The Force Is Strong With This One!

If you have ever wanted to be Luke Skywalker piloting his X-Wing and fighting off flights of TIE fighters then this is the game for you! This Star Wars: X-Wing – 2nd Edition Core Set gives you everything you need to climb into the cockpit (metaphorically) and blast Lord Vader’s forces to infinity. In detail, that’s one beautifully crafted, and fully pre-painted, model of an X-Wing class starfighter and two Twin Ion Engined (TIE) fighters, the full combat rules, manoeuvre dials, measuring sticks, manoeuvre templates, Red and Green special dice plus a whole host of cards and markers. Gameplay has a quick turnaround and with a lot of upgrade options and variables for the ships and pilots, X-Wing is hugely replayable.

The stars of this universe are the ships themselves. They are beautifully crafted models and they come fully painted so you can immediately “fly” them straight out of the box. The T-65 X-Wing even has posable S-foils that can be quickly opened to the attack position! They stand, perched upon a peg tower that fits into a base that also holds the ship’s token that displays its’ “arcs”, specifically the all-important firing arc and the name and initiative level of the pilot that you have chosen to fly that craft.

This leads us to how forces can be balanced. Whilst the pilot cards will all show the same stats for a particular ship : Attack Dice, Defence Dice, Hull Strength and Shield (if any) and Actions that can be performed, the pilots will have different Initiative levels, from 1 – 5, and have individual abilities and, in some cases like Luke Skywalker for instance, may be able to use The Force!

Movement, each turn, is plotted using the neat Manoeuvre dials, rotated to show how far you will go and the path you will take. Each ship class will have its’ own set of manoeuvres including different speeds and tightness of turns. All the dials are set simultaneously. They are then revealed and each craft moved in pilot Initiative order with the weaker pilots going first. Then it’s combat with the top pilots firing first and possibly downing a weaker opponent before they can reply!

The movement phase is always a cause for equal measures of satisfaction and frustration as you can easily misjudge where your carefully, calculated master stroke might leave you, particularly if your wily opponent does something unexpected!

Combat is by means of rolling a number of Red Attack dice which are then defended by Green Defence dice which you may modify by using Focus or by Evading. Successful hits will deplete a ships’ shields, if it has any, and then giving a damage card until the number of damage cards taken is the same as the hull strength and it is lost!

If you get this: Star Wars: X-Wing – 2nd Edition Core Set, which I strongly recommend (I have two!), do beware that this can lead you on to a whole galaxy of other ships and fighting factions, each more enticing and rewarding than the last.