Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures Game Starter Set

What Is It About? – An Overview of the Game
X-Wing: Miniatures is a miniatures based dog fight for two teams. It brings the space battles in the Star War trilogy to your kitchen table. Players dial up movement for a turn and use templates to standardize those movements. Combat is resolved with dice while damage is tracked with hit cards. The last player flying wins the game.

What Do I Get? – The Components in the Box
The core game of X-Wing comes with a pre-painted X-Wing and two pre-painted TIE fighters. It also includes a set of movement templates, a movement dial for each ship, a range ruler, a deck of hit cards, and three each of the attack and defense dice. The game includes multiple Pilot cards for each ship type and corresponding tokens to place on the plastic ship stands. There is also an upgrade deck ranging from pilot skills to astromech droids to additional weapons. A handful of tokens and other cardboard accessories are included to track information and set up for different scenarios. The game also includes a quick start guide with very simple rules to get families started right away. In the base game, the two named X-Wing pilots are Luke Skywalker and Biggs Darklighter and R2-D2 is one of the named astromechs.

What is lacking is a physical board. A 3’0” x 3’0” play area is suggested so you will need to demarcate your playing area if it is larger than this. Another option is to buy black fabric in this shape to have definitive edges.

What Do I Do? – Playing the Game
The game is played in four simple phases.
1) Planning Phase – Secretly select your movement
2) Activation Phase – move and perform an action
3) Combat Phase – resolve combat
4) End Phase – clean up

During the planning phase, each player selects the movement for each of his ships. This is done in secret and simultaneously. Ship movement is governed by the movement dial which limits ship classes to certain movements. For example, an X-Wing is much slower than a TIE so it cannot move at 5-speed straight. On the flip side, TIE fighters move so quickly they cannot do the shorter 1-speed straight or bank.

Each pilot has a skill marked as an orange number. The higher the number, the better the pilot. During the movement phase, the pilot with the lowest pilot skill goes first. He reveals his dial and selects the corresponding movement template which reflect speed (distance traveled) and direction. He then places the template in front of his ship (using the plastic guides) and moves his ship along the template, lining up the back of his ship with the end of the template. He immediately takes an action (which is explained below). The next highest pilot resolves his movement and selects an action until all ships have moved.

During combat, the pilot with the highest skill resolves first. In order for a ship to select a target, it must be both in his arc of fire and within range. He rolls the number of dice equal to his red Weapon value, possibly modifying the result through actions or abilities. Then the target rolls a number of dice equal to his green Agility number, again possibly modifying the results. Every evade rolled cancels out a single hit. Normal hits are cancelled first, and then critical hits. For every remaining hit, on shield (noted by the blue number) is removed first, with the remaining hits being taken as a face-down damage card. When the hit is critical, the damage card is taken face up and the instructions followed. A ship is destroyed once it accumulates a number of damage cards equal to its yellow hull value. Once this combat is complete, the next lowest pilot resolves his combat until all ships have fired or passed.

There are a few more rules concerning extra dice depending on range. Line of site is not an issue in this game (unless obstacles are involved). There is also an easy means to determine what happens if ships collide. All are simple and make sense in this game, keeping the flow moving.

In the end phase, any “end of phase” actions are resolved and players pull back any unused tokens for the turn. If one side is not eliminated, a new round begins.

Actions and Stress
Actions are at the heart of the movement phase. Each ship class has certain actions that it can perform. X-Wings can acquire a target lock on any ship within range, not counting the firing arc. This allows them to, in a future attack, reroll as many dice as they want one time. TIE fighters have the ability to Evade, granting them one cancelled hit or Barrel Roll, an additional sideways movement that allows them to nudge forward or backward in the process. All ships in the base game also have Focus which allows them to turn the Focus die results to either hits or misses as the situation allows. Upgrades and Pilots also have additional actions that can be used.

In addition to speed and direction, movement is either easy, normal, or challenging represented as green, white, and red arrows, respectively. A red maneuver causes stress to be placed on the ship and it will be unable to perform any action until it removes the stress. Performing a green maneuver allows a stress token to be removed, and once free of stress, immediately select an action again.

What Do I Think? – Final Thoughts
In the interest of full disclosure, I was a blind and beta tester on this product. However, my opinion of the game is not influence by my volunteer status and I receive no compensation based on any review.

I have seen the development of this game from GenCon 2011 to GenCon 2012 and I believe Fantasy Flight Games has published the best Star Wars dog-fighting product it possibly could. The game is easy to teach, and exciting to play. One of the most intriguing aspects of the game is trying to guess at your opponent’s movement and set yours accordingly. The last thing you want to do is fly past him while he still has you in his sights. The decisions associated with the actions are also tense as lesser pilots continue to guess where the better pilots might be. But the best pilot can survey the entire field and make sure his action is the most efficient. Combat is well balanced. While the X-Wing is outnumbered, he effectively has 5 hits to the TIEs 3 hits each and has the better actions available. The Target Lock stays in effect until used so allows you to hold onto it for a turn and couple it with a Focus action to do the most damage possible in a turn. The critical hits make for another interesting moment as you see if it will be the devastating Direct Hit (worth two damage), something you can repair, or something that will annoy you for the rest of the game.

While the game comes with a Quick Start rules sheet, this version of the game is too basic for most gamers. This is intended for families that want to get the kids involved within minutes of opening the box and just letting them get a feel for everything. Experienced gamers will want to dive into the regular rules and experience the full game right away.

The game also has three scenarios that highlight aspects other than just the dog fight. In one, you must escort a senator’s shuttle to safety. In another, you must repair your ship in an asteroid belt before flying to safety. In the final one, you must scan the imperial satellites for the win.

But where the game shines is with an additional copy and building a fleet. Each ship and upgrade has a point value. For standard games, 100 points is given to each side. This will field about 3-4 Rebel ships while the Imperial Fleet will have 4-6 ships. Even more fun is getting to larger battles with 200 points and see full squadrons dodging asteroids and attacking each other.

If there is any complaint to the game, it is that more expansions offer more variability. While a full game in and of itself, there will be the temptation to spend more money for more ships. Most people might consider grabbing a second copy of the game so each side can have their own templates, range rules, and more dice. And speaking of more dice, I do wish it came with one more of each color as often times, 3 is just not enough. But with a second set, this is a non-issue.

I find the game to be very satisfying with its easy rules, easy set-up and fast-paced nature.

What Next? – Other Recommendations for this Game
As already alluded to, this game has expansions. Wave 1 was released with the base game and includes single X-Wings and TIEs with new pilots (the X-Wing comes with Wedge Antilles). The TIE Advanced (with Darth Vader) and the Y-Wing are new ships. Each expansion comes with multiple pilot cards and appropriate upgrades. They also include the tokens and movement dial needed for that ship.

Wave 2 was announced at GenCon with the fan favorites Millennium Falcon and Slave 1 joining the A-Wing and TIE Interceptor. There are still more ships in the Star Wars universe so we can expect more waves in the future.

While there are plenty of rabid gamers out there scrambling over each other and camping out at game conventions just to be one of the first to try each and every new game on the market, I prefer another approach.

My wife and I wait for a game to be out a while. I personnaly love to read reviews so that I can get a feel for the public’s reaction. Now, mind you, I don’t always agree with reviews since not everyone agrees with what I like, but a detailed, thoughtful review of a game is enjoyable to read and can give hints as to how playable a game is going to be.

Now, to tell you the truth, I’ve been dupped before. Some games lack a certain quality that draws you in and continues to captivate. Other games shine on the shelf but don’t make you hungry for more. Star Wars X-Wing Miniatures Game isn’t one of those.

I’ve waited a long time for a Star Wars table-based ship combat strategy game. My wife and I try to get games from a wide variety of styles and themes but up until X-Wing, we didn’t have space dogfighting.

And what a dogfight it is! X-Wing is really easy to learn, with obvious tactics implied in its every rule! Now, mind you, so far we only have the Core Set, the Y-Wing and the Tie Advanced Expansions, but so far all of these ships are distinct and unique. Battle scenarios are easy to create ‘on the fly’ and a whole game can be played in 30 minutes or less. Now my wife wants us to buy the more expensive expansions, namely the ‎YT-1300 light freighter (Millenium Falcon) and the Firespray-31 (Slave 1). This is a good sign since if she didn’t care for the game, it’d be really difficult to justify spending that money on game components for a game she didn’t like. We live on a budget so money spent is a real concern.

My wife also likes the prepainted miniatures. We have had unpainted miniatures plenty of times for other games, and we always hope to get around to painting them but never do. These ships are well done and really attract others to check out this amazing game.

So far there have been 10 expansions, each with various options for ships of different levels of competency based on the ship’s pilot and special abilities. Since each ship has four different pilots, and some have additional crew options and many ships can have upgrades applied to them via upgrade cards (‘bought’ with points), this makes the forces really varied, but not in an unwielding way. The system for making a fleet and conducting battles is really slick and although I haven’t tried it, I’ve read that tournement games for X-Wing are a lot of fun.

All in all, X-Wing satisfies all of my space dogfight desires!

When someone offered you to try X-Wing for the first time and you got addicted and it ruined your life? I’m kidding, kinda.

Summary

X-Wing Miniature Base set is a minis game where you are provided 3 miniatures as a starter set. 1 X-Wing and 2 Tie Fighters. First you need to determine a skill level threshold to pick your pilots. This is important for balancing because 2 really good Tie Fighter Pilots might not be a good matchup against one X-Wing Pilot, depending on the skill level. Some ships can have upgrades, providing extra actions or attacks to your ship. There is no game board, so you can use any flat surface to play the game, as long as there is enough room. Make sure you designate boundaries as well, because if a ship flies out of the boundaries, the ship is considered leaving the battle and is immediately destroyed.

Each round is composed of 3 phases. Move, action, and attack phases.

– Moving: Pilots with the lowest skill move first. You are provided with a wheel that shows what maneuvers are available for your ship, which you use to pick your move action. There are maneuvers that are more difficult, and put stress on your ship, as well as maneuvers that are easier and relief stress from the ship. When movement is decided, you use a measure stick to show where your ship ends their space. There are certain rules for overlapping ships as well.

– Action: During this time, the pilots have the option to choose what kind of action they want to prep for. Most common actions are focus, evade, and barrel roll. On both defense and offense dice, there are eye ball symbols. If you have a focus, focus token can change one of those to a hit or dodge, depending what you are rolling for. Barrel Roll is a immediate side maneuver to help you dodge or get a better angle. Evade token counts as 1 auto dodge for your ship.

– Attack: Lastly, the highest piloting skill attacks first. Both Tie Fighters and Xwings can only attack things in their front cone. and you also have to measure distance of attack. Further you are, the harder to hit and vice versa. There are also missile attacks that do different types of damage.

X-Wings come equipped with more weapons and they have shields. Tie Fighters have less on the ship, but have more maneuvers that they can perform.

Impressions

Pros:
– Being that I’ve never really played mini games before, I found this very refreshing to the mix of board games that I have.
– It was able to carry the space combat pretty well. At times, you really find yourself developing strategies of where to move next, either because you are chasing someone or because you need to get away.
– Cool Minis play to fans.
– Good number of variations on pilots, upgrades, and actions.

Cons:
– My biggest gripe on this, is that while the X-Wing and Tie Fighters are enough to get a feel for the game, you feel like you’re missing out by not having other ships. This is a game that will take a hefty investment, especially if you are soloing the costs.
– The majority of the movement during combat is actually pretty awesome, but at times it can get clunky especially when the ships are too close. The overlap rule settles the disputes, but this can sometimes take away from the game. Unfortunately this seems to be a necessary evil of the game.
– Some balance issues. When you set scores for piloting skills, most times, the tie fighters have 2 weaker pilots that add to the total, while rebels have 1 good pilot. We’ve only tried playing a few times with the base set, but it does seem a bit unbalanced on the imperial side. This is something we need to fidget with more and find a better way to even out the odds. Please note, we also tried with a few expansion ships after the fact, and that only lead us to believe we had to buy other ships…
– No board to play on. I guess you can say the world is your oyster, but they literally give you nothing to play on, not even poster paper that has stars on it.

Overall, this game was really a lot of fun. I enjoy the dynamics to the game and the options you have available. This is a game when after playing for the first time, I seriously thought about getting some minis to make more epic battles but it’s A LOT of money compared to other board games. Players who are more familiar with mini games might be used to such costs, but not all board game fans are looking to spend that much. This is a game I would recommend people to try, but it comes with a “buyer’s beware” for cost of game + expansions.

All of the very positive reviews on this site combined with my love of old-school Star Wars had me go out and give this a try. I’ve never played a true miniature game (BattleLore is the closest), but I expect that Fantasy Flight Games (FFG) were specifically hoping to create a new and larger market (like me) with this starter set. So with that background, and another warning, this is a review of the Starter Set (ie. the game listed on this page) and not the entire FFG X-Wing Miniatures game universe.

Object. It’s a very straight-forward 2-player game – you either play the X-Wing fighter or the two Tie-Fighters. Your job, destroy the other enemy ship(s). Alternatively, you can play one of the included narrative mission games which has you still play one of the two sides, but at least one of you have a greater goal than just blowing the other player to bits. These are usually simple and similar to beginner missions in X-Wing or Tie-Fighter the computer games from the 90s in which you escort a shuttle, scan satellites, or just escape an attack. Very simple and straightforward.

Rules. Each turn has 4 phases: Planning, Activation, Combat, and End. Planning is where you secretly indicate your ship’s move for that turn. Activation is where you execute your move in ascending order of your ship’s pilot skill level and then take any available actions after moving, if possible. Combat is where you attack any enemy ship in your firing range in reverse order of pilot skill level (best pilot fires first). An attack is done by rolling special red 8-sided dice and the defender rolls special green 8-sided dice. The End phase is just the usual end of turn action and cleanup. Rinse and repeat until you have a winner. I am guessing from others that this game is unusually well-designed and simple to learn and play for a miniature game – it took no time to play with the most advanced rules. See coltsfan76‘s review here for greater detail.

Components. The consensus is right; the components are terrific! And the joy of having detailed and painted spaceships (1 X-wing, 2 Tie-Fighters) in my hands definitely brought back fond memories of playing with the Kenner toys as a kid. The cards and tokens are easy to understand and the overall quality is great. While the dice are nice, they should have included 2 more of each color as you often need more than 3 dice to roll at one time. For a starter set, it would have been great to include a poster of space to use as a starting play area or board, but my black table-top worked ok. The bases of the ships are light and it’s very easy to accidentally bump or move the ships, which does impact the game. This would be a very different experience with OCD players which demand perfection in placements. The tokens for the missions are nice, though these could easily be replaced with other models/miniatures.

Game play. My first game was the quick-start game they include. I was dead in 2 turns – fast! Our second game used the full rules, and took an hour to play. Once I killed one Tie-Fighter, it was a lot of flying in circles taking shots at each other (rolling dice). We both had so much defense that it took much longer than was fun (for either of us) for me to destroy the last Tie-Fighter. Not a good first impression. After several more experiences, I feel that I’ve played all I can with what the Starter Set includes.

Impressions. As I implied above, this does not seem like a full self-contained game or, when treated as one, it doesn’t have near as much strategy and replay-ability as I would expect. The game booklet recommends playing with 100 points worth of ships which is 2-3 times the amount that this set comes with. Considering the price of this starter and the four expansion ships available, this means you’ll need to spend ~US$100 in items for this before you have enough for a regular recommended game. For those who play miniature games, this may be the normal, but for newbies like me, I was not pleased. I wish someone here had written a review like this to warn me of this beforehand, hence this review. [To be fair, others recommended having fleets of ships, but I didn’t realize how much this would be required for a better overall experience.] Like many of FFG’s big properties, e.g. Lord of the Rings, Game of Thrones, etc, this is another one where you get a taste and then have lots of ways of adding to your future play experience. But unlike those great card-based examples which have enjoyable self-contained starter games, this one doesn’t and is much pricier than the rest. Many individual future ships to be released start to cost the same amount as this entire starter set (e.g., $30 for Millennium Falcon or Slave I).

I’m still debating if I’ll go all-in. For those of you who have, continue to enjoy! In the meantime, *pew pew*!

Overview
The X-Wing Miniatures Game is a game that puts you in control of a squadron of Imperial or Rebel starfighters from the Galactic Civil War era of the Star Wars Universe. If you’re a Star Wars fan or think that commanding a space battle sounds appealing, you should check this game out. Overall, I think it’s a great game, but there are a few things that keep it from being perfect.

Setup
The initial setup for your initial game can be quite lengthy. As with most Fantasy Flight games, the rulebook is clear and covers the game pretty thoroughly, but it can take a bit to get through all of it, especially given the less-than-exciting writing. Diagrams are often used to illustrate what the rulebook is talking about, which makes things easier to understand for anyone who is more visually inclined. Once that’s done, there are numerous cardboard elements that will have to be punched out, including flight path rulers, ship movement dials, tokens and markers, ship identifiers, obstacles, etc.

Once all of that first-time-only stuff is out of the way, you have to assemble your squadron. If you’re playing for the first time, I suggest using the setup recommended in the rulebook, even if you have other ships and pilots available to you, as it is much simpler to learn the basics of the game this way. For subsequent games, if you’re playing with just the starter set, you’ll have options for pilots and a few upgrades. If you have additional ships, your options really start to open up. This can lead to long pre-game setup if squads weren’t planned in advance, particularly when it comes to selecting upgrades (including missiles, bombs, astromechs, co-pilots, etc.). Once the squads have been determined, the ships must be attached to their stands and bases, though this is a quick and easy process. Once that’s done, it’s time to fly.

Gameplay
At its core, gameplay is relatively simple. Each player chooses a manuever from the movement dial for each of their ships and lays the dial facedown. Maneuvers can be colored green, white, or red on the dial. Red maneuvers are generally longer and more difficult than other moves, so they give the pilot a stress token, which prevents that pilot from taking actions (more on that in a moment) or performing another red maneuver until the token is cleared. Green maneuvers clear a stress token, but are generally shorter and simpler moves. White maneuvers have no additional effects beyond moving the ship. Once all ships have had a maneuver assigned, the players reveal and move their ships one-by-one, starting with the ship whose pilot has the lowest pilot skill rating (a number on each pilot’s card dictates their pilot skill). After each ship is moved to the end of the movement ruler that corresponds to the maneuver they selected, the player has the option to have the active ship perform one of a variety of actions, including acquiring a target lock that lets the ship reroll attack dice or use certain secondary weapons, gaining a token the can be used to modify attack or defense results, barrel rolling, etc. Which actions are available varies by ship type and pilot, and players aren’t forced to take an action. Once all ships have been moved, the game moves to the combat phase.

The combat phase starts with the pilot with the highest skill and then going in descending order. In order to attack, players use the range-finding ruler to determine if any ships are in range and within the ship’s firing arc. A ship can choose to attack any ship that meets both of these conditions, but can only attack one per turn. Once an attack is declared, the attacker rolls attack dice equal to the attack value for its primary weapon (printed on the pilot’s card) or secondary weapon (printed on the weapon’s card), depending on what they’re using. If an attack was made from range 1, the attacker gets an additional attack die. The defender then gets to roll evasion dice equal to the ship’s agility number. If an attack was made from range 3, the defender gets an additional evasion die to roll. The number of hits on the attack dice are compared to the number of evades on evasion dice to determine if any damage is dealt. Things get a little more complicated, though, as there are hits and critical hits. Normal hits will deal a face-down damage card to the ship if not cancelled by shields or an evasion die. Critical hits deal a face-up damage card to a ship if not cancelled. Face-up damage cards still count as one damage, but add additional effects, such as extra damage, reduced pilot skill, prohibiting certain actions, etc. All normal hits must be cancelled by die rolls or shields before critical hits can be cancelled. A ship is destroyed if it takes damage equal to its hull strength.

Once all attacks have been resolved, the round starts over with players assigning all surviving ships a maneuver. Play continues in this fashion until one squadron is entirely wiped out. Games can range from 20 minutes to over an hour depending on the size of the squadrons, players’ abilities to read their opponents, and the luck of the dice. Since all combat is determined entirely by dice rolls, luck plays a huge role in this game. If you don’t like games with a strong luck-based component, this isn’t the game for you. Strategy is involved, but even the best strategy can be defeated by a series of bad dice rolls, which can be frustrating. Luckily, it isn’t terribly common in my experience.

Learning Curve
The game is relatively simple to learn, especially compared with many other miniatures games on the market. Things get a little more complicated in the details than I mentioned above, such as what to do when pilots’ skill levels are tied, what happens if ships run into each other or leave the play area, how to use some secondary weapons, etc., but the vast majority of the time, it’s as simple as I described above. Even when it’s not, the rules are clear on what to do in any of those exceptional circumstances, and the results are logical and easy to remember. Overall, it’s a very easy game to learn. Most people I’ve played with have had a firm grasp of the rules and mechanics after only one or two games. From there, it’s simply a matter of figuring out how to use the different types of ships most effectively, which just take a bit of playing with them to get a feel for the different roles they fill.

Components
In all honesty, the quality of the miniatures is one of the first things that piqued my interest in this game. All of the sculpts are highly detailed, even going so far as to include nicks and gashes on some of the unique ships (like the Millenium Falcon). That said, being plastic, some of the sculpts have parts that seem very delicate, such as the tips of the X-Wing’s wings. Maybe they seem more fragile than they really are, but I always make sure to be extra careful with them.

Otherwise, the cardboard tokens and rulers are all made from the same thick, high quality material as virtually every other Fantasy Flight product. The pilot cards are nicely glossy, but a bit thin. Since they won’t be getting shuffled, this is less of an issue, though. Some of the card art is shared between this game and Fantasy Flight’s Star Wars LCG, which isn’t inherently bad, but might irk some people. Also, be aware that if you plan to sleeve this game, you’ll need standard sized sleeves for the pilot cards and mini sleeves for the damage and upgrade cards.

Overall Judgment (aka TL;DR Takeaway)
Overall, X-Wing is a very fun game that really captures the feel of the space battles from the classic Star Wars trilogy, and the miniatures are amazingly detailed, but the game won’t be much fun if you don’t plan to expand your collection significantly. Many people are probably thinking “Duh, it’s an expandable game,” which is true, but given the cost of each additional ship and the number you will need to form a 100 point squad (the recommended standard for the game), forming a viable squad can start to get pricey very quickly, especially if you want the option to have a good squad for both sides. Also, given Fantasy Flight’s apparent inability to keep things in stock and the long turnaround on reprints, there can be long periods where selection is limited at best. If those aspects don’t bother you and you don’t mind luck being the driving force behind a game, X-Wing is a fantastic game to pick up.

My favorite game, my main game, which I play every week. A miniatures game for people who don’t play minis games… and for those who do as well! Beautiful prepainted models, great components overall, easy-to-learn rules, simple movement/maneuver mechanics, replayability, strategy/tactic/luck/bluff, it has it all.

I’ve been playing since the release of the First Edition, in 2012. The Second Edition has been released in 2018 and it made everything much better: balance, easier access, streamlined rules, ability for designers to keep tweaking the game as needed through the new “digital” point system, etc. The points for ships/pilots/upgrades are no longer printed directly on the cards. It’s all managed with an app now, with updates about twice a year. There are several options too for this: the official FFG app and third-tier ones. There are pdf files on FFG’s Website as well with all the relevant info for players who don’t want to go digital.

There are also 7 factions now (instead of the 3 available in First Edition): Rebellion, Empire, Scum & Villainy, Resistance, First Order, Republic, Separatist. And you no longer need to buy expansions across factions to get some hard-to-find upgrades like in 1st Ed. If you want to play Rebels for example, you just get the Rebel ships you wish to fly and you won’t be missing anything. There is a Core set with cards, tokens, dice, maneuver templates and 3 ships: 2 TIE Fighters and 1 X-Wing BUT if you want to play other factions and don’t need those ships, you can now just buy the templates, dice and (very soon) a faction-themed damage cards deck separately and, of course, the ships you want and be ready to play.

Gameplay is pretty straightforward. Each turn you secretly select a maneuver for each ships with its matching dial. Then, in ascending initiative order, you reveal and executes maneuvers and select actions. After, it’s engagement time, where ships attack/defend this time in descending initiative order. The last step of a round is the cleanup phase where you remove certain types of tokens. This is the most common format of the game, where the objective is to destroy your opponent’s squad. There are now several other formats available, like free-for-all (where more than 2 players each have 1 ship and play until someone has a predetermined number of points), missions/scenario/objective games, Epic play with or without the game’s Huge ships, etc.

I hope this review/overview was helpful. I love this game and the 2nd Ed. is SO much better.

Disclaimer: This is a review of the new Force Awakens Core set and it’s contents. It also mentions mixing in with older generations ships but should mainly be used and seen from that perspective

tl:dr; If you already play X-Wing you know already if you’re going to buy it, stop lying to yourself. If you have never played X-Wing before now is a great time to jump in.

Fantasy Flight Games have graced us with a new core set for Star Wars X-Wing Miniatures, based in the new Force Awakens universe. This all new core set is completely stand alone, offering new players a good jumping in point to the game as well as veteran players more ships to add to the their collection. I’m here to go over the minutia of the core set and tell you what I thought of it all. If you’re a beginning player and want to know how the game is played, I suggest you check out this video here from the publisher that offers a complete tutorial. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuhwSma960Y)

Included in the core set are three miniatures ( 1 T70 X-Wing and 2 TIE/fo Fighters), maneuver dials and action tokens, pilot, upgrade, new damage cards, attack and defense dice (3 each), a range ruler, and maneuver templates. As well as a rule booklet and a mission booklet containing 3 new missions.

The new T-70 X-wing comes with 4 Pilot cards in the core set ranging from pilot skills 2-8. The new T-70 X-wing has a Primary Weapon value of 3, Agility value of 2, Hull value of 3, and a a Shield value of 3 (A slight upgrade from the previous generation’s X-Wing’s values with 3, 2, 3, 2). The Action Bar has a Focus, Target Lock, and Boost icons, the Boost being new to the X-Wing. The pilots with skills 2 and 4 have no abilities, but the 4, the Red Squadron Veteran can be equipped with an Elite Talent. The 5 Pilot, “Blue Ace” has the ability “When performing a boost action, you may use the [1 left] or [1 right] Turn template.”, and Poe Dameron the 8 Pilot reads “While attacking or defending, if you have a focus token, you may change 1 of your focus results to a hit or evade result.”. The biggest change comes from the X-Wing’s all new maneuver, the Tallon Roll. To execute a Tallon Roll you Tallon Roll the player will take 3 Turn Maneuver Template as normal but you don’t slide the rear guides into the template, instead you turn the ship 90º inwards to the turn.

The new TIE/fo Fighter’s come with 6 unique pilot cards with 9 in total ranging from 1-7. The TIE/fo stats are Primary Weapon value of 2, Agility value of 3, Hull value of 3, and a a Shield value of 1 (Again, a slight upgrade from he previous generation TIE with 2, 3, 3, 0) The Action Bar has a Focus, Target Lock (new to this generation TIE), Barrel Roll, and Evade icons. The pilots 1-4 have no abilities, “Zeta Ace” Pilot Skill 5 has “When performing a barrel roll, you may use the Straight 2 template (instead of the Straight 1 template).”, “Epsilon Leader” (Pilot Skill 6) reads “At the start of the Combat phase, remove 1 stress token from each friendly ship at Range 1.”, and finally “Omega Ace”(Pilot Skill 7) “When attacking, you may spend a focus token and a target lock you have on the defender to change all of your results to Critical Hit results.”. The TIE/fo also has an all new maneuver, Segnor’s Loop. To execute a Segnor’s Loop a player will take the 2 Bank Maneuver Template and place their ships Front Guides into the end of the maneuver template.

The core set also comes with 5 upgrade cards. Proton Torpedo, two all new droids, a new Elite upgrade, Weird (When attacking or defending, if you are stressed, you may reroll 1 or more of your Focus results. ). The core set also debut an all new type of upgrade, Tech. The tech card included in the core set is Weapons Guidance (When attacking, you may spend a focus token to change 1 of your blank results to a Hit result.)

From this point on it’s impossible for me to continue without giving my opinions. If you’re looking for a fair and balanced review, this may not be it, I’m a fanboy of both Star Wars and the X-Wing miniature game so its hard not to gush sometimes. So fair bit of warning ahead.

Some rules have been tweaked from the previous generation. As this film deals with the new Star Wars film, the factions have been re-branded to fit in that world. Ie; The Rebellion is now the Resistance and the Empire are now The First Order. For the purposes of mixing generations the rules state that these are allied factions. Other changes have to do with very specific rules about timing, meant to address issues with organized play over the years. These changes are nothing new, more errata then 2ed edition and anyone following X-Wings organized play will already know them. Though its nice to see them added officially in a rulebook.

The Core Set comes with 3 missions. Missions are my single favorite aspect of X-Wing. Skirmish’s are great for casual games but missions are where I really enjoy the game personally. I was really happy to see that they included three new missions as opposed to re-use the three from the first core set. Each mission can be played right out of the box and is intended to in fact, but the also includes rules for scaling each mission to include older ships and more points. Mission F1: Ambush is a great little arcade like mission involving mine tokens along the field to blow up the First Order. A little one sided but a lot of fun. Mission F2: Raid is a mission where satellite tokens are used and the First Order is attempting to disable them by landing on them. I thought this mission was a lot of fun to play from both sides, adding an almost asymmetrical game play aspect. Mission F3: Rescue is a mission where a “Squadmate” token is used to represent a downed Resistance ship that needs to flee the edge of the board. While I appreciate the thought in the design I felt this mission was lacking a bit, maybe I just feel strange about having another ship represented by a token. Different, and good, but I likely wont replay this one.

I spent a lot of hours with this core set this weekend and here are my full thoughts. My first impression was that these ships maneuver a lot better. The subtle changes in green maneuvers and baring are excellent. I love these New Maneuvers. The New Maneuvers allow players to always be inaction if skilled enough to use them at the right time, no more is there those awkward rounds where you turn around and do nothing. At least not in my experience.

My thoughts on the new ships and factions are mixed. I have been reading a lot of forums online wherein people say these new ships kill the use for their Galactic Civil War counterparts. The new maneuvers are very powerful but I wouldn’t say broken. What might be though are some of the pilots. Omega Ace’s ability to get 3, potentially 4 (or 5-6 with upgrade cards) critical hits is insanely powerful. This can potentially knock out one of the large size ships in the game in one hit if unlikely enough with the damage deck. Epsilon Leader’s ability to remove stress from all neighboring ships as opposed to just one seems massive when compared to a similar ability in the previous generation. Meanwhile the Resistance pilots are all bland and fairly boring. Ironically enough, Poe Dameron, one of the stars of the new film itself is perhaps the most boring pilot in the game. Costing far too many points for an ability that calling useless would be putting it nicely.

The missions are good, easily better than the missions in the first core set. I loved missions 1 and 2, playing each of them twice from both sides just to try them out. They also scale very well with the optional rules to 100 points. Mission 3 on the other hand was weird to me. Like I said, It might just be because they make you use some token to represent a downed ship running on impulse power, I would have much preferred to use some other type of miniature, but that’s me. The mission itself is an escort mission, fine but similar missions have been available, including an awesome one included with the Rebel Transport expansion. So while I can’t say it was bad it didn’t impress me and I only played it once as a result. Mission 1 is a great arcade style skirmish with some more tactics and complexity than just “pew-pew”. But as I said earlier, it does feel a bit one sides. The tokens are all controlled by the Resistance and can overwhelm the First Order quickly, especially when you scale the mission to 100 points and add three more mine tokens. Maybe a more skilled Imperial player could turn the game in their favor but for me it was a 2/0. Mission 2 is almost a perfect introduction mission. Its a great tutorial and chance to practice precise maneuverings, a skill needed to play the game in higher levels. Having to land on the satellite tokens to take them out means your movement has to be exact, and planned out before hand. It’s also very asymmetrical in design, the First Order player is playing a game of exact movement, and the Resistance player is trying to tail them as fast as they can and knock them out. This one also scales amazingly well at 100 points and with a swarm of Imperial ships makes it more chaotic and quick.

One glaring issue and elephant in the room I feel is the size of the core set. While 3 ships are a great introduction to the game for new players, its not enough to fully experience the game. The full core set (or even two copies) would still not be enough for 100 point games. There are far too few upgrade cards and the ones they do have do not give a good representation of their importance to the game for new players.

So what are my final thought? Well as you can suspect, I was predisposed to like this core set. I own quite a lot of X-Wing and I am a very avid player of the game. I went into this core set wanting to see it from a few sides. 1) How does it stand up on it’s own as a core set to a) the X-Wing Miniature’s Game? and b) A miniature game in general? 2) How does this incorporate into the preexisting game. On its own this is a nice core set. As I mentioned earlier I loved two out of three missions and they play great out of the box with the recommended ship list. The core set scales very well when incorporated with older ships. Yes these new ships are in the action faster but they’re not necessarily stronger (with one massive exception that is Omega Ace, F_ that guy). My biggest complaint is that Fantasy Flight still went with the Three Ship core set system. I assume it’s due to cost as they want the game to be affordable, but on it’s own I don’t think this offers the full experience that is X-Wing. That being said, I can easily recommend this as it’s only a slight tweak and shine to what is already one of my favorite games of all time. If you’ve never experienced X-Wing before, this is a great time to start. Star Wars is in the air and the gaming hobby is more than happy to welcome you in with this still stunning miniatures game.
May the force be with you, all of you.

It’s not easy being a male, general gamer because this tends to make every single game which includes waging war with small plastic figures so attractive and cool that it’s ridiculous. Especially at a young age because you’ll probably have a hard time understanding even half of what the thick rulebook(s) says, not to mention trying to memorize every single action that can be taken, how to score or avoid taking hits, the way your units move etc. And then there’s the enemy – your opponent’s miniatures, which probably doesn’t even act the same way your own does and they have all these special rules and stats.
And then there’s all the debating about whether something is within shooting range or not, and whether you just moved too far or too short.

Thankfully, Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures Game isn’t like that at all. The rules are easy to understand, the gameplay is rather fast-paced, and everything that both you and your opponent needs to know about every ship that is involved in the battle is printed on the cards which represent the miniatures and their pilots as well as onto the miniatures themselves (or rather – their bases).

You won’t be needing any thick rule books nearby because the game is so easy that anyone could understand it after having only a few turns. Everything that you need to know about the miniatures is available right in front of you. Measuring and movement cannot go wrong because of the included maneuver templates and range ruler. There are no charts to look into when trying to find out whether your shot missed or hit because of the symbols on the included custom dice – providing you with instant visual information. And thanks to the maneuver dials, every player may both plan their strategy and then carry out their actions simultaneously, reducing downtime.

A miniatures game for everyone that you are sure to be able to pick up and enjoy within minutes after opening the box, and most definitely WILL if you’re into Star Wars or just dogfights in general. Also supports team play which only adds an already enjoyable and varying experience, as do the included missions when you grow tired of simple head-to-head combat.

I have had the chance to play this several times in groups of 4 or fewer, and once in a 7 person setup. Every game has been its own epic story. The components are very well made, the cards are well printed and feel like they will last, and the miniatures are highly detailed. Some of the moldings can come bent in odd ways, but it’s fixable.

The game play is fantastic. The movement system is very intuitive, using the movement templates, and trying to guess what your opponent is doing to set yourself up right is truly a game of chess in itself.

While fun in its own right with 2 players and a starter set, this game gets better and better as you scale it up. And there’s practically no limit. Others can bring their own sets and build and build on the starter set, or you can get as many additional expansion pieces as you want. It all fits together perfectly and scales beautifully for some truly epic battles with 20+ ships on the field.

This game is well worth the price of admission. If nothing else, get a starter set and play with your friends. You will quickly want more, even if you are not an avid Star Wars fan. The game play mechanics more then make up for any lack of knowledge about the Star Wars universe that a person may have.

Short:
Star Wars space battles that are fought on a 3’x3′ space (typically) one side is rebels and the other side empire. Ive been a miniatures gamer/modeler for about 15 years now, mainly grew up with Games Workshop stuff (warhammer fantasy, warhammer 40,000). Their models are on the top for quality and detail, but this game is right up there with them in quality and looks! I couldn’t believe how greatly detailed these models are and they come painted, not just a base coat painted, but detailed and even some gloss paint was added for the glass of the cockpit of each fighter. The game play is super easy to pick up and you don’t need a 24′ tape measure either. The base game includes thick card board measuring markers for each move every different ship can make. Fantasy Flight Games has always impressed me with the quality of their games and this one is no exception.
For the base game you get one X Wing and two Tie Fighters. Each ship you can choose a character for that individual ship. So for instance, Luke Skywalker can be a pilot of an X-Wing and he has a special ability- but the X Wing ship itself still holds the same stat line any other X Wing character card has (mainly health, shields, fire power all stay the same whether its Luke or a rookie pilot) Luke is also able to “upgrade” his ship with a droid, or missiles, even having better flying skills is an option. But all of those come at a price, like all other mini games, everything has a point system, and X-wing is no different. So you want Luke and all the possible upgrades he can take…Well that equals 2 Tie Fighters plus both those fighters can have named pilots as well. Named pilots are better then rookie, or tie pilot due to (as stated above) their special ability. A special ability might be roll one extra dice when attacking.

My wife and I enjoy this game A LOT, she gave this game to me for Christmas and already have purchased another base game and a few expansions. The main reason people are buying more then one base game is that it can be cheaper then buying their expansion counter parts, and having two base games gives you more dice and rulers to have. A side note, my wife isn’t a Star Wars fan, she doesn’t like “army games” as she puts it and she hates games that are complicated to play. She still enjoys this game!