Up until last night I had only played small games around 60pts. Last night I played my first big game at 130pts and every one at the table including myself didn't like the game at all. I was so disappointed because of how much money I spent and how bad we thought the game was. For us it wasn't fun on any level. It was just a game of fly at each other roll dice and see what happens. We all felt like the dice and not our decisions are what affected the outcome of the game. Only planning one move at a time is very boring it isn't hard at all to predict where your opponent is going to go. Also this game is super fiddly I was constantly moving tokens around the board with people locking on and focusing there were just a pile of tokens to move around.

This game ended up being so rules light and token heavy that it couldn't possibly be worth the money. No one was more upset about this then me because I bought 3 core sets, 2 y-wings, 1 x-wing, 2 tie advances, and 1 tie fighter. I tend to go all in on a game before I give it a serious try it is the O.C.D. in me. The same thing happened with Mansions of Madness. I bought everything for it and then when you play it, it is just a game that plays itself.

So if anyone is looking for more x-wing stuff (or mansions of madness) I'd be happy to trade for another game.

Maybe you should have tried a few games at the recommended 100pts before jumping all the way up to 130pts. I think that may have been much more fun for you. But don't stop playing the game because of 1 bad experience. Yes, there is an element of luck in this game as there is in most games. But being unpredictable in your movements makes a huge difference in your game play. If your opponent expects you to be in one position, then you should obviously be somewhere else. Part of what makes this game so fun is trying to outmaneuver your opponent. If everyone knows where everyone else is going to be, then there is not much thought put into your moves. Think outside the box. Try something different. Take risks. This game will get boring if everyones movements are predictable.

Roy

The more ships you have on the board the more "fiddling" there is, so I agree 130pts is too much. I have played 4 on 4 ships and find that to be about the max # of ships you really want to control. Try this out with 5 asteriods and you may have fun. Lets also remember that the game is not complete and the 2nd wave of ships will change things up abit. Right now it seems to be just flying straight at each other depending on your build.

Squad build is very important to you tactics and how you are going to move your ship. A 4 ship Reb squad with 2 swarm tactics (thanks strombole) flying straight at 4 bunched ties (which is all my son does) is a great tactic with lots of attack dice being rolled and good chance of killing at least one.

First, I agree with the post above.

Second, any game like this when you have:

1) evenly matched ships

2) with lots of targets

3) balanced forces

4) and no obstacles

is going turn into a dice rolling no strategy game. What makes any combat interesting is the location and goals. If you would like to try multiple ships, try an uneven set-up like many Imperial rookie pilots vs a couple experienced pilots or a convoy protection thing. I just played a death star type mission with 100 pt fleets and it was awesome.

Just my thoughts.

I guess I should have explained more but the reason I played 130pts was because I was planning on having 4 players total. So each player was going to have a 65pt team. But one of the players couldn't make it. So I gave the other two players a y-wing and an x-wing each with various upgrades. I had 4 tie fighters and 2 tie advances with various upgrades. And I had played 2 games before so I thought that a 65pt team for each of the new players would be pretty easy to handle.

One of the things that made this game not so interesting I think was that you only plan 1 move at a time. So your opponent knows where you are and he then knows where you will likely be on your next move. and to make matters worse the range ruler is ridiculously long. It is very easy to get ships within range. I think the game would have been much better if you planned two moves at a time. That would require a lot more planning and thinking and would be a much more enjoyable experience for me. They could have made this possible by having a movement dial with two hands on it.

I'm willing to give it a few more tries just to try and save the amount of money I've spent on the game but I'll have to try it against my other gamer that didn't show up to play because the other two are done with this game. As it is right now it seems like this game is only really enjoyable if you're a big star wars fan. Then I could see the enjoyment in playing this game and watching your favorite ships blast the opposing ships. But for me I have no strong feelings either way about star wars I was just looking for an enjoyable game and so far I haven't found it. But again I'll try it a few more times and hopefully it will grow on me.

When you do, I strongly recommend that you take the advice of previous posters and stick to 100 points for now. Games tend to function better when played as they were designed. I imagine higher point games will be more practical once we have an expansion or two, or even now if you work out an appropriate scenario and special rules. Also, I would encourage you to try to be more creative with your maneuvers. Frankly, and I mean no insult, but if this part of the game turns out boring it most likely due to pilot error. I've not played all THAT many games so far, but in my limited experience this is the single greatest (and most important) element of the game. Not to brag, but I've yet to lose, even in the game in which I was being taught to play. Why? Simply because I've outmaneuvered everyone I've played. I fully expect to get walloped once people get more accustomed to the game and the movement therein. I can see where it would be boring if you simply fly straight at one another, but I've no idea why you would WANT to do that. As far as the range ruler…I think either you are playing on too small an area or you're not taking advantage of the firing arcs properly. If anything, the range is a bit limiting, especially from a thematic point of view. It's purpose is more to determine attack/defense bonuses, which DO affect the combat quite a bit. Hopefully this will help you to enjoy the game as it is intended. Good luck. And be sure and let us know when you come around.

Also, sidenote: I don't know that there are any 4 Rebel ships with appropriate upgrades out there right now that could deal with 130 points of Imperial forces that are decently built. Unless maybe you ran all TIE advanced? How many ships did you have? Couldn't have been fewer than 6, most likely.

KarmikazeKidd said:

I had 2 tie advances and 4 tie fighters.

It was Darth Vader with squad leader and concussion missiles. Daarek Steele (or something like that) with marksmanship. Howlrunner, 2 of the tie fighters that could have a veteran upgrade and they both had marksmanship, and then one academy tie fighter.

the table I was playing on was just over 3 ft and it was probably 4ft wide.

Regarding maneuvering. It just isn't that interesting. there isn't much maneuvering because the opponent knows where I am and where I can be. The maneuvering just didn't seem to matter because moves were only planned one at a time. So if I had turned off to the side to try and flank with the tie fighters the opponent would know exactly what I was doing and just would have either lined up to fight me from the front or they would have turned to get behind me. For me planning one maneuver and then doing it is just plain boring and leaves no room to out think your opponent. Sure you could do what he doesn't expect but what the opponent expects you to do is the best move so do when you do what he doesn't expect you're doing the second best move.

I think I may have figured out your problem. And if I'm wrong, then my apologies. But you do know that you place maneuver tokens for every ship on the board facedown at the same time right? Then you reveal them in order of skill. So every round of that game you should have started with 10 dials on the board waiting to be revealed and resolved. If you can't find a way to do something unexpected under these circumstances then I'm not sure what to tell you, except to just make a point to play again with different tactics and see what happens. But if you're not selecting your movement for Luke until after you've seen what Howlrunner is doing…then yes, you're going to have problems.

Try the protection scenerio that is in the core set. 100 pts a side with the Senator's ship having the hull points. I bet you will find that a lot more interesting. Tie fighters will have to decide if they attach the Senator's ship or take on the X-Wings. The moves shouldn't be as obvious. Also, anything with asteroids will change it pretty significantly.

TheKingOfBlades said:

TheKingOfBlades said:

I think I'm going to have to side with others who have noted that your group may just not be getting creative enough. When you get in a little scrimmage with everyone flying around each other, a random K-Turn can let your ship get an easy attack off on an opponent who is caught flat-footed because they were expecting you to go another way. Even better, if your K-Turn ship moves AFTER the ship you're trying to target, they'll have already spent their Action, and may be wishing they took Evade (if it was Imperials) or something like that.

With Darth Vader, I prefer (and this is just personal taste and play style) to not use Squad Leader on him. I find being able to keep a clutch Barrel Roll on deck at all times, as well as do something else with him, like Marksmanship, is a great setup for some meaty damage.

Basically you create a scenario where you bait your opponent into coming at you, but Barrel Roll Vader off to the side in such a way that you still have the opponent's ship in your arc, but you are out of theirs. Then it's Marksmanship and Cluster missiles for the win. I find that versus Rebel ships, if they focus'ed, you may bait out the token and have them use it defensively, if it means not losing an X-Wing, which cuts into their offensive ability to shoot at Vader when their Pilot Skill comes around. Pair with Swarm Tactics to ensure that a)you bring along another TIE for Pilot Skill 9 to add to the damage and b)if you fail to kill the target, that the TIE takes one for the team.

Sometimes, if you set it up right, Vader AND the TIE (usually Academy Pilot for points economy) can both Barrel Roll to safety and blast a ship with impunity.

We always find the maneuvering step to be the most entertaining. There's nothing like psyching your opponent out for a quick laugh, or taking a calculated risk on a movement gambit, like swarming Wedge/Marksmanship with TIE's and causing him to earn a collision and lose his Action so you can tear him up and limit his return fire.

Am I the only one who's had a laugh at doing a sweet Vader move (like the Barrel Roll scenario I mentioned above) and let out a "I have you now!" ?

You can even follow it up with a "What?!" if you fail to get the kill shot.

I have to agree with others.

First, I would recommend playing a scenario. It adds an additional dimension to the game other than just "fly at each other and try to kill each other". See if your friends are willing to give a go, especially playing the shuttle escort. As was pointed out, the imperial player has the decision on whether to go after the defending X-wings, or the shuttle. The X-wings don't know which the imperial player is going to do, which should add another layer of tactics and thought into movement and gameplay.

Secondly, I'm not sure why you and your players felt that maneuvering was boring. I've played several games, and never really knew what my opponents were going to do. Sure, I knew what they *could* do … but that was a much different thing than what they *did* do. You never know when your opponent might try to break off and turn a different direction. Or, fly straight as fast as they could to get out of dodge. Then, there is the K-turn which is the great equalizer. Lastly, Ties can use barrel roll, which greatly changes their movement and placement.

Also, when maneuvering in close, there is the whole 'collision' effect which comes into play, altering ship movement. Then, you can add some asteroids.

If X-wing really doesn't do it for you take a look at Wings of Glory, formally known as Wings of War. X-Wing is, to a degree, an off shoot of that game. With WW1 or WW2 to choose from you have the multiple hidden movement phase you seem to want. In WW1 players need to plan 3 moves ahead, in WW2 you need to plan 2 moves ahead. Both games come with minitaures roughly the same size as X-Wing and are pre-painted. Planes have different movement decks, you chose 2-3 movement cards at a time and these are your set moves for that number of turns so your planning needs to be right. Have alook on You tube for reviews etc.

KarmikazeKidd said:

It sounds to me that this is the major problem. Everyone chooses their maneuvers secretly and nobody reveals any dials until the planning phase is over.

And since you were playing in teams, it's important to note that teammates can discuss anything, but all conversations must be in front of the opposing player(s). You can't leave the room or whisper to discuss tactics.

It does sound by your description that you were doing things a little wrong… I dunno, but it sounded that way when you described "knowing where the other ships were ending up". We are constantly doing things that the other person doesn't expect… having ship collisions (which don't allow you to take an action and potentially preventing you both from shooting)… we have had double koiogran turns that end us both where we started from facing away from each other all over again (that's always good for a laugh)…. I love playing games over 100 points and can't wait to go even bigger when the next wave of ships come… the game plays really fast for us and having more ships doesn't slow us down at all and in some cases, it speeds the game up a little. When we play games of 125 or 130 points, etc, we add a couple more asteroids as well. There are already more ships on the table and with extra asteroids, it ups the intensity and forces much bigger risk/reward decisions. Do I plow straight through the asteroid and risk taking damage in order to nail that ship that is facing the other way or do I play it safe? Of course, we play on a 4'4 when we go over 100 points so it needs a few more asteroids. The last 130 point game I played the other day, I played as the rebels (and won quite easily actually) and this was the list I played:

Wedge + swarm tactics

Rookie Pilot

Luke Skywalker + swarm tactics

Gold squad Y wing + R2F2

Garven Dreis + R5 astromech

=130 points

Wedge rolls with a skill 2 x wing rookie and they both shoot at skill 9, then Luke and the skill 2 Y wing shoot at skill 8, then Garven shoots at skill 6 and after using his focus on attack, he passes it over the Y wing. Now the Y wing has +1 agility from its droid and a focus from Garven to defend with (and it already used its own focus when it attacked at skill 8 giving it a focus on attack and then a focus on defense on top of an extra agility dice from its astromech which makes it much more of a harder target and tough as nails against the attacks of Tie fighters). This setup blew the Empire away and is just one of my 130 point squad builds as I try to use something different every time so the opponent isn't sure what to expect. But flying straight at me with a whole bunch of tie fighters is one of the worst things you can do against a Wedge/Luke double swarm rebel list, IMO

Oops, I meant to say target lock and focus on the Y wing… I had too much focus on the brain and just kept typing focus, lol…. but I meant that the Y wing uses target lock on offense and then the focus on defense.

Nope we played with the dials face down. That wasn't the problem and we did have asteroid on the table. I was playing with my brother and my cousin so maybe we were able to get into each others heads more but with how long the range rule if a ship just keeps himself facing the general direction of the enemy it is really easy to get shots off no matter how ships move about and with things like proton torpedoes the just negate the long range penalty. I'll try the senators shuttle scenario this weekend with my fiancee hopefully we both like it because I wont be able to get my brother and cousin to play this one again. My brother actually didn't like it because he found it to be much too fiddly so even if we learned how to maneuver better I still wouldn't be able to get him to play this one.

Also regarding Wings of War/Wings of Glory. I do like that game but I found out about it too late and it is so expensive to get all the ships that are currently out for it. And I'm not able to just get a couple of ships. If I play a game I need to have everything that is out for it or it bothers me.

the game is a little token heavy (especially with multiple target locks), and I can see that becoming more of an issue with more ships. However, you guys didn't have many ships, even at 130pts. Movement should be anything but predictable….my guess is you were always playing for the next turn shot instead of looking 2-3 turns further out. As Viper once said "better to retire and save the plane than to force a bad position" Be unexpected, you'd be surprised how much that changes things up.

Also, if all you do is line up ships and go at it, this game will get very boring. I'm in the process of coming up with different missions and variables to mix it up. I come from a FOW perspective, and mission play and objectives are very important to that game.

bullyboy said:

That is part of the problem. When I buy a game I want the work to be done for me. I don't want to have to create my own scenarios and content to make the game fun.

The problem is that the ships move very fast across the recommended 3ft table and the range ruler is so long that if I turn off to the side with some of my ships my opponent can see that I've done this and follow up behind me. now if you planned two moves back to back things would get more interesting. It would make it much more difficult to react to things and would reward clever movement a lot more especially if they had some wings of war style mechanic for tailing.

I guess it doesn't matter a whole lot what anyone says opinions aren't going to change that much. I'm gonna continue to think I've lost a lot of money and this game shallow and is only fun if you're a big Star Wars fan and everyone on this forum is going to continue to think this game is amazing.

And with limited board game time I would rather play a game that I know I like (like leviathans) then waste more time on this. My original offer still stands if anyone wants to trade for another game let me know.

Maybe my last post was little harsh but I had to hurry up and type it on my lunch brake so I didn't get a chance to go back and read through it to make sure it didn't come out sounding rude. It seems like we keep going back and forth saying the maneuvering is boring and the maneuvering is exciting. Could someone give me an example or two from your games that involved exciting maneuvering or an instant when you really outsmarted your opponent.

sure can, read here…

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=332&efcid=6&efidt=725435

in the picture you can see that My 2 left x wings did a right turn to get opposite the left hand TIEs and faced diagonal. The enemy TIE player assumed I would realign with those TIEs and made his moves accordingly. Instead, I completely ignored them and gunned forward a hard 4 and focused on the right hand TIEs. None of his 3 TIEs on the left had me in his arc of fire so it came down to my 4 ships on 3 TIEs including darth.

Simple things like this are important.