X-Wing Miniatures game - First Impressions

This week I seem to be on a bit of a roll actually posting articles for a change.  I thought I would take this opportunity to speak about a game which has recently been taking up a lot of my time.

X-Wing is a game system based on Episodes 4,5 and 6 of Star Wars.  No sign, as of yet, of any of the Prequel films getting any releases.

As a game system it is relatively straight forwards to learn, but by the looks of things, very complicated to master.  I have played something between 5 and 10 games, mostly as Imperials and it has been generally very good fun.

The models come pre-painted, but there is nothing to stop you repainting the ones you get.  The actual detail on the models is a lot better than is actually painted in a lot of cases.  There is also not a great deal of consistency in the paint jobs on the same models.

A typical list is around 100 points.  This will be something between 2 and 5 ships for rebels and between 3 and 8 for imperials.  I don't think it is possible to field more than that amount of ships in a standard game.  So although the prices are quite high for individual models [£12 for the smaller ones and about £22 for Falcon and Slave 1] the overall cost of playing is quite low.

The starter comes with all the bits you need to use the three ships you get.  Which are two Ties and an Xwing.  You get about half the special character cards for these two units in this box, so you will still need to purchase another xwing and another tie fighter to have them all.  Each seperate ship pack comes with all the tokens it needs and the other upgrade cards seem to be distributed between the packs.

I have not as of yet found anywhere that actually lists which cards come in which packs.  Which is annoying.

As a general rule, Imperial ships, up to now at least, tend to be faster and cheaper, but weaker, and rebel ships tend to be tougher with better offense and more upgrade options, but pricier.  Reflecting the films.

So far they have released the following ships;

Rebels:
X wing
Y wing
A wing
Millenium Falcon
B wing [wave 3 Autumn]
Mouldy Crow [wave 3 Autumn]

Imperials:
Tie Fighter
Tie Advanced
Tie Interceptor
Slave 1
Tie Bomber [wave 3 Autumn]
Lambda Shuttle [wave 3 Autumn]

There are confirmations that more ships are on the horizon.  The inclusion of the Mouldy Crow, which is by all accounts from an Expanded Universe computer game lets me hope for the inclusion of Tie Defenders.

I will try and get some photos up, especially as I am going to attempt to repaint the squad markings.  One disadvantage of pre-painted models is that everyones will look the same.  I want to make mine more personal.