I am a Trekkie.

My first exposure to serious Sci Fi came in the form of the first Star Wars movie at the theatre on release. I was aware of Sci Fi before that, but Star Wars made it an obsession for my 10 year old mind. For years I worshipped the movie (mostly the first, the others slightly less), appreciating the “reality grunge”, accessible characters and overall “fun” factor. This led to a love of several book series, both Sci Fi and Fantasy (The Stainless Steel Rat by Harry Harrison, The Mote in Gods Eye by Jerry Pournelle, The Book of the New Sun by Gene Wolfe, John Carter of Mars by Edgar Rice Burroughs, and of course Tolkien etc), then comics and TV shows which were as different to each other as they were from mainstream entertainment.

The Prequels did nothing at all for me. I remember not even being interested in them at the time or really up until recently for completeness sake, so I must have been distracted by other things that better fit my idea of Sci Fi/Fantasy.

Star Trek just happened at some point. Between endless TV series and movie re-runs and a strong presence in the gaming world, it took the mantle as number one in the race of the two big guns. Federation Commander and Star Fleet Battles (coming from the alternate Star Trek universe path of The Amarillo Design Bureau), offered the best, and for a while only decent space ship combat games for either franchise, but even before it FASA and others, had been strong. The only area Star Wars seemed to have a gaming presence was in the computer game arena with their excellent fighter simulator, X Wing or in non game specific toys.

The new Trek movies then fully cemented me in as a Trekkie, so what happened? Why am I now a dedicated X Wing tragic? I have little background with much of the expanded universe, no interest in the three prequels (own them, watched them several times, appreciate their story relevance, but still nothing, possibly due to a wooden Obi wan, whiney Anakin and so-so effects).

I even own an exhaustive Attack Wing fleet, equally huge Federation Commander/ACTA Starfleet/Starmada collection, that are all now playing second fiddle to X Wing.

So what has Attack Wing in particular done to allow the usurper to elbow it’s way into my life?

Game Play

AW is arguably a better or equal game to X Wing. The core mechanics are nearly identical, with even more build variety possible, due to Captains being separate upgrades rather than the pilots baked in to the ship. The X wing move system and sequence of play are similar, but AW has managed to update with a mild 1.1 upgrade, where X Wing needed a full 2.0.

AW is a “softer”, more forging game. A beginner may be out classed, but still feel part of the game, especially if a scenario is being played. I have often given new players a slightly stronger fleet, which seem to balance things out nicely. An unbalanced squad dynamic in X Wing effectively hands a game to the stronger team. In a lot of ways AW is a better casual game. Arguably, AW is the more stable game compared to 1e especially.

You can also do more with less in AW. A couple of ships each from 2-3 factions, gives a huge amount of re-playability and depth. The base set alone offers three factions with lots of upgrades (and you could swap them inter-factionally if you must). The X Wing core has a single X Wing vs 2 Tie Fighters with a handful of upgrades. I remember an epic struggle between the Scimitar, Enterprise E and a Romulan War Bird, that really felt like the movie battle, with the Enterprise winning in a nail biter after a good 40 mins of play.

Problem;

X Wing is just more compelling. Nicer ships, the tighter story telling envelope and limited squad building or the lack of factional variety that just make me (and others) want to play it? Possibly the scale helps. Our desire to pilot an X Wing fighter may just be more exciting than captaining a larger ship? The characters are also more familiar and more overtly martial and lets face it, most Trek stories are about brain power over muscle, where Star Wars is an action adventure story, built for combat situations. A possible final consideration is a lack of a defined Star Trek story line covering several periods, series and crew dynamics that make it harder to define your period. Star Wars has this to, but in a seamless and connected way.

Squad Building

The upgrade dynamic is different between the two games.

Crew, ordnance and special features in AW seem less severe than X Wing. The naked ships are fine, crew added give you options during a fight, but do not feel as formulaic as X Wing, allowing you to field canon ships and crew with the correct ordnance without feeling like you turned up to a gunfight toting a bread knife.

You have more chances to turn the tide in the more attritional AW. It has an ebb and flow rather than the sudden death feel of X Wing. This does not mean there is any mercy from some players, especially those who will mix their upgrades into any combinations, but AW seems to fit scenario play and squad building better and if you enforce some house rules regarding faction and timeline limits, the strengths and weaknesses of each factional and period seem to balance out well enough.

The weapons available in AW are fewer and more predictable and the ships generally more robust*, allowing you to settle in to a game without it ending abruptly. The almost mandatory Photon torps will rarely take out a capitol ship, but may cripple it, forcing the owning player to rely on their crew to repair stuff, just like in the shows. Sometimes that game seems to be played on two levels; ship vs ship and upgrade vs upgrade. In X Wing, there are several alpha attack options, making 3-8 ship swarms common, which fits the small ship feel better, but changes game play.

Playing X Wing in a “Bare Bones” format (upgrade reduced), is quite different to playing it “full noise” with all upgrades included. X Wing punishes weak squads, celebrates game maximisers, all while staying within defined factional limits. I wish Star Wars separated their pilots from their craft. This would have made squad building more interesting (Luke in an E Wing, Y Wing or at the controls of the Falcon or maybe even a Tie?). Attack Wing allows any Captain and ship combination.

The ships move the same way, but feel different. X Wing huge ships are clumsy, their small ships zippy but can feel cramped for room to manoeuvre, where AW tends to cover more table and look less crowded by perceived scale, which to me seems to fit a space combat game better. Ships in AW can also move at speed 6, which is faster than most X Wing ships and there are very few large base ships crowding the table.

The Problem;

Attack wing, in it’s most open form (competition), usually allows ridiculous combinations that span all factions and time lines. Kirk in a Borg Cube with later Romulan crew vs Kirk (again!?) on a Xindi Orassin, with Deep Space 9 and Hirogen crew? Total suspension of belief in the name of gamesmanship for maxing out squads. It is just a game, but what is the point in having any form of franchise represented if it means nothing to the players? X Wing stays within faction, with the exception of the late 1e Force Awakens timeline cross over, which is now corrected in 2e. This one factor often gives X Wing players a feeling of superiority over AW players, citing their “out of control” squad building and inherently unbalanced game.

Look and Feel

AW has an issue with presentation. The counters and rules etc are fine, but the cards are dull and the ships are lacking (sorry, no point in pretending otherwise).

The Enterprise for example has major scaling issues.

The NX (Enterprise) is fine in it’s own time line, with a few exceptions (the Xindi are all over the place).

The Original one (TOS) can look fine against the bigger Romulan’s and Klingon’s from the same series and is actually perfectly scaled against the TNG ships, but don’t go comparing this Constitution class cruiser to a relatively small Klingon War Bird, which dwarfs it. I

The re-fit A is well sized, but have a warped warp engine moulding issue and is at least twice the size of the TOS one (hell of a refit).

The Enterprise B (Excelsior) is a nice ship, both bigger than the A and smaller than the D, which is good and one of my favourite ships.

The D, which I consider to be the base line of their ships, coming in the original base set, is a good size. It’s opposition however are all over the place, The Romulan in the same set is a lot too small, the Klingon also to lesser extent. This is a common problem with the whole TNG series timeline. The Voyager is the same size, when it should be half or less, the Scimitar should be double it’s size, but is only a little bigger, the Dauntless is too big, the Robinson/Patrol ship, is way too big, the Dominion generally too small, etc. Relative size is sometimes ok, so if you take the ships as purely representative tokens of a ships location (like a screen graphic), then fine, but if not, be prepared to suspend your belief a little, or a lot. We stick to faction and timeline “groupings” like X Wing, which helps a bit (The Enterprise, Original and Voyager series are quite do-able, as are the TOS movies). For the TNG era, I have split the ships into smaller “skirmish” (DS9 and Voyager, for small Dominion, Fed, Marquis, Bajoran etc) and larger Fleet action scale.

Paint jobs.

This one really pisses me off. You pay the same (roughly) per expansion as X Wing, for decent enough sculpts, but the paint jobs are often poor and more often inconsistent.

• Enterprise A (TOS) silver or off white

• Enterprise A (Movies) silver, off white, unpainted (deep cut) to replace broken ones.

• Enterprise A (new movies) look great, but like they come from a different game.

• Enterprise B (Movies) silver or blue-white

• Enterprise D (TNG) silver-2 finishes, off-white, blue-white (F%*K me)

• Enterprise E silver and later re-paint.

Added to this, re-releases are often touted as “repaints”, which just make the older ones look like they need a re-paint and most of the newer boxed sets break with previous schemes. This has been enough to put me off getting some of these as the ships will either need a re-paint or just end up being unused, reducing the expensive sets to a hefty outlay for few cards. It is like there is no one in their QC with any interest. It does not bother some, but as a gamer of many years, they fall well below my own basic standards, which are about where X Wing happily sits.

Problem; Just not as nice a game to own. The ships can be very good (Voyager and Enterprise series) or just plain poor (TNG). There are fixes, like proxy ships from other manufacturers, but it all adds up to overpriced and wasteful, especially compared to the X Wing offering. The cards are also bland, lacking the original and consistent art of X Wing. As the franchise less likely to get many excited, it is on a hiding to nothing. If I show a potential newcomer, my X Wing ships, they engage immediately. AW not so much, even though the actual gaming experience may be better!

Support

Take it from me, the support for X Wing, through it’s community and Fandom etc is way better, but can be a bit obsessive and “rail-roady”. I learned all I needed from the many blogs, the Wiki and FFG site which did lead to some pre-conceptions. The information is there for AW, just not as well presented, nor is it as comprehensive. The community is generally less active. Wizkids are also a little patchy with their support of the game in both releases and projections for the health of the game. It is testament to the resilient nature of the Trekkie nerd as an individual, and the soundness of the system that there is any support for the game at all.

*

So again, what is wrong with Attack Wing?

Nothing in isolation. If it was the first and only, it would have a solid place in the gaming world. It’s problems stem from comparisons to it’s elder sibling. The X Wing experience is as cynical in it’s collect or die dynamic, even more so in 1e with whole ships being bought en-masse for a single upgrade card, but this forced collecting is a more pleasant experience, even a desirable one and in all fairness, they have changed this a lot in 2e.

XW will survive a full edition re-boot, AW seems to be withering on the vine. Even a half hearted foray into the new movies will not save them. Wizkids seem to straddle the fence between apathy and stubborn adherence to the path, leaving us with a very personal choice whether to support them or save our money.

I have spent mine and am happy enough with that choice, but as a new comer to X Wing, I feel if I had gone their way first, even the Trekkie in me would likely not be enough to get me interested.

Now….Armada?

*The Tie Fighter and NX Enterprise have the same base stats, but the Tie has no upgrade depth, where the Title Enterprise has several crew and combat upgrades available to it.