X-Wing

My second favorite game and coming in at a very close second is a miniatures game by Fantasy Flight called X-Wing Miniatures. This is a game based on the smaller dog fighting ship battles of the Star Wars Universe. This is best known to play one on one but you can play more people and can take 30-90 minutes per game. In this game you will take control of one of the three different factions, Rebels, Empire or Scum and Villainy. After choosing a faction, you will choose certain ships to fly such as X-Wings, Y-Wings or Tie Fighters to try and maneuver your ship to be in the best position to take out your opponent.

This game comes with small models or miniatures that are pre-painted. This game that came out in 2012 was a game that sort of broke the mold for tactical miniatures and it was this system, along with the fact that I am a Star Wars fan that got me hook, line and sinker! Before this game, there were basically two other types of movement in miniatures. One is the hex movement where there is a board with little hex shaped spaces that your figure would move and turn on. The other is pretending that you are a carpenter and breaking out the measuring tape using inches as movement.

While not moving on hexes is pretty cool, using the measuring tape is cumbersome and the rules just continue to bog down the fun of the game such as moral, and armor, and penetration and strength.

X-Wing is straight forward using movement templates. But, before you can move you have to plan your move which is where half the fun of the game is. For each separate ship, you have a specific movement dial that only that type of ship can perform. During the first phase of the game, you plan what you are going to do for that turn and possible turns ahead. You will then select a move for each of your ships and place them face down so your opponent can’t see what you are doing. Then each ship will move in pilot skill order from low to high. Darth Vader pilots better then a rookie X-Wing pilot so the rookie would move first so Darth Vader know what they are doing. Then the pilots shoot in pilot skill order from high to low. As we all know, Darth Vader will be able to shoot first, potentially taking out the rookie X-Wing pilot before they have had a chance to shoot.

Combat is determined with attack dice and defense dice. After the dice are rolled, maneuver dials are again selected and continues like this until one side completes the objective. This generally means that the other side is wiped out but there are missions that can be played to change up the play style.

When choosing who is going to be on your team, there are cards and they all have a point cost. You and your opponent will choose how many points will be available to create a list or group of cards to use when you play. A standard game is a 100 point list. You can also play an epic game which is 300 points.

There are so many parts that I love about this game and when they all come together, it is pretty fun. I love not having a board to play on and just using the table. Each game of a 100 point list is played on a 36″x36″ mat or board. But, you can basically just start playing on your dining room table. Then, each model is amazingly detailed and they are even painted and pre-assembled. This means that you don’t have to glue stuff together and you don’t have to paint for them to look, already fantastic out of the box. I also, love creating lists. Trying to figure out what cards will work together with others. Who are the best pilots. Is it Han Solo, Darth Vader, Soontir Fel, Dengar, Manaroo, Coran Horn, Poe Dameron or Jan Ors. There are so many more pilots and more ships that it is just so fun. Then, there are things that you can add on to your ship to make them better such as Engine Upgrade to fly and maneuver better, or add astromechs to your ship such as R2-D2 to make your ship live longer. Do you want to use R2-D2 or do you want to use BB-8? Do you want to put proton torpedoes on your Y-Wing or do you you want a Twin Laser Turret instead. I also like the games weight. No, not the lbs weight but the length of time to play each game and rules complexity. I would say that each game lasts about an hour and the rules are not as complex as a miniatures and not so light that I find it obvious in choices and how to actually play the game. Finally, what I love about this game is that I love Star Wars and this game is oozing Star Wars from start to finish.

Now, there are some downsides to this game. One of the biggest downsides is the cost. I’ll go more into this later. Another downside to this can be your set-up time to play the game. There are a lot of components that you need to play. Before you start, you will need to get them all organized and this can be time consuming. Then, the flip side to list building is, list building. If you don’t want to figure out what cards go together before you even start playing you may not like this game. It is kind of like deck building in cards but not like the mechanic in Dominion. You will need to create your build before you come to play. You will not create your build as you play in this game. In other words, you will need to figure out what cards you are going to use before you start your game. Finally there is dice rolling. Some people don’t like to roll dice because it is too random. There can be a bit of randomness but there is great system that Fantasy Flights came up with to mitigate the dice or get them better in your favor.

There are many board games that you just buy the base game and then you are done. Maybe there is an expansion that comes out ever year or two but that is it. In this game you don’t have to have everything but if you only have some you will want more and it is possible to justify your purchase in getting more. If you buy one starter set you get one X-Wing and two Tie Fighters. At most you can play about a 35 point game with no real choices on how to build your list. This will get you everything you need to play the game and learn the rules but you will not be able to make a 100 point list and you will have to share some components with your partner you are playing with. There are basically three types of ships. Little, Big and Epic. All can be purchased separately. Little ships are about $15-$20, Big ships are about $25-$40 and Epic ships are about $50-$100. I’m not going to tell you what to buy but in my experience, most people play standard which is a 100 point game. To get a standard list, you will need to spend about $100 for one list. This means that if there are two of you, you will each need to spend about $100. Perhaps I will get more into this later in another article.

I would say if you and a friend are getting into this, I would just get one of the starter sets, there are two, and see if you even like the game before you spend more money. Then, you can perhaps slowly buy more ships if you like it. Or, head down to your local friendly gaming store and watch others play or ask to try it out.

I love Star Wars. X-Wing oozes Star Wars so I love X-Wing! I would say that I am more into people combat vs ship combat and there is a game like that but I know more people who play X-Wing and it is a great game design so I’ll take it.