Hi Guys! I played my first game of X-Wing today with my friend. We just used cards and ships from my core set. I had Epsilon Pilot and Epsilon Leader (with Epsilon Leader equipped with weapons guidance) just to keep it simple and my friend had Poe Dameron with the other three upgrades, In the first round, my Epsilon Leader flew onto an asteroid and lost one shield. Then, in the second round, Poe Dameron flew up to close range and got 2 crits on my Epsilon pilot each with a reading that said that card did 2 damage so my first tie got destroyed. That was all good but then, after that, the game was just me running away from my friends X-Wing. Sure, a few times I did some fancy maneuvers and did some damage but the game ended in a draw because it took so long since I was just running away to keep my tie from getting destroyed. In that time, I took away all Poe’s shields and my Epsilon Leader didn’t take any damage. This seems like stange gameplay because with their three agility and 5 straight maneuver, can’t TIE’s just run away and slowly whittle down the enemy?

Welcome to the game!

The starter games are not a super-realistic representation of how the game plays once you get a couple ships for each faction on the table. In the above example, if you only went so far as to get a second starter, the 4 TIEs could gang up on the 2 X-wings and leaving one brutally mauled before the mid-game of chasing each other around starts. You also got really unlucky with dice to have died in 1 shot with a 1.0 TIE/FO, even after clipping a rock and losing your shield. This should clear up with more games, as you will be drastically less prone to landing on obstacles once you get a few games under your belt.

Typically, the strategy with only TIEs is to clump them up, point all their firing arcs at one target, and make that target not be there anymore. It works very well against anything with less than 3 agility dice, or less than the number of TIEs you have or so hull/shield combined. Like I said above, the starter isn't very representative of that, especially if you let Poe exist with (probably) BB-8 and a torpedo.

With all that said, it's apparent you're using the first edition Resistance/First Order starter. Be advised, those ships, cards, etc. are part of the first edition of the game, and the second edition came out in September, with Resistance and First Order coming out sometime in the next couple months. If you like the gameplay, that hasn't changed at all; but the damage deck, pilots, and cards are all drastically different. If you are a fan of the sequel trilogy of ships and have access to new stuff, I'd recommend picking up first edition ships of whatever faction you like, then grabbing a second edition starter and, when it comes out, the applicable faction conversion kit, as that'll be the fastest way to get your full complement of ships.

If you don't have ready access to new stuff (or want to do the above tactic of buying a bunch of old stuff then converting it,) a ton of stores, both online and physical, are discounting their first edition stuff like crazy, so it will probably be pretty cheap to stock up on resistance or first order stuff.

1 hour ago, Eruletho said:

Welcome to the game!

The starter games are not a super-realistic representation of how the game plays once you get a couple ships for each faction on the table. In the above example, if you only went so far as to get a second starter, the 4 TIEs could gang up on the 2 X-wings and leaving one brutally mauled before the mid-game of chasing each other around starts. You also got really unlucky with dice to have died in 1 shot with a 1.0 TIE/FO, even after clipping a rock and losing your shield. This should clear up with more games, as you will be drastically less prone to landing on obstacles once you get a few games under your belt.

Typically, the strategy with only TIEs is to clump them up, point all their firing arcs at one target, and make that target not be there anymore. It works very well against anything with less than 3 agility dice, or less than the number of TIEs you have or so hull/shield combined. Like I said above, the starter isn't very representative of that, especially if you let Poe exist with (probably) BB-8 and a torpedo.

With all that said, it's apparent you're using the first edition Resistance/First Order starter. Be advised, those ships, cards, etc. are part of the first edition of the game, and the second edition came out in September, with Resistance and First Order coming out sometime in the next couple months. If you like the gameplay, that hasn't changed at all; but the damage deck, pilots, and cards are all drastically different. If you are a fan of the sequel trilogy of ships and have access to new stuff, I'd recommend picking up first edition ships of whatever faction you like, then grabbing a second edition starter and, when it comes out, the applicable faction conversion kit, as that'll be the fastest way to get your full complement of ships.

If you don't have ready access to new stuff (or want to do the above tactic of buying a bunch of old stuff then converting it,) a ton of stores, both online and physical, are discounting their first edition stuff like crazy, so it will probably be pretty cheap to stock up on resistance or first order stuff.

Thanks! I probably should’ve checked for a 2nd edition but I saw that 18$ price tag and just couldn’t resistance (sorry for the horrible pun). Anyway, I have 2 questions-

1. If I buy conversion kits for both the rebels and the empire (I plan on playing both) will I still have to buy a 2.0 core set?

2. If I were to buy expansions from 1.0, would the conversion kits allow me to use those in 2.0 (by replacing the original cards with new ones)

Thankyou!

6 minutes ago, TheSoberPug said:

1. If I buy conversion kits for both the rebels and the empire (I plan on playing both) will I still have to buy a 2.0 core set?

Sadly, yes. Damage deck is improved upon, and the maneuver templates have a slight modification on them. There are alternatives, of course. Secondary markets for damage decks exist, and there are some alt-art damage decks (official and non-official) available as well. For home use, I suppose a white marker of some sort and a ruler would be sufficient for updating the templates. Bit of a pain, but...

7 minutes ago, TheSoberPug said:

2. If I were to buy expansions from 1.0, would the conversion kits allow me to use those in 2.0 (by replacing the original cards with new ones)

Conversions would allow you to convert 1.0 ships, correct. That is the sole purpose of these conversion kits.

NOW: Consider skipping the conversion kit, depending on your objective. If you're just looking for a fun game to play, which it is, you can simply buy 2.0 released ships as they come out. The conversion kits are pricey as they are meant to convert a LOT of ships in a single swipe. It makes sense for some of us long-time players who have accumulated piles of ships, but for somebody just starting out... maybe not? Definitely no purpose in buying the Rebel and Imperial one unless you have the ships or plan to buy somebody's old collection. Resistance/FO kits when they release are a maybe since you have ships?

If you're diving into the deep end, and going full competitive tournament mode... yeah, at the moment the conversion kits are a thing to consider.

22 minutes ago, LagJanson said:

Sadly, yes. Damage deck is improved upon, and the maneuver templates have a slight modification on them. There are alternatives, of course. Secondary markets for damage decks exist, and there are some alt-art damage decks (official and non-official) available as well. For home use, I suppose a white marker of some sort and a ruler would be sufficient for updating the templates. Bit of a pain, but...

Conversions would allow you to convert 1.0 ships, correct. That is the sole purpose of these conversion kits.

NOW: Consider skipping the conversion kit, depending on your objective. If you're just looking for a fun game to play, which it is, you can simply buy 2.0 released ships as they come out. The conversion kits are pricey as they are meant to convert a LOT of ships in a single swipe. It makes sense for some of us long-time players who have accumulated piles of ships, but for somebody just starting out... maybe not? Definitely no purpose in buying the Rebel and Imperial one unless you have the ships or plan to buy somebody's old collection. Resistance/FO kits when they release are a maybe since you have ships?

If you're diving into the deep end, and going full competitive tournament mode... yeah, at the moment the conversion kits are a thing to consider.

Thankyou!