Old Players: Tell Us A Story!

By Boom Owl, in X-Wing

Posted at

Anyone around who played way way back before Wave 4 when 1.0 was probably actually good?

Looking at the wave summaries below it looks like things started the process of going off the rails when the Defender/Phantom was released.

So......yea old players set up shop on the town corner and tell us your old war stories, share some wisdom.

Some of us started playing after the pure misery that was Wave 11 so we have no context.

We are ready to stay awhile and listen.

What did good X-Wing play look like during Wave 1-3 before the Phantom and Autothrusters dropped?

I dont care about what and when whatever ship ruined the game for you.

Just share some stories about what good X-Wing players did back then.

The more detail the better. I am still in search of the elusive definition of the "good X-Wing player".

If you don't want to type stuff, just re-post your Wave 1-3 Battle Reports here I guess?

Wave 1

CUSTOM-Wave1 layout

(Announced April 17, 2012 / Released September 14, 2012)

Wave 2

Wave2-Layout

(Announced September 14, 2012 / Released February 28, 2013)

Wave 3

Wave3 layout

(Announced May 4, 2013 / Released September 12, 2013)

Wave 4

Wave4-layout

(Announced February 7, 2014 / Released June 26, 2014)

Wave 5

SWX23-24-art

(Announced June 13, 2014 / Released November 26, 2014)

Wave 6

Most-Wanted-Backdrop

(Announced August 15, 2014 / Released February 26, 2015)

Wave 7

Wave7-Layout

(Announced April 20, 2015 / Released August 25, 2015)

Wave 8

Wave8-updated

(Announced July 31, 2015 / Released March 17, 2016)

(Announced September 10, 2015 / Released December 17, 2015)

Wave 9

Swx32-36 titleimage

(Announced June 2, 2016 / Released September 22, 2016)

Wave 10

Swx59-63 titleimage

(Announced August 5, 2016 / Released February 2, 2017)

(Announced September 2, 2016 / Released December 15, 2016)

Wave 11

Swx64-66 titleimage

(Announced March 15, 2017 / Released July 17, 2017)

Wave 12

Swx69-70-72 title-image

(Announced August 21, 2017 / Released December 8, 2017)

Wave 13

Swx67-68 titleimage

(Announced September 8, 2017 / Released December 8, 2017)

Wave 14

Swx74-75 title-image

(Announced February 13, 2018)

Themed Packs

(Announced September 16, 2013 / Released March 14, 2014)

Aces-box-right

(Announced March 18, 2014 / Released September 25, 2014)

SWX29-box-left-0

(Announced December 14, 2015 / Released June 30, 2016)

Swx52 box left

(Announced May 4, 2016 / Released October 27, 2016)

Swx57 box 600

(Announced May 30, 2017 / Released October 26, 2017)

Guns for hire 2

(Announced February 13, 2018)

Swx74-75 title-image

Huge Ships

(Announced August 20, 2013 / Released April 30, 2014)

(Announced August 20, 2013 / Released May 22, 2014)

(Announced December 19, 2014 / Released August 13, 2015)

(Announced July 31, 2015 / Released December 21, 2015)

(Announced January 9, 2017 / Released June 8, 2017)

Edited by Boom Owl
Posted at

My first tournament list was 4 x-wings. Luke, Red Squadron Pilot, 2x Rookie Pilots. I didnt have R2-D2 on luke but i should have. I faced a similar list that had Biggs and I was like, holy crap Biggs is annoying! Back then swarms were played and howlrunner was one of the most feared and targeted ships in the game. Good play involved focus fire on the opponents best pilot. Blocking was hard to pull off, unless you were a well practiced swarm player.

My next lists in order of release were...

Lambda, 2x Academy, Kath Scarlet (Scarlet Cowgirl)

Han Solo + 3x Z-95s

Bobba Fett + 2x TLT Y-Wings

Bobba Fett + IG-2000

2x Jumpmaster + 2x Z-95s (all with feedback arrays)

1x Bumpmaster + Fenn Rau + Shadowcaster (Mindlink)

1x Scurrg bomber/Nym + 1x Dengar

Posted at

I started around wave 3. It was a good time then for sure...

I've been to 6 store championships over the years, but my first two in early 2014 during wave 3 were my best performances going 2-1 and 3-0 in swiss rounds.

It's funny since I was still growing as a player then, but I did well because there was less meta garbage back then, and flying mattered more. Tie swarm was the only OP list but at least you had to be a good player to make it work.

Since then I've gone 2-2 at my last four SC's because I don't fly OP lists so I'm always at a disadvantage even though I bring good lists I know and fly really well.

Hoping 2.0 finally gives me the xwing success I've been waiting to have for over 4 years now.

Posted at
17 minutes ago, markcsoul said:

flying mattered more. Tie swarm was the only OP list but at least you had to be a good player to make it work.

What does this specifically mean?

Edited by Boom Owl
Posted at
15 minutes ago, Boom Owl said:

What does this specifically mean?

To elaborate, Tie swarm at the time was easily the best list in the game. If someone flew it well, you were likely to lose with pretty much any other list. Howl's ability was so good, getting a reroll combined (usually) with a focus. Since there wasn't much strong damage mitigation back then it was easy for them to melt ships. Also standard tie's were still decent back then as well. 3 agility dice with 3 hull could last a few rounds if you rolled halfway decent, since even when facing 3-attack ships they usually only had one mod at most for their attack dice.

I HATED facing it back then. It was my only 2 losses in those first couple SC's, I could only kill a single tie both games even though I had 4 ships in my list that all had 3 attack dice, and it was a really strong list too. But now in retrospect I can respect it, because you HAD to fly well to make it work. It's not easy flying 7 ships in a formation, making sure not to bump and lose actions, maintaining focus fire, avoiding obstacles, etc. Unlike a lot of top lists in later waves where the list does a lot of the work for you. With these later wave meta lists you can not fly well and/or make mistakes and still have a decent shot at winning as long as you aren't facing a top list as well.

Hopefully that makes sense.

Edited by markcsoul
Posted at

I joined at wave 2. I had a lot of fun during waves 1-4. The wave 5 ships were underwhelming and didn't change much for us. Wave 6 was scum which we had no interest in, so again it wasn't a big deal. After that everything started going downhill.

There were some things that were broken from the beginning, like ordnance. That was probably my biggest disappointment, that proton torpedoes were so crappy for the cost.

We had some great games with the imperial slave 1. It's sad that it won't make it into 2.0. I hope there are some decent fan-made pilots for it.

Posted at
9 minutes ago, Boom Owl said:

What does this specifically mean?

TIE swarm was over powered in the early waves, but it's a tricky list to fly. Keeping all the TIEs together, pointed at the same target, and getting their actions through asteroids was not easy, but you can't really win games without it.

TIE swarm was also held back by the early tournament rules. If the game ended at time, you only scored a win if you were up by at least 33 points. TIE fighters don't preserve points well at all, and were a pretty common list. This meant that you'd often end up with a mirror match in the second round between two TIE swarms, which would often result in another modified win. It was perfectly possible to win all your games and not make the cut.

Posted at
2 minutes ago, period3 said:

I joined at wave 2. I had a lot of fun during waves 1-4. The wave 5 ships were underwhelming and didn't change much for us. Wave 6 was scum which we had no interest in, so again it wasn't a big deal. After that everything started going downhill.

There were some things that were broken from the beginning, like ordnance. That was probably my biggest disappointment, that proton torpedoes were so crappy for the cost.

We had some great games with the imperial slave 1. It's sad that it won't make it into 2.0. I hope there are some decent fan-made pilots for it.

Now, protorps will be the the most common ordnance I think :)

Posted at

Yeah, I don’t have time to tell a lot of stories now but I remember a time when B-Wings were one of the top ships in the game, considered better jousters than everything except TIE fighters. I remember when Imperial Firesprays were respectable because of their stat line and a 3x Firespray list was tough to beat. I remember when Soontir Fel was crappy, and then when he became really good (with Autothrusters and Royal Guard Title), and then became pretty crappy again as too many hard counters and power creep pushed him out of the meta. I remember Lambda shuttle builds that didn’t include Palpatine. And of course I remember when ordnance was so bad that bringing bombs and/or missiles and/or torpedoes was just handing your opponent free points.

Edited by Herowannabe
Posted at

I missed out on pre-nerf Defenders, although I was already lurking around the game's fringes at that point. I got my core set, I believe, in between wave 5 and 6, and started playing at my FLGS about three months after that. And in my opinion, wave 7 was where the game flopped.

It started with TLTs. Quad Y-wings were laughable, given that Soontir was just about at his prime. They did, however, auto-win against the vast majority of even tier 2 lists.

Then came Miranda, albeit in the same wave. Once she caught up, and the quad TLT craze went down she just exploded. At the time maybe the best thing you could do were Brobots or maybe a PTL Dash, although that was looking more and more doubtful as time went on. It was at this time that I won first minor tournament flying, I believe, Etahn, Horton and Biggs, if you can believe it.

Wave 8 pretty much wiped everything before it, except for Miranda and Dash, because they were so far off the freakin' curve. It just went downhill from there, with every little bit of power creep accompanied by a reduction in the skill required to fly the next big thing. Suddenly, I could be flying with Jedi skills, while my opponent begins by flying a ship off the boar unintentionally, and still lose.

My best early game was probably a round of Epic, somewhere in the vicinity of wave 6. I had sme seriously janky protection on Biggs, and he took an entire round of fire from my opponent's whole list, due to some fantastic setup (tactical jammer, R2-F2, R3 through a rock for his Tantive, for instance), allowing me to just park and laugh as his ships fell to pieces. It was great fun.

Posted at
32 minutes ago, Herowannabe said:

Yeah, I don’t have time to tell a lot of stories now but I remember a time when B-Wings were one of the top ships in the game, considered better jousters than everything except TIE fighters. I remember when Imperial Firesprays were respectable because of their stat line and a 3x Firespray list was tough to beat. I remember when Soontir Fel was crappy, and then when he became really good (with Autothrusters and Royal Guard Title), and then became pretty crappy again as too many hard counters and power creep pushed him out of the meta. I remember Lambda shuttle builds that didn’t include Palpatine. And of course I remember when ordnance was so bad that bringing bombs and/or missiles and/or torpedoes was just handing your opponent free points.

good summary of meta shifts. Vader in his advanced tie wasnt worth running in most imperial lists. Although he was in the first winning worlds list as part of a tie-swarm as i recall (Hothie was the pilot if im not mistaken)

Yes, those B-Wings were really beasty there for a while, Paul Heavers walk the dogs list used XXBB with Biggs back in the day and it was a very solid squad.

When palp shuttle caught on i can remember most of the top tables at one event i attended all ran palp-shuttle and two aces (usually vader + Soontir)

Brobots was a top tier list for a while there but there were plenty of other squads that were competitive. Power creep was starting to take hold probably even before the jumpmaster became popular but the jumpmaster really took ordnance to a level of power it hadnt had before. Mindlink lists that used Manaroo really started to push fee actions/action economy to crazy good levels and sadly a nerf was rather inevitable.

Edited by Da_Brown_Bomber
Posted at

IMHO somewhere around wave7 the game lost its way as a strategy game and became a dice game. even before wave7 the signs where there. Twin Laser Turrets helped to cement the stranglehold that was already choking some skill intensive lists out of the game. damage mitigation and regneration started to push certain rebel lists over the top. autowins and auto damage seemed to be more and more common with each new wave. FFG seemed to be scrambling to errata and nerf some balance back into the game but to me these reactionary moves were just as frustrating as the landscape of the game was shifting too fast.

Posted at

Oh man, remember when LBW or BBBBZ were good lists?

Posted at

I started just after wave 4, when waves 1-3 were well established but no-one had yet figured out how to fly Phantoms.

My first (winning) tournament list was ABXY: https://geordanr.github.io/xwing/?f=Rebel Alliance&d=v4!s!32:-1:-1:-1:;43:36,-1,-1,-1:-1:-1:;1:-1,2:-1:-1:;7:0,-1,-1,6:-1:-1:&sn=ABXY&obs=

For some reason there weren't a lot of TIE swarms in the area, so I faced:

- 2 Defenders 2 TIEs

- Boba, Fel and Turr

- Han + 3 Zs

I had a lot of fun with X-wing for a long time, although my focus has drifted to other games since wave 10-11. Personally I feel FFG's biggest mistake though was right back in wave 2, when they introduced the turreted Falcon. For me the whole point of playing X-wing is as a test of flying skill - out-thinking and out-maneuvering your opponent, and a turret basically ignores that.

The game really broke with wave 8 though - once the triple JM5k + deadeye / Plasma Torps / R4 combo was discovered (fitting neatly into 33 points with a virtually unavoidable ALPHA on a tough platform with the best dial in the game) it wiped Rebel lists out almost overnight. I can remember turning up to events with 25+ players, and there being just 3 Rebel lists, as they simply had no answer - Imps could at least out-maneuver the Jumps.

I'm really looking forward to the reset 2E provider - in particular the death of turrets is highly welcome as it will hopefully mean that good flying is once more the single most important factor in winning a game. However more generally the chance to re-balance the game (and continue to do so based on experience) will also be goo - perhaps we'll have a world where EVERY ship and pilot can do well, rather than just a select few that see the table again and again.

Posted at

I did really well in the early days. I started at Wave 1. I liked Vader with some Tie Fighters. I usually had Dark Curse and 3 Academies hold the center and the. Had Vader and Backstabber flank. Very effective, especially if people forgot about Dark Curse's ability. It was also good if I could fit a Concussion Missile on Vader. Get a TL and Focus for the dice mod. Vader hits hard and the Ties finish the guy off.

I remember winning once because I took a few Obsidian Squad guys when the other took only Academy. I moved in right behind them and got them.

Posted at
3 hours ago, Hedgehogmech said:

will hopefully mean that good flying is once more the single most important factor in winning a game.

What does this mean? Not in terms of why good "flying" might not exist in 1.0...but what was good "flying"?

Edited by Boom Owl
Posted at
1 minute ago, Boom Owl said:

What does this mean?

It means being able to predict where your opponent's ships are going, maneuvering your ships so you get shots on him while reducing the effective shots he can make on yours by being out of his arcs, behind obstacles or at the right range to favor your ships.

Much of that has been lost in 1st edition because there are so many upgrades and abilities that let you fly in lazy circles, always have the shot you want with full mode (focus, TL) so that you're always doing 3 or 4 hits without ever having to outthink or outmaneuver your opponent.

Posted at

I joined during the Dark Times, when X-wing was ruled by Fat Turrets and Phantoms.

I refused to play either, so my first tournament list was Roark, Nera Dantels with Flechette Torps and Swarm Tactics, Garven and a Z-95. The goal was to stress Whisper so she coouldn't cloak and get a PS kill at PS 12. Sometimes it worked, but not against Fat Han ...

Posted at

Just as Wave 4 hit, our meta was thick with fat and dual falcons. I was the only person running interceptors.

My highlight was being one of the newer players at a two-day tourney and bringing Jax (ptl, hull, shield), HLC+Pred Rexlar Brath, and Backstabber and winning the whole thing.

Posted at

So my old guy x-wing story goes like this.

I was introduced to x-wing in wave 2. I was a 40k player at the time. Some buddies were playing. The game was in progress and what was left on the table was Boba and a TIE vs Han. They let me fly the TIE for 2 turns until it blew up. X-wing seemed like a neat game. I bought a core and took it home. I played the intro scenario with my son twice. TIE fighters shoot down X-wing. Switch sides. TIE Fighters shoot down the X-wing. Tastes great less filling. I stuck with 40k.

A year later I quit 40k and didn't play tabletop games for a year. I started poking around here to see if X-wing had gotten more interesting. I found out that TIE swarms were a thing and they could work. So I bought another core and some TIEs and played my first real game. It was wave 6 by then and most folks were flying 2 ship lists. I played a total of 10 games before I went to my first tournament and beat the guys with their 2 ship lists. I never got the memo that phantoms had destroyed swarms forever.

Posted at

Who ya callin' old you whipper snapper!

Back in my day we didn't just Hyperspace into a battle. We had to be carried by a transport at barely .2 past light speed both ways, through the Ion storm. And when ya got there, ya had to aim your plain old blasters at the other ships. And if ya missed, ya had to do this wide circle to come all the way around to shoot again. And if you think your R1 unit had a chance in **** of getting your shields back up in time you don't know nothin. You kids and your newfangled targeting computers and vectored thrusters don't know how easy you got it. And don't even get me started on Jedi!

Started collecting around wave 3, but only had a hand full of games on the kitchen table until a store opened up near home around Wave 8 or 9, so only been playing against skilled players for about a year and a half.

Posted at

1.0 was only really "good" in Wave 7

Dark ages of fat turrets was done, we had great list variety including generics popping up at the final table at worlds (including an AWING no less), and I got to take a Punisher to a store-champ victory

Game was basically fine then (fine as it was gonna be given all the useless ships), griping of Palp aces aside (l2conner!)

Posted at

I remember in wave 2 when i started you could not get interceptors for love nor money, a grim time for the empire.

Posted at
46 minutes ago, ficklegreendice said:

1.0 was only really "good" in Wave 7

Wave 7 had the best relationship between arc dodging, jousting and turrets. Definitely the best in 1.0. I’ve been playing since wave 3.

Wave 8 almost had me quit the game. 9 rescued it to a degree. Wave 11 was almost as bad as wave 8.

2.0 appears to be taking the game back to a place where players had to fly well to mitigate dice variance. It’s a healthier place to be.

Posted at

I had my first taste of this plastic crack in December of 13 and have been addicted ever since. Started playing it with my oldest friend (3rd grade old) at our Wednesday night sessions. Got him addicted and the rest, as they say, is history. Didn't have a FLGS until August of 14 and then things got interesting! Met some great guys that were playing the game, both far and near. Never ran into any WAAC jobs or my interest might have died then and there.

Primarily a casual player, I never saw a reason for all the hate for certain builds or upgrades. (Ran into some pretty rabid commenters on these forums). My opponents were like me, pretty laid back and more interested in a good game than chalking up a win.

Only ran into a pre-nerf phantom once which was good because I got lambasted! Ran into Fel and his minions several times. Talk about a NPE! Pretty disheartening to constantly get out maneuvered and not get a shot but when you finally did get one in arc watch all your hits get cancelled by dice and tokens.

My feelings on 2E are split. Not overly excited about spending more money to play something that I already bought but looking forward to FFG fixing some running problems. Wording on cards and some ship's dials are two of them.