X-Wing Followup

I Promise to Avoid Further Collision

Now that I've played X-Wing a few more times here are some thoughts on the game.

For one, if you're teaching it to people, try and give each new player two ships. X-Wing is fun enough with a single ship to control but it begins to shine when you try and fly in formation. At first you experience non-stop collisions. I collided with asteroids immediately in my first few games. Not after desperate flying or while trying to evade some attacker. Immediately. Turn one. Crash. Now at the time that was pretty embarrassing, especially since there are six small asteroids across a pretty large board. After a few turns, however, the satisfaction of controlling my two ships and not smashing them into things and in fact flying them in cool wing-to-wing formation made my earlier mishaps fade from memory.

Beyond the thrill of competence flying in formation also gives you a clue as to how strategic a game X-Wing is. Certain ships move better in packs. Certain ships work better as scattered skirmishers. You only get a feel for this when you have direct control of more than one ship. So give your new players two ships and maybe hold off on the asteroids.

Not Obscure!

Secondly, Target is now busily putting the base set on clearance. I found a copy for $20 which is an insane bargain. One box will give you a decent few games, two starters and you are set. The downside to this? Explaining what you're looking for to the seventeen year old employee. First he looked up "Ex-Ring," which is sold out. Then after some discussion he looked up the "X-Ring" game, also not in stock. I guess considering the other ways one can misunderstand "X-Wing" things could have gone worse. Still, isn't the X-Wing pretty much common knowledge at this point? It's not like I was asking about the Bugaloos game. Though if there was a Bugaloos miniatures game I would buy it.