This is a rant, in a way. I love this game and I LOVE my wife, but the two don't work well together.

So, the first game I played took about 35 minutes with the core set only and my wife said that it was enjoyable. The next game, with one ship added to each side took nearly 1.5 hours. Now, I don't mind so much, but my wife got tired of it around the 40 minute mark. Since she is the only one I can play with, I probably won't be having any massive games any time soon. Really, I thought that the game would be a very quick game (like 15-30 minutes), but the dice rolls with focus tokens almost always end each attack turn in wash. I may have to modify the rules an eliminate everything except moving and firing for her sake. I may even eliminate shields and just add them to the hull value with no way of retrieving them.

On a side note, we just got a new table that when is EXACTLY 3 feet wide when the leaf is out of it. Nice.

Did your wife have any particular barriers with playing the game? What I mean by that, is did she find a particular element to be not appealing, and if so, what was it?

Maybe she liked the movement dial mechanic, but found all the dice modifying to be too much, or maybe the attacking was fine, but she found it intimidating to guess the opponent's moves and plan accordingly.

If she is not into games, in general, in terms of exposure to different types of games, then you'll just need to experiment with different game types until you find something that clicks. I think modifying the rules to X-Wing that heavily might make the game a little dull, but if she goes for it, take what you can get.

Wow, one of the things about this game that is soooo much fun for me is how fast it goes. compared to any other mini game I have ever played I would say it is at leasty twice as fast.

I would recomend a change to the basic scenerio. My friends and I play until 1/2 one side has been destroyed (calculated by points) those last few turns can be painful for the loser, or even worse when it is close and no one gets any shots off.

First, I would recommend trying one of the missions in the book. Especially, I think the shuttle escort is fun. Thus, it is less of a "blast each other until one side is dead". Having mission objectives should help reduce the game length by adding in an alternative way to win other than killing all your opponent's ships.

Secondly, do you really find a lot of focus tokens being used? Personally, as the game wears on focus tokens become very intermittent. X-wings and Tie Advanceds spend actions for Target Locks. Ships often need to use actions to repair. Tie's often use their action to barrel roll. Actions also get negated by colliding with other ships (seems to happen a lot in the middle part of the game so far, since we're pretty new to maneuvering). Evade is also a better defensive action than Focus. Focus can also be used on offense, which can offset a defender's evade, depending on the rolls.

Lastly, as with any game, time to play decreases the more familiar you are with the rules and the abilities of the various game elements. In this case, ship movement dials, for example. As experience increases, less time will be needed to choose a maneuver on a ships dial, etc.

She loves games and I think she likes this game pretty well. It's just that when we would finally get into firing positions after maneuvering a lot, the dice rolls would almost always end up being canceled out which dragged it out.

herozeromes said:

I had a similar thing happen in my first game, but as I got more savvy with the different actions and options, I was able to keep it moving a little better in the end when it's down to a couple of ships.

Alternatively, try the Senator Shuttle mission from the book. It's not about a straight up fight, but protecting an objective, so that might change things up a bit. Or, just throw the asteroid tokens on the table and fight to the death. Maybe your matches need some kind of external force to break apart the monotony.

Do you mind posting the lists of what ships/upgrades you were taking? Maybe also mention what sets you own specifically, and in what quantities, as well, just so we can make sure we know what your total options available are.

herozeromes said:

herozeromes said:

That'll get better as more ships come out. The new ships have more fire power, can fire in multiple directions, or have more mobility which makes getting shots off easier.

ShadowJak said:

Can't wait for the Falcon!