STAR WARS X-WING THE MINITURES GAME:
The game hit Australia about two months ago with Games Paradise offering it at the Gencon Exclusive price of $AUS 85 for the starter set, then two weeks later at $AUS 60 for its retail price. I waited unit I could get if from Defiant Gaming for $AUS 36 the price difference was just too big a difference. But the unber-sad thing is that you can get it from CoolStuff Inc for only $US 25.99, but unfortunately the shipping price makes it not worth the lower retail cost. Anyway enough about the ranting of consumer pricing, on to the game itself.
Component wise I was pretty impressed with what FFG was offering, the quality of the minis was high along with the quality of the paint job, I was pleasantly surprised to see that highlights where given to the ships and that small details where also picked out. The card stock for the cards and the game components where also of the better quality out there. Just in terms of gaming components, this product is definitively one of the best out there.
I won’t get into an in dept run through of the rules here as I feel FFG has done superb job with their youtube clips which you can find here. My only gripe, which has been the gripe of many rule book is that it needed more examples so that its wording can been seen more clearly.
If you have played Wings of War, or Wings of Glory it will feel very familiar, and it can easily been seen that the game rules owe some of their mechanisms to those systems. But there are enough differences to say that this game is very much its own. The main difference is the use of range rulers which replaces the movement cards of the other systems, and the way attacks are resolved with the introduction of dice giving the game a very Ameritrash feel, instead of the Euro feel of Wings of War.
Overall I found it a very enjoyable light game, and can’t wait to see what the new expansions will bring.