Predictions:

I Really doubt that make the Preques ships be a different game.

They will release or at least announce prequel ships in 2013 and a new core set.

The astromechs will have a slot in many Republic ships.  

The Vulture Droids will bring new definition to the term Swarm and will be the first ships sold in a two pack.

The Jedi starfighter Unique pilots are going bring new defintion to the term powerful pilot talent.

To get all the cool new upgrades for your Rebel and Imperial fleets you will need to buy ships you don't want in factions you don't want to play.

General Grevious will make the fanboys shout, no matter what they release.

There will be cross faction ships released in 2013.

I do look forward to cross faction ships.

executor said:

sorry for language, should have said "screw the lore" instead

BarbariAndy said:

Of coruse it's not bad; compared to mini wargames across the industry, it's a steal to get pre-painted models that look that good for that price.  The point I'm trying to make is that dollars are dollars, and regardless of how relatively inexpensive something is compared to other games of the genre, it's still your money that needs to be spent at the end of the day.

For new players, not just to X-Wing but to tabletop gaming in general, these relative factors may not be a selling point.  If you were collecting it slowly over time, like I did back in September when the game came out, it's easy for me to look back at my collection and not feel I was really put out financially at any one point.

But, if I had to buy it all in one lump sum, I would scoff at the price.

2 Core Sets $80

2 X-Wings $30

3 Y-Wings $45

2 TIE Fighters $30

2 TIE Advanced $30

1 Pack of X-Wing Dice $8

So that's $223.  I paid substantially less, because I got it all at a healthy discount, but on paper, I would be reluctant to get that all at once for a game I never really got to get "hooked" on, just to show up ready to go at tournaments and be able to play both sides.

Of course I was going to collect both sides.  I'd be lying to everyone here and myself if I pretended it was anything but deliberate, but we shouldn't assume our personal zeal for the game is shared by everyone who may want to play it.

If we want to see an actual organized play community emerge, we need less barriers for new people to get involved, not more.  If they like the game, the extra ships and collecting both factions will follow naturally, but for now, a cheaply aquired group of 3 X-Wings is a nice entry point for anyone looking to hit a tournament without spending a lot of money.

When Wave 2 officially releases, and gets ammended into the official tournament document for use in organized play, the potential cost for a competitive list may rise as well, when you factor in not only the existence of new ships and pilots, which means new strategies to account for, but for the Modification cards found in the Falcon and Slave I boxes that can be used by either faction, on any ship.

I'm already imagining how the Stealth device on Biggs with the R2 that boosts Agility will make him an absolute tank for your Rebels, keep Wedge's amazing killy powers safe from attack.  But you can't do that without buying the Slave I, and you have to imagine other players will take advantage of that, even if you choose not to, for financial reasons or otherwise.

The game state currently, is very newbie-friendly, as far as cost goes, to play in a tournament.  It'll never be this easy or inexpensive again for a new player, so if you have friends thinking about "maybe" getting involved, strike now, fellow gamers.

As far as mirror matches, I understand the necessity.. but I do wish that seeding had a way to "perfer" proper matchups even if optional.

But yes, down the lines it would be kind of cagey.  Id like to see other era appropriate factions introduced such as Yuuhzong Vong, or even hutts/underworld (star vipers, headhunters, etc) any of which break the "good vs evil" structure anyway.

The topic of this thread is spot on, but I feel it's a GOOD thing because Imps have an advantage over rebs in wave 1 (no I'm not saying it's an impossible to win rebs vs imps, and no i dont just play without asteroids and charge at them, there's enough of that around here :P). Howlrunner being essentially the only "blanket stat buff" in the game since she kinda sorta almost says "all ur other guys have +1 attack" in the faction that has cheap enough ships to swarm leaves really no reason NOT to run 6-7 ties + howlrunner (aka assault missle, seismic charge). Also, only the empire realistically has access to multiple swarm tactics. Both of these are just extremely efficient effects without alot of frills, and in the early stages of a game, those tend to win.

What's funny is this IS really one of the only deterrents to running a sqaud like that. At the kessel runs aroud here, and I Imagine anywhere, a second "top tier" Imp sqaud emerged using Vader + con missle Tempest Pilot + con missle Black sqaud tie with squad leader to help the Tempest add focus to the missle, and a couple academies gave the imps a better alpha strike, and managed to win several games by being up on points more when time ran out, even if it looked like they might lose in the long run. It was interesting to see this as an adaptation more or less specifically for playing against other imps, because while it could still do well against rebs by doing something like putting both missles into a rookie to kill it asap, there still is no reason to use it over the 6-7 ties with howlrunner IF all you ever played against with imps is rebs.

So with those two things in mind, and the fact that the tourney field is gonna change COMPLETELY in wave 2, I like how things are. Wave 2 will see the 6-7 ship swarms that take so long against each other alsmot never happen because those squads will be rare enough that it would be unlikely to see 2 against each other. People are going to use the heck outta assault missle/seismic as a knee jerk reaction to the wave 1 environment (and even if they don't many players will probably go into events expecting this). The addition of the Firesray and everyone playing aroudn with that, and even intereceptors and Awings will all have an effect on sqaud numbers.

Instead of imps all being 5-8 ships, i think it will be more like 3-5 ships (3 ship builds having at least one Firespray) which will be the same number for rebs too.

bobbywhiskey said:

Sorry, I strongly disagree with some points here. The game at Wave 1 was pretty balanced from what I could see, and Imperials certainly do not have a significant advantage. Maybe in your local region the people choosing to play Empire are simply superior tacticians. Read the forums, there are plenty of reports of Rebels winning the KRT's. I know I won my KRT playing Rebels. Infact to show how balanced the game was here are the top 6 builds:

1st - 3 ship rebels (2 X, 1 Y)

2nd - 3 ship rebels (2 X, 1 Y) [yes rebels top 2]

3rd - 6 ship Empire [5 Ln, 1 Adv) = I had a mod. win against this guy in Rd 1

4th - 5 ship Empire [4 Ln, 1 Adv) 

5th - 4 ship Rebel [4 X] = I wiped him off the board without loss in Rd 2

6th - 7 ship Empire -7 Ln] 

So top 6 was 3 Empire, 3 Rebels, Top 4 was 2 Empire, 2 Rebels. --> Hardly a case for arguing Imperial dominance.

godofcheese said:

It looks like you had a mod win against another Imp and that's what kept you outta the finals? Also the 4 LN 1 tie adv build doesnt sound too great, if he lost to one of the top rebs they are inflated a bit. Keep in mind also that many of the rebel builds that "won" kessel runs probably would not have had they had to play one more game. Many people only played 2 rounds because of venue time limits or byes (and byes give 5 victory points and some peopel had one in a tourney WITH only two rounds) and many of the people I read here and at boardgame geek that did do well with 3 rebels or w/e list what games they did play as reb vs reb or against somone playing 3-4 tie advance garbage or someone that they anecdotally mention got ruined by asteroids cause they played hothie's world build but dont know how to avoid that stuff in formation.

I won one event, and placed 3rd in another due to time win and time loss against other imps, the loss being one of my friends that made the trip with me who had the 5 ship build i mentioned with double con missles that i put together for him, because that venue only played 60 min rounds instead of 75 and was timing during ALL of setup cause they were in a mall and pressed for time :p His superior alpha strike held up in what was essentially a 45 min game, and he might have still been slightly ahead after another 30 which is why i mentioned that build.

My build was 7 ties with howlrunner, because i felt that the "hothie build" could drop vader for 7th tie because he didn't typically do THAT much more than the average tie unless you get down towards the end game and he has more room to barrel roll into blind spots, his added survivability could be an issue for ur opponent when they only have 1-2 ships left, etc. The 7 ties was my attempt to get some extra early oomph to allow for the time limit. It ruined rebs cause if they played 3 ships 7v3 was too much regardless of who it was or what they did, and i had teched against 4 ship builds by dropping swarm tactics altogether and playing howlrunner/mauler/5x obsidian. I killed several rookie x-wings between the two events without them getting a shot off.

The main thing was i had practiced ALOT on how to manuever 7 ties together, and didnt hit any asteroids all day, even while fighitng the entirety of one of the games against the rebs in the mid of the table all around them. I also would set up on one corner if need be in order to not get flanked, adjust the speed of my opening moves depending on what my oppnent was doing etc, sometimes spending the first few turns doing nothing but working my way aroudn the outer edge of the table faster than my opponent was expecting to have to spin around and was able to get a full 7 ship volley or close to it whenever i did finally get the inital attack angle i wanted.

Like i said its not un winnable, but if you really read some of the reports of the people that won with those builds and consider that they had to play one less game to "win" it's very telling. I feel like the world champs was a much better measuring stick considering they played (counting the single elim rounds)  6 games instead of 2-3 with their squads and the competition overall was tougher im sure. Fewer games = more statisical anomales so to speak. Many MANY players at the KRTs were picking up the game for the first time as well.

Putting alot of wall of texts in this thread lol….

bobbywhiskey said:

Double check my post. I played Rebels …  The rebels that won.

We had even players, so no byes. I won all 4 of my games + the final round using the new models.

Of those 4 games, 3 were Rebel v Imperial and only 1 was a mirror match.

I'm also curious as to why you think the World Champs would have been a tougher competiton (this year). At the time of the champs, the game had been out for only a week or 2, and it was attended by mainly locals to FFG's centre who went through no qualifying process to get there.

A week or 2??  It was in November.  The game has been in people's hands since August, widely released in September.  World Championships had a field of 20 players coming from across the midwest.

The R5Don4 Star II said:

I knew it was Nov., but I hadn't realised the game was released so early. We didn't get it here in Australia till mid-Oct.

Also: "players coming from across the midwest" …. still not what I would call a world champs.