Star Wars X-Wing Miniatures

Blackhawk · Post by **Blackhawk** » Fri May 02, 2014 11:58 am

I'm seeing lots of price drops on Amazon for this. As such, I'm considering that it may be time to give this a whirl with my kids - maybe.

I'd asked previously if the game was fully playable with just what's in the box, and the general consensus was that I'd need more.

If I were wanting to play mostly one-on-one or two-on-one, and considering all of the options that are out there now, what would the most economical combination of items to get? Base set, obviously, but which expansions should I consider to go from 'enough to play' to 'fun to play?' Is there a base number of ships I need to be able to put on the table?

As an aside, if this involves the Falcon, I'd be very pleased.

coopasonic · Post by **coopasonic** » Fri May 02, 2014 12:06 pm

It's not going to be cheap. CSI is cheaper than amazon as long as you get up to free shipping... and unfortunately that is very easy to do. 2 core set plus the falcon puts you at about $74. That's 4 Ties, 2 X-Wings and the Falcon. Add 3 small ships and boom, free shipping. Need to balance the falcon so maybe tie bomber and tie advanced and the rebel side is a bit boring, so add an A-wing. There you go.

Blackhawk · Post by **Blackhawk** » Fri May 02, 2014 12:15 pm

That's dastardly.

They show you a $30 board game, and it costs more than $100 to play it. I may not be joining in on this one after all.

AWS260 · Post by **AWS260** » Fri May 02, 2014 12:24 pm

I'd say you need 5 ships to have fun little furball. Three come in the base set, and then you can pick up two more small ships for $12-15 each. More and larger ships can open things up, of course, but I think there's plenty of fun to be had with smaller engagements.

Boudreaux · Post by **Boudreaux** » Fri May 02, 2014 12:33 pm

AWS260 wrote:I'd say you need 5 ships to have fun little furball. Three come in the base set, and then you can pick up two more small ships for $12-15 each. More and larger ships can open things up, of course, but I think there's plenty of fun to be had with smaller engagements.

Yeah, I'd agree with this. A core set plus one additional Rebel/Imperial small ship of choice would only run you $55ish. Still a lot, but there's lots of play possibilities in that. It's nice to have the "standard" 100pts of ships on either side, but you get that many in the game and you'd be surprised how long it can drag the game out. 2-3 ships per side makes for a shorter game, which is better for kids.

Blackhawk · Post by **Blackhawk** » Fri May 02, 2014 12:38 pm

Ok, that sounds more doable.

I'm looking and seeing all sorts of ships - TIE interceptors, TIE bombers, TIE advanced, A-Wings, Y-wings, B-wings, freighters.

Is there any rhyme or reason to choose one over another, or is it just preference?

Isgrimnur · Post by **Isgrimnur** » Fri May 02, 2014 12:45 pm

Depends on the scenarios that you want to run.

A Y-Wing can disable ships with ion cannons and pack a heavy punch with torpedoes. A-Wings are superiority fighters, quick and nimble. B-Wings pack a heavier punch than the Y-wing.

TIE Interceptors will correspond to an A-Wing, Bombers to a ion-less Y-Wing, Advanced will be for your more skilled pilots, have shields iirc.

Freighters will allow you more stuff to do than just furballs. If nothing else, use the old X-Wing video game missions as a starting point.

Chrisoc13 · Post by **Chrisoc13** » Fri May 02, 2014 12:49 pm

My opinion if you are not planning on having a big collection:
Preference is ok for the rebels. Be selective with the empire. There are a couple of empire ships that are harder to fly effectively (shuttle) or that really just are not very good (tie advanced).
The rebels are easier for beginners. Especially that falcon. 360 shooting keeps most of the board in range. I would buy a falcon for sure, but know that the empire takes a bit longer to get good at.
If I were you I would do: core set, falcon, imperial aces. Then if you want to spend a bit more (You would be at about $55 already with just that) I would pick up either another core set, or a couple of tie fighters/ interceptors. Possibly slave 1.
X-wings, B-Wings, and the falcon deal out heavy damage fast. Almost nothing on the empire side does. That will change with wave 4 but currently that is how it stands. The empire generally needs an advantage in ship number to succeed. Rebels can get away with even just two ships (double falcons for instance) and 4 ship builds are very competitive. Empire... not as much. Just like the movies it helps to have numbers.

Also a tip if you have a small number of ships do a low point limit like 75 or 60. The games are quick that way.

$iljanus · Post by **$iljanus** » Fri May 02, 2014 1:51 pm

Chrisoc13 wrote: X-wings, B-Wings, and the falcon deal out heavy damage fast. Almost nothing on the empire side does. That will change with wave 4 but currently that is how it stands. The empire generally needs an advantage in ship number to succeed. Rebels can get away with even just two ships (double falcons for instance) and 4 ship builds are very competitive. Empire... not as much. Just like the movies it helps to have numbers.

This is my issue with the Falcon. The Empire needs a bit more firepower to counter it. I usually counter with Slave I and some TIEs or TIE bombers with even more TIEs. Slave I is rather fun to fly I think but if you're on a budget the money might be better spent on more minis for the cost of the one mini.

The good thing about not playing in tournaments is that you can just get some cool ships and have fun with it. The quality of the minis is top notch to me and I like the design of the rebel ships. You don't absolutely need the Imperial Shuttle or the HWK-290 but if you enjoy the game you can add to your collection bit by bit over time. Imperial Aces expansion is a nice addition but don't forget to round out the Rebel forces if you buy that expansion.

What's your price point pain threshold, Blackhawk? We can probably build something fun based on that. (Just as fun as answering those "Build me a PC questions" which I enjoy) If you lived near me, I'd probably pay you in minis for a master class in miniature painting.

Edit: Are you and your kids Star Trek fans? Star Trek: Attack Wing is basically the same game system but from reading about it you could have quite a good gaming session with just a few ships since it's capital ship based rather than swarms of fighters. If my friend that I play X-Wing with was a Star Trek fan and if the minis were of better quality I would have probably bought that game too since I love the ships in Star Trek. And actually with your painting skills you could really improve upon the Attack Wing minis.

Blackhawk · Post by **Blackhawk** » Fri May 02, 2014 2:21 pm

Price point? Probably $50-$70, with $70 being a stretch. Under $60 would be better.

I don't rule out buying more ships in the future. I just can't drop $120 on a single game - especially one the boys and I have never sat down to play. I learned my lesson on that with Tannhauser, a $70 bookend.

Turtle · Post by **Turtle** » Fri May 02, 2014 4:55 pm

The TIE Advanced is only worth it for the special characters, which are nasty on it, but that makes up for how so-so the advanced is. My friend is still holding out for a TIE Avenger so he can really use Marek Steele.

I'd argue the TIE Bomber dishes damage out that fast, and the new munitions safety upgrade will make them even more useful in the long term. The key to playing Empire is to make good use of those cheap Academy Pilots in TIE Fighters. Remember that a gun is still a gun. Focus fire on the most important targets with at least 2, or optimally 3 TIEs. In one turn you should be able to strip the shields of a rebel ship on good rolling, and destroy it in another. Learning to fly TIEs in formation is pretty helpful, although make sure to watch out for Assault Missiles and any bombs.

Anyone know some good methods to deal with moving through giant furballs of fighters? Now that my group is playing X-Wing a lot, it's a very common occurance for a ship to fly through multiple other ships to reach its destination, or bump into another. The rules are clear on how to handle this, but what do you guys do to make the process easier?

I'm thinking about buying or making some kind of stand-in for models, where I can easily mark a corner of the intervening ships were, then move them all aside, place the maneuver template and move.

Chrisoc13 · Post by **Chrisoc13** » Fri May 02, 2014 4:56 pm

You can get plenty of good hours out of 60 bucks. Then you can simply expand if it fits your needs. Never played attack wing so can't give input there, I get my star trek fix with fleet captains, feels more star trek to me.

Warning though I have dumped more money into this game then any other game I own. But it is that good (IMO).

hentzau · Post by **hentzau** » Fri May 02, 2014 5:56 pm

If I was going to get started with X-Wing, I honestly think I would just start with 2 base sets. You get a lot of fun fights with 2 X-Wings and 4 TIE's. I think this is the most cost efficient way of getting started with the game.

Chrisoc13 · Post by **Chrisoc13** » Fri May 02, 2014 6:05 pm

hentzau wrote:If I was going to get started with X-Wing, I honestly think I would just start with 2 base sets. You get a lot of fun fights with 2 X-Wings and 4 TIE's. I think this is the most cost efficient way of getting started with the game.

Agreed. Less exciting in terms of cool fun ships, but more functional. Best bang for your buck.

$iljanus · Post by **$iljanus** » Fri May 02, 2014 6:21 pm

If one were to go the 2 core sets route, the unique pilot and skill cards for the TIE fighter and X-wing expansions can be found on the internet and printed out. Just to keep things interesting until you can get more ships.

Zarathud · Post by **Zarathud** » Fri May 02, 2014 7:25 pm

A sweet starting setup is 2 core sets, then add Y Wing and TIE Advanced. That's 5 imperial and 3 Rebel ships -- a full team on each side.

For more options, later add on the Imperial Aces and the Falcon. That's 7 Imperial and 4 Rebel ships and lots of long-term options.

Anything further is only for more tactical options and collecting. At Octocon, I can keep 5-6 players busy with 4-6 Rebel and 7-9 Imperial ships.

Blackhawk · Post by **Blackhawk** » Fri May 02, 2014 9:04 pm

Two core sets it is, for now. I'm sure the extra dice and templates and such will come in handy as well.

We're coming up on summer. I figure investing in a couple more board games for myself and the kids will be worth it.

$iljanus · Post by **$iljanus** » Fri May 02, 2014 9:14 pm

Blackhawk wrote:Two core sets it is, for now. I'm sure the extra dice and templates and such will come in handy as well.

We're coming up on summer. I figure investing in a couple more board games for myself and the kids will be worth it.

I think you and the kids will have fun with this. And the minis look really good on the desk too.

Chrisoc13 · Post by **Chrisoc13** » Fri May 02, 2014 10:11 pm

The extra dice and templates will be great. Once you start playing a bit you will get a feel for what if shutting you want to add to the game. Also give the missions a try too, they are pretty fun.

Zarathud · Post by **Zarathud** » Sat May 03, 2014 2:59 am

My rebel transport arrived the next day from Miniature Market, along with more Reaper miniatures and paints! The transport is MASSIVE -- and it will be interesting to think about the possibilities of crashing it into a TIE Swarm in an Epic mission. To get the free shipping, I added the Litko Space Maneuver Gauge set.

hentzau · Post by **hentzau** » Sat May 03, 2014 9:44 am

I looked at it at my FLGS and thought it looked really undersized, but that's mostly because I was using the micro machine version of the transport on my table.

Turtle · Post by **Turtle** » Sun May 04, 2014 5:32 am

Just played a 300 point team game, 6 players. We used the transport and one player had a full tie swarm. It was a great game and everyone had fun. The transport was much more useful than you'd think. However while the ship did ram 3 ties,, that was only because the player controlling the swarm was new, and was distracted by fighting on side of the table, I don't see it happening often.

Chrisoc13 · Post by **Chrisoc13** » Sun May 04, 2014 8:54 am

Played an epic game last night. 2 players 300 points each. The transport is really good, I was surprised. It actually was mostly effective in our game as a distraction. The way I had it built it was really, really hard to kill. Both of us were unclear on how it would work so it was a bit of a shock that it worked so well. But now that we understand it better it would probably not be as effective next time. It did manage to run over a tie bomber in the process of the game.

I almost ran over my own X-wing at one point due to the same issue. My X-wing based on a bomber, and after everything moved it was as close to the big ship as you can get without being a casualty.

The epic game was fun because I got to include all the ships I wanted to. 300 points is a lot to play with and it really opens up some crazy options. For people who want to fly all the cool pilots in one game, you basically can now! I ran a pretty simple list but options like 6 falcons are on the table which would be nuts. I ran 3 A-wings (one tycho with PTL), 2 B-wings with heavy laser cannons, dutch with PTL and the new droid that lets him have elite pilot talent, Kyle Katran with all his focus producing craziness (Moldy crow, recon specialist etc.), 2 x-wings (Wes and Garvin) and then a fully loaded up transport worth 60 some odd points. I thought I would lose quickly due to the point value of the transport but it just absorbed hit after hit.

My opponent ran 6 tie fighters (all academy ties except 1 dark curse and 1 howlrunner), 4 loaded bombers with captain jonus, and 4 interceptors (the 4 best named interceptor pilots).

Things worked out in my favor almost immediately. The board is much bigger then you realize at first so his tie fighters lined up against my 3 A-wings on one far extreme of the board. Obviously 6 tie fighters would eat up 3 A-wings so I led them on a merry chase across the board rather than confronting them head on. On the complete other side of the mat were all of my other ships and his other ships. The bombers went straight for the Transport (as I would have done as well). I had the title bright hope on my transport and with that I had 2 evades every turn on the front section (when I took the reinforce action) which made it really, really hard to bring down. The bombers tried to maneuver around it but with my ships and his ships all in that space things got really tight. So he tried to get behind it but the bombers were just not maneuverable enough and by the time they did the B wings and X-wings had torn through them, and Jonus had been run over by the transport.

It was a good learning game. With a board that size in 3 hours the A wings and tie fighters only made it to the main fight in the last few turns. Most of the time they were just flying around through asteroids on the side, which was a win for the rebels because 3 A-wings effectively neutralized 6 tie fighters for the entire game until the B-wing were clear to light them up. We called the game after 3 hours when the empire had lost 8 ships with all but one of the remaining ships being crippled, and the rebels had lost an A-wing (prototype pilot) and an x-wing with very little other damage.

Overall I love the epic format. But I won't play it too often because it is really long. 3 hours if you know the game and play quickly with considerable set-up and take down time when compared to the regular 100 point games. I just don't often have enough time for a 4 hour night of x-wing. But when I do I will choose it over the short games.

The rebel transport is really good. It can absolutely soak up the hits. I might even pick up another one and see how that goes. But I would wait until the Tantive is out to see if that changes my mind on needing a second one. BTW the tantive is on the boat and FFG said it should be out before the end of the month...

The new playmat looked really good. Though it was a bit more slippy then I would have liked.

The empire needs huge ships. They are just too fun to play with they need to balance the game out now and give the empire some love! Also as always there is nothing the empire has that can counter B-wings and X-wings. They just pack so much power. Wave 4 looks to rectify that but right now ships to ship I think the B-wing will take out anything of the same point value one on one. Slave 1 perhaps not, but otherwise man B-wings are good.

Chrisoc13 · Post by **Chrisoc13** » Sun May 04, 2014 10:12 am

Thought I would put up a couple of pictures from the game last night. Early on in the skirmish things looked ok, except the two imperial ships cut off by the huge ship left on their own and outnumbered.

And then of course I almost ran over my own X-wing... got about as close as you can get.

wonderpug · Post by **wonderpug** » Sun May 04, 2014 3:05 pm

What is wrong with you, man? You can't go posting pictures like that! Keep it up and my will is going to break and make me spend a thousand dollars on this stuff.

Chrisoc13 · Post by **Chrisoc13** » Sun May 04, 2014 4:55 pm

Come on... you know you want to...

The game is a money pit if you love Star Wars no doubt. I have dropped more money into X-wing then any other game I own by a very, very, long shot. Honestly I would probably be embarrassed by how much I have spent on it... But it also is the second most played game in my collection so I feel justified... I guess ha. Looking back a few pages I cannot believe how much bigger my collection is now then it was

.

Another thing that became obvious with the epic game yesterday was the usefulness of support ships. We only had one true support ship in the game (Kyle in the HWK-290) but he was very useful and really I think the shuttle is going to be extremely useful on the empire side. That's my plan next time I play in an epic game when I play as the empire.

Blackhawk · Post by **Blackhawk** » Sun May 04, 2014 5:07 pm

I'm researching a setting-appropriate table cover myself. I doubt I can afford ready-made mats, but I've seen star print cloth at fabric shops before.

Chrisoc13 · Post by **Chrisoc13** » Sun May 04, 2014 5:14 pm

Blackhawk wrote:I'm researching a setting-appropriate table cover myself. I doubt I can afford ready-made mats, but I've seen star print cloth at fabric shops before.

I've seen a lot of people do that, or yoga mats are a big hit on BGG. Lots of people using Yoga mats and then putting some stars on them, not a bad idea.

$iljanus · Post by **$iljanus** » Sun May 04, 2014 5:21 pm

Blackhawk wrote:I'm researching a setting-appropriate table cover myself. I doubt I can afford ready-made mats, but I've seen star print cloth at fabric shops before.

I think even simple black felt makes a big difference in adding to the game so no need to splurge on this even though I bought a mat from GF 9. With the large ships now being introduced I might go the canvas route mentioned earlier in the thread for a 3'x6' play surface.

Chrisoc, those pics look awesome! Can't wait to set up some large scale battles.

Blackhawk · Post by **Blackhawk** » Sun May 04, 2014 5:25 pm

This for instance. Maybe something with a little less blue, but the same basic idea.

Turtle · Post by **Turtle** » Sun May 04, 2014 6:44 pm

Photos from our big game last night. The tie swarm was very effective. I think any rebel list I make in the future will have at least 2 assault missiles. At 3 health and 3 defense dice, even an academy pilot is a threat that can't be removed in one pass from most ships, and if the player rolls hot with his attack dice can quickly kill the toughest of ships. That said, when Han got into the fray he started dropping them like flies.

Although I played on the rebel side, the TIE swarm was mine, as were the bombers. Not shown was Boba Fett in the slave 1 backed up by 2 royal guard TIEs, and 1 more X-Wing character.

The Rebel side's list was created a bit haphazardly since the player was a bit new. The transport was wasting 12 or more points on more action based abilities, instead of having only 1 action based ability, and 1 energy based ability to use during the energy phase.

A few other fighters were also overly upgraded, and the rebels definitely could have had 1-2 more ships. But live and learn.

The greatest thing is that the game was setup, played, and packed away in less than one night of gaming for 300 points and 7 people playing. We had plenty of time after to talk and even play one game of something else. Contrast this to the group's previous space game, Battlefleet Gothic, where whenever I saw them play it in a big team game it was a ridiculously slow and unbalanced mess, often times one player wouldn't even get into combat.

What's really great is that, the way the game is structured, you can drop into play with whatever you have. There's no force organization charts to worry about to limit ridiculous units, it's all just points, and it's all decently balanced. This makes it super easy to get together for big team games without things getting unbalanced. Although it helps to have only 2 sides in the game, and there are combos that work well, you still pay the points for them and the game doesn't rely on forced rarity to try to balance it. The way it's all handled has made me rethink how I handle army building in my own tabletop miniatures game.

Blackhawk · Post by **Blackhawk** » Sun May 04, 2014 7:02 pm

Heh heh.

Not going to happen, but heh heh.

$iljanus · Post by **$iljanus** » Sun May 04, 2014 8:45 pm

In the games listed above did anyone load their TIE bombers with mines and/or bombs? With the limited maneuverability of the transport perhaps that would be a good load out against it and with a high point game you can still outfit your bomber with nasty missiles. And poor Jonus. He's one of my favorite pilots but to go out by getting hit by a large space hogie really sucks. I wonder if TIE advanced ships will have some use in these high point games?

Chrisoc13 · Post by **Chrisoc13** » Sun May 04, 2014 10:22 pm

The list I flew against did not have any bombs or mines, but about 2 seconds in we both talked about how great it would be to use mines and bombs against these ships.

Turtle · Post by **Turtle** » Mon May 05, 2014 12:41 am

If I had control of the bombers, I would have put proton bombs on them as well as proton torpedoes. Proton bombs will be incredibly useful for killing these big ships since it deals a face up damage card to them. The huge ships have an action that lets them regenerate pretty much all their shields, so plinking away the shields will do little unless it's already surrounded.

Unfortunately, the transport in this game took an upgrade that uses an action and energy to strip all good tokens from a ship, including target locks. It had limited range, but the player using the bombers got too close too quickly and the player controlling the transport easily figured that bombers would be a threat to big ships.

Using mines and bombs on the transport is doable, but risky since it means you have to get close to the huge ships, and that means risking it colliding with your ship as it moves. Even when it turns, the huge ships kind of drift a bit, so you have to have a healthy respect for being within range 1 of it.

Blackhawk · Post by **Blackhawk** » Tue May 06, 2014 8:07 pm

This lives in my house now.

coopasonic · Post by **coopasonic** » Tue May 06, 2014 8:09 pm

Blackhawk wrote:This lives in my house now.

Yay.

$iljanus · Post by **$iljanus** » Tue May 06, 2014 8:49 pm

Blackhawk wrote:This lives in my house now.

Red 5 standing by...

Turtle · Post by **Turtle** » Tue May 06, 2014 11:51 pm

Welcome to the dark side of the force.

Chrisoc13 · Post by **Chrisoc13** » Wed May 07, 2014 8:59 pm

And wave 4 is officially on the boat... lots coming out soon... I'm pretty excited about the new empire ships, they really seem like they will balance out the force... The empire needs some muscle.