Okay, so hopefully this will be old news to those who'd be interested. But in Q3 2012, Fantasy Flight Games released an X-Wing Miniatures Game to support their newly acquired Star Wars license (after Wizards of the Coast's contract expired). The X-Wing Minis game is my favorite product to come out of that licensing to date. If any of you miniatures gamers are familiar with Wings of War/Wings of Glory, it's essentially an evolution of that, only using cardboard dials and templates instead of decks of maneuver cards.
So if you're not familiar, here's how it works. You buy the base set, and it comes with all the templates, dice, markers, stat cards, and whatnot you'll need, along with 2 TIE Fighters and an X-Wing, and their respective pilot cards and upgrade cards. You can then supplement that by buying additional ships (with their respective pilots, tokens, and any additional rules they add to the game packaged in with them) individually. FFG pretty much pioneered the reaction against the random booster pack model with their LCGs, and the same thing carries through here -- unlike, say, most Clix products, you know exactly what you're buying whenever you drop your $15 MSRP on an expansion ship. The ships are pre-painted, handsomely detailed, and meticulously crafted to scale from original Lucasfilm models. Some folks out there who like the hobby aspect go and repaint some of them to different color schemes or higher/more faithful detail for specific ships (like making an X-Wing specifically Red 5), but it's really not necessary to have a fantastic looking game on the table that screams Star Wars in high quality.
To play a game, you and your opponent agree on a points limit and then sort through your pilots and upgrades to create a squadron that is within that points limit. For reference, the points values of TIE Fighters and X-Wings makes the 2-TIE, 1 X-Wing a workable basic match that can be satisfying at 25-35ish points; and the tournament standard is 100 points, which works out to usually be 2-8 ships (though unless you're rocking two large-base ships like YT-1300s or Imperial Shuttles, that minimum size is more likely to be 3 shielded starfighters). You clear a 3' square playing space (again, for the tournament recommendations; I'd play a starter set match on 2' square) and then deploy your ships initial placement on opposite edges of the playing area or according to special scenario rules if you're using one of the handful of scenarios that come with the game (or folks make them online, and each large base ship comes with a scenario catering to, but not requiring, including the accompanying ship). Then, each turn progresses with players first using their ships' corresponding maneuver dials to plot their movement for the turn, then revealing and moving each ship one at a time after all moves have been planned and set on the dials. Each ship gets an action after it moves, too, allowing for things like barrel rolls, target locks, or expendable buffs that come into play during the firing phase. These actions are decided immediately after the ship has moved, so while movement is planned in anticipation of your opponent's moves, actions are made in reaction to how the turn has developed up till that point. Finally, ships take turns shooting at one target in their firing arc (a 90 degree angle centered forward for most weapons, though some turreted weapons, typically found on less maneuverable ships, have 360 degree firing arcs), when custom-marked d8's are rolled to attack and defend, often spending some of the buffs to add a result or re-roll a die.
It's a fantastic game. I was a bit skeptical about how the maneuver system would work out, with just 3 types of maneuver (hard turn, soft turn, straight) at various speeds (length of template) available. Surely, I thought, this won't be as deep as a proper hex grid the way most other dogfighting miniatures games roll. Well, I was wrong. Or, at least, my skepticism wasn't borne out. The key is the maneuvering dials. Not all ship types can perform each template's maneuver -- TIE fighters can turn more sharply at low speeds than X-Wings can, for instance, and Y-Wings cannot perform high speed turns multiple turns in a row (and really aren't able to function effectively doing so as they forfeit their actions until they take a very slow maneuver). It does a great job of lending the kind of character and performance any enthusiastic Star Wars fan with a few novels or Space Sims under his belt will be familiar with and start to recognize and identify after a game or two with any one ship. Even more depth is added at the squad-building level by the variety of pilots at different points levels for the same starship type, with named pilots and upgrades granting special abilities rife with synergizing potential.
Okay, okay, Kaffis. So it's a great game. But this is all stuff from a year and a half ago. Why post now?
Well, they've been doing expansions since the initial release (which included the base set, expansion TIE Fighter and X-Wing packs that add additional pilots to those in the core set, as well as Y-Wing and TIE Advanced expansions. Early 2013 saw the YT-1300, Firespray, A-Wing, and TIE Interceptor as the second wave. And most recently, late last fall we got to add the HWK-290 (Kyle Katarn's ship from the Dark Forces/Jedi Knight video games), Imperial Shuttle, TIE Bomber, and B-Wing to the mix. Which brings us to today -- the next wave is meant to fork off of the dogfight-focused tournament gameplay and facilitate more scenario-centric and campaign-type format they're calling "Cinematic Play." It will feature the Rebel Transport from the evacuation of Hoth and a Corellian Corvette! These are going to be rather pricier than their tournament-legal cousins, but it's because they're HUGE and gorgeous. I saw prototypes at GenCon last year, but Fantasy Flight just released the official preview of the upcoming Corellian Corvette release. Feast your eyes on this beauty.
