So I got the chance to play a demo of the game at GenCon and was suitably impressed. We played three on three with each of us controlling either two Tie fighters or one X-Wing. I don't have a full report, but here are my quick impressions.

- The models looked great, particularly the X-Wings. I was impressed with the level of detail.

- The gameplay seemed to be a slight variant on Wings of War, which I played a demo of at last year's GenCon. My buddy pointed out that the movement tokens from Wings have been replaced with a movement dial, something we both liked.

- Things seemed a little unbalanced in favor of the Imperials. The X-Wings are definitely more powerful, durable, and maneuverable, but the 2 to 1 advantage was just too much to fight against.

- I liked the un-tiled map, as it seemed to add to the verisimilitude of the game, but clearer rules for where overlapping ships get shunted to would be nice. Perhaps place holder tiles for the movement phase would be helpful too.

Overall, I enjoyed the game quite a bit. If the end product resembles what I played, then I'll definitely be picking it up. Nice work FFG!

Thanks for the report!

Shenanigans said:

I was wondering about that, too.

Would you mind telling us how attacks work? Looking back at the photos , I notice that there don't seem to be any dice on the table.

[EDIT: Oh, I see that the Astromech uses dice to repair shields, so there we are.

I'm thinking that you roll the red number of 'attack' dice, versus your opponent's green number of 'defend' dice? Possibly the dice have two Rebel icons, two Imperial, and two blank?]

From someone else who played the demo, he said that there are custom d6 (with hits and misses on the sides) that are rolled based on the skill level of the combatants. If you roll more hits than evades, then you score damage. I'm paraphrasing from an email I read and probably do not have the exact terms, but he said the gameplay was pretty solid.

The more reports I read, the more I think I will definitely be getting into this game. Thanks for the report.

When you played the demo, did you ask the FFG attendee if you were using "ALL" the rules to play?

I know that demoing can be easier if you left out more of the advanced rules for the game.

Just me thinking out loud about how Imperials are better stats and more numbers.

I came in to game at the last moment, so I didn't get the full briefing and don't know if we were using all the rules. I did hear from my buddy that some of the FFG employees mentioned that they were using the demos as a kind of playtesting.

As far as the dice, it was based on ship more than skill I believe. The type of pilot you had would allow you to do certain things like take a bonus action.

You roll the same dice for attack and defense. Each has two blast markers, one exploding Death Star, and three blank sides. The blasts act as standard hits on offense and block hits (standard or critical) on defense. The Death Star is a critical hit on offense and nothing on defense. The blanks are, of course, nothing.

In my game at least, the dice were kept in little black baskets to keep them from hitting the minis.

That's some good info right there. Thank you, Sir!

I found another video that has some great close-up shots of the various components (dice, ships, cards). youtu.be/LXzdNvr-11c

If the link doesn't work, go to YouTube and search for "Four Days of Gen Con: Star Wars X-Wing" by generalcollectibles.

Oh, good stuff!

I'm glad to see there are more maneuvers available than just listing lazily to the left.

From the video, this little gem definitely illuminates a few things:

This is pretty informative, too:

I get a kick out of how that one X-wing in the video has a laser cannon broken off. We're gonna have to be more careful with these pieces than we were with our Starship Battles , people! $12.95 a pop, remember!

Argh, I can't believe we have to wait at least five months to get this...

I don't wanna spam the thread, but what I'm liking about this game is how active it is. Instead of just watching my hit points dwindle away, I'm actively dodging incoming fire. I'm deciding if I want to tell my astromech to repair shields, or throw caution to the wind and concentrate on getting a targeting lock on my enemy. That feels like the movies, to me.

$12.95 apiece is for Wings of War, if I remember. This has Lucasfilm stamped on it.

True, true. I think this is gonna be one of those 'velvet glove' type o' games...

I was very excited initially, now I'm not so sure. Three ships? Mebbe no game surface? Forty bucks to play three ships on my bare tabletop? I realize times are tough for everyone - including corporations - but hey, I just lost $7000.00 in two flippin' days from my 401(k), and am having to redo our main bathroom. FFG needs to pony up a little more than three ships, some cards and some cardboard arcs to ask $40 from me for a starter. Just sayin.'

SO, not sure where I am with this yet.

IG-58 said:

I posted a link to pre-order it for something like $26-$27 (which might be more palatable) on one of these threads. I don't remember which one, though. I think $40 is MSRP, but you'll be able to get it for cheaper. The speculation of $13 or more per additional ship, though. That's got me concerned.

IG-58 said:

Don't forget the dice you can't use for anything else are included.

When it was speculated that there were 3 TIEs and 6 X-wings, that was great for a starter I thought. I'll even take 2 / 4. It makes it a bit harder to get too excited, but then I remind myself it is cheaper than a case of minis. Certainly not as many pieces, but still a full game. The expansions could be a different story and might not allow the game to continue for very long if the price point is as high as being speculated.

I'm excited for the game, but to start squirreling away some cash now I think.

Squid89 said:

That's my concern, as well. If these projections are correct, I can see myself buying only one of each ship type they release. If that's the norm among buyers... can FFG keep it rolling?

Thanks for the vid, Squid89. I, too, noticed that broken laser cannon, but it's likely that the actual miniatures will be higher quality...at least I hope so.

Man, I'm becoming increasingly excited about this game. I refrained from the Wizards of the Coast Star Wars Miniatures, but couldn't keep myself from jumping into their Starship Battles with both feet. This game looks to have me hooked just as much.

But what really got me excited was the firing arcs! Seems like you'll really have to line up your shot (I've never played Wings of War, so this is unilke anything I've played). And to have no gridlines on top of that -- it feels so free, like the good ol' X-wing and TIE Fighter games.

The low ship count in the starter is a little sad, but this is a dogfighting game, not a game of whole-fleet engagements. It looks to me like playing with just a few fighters will take plenty of time. I mean, the estimated time on the starter box is 20+ minutes, right?

So,

One of the things ive seen, in like Dust tactics. And YES..i under stand the 'hows and whys' of why its done. but they start off as small 'dog fight' games. then start scaling up fast.

I know most of my old squardron would 'want' if not NEED to play biger battles..and fast. i know im one f them.. i want sqaudrons and wings..not just to get blasted by some goodie two shoes pilot in a custume X wang.

Nice, thanks for the link. Can't wait for this game!

Squid89 said:

Nice thanks for the link! Can't wait for this game!

Some of you guys may have seen this, but here's another YouTube vid I found. It was posted Sept 18 and as of now, only has 16 views. It's part 1 of a 3 part set of videos of a full game of X-wing. I'm not done watching it, but it looks way more exciting than I anticipated. I'm getting so stoked for these new Star Wars games!

[Edit] The best part is that he said to expect the Millennium Falcon and the Slave I! Yay bounty hunters! [end Edit]

I'm glad you posted those. They are long, but informative. I'm glad to hear that they will be doing the Millenium Falcon and Slave I as well as other fighters. I'm curious as to how much the prototype rules will change to the final product.

This is very helpful - thank you for posting! Here we all were crying for more information in the other thread, and now this.

It's interesting to note that they haven't yet finalized what'll be in the box; he talked about 1 XW 2 TIEs, 1 XW 1TIE, and even 2 XW 4 TIEs! Also, he very plainly says that they are effectively playtesting the game live at the Con, which was very nice/brave of them to do, when you think about it. If WotC had done that with Starship Battles, we mighta had something!

I'm only halfway through Part 1, so I might edit this post with more pointless ramblings...

EDIT #1: you can shoot through friendlies OR enemies. Cool. A quick, easy approximation of 3D space.

EDIT #2: Collisions seem a little clunky.

EDIT #3: That Immerman (sp?) is a crazy and surprising move!

EDIT #4,351: If you're precious about your fighter models, you could really play the game just using the base, and not worry about wings and laser cannons being broken off.

That video really made my mouth water. I love all the choices you can make, but it still doesn't slow down the game! More ship types and more pilots will only make it more awesome. Aside from the X-Wing series of video games, this is the best and most dramatic approximation of Star Wars starfighter combat I've ever seen. Can't wait to take four TIEs against the Falcon!