Star Wars X-Wing

This is not a game that I had any interest in playing.  I have not been looking forward to the release.  It has not been on my radar at all.  Lots of the guys were excited about it.  Not me.

A box of pure gaming fun.

Boy was I wrong ...

I got to try this game out at Collectormania the other night.  We finished our club night LotR game early.  Jonathan had to leave but Tony and I were good to stay for awhile.  This game was prominently displayed, one of the other guys had played through it a few times and the shop had a copy, with two expansion fighters, laying around.  It was a remarkably well laid out ambush.

The minis look pretty darn good for pre-paints.

Tony and I sat down and knocked out a quick game using the beginner rules.  The mechanics are elegantly simple but make of a fast paced and fun game.  The first game was over in fifteen minutes.  

Next Russ, who had been running us through the rules, joined in and we played with some of the more advanced rules.  The second game took a bit longer but was even more fun.  I had to have it.  Erik, the manager, played it perfectly.  I asked him to hold one for me.  He wasn't sure he could.  I couldn't bear the thought of not owning it.  I bought it on the spot.  (To be fair, Erik wasn't playing games with me; he's not that kind of guy).

I got the game home and hid it away.  Rhys was having a good week and I had promised him we would play Lego Wars on Friday night if he was good all week.  I decided to add this to the night as a surprise.  Rhys loves Star Wars more than anything.

Rhys had been looking forward to Lego Wars all week but one look at this game and nothing would do but we play it first.  He cleared the table off and we set up.

The maneuver dial is the round, dial, shaped piece that says X-wing.

Each player gets several pieces to represent their fighter.  The most important is the model itself.  This is mounted on a flight stand which also has a cardboard insert representing the fighter and it's pilot.  There is also a large card for the pilot, which sits on the edge of the table.  The most important, and innovative, piece is the maneuver dial.  Each ship type has its own dial and different ships can perform different maneuvers.  Looks aside, this is the heart of what makes different ship types different.

Also on the pilot card are skills and upgrades that can be taken.  Things like Astromechs or missiles can change how a fighter fights.  There are also a bunch of marker tokens of various types.  There are six dice in the game.  Three red firing dice and three green maneuver dice.  You roll the appropriate number of each based on ship type, dodges cancel out hits and the remaining are damage.  Remarkably simple and fast.  There are actions that can change the dice rolls, but the basic mechanic is easy.

Rhys and I played a game.  He sort of got the mechanics, though planning his maneuvers was really beyond him.  As we were playing Owyn (5 yrs old) came in.  He wanted in on the action too, so we started another game.  As we were starting SWMBO showed up.  She and Owyn were supposed to be heading out for a date night but Owyn was gaming.  She sat down to help him.  I had not explained anything to her as Owyn had been watching the first game.  She took a couple of turns to figure out what was going on but half way through the game she was sucked in and playing for a win.

Afterwards both boys were happy, though Owyn didn't like it since he died.  Shockingly SWMBO told me she liked the game as well.  Perhaps there's hope for her.

This is so cool I don't have words.

At any rate, I love this game.  I'll be picking up another core set as that will give me three more ships and another set of dice.  I also plan on getting at least one of each expansion.  I don't see myself getting to this level of insanity but it sure would be cool.