I am late to the party! X-Wing is a great game that I have only recently purchased and played. Why didn’t somebody tell me about this when it came out! I’m a huge Star Wars fan and the game had always caught my eye at some of the stores around town, but I normally don’t enjoy the “standard” aerial dogfight type games, and I kept passing it over. Well, I had a little extra cash in my pocket last week and picked up the game. Wow, I was blown away!
The game is published by Fantasy Flight Games and like most of their products is of very high production value. The game has excellent card markers, flight arcs, range finders and other pieces, but the highlight are the fantastic Star Wars miniatures. The starter box contains two tie-fighters and one X- Wing and all three are wonderfully detailed, in scale and pre-painted. Don’t get me wrong, I still love painting miniatures, but it sure is nice sometimes to just open the box and start playing. In the “old days” it would have taken me 2-3 days get similar unpainted miniatures glued, primed, painted and based.
A tie-fighter flying across my dinning room table. You can see the order / maneuver dial and the corresponding turning arc. Great movement system!
One thing that is great about the game are the simple “quick start” rules. Many of you loyal CigarBoxBattle readers know that I do a lot of gaming with my kids, so I enjoy buying and playing games that work well for both kids and adults. X-Wing is perfect for this since it allowed me and the kids to jump directly into the game using the” quick start” rules. My five-year old was able to easily learn the game and was flying around and taking shots at my X-Wing in no time! The kids have asked to play the game every night since we bought it! If you have kids, this is a great game to play with them. Our games using the three ships included in the starter box have all lasted about 15-30 minutes, and most importantly we had a lot of fun blowing each other up!
On the other hand, I can take the game to a more satisfying and complex level with my middle schooler and my gaming buddies using the entire 28 page “rules of play” booklet. This booklet flushes out the basic rules and allows for more detailed actions, pilot and ship customization, secondary weapons and missions. What I like about the game is that the core rules of moving and shooting are simple and elegant but require some thought and planning to master. It’s not the type of game to bog down in lots of complex charts, maneuvers and weapon systems, which could have easily happened in a “Star Wars” game. Those are the kind of things that normally turn me off with sci-fi dogfight games.
Designer Jay Little has done a great job keeping it simple, fun and playable, but with enough detail to make the game thought-provoking and tactically challenging. We did an interview not too long ago with Jay and you can find it here: http://www.cigarboxbattle.com/unsung-heroes-of-gaming-jay-little/
We’ve played the game enough now to get somewhat bored with just the three ships in the starter box, so we have started to buy some of the expansion packs. This is where the game really comes into its own and starts to add some flavor with classic Star Wars ships (Millennium Falcon, Slave 1), and pilots (Darth Vader, Lando and Chewie). I also picked up a second copy of the starter box just to give me some extra basic ships! As I always say, “it’s Hell being a gamer and collector!”
PICS of game
Here’s a link to the wonderful web-series Table-Top where they play Star Wars X-Wing: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1mxPFHBCfuU
If you don’t have a Friendly Local Gaming Store near you, here is a link so you can check out the starter box on Amazon:
May The Force be With You!
Cory