I've been thinking about this for a while - were the really early Kessel Run events good or bad for the game? Normally at this point in a release cycle of a game I love, I'm pretty pumped. Some of the stuff (but not all) has been spoiled, rumors are hitting the net, and I'm ready to lay down big bucks to buy more stuff that I'll probably ever use consistantly. But I find that I'm substantially less enthused about this release than I was back in December, and I'm thinking I may only get 2 of the fighters and 1 each of the larger ships. Everything has been spoiled, and some players have had wave 2 models for going on 4 months.

Think about that. 4 months.

Its getting to the point where we can't even discuss wave 2 anymore, and it hasn't technically been released. Why? 1) its been spoiled long enough there isn't much left to talk about. 2) the haves have played potentially hundreds of games at this point and can talk a whole different level above the have nots (even if its just to dismiss the have nots becasuse they haven't actually played with it yet).

Would it have been better if the Kessel run events had been postponed until 2/23? At this point we'd just now be talking about all the combos possible in wave 2 and the buzz would be huge. Of course, we would have had the past 4 months of only wave 1 to talk about, so perhaps no one would be interested anymore.

Thougths?

You do realize that wave 2 was delayed right? But you make it sound like it was some evil master plan by FFG to have a select group of people have them for several months in advance. Plus you did not have to look at spoilers, but you did. Honestly those spoilers don't really make much of a difference in a minature battle game. Honestly I don't think those of us who won ships at Kessel Run Events are on a whole nother level then the ones who don't have them.

Again the Kessel Run Events were done at a fine time, except for the delays in wave 2. In a way you sound a bit bitter. Maybe you didn't manage to get a ship from the Kessel Run. Endgame its just a game, and I think you are thinking that this is almost like having questions to college final months in advance.

Seeing the Falcon model pic from GenCon last year is what got me interested in X-Wing.

I still want one. Along with the other Wave 2 ships (even more so after seeing the unboxing videos) - they look like they will significantly add to the game.

So count me among the ones whose interest is not affected by the early Kessel runs.

Once we get over this hump of the delay and now rumors of partial shipments, all will be right again.

DeadInkPen said:

That was uncalled for. Some of us live in places that dont even have big game stores. I would be hyper angry at reading about deuchebags who ran +4 kessel runs and either sold their falcons or slave 1 or got multiple falcons denying other people from them instead of trading them. I get you can be competitive but hell…that type of person ruins the community.

OP I understand your point. Some people have been playing with proxies for a long time, or have won multiple Kessel Run Events so they know how they work against different combinations. For people who dwell on the internet every day, the only satisfaction about wave 2 would be having the actual ships.

But…remember, there are a lot of people who buy from local game stores, that have a life (hard one sometimes) and dont spend time looking at all the details from their games and just buy them and enjoy them. For some of them wave 2 is still going to be fresh.

For me? Ive been following everything, and to tell you the truth I am hyper exited. Ready to field my Saber Squadron on the closest gaming club!

Oh and not to mention the shortage of ships the next month…so some people will have to wait more than 1 month to get their wave 2.

We will all have our opinions but I hope that amongst all of these opinions we all remember that this is not Fantasy Flight Game`s fault. There is no way that FFG is getting any advantage of this delay and should anyone say otherwise, I would say you are speaking out of spite or something very similar.

Does the early release of the Kessel Run events hurt this game? Yes.

I say Yes because of what I see has happened around my area from events being put on hold until the release of wave 2, to players being turned off that people have wave 2 ships and they have yet to be able to add them to their game. So is X-Wing hurting because of the Kessel Run event? Hurting, yes, going to fail and people walking away to never come back? No, the game is just getting started and while some may have hurt fellings because of this delay, the ships more than make up for this. X-Wing is a solid game and it plays fast and the rules are very nice and crisp, add that with the characters and ships most of us know and grew up with, I think most of us can handle the wait.

What hurts worse if people bragging about how many of these ships they have and telling others here that they are bitter because they did not "win" one. I can only speak for myself in that I did not get into X-Wing until after the Kessel Run events and while I would have liked to have won one of these ships, I have no problem with waiting until they are released. As a matter of fact what I like most about any event is having fun. Yes, it is nice to win but not at the cost of giving up the fun for the prizes. And truth told, how many of us have stories about such people that make you think twice before getting into an event? Sorry, kinda jumper topics there.

DeadInkPen said:

I'm aware that Wave 2 was delayed, but I'm wondering if it would have been better to delay the Kessel run events until wave 2 was ready. Perhaps ship the kessel run kits with the wave 2 models? That way, when the hype from the Kessel run events is high, the models are actually available for purchase. If we compare this release to the upcomming Privateer Press Hordes release (~2 weeks away), we get a fairly different feel - maybe 25%-35% of the book has been spoiled and the relese events will run in parallel with the book release. There will be surprises when the book drops and I'm pretty pumped about running to the game store on release day and grabbing a copy.

The only Kessel run event that I'm aware of near me, was run right before Christmas, and I couldn't make it (I understand only a handful people attended). I do suspect that a number of the people that will qualify for worlds this year will be Kessel run winners that have had substantially longer to work out playing with the wave 2 stuff. I'll even bet that the majority of local tournaments across the country will be dominated by Kessel run winners for a while, until everyone else has some time to catch up.

In that vein, I'm debating traveling for a tournament this weekend, but I wonder if its worth the travel time, gas money, and entrance fee - it will be the first event wave 2 will be eligable to be played in and I haven't played against any of it. If playing the Falcon (and against it), for example, is as tricky as the threads here would lead you to believe, its probably not worth attending. What should be a super exciting event (buy, and play with wave 2!) is more of a discouraging thing at this point, for me anyway.

That's why I started the thread - if lots of people are psyched about Wave 2 becasue of the early Kessel Run events, then it was good for the game. If others are less exicted or even a bit bummed, then it was bad for the game and maybe we could recommend to Fantasy Flight to hold off on the wave 3 Kessel Runs until the release is actually ready for sale.

Endgame124 said:

I believe FFG was expecting to have all the wave 2 available in December/January. I am sorry that you didn't make the one in December, but I can completely understand that one. I would have passed by one that close to Christmas myself. I completely agree with you on the comparison to Privateer Press' Hordes release. It shows the simplicity of X-Wing when compared to other games. That is both a positive and a negative for the game (X-Wing). I like the game, but to me it feels like a stepping stone to bigger wargames like Hordes. And that worries me a little bit about how much growth there is for X-Wing in the long run.

I would say go to the tournament. I have a blast at them, mainly for meeting up with people. But then I don't have to travel to far for an X-Wing game. For Hordes and WarMachine I have to travel a pretty good distance as everyone around here is either into Warhammer/40K. Guess it comes down to how far it is for you. I will admit I won my local Kessel Run event and took the Firespray. We have one guy here in town who bought a falcon from EBay and used it earlier this month in a tournament. He lost badly with it, even though he played quite exclusively with it in non tournament play. Don't psych yourself out with some people having the ships before release. Even going and seeing how people are handling the wave 2 ships will be a learning experience. Plus you might get an idea for a squad off of something someone is trying. Had a few games, not just X-Wing, where I would be like hmm not bad, could be interesting if I took that idea but did this with it. I would love to tell you not to be discouraged, but now that I have had a few cups of coffee to prod me a bit more aware from my insomnia I can understand.

The Wave 3 event should hopefully be better done. I agree they should wait until one to two months out from release for that, but only after confirming when the bulk of the shipment will arrive aka on the boat. I will admit my hype for it is not what it was back during the event, but that is mainly due to the delays om wave 2. I am still looking forward to it mainly for the new variations that will be able to be done. Sorry about sounding like a **** earlier, I suck sometimes at trying to express what I am trying say and I keep forgetting that my crappy sense of humor also doesn't translate at all online.

The Kessel Runs happened at a time when Wave 2 was delayed. There were many not-so-happy individuals, not only as customers, but also as owners of game shops around the world, who could now neither buy nor sell Wave 2 until after the holiday season. Make no mistake, that hurt. Without the Kessel Runs, we would still all be playing exclusively Wave 1 squads, and for those of us who have been playing since the game released, that gets old.

The game was getting a little bit stale, honestly. You'd face the same squads every week, and although it was fun, it got redundant. The kessel Runs rejunivated the community and whetted the appetites of all of the people who play this game. They re-sparked interest in this game. And I dare say, there are more people posting on these boards now than ever. Is that a bad thing?

Were there gripes? Absolutely. Some places weren't given tourneys, and some places had many. And there was the Idaho store that sold their kit. But overall, i think it was good for keeping the player base that they had happy, especially in light of the wave being delayed for months longer than was originally anticipated.

And yes, there are those of us who now have some of the Wave 2 ships. Can I play a 2 TIE Interceptor squad? Not without proxies, which just isn't the same. So i am still looking forward to the release of Wave 2, so that I can play a number of squads that I haven't been able to play yet. Just because I have 1 of a ship doesn't mean that I necessarily know how flying 3 of that ship will go. There will be a learning curve amongst those who have Wave 2 ships already as well, so those who don't aren't at as much of a disadvantage as you like to think.

It's true there are a few of us who have been playing with the Falcon since November, but keep in mind, each one of us earned the right to play games with it. And those spoiler videos that you have watched, they had to be made somehow. As soon as we knew of the stats, etc for the Wave 2 ships, they were leaked to the entire community, so that everyone could have the information to use as they saw fit.

And I can only speak for myself, but I always let others use my ships if they want, and in fact I encourage it. Like Sunday for instance, we had a new player, and he wanted to play with the Slave 1. So he and I played a 50-something point game, he tricked out the Slave like he wanted to, and he flew it around for a while. I even let him re-do some of his moves, knowing that he wasn't quite familiar with flying it yet. And I helped him out with strategies and such while using it. I gotta believe, as respectable as this community is, that there are many others doing the exact same thing. Is that a bad thing?

There were a lot of Kessel Run tourneys, with 6 ships given out at each one of them, so there are a LOT of people out there with Wave 2 ships. Those who did win Wave 2 ships can't play them at tourneys legally anyway, so any playing is done in a friendly setting. And those of us posting about how to use Wave 2 ships are discussing so publicly. It's not like we're trying to hide information from anyone. We're discussing what we have found out about Wave 2, so that everyone can be on the same boat once the wave releases. As a matter of fact, I even posted a thread about it, and there was a lot of good discussion about it:

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_foros_discusion.asp?efid=254&efcid=6&efidt=774899

I will take the heat, and say I'm sorry, for posting a thread that discusses a possible Wave 2 meta squad. Until the Wave is released and everyone has a chance to build their awesome Wave 2 squads, we can't really know for sure how the meta game will go. I just wanted to publicly discuss what I think will be a powerful squad, and for that, I apologize.

No, I think if the Kessel Runs hadn't happened, there would be a lot more unhappy people on these boards, and FFG knew that. They might have even lost some of their Wave 1 playing base, with all of the delays that they have had. I'm not sure how far back in the threads you have read, but the core set and Wave 1 were delayed for many months as well. The Kessel Runs were definitely a step in the right direction for FFG as a company to keep their playing base happy. Yes, they were a good thing.

I'm very glad they did the “early” events, even if it was not intended to be so but was due to delays. Nothing was spoiled for me as, from my point of view; these are not presents, but new options I could choose to buy. I was looking all over to know exactly what was in each ship so I could determine exactly how many I need/want. And I got exactly that information during the Kessel Runs. I'm strongly hoping the do the same for wave 3 in some form. Again, this is just my opinion, but if wave 2 came out and I had to buy the ship before I could know what it did, I’d think that was a little absurd. I also personally don't see why those wanting a surprise are mad. Couldn't you just NOT look at the info? I'm not being facetious either. I'm honestly asking.

FFG made the best of the situation and made an attempt to keep the fans happy, I think they chose the right move.

Endgame124 said:

Endgame124 said:

I'm a little confused by your post/s.

In what way have we reached the point where we can't talk about Wave 2? Just because the models have been spoiled doesn't mean we've even scratched the surface of list, combos, or even tactics with those models. The majority of players do not even have any Wave 2 models, and even those with them only have 1 (a rare few have more but hardly play sets). I'm going out on a limb and saying there isn't anyone with enough Interceptors to run a 5 interceptor list, or a 3 Firespray lists, or a double YT-1300 list, or a three A-wing lists etc. Even those people that may have more then one Wave 2 model, likely do not have a variety of opponents with Wave 2 models, to test against. So because we can theory-machine (to borrow a PP term) we've already got Wave 2 all sorted out? I'm sorry but as a Warmachine/Hordes player you should know that theory doesn't always work when it comes to actual playtesting. Plenty of models have either come out behind or ahead of thier intial untested assesments. This is no different.

I can point you to a number of threads prior to the Kessel Run where players completely sold on the "fact" that the Final Round Rebel squadron had no shot vs the Imps. There was plenty of "math: behind thier theories and in the end reported results bore out the opposite. Intial thoughts on YT-1300 pilots had Han rated before the other named pilots, and yet we now have a thread devoted to a squad that features Han with extreme effectiveness.

Even players that have Wave 2 models do not have enough of those models to make an really strong assertiions.

Also, your PP comparrison is not at all apt.

First, the Kessel Run was not ever billed as a release event as PP bills thier Warmachine/Horde release events. The Kessel Run, to all of our knowledge, was an event that came about due to need not design. FFG realized that the product delay was unacceptable and did all they could to offer something to thier players.

Secondly, PP's book release events have nothing to do with actual model avialability. Just because PP is putting a new book out doesn't really have anything to the release dates of the models. PP is essentially spoiling models that may not be out for months and in some cases spoiling models that are already out for purchase. Do you remeber how long it took Destors and MoW Bombadiers to be released? Over a year? How long was Colossals released before anyone could get thier hands on Kreoss and the Judicator? The Mountain King was available before the Judicator despite Gaurgantuans not being released until March. PP also consistantly makes limted Con releases of models well in advance of street date.

PP does as apart of thier ideal release statedgy many of the things you view as a negative about FFG in the Kessel Run. They spoil models well in advance of thier release, and they offer limited runs of the models at Cons for in advance of thier release. But that's fine for PP to do intentianally, but wrong for FFG to do so because of product delay?

Do I think the Wave 2 delay hurt this game? Of course I do, any delay would. Do I think the Kessel Run event hurt the game? Not in a bit, it helped soften the blow that was the delay.

ScottieATF said:

Totally agree. I was lucky enough to win a Slave I and I am chomping at the bit to get my hands on and play with the rest of the ships. As Hothie noted, playing with proxies is not the same (and I made proxies when the mechanics were spoiled). I've had one ship and proxies since December and still have yet to feel I've scratched the surface of what Wave 2 will bring. Kessel Run was a great idea taken from a crappy circumstance.

Since these forums have such poor edit functions I have to repost to fix a typo.

I meant to say most intial assesments had Han behind, not before, other named pilots

Total conjecture on my part, but like the other posters, I think the KRT was the direct result of the Wave 2 delay rather than an actual strategy. I've not been a FFG customer for a long time, but to me, it seemed at the time either an olive branch to make up for the delay or an extremely timely coincidence.

That said, I think Wave 2 is far from figured out completely. I feel like a lot of folks are still kind of looking at them as separate releases in a vacuum when they were designed to work together. Recall that if the delay hadn't happened, there would have only been a couple of months between the intial release and Wave 2. I think there's a ton of synergy yet to be discovered, and that's only going to come with people playing the game with both Wave 1 and Wave 2 stuff.

As for whether it was good or bad, I think it was good. Could it have been handled better, were there complaints, etc., etc.? Sure. But again, I very much feel this was a last-minute effort to try and throw the fledgling X-Wing community a bone and ultimately, I think it did more good than harm. The KRT I played in was a lot of fun and although I'm sure folks that were unable to attend local KRTs wouldn't agree, it was nice seeing new faces from far away places rather than the same old mugs I'm used to.

Cid_MCDP said:

Pretty much my sentimates as well.

I was lucky enough to win Slave 1 at our local KRT. We have had some fun playing a few games with it since. As I do not have the others in my hands yet there is still alot to figure out. If any thing I think KRT gave the community a needed boost and every one I know is still very excitied about the release of Wave2.

Lots of responses - enough I don't think I'm going to quote them all out individually, but I'll try to reply to indivdual ideas.

Re: Avoiding spoilers. Thats pretty hard to do because you not only need to avoid the forums, but essentailly playing the game with others that do read the spoilers. That can work for a week, maybe two, topps.

Re: List discussion. It seems that a number of ideas have already been fleshed out pretty well. I'm sure it will vary some over time as tournaments start to allow the wave 2 stuff, but it seems hard to write up a list that hasn't already had some kind of discussion regarding it.

Re: Number of ships from Kessle Runs. I talked to some people at a convention recently that said their play group went to multiple kessel runs (6-8?) and they ended up winning full playable sets of wave 2 models. I'm expecting that to have happened a lot - maybe I'm wrong and most people only have a ship or two.

Re: Competitive advantage of early access to product. Let me tell you a story about Highlander the CCG in roughly 1996. The first expansion to the game was set to be released at Gen Con, and my local game store owner was able to secure 6 cases of booster boxes 3 weeks early from the distributor. We had full play sets of everything from the expansion before anyone had really seen more than the spoilers. We *crushed* nationals that year by bringing in fully tuned decks of stuff no one else had seen. We walked out of Gen Con having one member of our group winning almost every constructed event. Not only did we win a significant number of prizes at Gen Con, we traveled to events at other game stores for the next month or so and won a majority of those as well. The total prize support collected by our group had to be at least $1,000, probably more. This success was with only 3 weeks of competitive advantage under our belts, though a CCG release does have substantially more items in it than what Wave 2 has release wise. Still, my gut tells me something similar may apply with wave 2, though I could be wrong.

Re: Comparing to other release events. Privateer was probably a bad example - maybe Magic would be a better one? Run the Kessel run events right before retail availability of product, just like a Magic release event? The problem with this comparison is I haven't played magic in probably 10 years, so I'm not quite sure I know the ins and outs of a magic release event.

Overall, I'm glad the feedback for Kessel run seems to be positive. My immediate shopping list has dropped from 2 YTs, 2 Firesprays, and 5 of each fighter to 1, 1, and 2 of each. Considering I have maxed pretty much all the wave 1 ships, I'm sure I'll eventually max out wave 2, but my inital enthusasim from the info from the Kessel run spoilers is well behind me at this point. Looks like I'm in the far minority though.

I think that the Kessel run events were a great thing for FFG to do, especially since there was a delay for wave two to ship.

I guess it is a lot different for me because I still have not even played the game at all. I can understand that some people would be frustrated because they could not make it to the KRTs because of work or other time constraints and therefore feel like they were not given the same opportunity to get their hands on a sweet new ship before their friends do but, I do not think that information "leaking out" through unboxing videos or posts on FFG, AFM or BGG has any real effect on turning away new players.

You might be wondering why I am posting at all considering that I have not even played yet. Well it's because I am deployed to Afghanistan right now.

You see, when I found out about the game in October from a friend on facebook, I was a little over a month into my deployment. He had bought a core set and reccommended that I check it out. In-between patrols I was able to get online and follow the progress of the game and after watching the WORLDS match and the FFG tuorial on youtube, I followed the link to here and was able to glean as much info as I could about the game. I was hooked based off of the info alone and I pre-ordered everything I thought I would need for some solid squads through Miniature Market in November. When there was talk of a delay for wave two, it obviously didn't affect me as much because I still hadn't even touched the game and when my order is filled by MM it is just going strait to my wife anyway. I may not even get to play my first game until the summer. When the KRTs started, I saw it as an awesome way to see more battle reports and all of the wave two spoilers and just learn more about the game.

I have read just about every post and I think there really is no way that the KRTs ruined anything for anyone who has never played the game and that the KRTs served instead as a catalyst for a competitve, yet, extremely helpful community that provides insight to anybody on what they can do better with their squads (wave one) specifically for the KRTs. Competition will always be a great motivator especially when what you win is coveted by those who don't have it.

Those who were able to compete and win in the KRTs had a pretty common theme that I saw on these boards as well as at AFM and BGG though; they all were willing to share their lists and strategies to anyone who would ask and inform anyone who would want to know about wave two's possible advantages while completely unaffecting anyone who had not yet owned a ship. Even when it came down to posting about how the wave two ships maneuver or how they wave one ships perform with wave two upgrades, those who had won in KRTs helped build excitement for those who did not yet have the game or wave two ships by being open with their personal experiences with the new ships.

Just my thoughts. I cannot wait to get my dirty grunt hands all in this game and play a few rounds with my wife when I get back.

I think it was a good for the game, it made expectation about the second wave, and a some of us give us the oportunity of know the new ships, and take advantage in some tornaments in our stores, for example in the store that I buy, they have a league, and I use the ship that I won, with good results, so in balance it give us a good chance to know the new products, and I hope that FFG do the same for the third wave, greettings.

Kaxel Vofer said:

I would be pissed if I played competitive games against players that had ships not available to the public. Fun matches I wouldn't mind as much (just would like to see the ships in action:).

Personally I wouldn't give a dime to a store that runs leagues, allowing the Kessel Run Wave 2 ships (well at least until now when they are available to public). I don't even play leagues, its just the principle.

dandirk said:

We won legally, anmd If you have some advantage you will use, I don't see the problem, the Kessel Run is a open event that anybody could be enter, and anyboby could win, so I don't se the disadvantage on this, greettings.

I'm more worried about current events that FFG is running. Like game night kits. They are so weak.

Kaxel Vofer said:

Models not out for general release are not legal for orgsnized play.