A quick time travel in the past: Sunday 4h30 pm I buy a core set having in mind to simply enjoy a quick skirmish game from time to time. Then I read and hear some people saying it was best to add a couple expansion for new ships, pilots and upgrades. Then I hear that the best way to enjoy this game is to have 2 core sets and all 4 expansions.

Well believe it or not, i'm now the happy owner of 2 core sets and all 4 expansions. Not to proud of myself with this move but after my 2 first games tonight against my bro, I must say it was well worth the investment.

Here's a quick session report with photos of the setup.

Firstly first, I decided to leave the quick play rules behind and already start playing with the full rules and the Squad building and Obstacles. We agreed on 100 points and to place the asteroids tokens as per the rules. Our area was 3'-6" x 4' which we marked with a simple string on both sides. The table is a 3'-6" x 6'-0" plywood (3/4" thick) with a black fabric on it.

***Disclaimer: We quicly realised that we didn't made the best upgrade choices but hey, that's our first games so no biggie, we'll learn.***

FIRST GAME: Me as Rebels VS Bro as Empire - Empire Won

Rebels:
- Luke Skywalker (XW) with R2-D2 and Determination
- Wedge Antilles (XW) with R5-D8 and Determination
- Horton Salm (YW) with R2-F2 and Ion Cannon Turret

Empire:
- Winged Gundark (TF)
- Black Squadron Pilot (TF) with Squad Leader
- Obsidian Squad Pilot (TF)
- Academy Pilot (TF)
- Darth Vader (TA) with Marksmanship and Cluster Missiles

1st game started at 7:45pm and ended at 9:30pm. It was a bit long for what it is but still was fun.

Game was one sided for the Empire the entire time. Darth Vader was angry and it was showing while my pilots, due to miscalculated moves, ended up more than once manoeuvering in asteroids. Not good at all + face palm.

Darth Vader managed to do some serious damage on Luke and Wedge while being assisted with a couple of other generic TF pilots.

Wedge got down first after many clumsy manoeuvers and missing pewpews. I was let down by the best pilot there is…and bad luck on the dice rolls.

Horton went down next, but not without doing some dagame to the enemy, most importantly, slowing Darth Vader's agressive advance with his Ion cannon. Not powerful but a useful weapon.

Then Luke, seeing he was left alone, tried some reckless moves in hope of downing some Ties. He managed to destroy one of them and wound another.

First game ended with an Empire win with only one destroyed Tie Figher.

SECOND GAME: Me as Empire VS Bro as Rebels - Empire Won

Rebels:
- Luke Skywalker (XW) with R5-D8 and DProton Torpedos
- Garven Dreis (XW) with R2-F2 and Proton Torpedos
- "Dutch" Vander (YW) with R2-D2 and Ion Cannon Turret

Empire:
- Dark Curse (TF)
- Backstabber (TF)
- Winged Gundark (TF)
- Howlrunner (TF) with Swarm Tactics
- Darth Vader (TA) with Squad Leader

For our second game we simply decided to switch factions. I love how both fleet works completely differently.

We started at 9:45pm and it ended at 11:30pm.

It started as agressive as our first game with rapid moves towards each other. I wanted to try the duo Winged Gundark and Howlrunner. Plus I managed to manoeuver Backstabber between the Y-Wing quickly and land some hits. I really love how the Empire ships moves. They're quick and can turn in a second.

The first ship to go down was Dark Curse. Again, I managed to move some of my ships through asteroids…shame on me. But Darth Vader and Backstabber landed so early hits that scared Dutch and Garven. Garven went down next, thanks to one effective duo composed of Gundark and Howlrunner. They stayed close all game long and Howl boosted Gundark for some nice damage. Love the strategy behind those Empire pilots.

It was hits and missed for a few more turn before Luke started to get serious and Dutch "cursing" Darth Vader's Tie Advanced with his Ion cannon.

Then Dutch bit the dust, followed by Gundark and Backstabber.

It was now Darth Vader and Howlrunner against Luke Skywalker. Luke pulled out some nice tricks to move around my ships and dodge them for a couple of rounds before I circled him and let the honor to Darth Vader for the final shot.

Awesome finale in this second game.

One semi-huge mistake we made and the only one…we forgot the rule when you're pilot already have a Stress token and you reveal a red manoeuver, it's your opponent that choose one non-red manoeuver for you to execute…we simply added more stress tokens and removed some with green manoeuvers. We realised this in the middle of the second game. But it was not gamebreaking at all since only 2 red moves were done while having stress tokens. We used the correct rule since that.

Quick review:

COMPONENTS : 5/5
- Stellar components with FFG quality.

RULES : 4.5/5
- Well written and easy rules.

GAMEPLAY : 4.5/5
- Movement tokens are great, ruler and other components help a lot in keeping the game fluid.

LENGTH : 3.5/5
- A little bit long for what it is…1.5 hours for one game seems a bit too much and sometimes it may drag a bit.

OVERALL : 4.5/5
- We really appreciated this game and looking forward to playing it again with new pilots and upgrades. Lots of customization can be done with what's available right now.

Hope you enjoyed reading this clumsy session report!

Later and thanks for reading!

Nice report. I agree that the games can be a bit long. I like squads of 60-70 points because they're a little shorter, and because I'm still new at this. One day I'll play with 100 points when I can make decisions faster (and when I have more expansions). Even with the core set and only 2 expansions it's exciting how many options and combinations there are to try out!

For the typical Miniature wargame, I've found it to be pretty normal for games to run 1.5-2.5 hours. However, I've found most space combat games like this can drag out as ships jockey for position. In comparison, X-Wing is significantly faster. My son and I have played 5 or 6 games now from 35-85pts and they are tending toward 0.75-1.5 hrs. We almost got a 60pt game done in 30 min last night. Had we had time to play 2-3 more turns, I bet we would have finished and beaten the 45min mark. And that's pretty fast compared to the typical medium sized Battlefleet Gothic or Firestorm Armada game which usually run a minimum of 2 hrs.

Where a lot of time is saved is the way movement is taken care of. All moves are chosen up front so no time is spent changing things up as you see the opponent's moves. Plus all the moves are standardized (Straight, Bank, Turn, Koiogran). Other games usually provide a min/max distance a ship can move plus a limited number and magnitude of turns that a ship can take. So just moving the models around in X-Wing is far less complicated.

The game also has an elegantly simplified combat system with standard ranges and range effects. And the Attack/Agility combat mechanic saves a lot of time and brain power compared to a lot of games. Just look at your card and add a die if you're at the right range and roll off. No stat comparison matrix or multiple rolls per attack.

Yet with the effects of actions, special abilities and upgrade cards, the game has a lot of nuance and depth despite the simplicity of the mechanics.

I am in love with this game.

-DavicusPrime

I've only played about 10 games with just the core set and honestly once used to the rules and such I couldn't see a 100 point game lasting more than an hour or maybe an hour and fifteen minnutes. Can everyone chime in with average game time with how many points played?

My son and I can knock out a 60pt game in about 60-70min including squad building and setup. A 100pt game should take about 60-90min to play depending on the total number of models. Add in about 20min for squad building and setup and you're looking at less than 2 hours to play a 100pt game cold. If you prebuild your squadron, you'll save that 20min. The early rounds will take longer due to the potential of having to move more models, but once there are a few casualties it ought to speed right up.

If both sides run swarm lists expect it to run long. If both sides run elite lists, it'll go just as fast as the 60pt game.

-DavicusPrime

My and my brother played a 130 pt game in just over an hour the other day, but at that point we had played a bunch of times and have the game down pretty good and move through it pretty fast… plus we have tried out quite a few builds now so list building comes pretty fast as there are many things that we just know what they cost, etc and are pretty quick… also I find that once you have more ships on the table in many ways the game moves faster as you now have more ships to co-ordinate fire with and ships get shot up faster instead of having 2 or 3 ships each and end up flying past each other and then nothing happens for another turn or two then one ship shoots another and does nothing and fly around each other again, etc… with more ships you can keep at least some of your ships shooting all the time and as I said when more than one ship shoots at something it tends to blow up fast… then odds tip in the favour of one side or the other and ships get tag teamed even more and they blow up faster, etc, etc and games just end up being fast… plus you just get faster with the game and using the movement templates and get more comfortable with rules and who your pilots are, etc until it gets to, okay first my pilot 2 (flip dial) straight 1, (move ship), "focus", next pilot 2, (flips) slight left 2 "focus, now your pilot 4 (he flips and moves and drops action token), etc… then its "ok, Vader first…" "Vader is shooting this guy (rolls dice)….. you get the picture… games are quite fast. Many games claim to be fast-paced but this one really is… just having move templates makes movement super fast and takes out the inevitable situation where one guy seems to move too far of moves in a swiggly line that he shouldn't be moving in and then the other guy gives him the stink eye, then he measures it and gets a different result and then they argue for a while, etc… in this its easy, hold down your ship place the template between the tabs, hold down the marker and then put your ship on the other side in between the tabs… "are you on an asteroid? of course you are, no debate, no horsecrap… roll a dice, take damage and move on… simple, and fast.

Yeah I agree that the more games you play the quicker it gets.

As far as points go I find 100 pts the bare minimum if you, like me, love customization and trying different stuff. When I get the Falcon, Slave, Interceptors and A-Wings, i'll up the points to 130 or 150 so I can get some more ships in the mix.

I almost bought a second Y-Wing and Tie Advanced today but I'm gonna wait. At least i'm pretty sure I don't want a second Y-Wing but a second Tie Advanced could be a great addition.

1 Falcon, 1 Slave, 2 Tie Interceptors and 2 A-Wings might join in when they're release…but i'll start with 1 each and build from there.

Don't want to end up with 300 points games lol