48 minutes ago, Dabirdisdaword said:

I kinda laugh at the "without cards TT players would be completely lost and ruined" talk.

40k had people scribble their list on a sheet of paper that was 1 page long just for names, chart, and gear. None of the rules at all. Ya had 7 books to read while playing for that.

And it lasted ages.

So somehow I think if the cards weren't part of it players would be just fine, they would print lists and read rule references like grown *** people.

If by "it lasted ages" you mean each individual game of WH40k, you're absolutely right. My FLGS has Warhammer night at the same time as X-Wing, and I see those guys playing. Well, mostly talking about playing.

To be sure, X-Wing can work without cards. Some things will be slower, some will be a bit more awkward, but cards provide a massive benefit to the style of play of tournament X-Wing . There's a handy place to set down each of the damage cards dealt to a ship--tracking damage without ship ship cards gets harder. Opponents can see what you have at a glance, and in seconds can read the precise wording of your cards. When each game has a pretty tight 75 minute window, these are good things.

There are only two real benefits of no-cards that I can see. First is that you need to buy fewer things. That's nice, but there aren't too many things I've bought for just Upgrade cards in 2e. Second, it might be easier to errata cards, but there's no guarantee that FFG would actually errata more often if there were no physical cards. It's possible that FFG could become as responsive as Privateer and the CID for Warmachine and Hordes, with a lot of continual balance updates, but I kinda doubt it.

The largest disadvantage of no-cards is that it's slower to see what each player has, and how those upgrades work. A lot of Warhammer has fairly standardized rules. This hits on 3+, that saves on 5+. This unit has the rending keyword or such, and that gives a specific benefit, which is the same among all rending units. With X-Wing, every non-generic pilot has their own special abilities. But since there are only 3-4 ships in most lists, and a few upgrades per ship, it's not that cumbersome to have cards representing each one.

7 hours ago, Frimmel said:

I would be one of those. I spend the money I save on a cell phone on plastic spaceships.

For almost 8 solid years, i used an old flip phone. The ONLY reason i upgraded to a smart phone, was because my security job required it, for checking into my 'watch post' via a website, and for taking pics of our time sheets/emailing them in.. If it wasn't for that, i wouldn't have bothered ever getting one.

8 hours ago, Frimmel said:

I would be one of those. I spend the money I save on a cell phone on plastic spaceships.

I've got a side-slide-y phone with a full keyboard. I used to tell myself I saved money on my Phone to buy fountain pens (nothing that extraordinary, Lamy 2000, Pilot Vanishing Point, lots of slightly lesser ones), but the excuse ran out several pens ago, much less several X-Wing Waves.

I ain't seeing it. Most days that someone shows up to play they've printed their list off yasb or another not trash app (read any but the official one). And they put their shields on the sheet next to the pilot name and have all the rules on that sheet. They do it currently cause it's already more convenient than cards. Only reason to bring cards is if a that guy tries to "gotcha" on producing the official cards, so you bring em in a back pocket and hand em over if he asks. Then continue to set up on the more convenient sheet.

It's less cumbersome, allows for updates, takes less space than cards, and is easier to read cause I dont gotta flip through all your cards on my app to check that it's actually the pt value you said.

But sure it would take way longer to do it the way that people already do it to be faster.