I got to play my game against my buddy last night.

On paper, I thought I was going to be in trouble. He had taken Imperials, and to see more of the game at once, I took Rebels. He's a really clever player, and I reallt felt like I was going to have be pretty clever myself to at least give him a bloody nose before I was shot down.

So I read. I read up on the GenCon tournament, on what players were bringing. The game is still new, and the meta is just now being born, so the amount of "gospel" data is really limited. I did find (to my increasing dread,) that most players at GenCon agreed with me and took Imperials. Then I saw a Rebel had won. I read his list, and another's. I sat down and ran through what he wanted to do with a configuration. I felt confident that at least I'd know why I'd lose going to the shop last night.

Then the fight happened.

My careful plan of blasting Ion Cannons to turn nimble TIE fighters into delicious targets turned to ash in my hands. I understood the initative system, but until I saw it in action, I didn't realize what a colossal mess we would make for ourselves. I was taking shot where I could, locking targets and shooting whne I thought I could get away with it. After some rawn out dogfights due to rolls, I managed to wipe out the Imperials, and only poor Dutch had to suffer a (temporary) death.

Some afterthoughts: R2D2 may be the first auto-include in this game. Repairing shields on any ship in the Rebellion is a huge deal. Combining with Biggs' "fire magnet" ability was crazy. I think the Imperials shot about 6 points of shields off of him during the game.

This game is going to get synergy and combo crazy as more ships and pilots release. Dutch can toss out Target Locks like he's handing Skittles to his best buds. We've already talked about how Biggs will tkae a hit like a champ. The Imperials seem to have powerful individuals, but the Rebels love to work as a team.

FFG has done a great job of balancing things, all told. As I said before, the Imps on paper seem to have the advantage: they can toss out more dice, barrel roll for better positioning, and Vader is a striaght-up mofo. However, the Imps don't really support each other with abilties, and sometimes rely on positioning and throwing more dice to solve problems. I want to play at least 1 more game as a Rebel, and a few and Imperial before I really solidify my thoughts on that.

If you're on the fence, buy it. Yeah, it's very Wings of War, but (and if this makes me a fanboy, so be it) Star Wars makes it better. I can't wait for more players to get this and start running events.

Great summary. Thanks for sharing your thoughts. Can't wait to get my hands on this game.

Awesome report! I love the insight that the Imps are a gang of individuals while the Rebs are a team of personalities. This is an excellent start to the online meta.

Interesting, I would have thought the Imps would have a few more "helping your buddy" style effects too. Only one card I've seen online boost another friendly: Howlrunner gives a friendly a bonus Attack Die if he's within 1 Range. The other cards that come with the TIE Expansion seem to all have some kind of increased damage potential. So your "Imps solve problems through attack dice" observation appears accurate.

-DavicusPrime

I'm just replying here to see if doing so will remove the permanent "New" label from this topic.

Budgernaut said:

I think the "new" means there is a new reply, not that it is a new thread. Read this, then go back without posting anything and refresh the forum… the new should be gone, no?

El_Tonio said:

Every now and then that will get stuck and reading it doesn't do anything. I do usually find that clicking the "Mark all as read" clears it out. Similarly the subforum will be highlighted in the "Miniatures" group and similar is required.

I am surprised that you found the Rebs to be more cooperative than the Imps. I played in the Gencon Tournament, and I played Imps, sadly everyone of my opponents was also an Imp, and I haven't played since I got home, but I found the Imps to be very cooperative.

You can buy really cheap TIE fighters and then use swarm tactics to bump their terrible skill up as high as Vaders. And Howel Runner's ability to let near by ships reroll attack dice was a really big deal In the battles I played.

Even Backstabber's ability to attack people from behind is really useful when you have lots of cheap TIEs to draw the fire of the Rebs

But like I said I have yet to play a game with the Rebs yet.

(my wife won't play with me)

Is there anyone who hopes some (but not all) tournaments will adopt a "Rebellion vs. Empire" format, in which players are required to bring two squadrons, and then use a random method to determine who will be playing which side? A big part of what I like about this game is how each side has its own distinct playstyle, and I would like for the majority of my experiences with X-Wing to explore that assymetry.

MarthWMaster said:

I wish that the Gencon tournament had been like that. I don't know how Reb vs Reb goes, but Imp vs Imp is hard. TIE have a high defense, and some good defensive manuvers, but they aren't really that great on attack. So most rounds of play nobody even got hurt.

One of my matches ended with neither of us loosing a single ship. I think most Imperial Players had a similar expeerience.

I also like the idea that you have to bee good at both Rebs and Imps to win a tournament.

Hrathen said:

This why I'm so happy my son and daughter are just old enough to be able to get into this with me, and my son is almost as much of a StarWars Nut as me so perfect timeing for me. To sum up: kids allow me to be a kid again.

-DavicusPrime

Is anyone else slightly bothered that one of the rulebook's mission setups places Luke Skywalker and "Mauler Mithel" together in what could only be an Alternate Continuity scenario, or do I win this round for anal retentiveness?

MarthWMaster said:

Excellent post! I highly recommend the method that Decipher used for the old Star Wars CCG. Basically each player brought 2 decks with them, a light side and a Dark side. You then played them alternately. So first game might be LS, then the second would be DS. 3rd LS, 4th, DS. Etc. That way you had to be good at both sides of the Force before you could win a tournament. I was actually surprised that FFG did not do that with the tounament.

On the other hand, this requires more miniatures. I supose there could be some people that collect just one side's minis. Since the only thing that forces you to get both sides ships is the starter. In a CCG each pack has a mix of both sides.

Regardless, I would rather see tournaments with only Reb vs. Imp matches.

Thanks,

Duncan

I play in a lot of tournaments for the Games Workshop systems. While 40K and Warhammer don't suffer from this issue, GW's LOTR system sets good vs evil and in my opinion the game becomes more unbalanced with blue on blue games (much like the agility issue with TIEs in this game).

The way red on blue tournaments work for GWs LOTR is that each player takes one good force and one evil. The first, third and fifth rounds are random roll offs to see who uses which force, but in round two, four and six you use the force you didn't use in the last round. That way you get a balance number of games.

You get a score for each game. Say you used good in the first. You would then be paired up with a player that played evil in the last round so that you can swap sides. The organisers try and make it so you are paired with someone with a similar score.

This system would work for X-Wing and I for one hope tournaments would be run like this (I also hope we get one in the UK).

Certain squads are bound to rise to the top of the meta. If this game is going to have truly competitive tournament scene, alternating factions throughout events will make wins come down to a coin toss rather than player's skill.

R5Don4 said:

If this is true, then it would reflect badly on FFgs ability to playtest a game to ensure that it is balanced. I personally doubt it. It should be that for any squad you can field, an equally good opposing force could be created. If certain squads were noticabely better than others, then everyone would just field the same squads anayway, which would make for a boring game and boring tournaments. I would think that in actuality ship, pilot and upgrade choices will not work as well for every person. It will vary (as it should) based on playstyle and tactical choices (as will the initial setup).

I also think that in order to win a tournament and be crowned the ultimate X-wing player, it should require the flexibilty to use at least two teams effectively. If you can only win using one particular squad, then its probably the squad that makes the difference and not the player. This would make for an unsatisfying game!

I don't agree with switching back and forth between Rebels and Imperials in a tournament, and I'll tell you why. First, I should tell you that I was a tournament director for Decipher's Star Wars CCG. And I liked switching between Dark Side and Light Side in that game. But it was set up that way from the beginning. All cards were either Dark Side or Light Side. There were no cards that were "ambidextrous" like the upgrade cards we use in X-wing.

This game is different. First of all, it's based on factions (Rebels and Imperials), not sides of the force (Light Side and Dark Side). Factions tells me that in the future there may be Republic, Separatist, New Republic, Sith, Mandalorian, etc in the future. If that is the case, this tournament format wouldn't work.

I like the idea of choosing a squad and using it for the duration of the tournament. This lets people who only like Rebels focus on that and ignore Imperials or any other faction that may be introduced in the future. And as its been stated in other threads in this forum, dogfighting tactics also play a big part in this game. Poor tactics can be the downfall of even the best squad builds. Once the game gets bigger and more options become available, there should be much more diversity in squad builds and should be a reason for people alter their squads between tournaments. Of course, people will have squads that they like more than others, but I myself plan on trying as many different combinations in as many tournaments as possible.

Roy

drkjedi35 said:

But wouldn't this group also take issue with having to enact a self-destructive dogfight between two Rebel squadrons half the time? Isn't it more satisfying to shoot down Darth Vader while playing as Luke Skywalker, rather than shooting down another Luke Skywalker instead?

My 2 creds: I Don't like the needing an Imp and Reb Squad at the tourneys for what has already been stated but also because this is a miniature war game. Card game players tend to get a mix of cards for all sides due to the way the cards are sold. Not so with Mini-war games. There's already an increased cost for Imp payers due to the fact that you need more models to build a squad compared to the Rebs. But making them bring both greatly increases the cost of entry.

Not doing this for the first tourney was smart as none of the players had a chance to build their collections prior to the tourney. They had what they could afford that weekend and thats that. Also, players having trouble against their own kind had to be expected due to the complete lack of experience playing the game. You've got to assume anyone who played the night before to prepare played Reb vs. Imp. So very few if any had any experience taking on their own faction. If you were banking on taking on a few slower/less agile targets as an Imp player but then end up facing a horde of TIEs, you're going to have some problems shifting gears when you haven't even learned that there are gears to shift.

At this point trying to fix anything is premature. As folks try out the game and get more experience taking on same side games, tactics will develop.

-DavicusPrime

Yes, that would be more satisfying. And I think it would be a great idea for playing at home or for a scenario type tournament. However, regular tournaments should be Squad v Squad no matter what factions they happen to be. That means that your squad has to be built go against any possibility and not just whatever the meta is in the opposite faction.

Roy

R2D2 said:

+1

Well, it was the player who assembled the squad, so how can it not be the player's credit if it's the squad that gets him the win?

(Even assuming that in-game decisions don't matter with the right squad, something I don't buy at all…)

haslo said:

I believe everyone is worried about "netlisting", or that there may be certain squads which are practically "I win!" buttons, that people will copy and use to win with little skill. I however, doubt this will be too much of a problem.

sverigesson said:

Well, if there are to be such squads, then squads that specificially counter them will emerge, which in turn will lead to counter squads for those counter squads … the good old metagame of CCGs all over again. Something I really look forward to, in fact.

Unlike ccgs, miniatures don't play themselves.

Your ccg deck is usually straight forward, but with minis you've got to know what to do with that squad to win.