X-wing First Edition - A Love Letter

[@HairyNick]

Hi all! Sorry for the audio and syncing issues in this one. I did my best to fix it as much as possible but you can only edit a video for so many hours before just sending it. I'm still experimenting with new recording and editing techniques so I appreciate peoples patience.

[@thehikingcucumber3410]

I listen on my commute to work, didn’t even notice the audio syncing until coming to the comments 😂

[@Anondod]

I only played in a couple of X-Wing tournaments, and that was before the truly broken stuff showed up. (I believe swarms of B-Wings and Interceptors were the favorites at the time.) I still have fond memories of those early games, but I don't ever want to go back to 360 turrets and broken card combos.

[@Wh0isTh3D0ct0r]

X-Wing 1.0 is sort of like games like Cosmic Encounter, where everyone is so OP that no one is truly OP. And it’s also great for home brew metas. And if you’re looking to get other people interested in playing it, then start with something small, like limiting the squad points and the number of ships you can use in a list.

[@edvolz73]

Great trip down memory lane, thanks guys.

[@lebverderben]

Talking about the taking no damage thing... I was originally angry about 2.0. I thought it was a massive cash grab by FFG. Then I watched a video of one of the last major US 1.0 tournaments where the players in the final match decided to play Looping Chewie for the last fifteen minutes because neither had any way to score points. That was when I realized just how broken late first edition was

[@HairyNick]

One of my biggest memories of 1.0 (wasn't said in this video, there are alot) was from the last store tournament I went to. During rounds, everyone but 1 table finished with about 20 minutes to go, and the last 2 ships on the board was an inquisitor vs a RAC (actually similar to Justin's list just split up). It was a non stop merri-go-round where the inquisitor would just ocassionally plink off the odd hit on RAC and RAC couldn't get a hit in no matter how many dice he threw. Was painful to watch.

[@BestShifty]

Who doesn´t remember PTL, Stealth Device, arc dodging Soontir Fel with tokens for days ... and the counter to that was running TLT Y-Wings and praying that one attack hits and you get to remove the Stealth Device.

[@HairyNick]

1.0 Soontir was miserable to play against. He still has seen heaps of play in second edition but the skill required to master him has gone way up. His power ceiling is similar, though. I remember several more casual players complaining loudly that they nerfed the most fun pilot in the game whilst several top teir players still managed to place with Soontir lists.

[@matthewcary615]

Regarding passive mods, the elite pilot talent Expertise allowing changing all offensive eye results to hits was wild.

[@HairyNick]

Crazily enough, I think the "can't be stressed" clause is what stopped it from being super top teir. PTL just feels more versatile most of the time, unless you have a way to cheese it by auto-removing stress. But yes. As written it would be automatically busted in second edition.

[@debadwolf9727]

Need to start calling this Hairy Justin and Nick

[@HairyNick]

Reset-The-Clock-meme.jpg

[@johncleave]

Oh hi increasingly hairy Justin!

[@snethss]

I had forgotten how broken and flexible some of the building was in this game. FFG was just too afraid to ban cards, when it's quite common in other games.

[@HairyNick]

Yeah there definately was an ethos of "sometimes errata, never ban". I get it, it's nice having the game pieces in the tin do what they say, but the odd ban seems like it should have been necessary. The introduction of flexible points and Hyperspace were a good way of addressing this, though. Just playing devil's advocate for a moment, but there is a strong case for avoiding ban and errata due to how much confusion it causes. Case and point, AMG are very flexible with this. Don't get me wrong, I do love that they allow print and play material, but boy there so much content in the MCP boxes that are just flat out wrong. I've played a few introduction games with another FLG regular (game is awesome btw), and I feel like half the time I'm enjoying the system, the other half is "ok just a wait a tick......... so this card is supposed to say this.....".

[@CaptainKeyForge]

Remember it fondly. Yup, there were stages where you couldn’t damage certain ships. Guidance Chips was a 0 point upgrade and admission that none turret secondary weapons didn’t work. Equally then Harpoons came out to help stuff actually be removed from the table and it was too effective. With Guidance chips and a re-roll, an average roll results in 4 hits out of 4! (An average roll being 2 hits, 2 blanks, followed by spend lock, re-roll 2, get 1 more hit, then use the upgrade to flip the blank) I went 5-1 and finished top 32 (of 500) of the 2018 UK open using “Joustero” having Nym similar to yours, Torani Kulda and Captain Jostero. I also, really miss the Shadowcaster. Can’t even really use it under current rules. Bought one at launch. Had it converted to have light up engines and I love the ship. Had a Sabine build that was virtually un-hittable. Haven’t played for ages though. They kept making (for me anyway) too many changes to key game fundamentals between 2.0-2.5. Maybe I’ll come back. Still got my ships.

[@RemisRandR]

Only played casual xwing during 1.0, so we never had issues with the broken stuff or the meta (we didn’t know about it 😂). 2.0 made us play more competitively

[@AllanGoodall]

X-Wing wasn't played at any store local to me. I started with The Force Awakens sets, as I got one for Christmas. Since I don't play competitively, I never spent the money to upgrade anything to 2.0.

[@HairyNick]

That's fair enough. Doesn't seem like it would be worth it if you're not playing in tournaments.

[@thewynnest]

This was a great watch. Learned lots of stuff. Thanks Nick!

[@jdorfer2759]

First store tourny i ever did in 1st edition brought Kath Scarlett and Bossk. I think i won one? After that RacKlo with Quickdraw was my favorite.

[@GI-JOEs]

My friends and i still love 1.0 and dont plant to upgrade to the 2.0 or 2.5. We played casual and never miss used the game to make it broken. Glad X-Wing still lives on among the community.

[@HairyNick]

Given that there may be a strong push for relaxing standards on game pieces, I'd encourage people in your position to give the newer systems a try! (and vice versa for new players)

[@Rottenflieger.]

I've never played X-Wing competitively so I wasn't really too aware of how unbalanced parts of 1.0 were. With the announcement of the game's cancellation I decided to try and pick up the various 1.0 ships I never got when I was playing it more frequently, and have been enjoying the nostalgia of looking through all the old cards. I think I always intended to "one day" switch to 2.0/2.5, but the conversion kits never quite fit the collection I had, so I was looking at a substantial investment in just cardboard ahead of me. Now I don't really see much reason to switch over, as there aren't really many 2.0 ships that really interested me, so I'll likely stick with playing 1.0 for friendly games. Really interesting to hear how various upgrades stacked in 1.0 to make such crazy combinations! I've never been particularly good at seeing potential in certain combinations of upgrades and tended to play games based on what ships I like the aesthetics of the most. At this point I am quite looking forward to playing some of the coop X-Wing campaigns for 1.0 such as Heroes of the Aturi Cluster and Flight Group Alpha. It's funny that the news of the game's cancellation has pretty effectively revitalised my interest in the game after many years of it being boxed away out of sight!

[@HairyNick]

At this stage, don't worry about the cardboard. I suspect moving forward (no hard confirmation on this yet but I intend to push hard for it) there will be a much more relaxed attitude towards official game pieces. Already seeing various individuals looking to produce things like generic templates ect. I love 2.0, but the edition change should have been used as an opportunity to genericize the cardboard pieces. Taking details off of ship tokens would have been HUGE in terms of cutting down cardboard.

[@jdub-replicant]

as a 1.0 player myself, i feel compelled to comment on the "broken" responses. i understand the "was broken" sentiment but i'm pretty sure that generic statement is not entirely true. there were definitely a whole bunch of synergies that were not discovered or used as well as some really simple match fixes that FFG could have implemented to make the dogfight matches better or even interesting such as objectives. Armada had it, imperial assault skirmish had it. they provided additional win conditions that did not rely entirely on destroying all or most of a ship/list and would have directly addressed the players with ships that flew safely out of range on the outskirts. some of those ships weren't necessarily made for the dogfight and they shouldn't have been blamed for flying safely out of the way. there wasn't a proper risk/reward for those ships though objectives would have helped with that. what i find troubling is that for tournament play, the "broken" lists somehow lead to the distaste for 1.0 and in actuality, I think the hard requirement for having the upgrade cards and their availability only in certain expansion packs directly lead to the distaste and "broken" state seeing as it was a possible form of pay to win if you could afford the right expansions. If people could get all the upgrade cards they needed to have an "official" playable list that they really wanted to build then it might have been a different story, that plus people actually knowing how to fly the lists (select the right maneuvers) and how to strategically play the mat. as for the turret 360, there were only 6 ships with a 360 firing arc and of those, only 2 had a "3" attack value (decimator and yt-1300), which doesn't exactly feel broken. most tournament matches i ever watched never handled the alpha-strike properly which really set the tone for most matches. for ffg to just force a whole new set of cardboard was just a bit too far and honestly the first sign of its demise. the 1.0 crowd were the ones that help build up the game that was already in a mature place and needed a simpler and more elegant solution to bridge into new content specifically, they needed to stop making people buy expansions to acquire upgrade cards rather people should have been able to buy the ships they wanted and print the cards they needed. the instant an app was available, cards should never have been required again. they should have had lists that could be printed out that met tournament requirements. it would have allowed people who acquired the ships outside of retail to play the game if they bought it off someone who didn't give them the cards etc... and tokens should have been made available to buy in bulk if necessary and not necessarily only through some channel's way overpriced special plastic tokens. for anyone that is interested still in 1.0 play, i am working on an application to create lists without the cards (pilots/upgrades) etc... so that you can just print out lists with the card art and manage upgrades with their respective restrictions (faction, slots, points etc...). a current work in progress. for the sake of my development project, i would like to understand if there is a well written 1.0 vs 2.0 vs 2.5 comparison of what made 2.0 and 2.5 superior (across the board) and not just for nuanced scenarios if someone could point me in the direction. It might help with what I'm building at the moment too.

[@HairyNick]

Look....... I really hate to be that guy. But all the issues and proposed fixes you described here were all addressed with the 2.0 update (even with objectives, which was added in 2.5), barring the big cost of having to buy out of faction to get upgrades, but that was still SIGNIFICANTLY improved, and in the rare case there was the odd upgrade that was hard to access the pilot packs addressed that issue.. 1.0 was being patched and errata'd to a point where it was becoming unweildy and inaccessible. I can say as someone who has played both competatively and casually in both formats it was %100 the right call to make, but I agree that the implementation wasn't perfect (way better than most companies, mind). As for being able to build and print out lists, YASB already offers that feature, and I completely agree with you. Now more than ever, there should be a relaxed attitude towards having to own all the official game pieces, and being able to print lists is a big one. You are completely right about the issue of 2.0 bringing way too much extra cardboard, and I'm feeling more and more these days that many of the game pieces should have been generisised to help cut down on shipping cost and make that game less cumbersome (Generic ship tokens, for example, would cut down ALOT of extra cardboard).

[@jacobatkinson6584]

I thought 1.0 was fun until it wasn't anymore because you had to take very specific list to be competitive. I liked 2.0 because it brought a better balance and discouraged generics. And then 2.5 have us other objectives which was nice.

[@HairyNick]

To enjoy 1.0, you had to be INTO the competative nonsense. It was genuinely heaps of fun, but ultimately became less accessible to new players.

[@maciejmachowicz9745]

Great video! Such nostalgia :) and also hate for that Nym with genius ;D X-Wing 1.0 and 2.0 were my favorite competetive tabletop games, nothing else coming ever close. My favorite list I ran was Vader with harpoons, Inquisitor with Harpoons and named Aggressor with TLT for harpoon detonation and some defensive talent. Got to top cut day 1 on Spanish nationals with that list :)

[@HairyNick]

Oh man I forgot about TLTs.....

[@nuadai]

I loved bombers of any size, color and faction. Nothing better than shitting all over the field. Didn't play much 2nd Edition, but loved it in the 1st one. On a side note, is Justin no longer the "less hairy" one? Debatable? :D :D

[@TheTobaccoman]

Competitive play , the hard core type , killed 1.0 I played pretty casually , even with some power combos, and never had any issues. Every player had strong builds and op feeling ships, it was great. Never went to 2.0 and probably never will. Edit: I’d say some bias , anti 1st Ed comes from the high emphasis of hyper competitive play. Lots of games suffer taken to hyper competitive levels , x wing is no different and the focus to hyper competitive didn’t save it from its inevitable death now. I feel like games should be for fun , but few commercial games hold up to hyper competitive based on power creep and need to drive sales. Commercialism and good game design don’t really go hand in hand. I’d say X wing was a perfect game taken casual competitive or casual. Hyper competitive it falls on its face as most games inevitably do.

[@HairyNick]

I dunno.... kinda feels like 2.0 fixed the power imbalance and made the game fun for everyone, no matter how competative they wanted to be? Whether you're hyper competative, or super casual; so long as you aren't being a jerk to other people, the way you interact with the game is valid. Blaming one group for the death of a format isn't helpful.

[@Squirl513]

I started x-wing during 1.0. I think that the most broken list i ever ran was with Miranda and captain nym. Surprised you didn't bring up shield regen at all. 1.0 was great but I cant think of any game mechanics where 2.0 wasnt superior.

[@HairyNick]

There's so much to talk about, was never going to cover all of it. Myself and a friend of mine were grinding Nym/ Miranda and Nym/ Asaaj for a regionals, we both barely missed the top 16. We both had the same issue with the VCX lists.

[@groadoswaggins]

1.0 could work again, BUT, you'd have to have an adaptable point system.

[@HairyNick]

I'm sorry, but there are just way too many core fixes and mechanical shifts that prevent that from being realistic (even beyond points). It's a great fun playground that's best left in it's own space (a similar feeling I have for 2.5).

[@gwin2719]

Do you think any company will take on x wing and bring it back?

[@HairyNick]

@@gwin2719 given the demostratable success of the game, it's likely imo that it will either eventually shift to a new company, or Asmodee will try and make a similar game with another studio.

[@curtis6668]

How did no TLT or stressbot talk make it into the video?

[@HairyNick]

Because it was just a casual chat between 2 mates who played some fun lists and cited a few examples to give an overall picture of a game system for fun on the internet? *_*shrugs_**

[@curtis6668]

@@HairyNick no offense meant haha just remembering the list building that went into dealing with those :) TLT would destroy 2.0/2.5

[@fredbettesworth5397]

I did so well with ventless and denger.

[@HairyNick]

That sounds nasty.

[@fredbettesworth5397]

@@HairyNick it was great. Unbeaten in 3 successive tournaments

[@jacekmaciag2114]

Hi. do you remember Parattani?

[@HairyNick]

Yup, Sure do! Didn't they have to limit Attani Mindlink to 2 ships or something like that afterwards? Man that expansion caused so many issues with the meta....

[@Emperor_Atlantis]

I am sometimes sad that I cannot play X-Wing 1st ed since I only own clonewars ships (I did play 1st with a friends empire ships).

[@HairyNick]

Can't you? Perhaps you should look into Tabletop Simulator. ;)

[@johncarty999]

Hi Nick great to see you back buddy. Just a quick comment to let you know i only play 1.0 and never bothered with future versions. The reason is because i have so much stuff, that buying the conversion kits for them would have cost me more than buying the ships themselves. Also im not a big fan of AMG as a company to put it politely.