Just played a pick up game for the first time last night. I got to use Han Solo and the Falcon as my ship. I have to admit that I like how this game feels and plays. I will probably never do the whole tourney thing with this, but as a once or twice a week throw down some ships and shoot em up…..this just excells!

Last night's game was the first time in a very long time of minis gaming that I have actually had fun without someone accusing this or that as being cheesy, broken, or otherwise. It was very refreshing. Looking forward to more adventures with Han and Chewie on the tabletop. (Side note: Chucking the Chewbacca card to block a damage and get a shield is hilarious…..especially when you describe it as chucking Chewie out the airlock and blocking a shot)

Yes, love the game. With wave 2 out, that's 4 different ships per side you can play now. Also of fun.

GrandMoffMatt said:

Dude, I know what you mean. When people start talking about 40k, the conversation almost inevitably starts out negative. With X-Wing, it's nearly always positive in my experience. There's good and bad things about both games, I just very rarely walk up on a conversation between people where they're talking about how much fun 40k is to play.

X-Wing is fun stuff, man. I'm curious though- I know your thread title was meant to be a rhetorical question, but why didn't you try the game out sooner? I find a lot of people regard X-Wing as some shallow end of the pool miniatures game, meaning there's a preceived lack of strategic depth and/ or list differences that turns some people off.

I find, like most miniatures games the amount of strategy involves depends a lot on how hard your opponent pushes you, but I'm constantly weighing the outcomes of a particular in-game decision in X-Wing, unlike 40k where 9 times out of 10, I'm on auto-pilot when it comes to the actual tactical decision making because there's really only one viable option when it comes to attacking with a particular unit, or where I should move a particular unit or whatever.

Mostly money. Some of it was interest. I was waiting for the Falcon mini to come out before I tried it. Also, I had too many minis games. We had a swap meet at our local game store and I sold all of my stuff. So I had room :-)

GrandMoffMatt said:

Cool. Just being nosy. I've been trying to recruit new players for my club, so knowing, and hopefully understanding and overcoming, reasons why people haven't yet pulled the trigger on playing X-Wing is something I'm trying to seek out.

Thanks for the reply! I was hoping you'd come back and visit this thread.

Welcome to the party…it is a great time to join in. I just started in DEC right before the KRT and very glad a friend talked me into it. I mostly do historical gaming, so this is a nice break in the action as I grew up with Star Wars as a kid.

afilter said:

Remember Star Wars happened a long, long time ago, so this is technically still historical gaming.

GrandMoffMatt said:

I know how expensive Mini Games can be. But in comparision to any other mini game, X-wing is almost free. There are not army or expansion books your forces use relativly free.

Sometimes I actually feel like how cheap it is works against X-wing as a game. When I go into my game store, there is a whole wall for Warhammer and Warhammer 40K while there is only a small section for X-wing.

I am a part time manager of a small hobby shop, formerly a Games Workshop employee, and an avid mini gamer. I have played WFB and 40K for well over a decade and a half, I play Warmahordes, Dark Age, MERCS, Malifaux, Spartan Games, Pulp City, Strange Aeons, been thinking of picking up Field of Glory, and I just bought into a kickstarter for Wild West Exodus.

That being said…Star Wars X Wing is the best game I have played in a very long time.

The rules are simple, but cover all situations. The models kick butt and are very inexpensive, as far as mini games go. And like others have said win or lose I have never heard ANYONE gripe when playing or talking about the game, I mean never!

I do believe FFG hit a home run….NO, a grand slam with this game!! I mean hell, I'm in the Bahamas and itching to play ;-).

all my wave 2 ships arrived this week!

I myself just started last Friday. Wish I would have started sooner. Every time I play, it makes me want to play more.

Yeah. I may try to get a game in today at my local shop. I pretty much play it for kicks. I'm used to Wings of War, so my familiarity with the movement system was easy to work with. I think the addition of the dice is the interesting element of chance for combat instead of drawing cards. Personally, I don't see myself making power builds with this one. It just brings me back to my old PC X-Wing days, and I adore that!

I also seem to like the community here. I have yet to see a mathnalysis of X versus Y. It happened with Flames of War, and I jumped ship. The moment you are doing business analysis to set up stuff for your lists, I think you've lost the plot. On the other hand, if competition is your thing, then maybe that's ok?

Now I am looking forward to the next wave. The rebellion eeds more fighters!

Hank said:

Same here. The guys that play at the shop are literally all about the fun of it. I felt bad after pasting a lot of ties with the Falcon and they were like "No Way! It was epic!" It was nice to hear instead of the usual discourse.

GrandMoffMatt said:

I have seen some math analasys, but it has mostly been between what actions are best. But one of the great thing about X-wing is how much movement and stratagy matters. So much more than most table top games where your defensive stat is basically how you avoid getting killed.

One thing that is so great about this game is that a supperior player with an inferior list is still likely to win.

New here, and completely agreed. I only just found out this game existed a couple of weeks ago, and picked up the Core set a week ago. I finally had a friend come around to play it on Wendesday night and we played just the quick start rules and had a lot of fun. Have another friend coming over this weekend so will have another game with the quick start rules to give him the basics, then go to the full rules to add a bit more fun to it.

I was tossing up on getting back into 40k, but with two young daughters money and time is very low for me so on finding this game was very happy. On the whole it is a very cheap game, the expansions are cheaper than the metal/finecast 40k minis, and you don't need to go out and spend a stack of money on paints to get started. I have a couple of friends who have never played table top games too, so with the rules being nice and simple, it is easier to get them interested in it, and helps that most people I know love Star Wars

When I get a bit of money spare, will be looking to pick up another core set, as I found at least with the quick start rules the TIEs seem to dominate. Hoping another core set will help even it out since the rebel player will have more options on what they do having two ships.

DingusFett said:

I know exactly what you mean DingusFett- sub in two boys instead of your daughter, and you pretty much have the same story as me. Played 40k, found it becoming too expensive and time-consuming to keep up with.

The thing that pushed me over the edge into buying X-Wing Miniatures was the movement templates. I've got a couple of close friends I grew up with, but no longer live anywhere near. We'd been trying to find some sort of miniatures game we could play together over the net (as well as in our respective FLGS) and as we're all big Star Wars fans, I thought that X-Wing Miniatures might actually work over Google Hangout or similar service in kind of a "remote chessboard" setup where I represent all of my stuff on the board, as well as all of my opponents.

We've played it 10-12 times that way since back around Christmas and it doesn't work too badly. It's definitely playable, and as we're old friends, we don't worry about people lying about rolls or picking a different maneuver and things like that. We did end up getting some mats made up with grid lines on them to make things easier to communicate in-game, especially with asteroid placements and Barrel Rolling.

Back on topic, I just enjoy X-Wing Miniatures more than 40k at this point. There's so much more stratetic decision-making in X-Wing that it just doesn't really get old for me. There's also so much less negativity towards the game and its units, at least in my neck of the woods, in X-Wing than 40k. I felt bad yesterday when I saw some new player trying to get a game of 40k on my little gaming club's Yahoo Group thing and nobody responded. There was a time that all of us played, and played all the time, but I think we just got burned out arguing over rules, some 'dexes being more powerful than others, and all that kind of stuff. I still like 40k's setting and everything, and I'm sure I'll start playing it again someday, but for right now, X-Wing Miniatures is definitely filling the minis gaming void for me adequately! It's fun stuff!

What I like about this game, is that when I show a rank newb, who has never played miniature games before, how to play - by the 2nd round they are the ones picking up the templates and moving the ships around etc.

It's a really easy game to pick up & play.

Some good responses here. I have to admit that this community seems to be very united in creating a good experience for this game with all types of players. It's refreshing to witness. I still have yet to get a second game in. I may do that this week, just to toy around and shoot up some ties. Part of me wants to recreate scenes from the movies, but that might be taking it a bit too far.

My wife and I recreated the escape from the Death Star (Falcon vs. 4 Tie Fighters) last weekend. We found it surprisingly well balanced. The Falcon won, but only had 1 hull point left. It was a good introduction to the game for her. She was quite happy that she won. I heard "I blew you up!" all weekend.