Currently I play Warhammer 5th/8th edition, Warhammer skirmish, Song of Blades & Heroes, Kings of War, as well as boardgames such as Conan, Dungeonsaga & the game I want to review today, X-wing.
A little more than a year ago, November 21, 2015, to be precise, my girlfriend gave me a gift certificate to our local gaming store. I used it to buy 2 games, King of Tokyo & Star Wars X-wing core-set.
Star Wars: X-wing Miniatures is a game of dog fighting and tactical space combat. The core-set includes everything you need to start playing the game, 2 Tie fighters & 1 X-wing as well as special dice, dials, movement sticks, upgrades, damage deck etc etc. The base rules are quite simple, as is the missions that come along with it, you can learn the base rules in just a single game.
I got a friend of mine to play through the missions with me, then we put the game aside. I quite enjoyed the game but didn´t want to buy into yet another miniature game, even if the models were pre-painted (very nicely I may add).
This x-mas my girlfriend bought me the new core-set, based upon the Force Awakens. With that I called my friend for yet another playthrough, now with the new set. The Force Awakens Core-set does contain much of the same components as the original core-set, but this is because many of the components required to play are much the same.
The ships are a little bit different in the new set, there´s a new deck for damage, other upgrades & some new scenarios, as with the original game, the game comes with everything you need to play, & with 2 core-sets you can actually play around a bit & play larger battles as well as experiment with the equipment you use on your ships.
The gameplay is fun, interesting & really gives a nice feeling of a dogfight in space. Hands down my favorite part of the game is the maneouvering. The navigation computer mechanic which you reveal depending on pilotskill is one of the coolest game mechanics I’ve tried. It provides super intense dog fighting moments where you keep trying to read your opponent & hoping they don’t get an edge on you tactically. The combat uses a dice system that works, even though luck can be a factor (but hey it´s the same in Warhammer & KoW as well right) I don´t know how they could catch the feeling of a Star Wars battle better than this. Overall this is the most tactically challenging game except Kings of War & Hordes of the Things I´ve tried to date, not to mention that it´s just as easy as KoW to learn & cheaper to get into, however as with all miniature games, there is one big issue with this game, cost....
But didn´t you just say it was cheaper than Kings of War???
Yes I did, getting into the game is rather cheap, even with 2 core-sets you only pay roughly 60-70$ & then have a lot to play around with, but if you want anything else, or even worse, want to play competetive, then the game becomes very expensive.
I will give you an example, I wanted to be able to field a few more ships, so I could play the normal 100 Points games with some variation, the first ship I bought was the Tie advanced, so I could get Darth Vader, I then bought the Rebel Aces pack to get me some variation with the rebels.
With that I now had 9 ships in total & the cost isn´t too bad, however I then started looking at some of the lists that were doing well, I don´t want to copy paste from the internet, but I do like to be given some inspiration, & every Darth Vader build included the same upgrade:
Advanced Targeting Computer along with a title to get it cheaper. I tried to find where to get this upgrade, well it was only available in 1 set, Imperial Raider Expansion Pack, which "only" costs 95$, that´s more than 3 times the cost of the basic game! & looking at making the Tie Fighters any good means that I need a certain pilot named "Howlrunner", which although cheap, she´s in the base Tie fighter expansion, still isn´t enough, oh no, people use an upgrade called Crack shot on their Tie fighters, which you can get by buying yet another different ship, & to make matters worse, you´re not allowed to use a single card for all your Tie fighters, no, you need 1 Crack shot for each Tie fighter, meaning you need at least twice as many ships. & this was just for a very basic list including Darth Vader & 4 Tie Fighters.
Lets take another example, the 2016 Worlds Winner:
Dengar – JumpMaster 5000 – 54 points
- Lone Wolf
- Zuckuss
- Overclocked R4
- Glitterstim
- Punishing One Title
- Counter-Measures
- Push the Limit
- Seismeic Torpedo
- “Gonk”
- R5–P8
- Feedback Array
- Engine Upgrade
You could of course do it differently & just buy a few upgrade cards from ebay, which I did, I got the Tie fighter expansion, then went & bought some upgrades on ebay, but I still ended up paying another 40 $ just for some decent upgrades to the 10 ships I have so far (& I still don´t have more than 2 Crack shots), even then I won´t be able to compete with the best of the lists. Imo this is a big problem & it´s what keeps me out of the competetive gaming of this game as much as I loathed Warhammer fantasy 7th edition with the obvious power creep.
Yes you can use just about any ship in the game, however to keep the old ships good, you need the newer expansions, the powercreep is very real & very obvious, it might not be in the ships, but in the upgrades, which makes this a game that is very costly if you ever want to play it in any competetive way.
Therefore I will keep this as a casual game as much as Warhammer fantasy 4th/5th edition ever was, play the game for fun & don´t care about being competetive, I will continue with Kings of War for that.
Overall I like the core-sets & give them 4,5/5, but the expansions, however fun they are & as great the ships look, is just too costly.. Until Fantasy flight games allow printing of their cards (this isn´t Magic the gathering, this is a miniatures game) or at least release some expansion with maybe all the upgrade cards & nothing else, I can´t see myself taking this game any further. Which is a shame, as the rules themselves & the gameplay is fantastic!
Final verdict
For casual play: 4/5
For competetive gaming: 3/5
