What Ever Happened To X-Wing Miniatures 2024?

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[@mattcarper9853]

A Tournament-only playerbase killed it dead here. No one had fun anymore because everyone was practicing for the next tournament. No casual play means less sales, means less players, means dead game.

[@TheCaptionrex1]

couldnt agree more, thats mostly why i stopped playing

[@MiniPainterGamerDadD20]

This. Every single "fly casual" night at my FLGS was just everyone flying the latest meta list they got online. No one ever flew fun and silly squadrons.

[@nunyabidness3075]

Wait, if everyone was playing the latest meta list, that means there were no non tournament players? Or, does it mean the non tournament players also wanted to win games? Sounds to me the real problem was that the latest meta lists actually worked. So the game was made to sell more product by putting out an ever increasing series of advantaged units and cards. FFG definitely destroyed other games with this strategy. Their Game of Thrones card game jumped the shark so fast on that, it died within a year. I remember taking a month away from the game, and then didn’t recognize it when I came back.

[@neilgoodacre3655]

Yes, exactly this. There was only ever one or two competitive lists at a time and they all relied on having the latest 'best card'.

[@amn1088]

I don't think its that as much as every wave had some new op thing that you had to play or lose. Their power creep really killed the game for the casual player each wave buy the new ships or just get wrecked. Then the change to 2.0 I think killed it for many competitive players I was looking at 400-500 bucks to upgrade. I took that opportunity to quick and sell everything to people who were buying ships to get what they needed to justify the upgrade packs weird allocations of ship stuff.

[@aqualithmedia]

2.0, the pandemic, 40k's rise, BattleTech's resurgence, and especially Disney souring the IP all factored into it's downfall.

[@timunderbakke8756]

Honestly, I think AMG’s 2.5 is what did it in more than 2.0 When the game got a full rules overhaul using existing components, and that new rules experience got far far away from the core value of x-wing, that’s what murdered it in my community

[@aqualithmedia]

@@timunderbakke8756 Wasn't even aware of 2.5, which shows that those of us who bailed at the announcement just distanced ourselves. I don't even play 1st edition anymore so may just sell off aside from a few of my favorites.

[@VictorumGaming]

Nailed it!

[@KaryudoDS]

I didn't even notice Battletech's new plastic line till last year, which was really cool to see. I probably would have leaned more into that when it started for sure though if I noticed it.

[@Rikalonius]

Also the change to Atomic games. I don't think they care, they want you playing Shatterpoint, and I wont.

[@ConradHauserMD]

Asmode moving it AMG is what killed it. Without new ships/models in almost 3 years and coming out of COVID with 2.5 killed it.

[@jasonmichaeli1378]

Current very active player, going to worlds later this month. Started in 1.0 as just a casual level player with some friends. To an extent 2.0 killed the game for my small group, but clearly overall it did well enough to keep going. Has a bit of a renaissance I’d say towards the end of 2.0 as I went to PAX Unplugged 2021 and saw a sizeable tournament, and eventually learned there was an active player base at several LGSs. The pandemic didn’t kill it, a number of communities kept it going online. Really the death of it came when it got shifted to AMG who was not ready to handle 3 more games. Scenarios turned some people off, some stuck around. Then the content dried up. No new reveals were in sight, a card pack we expected in 2023 wasn’t even mentioned after the initial tease until 2024. Now we’ve noticed X-Wing isn’t even mentioned in AMG’s preview panel for Adepticon. Many of us fear we’re going the same direction as Armada

[@Izzboticus]

This is definitely accurate for our area. 2.0 didn't kill it. It was 2.5 and the lack of support from shifting it to AMG.

[@benc8738]

I totally agree with you. Moving to AMG and Covid I think were really nails in the coffin. Sad cuz X-wing is what got me into Skirmish/Wargaming.

[@chrissloan3288]

The other more major issue for my local group is the hilarious lack of points updates. We used to essentially get a new game every 3-4 months now it's like 6 months or more and often times it's not an adjustment it's adding new products.

[@jasonmichaeli1378]

@@chrissloan3288 but that’s the thing, they said there wouldn’t be regular points updates

[@chrissloan3288]

@@jasonmichaeli1378 I am aware and it's killing the game. Which is fine they prefer it die so all they have to focus on is legion and their game mcp. Still waiting on the starter packs for every faction that isn't already included in the core set too.

[@bilko991]

In my area 2.0 split the players. About half moved to 2.0, the rest either stopped playing altogether or stuck to playing 1.0. The pandemic was the final nail in the coffin.

[@mattvirkler]

This.

[@nunyabidness3075]

The reboot killed it all by itself here. FFG had shown their colors with other games. No one trusted them anymore.

[@strangerofthisworld]

Yep, I am happy with 1.0 and never even thought to switch. Im kitchen table and dont care.

[@vince7189]

2.0 hurt it. but 2.5 during pandemic killed it. took a attrition game and made it objective based. changed rules to accomodate lo skill players. removed ships and pilots. And again did this while people couldnt play so then when it was time to get back into it everyone was like whats this game how do you play.

[@13thbee16]

From a sales perspective, I think another issue is that they just ran through all the iconic ships and had to start getting more and more out there.

[@Rikalonius]

There is an unfortunate phenomenon where in some gamers get bored if there's no "new plastic" for them to buy and use.

[@lsid4747]

@@Rikalonius or, its a company needs to continue to release models to continue to make money.

[@mdurwin]

What they should have done was create new adventures and terrain. Planet, spaceship attacks, trench runs, Hoth battles, etc. could have allowed for more plastic. Options for different game play sizes would have allowed for more objects too. I didn't see custom dice, rollers, etc.

[@robertlaplante8812]

I like Xwing for a while but drop it when I realised that my ships were becoming obsolete after each new waves.

[@0verkill161]

I agree. I enjoyed the game at first, but every game became an arms race to buy the next best ship to meta chase.

[@goudevincent2885]

That was the Bane of 1.0 the cavalry tactic to release stronger and stronger ships. 2.0 broke the circles

[@patrickdunham9490]

That was THE issue with 1.0. The original game wasn't designed to be a hardcore competitive ome. But when the organized play scene exploded post-launch FFG leaned very heavily into trying to tightly balance the game for all their post-launch design, and the only way to balance a skewed competitive meta in a system where they couldn't tweak existing content was to design new content to be more effective against it.

[@Rikalonius]

Yes. It became a tactile mobile game where you must buy latest thing to compete.

[@jaredlasseter7364]

The power creep in all games is unreal! I can't stand meta game players & add to that a power creep if you don't always want to play with a closed group of players.

[@salv.6948]

Oh man I can't disagree more with your video, but I totally respect your views due to your local meta. X-Wing 1.0 was bloated and broken when it came to building squadrons, upgrade cards that had negative points costs to fix ship problems etc etc, it was a complete nightmare for new players. Imo, FFG saved the game during the 2.0 change over and streamlined the entire game. That being said, once FFG lost the game to AMG due to the Asmodee changeover, that was the true decline of X-Wing as a whole, imo. Then again if AMG had continued to reissue 1.0 ships while making new ones, I think X-Wing would still be a top selling game. I will say that with AMG's FLGS championship kit system that they have done, their X-Wing World Tournament for Adepticon 2024 is at about 300+ attendees, so that should be a strong message to the Asmodee brass about the popularity of the game. That being said It totally sucks that your local meta fizzled out after 1.0 and I wish you could have enjoyed the game that followed.

[@the_proffit76]

Funny thing is I started playing a year ago with a friend. He and I had seen the game on shelves for years while raising our kids, but never had a chance to play it. It was a fluke we even said anything to each other about playing. A year later, we are having a blast and have found some great people to play with. In other words it ain’t dead yet.

[@djumeau]

It's fun once the kids are old enough... my son played in a tournament at 8 yrs old.

[@timunderbakke8756]

X-wing 2.0 was a necessary option to restore balance and make it accessible to newcomers (rather than “buy the entire back catalog just for upgrades”). It wasn’t implemented the best, and that hurt. Ultimately, AMG 2.5 xwing which fundamentally changed the feel of the game is what murdered it. I will NEVER buy a game from AMG nor any of its existing game devs if they change companies again

[@javilopez1235]

I´m still with my 1.0 collection, playing it.

[@javilopez1235]

@clydeshelton3212 good luck. Invite friends to play. I own ships from the 3 factions.

[@jdub-replicant]

I still play it with AI, it’s not as fun as playing with people but still fun to get those minis on a table

[@Knight0fTheSky]

Same. I've got a Raider Corvette that I barely use but it's such a gorgeous model I don't care :)

[@dslrrookie6808]

I discovered XWing towards the end of v1, after looking to find the WWI game - Wings of Glory? Being a huge Star Wars fan, and knowing my kids would like it, we dipped a toe in the water and picked up a few ships. Then 2.0 was announced, and v1 prices crashed. We bought up so many ships at rock bottom prices, and I was happy playing v1. I was very late and reluctant to switch to 2.0, but after dropping too much money on conversion kits, did like some of the changes - especially having the rebels more competitive and being able to use actual Xwings!! The rebalancing was good. But then when fantasy flight moved it on to AMG, and 2.5 was announced, that was too much. I was happy with v1, had learned the rules and the intricacies of the ships. I hated having to relearn some of that for 2.0, but having the rules change again, having the core listbuilding mechanic change and then switching the core concept from straight dogfight to scenario ruined the game for me. So no more buy in for the future - but that doesn’t stop me playing 2.0. I do think 2.0 is a better game to be honest, although I miss my og v1 scum and villainy list. But changes after that killed the game for me.

[@MiniPainterGamerDadD20]

Uhhh what killed it was the players themselves. Every single "fly casual" night at my FLGS was just people flying the latest competitive meta squadron. So if I brought a fun (actually casual) list, I was getting tabled in like 2 turns. It honestly freaking sucked.

[@fuzztsimmers3415]

thats not it at all it was in fact 2.0

[@kylewells6871]

Wheh AMG took over 2.5 killed it for me. The list building got really stupid, 2.0 made some sense to me and my brother and we enjoyed the game, but 2.5 felt like it had no support. Poor list building and the fact that the scenarios weren't released soon enough, there was a period where they released 2.5 and you basically couldn't play it without the scenarios that werent out at that point, if you cant play the game in its current form naturally people do something else with their time.

[@asyrian88]

2.5 killed my meta. We transitioned to 2 ok, but when the sold the property and everything changed, I quit.

[@straygeologist]

I played XWing since 2013, I played strongly in the second edition… I fell off during Covid. My local community was split 50-50 with about half of the crew continuing to play online, table top simulator. By the time I came back, the gap between those folks had become very dramatic. The people who played online were getting in 10 games a night, where I had not played 1 match in months. They had solved the game, and I had forgotten how to play. There is still a small community in my area, but it never recovered after the pandemic.

[@Gibbons3457]

Pretty much the same here.

[@eltnot]

I started in Wave 3 in X-Wing 1.0. When 2.0 we did see a drop off as some people didn't want to pay the cash to convert over. If you weren't trying to get stuff to fly 20 Tie Fighters, it certainly wasn't that expensive but I agree they could have handled the conversion kits better, breaking them down into smaller packages would have helped a lot. We did see some resurgence though as 2.0 continued and our player base slowly grew back up, but then covid happened and Asmodee got sold and the new owners took X-Wing (along with Legion and Armada) from FFG and gave it to AMG. AMG then started making massive changes and the game is now dead. That said, a bunch of us are still occasionally playing X-Wing 2.0 legacy.

[@tonyhind6992]

Second addition killed it. When I had buy stuff for all my current ships. They just all went into the loft. Our entire club was massively into X-wing. 2nd edition killed it stone dead. Not a game has been played since. From 10 players doing X-wing to zero playing. They killed their own game stone dead.

[@Knight0fTheSky]

It's FF games - they will gleefully just abandon their games to chase the next one (See: Battlestar Galactica) and I'd be mad but their games are annoyingly good.

[@jon9509]

Yeah this is true really. I didn't play a single game of 2.0 but I kept thinking I'd come back but AMG let it wither on the vine. Like it's doing with legion.

[@CAMSLAYER13]

1.0 was heavily flawed. It couldn't have continued forever as every new release increased the power creep and they couldn't rebalance the game properly to fix that

[@refreshdaemon]

I played casually and towards the end of the 1.0 life cycle, busted combos and a very narrow meta started killing the local playerbase. Most of the local shops dropped tournaments and 2.0 players moved onto a single local shop. I visited a few times and enjoyed the game in 2.0, but life got in the way for me. By the time I was ready to go back, it had moved to AMG and they'd updated to 2.5 and I just wasn't feeling the forced loadouts they were enforcing so I was out. I'll still teach and play casually 2.0 (or 1.0 if desired) and I still enjoy it when I play, but I'm not buying into new ships.

[@Vinciini83]

Actually, X-Wing is having a small resurgence in my area/game store, with 2.5 rules. A lot of us will get together with single ships for an Aces High game, and it's a blast!

[@catchaaron]

I’ll be honest, I love 2.0, but I understood the cost problem for people with MASSIVE collections if they wanted to full-convert their stuff. I don’t think that really should have driven off the big collectors, however. 1.0 rules were essentially memorized by those collectors, so they didn’t need further support to keep playing their own 1.0 sessions. The game truly needed an overhaul to stop the insane power creep in later waves (Miranda for Rebels or Harpoon missiles, anyone?) and address some major rules discrepancies. The overhaul allowed also for future flexibility for the upgrade system. That, however, was not what killed off many players in my area. 2.0 was great for equalizing ships and upgrades to make old, iconic, early wave ships relevant again in tournament play. Even the HotAC coop communities adapted to the new rule sets and published their works (nod to Mr Tiernan especially)! What truly killed it in my opinion, was the little time between 2.0 and Atomic Mass Games taking over with their 2.5 rules, overly complicated squad point building system, virtual MURDERING of generic squad builds, turning a dogfight game into “scenario” matches, and actual “BAN LISTS”. There was to my estimation no good reason to make changes to the game so soon after the 2.0 ruleset had come out… yet they did it anyway. Now I just play X-Wing with friends in coop campaigns, and we use my collection for all we need. We also run mostly 2.0 rules, and screw the Ban Lists. Seriously, AMG, I hate what you did to the game!

[@danmillar6323]

AMG did more damage to the game than 2.0 ever did in my opinion.

[@olivander65]

2.5 broke me because I like to fly generics in games like these. Nameless pilots. I still have all my core ships, but I will probably not play it again unless I have a friend who wants to play. And I'd be more excited if we played 2.0 or 1.0

[@thomaslecomte1570]

I was a huge separatist swarm player so yeah that was definitely a bummer for me. With the pandemic and dwindling player base, I didn’t have the time to get excited for a list before the points changed and I had to go back to he drawing board

[@Rikalonius]

I'm with you. It was like when I started playing Star Wars Miniatures from WOTC. It was mostly units of stormtroopers and rebel troopers with a few named characters. By the time it stopped you would never see a base unit in any competitive list, except maybe mouse droids. It was chalked full of named characters, sometimes from different eras, made possible by obscure rules. The fun just drained out of it.

[@rhysjones1760]

Exactly the same mate with me

[@irishthump73]

This along with scenario play killed it for me too. I also found the "kitchen sink" approach to upgrades in 2.5 where yo could pile even more upgrades to be nothing more than a gimmick and turned it into even more of a deckbuilding game than a "flying" game.

[@Kingofdragons117]

What did 2.5 do to generics?

[@bradleypidgeon3395]

At 9:03 Fritz said we are getting X-Wing 3.0? Not sure if that is correct or if he meant 2.5 ???

[@andyrogers5500]

Same thing happened with warmachine. We you disenfranchise your established players with a brutal conversion, you eject your brand ambassadors. When manufacturers/designers do this, I think it comes from a good place. Imagine the relief and joy that must be present when your labor of love explodes onto the scene and grows and grows. I have to imagine the desire is irresistible for developers to go, “We actually did it! We made a game everyone loves! Just imagine how much we can improve it with all these new resources and buy-in from the executives!” … and then you get Warmachine Mark II. You get D&D 4e. You get X-Wing 2.0.

[@Knight0fTheSky]

To be fair Warmachine mk1 to mk2 was needed - you had loads of different named effects/spells that did effectively the same thing & there was serious power imbalance - you needed a tighter ruleset and imho Mk2 was the best version of the game. Warmachine mk2 to mk3 was a brutal cash grab. Mk2 was getting seriously bloated, but mk3 just felt like broken tier lists every other week, getting boosted then nerfed. Sure, you could field a 50 point army of choice but you're going up against someone who has 25 points of free models in tier so there was no point playing. I gave up first and my friends followed shortly after. Mk4 is apparently really good, but it's too late for me to buy a ton of new models while my old ones languish in the loft for the same game. Godtear is where it's at with us at the moment.

[@erikriggiola6780]

I has some of my best games with D&D 4e and some great miniature combat in addition to the rpg.

[@atkmonkey]

I never fully punched out my conversation kits.

[@ApocryphalPress]

1.0 was already struggling in my area. The shop owner was more into Magic than X-Wing (or any other mini-based game for that matter) and it was hilarious to listen to him complain that he wanted to play x-wing but couldn't justify that upgrades were scattered around in ships he didn't want to own as he sat opening packs of Magic keeping the cards he wanted for himself and stocking his binders for the store with the ones he didn't. My work/life balance at the time was skewed in that it didn't really allow for travel to another area to play as the next store with a very active community was a bit more than half an hour away in another city. So by the time 2.0 was announced, I knew, given the state of things in my area, that I wouldn't be purchasing the conversion packs. I did look into it, as I had a sizable collection of the ships and was able to field every faction. But that was part of the downfall, as you stated, the cross over would just cost too much. I still have all my ships packed away. They were relegated to the storage locker before the pandemic. The group that was in the other city died out and converted over to Legion and now to Shatterpoint. I actually know no one who has kept their ships, let alone plays X-Wing anymore.

[@jamesspinner7764]

i dont know if this applies to everyone but .. THE biggest killer of X-Wing was the fact that ALL of my local gaming stores just up and died and ,with the single exception of a GW store, are still gone...

[@mikebaker6804]

The whole app idea killed it for me.

[@Wolf359inc]

In my area, X-Wing is still very much a thing. We have regular game nights, tournaments, etc, in two LGS (out of, maybe, five). I have my large 1st edition collection, and a decent collection of ships from 2nd, that were not released if 1st. To convert my collection, I needed two of each faction’s conversion kits (and really could have used a third for the Rebellion and Empire, but stopped myself…). My intent was to have enough of each ship to field 100 points of any one ship, for each faction. So,eight+ TIE Fighters, three+ X-wings, two Falcons, etc. I decided pretty early one the I was going to drop the First Order, and Resistance, as I find them simply derivative of the originals, and the newer ships don’t add much to the game. I have not purchased a single miniature in 2nd, that I already had in 1st, apart from good resculpts, such as the Y-wings. As someone else mentioned, I do not like the change of moving away from rookie/ unnamed pilots. I loved my rookies going out, and making a name for themselves… 😊 I also do not like that same ship types often no longer have access to the same upgrades - for example, rookie K-Wings cannot take Modifications, so they are unable to use “Advanced SLAM” - the upgrade card that was created for use with this ship… Even if/ when X-wing dies off, I will keep my collection to the day I die. These are beautiful miniatures, and the game is enthralling. I will use them in other games, put them on display, or just play solo, with “Heroes of the Aturi Cluster”, and other solo campaign systems such as that. Cheers,

[@christianbraun5426]

HOTAC came to be my prefered way to play the game: casual, coop, great scenarios.

[@allthingsnerd.4484]

I got into X-Wing at launch. For a while it was a blast. Then the tournament meta squadron lists began to be the only thing you saw at the store. There was no variety in play, no unusual scenarios. Just a dogfight among a few asteroids. The player base shifted into only hardcore tourney players. Casual players were not able to just walk in and play unless they wanted to get creamed by some try-hard’s tournament swarm. I shifted over to Star Trek Attack Wing and never looked back. The builds were interesting and creative. I ran the organized play for the store and it was hugely successful for years. We had a monthly STAW tournament, each with a different and unique scenario and theme (I encouraged thematic fleet builds to keep the meta from getting stale), and we watched the XW groups whittle down to the same 4-6 people doing the same thing every month. Second edition of XW seemed to have been the kill shot as it never really seemed to recover after that. The ultimate failure I assign to FFG selling to Asmodee. FFG’s stuff has never been as good or creative since their acquisition.

[@heroldthiele]

See? Scenario play IS a good thing to be added to X-Wing. 😅 Yes, 1.0 felt very stale and try-hard in the end. 2.0 was OK-ish and could’ve lived forever (in an semi-stale condition). But what I really like is progress, new points, a changing meta, and most of all different win conditions (like via objective play, or killing stuff, or springing traps… )

[@Tboysupreme]

I think the 2.0 bug also killed MageKnight. Another game with momentous growth and prepainted miniatures.

[@ntrefz]

People mention MK a few times in here. Are you all talking about the Vlaada game or am I missing something? Was there a different game?

[@Ferox2121]

Mage Knight was a collectible Miniatures game from WizKids sold in randomly mixed and sealed boxes. It was quite popular until they changed editions and made all previous models unusuable, killing the game practically over night.

[@RPGFanboy14]

In my area the game did fine in the transition from 1.0 to 2.0. Lost a couple people but for the most part everyone jumpped into the new ruleset easy enough. But instead it died after Asmodee tried to do their weird 2.5 rules shift to focus on tournament play, and in the meantime in the transition from FFG to them no point changes left the game feeling stagnant. I got tired of playing against lists that had so much health that in theory there werent enough cards in the damage deck to actually destroy them all. So i stopped going out to play as often. Then the scene just evaporated. Haven't played since. I still have my scum ships, but ive sold off everything else. I do miss this game, it was a lot of fun. I still mess around with the squad builder every so often.

[@paulhalcott5824]

The fact that Disney is systematically driving the entire franchise into the dirt isn't helping. The whole franchise has lost its shine and attraction.

[@rfernandz2001]

"Star Wars is a license to print money..." LOL, tell that to broke Hasbro and anyone else with a Star Wars licensing deal.

[@luisbermudez4756]

Tell that to Lego, who knows how to handle the franchise.

[@Grimmlocked]

yeah they were really smart and made "Lego Star Wars" it's own brand outside the star wars brand@@luisbermudez4756

[@TheTobaccoman]

What happened was they got crazy greedy and crapped on their very loyal fan base. They did it all to make us rebuy everything and cater to exclusively tournament minded considerations. It was a great system , warts and all and was for a time even outpacing warhammer and they blew it away with greed and poorly aimed focus. As most things they missed the forest for the trees and didn’t stop to think the game was so heavy in competition because of how huge it was in casual. One fed the other , when one shrunk so did the other and it’s never recovered and probably won’t now. They ruined all that good will.

[@TheTobaccoman]

Yeah I kept my 1.0 and if anything completed my collections mostly as that was a fine system and haven’t bought anything else from FFG since they killed 1.0. They handled it poorly and yeah they to this date haven’t even finished re releasing everything from 1.0 , I think x wing is kinda on the slow death spiral, they keep armada on life support, and the other mini games seem to get the focus with not as much fan fare as x wing 1.0 had in its peak.

[@sephebos8565]

The AMG-Changes killed X-Wing for me. And not only for me but as i see it for a lot of Players. 2.0 was still alive and kicking in Germany but after the Takeover from AMG (with the "help" of Covid) it ist only a shadow of itselve. I don't play anymore and looking to the turnaments in germany a lot of players have stoppt playing too.

[@MrZrbrownie]

FFG selling to Asmodee/AMG was the biggest blow. I'm confident the game would have recovered past Covid and 2.0 with Fantasy Flight at the helm.

[@cumulonimbusapothecary1079]

My problem with 2.0 is that stats ONLY exist online. Having stats online that you can balance whenever is fine, but the fact that I can't play at home without them? Not viable.

[@Gibbons3457]

You could play 2.0 at home. Not even counting the precostructed cards that came with every set you could download the points list and save it to any device to use offline. I know I did.

[@shane757]

The first world champion came from my store DesMoines). The release of those stealth fighters with 4 attack die decimated casual/story driven play and fun. You either lost to 2 stealth fighters often without rolling a single attack die or you played a yt-1300 with a turret. Halved the weekly turnout is my best guess, literal fun vacuum unless you were stealth pilots.

[@chadnine3432]

Market saturation, edition churn, Covid, the dev team changing. It wasn't one event, it was a chain.

[@garesonc9672]

So we are just going to ignore Disney's mishandling of the franchise?

[@heroldthiele]

I started late in 1.0 and am still playing. ❤ What I love is the ever changing game. Yeeees, some transitions were hard to come by at the beginning, but if it weren’t for them I’d have quit. (And instead would play a fixed boardgame.) I especially like the scenarios. For me the decline of X-Wing was caused by a) the pandemic, b) FFG/ AMG being understaffed, and subsequently c) the inability to generate enough money (but by what means I don’t have the slightest idea!) [If we want a cool game we need to throw money at it…]

[@JB-kh7eb]

Our game group played HARD for like 2 years - every weekend playing big battles and scenarios. One dude was even running a campaign he wrote! We converted into 2.0 but basically stopped soon after and moved back into MTG and eventually into kill team and 40k.

[@craigl1641]

I used to be really into X-Wing 1st edition, I have 3 of pretty much every ship, plus TIE swarm, 10 Headhunters, etc. 2.0 dropped while I was on a break for other reasons and I never came back. They really screwed the pooch with the switch to 2.0.

[@katywalker8322]

We played a lot of 1.0, just for games without any desire to do competitive gaming. Spent a fair bit upgrading to 2.0, and played a bit. The need for the app annoyed me, especially as our local games club meets in an area with poor phone reception. Covid came along and most of the gaming stopped. When things restarted the app had changed, lists had disappeared and I just could be bothered with carrying on again with uncertainty over the rules changing. We would go back to playing it with a decent offline points system (not just printing off a random pdf) and had certainty over the way the rules were going. Not bothered if it is 1.0 or 2.0 as while a bit different, not enough to bother me much either way. I still have all the 1.0 cards in a box. Maybe we should just go back to 1.0 .

[@dennisdaniels4386]

X-Wing 1.0 is what got me into miniatures. I hung with it through 2.0. However, the game was getting bloated towards the end of 2.0 and then AMG added on the missions and that killed it at our local community. We loved the quick, fast paced dog fighting game that it used to be. Put a mat on a table, throw out 6 obstacles and start playing. Very quick. It’s too complicated now with the Objectives. That’s what Armada was for. Maybe AMG will go back to the roots.

[@LOVES-A1911]

Played a lot of first addition but dropped off shortly after 2.0 hit due to the cost of all the conversion kits I'd have to buy just to play, I had just about every ship except for a couple like Lando's Falcon and the Tantive IV, now all that stuff is collecting dust in my storage room.

[@ShawnEnge]

I never got into X-wing - which is surprising since I'm such a huge Star Wars geek. When 1.0 came out it was everywhere. It truly competed with 40K for table space at our FLGS. I think in the last year or so, I've seen a lone game played. No one even talks about it around here, or at least that I hear.

[@schnuersi]

The problem with IP like SW are allways the same. They are economically unviable unless you own it yourself. All the SW game therefor at one point face the same problem. They have to keep the revenue up to justify the license fee... which ironically usually goes up if the game is successfull. To make things worse its simply not possible to do what is common in games these days: a constant stream of releases. There are only so many TIE fighter variants. While SW has lots of spaceships in its background, the vast majority are obscure. Nobody has heard of them. They are not as iconic. So to make people buy these they have to offer an advantage over the iconic stuff everybody owns allready. Which results in power creep. All of this alone makes it highly difficult to establish a long term successfull game. Add one or two aditional mistakes and your game is gone. From my observation all SW games follow more or less them same path. X-Wing was just the first and had the most dramatic rise and fall. Legions is basically gone now. Shatterpoint will follow in the not so far future. Most likely the next one is allready in the pipes which of course will require new minis and everything to be purchased again. GWs approach is only (barely) sustainable for them because they own their IP, have great marketing, they are not ashamed to overprice and really suck the chashcow dry and their market penetration. Since its their own IP they can constantly make new stuff up. With a foreign IP and license fees its simply not possible to achieve GW levels of persistence.

[@PatGilliland]

Thanks - now I know why there wasn't a flood of V1 models on EBay.

[@Inari007]

I thought about selling my 1.0 stuff on Ebay but the shipping would have been crazy and the time selling singles would have too me months just to list!

[@johnjeneki3758]

Thinking of a 2.0 killing a game, it reminds me of Mage Knight (the 2000-2005 minis game). In my area there were multiple stores running weekly events with 20-40 people, slowly dwindled to nothing around a year later.

[@heleti0000]

I loved the “Clix” system - and yes, nearly 25 years later, I still have a selection of MK models and rule books that see the light of day occasionally. It was sad to see a completely full LGS playing MK on a Saturday morning go to virtually no players in a very short time.

[@JB-yr6qt]

2.0 was a massive improvement for new people to get into the game as the cross-pack upgrade cards of 1.0 had essentially ruled the game out to most people that thought about getting into it locally. The buy-in for 1.0 had gotten so utterly absurd as to be untenable. The game was dying out locally because of that and several unintended super-combos that were making for ye-olde Negative Play Experiences and they often made the game feel very Pay-to-Win which is no fun. 2.0 fixed that and revitalized the local community while doing a lot to future-proof the game's design and model. I'd argue 2.0 was very much a needed move even if it wasn't handled as well as it should have been. The Pandemic put the game on life support between hurting in-person gaming, TTS actually being a better version of the game that didn't involve buying product from FFG, and production issues getting even worse (never did find an Alpha Wing I could buy that wasn't 2nd hand and price gouged to heck). 2.5 killed it off entirely though for the local group. AMG didn't grasp the concept of the game or hold the same sort of vision for it that had gotten so many playing it in the first place and turned it into a hero-flier objective based game instead which... was not what any of us locally had signed up for. So we just kept playing 2.0 if we played at all.

[@thomaslecomte1570]

My thoughts exactly

[@raywashburn2588]

2.0 could have revitalized the community.....if they had kept with the stated intent of 'making the game better' rather than morphing it into a cash grab. There are plenty of approaches to 2.0 they could have taken to significantly reduce the 're-buy in' cost. The rules were significantly better....and it shook out the OP meta that had formed. But money ended up being the focus. They were running low on new waves of interesting ships to sell....so they used 2.0 to boost their revenue. Admittedly....COVID didn't help....but the Xwing community here was in shambles at that point already.

[@JB-yr6qt]

I hate to break it to you but the game was a massive cash grab in 1.0. Want that upgrade card you need to compete? Go buy an $80 model you will never use to get it. Or buy triple the ships you actually need because the cards are scattered across other factions you don't even play. The game was built to try to force everyone into buying everything. 2.0 you could just buy the ships you wanted and maybe a deck of cards and that was all you needed. Kinda the opposite of turning the game into a cash grab, The problem was the pricey faction upgrade kits being one big bundle where you either didn't need half of it or needed too many copies, and while the free rules and app could do a lot it didn't make all that new cardboard cheaper. I think that was the real kick in the pants leaving bigger 1.0 players soured and it really needed a better option that wouldn't break the bank. Might have been nice if there was, say, a much cheaper set of stickers you could just put over the old cardboard or something you could just print out but that wasn't what FFG was used to making so we got the brick of cardboard and not many were happy about that.

[@raywashburn2588]

@@JB-yr6qt ....1.0 could be frustrating in that respect, but only if you played in tournaments, which generally only 3-10% of a playerbase ever will. In almost every normal match I played in or watched, people used a list builder and didn't even bother with the actual cards. No one owned all the cards that they needed. By your definition, every single CCTG and tabletop wargame is a cash grab. HA! Totally with you! The idea of simple applied stickers was *always* the solution. ...but it had nothing to do with what FFG was used to making....it had to do with revenue. A few $50 sticker packs could have covered just about every dial anyone needed and allowed splitting packs with friends. That's no where near as profitable as requiring players to pay hundreds each. I really miss that game and the potential that 2.0 had.

[@JB-yr6qt]

@@raywashburn2588 Yes, CCGs are indeed cash grabs but even worse than the interwoven ship packs were! Think about it, it's gambling / loot boxes for CCG packs so you end up buying on the secondary market if you're serious as otherwise it will likely cost a fortune. Most tabletop wargames not so much since you only need your models for your army and the rules for the core game and your army. You're not forced to buy anything at all from other armies or any models you won't be playing just to get bits for a tournament. Though SOME companies will gouge you on prices and edition changes then resell the rules to you at steep prices (*coughGWcough*), but the good ones do not. But yeah fair point, I can easily see FFG selling a brick of cardboard to keep sales numbers good, probably to keep some bean counters happy. The company wasn't exactly used to how to handle an edition change for a tabletop wargame at the time if I recall, so hit the pitfall of over-pricing the change for their biggest existing fans. It is a bummer. I very much enjoyed 2.0 and was interested to see where it would go. Shame 2.5 took such a weird design turn instead of just fine-tuning what was already there.

[@Gibbons3457]

To all those pointing fingers at 2.0 I fundamentally challenege that. 2.0 doubled my local scene and more. The cleaner rules, more flexible balancing options, splitting of the factions with better identities all were much needed and dramatically improved the game experience. The addition of the prequel factions saw another major boost to my local scene, culminating in the highest turnout local tourney we'd ever had in 2019... and that's when it turned. Covid majorly dirupted that in a way no one was prepared for but then came the next nail in the coffin, 2.5 or more specifically the switch from FFG to AMG, not only were AMG not ready and utterly botched the transition but swapping to a new radically different rules set whilst still under COVID conditions was a suicidal move. Nothing comes close. 2.5 isn't even that bad according to those who still play but making a major rules shift under a different company whilst the community was at its least connected and most fragile was business suicide. Nothing else explains it.

[@Carpatheon.]

2.0 was pretty much when my local community died. Too much stuff to rebuy and it turned off pretty much everyone. I loved the game enough to do the conversion, but I wouldn't have had anyone local to play with.

[@Nothanka]

And now it is officially dead. I will never understande why Asmodee had such a bad management of a great product. Instead of creating incentives for new players while keeping most of current ones, Asmodee tried a complete turnaround giving it to a company that was not even interested...

[@BottomTableTyrants]

I played this a lot when it first started but my main complaint was why call it X-Wing because I literally never saw one x-wing being played on any table from all the Oklahoma city to Chicago (Adepticon) tournaments I attended. How do you make the fighter that the game is named after that bad!?

[@alexandreboureau6175]

I stopped keeping up to date before 2.0 actually. Having to purchase boxes of ships just for an upgrade card I needed was a step too far for me. But it was not only a monetary issue. It ended up taking way more time to design your squadron than fly it, so we ended up playing mostly the coop campaign in my group. 2.0 seemed to address many of the issues of 1.0, but having to buy several upgrade kits to be able to keep playing just made me stop altogether.

[@grumhelden]

Fantasy Flight: "Hey, see all that stuff you bought? Heres a whole place to dump more money entirely driven by the need of a small part of the overall community, that you aren't really a part of, but anyway, buy all the stuff again please" Gamers: "Nope"

[@Hallblithe]

Your comparison of the 2.0 shift to WotC’s disastrous introduction of D&D 4e is apt. That, more than any other single factor, killed this game’s momentum. FFG has really flubbed nearly ALL of their licenses, at this point. Killing their discussion forum was a foolish move, as was outsourcing most of their production to subsidiaries and publishing new editions of established games (Arkham Horror, Mansions of Madness, etc.) that are not backwards compatible. Their take on the Star Wars RPG license never appealed to me-and I’m already very happy with the earlier WEG d6 and WotC d20 rules-but the fact that they are now allowing it to lie fallow just seems insane to me. Who’s steering this ship?! Another thing that really killed my enthusiasm for X-Wing, as well as Legion and Armada, is the exclusive focus on tournament-style play. I’ve been playing tabletop wargames for twenty-five years now, and I’ve just never enjoyed that sort of thing. I don‘t want to build the ultimate min-maxed winning list and trounce my opponents in bracketed points matches-I want narrative scenarios, map campaigns, and tense, imaginative re-creations of favourite battles from movies and books. The Legion minis are fantastic, but the rules bore me-all I’ve ever wanted from a Star Wars miniatures game is the same kind of flexibility as GW’s Middle-earth SBG. That system lets you play everything from Strider and four hobbits vs. five Ringwraiths at Weathertop to the Battle of Pelennor Fields, all with elegant, unified rules that don’t involve hundreds of little cards and custom dice. These days, I‘m much likelier to use my Legion miniatures to play with WEG’s old Star Wars Miniatures Battles rules (and X-Wing 1.0, to go back to the original point!).

[@AircraftFuelerEddie]

I think what happened here was that FFG over estimated the reception of a new edition that, in reality, was unnecessary. Primarily, new editions are seen as money makers by bringing in new players, and making original players rebuy everything but that doesn't always work. D&D 4th edition was a great example of that. I still enjoy x wing 1.0 and that's where I'll stay...

[@chefdeadpool8481]

I was all for V2, but what killed it for me was my local group disbanded during the pandemic, then at some point Fantasy Flight sold it to a new company that was no longer supporting the required app... I loved the app idea myself, it allowed for on the fly re balancing and edits as needed, but without the app, 2.0 no longer works...

[@buffalufacus]

1. 1.0 was fundamentally flawed. Power creep was massive and needed an update. 2.0 also had massive flaws but it was a little evened out towards the end. The game was essentially who brings the better list with the least amount of toys so you can win turn 0. Not fun. 2. FFG had nothing to do with the transferring of the game. It was all Asmodee "cutting fat" in preparation to be sold again so their stakeholders could get their 10th golden parachute into retirement. Everyone at FFG who did a job that wasn't a board or card game got cut, and they threw all of these games at AMG with a "oh yeah you make a minis game...umm have fun!". 3. Asmodee is actively killing the game, people may not be a fan of the AMG rules changes and listbuilding changes but it is by far the most balanced and fun version of the game. It actually matters again how you fly your ships, where you put them on the board, the strategy you use during a game. No longer are you shooting for one turn to get points then fly away for an hour.

[@Snippersly]

I upgraded and even though I was upset, the rules and updates really eliminated the power creep in version 1.0 It didnt detract from the basic fun of the game. I have so much $$ invested in the Xwing minis I just knew I wouldnt be able to sell and recoup so upgrading was the best choice. I kept all my V1 stuff just in case I run across a game or group that doesnt play V2. Its more about keeping on playing than anything else.

[@mrcrazybenjo3443]

I bailed out towards the end of 1.0. New stuff came out and was so OP it was the real life equivalent of taking your six F-16s to a fight against an Airbus and the Airbus would then annihilate the fighters. 2.0 might have fixed some things. But when I started secretly upgrading my gear to 2.0... my friends had either given away their stuff, sold it, or simply threw it out or did not upgrade. I had no one to battle with and like you, had too much stuff to upgrade. So its now just packed away. It WAS fun and I hope it gets fixed again some day.

[@BX-2R]

Played since 1.0 wave 5 or 6 I think and loved it both casual and competitive, collected multiples of everything. Happily converted to 2.0 ... only bought 1 box of each of the conversion kits and that was more than enough for my collection. LOVED 2.0 ... it expanded so much of the game, fixed problems I had with 1.0 and it brought in tons of new players in our area. If there was a player drop off because of the conversion, we didn't see it in our area, and tournaments would get bigger and bigger every year. Went to every System Open that was held in the UK. Covid happened and I fell off. AMG happened and I wanted so much to give them the benefit of the doubt but have been routinely disappointed with the quality of the products, the communication with the community and modifying the rules to such an extent it's effectively a different game. I haven't gone back to the game competitively since, though I will always hold onto my collection and play 2.0 rules and Home Brew Campaigns even with any new releases as I still like to collect the ships .... if only there were new ones to collect.... and let's not start on the state of Star Wars Armada ;P I am looking forward to the OG X-wing / Armada devs new game, Star Trek Into The Unknown however... and it's been great to return to FFG with the release of Star Wars Unlimited. So, it's not solely AMG's fault ... I've met a few of them and they're a lovely bunch... and it's defintely a sequence of events that led to this, but that team's approach to the games they took on and the communities for those games is unfortunately, much to be desired. Even with the one FFG Star Wars line they are still making product for, Legion, just the other day they are still making basic errors on the website and fuelling the misunderstanding and miscommunication. It's very frustrating, but I still hope they can turn it around.

[@wwcyfd22]

The meta got really bad in 1.0 x-wing by the end. A 2nd edition WAS needed, but they were probably too ambitious with it. I think 2e was a major blow but it came on the heels of Legion and Armada which split their own audience. I was a HUGE x-wing player. Owned every faction, went to regional tournaments, the whole nine yards. I even converted my entire collection to 2e. I stopped playing because I got really into Legion. The whole situation with Asmodee drove a lot of folks away too. They just carved FFG up like a turkey and fired longtime devs unceremoniously. And then the final nail in the coffin was Atomic Mass rolling out 2.5, which basically gutted the game. It seems like they want to focus more on their own new Star Wars games. I don't blame them, I blame Asmodee. I used to love FFG as a company.

[@PatrickVS101]

The three original factions had nice identities. Rebels - cool handshakes, Imperials - action economy, Scum - random fuckery. But the other factions were hybrids and ship/pilot sharing just kind of muddled any level of identity. Also probably just digging out ships to release that probably didn't need to be there.

[@MaliciousMallard]

It was lively here until 2.5 dropped with the game transferring over to AMG. They just didn’t seem to care about the game and support for it is poor if not non-existant. I really shame because the game is amazing. I ran online tournaments during the pandemic through tabletop sim and was an active part in the leading community, both promoting the game online and in person, making third party game tokens and cards and guest appearing in podcasts. It’s still a fun game, I still have active players, but the major level competitive scene is all but gone and much of the community that made it so fun isn’t part of it anymore

[@benpuffer7891]

If folks could start up an X-wing community now, would 1.0 be the rules set of choice?

[@Gibbons3457]

Never. 1.0 was a mess by the end. Utterly broken. It would need a full forbidden and limited list like a tcg just to remain functional. 2.0 was a great rules set the cost of converting seems to be the biggest problem for the comments section. Most people blaming it for killing the game aremboth wrong and also uninformed since they never played it.

[@v02max75]

For me, it was the capital ships. We started with fighters, then we got the frigates(Falcon, Slave I, etc) and then we get these massive bulk cruisers. This game is called "X-Wing" not Star Wars fleet commander. I liked the smaller ships, maybe one freighter per side. Or no freighter and 5 ships. Whatever. And I LOVE the big ships, make no mistake about it. I just didn't think it fit with the game system of dog fighting Star Wars ships.

[@sergeiyamagoro431]

In my area, some of us were reluctant to spend money to convert to 2.0, but it ended up being pretty good and we bought out the conversion kits a couple of times. We loved it! But AMG absolutely killed it here. All those upgrades we just spent hundreds on? Bin em!

[@johnstone2255]

I started collecting and playing 1.0 a month before 2.0 was announced. I had already spent a chunk of money on my collection and wasn't about to restart it. As it happens my wife didn't really take to it and I had no one else to play with so, I eventually sold it all. A couple of years later and, due to the down turn in popularity, I was able to buy a bigger collection for peanuts. The reason for getting back into it was not just because of the awesome ship models but because fans have created solo play rules for the game. It seems that history is repeating itself, I had no idea there was going to be a 3.0! Got to love Fantasy Flight.

[@StrawbeRRyVibes1]

I started wave 2 when game was still new in Chicago. Love it. I have many medals for first place and few store championships trophies. As soon the 2.0 was out I only purchased one upgrade kit for Empire and Scum. I played few tournaments and eventually migrated over to Star Wars Armada. I lost track what is happening with X-wing now and I fear that I so behind to continue the game. I still have massive collection that I will keep, but I don't see my self playing new missions and ships I have no knowledge of. I fear that Armada is loosing players now as well.

[@erikriggiola6780]

I had no problem with the conversion kits. They mostly matched the number of ships I had with but a few exceptions and the 2.0 releases filled out any missing spots in lists. No one I knew had 40 tie fighters or 20 X wings.

[@RicksPoker]

I thought hard about converting to 2.0. There were so many things that I felt that were improved, that I made the jump. (However, I only had Rebels and Empire, and a much smaller set, so two upgrade packs were 90% of everything I needed.) I was not into competitive play (I just played with my friends), so I didn't care about fewer tournaments in cities. We just played with the new ships (I really like the TIE Brute!) and had a gas. More fun than with 1.0. Simply 2.0 is a better game. One very bad part of 2.0 was the increase in the price of ships. $15 ships were now $20 or $25. That change alone really hurt the game. I think Fantasy Flight Games should have still supported 1.0 tournaments, but all the prizes should have been mini upgrade packs. ("Congrats! You get a pack with a unique card, 4 pilot cards, and the upgrade cardboard for 2 Tie Fighters.") Then Atomic Mass Games (AMG) took over, and new supplements slowed down to a crawl. Also, they feel that people can't add to 200. When lists were 200 points, you could do fine balancing on if this card should cost 4 or 5 points. When AMG said lists were going to be twenty points, how do they adjust fine point costs? You can easily have a card that is way too expensive at 5 points, but clearly too cheap at 4. Their new system where ships have a low cost, but they come with only a handful of upgrades, took a lot of fun out of the game, of trying to find the perfect collection of ships and upgrades, crew, weapons, etc. I disagree that AMG made X-Wing 3.0. I feel that 2.5 is amore honest description of how much changed. In 2.5, you don't need conversion kits, you don't need new cardboard or new ships. You just use the new costs, and a few new rules. (Half of the new rule changes I agree with BTW. The other half I hated.) But the new way of building lists is just less fun. And that is why I think AMG killed off X-Wing. We are still happily playing 2.0. Warm regards, Rick.

[@jomorim]

Having huge and expensive models that you need to buy for their cards. That's where it went wrong.

[@dblevins343]

As a huge fan of the game, and someone who still plays it regularly, the answer is a bit convoluted. The change from 1.0 to 2.0 did cause the game to take a hit initially but it eventually worked its way back to being healthy and prevalent. 2.0 was an improvement from 1.0 so it was an acceptable growing pain. So the game was healthy up until the Pandemic. As with most games, the game went on life support during this time. Once the pandemic ended, people started meeting back up in person and the game was returning to its normal healthy numbers. But during the pandemic FFG's overhead Asmodee decided to move all miniature games from FFG (X-Wing, Armada, Legion) to AMG (MCP). AMG didnt know what to do with these games because they didnt have the man power, knowledge, or passion for these games. They enjoy painting more than they enjoy games (my opinion is showing in this sentence). Right around the time everyone started playing again post-pandemic, AMG drastically changed the rules moving the game from 2.0 to 2.5. While many tried to play it for months to come, the vast majority of people ended up leaving the game because of these changes. Now the game is in limbo and AMG doesnt seem to be excited to do anything for it or Armada. They seem to just want to let these games die so they dont have to think about them anymore and move on with Shatterpoint. Personally, I still play X-Wing and I'm still heavily invested into it. But Ive reverted back to 2.0 through the Legacy project and have been having a blast with that.

[@DragonHeir8585]

I converted to 2.0 and I actually enjoyed it, despite the initial cost. I applauded the digtial points system to help balance out the meta whenever something became way too overpowered (I still have shudder at the memory of facing down 3 Tie Defenders with Juke on the other side of the table). But I did notice the decline because many players dropped out for various reasons and with the pandemic, communities just couldn't stay together and many dissolved. But actually even during 1.0, some of my friends never invested in the game because they didn't like the 1v1 standard format being the only option....until the fan-made Heroes of the Aturi Cluster Rebel campaign was made known. My friends only played the campaign because they really prefered the co-op PVE campaign over the 1v1 competitive play. I still play, even today, but only with my friends with the fanmade campaigns, (I myself helped create the Imperial campaign, Flight Group Alpha by designing several of the scenarios). That's pretty much the only way I'm still playing the game. I would love to go to the store and pick up games again, either 2.0 or 2.5, but I just don't have the time or money, not to mention energy to find a store and make new friends who also enjoy the competitive play formats.

[@casualdadgames]

So I'm an avid current player - started in 1.0 and have kept on going, even competed at Adepticon this year (LCQ, not actual Worlds) and I think the game generally is in the best spot it's been since the early days. Looking back, X-wing 1.0 was unusual in that there were some serious problems with the rules and levers available to adjust balance. Things like turrets being 360 arcs, points and upgrades being printed on pilot cards stand out as just extremely restrictive design space. 2.0's basic ruleset was an *amazing* improvement (I think) in basically every way. It kept me in (where late 1.0 had almost lost me) and got me hooked in a whole new way with the addition of Prequel factions. It still has some fundamental design issues though, and as you touched on was extremely unfriendly to stores/vendors stocking the stuff - which, fast forward to the latest changes, that appear on the surface to address some of the biggest issues with both rules and store shelves. I compare it, heavily, to 40k which has stupidly rapid Edition turnover, and each edition barely feels improved over the last, if at all.

[@jaredlasseter7364]

Making me just after a few years "re-buy my own stuff", as I put it. Is a great way to lose me as a customer. I just recently came around to starting to convert my X-Wing Miniatures to 2nd edition... And now your video just said there is a 3rd edition coming out...😑 Like seriously what the hell!?!?

[@TheCaptionrex1]

i dropped out at 2nd edition, more because everyone eventually seemed to only care about playing tournament meta lists, but also I didn't want to spend all the money to convert and to play meta lists to have a chance. still have all my 1.0 stuff and will play with just my brother and cousin only at this point.

[@chrish1906]

locally, 2.0 didn't seem to have an impact. It was actually received positively by most of my local communities (most, but not all). Covid hurt more. And 2.5... pre Covid, I had 2 active x-wing communities I could show up to play in (one in my home town, the other where my office was). Between Covid and 2.5, both communities died.

[@Lord_Aussem]

Yeah I sold off my stuff just as 2.0 came out. Our group was playing Horus Heresy at that point and I just didn’t want to be bothered to upgrade to 2.0.

[@jmanusmc2006]

It was a bucket with a 1000 holes. The hurdle of rules changes and conversion kits, Splitting up factions which killed a lot of people's lists, Disney ruining SW, and FF stretching themselves thin with Imperial Assault, xwing, armada, and legion.

[@Chainmailninja]

Played like crazy on launch, then stopped when 2.0 came out. Collection is gathering dust on the shelf, but looks pretty cool.

[@owlsayssouth]

2.0 conversion kit, not converting everything (that is every pilot) was the deal breaker for me. The local group died, which was sad. I still have my collection. It would be nice to play 1.0 again with friends.

[@briandhaze5906]

I spent HUNDREDS of dollars on X-Wing 1.0. I collected those ships and played that game with joy in my heart. It DEMOLISHED Warhammer as my favorite game. Then 2.0 came out, and if I wanted to have all that stuff i invested in to remain current, I had to buy conversion kits for EVERYTHING. For what?? A few tinkered rules? The game was FINE. So I stopped. I was livid and still am. All my ships just sit there now. Shopping on Ebay for out of print ships sucks next to supporting my local store. I have moved on, and now my obsession is Shadows of Brimstone. What remains is an empty space inside, and resentment of a company that couldn't leave well enough alone to get more money out of me. Screw that game.

[@adrumm03able]

I never thought I would see a random shadows of brimstone reference in an xwing video!

[@briandhaze5906]

@@adrumm03able that game is a beast worthy if respect, am I right? It’s a lifestyle game. Haven’t played anything else in a long time, and I gotta stop myself from buying more expansions.

[@briandhaze5906]

@clydeshelton3212 yeah I still got shrapnel in my eye.

[@adrumm03able]

@@briandhaze5906 yeah I hear that! I didn't participate in the Egypt expansion kickstarter....I already have way too much sob.

[@briandhaze5906]

I am DEFINITELY getting the Hell Train expansion. @@adrumm03able

[@zehmyan]

I used to be a store judge and organizer for this game. like you, I have a massive complete 1.0 collection. I have the conversion kits, because when Atomic Mass Games got the license, I got them cheap. To this day, I have not had the chance to learn the new rules. No interested players. Now you're telling me that they'll do an actual 3.0 ... not the 2.5 edition we've been calling the Atomic Mass era? I really miss playing. I wish they didn't have to do this to us over and over again. Constant rules changes are also what got me to quit Heroclix after many years.

[@gundamzeta3447]

For me the issue was I saw the starter in a Waterstones (uk bookstore) it looked good but I didn’t get it, every shop I see X Wing models but I never see a starter set. In my local game shop me and a friend was buying stuff but he asked about X Wing and the guy at the shop said they don’t sell starter sets anymore which put him off.

[@daniel_f4050]

I went whole hog into X-Wing. Dozens of ships. Played nearly every week. Then X-Wing 2.0 and the stores allowing no face to face gaming did exactly as you said. The sickness killed the momentum completely. And then 2.0 BS of having all the various ships, pilots, equipment, etc that you had collected being broken up into an additional multiple of factions instead of just Rebels, Imperial and Scum doubled or tripled the cost of staying in the game. For me that means it’s been nearly four years since I played X-Wing. FFG put a tremendous amount of effort into killing the Golden Goose. In many ways it was worse than any other company’s crap that occurs when there is a new edition. Even with GW you needed the new rulebooks, but you never had to replace your entire army. FFG seemingly wanted you to buy new _everything_ as they split the factions forcing you to buy at least two conversion boxes. And if you wanted any of the new 2.0 cards you had to buy the models again. As a regular player who already owned many X-Wings I had 0% interest in buying many more boxes of the exact same X-Wings. It was like having to buy a new car just because I needed new tires.

[@pkscarr]

used to love x-wing back in the early days. Great ruleset, lovely models, and the options of being able to play out our own little homebrew scenario fun inside the star wars universe. Then 2.0 dropped, half the players i knew wanted to go competitive with all the spending that meant and went off on their own, and the other half that was more casual or into homebrew story just drifted away slowly into other games. We still played with what we had but the interest just slowly died off and now the models just sit there on shelves looking pretty. shame really, I have a lot of memories of really fantastic games

[@johnroth5919]

COVID was a big hit to the game. I bought a bunch of new ships right before the pandemic and never could find an event that was beginner friendly

[@mwikan01]

Not only did 2.0 kill my interest, I decided to shift game systems to Wiley Games' awesome "Starfighters!" and keep using the ships. Has a complete campaign system, ship designer, capital ships, Pilot skills, the works and can handle up to 52 ships on the table at a time.

[@GI-JOEs]

I stopped playing when 2.0 came out. My friends started to play with 2.0 and i didn't want to pay for upgrade packs. I loved playing double VT-49 Decimators. I'm still a big fan of the game.

[@chrisc1625]

X-Wing is the game that got me into the modern hobby in 2014. I remember going to my local game stores on weekends and seeing tournaments and tons of people watching. It was crazy. I can't remember the last time I saw people playing this game at any of the game stores in my area. I know that one store has an X-wing and Legion night, but that's during the week. I don't know how many people go to that. Definitely nothing on the weekends. All my game stores still sell this game, and a few sell Armada and Imperial Assault.

[@jmcyncousineau1316]

My personal opinion\observation what caused the player base to reduce by order: 1. 1.0 to 2.0 version change - In 1.0 there were far more 'Kitchen Table' players than those running around doing OP events. I think by numbers, the game lost the most players in 2018. 2. Pandemic\COVID - Every tabletop games suffered due to 2 years or on and off lockdowns. X-Wing seems to be one that lost the most. A change in the game's maker during COVID made things even more shaky. 3. Move to AMG\2.5 changes - in 2019 FFG was already alluding to some different game plays like scenarios. Mother Asmodee dropped all the SW minis games on AMG that clearly was not ready to take this on. They didn't have the team FFG did to maintain the on going balancing issues (points...etc...) So they came up with a new way to have very little changes to make that are not as easy to break the game - the 20 point squads with loadouts. Eliminating most generics from being worth playing. Coming out with static loadouts in the form of Standard loadout cards. There were a slew of changes, but the 2 that I heard the most complain about are the 20 points squad base and the scenario play (it is over whelming for some). 4. AMG's other product priorities - it is obvious. They focus on the games that AMG studios designed and released first (MCP, Shatterpoint) and of the 3 Star Wars games, Legion was the most similar to MCP and they are likely using the same manufacturing companies to make the miniatures (they got loads of new plastic). X-Wing and Armada are fully baked products, so they likely had to learn from ground up the process to design and get someone to build and paint the ships. This has lead to Armada being nothing short of being shelved and X-Wing with only new cardboard and cards since 2021 (all releases of new plastic were things designed by FFG). 5. New editions and refreshed games that are more acclaimed (40k, Battletech...). 6. Lack of OP track\store kits et new plastic product - this is a fallout from COVID and the transfer to AMG. Getting new product out is a 2+ year process from conception to street date... AMG had released product that are familiar scenarios which are excellent, especially for the casual thematic players. But does not appeal that much to those completionists so much. They had a first go at store kits... but it was a bit of a roller coaster on distribution, rules around the worlds invite. I for one hope they have 2 store kits variety... one that is just to run an event with little knick knacks to give out and then a true Store Champ Kit with the worlds invites. We'll find out soon enough. Worlds will be well attended for all SW games, Armada, Legion and X-Wing. So there is still a strong community... however even some of the staple communities that were once massive groups on the world stage are fizzling out. Like you say, it makes no sense given X-Wing is one of the few games you can grab a product, unbox it and play it right away... and it is Star Wars! However what makes it easy to enter also makes it easy for it to be dropped\sidelined. Usually when people start 40k, they are all in, they have no choice, it is so expensive and so time consumming, if you want to keep up, you need to constantly have a pile of unpainted minis. For X-Wing it is solely a financial commitment, someon scna spend $400-500 play for a few months and easily move on feeling they didn't sink that much energy in the game. We've had a few of these players since 2022. It is worth mentioning that online play is probably the biggest reason why we even still have a community today. There are several large leagues that run TTS events and during COVID there were many TTS and Vassal events.

[@benc8738]

I dont really know if I agree or disagree with that as the beginnning of the X-Wing downturn, But it could be and here is why at least from what I see: I personally thought 2.0 was much needed and very welcome. I found many of the rules from 1.0 to be very "feel bad moment" inducing. I thought turrets in 1.0 where aweful and made turreted ships just game breaking, several ships could find ways to throw more than 6 dice, and it got to where besides a couple of aces, most ace lists were not competitive, and some were broken good. As with many archetypes and even games in general. 2.0 lead to a much more balanced competitive field, imho. But where I dropped out was a few years later when I just could not find people to play. Part of it was Covid, but really even before, I live in an area where between 5 cities close by, the population was under 500k, and most gamers here prefer to play multiple games rather than stick to two or three. Also, Heroforge (I think is what its called), Warmachine, and battletech now have sort of taken over. So I think maybe a factor is that not just Warhammer, but many other wargames have well, "upped their game" so to speak, but the overall really is somehow (competition or poor business decisions), players have left in droves, so more and more people leave and its a bit of a death spiral. Idk if that adds to the discussion, but that what I have experienced.

[@Corundum_Rolls]

Reading the comments I find it interesting that most have a different game ender for them. I am in the 2.0 column. We had friendly game night playing monthly, sometimes doing scenarios. I hold it all in the event we play again. I still have all of my Heroscape pieces and I will hold on to my x-wing as 1.0 is a very playable game.

[@kettchuk918]

GW release new editions and you can use everything you’ve already got after buying a new book. There might be new models or whatever like the swap to the new model space marines but that was done gradually, not “drop this, buy everything anew”. You can still use some of the old models in game now, that gradual refining of the systems is why GW is still here decades later.

[@yendub]

When AMG took over and nothing happened for quite some time. Then, they introduce missions and change up the tournament scene. Finally, they stopped releasing new ships but instead release battle packs that give new option for current ships and re-release old ships set for version 2.0. Add all that and then the pandemic, well, it killed it. Gold Squadron Podcast did a great job keeping the game going with its tournaments in Tabletop Simulator. But, it wasn't enough. The game is dying.

[@ghostx697]

The temper tantrum around 2.5 killed my local group, I pivoted to Battletech and haven’t looked back.