Getting new players into a game you love can be tricky and frustrating. Offer too much and they may drift, too little and they loose interest and deny them any feeling of control and they may always feel like a guest, not a contributor. Note, this has been shaken up and is better represented under “Turbulent Times for X Wing”, but the ideas are still sound.
Our X Wing journey, started about 18 months ago. It has had moments of obsession, exhaustion and waxing/waning enthusiasm, but from it has come a set of tools capable of empowering others to enjoy it also.
Step 1
Skeleton Crew (formerly Barest-Bare Bones).
In SC, the players get introduced to;
Three factions, each with seven ships that both empower and limit the factions, allowing the new player to get the feel of each in the cleanest and most logical fashion. There is a good spread of Pilot abilities represented, introducing the new player to most game concepts.
Most Ordnance options are represented (although Bombs and Turrets are limited and there are no exotic weapons like Ion, Tractor or Harpoon Missiles).
Crew are limited to those connected to the ships used or generics.
Limited Illicit, System and Droid upgrades help define the ship and factional differences.
Three forms of pain from the Scum ships available in “Skeleton Crew”.
Action economy is kept to one or two layers, highlighting basic Pilot and squad synergies. This keeps the rock-paper-scissors and guess-the-move concepts at the core of the game foremost in the minds of new players and allows rare even exclusive Pilot abilities to be relatively more powerful than in the more diluted “bigger” versions of the game, as they are often the only modifiers in play. Droid, Illicit and System upgrades and squad synergies really add the only other layers, and these are very limited.
Pilots like Arvel Crynyd can situationally boast a game leading 4 agility + Evade, Tycho can act while stressed, Wedge becomes a predator, Biggs is the only real (Wing)man and Vader has his 2, no strings attached actions which no other pilot can match.
The later game tended to create several ways of matching these Pilots with different doable versions of their abilities, which is fine and added variety and helped develop problem solving processes (all part of the game), but I for one really like the clean lines of this basic, stripped down version.
Even limited as much as this is, seasoned players can have a good series of games and may even like the nostalgic feel of this format.
Step 2
Bare Bones (BB).
When the player is at the stage where they can make an educated choice of squad from a set of pre-made units or even build their own, they can graduate seamlessly to BB, which adds;
About half to twice as many more ships (10-14), somewhat diluting the clean choices of above, but increasing interest and the desire to explore in equal measure.
Ships are still limited to the those with the five core actions only.
Upgrade choices are mostly limited to more Crew choices, but each faction will also have several more (or even some for the first time) ships who use some Ordnance including Ion weapons, more System and faction specific Illicit and Droid choices.
Both ships are relevant in this form but the Y Wing’s future is probably less so.
This is enough for many and our favourite format.
You can now sink your teeth into so many more combinations, enough to keep the casual player going for ages, but the basic tenets of above are kept pure and simple. We play this with the “Once we were heroes” roster system, where a pilot is lost permanently to the roster until it has been played through to completion. This effortlessly stops players wheeling out the same squad game after game.
Step 3
Expanded Bare Bones (Exp)
Once the landscape of X Wing BB is fully understood, the next step can be explored. In Expanded, the door is mostly open to full 1e X Wing, but not quite enough for the cracks to show.
Almost all 1e ships are now available except for the TFA era ones and the Quadjumper (no Tech upgrades and no timeline jumping).
All ship Actions are now available, allowing access to Jam, Reinforce, Coordinate, Reload etc.
Single card Huge ships can be added if desired, to make this game more varied and interesting, not necessarily as a good introduction to the much improved Huge ship mechanics of 2nd ed. I like both, but sticking to the single card ships this makes the Huge ones less game dominant.
Titles are now allowed for unique, named ships only, opening up the full capabilities of those ships, which includes adding in all actions and weapons required like Tractor Beams.
There are still no Mods, EPT’s or “generic” Titles, nor the Ordnance options used by FFG like generic Titles as point balancers for tournaments (Chardaan, Renegade). These can break this game, are often not necessary or are considered too fiddly to bother with.
An option is to allow EPT’s only back in, your call.
Expanded BB allows the player to use the legendary ships we all love in their almost full blown form, but still holds back the main game breaking culprits.
Expanded allows for squads like this, that need Titles and a full action range to be relevant.
Step 4
Triple Threat (TT).
Now it is time to change tac.
The much neglected Tie Advanced. In TT it is all you have for an Imperial player, but before all hope is lost, let’s add a Title, some cheap System upgrades and those other pilots nobody uses.
Dedicated players are already aware that the game formats above are missing elements of the full game.
Builds made by others, “best” upgrade articles and tournament reports will all talk about the things that BB specifically avoids, so with a mind to completeness, but still reducing choices to be less overwhelming and trying to retain balance, we introduce new players to the more competition focussed TT.
Each faction is represented by one ship type (Tie Advanced, X Wing, Kihraxz), usually in a 60pt squad format.
Every possible upgrade option is available to each ship, especially the later game fixes like S-Foils, (house ruled as a free “configuration” upgrade), Renegade Refit, Tie X1 and “Vaksai”.
The three ships are relatively even, but are very different. Players now get to play with Elite Pilot Talents, Mods and the benefits of late game empowerment. In many ways, the ships are in their full 2e form and much different to all the versions above. Players have to now deal tactically with using their differences to prevail, rather than just matching their opponent like for like.
Step 6
Second Edition.
2e X Wing is now the logical jumping point from the above steps.
It cleans up and smooths out the above concepts, but also adds more moving parts. TT acquaints the players with more advanced features and deeper builds and Expanded for ship variety.