tie fighter Archives - Felix's Gaming Pages

Cheaper Second Edition

Just bought Star Wars X-Wing Second Edition on Amazon for just £12.99.

The boxed set includes three models, two TIE Fighters and an X-Wing.

From the skies of scarif in Rogue one to the climactic clash above Endor in return of the Jedi, starfighter have played a pivotal role in almost every defining battle of the galactic civil War. During these confrontations, the brave members of the Rebel Alliance faced seemingly insurmountable odds, squaring off against the merciless forces of the galactic Empire in intense, ship-to-ship space combat. Since its release, x-wing miniatures game has invited you to enter the Star Wars galaxy and play out your own battles with some of the series’ most iconic starfighter. LEADING custom-built squadrons into fast-paced, high-stakes battles, you’ve flown with the galactic Empire, the Rebel Alliance, and the Scum and villainy of the galaxy in countless battles. You’ve modified your ships for every Scrap of speed, manoeuvrability, and firepower. Now, it’s time for a new chapter in your x-wing journey. X-Wing second edition puts you in command of your own Squadron of advanced starfighters locked in thrilling, tactical space combat. Following in the footsteps of the first edition, the second edition refines the intuitive and exciting core Formula of manoeuvring your ships into position by placing a central focus on the visceral thrill of flying Star ships in the Star Wars galaxy. With three fully assembled and beautifully pre-painted ships, and all the cards, movement tools, tokens, and dice that you need to get flying with the second edition, the x-wing second edition core set is the perfect way to introduce yourself to the new mechanics or experience x-wing for the first time.

In September last year I blogged about getting the first edition for this kind of price using Keepa. I forgot I had set up triggers for the second edition, so it was nice to get the alert to enable me to get it for the cheap price.

Buy it on Amazon.

Red Leader, Red Leader, Cheaper Leader

I really like X-Wing for recreating the star fighter conflicts from the Star Wars universe. It’s a fun game and one that can be played with a few ships or a fair few. I am sticking with the original rules, despite the fact that there is a new edition out now. The original boxed set comes with three models.

I wanted to get some reinforcements for both the Empire and the Rebel Alliance, but wanted to get some of the standard models, having already got specialist models such as the Millennium Falcon, B-Wings, A-Wings and fair few of the TIE specialist fighters.

So first on my list was the X-Wing. With a list price of £15, I have managed to get one on Amazon for £8.79, which I thought then was a bargain.

I had noticed that the original boxed set on Amazon was sometimes sold at a discount, but I don’t have the time to continually check Amazon for those price fluctuations.

Well just because you don’t have the time, doesn’t mean it can’t be done. I now use a service called Keepa which has an extension that can be installed on the Chrome browser. What Keepa does is keep track of prices of products on Amazon. This is useful if you want to see the history of prices for the product.. Has it been cheaper or expensive.

You can then trigger an e-mail alert when the price reaches a particular level.

Using Keepa I have managed to find the starter boxed set on Amazon for just £8.99, the list price is £36.99.

As the set contains an X-Wing fighter and two TIE fighters, that (for me) was amazing value. I also get an additional set of movement templates, counters and dice. So for the same price as a single model, I get three!

At the time of writing the price is £23.13, but it does go up and down.

Cut the chatter, Red 2. Accelerate to attack speed!

In 1977 I queued around the market square in Cambridge to go and see this new film at the Victoria Cinema, which was called Star Wars.

There was something about that quiet start, the Lucasfilm logo, the text, “a long time ago, in a galaxy far far away” and then BANG, the John Williams main theme hits you right away.

I remember thinking what a wonderful film. I never really did Star Wars as others did at that time, I didn’t buy the action figures, but that memory of the lost droids, the princess, the massive ships, the little fighters and, no it’s not a moon…. has stayed with me.

Speed up to 2015 and the release of The Force Awakens, there was some trepidation (I had seen the three prequels) but that same style of beginning gave me a little shiver and reminded what it was like nearly forty years earlier!

I guess like a lot of people, even if you don’t think you are, I am pretty much a Star Wars fan!

So this year, after much thought, I did get the starter boxed set for the Fantasy Flight Games X-Wing Miniatures game.

It’s a great way to start playing the game, you get all the counters and three lovely pre-painted ships.

This has been out for a while now, originally released back in 2012, but I didn’t get it for nearly four years. Some of my hesitation was that I have always loved the simplicity of GZG’s Full Thrust and had once used the mechanics to create a Star Wars fighter version. I had used Full Thrust for games involving Star Trek ships and then the simple rules worked really well.

Another part of me was conscious of the cost of the game, the boxed set’s retail price was nearly £40 and the ships were all about £15. It felt like you needed to spend a lot of money for a decent game. Having said that I did quite like the idea of getting a game complete with painted models.

So I was pleased to receive the game as a present and started playing games with the single X-Wing and the two TIE fighters.

The first few games I had were with the quick play rules, which were easy to pick up, fast to play and fun.

Then it was time for the full rules, which were a lot easier and simpler to pick up than I thought they would be. The main difference was actions. This made the game much more strategic and required you to really plan what you were going to do.

Having enjoyed a few games with the full rules I decided it was time to get some more ships. What I found was that the models on Amazon were cheaper than other stores and of course with Amazon Prime they arrived the next day!

The first reinforcements I got were a B-Wing for the Rebel Alliance and a TIE Bomber for the Imperials. The packs were also rather misleading, as you get quite a bit in them. The B-Wing pack looks like this…

…but this is what you actually get inside.

There are lots of cards and punched card counters as well as the model and the base.

These were very different ships to those included in the starter set, slower, less manoeuvrable, however they packed a much heavier punch and could take a lot more damage than say the flimsy TIE Fighters.

I did pop into my local branch of Forbidden Planet and was not surprised to find the range there, somewhat limited, but virtually everything was full price, except the lowly TIE fighter which was on special, so I got another, to boost the Imperial forces.

Overall I really like the game, I like how you can keep it very simple, or you can add more complex elements such as actions, cards and asteroids! Looking to expand my forces with more models over 2017.