Hello

If you may recall I started blogging, my last post was about why you be playing X-Wing. Today, I posted a follow up, on what to buy on a budget.

I am trying to build the community, especially around causal play. MY viewers are Star Wars fans but not necessarily tabletop gamers. So I wont be getting into META and that kind of stuff. My goal is to get them into there local shop and give the game a chance.

I welcome comments and suggestion, please dm me if you don't like something in my post I'm new to blogging

https://butwhythopodcast.com/2018/01/15/how-to-start-playing-x-wing-on-a-budget/

I'm working on some ideas for my next post, like alternative budget buys.

Anyone have any suggestions?

As far as ships go, if you're just playing casually I would recommend people buy the ships that they love from the movies. If you regularly play with a small group of friends I would recommend doing a shared collection, that way everybody doesn't have to buy their own Millennium Falcon, for instance.

I've found that the more iconic ships are the best for hooking people. The Falcon, Slave I, X-wings, TIE fighters, pretty much all of waves 1-3. Doing the missions that are (used to be ) included in the large ships is another way to grab people's attention. The included special tokens add a striking visual element to the game and mix up the objectives.

There are a lot of alternative play mat options like vinyl or just making your own out of plywood and black paint.

1 hour ago, KommanderKeldoth said:

As far as ships go, if you're just playing casually I would recommend people buy the ships that they love from the movies.

This.

You've got to be very careful with balance when your players aren't likely to buy many sets.

For instance, if you tell your players that waves 1-3 ships are the most balanced and thematic, you'll find that B-wings and TIEs utterly dominate the field.

FFG has actually posted some fantastic articles on playing X-wing on a budget. 101 US dollars was their budget, I believe.

I'd suggest the "ace" style packs first - they're excellent for new players and really capture the theme of the factions.

Use proxies. U can actually proxy everything. There is an x-wing dials app on google play. X-Wing Squad Designer is my favorite list builder. So if you are on a budget just buy a pack of ffg ship templates.

My 2 cents...

Purchase used ships. Many, many players stopped playing X Wing (kids, Core Set as a gift, etc). You can buy cheap Cores and OTS ships. Even cheaper if you buy all of the seller's X Wing at once. One Red Core plus 6 small ships. Perhaps 50 euros, without upgrade cards.

Print your list from a Builder and no need to proxy upgrades. You need your ships and dials, plus Core's game aids. X Wing hit hard when this was a "simple" game. Many, many players simply stopped to play, and there are tons of "outdated" ships that you can buy second hand.

X Wings, A wings, Interceptors... The OTS Finest.

The Box sets are all pretty great and are often on sale. Especially Heroes of the Resistance is just a steal- you can play 100 pts straight away with it and do so with two very fun, film-accurate ships with some names everyone will recognize.

Every bundle and core set is not just a great starting point, but also the best way to quickly start a collection.

I think heroes of the resistance is a great purchase. The TFA core and HOR let's someone field a decent fun combo, for 75.

I got a bit of flack on Reddit for not pushing the original core, I love the thematic aspect of it, but one anyone gets remotely into store play there going to need the newer stuff.

I am not going to promote proxies or online play. My goals for the blog is to bring people together around the table. I want non gamers to feel like they can pick up a real game have fun with family and make some new friends.

2 minutes ago, Stew00m said:

I think heroes of the resistance is a great purchase. The TFA core and HOR let's someone field a decent fun combo, for 75.

I got a bit of flack on Reddit for not pushing the original core, I love the thematic aspect of it, but one anyone gets remotely into store play there going to need the newer stuff.

I am not going to promote proxies or online play. My goals for the blog is to bring people together around the table. I want non gamers to feel like they can pick up a real game have fun with family and make some new friends.

Yeah, if you asked me why you'd buy the original core set, literally the only reason I can come up with is R2D2. The damage deck is outright bad (if you play against Kylo, the classic damage deck is utterly backbreaking to some lists) and it doesn't even really have the best pilots for it's respective ships where the TFA set at least gives you the very playable PS8 Poe and BB-8 who is situationally good.

Heroes Core Set + TFA set gives you PS9 Poe, Jess Pava and Rey. If you toss a TIE Silencer in that batch, you even get some great upgrades that will give you some top tier build options. Personally that might be the best starting point for the game just in terms of giving most of the essentials for a solid competitive or casual build for a relatively light cost.

5 minutes ago, Stew00m said:

I am not going to promote proxies or online play. My goals for the blog is to bring people together around the table. I want non gamers to feel like they can pick up a real game have fun with family and make some new friends.

Well, I am ok with proxies for just fun casual events. Especially if you’re on a tight budget and can’t afford to buy all the old stuff for the cards and the new ships for the things you’re actually putting down on the mat. Focus on the ships you’ll actually fly. Those you cannot proxy (but you can borrow sometimes from a friendly player).

I have almost all of the expansions out there.... and I still print out lists with the squad builder just because it’s way more conveinant than digging out all the cards to play.

for official tournaments? Sure, bring the legitimate stuff. But just for funsies? As long as you’re both sitting over the same table and building friendships, who cares if you have all the cards?

I agree with your recommendations (HoTR & the boxes). Several of the podcasts have called out "cheapest possible tournament lists" - buy 4 Auzituks or 4 Tie Aggressors. I recommend an article on that - possible look at the recent regional winners and calculate which ones are the cheapest possible. Maybe even look at top 8 lists and do the same exercise then provide that recommendation that's cheapest.

I love all the ideas, I'm planning to invite some friend over and kinda of play test ideas like two orginal core set.

I love the idea of trying cheap tournament stuff. I'm gearing my article more to families and couples so I am making an assumption that people will need to field two lists.

I even reluctant to sent new folks to the forums, the forums can be overwhelming and what's popular online may not be popular locally.

We have one local shop that does an x Ewing league and each night is a theme, or you may have to use non named pilots, or they may do missions.