I feel... conflicted... about X-Wing lately.
On the one hand, the core mechanic of plot dials, reveal and resolve in ascending pilot skill order, and then attack in descending pilot skill order is amazing and solid. I love the miniatures, I love the alternate game modes like Epic, Kessel Kup, and Heroes of the Aturi Cluster, and I'm not ever giving up my ships.
On the other hand, the game itself is broken competitively. Around 5% of everything ever printed is currently being used competitively, and that might not be bad if the game was just whatever the devs make up like Magic the Gathering, but this is Star Wars. The draw is X-Wings, TIE Fighters, Luke Skywalker, Darth Vader, not Tel Tevura, Jumpmasters, Tugboats, and other obscure things that show up in one novel for a few pages or a twenty year old video game and nowhere else.
What might also make it better is if there were actually other ways to play being endorsed by FFG, but no dice there.
It's just... I'm really starting to dislike actually playing the game. It's about finding combos and stacking abilities and trying not to lose the rock-paper-scissors matchups too badly, not flying well and trying to outguess your opponent. The best game I had recently was a near-mirror match where it came down to my Quickdraw and his Backdraft with Adaptability, both of us with one damage, and it was a final moment where we had to guess how the other would move... and I guessed wrong and lost. But it was AWESOME, everything that I've ever loved about X-Wing, a game about arc dodging and maneuvering and prediction and FLYING, not just rolling tons of dice or negating tons of dice.
I guess I'm just downhearted because I've been helping a friend test the latest hotness, Fairship Rebels - which is Biggs, Lowwrick, Jess Pava, and Rex, with a game plan of "spread the damage that would hit Biggs out to as many other ships as possible so you keep your four ships alive while theirs die... or you go to time" - and it's just plain boring. Boring to fly against, boring to fly, it's all about beating on it until it cracks or catches you in Jess' arc multiple times.
