I got to play my game against my buddy last night.

On paper, I thought I was going to be in trouble. He had taken Imperials, and to see more of the game at once, I took Rebels. He's a really clever player, and I reallt felt like I was going to have be pretty clever myself to at least give him a bloody nose before I was shot down.

So I read. I read up on the GenCon tournament, on what players were bringing. The game is still new, and the meta is just now being born, so the amount of "gospel" data is really limited. I did find (to my increasing dread,) that most players at GenCon agreed with me and took Imperials. Then I saw a Rebel had won. I read his list, and another's. I sat down and ran through what he wanted to do with a configuration. I felt confident that at least I'd know why I'd lose going to the shop last night.

Then the fight happened.

My careful plan of blasting Ion Cannons to turn nimble TIE fighters into delicious targets turned to ash in my hands. I understood the initative system, but until I saw it in action, I didn't realize what a colossal mess we would make for ourselves. I was taking shot where I could, locking targets and shooting whne I thought I could get away with it. After some rawn out dogfights due to rolls, I managed to wipe out the Imperials, and only poor Dutch had to suffer a (temporary) death.

Some afterthoughts: R2D2 may be the first auto-include in this game. Repairing shields on any ship in the Rebellion is a huge deal. Combining with Biggs' "fire magnet" ability was crazy. I think the Imperials shot about 6 points of shields off of him during the game.

This game is going to get synergy and combo crazy as more ships and pilots release. Dutch can toss out Target Locks like he's handing Skittles to his best buds. We've already talked about how Biggs will tkae a hit like a champ. The Imperials seem to have powerful individuals, but the Rebels love to work as a team.

FFG has done a great job of balancing things, all told. As I said before, the Imps on paper seem to have the advantage: they can toss out more dice, barrel roll for better positioning, and Vader is a striaght-up mofo. However, the Imps don't really support each other with abilties, and sometimes rely on positioning and throwing more dice to solve problems. I want to play at least 1 more game as a Rebel, and a few and Imperial before I really solidify my thoughts on that.

If you're on the fence, buy it. Yeah, it's very Wings of War, but (and if this makes me a fanboy, so be it) Star Wars makes it better. I can't wait for more players to get this and start running events.

 Great summary.  Thanks for sharing your thoughts.  Can't wait to get my hands on this game.

Awesome report!  I love the insight that the Imps are a gang of individuals while the Rebs are a team of personalities.  This is an excellent start to the online meta.

Interesting, I would have thought the Imps would have a few more "helping your buddy" style effects too.  Only one card I've seen online boost another friendly: Howlrunner gives a friendly a bonus Attack Die if he's within 1 Range.  The other cards that come with the TIE Expansion seem to all have some kind of increased damage potential.  So your "Imps solve problems through attack dice" observation appears accurate.

-DavicusPrime

 I'm just replying here to see if doing so will remove the permanent "New" label from this topic.

Budgernaut said:

I think the "new" means there is a new reply, not that it is a new thread.  Read this, then go back without posting anything and refresh the forum… the new should be gone, no?

El_Tonio said:

Every now and then that will get stuck and reading it doesn't do anything.  I do usually find that clicking the "Mark all as read" clears it out.  Similarly the subforum will be highlighted in the "Miniatures" group and similar is required.

 I am surprised that you found the Rebs to be more cooperative than the Imps.  I played in the Gencon Tournament, and I played Imps, sadly everyone of my opponents was also an Imp, and I haven't played since I got home, but I found the Imps to be very cooperative.

You can buy really cheap TIE fighters and then use swarm tactics to bump their terrible skill up as high as Vaders.  And Howel Runner's ability to let near by ships reroll attack dice was a really big deal In the battles I played.

Even Backstabber's ability to attack people from behind is really useful when you have lots of cheap TIEs to draw the fire of the Rebs

But like I said I have yet to play a game with the Rebs yet.

(my wife won't play with me)

Is there anyone who hopes some (but not all) tournaments will adopt a "Rebellion vs. Empire" format, in which players are required to bring two squadrons, and then use a random method to determine who will be playing which side? A big part of what I like about this game is how each side has its own distinct playstyle, and I would like for the majority of my experiences with X-Wing to explore that assymetry.

MarthWMaster said:

I wish that the Gencon tournament had been like that.  I don't know how Reb vs Reb goes, but Imp vs Imp is hard.  TIE have a high defense, and some good defensive manuvers, but they aren't really that great on attack.  So most rounds of play nobody even got hurt.

One of my matches ended with neither of us loosing a single ship.  I think most Imperial Players had a similar expeerience.  

I also like the idea that you have to bee good at both Rebs and Imps to win a tournament.

Hrathen said:

This why I'm so happy my son and daughter are just old enough to be able to get into this with me, and my son is almost as much of a StarWars Nut as me so perfect timeing for me.  To sum up: kids allow me to be a kid again. 

-DavicusPrime

Is anyone else slightly bothered that one of the rulebook's mission setups places Luke Skywalker and "Mauler Mithel" together in what could only be an Alternate Continuity scenario, or do I win this round for anal retentiveness? :P

MarthWMaster said:

Excellent post!  I highly recommend the method that Decipher used for the old Star Wars CCG.  Basically each player brought 2 decks with them, a light side and a Dark side.  You then played them alternately.  So first game might be LS, then the second would be DS.  3rd LS, 4th, DS.  Etc.  That way you had to be good at both sides of the Force before you could win a tournament.  I was actually surprised that FFG did not do that with the tounament.  

On the other hand, this requires more miniatures.  I supose there could be some people that collect just one side's minis.  Since the only thing that forces you to get both sides ships is the starter.  In a CCG each pack has a mix of both sides.

Regardless, I would rather see tournaments with only Reb vs. Imp matches.

Thanks,

Duncan

I play in a lot of tournaments for the Games Workshop systems. While 40K and Warhammer don't suffer from this issue, GW's LOTR system sets good vs evil and in my opinion the game becomes more unbalanced with blue on blue games (much like the agility issue with TIEs in this game).

The way red on blue tournaments work for GWs LOTR is that each player takes one good force and one evil. The first, third and fifth rounds are random roll offs to see who uses which force, but in round two, four and six you use the force you didn't use in the last round. That way you get a balance number of games.

You get a score for each game. Say you used good in the first. You would then be paired up with a player that played evil in the last round so that you can swap sides. The organisers try and make it so you are paired with someone with a similar score.

This system would work for X-Wing and I for one hope tournaments would be run like this (I also hope we get one in the UK).

 Certain squads are bound to rise to the top of the meta.  If this game is going to have truly competitive tournament scene, alternating factions throughout events will make wins come down to a coin toss rather than player's skill.

R5Don4 said:

If this is true, then it would reflect badly on FFgs ability to playtest a game to ensure that it is balanced. I personally doubt it. It should be that for any squad you can field, an equally good opposing force could be created. If certain squads were noticabely better than others, then everyone would just field the same squads anayway, which would make for a boring game and boring tournaments. I would think that in actuality ship, pilot and upgrade choices will not work as well for every person. It will vary (as it should) based on playstyle and tactical choices (as will the initial setup).

I also think that in order to win a tournament and be crowned the ultimate X-wing player, it should require the flexibilty to use at least two teams effectively. If you can only win using one particular squad, then its probably the squad that makes the difference and not the player. This would make for an unsatisfying game!