1 hour ago, Shockwave said:

Now in regards the X-wing 2.0. It is the most expensive initial out lay of and edition change that I have dealt with because of the base plates, dials etc. But it could of been done FAR worse. 

It also could have been done far better. Historically, when games have undergone a complete redesign the way this one has, the only time it’s balanced is at its introduction. In 2 years, we will have the same problem ships and meta lockdown all over again and while one team is tinkering with point costs on the app to invalidate past purchases, another team will secretly begin developing 3rd edition as sales wane. And the cycle goes on and on.

Back on topic, when I saw the thread title I knew right away the direction the thread would take: a devolvement into a GW ***** session. We get it. GW is the worst game company on the planet. The comment, “If you think the FFG business model is bad, check out GW” started waning very thin long before 2e x-wing was announced. If that’s your only example, then yeah - this doesn’t sting nearly as bad. But saying it’s not a sting is like saying the bully who only leaves bruises when he punches you is a nicer guy than the bully who hits hard enough to break a tooth every time.

Over the last 30 years, I have played a ton of games that underwent edition changes. I played Warhammer Fantasy (I believe it was 5th ed.) and walked away when 6th was announced, i still have all my bretonnians and lizardmen from those days, but haven’t played since 1999. I’d spent too much to just start over and decided to put my money into other games. I’ve only played 40K once, around the same time as my Fantasy days, and I won’t give them even one dollar knowing that whatever i buy will be irrelevant in a year or two.

i also played d&d 2nd, 3rd, 3.5, and yes I picked up 4th edition books, though i knew the system was terrible and we never really played it in our group. I played D&D minis and didn’t mind the change from tiles to full color maps but second edition was DOA. I never understood why they wrecked a solidly made game by replacing it with an inferior rushed one. Now my models just sit in a box collecting dust waiting for the right time to be played again.

I loved Star Wars saga edition and still would love to play that with the right group of people. I played Star Wars west end games minis and rpg, transitioned into the decipher card game before buying the WotC tcg and minis line of games (Star Wars Miniatures is still my favorite collectible game of all time), and then watched the license change hands again as a new cycle of games with the same ol twists were slowly dumped onto the market by the current game company machine. And I have bought them all, because they are fun to play and I enjoy social interaction with people who like to use their mental prowess in a friendly battle of wills.

Then, there’s also games like Guildball, Battletech, Star Trek ship battle games and countless others. All of them handled their iterations differently and all of them have a varying level of fun factor. What i love about those games is that with the exception of Guildball, you don’t have to completely replace everything you own to keep enjoying the game. And even Guildball gives players the options of updating for free. ****, you can play for free if you want since even the models can be downloaded as paper cutouts. You only need willing players who want to play games and have a good time doing their best to win.

All of that to say 2nd edition is not the end of the cycle of changes for X-Wing and there’s every reason to believe based on the evidence that Disney (or FFG, for that matter) could one day cancel the license and then assign it to some other company who would hit the reset button all over again.

So here’s what matters: what you have is playable. It will always be playable. No game is perfect, and chase games that constantly require new purchases to keep up to date will inevitably spiral into a fine point the longer they are being made. And you’ll be expected to spend money on new product, because it’s how the company stays in business. If you don’t want to do that, if that angers you, this is the time to get out of these games because the more you buy, the more irrelevant, outdated product you will eventually end up owning.

The good news is your first edition game is still solid and with some simple house rules, will be for a long time to come.

4 hours ago, Hos said:

Rules like 40K, where its all I go then you go, are so fudging archaic in comparison - it is not fun spending 30-60 mins watching your opponent move and shoot all their units. If only 40K had quality rules!

If 40k had Legion’s ruleset I’d be playing the **** out of it. It’s such a shame that a wonderfully built world is consistently let down by terrible rule sets. It shows too, with the advent of Legion 8th Ed’s dead cat bounce is well and truly over around here.

This has been a really interesting read for me. I used to play some GW games back at school; I had 40K eldar, an orc blood bowl team and a Delaque gang for Necromunda but these never really lasted too long. I used to enjoy the modelling and painting more than the games in all honesty. As an adult I ended up getting into x-wing, then repainting ships, then also picking up Knight Models Batman miniatures game. As such I've never really been through a bunch of edition changes like many of you here as I spent the 18 years in between living quite a hedonistic party lifestyle and never touching gaming.

Batman Miniatures 2.0 came out tail end of last year and at first I didn't like the changes but they grew on me pretty quickly. Free PDf rules, all old models still useable, no really big shake up there. I bought the new rule book because I spend a lot of my work day in front of a screen so I prefer to have paper to read at home without loose pages everywhere. The only thing that mildly irked me was there were a few models I still wanted that they retired to direct only (thus increasing the cost of getting them a lot) but that's just personal really.

Blood Bowl's new edition was actually a perfect place for me to jump back into the game. I appreciate the scale changes annoyed a few existing players but the new core was ideal for me to pick up everything I need for games. I now have 6 teams. No issues for me there.

X-wing 2.0 looks to be a good move as far as I can tell. So far I like all the changes I've seen/read about and I'm hopeful it'll be good for the games long term health. I have a huge collection and I'll need a new core, 2 rebel, 2 imp and 1 scum conversion kits to port my whole collection over. I know I don't NEED all of that from day 1 so I'll pick a faction and go with that to start with. I'll eventually get everything I need for all my spaceships but I'm in no hurry. Taking my time will also allow me to see if the new edition progresses like I hope it will before becoming overly invested. I like the fact FFG have said there will be ways to acquire the new content without having to buy new ships as future waves are released but I'll probably end up buying a few new models anyway because... MOVING WINGS!!!! I don't really have any issues with this edition change and hope it will prove to be a great long term move.

I've honestly never wanted to get back into 40K or try the new Necromunda mainly due to all the horror stories I've read/heard about GW's practices.

What's funny is horus heresy plays really well armies are smaller and games quicker, where 8th has fast become as big a mess as 7th ever was.

It's the difference in dev teams approach.

40k has never been cheap to upgrade and I've played since 2 nd edition so I've gone through 6 edition changes, of course last three editions have been the worst because of how fast they cycle codex releases now.

I also played battletech since the 90's and tried Mechwarrior but have up before I wasted too much money, recently got into it again when catalyst re-released the rules.

If you haven't tried Alphastrike I recommend it much faster play using more units without losing the feel of battletech, first edition was unbalanced in IS favour but now it's all good.

And the new video game is good despite the sjw crap they put in.

I am 5 months shy of 40 years of gaming. I started with Basic DnD when I was 8. I've played many types of games for many years. I have seen a lot of edition changes. I have seen painless ones and painful ones. Most upgrades were needed, with the main exception of some GW and DnD ones.

Worst DnD was away from 3.5 as they had released 101 source books for about every topic, but then invalidated them all 5 years later.

Worst GW version (and there were many bad ones) was when they went to Age of Sigmar. It went from being a game of ranked units that moved around the battlefield flanking each other to a skirmish game where mobs of warriors moved in little hordes. That was 13 years of collecting, painting, and customizing minis that have utterly gone to waste with that upgrade. I spent over $1,000 on that game and don't play it now.

With years of experience and looking at X-wing, you have to look at what is wrong with the game and what needs to be fixed. The dials are a problem as those created 6 years ago just need to be utterly redone. Also, the whole point system and what cards exist had to be redone. You just can't really fix X-wing without doing that. This requires new stuff be printed. You can't avoid it. FGG has to charge for these kits as you really can't expect them for free. What they are offering is a decent dollar cost for what you get. I mean, they have to pay for material, shipping, artwork, redesign, a year of game development, and testing. That is baked into the cost of the upgrade kits. It's really a reasonable price.

The only real complaint I have is that they could have included more X-wing upgrades in the upgrade kit. One more would have been worth it. Yes, you get a new X-wing in the starter, but you also get a new mini, too. So, if you have more than 2 before you are screwed. I feel it's a legitimate complaint, but it's a minor one.

Overall I am pleased with this move to a new edition. I was planning on quitting the game after GenCon, but am fully back in and excited.

2 hours ago, Major Tom said:

If 40k had Legion’s ruleset I’d be playing the **** out of it. It’s such a shame that a wonderfully built world is consistently let down by terrible rule sets. It shows too, with the advent of Legion 8th Ed’s dead cat bounce is well and truly over around here.

I think the only real advantage GW/WH40K has over FFG/Legion at the moment is the quality of their models. GW's models are simply amazing (although the ability to repose and reposition them has become a bit more difficult in recent years - ball and socket limb joints appear to be being replaced by fixed positions). GW said for years they were "all about the hobby", which really showed with their initial "rules, schmules" approach to Age of Sigmar.

I'm not interested in the cost side of the transition. My concern lies with the quality side, because ultimately if the quality of the reboot is high enough then it will justify the cost.

My most direct comparison is when FFG rebooted AGOT LCG into 2nd Edition. The game they produced had significant flaws out of the core and the balance was off. The game was soft-launched at Gencon, just like X-Wing will be this year, and in the months before it actually hit stores the best stuff became rapidly obvious and I know a lot of players who had been excited by 2.0 who ultimately didn't buy in, because they knew before release that the game experience was going to be weaker than they wanted.

It's something that we have to hope X-Wing avoids repeating.

26 minutes ago, Smutpedler said:

This has been a really interesting read for me. I used to play some GW games back at school; I had 40K eldar, an orc blood bowl team and a Delaque gang for Necromunda but these never really lasted too long. I used to enjoy the modelling and painting more than the games in all honesty. As an adult I ended up getting into x-wing, then repainting ships, then also picking up Knight Models Batman miniatures game. As such I've never really been through a bunch of edition changes like many of you here as I spent the 18 years in between living quite a hedonistic party lifestyle and never touching gaming.

Batman Miniatures 2.0 came out tail end of last year and at first I didn't like the changes but they grew on me pretty quickly. Free PDf rules, all old models still useable, no really big shake up there. I bought the new rule book because I spend a lot of my work day in front of a screen so I prefer to have paper to read at home without loose pages everywhere. The only thing that mildly irked me was there were a few models I still wanted that they retired to direct only (thus increasing the cost of getting them a lot) but that's just personal really.

Blood Bowl's new edition was actually a perfect place for me to jump back into the game. I appreciate the scale changes annoyed a few existing players but the new core was ideal for me to pick up everything I need for games. I now have 6 teams. No issues for me there.

X-wing 2.0 looks to be a good move as far as I can tell. So far I like all the changes I've seen/read about and I'm hopeful it'll be good for the games long term health. I have a huge collection and I'll need a new core, 2 rebel, 2 imp and 1 scum conversion kits to port my whole collection over. I know I don't NEED all of that from day 1 so I'll pick a faction and go with that to start with. I'll eventually get everything I need for all my spaceships but I'm in no hurry. Taking my time will also allow me to see if the new edition progresses like I hope it will before becoming overly invested. I like the fact FFG have said there will be ways to acquire the new content without having to buy new ships as future waves are released but I'll probably end up buying a few new models anyway because... MOVING WINGS!!!! I don't really have any issues with this edition change and hope it will prove to be a great long term move.

I've honestly never wanted to get back into 40K or try the new Necromunda mainly due to all the horror stories I've read/heard about GW's practices.

The new specialist game team has been pretty good with keeping the smaller games good experiences, as has GW main with Shadespire (Though if you are interested competetively...don't. Just don't. There is a horrible stall deck that will bore you to death and it is possibly the strongest deck possible.)

So if you want a fix of GW minis, don't shy away from the small games, they are great experiences and the community work is outstanding at this point. The main games, though...let's just say X-Wing 2.0 will become my staple.

There's a reason Blood Bowl got pulled from Games Workshop's shelves - it's so good and required so little investment that it was hurting their sales of other games!

5 hours ago, Jike said:

That last point is interesting to me. Looking back at a lot of the GW edition changes, the apparent cost of moving form one edition to the next was usually the cost of the rulebook plus the cost of a new Army Book/Codex. However, in a lot of cases the book for your army would come out later in the game's life cycle so the upfront cost was just the rulebook. There were also numerous "hidden" costs since the new edition would often require changes to your army that needed you to buy more models for any number of reasons. The total cost of an edition change was often quite high but spread over 1-3 years in a lot of cases. X-Wing 2.0 has a smaller upgrade cost than any of the GW edition changes I've been through, taking all the factors of those games into account, but it's all paid for up front in the form of the conversion kits and new core set.

This has gotten me thinking. If you're a casual player, like me, you can sometimes get away with spending very little upfront to play a new edition of 40k. Provided your army (or a major portion of it) isn't written out of the new edition, there's a good chance you'll still be able to use the majority of your figures; that doesn't mean your force will remain competitive, but it's at least still usable. You don't even need to own the new rulebook or codex, so long as you have access to them.

With X-wing, the situation feels very different: either you spend quite a lot of money converting, or you stick with 1st edition. And I'm wondering to what extent that's true, or just perception...the result of, as Jike says, "sticker shock". If you're a complete casual, what do you actually need in order to play? Can you get away with borrowing a damage deck and a few components from a friend, but otherwise make do with the stuff you have? Do you actually need anything much beyond the new core set to enjoy 2nd ed on your kitchen table?

This line of thinking is of course utterly irrelevant if you're a serious tournament player, but if you're a casual player fretting about whether or not to jump, it might be a worthwhile question to ask!

21 minutes ago, Admiral Deathrain said:

The new specialist game team has been pretty good with keeping the smaller games good experiences, as has GW main with Shadespire (Though if you are interested competetively...don't. Just don't. There is a horrible stall deck that will bore you to death and it is possibly the strongest deck

Ah yes, Stormcast Relics. Makes pre-nerf TS Nimranda look fair, wholesome and fun to play against.

Saga the Dark Age skirmish rules have just had another edition published. They have also reissued the supplements for the various factions.

Other than the ridiculously powerful abilities of Arab Naptha bomb throwers in the Crusades supplement the rules worked fine. They weren't broke so they fixed them.

At our wargame club the game isn't played as much now though it would be an exaggeration to say it has died. Personally I have no intention of rebuying rules or supplements that I already own and which worked perfectly fine as they were. Generally the new edition has damped down enthusiasm.

Flames of War has died a death also but as I never played that I don't know whether that is due to new editions coming out.

X-Wing is a non-issue. The game is long dead here. The prospect of paying out serious money to fix a game that we didn't break merely ensures it stays dead. As I have said before, the dominance of obscure ships, card combinations being more important than dogfighting, an FAQ longer than the rules themselves and power creep killed it about 18 months or so ago. I'm left with a load of fighters and big ships that I can't sell and can't get a game with. Armada is still going strong but X-Wing is finished here.

8 hours ago, BigKahuna said:

I find it interesting that 8th edition 40k has so many negative comments. I would not have expected that. In my area, 40k is booming right now, being hailed as one of the best editions of the game in living memory..

40k 8th was a big improvement over 6th/7th, and therefore a lot of players like it

but the main problem of 7th was within the mess of faction rules and not with the core rules, that's why Horus Heresy based on 7th works pretty well as a game.

8th changed the core rules but noe gets into the same mess for faction rules that was there in 7th, the promised speed up off the game turns out to be the opposite and the one big problem 40k had since 3rd edition is bigger than it ever was: Alpha Strike/First turn wins (5th edition special deployment handled it a lot better) and recent FAQ changes increased it instead of solving it

Increasing the point level for standard games while also decreasing the points for infantry has also the same money making approach that killed 8th edition Warhammer Fantasy (and what you called a mass infantry army in 4th/5th is now an Elite army that will lose against mass infantry), and some people call it still the best edition with minor balance issues

Oh look, @Gadgehas picked up yet another new account to bash X-Wing with.

9 minutes ago, Kodos said:

Increasing the point level for standard games while also decreasing the points for infantry has also the same money making approach that killed 8th edition Warhammer Fantasy (and what you called a mass infantry army in 4th/5th is now an Elite army that will lose against mass infantry), and some people call it still the best edition with minor balance issues

What killed 8th WHFB (in my humble opinion) was making Monsters, Elites, and Heroes too powerful. Ranked units of Core infantry lost its relevance. It didn't matter if they charged the rear if a powerhouse unit. It became all about the big stuff. GW embraced this.

elie infantry in large blocks worked as a counter to monsters, but needing 40+ models at the same time as GW decreased the Box content and increased the prices and 200€ for 1 unit was too much for most players

And shifting the game back too monsters/heros was also something people who played already 5th did not like while it was something new and exciting for others

17 minutes ago, heychadwick said:

What killed 8th WHFB (in my humble opinion) was making Monsters, Elites, and Heroes too powerful. Ranked units of Core infantry lost its relevance. It didn't matter if they charged the rear if a powerhouse unit. It became all about the big stuff. GW embraced this.

That and the fact that 8th WHFB reduced the importance of maneuvering/wheeling blocks of troops, and made terrain mostly act as just a gimmicky “model remover”. But yeah, 8th could have just been called “heroes on monsters” edition, because rank and file pretty much just existed to be removed from the table.

Yeah, one reason I switched to Kings of War and also never really got into T9A

7 minutes ago, It’s One Of Ours said:

That and the fact that 8th WHFB reduced the importance of maneuvering/wheeling blocks of troops, and made terrain mostly act as just a gimmicky “model remover”. But yeah, 8th could have just been called “heroes on monsters” edition, because rank and file pretty much just existed to be removed from the table.

You mean "heroes on monsters, super elite troopers, and magic vortices" edition.

Otherwise, yeah.......that's why Age o' S holds no interest for me. The game I loved was about ranked units fighting. The new stuff is just a larger skirmish game.

6th Ed WHFB was my favorite.

2 minutes ago, Kodos said:

Yeah, one reason I switched to Kings of War and also never really got into T9A

9th Age was probably the most balanced GW game I ever played (not done by GW).

2 minutes ago, heychadwick said:

You mean "heroes on monsters, super elite troopers, and magic vortices" edition.

Otherwise, yeah.......that's why Age o' S holds no interest for me. The game I loved was about ranked units fighting. The new stuff is just a larger skirmish game.

6th Ed WHFB was my favorite.

It really goes to show how little they understand the games they workshop

Like they were so flabbergasted why their horrible 8th Ed (the age of random bull) did so badly that they thought they had to axe fantasy as we knew it

Sigh

4 minutes ago, heychadwick said:

You mean "heroes on monsters, super elite troopers, and magic vortices" edition.

Otherwise, yeah.......that's why Age o' S holds no interest for me. The game I loved was about ranked units fighting. The new stuff is just a larger skirmish game.

6th Ed WHFB was my favorite.

Ugh... I forgot about the magic vortices crap nuking large portions of the battlefield.

2 minutes ago, ficklegreendice said:

It really goes to show how little they understand the games they workshop

Like they were so flabbergasted why their horrible 8th Ed (the age of random bull) did so badly that they thought they had to axe fantasy as we knew it

Sigh

To be honest, 8E rules were MUCH better than 7th. It was the army books that were crap. They pushed the elite stuff like mad. OnG (my army) was pretty balanced and the main book was, too. It was all the crap that came out in the next armies that ruined it.

4 minutes ago, It’s One Of Ours said:

Ugh... I forgot about the magic vortices crap nuking large portions of the battlefield.

I had a fully ranked unit of Goblins charge the rear if an Ogre unit and *I* was the one running?!?!??!?

I disagree, 8th was different but not better or worse than 7th (in fact all new edition of GW games are just different and never an improvement from previous rules) Power creep in army books was a problem with all editions.

It was better if you liked going heavy into heroes, if one was into R&F, 6th was the best. Same with T9A, if you never liked 8th you never gonna like that game either.

7th main problem that they changed core rules to sell more models while did not update army books with the comment "this is intended as we never make mistakes" and therefore also not releasing any kind of FAQ or Errata

If they would have treated 7th fantasy the way they do with AoS (balance Errata and point adjustments) it would still be a thing.