawl. IAs campaign crowd vastly outnumbers the skirmish crowd, but they are less invested in the community and more insular to their own playgroups.

Two words: Pre Painted After spending tons-o-cash to have IA professionally painted I'll be skipping Legion because the minis are unpainted.

Pre-painted is a lot of it, simplicity is a fair bit too. The billion cards and complex boards and such make IA unappealing to a lot of people. X-Wing is more iconic as well and looks and feels more like Star Wars than some little guys on a map which really looks and feels nothing like Star Wars.

A big part of it too is competition. The only real competition right now to X-wing is Armada but X-Wing came first. For IA there are dozens if not hundreds of similar popular games like Zombicide, Space Hulk, Hero Quest and a line of GW games, Ravenloft and a line of WotC D&D games, Mice and Mystics etc. and even Descent.

i started with X-wing. only played one tournament. I stopped collecting after the ships became unrecognizable and not X-wings. much more a fan of narrative games. but i still use my xwing game inbetween some missions in imperial assault

Wow, didn't know painted minis could've been a factor, but then again, I like abstract games. At least I'm making more of an effort to paint the army I'll use for regionals this time.

X-wing has a pretty simply ruleset, its the cards that add all the flavour. This makes XW almost a gateway game to the hobby, plus prepainted minis.

Imperial assault has a slightly more complex ruleset. Action point based games are not, by their nature, gateway games.

Armada doesn't use action points but is not as popular as XW. It came out later though. Its ruleset is more complex than XW but if you're collecting XW, you might not want another space combat star wars game, although player tend to start on XW, and if they stick with the hobby, mature to Armada.

16 hours ago, Union said:

X-Wing is more iconic as well and looks and feels more like Star Wars than some little guys on a map which really looks and feels nothing like Star Wars.

Speak for yourself. To me, Star Wars is all about the characters at its core, not about spaceships and space battles. There's nothing more iconic to me when it comes to Star Wars than a bunch of rebels and cool characters taking on stormtroopers and interesting villains in a crazy space adventure. That's why Imperial Assault is a lot closer to what makes Star Wars special and memorable to me than X-wing.

2 hours ago, Fourtytwo said:

Speak for yourself. To me, Star Wars is all about the characters at its core, not about spaceships and space battles. There's nothing more iconic to me when it comes to Star Wars than a bunch of rebels and cool characters taking on stormtroopers and interesting villains in a crazy space adventure. That's why Imperial Assault is a lot closer to what makes Star Wars special and memorable to me than X-wing.

I second you!

Even though actionwise the space combats are probably my favorite part of Star Wars, there is nothing more iconic than Vader leading a bunch of Stormtroopers.

5 hours ago, Fourtytwo said:

Speak for yourself. To me, Star Wars is all about the characters at its core, not about spaceships and space battles. There's nothing more iconic to me when it comes to Star Wars than a bunch of rebels and cool characters taking on stormtroopers and interesting villains in a crazy space adventure. That's why Imperial Assault is a lot closer to what makes Star Wars special and memorable to me than X-wing.

I've never had to tell someone we're playing Star Wars when we have a bunch of X-Wings and Tie Fighters on the board. I've never NOT had to tell someone we're playing Star Wars when playing Imperial Assault at a store.

So maybe you identify with the human action more but the reality is that if someone looks at the two boxes, X-Wing is vastly more Star Wars than Imperial Assault is. And if someone sees them played they want to play with an X-Wing because it is Star Wars and trying to convince them that playing some random guy called Gideon is as Star Wars as flying an X-Wing, well, you got a hard sell on your hands there.

I don’t think there is a simple answer. I’ve played at Worlds in both games for the past few years and have been highly involved in both communities.

IA is not painted. Even though you don’t have to paint the figures to play the game, it detracts players. They play the game because it’s Star Wars. X-wing right out of the box looks a lot more like Star Wars than IA. Furthermore, IA implies that you should paint the figures. This requires more money, skill, and time. I started out with ZERO intention to paint and then got nudged into it by a friend. Now, I love painting the figures and WILL NOT go to an event without painted figures.

X-wing came first. This is huge. It caught the imagination of players of other games like Warhammer, but who loved Star Wars. Once they sunk their time and money into X-wing, it wasn’t easy to add another game in. If you don’t have the time or money for another game, you’re not going to get into IA.

FFG promotes X-wing more than IA. Systems Open Series. Guest articles on their website. Inviting world champions to events. The more something is promoted, the more popular it will be.

X-wing is the cool kid who smokes. He looks cool now, but in a few years he’ll be coughing while he pumps your gas and smokes menthols for the flavour. IA is the nerdy kid. He may seem not as cool now, but he’ll have a great long career and you can hang out with him any time and still have fun.

5 minutes ago, Union said:

I've never had to tell someone we're playing Star Wars when we have a bunch of X-Wings and Tie Fighters on the board. I've never NOT had to tell someone we're playing Star Wars when playing Imperial Assault at a store.

So maybe you identify with the human action more but the reality is that if someone looks at the two boxes, X-Wing is vastly more Star Wars than Imperial Assault is. And if someone sees them played they want to play with an X-Wing because it is Star Wars and trying to convince them that playing some random guy called Gideon is as Star Wars as flying an X-Wing, well, you got a hard sell on your hands there.

That's not a valid argument. I rarely see an iconic figure played in X-wing. And then their pilot skills are rarely thematic to the character. IA has way more Star Wars theme than X-wing. You might as well be playing Star Trek attack wing.

12 minutes ago, Union said:

I've never had to tell someone we're playing Star Wars when we have a bunch of X-Wings and Tie Fighters on the board. I've never NOT had to tell someone we're playing Star Wars when playing Imperial Assault at a store.

So maybe you identify with the human action more but the reality is that if someone looks at the two boxes, X-Wing is vastly more Star Wars than Imperial Assault is. And if someone sees them played they want to play with an X-Wing because it is Star Wars and trying to convince them that playing some random guy called Gideon is as Star Wars as flying an X-Wing, well, you got a hard sell on your hands there.

Do they get it for X-Wing when the see a bunch of K-Wings and E-Wings squaring off against a Quadjumper and some Protectorates?

Do they not get it for IA when the see Vader and Stormtroopers v Luke and wookies?

Seems kinda situational...

15 minutes ago, Union said:

they want to play with an X-Wing because it is Star Wars and trying to convince them that playing some random guy called Gideon is as Star Wars as flying an X-Wing, well, you got a hard sell on your hands there.

1) To be fair, the X-wing scene today is bloated with so many Scum/Expanded universe ships that the iconic Star wars feel that was once associated with the game is kinda fading out.

The equivalent to your Gideon example is like trying to get a casual Star Wars fan excited about flying a JumpMaster 5000

2) You’re free to play with any Star Wars character (generic or iconic) in the Skirmish mode

EDIT: Wow, I'm glad others jumped on this

Compare our friend's wonderful reporting from a recent Aussie tournament (linked above) to this random screenshot that I took of the top 8 lists from a recent X-wing Regional.

I see lots of well known fighter pilots in these lists...NOT. LMAO. I honestly can't stop laughing.

7 minutes ago, Armandhammer said:

EDIT: Wow, I'm glad others jumped on this

LOL Yeah, I was about to reply to it too but then I saw that there was already a lot of answers.

The current X-Wing scene is all about obscure ships. Except for Poe from time to time, nobody plays X-Wing; A-Wing doesn't have enough punch; B-Wing are too slow and easy to gun down; there is some Y-Wing with a TLT. In the competitive scene, almost nobody play the Empire... it's all about the scums... For my part, I restrict myself to play only thematic lists so I can still feel like playing a Star Wars game.

11 minutes ago, NeverBetTheFett said:

I see lots of well known fighter pilots in these lists...NOT. LMAO. I honestly can't stop laughing.

What, Thweek, Wullffwarro, and Syndicate Thug aren't your favorite Star Wars characters?