My long-awaited Rebel Transport came to my home at the conclusion of the new international Holiday, May 4th. I was ecstatic to put my hands on that new creation from Fantasy Flight Games and without a doubt; it will load my spare time with countless adventures. The sheer joy of the new game X-Wing Miniatures is wonderfully articulated in the picture below. This is literally what its like at my house. And it will get worse—I promise. Over the weekend while playing a game of X-Wing, to celebrate May 4th, the official Star Wars day which happens every year with great fanfare, my one and a half-year old grandson wanted desperately to play the game with me. So I let him roll my dice and he loved it.
For the first time that I can think of the official Star Wars weekend launched a spectacular amount of news over the first weekend of May. First the new cast was announced for the new films—which had their first script read together last week. At midnight the new Rebels television show released their new preview which can be seen below. Guess who was watching it at 12:01 AM in the morning of May 4th? Me! On top of all that even the Cincinnati Reds dedicated a whole weekend against their first place division rivals the Milwaukee Brewers. It was Star Wars weekend at Great American Ballpark in Downtown Cincinnati. My family went on Friday night when after the game there was a spectacular fireworks display to the music of the famed musical conductor John Williams that ignited the sky. From the premium seats in Great American Ballpark it was the best fireworks display I had ever seen. Just a bit behind home plate, most of the people who normally sit in that section had got up and left leaving us nearly alone in the coveted section and completely untouched by other human beings. However most of the 30,000+ crowd stuck around with their children and they loved the show with much emotion. During the entire game Friday night, Star Wars characters were all over the field and the music was piped in through the stadium and it was genuinely inspiring to see the two entertainment franchises coming together like that.
Leading up to that baseball game many of the die-hard Reds fans on talk radio and elsewhere were perplexed as to why the baseball team even attempted to cater to a new “geeky” demographic group. I wanted to tell them, but they lacked the language to understand. Just like they would never understand why I kept checking my UPS tracking number on my Rebel Transport during the game hoping it would arrive for a vicious game of X-Wing the following Saturday. I’m 46 years old and to their minds should be interested in a lot of other things—but I am part of that demographic that the Reds were reaching out to—and among young people there are a lot more like me coming to age.
Two weeks from now Hollywood Studios, Florida has their Star Wars Weekends which are always fun. The first weekend is the popular dance off which I always love displayed in the center stage of that fabulous park. Those weekends are typically so busy that the parking lot spills over into the Epcot Center. The parade is one of the most spectacular displays of Star Wars fandom anywhere in the world. The question from the un-initiated is…………..why?
During the Reds game I had to explain to my daughter how when I was younger I had to make a difficult cultural decision. I was spectacular in sports and every teacher who coached a sport wanted me to be on their team. I was the fastest kid in my school especially during my grade school years. Athletically, I could have done anything I wanted to. But, culturally back then, it was taboo to enjoy Star Wars because that made a person categorically a geek. And I loved Star Wars. I was friends with one of the most popular girls in my school and her younger brother was one of my best friends. Through her I could have had access to the upper echelons of public school popularity. But I hated it and wanted nothing to do with any of that politicking. Instead her brother would come to my house on a Friday night and bring all his Star Wars toys and he, my brother, my brother’s friends and I would play with all those toys until late into the night. I never got sick of it even when I was older and my girl friend was interested in boys and all the kids my age were going to dances and hanging out at football games. She thought I was weird because I had no interest in the life she lived. I had picked Star Wars over sports because the culture dictated that you had to choose.
I thought it astonishing that the Reds actually had a Star Wars weekend because finally after 30 years of human evolution the marketing department for the Cincinnati Reds understood that if they want to survive into the future, that they better find a way to appeal to the “Star Wars Geeks.” The game of baseball with all its traditions is struggling to appeal to younger audiences, so they are getting creative even though in an interview with Brandon Philips on 700 WLW, he clearly didn’t understand.
In a lot of ways the new X-Wing Miniatures game is closely associated with those late night sessions playing Star Wars as a kid, and even as a grown adult I’d still rather do that than hang out in some other venue doing something I’d consider utterly useless. Many people confuse Star Wars and Star Trek as being of the same thing, but they are radically different. Star Wars is not about just exploring new frontiers in space and the interactions of characters with different backgrounds and species types. Star Wars is a deep, and rich mythology that works in ways that religion struggles with and is a creation of our times exploring all the primary concerns of our day. Star Wars for me is a western in that it is primarily concerned with the same type of honorable values. It is also about technological innovation and has its roots in drag racing where a young George Lucas loved cars and carried that love over into the space ships of Star Wars. Many of the beat up ships of the new Star Wars games are like galactic hot rods and have a similar appeal as Hot Wheel cars, only these can be used strategically to beat an opponent in a game of thought. I have never seen anything like the new Rebel Transport created for a simple game. By itself, it is an amazing work of art.
Ultimately the wars of Star Wars are about value and the popularity of those films in all the venues extending beyond the silver screen are essentially about preserving or destroying values. For me, the stories of those values carried far more weight than just athletic prowess in sports, or the ability to kiss a girl at a dance. Watching the Cincinnati Reds embrace those values gave me tremendous hope for the future transcending a human leap of evolution many were not aware of. But I saw it during the Reds post game fireworks display and the many tens of thousands who were at Great American Ballpark to enjoy the relatively private show. With all the news that came out about Star Wars during the May 4th Weekend I understood with renewed vigor why the first film was titled A New Hope. The movie was not just about a galaxy far, far away a long time ago but about our human race in the here and now. For many, myself included, Star Wars is about a new hope. My infant grandson knows it, the people at the Reds game knew it, and the thousands who like me were watching the Rebels preview at 12:01 AM knew it. And I wasn’t the only one waiting for my Rebel Transport to arrive over the weekend. Most fans of Star Wars find in it a hope that is otherwise vacant. Hope is why I picked Star Wars over sports as a kid, and space ships over girls. I’m still that way, only my wife actually plays that stuff with me, which is why we’ve been married so long.
The new Rebel Transport is one of the most dramatic things I have ever looked at for a whole lot of reason—most of them centered on hope. In the films the Rebel Transport was the rebels last hope of punching through imperial blockades and fleeing for freedom to live another day in a fight between tyranny and goodness. The X-Wing Miniatures model is really just a lot of plastic and paint, but it is in the organization of those things into a coherent interactive story about hope that makes it something I was checking its arrival time every hour on the hour over the entire weekend. And now that I have it, all is right with the world. The reason is that it represents to me hope, and that is the core of what the term, “May the 4th be with you” really means.
My regular readers usually don’t give articles like this one much notice—but often I gain new ones who aren’t specifically interested in philosophy or politics. However, I would recommend for everybody to consider this topic because of the vast reach and scope of it which will conclude with an article tomorrow about gambling. There is a changing paradigm of social behavior which is unmistakable and positive and deserves some attention. We spend a lot of time complaining about the effects of long-established social causes, but seldom identify new causes before they take hold and the effects they bring with them.
I have written as reference more than once my intense love of the new tabletop game Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures. To my view Fantasy Flight Games who produces that game is simply one of the best companies of its kind anywhere in the world. Over this past week the new rules for their Epic Play formats was released and a good indication of the direction of the game was provided. The much talked about Rebel Transport expansion shipped early from Barnes and Noble and within a week people like me who have had pre-orders out there for a while will receive their ships. I can genuinely say that I am very excited about it.
Also a Wave 4 set of expansion ships is hitting at the start of June and Fantasy Flight Games is sponsoring a tournament as a chance to win first dibs on the lucrative new ships. So I signed up to participate and realized quickly how vast this new game is across the world as I looked up the list of participating stores near my home. It was actually quite astonishing to me because it allowed me to see just how popular this game is not just in The United States, but throughout the world. You can see for yourself at the link below and preview some of the ships from Wave 4. The participating countries are Belgium, Canada, France, Ireland, Romania, Slovakia, The United Kingdom, and The United States. And we’re not talking about just a few stores; each country has dozens if not hundreds of participating stores. Just in Cincinnati for instance, there are two not counting additional stores in Dayton and Columbus. So getting into the tournament called Assault on Imdaar Alpha is not difficult.
I had a particularly rough series of days this past week and to calm down I found myself shuffling through the game cards that I have for X-Wing Miniatures thinking about the squad that I wanted to enter into the upcoming tournament. I found in the cards a soothing quality which made sense to me. The pilot rating cards clearly establish the value of that particular character and the overall mythology of Star Wars plays largely in the context of how each ship is used under different circumstances. But the operative word was value—it was refreshing to look at a card from Fantasy Flight Games and establish the value of a game character with the stats presented.
I pretty much picked my squad for the tournament, but the experience of doing it was actually relieving because of the exercise of value associated with the task. Others across the world are doing the same thing for the same reasons. The reason this is important is because of the modern trend pushed in public schools throughout the world has attempted to present this ideal that all people are equal no matter what their effort is, their skill, and all associated characteristics. We know now in hindsight that this desire for equality is a task perpetuated by communists for years and this is how such a thing came to our public schools. Yet society is rejecting such notions through their art—their movies, their reading material, and especially in the games they play.
The X-Wing Miniatures game is not just an American game, although it is an American invention. It is growing in popularity enormously since I first started writing about it, and is about to explode. For years I have watched with a level of suspicion how gamers played Magic the Gathering and other types of games with great intensity. I knew that the reason they did such a thing was because the fantasy of the game was something that was more appealing than the options presented in real life. I never enjoyed card games and board games much—especially games like Poker because of their association with gambling—which I personally despise. But I do love stories and mythology and I see these new games which were just being invented when I was a kid with Dungeons and Dragons, quickly taking over the old games—which is good.
I have often listened for hours the broadcasts of the Cincinnati Reds and wondered how many grown adults found the stats of the baseball players so endlessly fascinating yet turned around and supported socialism in their workplaces, their education institutions, and even their families. Each game in baseball is pretty meaningless in the context of plot—yet broadcasters have found ways to make every game sound compelling. I have also watched for years gamblers obsessed with horse racing, dog racing, NASCAR racing and willing to spend their entire paychecks on a gamble as to who will win and how. I now see that changing among the new generations—starting with my age group on down.
This new form of gaming is centered on mythology. Each game of X-Wing Miniatures forces players to embark in a kind of story during their play. The value of the cards drive the dialogue—for instance a typical squad build for me is one called within the gaming community as a “Han Shoots First.” It is because Han Solo has such a high pilot rating and typically gets to shoot first during the combat phase of game play. This build involves the Millennium Falcon and one or two ships of lesser pilot value to provide wingman support. Just the construction of that build creates a storyline which must be played out, whereas in Poker or Blackjack there is only the value on the card which a player then uses to their advantage or not depending on circumstances. In these new games the same thing is happening, but there is much more to it—mythology is a part of the experience and that driver of the drama in these stories is brought about because of values that must be attributed.
It is for this reason that I am absolutely salivating over the arrival of my huge Rebel Transport. Just this past week Fantasy Flight Games published the new rules for using the “Huge Ships” in game play and after reading them I was immensely impressed. X-Wing Miniatures is very interesting to play and it is ever evolving. It literally changes every three months and this seems to be the appeal of these new games over the old ones. Check out some of those rules for yourself at the following link:
The reason that Baseball is declining in America is because the new generations cannot relate to it. The game is too slow and the plots of the game do not provide an entertainment value that can compete with games like Magic the Gathering and now X-Wing Miniatures. While baseball a few years ago looked the other way to allow Mark McGuire and Sammy Sosa to fight it out with a season long steroid driven home run derby, the passion for the game really didn’t exceed beyond the borders of The United States. Japan took to the drama, but really, nobody else could relate. However in just a year, Fantasy Flight Games has published a game that has people lining up for weekend long tournaments all over the world—and it isn’t just because a movie which is three decades old is so popular, but because players can immerse themselves in a storyline that reflects their values. The very act of playing such a game is an exercise of identifying value—and this translates directly to the real world.
Most of the people who play X-Wing Miniatures are smart. They love to think. The whole premise of such a game is to think. It’s not based on random luck, or the hope that a passive third-party will be successful and garner victory for the bet placer, X-Wing Miniatures is all about participating in a mythology that is very similar to reading—but exists in a kind of in-between world where the storyline is the responsibility of the players. Players are responsible for making their own drama, their own stories—and the stories are value driven. In order to be successful, players must learn to ascertain values. This is a tremendous new element to recreational gaming. The participants aren’t passive, but are in fact very active in that process which is why these games are so vastly popular.
It is why I sought those cards after a rough week; it is why people all over the world are looking forward to tournament play for the Wave 4 ships, and why people like me everywhere are watching their mailboxes for the new Rebel Transport. Many of our modern problems are due to the fact that the games the previous generations played often put the burden of decision-making on randomness and passive participation—such as guessing the outcome of a gambling scenario be it horse racing or a roulette wheel. Players of those types of games have also voted in their republics in the same manner—they have passively participated then grumbled when the results did not go in their favor. These new gamers, the X-Wing players are “active.” By watching how this new Fantasy Flight Games invention has taken off—literally, the people who play that game will have a much different role in their future decision-making endeavors—such as how they vote, and who they vote for in democratic elections. And it gives me assurance to know that the mistakes of the past will not proceed into the future which makes X-Wing players some of my favorite people anywhere. Their numbers are likely already greater than those in any Tea Party activity and is expanding by the day. They represent a new demographic that will approach the future with a new sophistication that simply wasn’t present at any point in the past prior to the 1970s.
In 1974 Gary Gygax and Dave Arneson first published Dungeons and Dragons and have since grown into over a billion dollars in sales. It was the first tabletop strategic game of its kind. Star Wars: X-Wing is the natural evolution of this gaming type and evidence that human beings in all their vast capacity to think and imagine—can actually create recreation to heal themselves—as a species. Because that is what these games represent to me—healing—they bring to the human mind what it most desires, to think, to assess value, and to create their own storylines. And I can’t think of anything more valuable than that—and I love to see that America is exporting to the rest of the world something that does such things in a positive and creative way. I am really looking forward to the Assault on Imdaar Alpha.
That is typical in these gaming environments, there is such a love of creativity and boundless imagination which I find refreshing. Comic book stores are great places to recharge after all the dread of reality has done its best to erode away logic. Some of the best people I have known over the years find solace in those kinds of places, so it was nice to celebrate my birthday there with my kids.
I can’t say enough about the X-Wing Miniatures game. As often as I reference it, it continues to impress me. Nostagic Ink had on hand an impressive array of Y-Wings, and X-Wings. The Y-Wings have been mostly sold out on Amazon because players buy them up for their durability during combat and Ion Turret ability. My son-in-laws’ had their Imperial Aces on the table for the first time which was a sight to behold. Those new Imperial ships have a curving barrel roll effect that is really valuable and is yet another wrinkle in an otherwise highly imaginative and innovative game that is ever-changing forcing constant adoption.
Way back when I was 13 to 14 I was involved in military war simulations which were tabletop games that I found very stimulating, intellectually. Back then, West End Games was producing some great stuff and eventually the realistic simulations of actual World War II battles, and Civil War engagements gave way to a game called Assault on Hoth, which was a Star Wars strategy game done in the spirit of those battle simulations. It contained a map with the traditional game hex-and-counter mechanic and played well. Imperial Walkers attacked the Rebel base on Hoth and Rebel Snowspeeders had to meet them to prevent the shield generator from being destroyed. During the early days of our marriage my wife and I played it three to four times a week and it set a pace for our relationship that would last for decades.
When I learned war gaming as a young man I quickly learned that much of what was being studied were battle tactics no different from what military generals had been taught at West Point for generations—only without all the politics of the position. By role-playing battle field formations set against values players had to make the same kind of decisions that military generals had to make in wars from the past. In this modern age of gaming—for the first time in the history of the world, war gaming wasn’t regulated to the military elite—but to hobbyists and history enthusiasts. Of course the emotion of the battlefield is not present, and the threat of death not a factor, but the same types of decision-making that George Washington had to make during Revolutionary War battles, or General Lee had to make during the Civil War were available to anybody curious enough to play a game. Most modern war games are very sophisticated and take into account the many factors which are required for such strategic thinking.
Nostalgic Ink has in the middle of their store an entire section of these military war simulations that are much better than the ones I played as a kid. They are fascinating and players routinely set up in the back of that store to play them. But for me, Fantasy Flight Games has changed the entire field of miniature war gaming with Star Wars X-Wing. It has all the battlefield tactics of many of those traditional war games, but it has the added element of flight. I find myself thinking about that game all the time these days.
This is a good thing because real life often requires the same kinds of hard decisions that X-Wing forces players to realize. American society has the Second Amendment to protect themselves from an overzealous government. But it also has freedom of thought, and this has given rise to a culture emerging in these comic book stores where tactical decisions are available to regular people outside of any orthodox political class. For instance, this year’s FFG world champion is Paul Heaver a software engineer from Northern Virginia who is married with two kids. He plays online CCGs and computer games, but X-Wing Miniatures is the first game of its type that he’s gotten really serious about. Before going to the World’s competition—where literally people from many countries all over the world came to battle it out in Minnesota during February of 2014, Heaver paid close attention to the battle reports on the game forums and saw that Tie Swarms were dominating tournaments so he calculated a strategy of using two low pilot value X-Wing fighters and two moderate pilot rating B-Wings to slowly whittle away at the low pilot rating Tie Swarm strategy. The effectiveness of this approach can be seen below in the video of his championship game. If you watch the video it has the visual quality of a golf game. People cheer when ships are destroyed the same way an expert golfer sinks a long birdie. The same skills that Heaver used to win the Worlds championship at FFG are the same skills it takes to manage large companies, run military maneuvers, and run countries. I would put Paul Heaver against Vladimir Putin any day and I’d put my bets on Paul. But in this emerging X-Wing popularity there is Paul Heaver types popping up everywhere and this is a very good thing. There are a lot of very smart people coming up in these gaming circles.
The tactic that Paul used to win his championship will be destroyed with all the new ships and rules coming out quickly, like the new rules involving the Imperial Aces ships. They can now barrel roll out of a firing arc and right into the side of a targeted ship taking away their shot, while performing theirs with deadly effectiveness. So what works today may not work tomorrow, which is why I love X-Wing. It is why I spent my early birthday with my kids at Nostalgic Ink eating chicken nuggets and playing tactical table top warfare. Back when I was introduced to these miniature war simulations I learned from a Green Beret who was so obsessed with military tactics that these war games were the only way he could experience battlefield excitement, that the only real difference is that you don’t hear the bullets whizzing by your ears and possess the obvious knowledge that every breath might be your last. Otherwise, this is what it is like. Fantasy Flight has done with X-Wing Miniatures something that is new—it has turned up the heat considerably and no longer is reliant on the Star Wars brand to sell the game. It’s great by itself as its own thing. Tactically it is complex, and is a wonderful way to pass the time for those obsessed with strategy. And that would be me. It is my ideal of a fun time and how I prefer to spend my leisure because all too often real life calls on those skills—and because usually what we do in our recreational time directly contributes to how we conduct ourselves professionally. And because of Star Wars: X-Wing, the future looks very bright to me.
I love technology as much as anybody, but when I want to relax, technology is often not part of the experience. I will always love a real book in my hands because I don’t like looking at a lit up screen to read, and I will always prefer physical activity to computer play. But with the NSA concern in reading every email, watching all online traffic, and all the privacy concerns involved, I love Star Wars X-Wing Miniatures more and more—because of the low tech, yet complex game play. I play the game as much as I can because it has all the multifaceted strategy of a video game, the intellectual muscle flexing of chess, and the unlimited creative potential of miniature model building incorporated into a non-technical exercise that is a true vacation from the many prying eyes of our modern world. The video shown below is from a couple recent games that I played displaying the creative potential behind the game. The models are very detailed, and provide creative stimulation for boundless imaginations, and the terrain such as asteroids and star field backgrounds surprisingly pull the mind into the game world effectively.
The depth of the game is something to truly behold, but for me it is the lack of technical involvement that is most attractive. When playing, the technical outside world is turned off. However, perhaps even better the creative potential of the game is limitless, and the company Fantasy Flight Games has really overachieved as an organization. Prior to 2013, they already had a championship caliber game that would live on for many years as a crowd favorite. But they didn’t stop there. Instead, they worked on making 2014 one of the most exciting in the short life of the game with a whole range of new additions. Every game addition mentioned below is something that I am very eager to experience and will hit the marketplace within a few months of this writing. These will make the video shown above that much more exciting, and complex, and will fill many evenings with great joy. Fantasy Flight Games is one of the most innovative and forward thinking companies in existence. I wish they were not applying these great skills to just entertainment, but in the field of aerospace, manufacturing science, and research and development. But in the world of gaming, they are simply the best there is at this point in time. Here are just a few of their releases over the next couple of months that I am most excited about.
The GR-75 Medium Transport
First unveiled as a prototype at Gen Con Indy 2013, the iconic GR-75 Rebel transport is most famous for its critical role in the Rebellion’s evacuation from Hoth. However, the GR-75’s role in the Rebellion’s efforts extended far beyond that pivotal conflict.
GR-75 transports were used mainly to transport supplies, equipment, or troops, but some were modified to serve as fuel tankers for long-range starfighter missions. Relatively inexpensive, the GR-75‘s hulls couldn’t be penetrated by Imperial sensors, and the Rebel Alliance often enhanced this feature by outfitting the starship with sensor jammers. Indeed, the Rebel Alliance made such common use of the GR-75 that it was often called the Rebel medium transport.
Rebel Aces features one A-wing and one B-wing miniature, both of which come with alternate paint schemes. You’ll also find four highly skilled unique, new pilots; thirteen upgrade cards; maneuver dials; and all the tokens necessary to launch these starfighters into the thickest action of your space battles against the evil Galactic Empire. It also includes a new mission, which thrusts some of the Rebellion’s finest pilots into a desperate rescue effort that highlights the B-wing’s durability and the A-wing’s agility.
Heroic New Paint Schemes
Fly with the best! The alternate paint schemes on the starfighter miniatures from the Rebel Aces Expansion Pack allow you to battle for the Rebellion’s cause while representing the heroic efforts of the pilots who first flew its A-wings and B-wings as experimental prototypes.
Only ace pilots were granted the right to fly prototypes for the Rebel fleet. Piloting the agile A-wing required tremendous focus and lightning fast reflexes. Still, by helping the Rebel Alliance develop and improve upon its original designs, their efforts benefitted everyone dedicated to the cause of galactic freedom, and the A-wing ultimately proved its worth during the Battle of Endor by helping to cripple Star Destroyers.
To honor those prototype pilots who first flew the ship, the A-wing in Rebel Aces features the paint scheme depicted on the Prototype Pilot ship card, with a bold blue central stripe and red and yellow highlights.
Manufactured by Incom Corporation, the Z-95 Headhunter was the primary inspiration for the later design of the T-65 X-wing. Even though the X-wing eventually outclassed it in nearly every respect, the Z-95 was cheap, durable, and reliable enough that it continued to see use throughout the Galactic Civil War, most commonly in close air support roles.
Entering X-Wing as the Rebel starship with the lowest squad point value, the Z-95 Headhunter is perfectly suited to play the role within the game that it played within the Star Wars galaxy. It’s a durable and reliable starfighter that comes with the ability to carry and fire missiles, making it capable of playing a strong support role.
While the Tantive IV is easily the most iconic CR90 corvette in the Star Wars galaxy, it is by no means the only one of import. Manufactured by the Corellian Engineering Corporation, the CR90 was a swift, multipurpose ship that saw widespread use among governments and private parties.
The CR90 corvette’s modular design made it easy for users to reconfigure it to best suit the purpose they wanted it to serve, and the CR90 was often employed as a cargo transport, troop carrier, passenger vessel, or light escort. Additionally, the CR90 could be outfitted with enough weaponry to make it a formidable gunship; it could equip as many as eight turbolasers, six laser cannons, and four ion cannons.
The Tantive IV Expansion Pack presents a similarly adaptable starship for use in your games of X-Wing. Between its two ship cards, for fore and aft sections, the CR90 can equip up to ten upgrades of four different types.
It is always a pleasure to experience a company that is doing everything right. With Fantasy Flight the only real issue they have is in delivery of new product line. They are currently late on the CR90 and CR-75, but for what they provide as far as product, they are worth the wait. There are few things that bring me so much pure joy as Fantasy Flight Games X-Wing Miniatures. For those new to the game I have provided samples of tournament play from Team Covenant who is a committed group of table top gamers who wish to advance the hobby to for the uninitiated. The game is different from gambling games like Poker and Black Jack because it is essentially a war simulation. The added ability to actually pilot vessels makes X-Wing Miniatures even fun to watch because the entire game play area is up for grabs. Every conceivable mathematical surface of a play area is an option. The game is not limited to spaces, or a game board—but to the unlimited options of a game player and how they chose to utilize that battlefield. That freedom is both within the game and from external electronic control, surveillance, and other limitations that make X-Wing one of my favorite current past times—a trend that is not likely to subside any time soon.
What does Glenn Beck, Jon Stewart, and Seth McFarlane all have in common even though they are all political commentators and satirists from polar opposites—a rather intense love of Star Wars that often comes out in their work. Star Wars as I have said many times has the ability to reach beyond the rhetoric of modern politics and perspective and speak to the heart of very complicated matters. I have never known of anything like it and have enjoyed the constant DAILY musings about the new film, Episode 7 coming out in 2015. Every single day there is a new story on the internet speculating about the making of that film and I have really enjoyed the debates about whether or not the Expanded Universe will be included into the new films. There is much wonderment about how much Disney and J.J. Abrams will want to make their imprint on the new saga. The belief as of now is that these new creative interests would pick and chose from the many comics, novels, and other material created before them constituting the “expanded universe” and would change names and places to suit their own input. Well, I think people who believe those kinds of things are intensely wrong as there is a cool dude who is the current protector of the intellectual Star Wars universe named Pablo Hidalgo working with Abrams and Disney as he has for years with dozens of writers and game designers to keep the story continuity of the massive Star Wars saga consistent.
My intent with this article is not to give away spoilers for the next film, or to give away details of the massive volume of books from the last thirty Star Wars novels, many of which were New York Times Best Sellers. We are not talking about a silly bit of escapist fantasy, but many of these novels are very series explorations into political science, philosophy, and psychology. For instance in the book Ascension written by Christie Golden an ancient being 100,000 years old named Abeloth seeks to make a power play against the entire galaxy while a group of political strategist look to resurrect the Empire of old by provoking a slavery revolt to create a crises for the Republic overwhelming their resources allowing the Empire to make a move. Meanwhile a group of ancient Sith are teaming up with the Abeloth to return their dominance against the long hated Jedi. The story reads like something out of a Saul Alinsky manual, but what’s different is that there is context in a story to apply the meanings too, which makes the concept of such betrayal digestible. When Ascension was released a few years ago it was #7 on the New York Times Best Seller list.
When the novel Lockdown, which came out this past week hit the shelves at our local book store my wife rushed out to snag up her copy. The book was not nestled in the distant corner hidden shamefully where nobody would see it—it was right out in front next to the front door so it was the first thing customers would see when they arrived. Stacks of them were there right next to Glenn Beck’s newest book Miracles and Massacres. My wife consumes these Star Wars books in about 3 to 4 days on average devouring them with great intensity—and she’s certainly not alone. In our house, we have well over 200 Star Wars novels, some of them junior readers, but at least 160 of them were written for adult audiences and feature a very complicated and intricate history from the Star Wars universe.
I feel extremely confident that Disney and Abrams with all their prudence would be foolish to ruin what Lucasfilm has spent decades building—but rather would tap into this vast mythology from the business side preserving the creative input by hundreds of individual minds guided to the same spot by George Lucas. Lucas provided the canvas for which many, many people painted a very elaborate picture of a vast story that explores the nature of politics, life after death, and the fundamentals of human interaction. I do not believe for a second that Disney would be so foolish as to disrupt this process. Rather, I believe with the same deductive reasoning that I have predicted many actual truths in the world here at this site of Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom, that it is the many speculations of established thought that are wrong. The new Star Wars films will pick up shortly after the novel Crucible just over 45 years after the original Star Wars film A New Hope. I believe that the villains will not be a resurrection of Darth Vader, or even the Emperor this time, but will center on instead on the story of Abeloth, the void in the galaxy left by the destruction of a place called Center Point Station, and events that took nearly 70 years prior when Anakin Skywalker refused to play his role in becoming a Keeper of the Balance upon solicitation by the Ones.
Disney has an opportunity through the intense work of Lucasfilm to create perhaps the most potent mythology ever fashioned by human minds dwarfing all the Greek myths, the symposiums of oriental culture, Hindu legacies, and Andes folktales. If Disney taps into fully the work done by the Expanded Universe there will be a tremendous wave of culture that will hit the current empty vessels of civilization with the force of a tsunami, only it won’t be a destructive force—but a positive, creative one. There will be nothing like it in the works of mankind. I’m as sure of it as the sun shines during the day and the stars can be seen at night. It is a certainty. The story of Abeloth is one that has the potential to eclipse the threat of the Emperor from the previous films and ties all these Star Wars stories into a giant complex tapestry of interwoven stories that make bold attempts to dig at the heart of evil and will sufficiently wrap up the entire point into a unifying principle worthy of all the hard work done for so many years by so many people. Only a villain of such an epic—timeless scope has the ability to justify more Star Wars films. Disney will then be free to make television adaption’s of all the novels bringing all the story lines leading into Episode 7 providing content for decades further that will plaster itself to the minds of millions. Disney will obtain a very needed revenue stream from the Expanded Universe—thousands of additional Star Wars figures instead of just hundreds, and merchandising that will eclipse the sales of all their current efforts. This will make Star Wars the most massive, and valuable cultural phenomena ever known. Finally, the Jedi and the Sith will have to decide how to unite after many thousands of years of war bringing the force into sharp focus for the first time in anyone’s memory fulfilling the attempt by the Ones to have that balance restored by Luke’s father Anakin.
I have not been shy, I am a raving lunatic when it comes to the latest Star Wars X-Wing Minatures game and the announcement of the Rebel Transport. CLICK HERE TO SEE THIS THING! Keith Ryan Kappel is a writer and employee at Fantasy Flight Games who makes X-Wing Miniatures and he recently had a posting at the official Star Wars website telling the complicated history of Centerpoint Station which was destroyed by Jacen Solo. That act by Jacen caused the rise of the Abeloth which I believe will be the focus of the new Star Wars films as the premier villain. Keith from his perspective is in a position to know things—and this article on Centerpoint Station and the Abeloth has some importance that should put things to rest and ease the minds of millions of Star Wars fans. Episode 7 and beyond won’t be about Darth Vader, the Emperor, or even a bunch of Stormtroopers. It will be about transcendence beyond pairs of opposites and will be extremely powerful philosophically. It will accomplish what no religion in the world has ever thought possible, it will unite the minds of mankind on planet earth in a way nothing else has ever been able to—and it will be very important, as well as entertaining. So enjoy Keith’s insight and history shown below and use the link at the end to visit the original article.
Throughout galactic history, Centerpoint Station has been many things to many beings. For the Killik hives, it was a religious duty. To cosmic threats, it was a prison. Colonists called it home, while criminals called it good for business. Governments have viewed it as a doomsday device, while Jedi thought it as a threat to galactic peace. For the Corellians, its power represented true independence. Centerpoint has been all of these things and more.
Centerpoint Station, the most powerful force in the galaxy, second only to the power of the Force itself, was created in February 1995 by legendary science fiction author Roger Macbride Allen for his Corellian trilogy series of novels for Bantam Spectra. The station’s power dwarfed that of previous superweapons and left an impression on fans, paving the way for the station’s return as both a setting and superweapon in future novels and role-playing games. This is its story.
(Note, there are SPOILERS ahead if you have not yet read theFate of the Jedibook series.)
Centerpoint Station is a massive 100 kilometer sphere with a pair of thick 125 kilometer poles at either end. The station is situated in the Corellian System, and sits at the exact barycenter between the planets Talus and Tralus. Xenoarcheologists have dated parts of the station at over 100,000 years old, making it four times older than the earliest known incarnation of the Galactic Republic. The purpose and mystery behind its construction has only recently been uncovered.
The Killik hives that constructed Centerpoint Station called it Qolaraloq, or The World Puller. However, the Killiks did not design the station, they were working on behalf of two Celestial architects known as the Son and Daughter of Mortis. The purpose of the station was to create a tractor beam analogue powerful enough to move planets, stars, and even black holes from across the galaxy. To accomplish this feat, the Killiks first constructed Centerpoint Station in orbit around Corel, a star with only two outlier planets.
At the same time, other Killik hives built planetary repulsors on habitable worlds. When construction was complete, Centerpoint dragged these worlds through hyperspace with its advanced tractor beam to create the Corellian System. Centerpoint itself, amplified by the additional planetary repulsors, had enough raw power enough to move black holes throughout the galaxy.
The architects had a stepmother of sorts named Abeloth, a being similar, but not quite as powerful as the Celestials. Unfortunately, Abeloth had been driven mad in a bid for power, and for the good of the galaxy, would have to be imprisoned. Since no known prison could hold beings of the architects’ power, the Son and Daughter were forced to construct one. Centerpoint Station was to be the tool that built the prison.
Centerpoint dragged dozens of black holes into a precise formation known today as the Maw Cluster near Kessel. The black holes blockaded Abeloth in exile, where she remained imprisoned for tens of thousands of years as the Architects faded from power and civilizations rose and fell.
Over millennia, the function and importance of Centerpoint Station became lost to history. By the time of the Clone Wars, any information regarding the station’s origins or function were unknown, except that the station itself was approximately 100,000 years old. While many researchers and locals had theories, most of the galaxy gave Centerpoint no thought at all. During the fledgling Republic, Centerpoint became a staging area for colonists boarding generation ships. Later, those supporting the colonization industry simply stayed.
Centerpoint itself is a part of the Federation of Double Worlds of Talus and Tralus, and is subject to their laws and taxes. The station gets by largely on trade and tourism, with additional funds generated from scientific research. Due to the station’s immense size, only a fraction is mapped or even explored, and countless orphans, homeless, and undocumented beings eke out a meager existence on Centerpoint.
The biggest area on Centerpoint Station is Hollowtown, a massive, 60-kilometer-wide spherical void at the center of the station. Hollowtown contains tourist attractions, lavish estates, and countless farms and ranches to feed the station. It is also home to two artificial mountain ranges known as the Northern and Southern Conical Mountains. Between the two mountain ranges lies the mysterious Glowpoint, a small artificial sun that lights Hollowtown at all times.
The remaining decks in the spherical portion of the station are known as the Shells, because of the way each layer outward from Hollowtown encases the next like an eggshell. These decks contain a number of living quarters, but are largely unexplored. The space where the spherical center joins either pole contains massive docking bays where most trade occurs. The northern pole contains most administrative offices and a number of university and private led research projects, while the southern pole is believed abandoned, but occupied by a growing criminal element.
The power of Centerpoint Station was rediscovered in 18 ABY by a distant cousin of Han Solo, Thrackan Sal-Solo, who was working with the Sacorrian Triad. In a scheme known as the Starbuster Plot, the Triad, after a test-firing in a vacant system to ensure the station worked, held the galaxy ransom. An unfortunate side effect of the test-firing was the unexpected consequences to Hollowtown. When the weapon switched on, the Glowpoint swelled in size, incinerating all Hollowtown’s inhabitants instantly. The entire void was actually a combustion chamber to power the hyperspace tractor beam. Centerpoint Security immediately evacuated the rest of the station, leaving the station under the control of the Triad.
The Starbuster Plot was eventually foiled by Han Solo and Princess Leia’s children, particularly Anakin Solo, who bonded with Centerpoint Station’s command center, and locked everyone else out of the system. The station was firmly under the control of the new Corellian government, which was allied with the New Republic. During the Yuuzhan Vong invasion, it was proposed that Centerpoint be used as a weapon against the invaders. Thrackan Sal-Solo was brought in by the Corellian government to get the weapon operational. Eventually, after enlisting the help of Anakin Solo’s help, he did just that. However, firing the weapon during the Battle of Fondor ensured the young Jedi would never help him again, as the shot destroyed as many Hapan ships as it did Vong.
Following Anakin Solo’s death a short time later, Sal-Solo set himself to the task of rearming the station’s hyperspace tractor beam by creating an advanced droid using Anakin’s genetic material. Over a decade of work paid off, and Sal-Solo once again held the trigger to the galaxy’s most lethal weapon. With Centerpoint Station firmly within its control, the Corellian System declared its independence.”
Reactivating the most dangerous artifact in the known galaxy sparked a new galactic civil war, as the Republic sought to once again remove Centerpoint Station from being the ultimate power in the universe. The Jedi decided enough was enough, and sent a strike team, who were able to sabotage the targeting computer so Centerpoint would always target itself if fired. The slicing subroutines worked, and moments later, while trying to destroy Coruscant, the station imploded in on itself, ending the threat posed by Celestial power in mortal hands forever.
Abeloth was a being created as a servant by the three Celestials: the Father, the Daughter, and the Son. In time, Abeloth won the Father’s heart, and became known as the Mother. Nowhere near as powerful as the other members of her new family, and destined to die in what would be an eyeblink for them, Abeloth drank from the Font of Power and bathed in the Pool of Knowledge — both forbidden acts — in hopes it would make her a Celestial.
She couldn’t have been more wrong.
While Abeloth did become a long-lived creature of immense power, it also corrupted her, changing her into something dark and covetous. When she was found out, the Celestials contracted the Killiks of Alderaan to construct a specialized prison of their own design for Abeloth. This prison, known as the Maw, was built by Centerpoint Station. For 100,000 years she languished in her prison, angry, terrified, and worst of all, alone.
When Centerpoint Station was destroyed in 40 ABY, it created a fissure in the Maw that allowed Abeloth to reach out into the galaxy through the Force. This led to her escape and subsequent rise to control the Galactic Federation of Free Worlds. Abeloth encountered Jedi Grand Master Luke Skywalker a number of times during her escape and rise to power, and she bested him handily each time. Finally, they fought on Sinkhole Station on a mental plane of the Force, where she was ultimately defeated. However, with no way to truly kill or imprison her, it is only a matter of time before she returns.
A distant cousin to famous smuggler Han Solo, Thrackan Sal-Solo was born on Tralus, and raised believing he was of an ancient royal Corellian bloodline. The two lived together a short time, cultivating a murderous hatred of each other before Thrackan betrayed Han, selling him back into slavery with pirates. Thrackan believed he was better than Han, or anyone, thanks to his privileged upbringing. This sense of entitlement would time and time again prove his undoing.
Two years after the Battle of Yavin, Sal-Solo achieved the position of Deputy to the Diktat as an Imperial administrator, but still felt he walked in the shadow of his now infamous cousin. Thrackan disappeared after the Empire was dealt a crippling blow at Endor, and formed a terrorist organization allied with criminal syndicates. By 18 ABY Thrackan gained control of Centerpoint Station, with full knowledge of its potential destructive power. Thrackan saw his chance and declared himself Diktat, but was foiled by Han Solo and his children. Thrackan was arrested, tried, and incarcerated.
After eight years in prison, Sal-Solo was released and put in charge of Centerpoint Station to use it against the Yuuzhan Vong invasion. When he used the station against the Vong, despite the massive friendly casualties, he became an overnight hero, which led to his election as Governor-General of the Corellian System a year later. Thrackan finally had everything he had ever wanted, but he didn’t get to enjoy it long. He was tried for treason after the war, but after winning his freedom, he manipulated his way into being Corellia’s Head of State.
It wasn’t long before Sal-Solo’s double-dealing and obsession with a free and powerful Corellia under the protection of an active Centerpoint Station drove the galaxy to civil war. Just after allying himself with Dark Lady of the Sith Lumiya, Thrackan was assassinated by bounty hunters Mirta Gev, Boba Fett, and Han Solo.
Special thanks to Ed Erdelac, Ryan Brooks, and Sam Stewart.
Want more Centerpoint Station? Pick upFantasy Flight Games’Star Wars: Edge of the Empire: Suns of Fortune, with contributing author Keith Ryan Kappel. Available now at yourfriendly local game store!
Sources
The Corellian Trilogy: Ambush at Corellia\
The Corellian Trilogy: Assault at Selonia
The Corellian Trilogy: Showdown at Centerpoint
Star Wars: The Old Republic Codex Entry
New Jedi Order: Agents of Chaos II: Jedi Eclipse
Legacy of the Force: Betrayal
Legacy of the Force: Exile
Legacy of the Force: Fury
Cracken’s Threat Dossier
The New Jedi Order Sourcebook
The Official Star Wars Fact File 37
The New Essential Chronology
Rebellion Era Campaign Guide
The Essential Atlas
Star Wars Saga Edition: Galaxy at War
Star Wars Saga Edition: The Unknown Regions
Star Wars: Edge of the Empire: Suns of Fortune
AUTHOR BIO
Keith Ryan Kappel is a freelance writer working for Fantasy Flight Games’Star Warsline of role playing games, and was a credited playtester on the Wizards of the CoastStar WarsRPG line. As aStar Warsfan, Keith co-founded, wrote, and edited forFandomComics.comfrom 2005-2012, where he has written hundreds of pages ofStar Warsfan comic and RPG material. A long time ago, Keith was also an intelligence specialist at Naval Space Command for the United States Navy. Keith can be found at KRKappel.com,Facebook, andTwitter.
I make a point to identify things to you dear Reader that is way out ahead of the curve. In four years you will read this and wonder how I knew all these things. Even though they may seem to be irrelevant trivia from fantasy, this article is far from that. The people who are shaping our society currently love Star Wars. It doesn’t matter if it’s Glenn Beck, Jon Stewart or the creator of the Family Guy cartoon on Fox—Star Wars has power and that power will shape the political and economic landscape of tomorrow. Trust me………..it will. Dear Reader, take this information and prepare yourself for that point in time, and be ready. Most of the speculation from modern-day commentators who work for entertainment are not aware of what is about to happen. They cannot see the big picture that has been taking place at Skywalker Ranch in California since the early 1980s. There is a power here that can shatter the way everything is viewed today—especially politically—and when that happens, good minds will need to be available to provide guidance to the millions upon millions who find themselves discombobulated and disenfranchised in need to rebuild their minds properly. The key is not so much how things were done in the past, but in how those events point to the future and come together in a grand fortissimo. And when that fortissimo reaches our senses, we must conduct ourselves accordingly—and without hesitation.
How do I know all this……………..I have read all the books, but more than that, I have intensely studied Joseph Campbell, who also taught George Lucas. I know exactly where this is going. And I am excited about getting there! Disney will make a lot of money, and they will do good things with that money. But more than that, society will receive insight where before there was only confusion and darkness—except for those who have taken the time to read all those fantastic Star Wars novels. They already know, and soon—so will everyone else.
Generally when I offer myself as a front man my policy is that I don’t do committees, I don’t solicit opinions, and I expect people to do what I say without question. If people, political organizations, or companies want success they can hook a chain to my star and I’ll take them where they want to go—and presently there are a lot of chains hooked to my star from those agreeing to those terms and expecting me to take them to their desired destination. At 46 years of age, naturally now that the word has gotten out about some of my abilities, 2014 is shaping up to be the most pressure oriented year I’ve ever had. I’ve never before dragged along so much hooked to me as I presently am, yet I fully expect such weights to not hinder my star’s trajectory. One way I do that is to give my mind frequent rests to balance out the intense weight it otherwise would be encumbered with. I thought it curious during this latest Holiday Season that two films, The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug, and the Disney film Saving Mr. Banks both feature authors who were very much in love with the characters they created because it provided them with a secondary world which they created to reason things out. I understand Tolkien’s apprehension to allow his work to be commercially shared, and even more drastic was the story of P.L. Travers who authored Mary Poppins. Both authors confessed somewhat to using their stories as personal playgrounds of thought and were very protective over those worlds. I can relate, my characters in my books, Fletcher Finnegan and Rick Stevens are very much creations of the same design for me—which is a work currently unfolding as my life shoots through the sky with the lives of many chained to it. Disney did much the same with his Mickey Mouse, and of course there is George Lucas who guarded his Star Wars franchise more resoundly than anybody mentioned above. Money is not the motive for any of the people mentioned—that comes later—it’s about the preservation of that secondary world—a world where the mind can vacation and relax where things make much more sense. Personally for me, when the pressure is as intense as it is right now the way I deal with the real world most effectively is to spend as much time as possible in a secondary world to give my mind the needed downtime allowing it to be more efficient. Vacations to Disney World, the creation of Uncle Walt is one of the ways I most enjoy a secondary world created by someone else. Another is Star Wars, not just the movies, books, comics and any other little media tidbit—but the games, the new Galactic Starfighter, and the object of much obsession, X-Wing Miniatures. Both of these games are discussed by the guys at Mos Eisley Radio’s Even Lewis and Leo Andrie—and to learn about both, listen to this broadcast. They cover a lot of ground, but I think Leo’s opinions about X-Wing Miniatures most reflect my own—I simply love the game—I love that secondary world because it makes sense to me more than anything else presently can.
Leo and Even did that broadcast prior to the release of Galactic Starfighter, so I can add to the report that as much as I love X-Wing Miniatures, Galactic Starfighter does the same thing for me, only the delight is much more immediate. The computer combat flight simulator like PVP forum on Star Wars: The Old Republic is simply obsessive fun for me. My wife and I have now played hundreds, perhaps even over a thousand matches over the last three weeks, and it is an absolute blast. It takes all the action and strategy of X-Wing Miniatures and plays it out in real-time. My wife oddly enough is topping the leaderboards nearly every match with her gunship. I am less consistent—depending on who is playing. When average players are against us, I typically join her at the top of the leaderboards with 5 to 10 kills per match in my Flashfire scout ship—which is like flying a kite that is very underpowered. It doesn’t hit very hard and can’t take much abuse, but I use it because of the tremendous speed it has. However, when elite players are on the other side, my job is to harass them and keep them uncomfortable—(kind of like real life) and my kill ratio goes down considerably. The reason is to keep them busy while the other members of our team capture the satellite points. I can’t say enough about the game. It is truly an amazing time we live in. My wife flies her ship on a computer right next to me. We speak to each other like two pilots in a fire fight only the information going back and forth from the BioWare servers from her computer to the host and back to mine, and vice versa—then to all the other players 12 on our team, 12 on the opposing side is just an amazing feat. A lot of people who play online games like Call of Duty and Grand Theft Auto are used to these forums, which is a few years old, but at my age I remember a time when all this was just a distant fantasy. I remember a day when I worked all summer cutting grass so that I could purchase a $79 film role of Star Wars for a projector that I didn’t have and the reel didn’t even have sound. So modern DVDs and Blue Rays are amazing to me even after a decade of use—but the online gaming experience of Galactic Starfighter is simply stunning. I can’t get enough of it.
However, the computer game is something my wife and I can share with a few other people on our team, but when it comes to a tabletop game that an entire family can experience—or something that can be shared at conventions, comic book stores, and other very creative formats of existing secondary worlds X-Wing Miniatures is infinitely intriguing to me. If you did not listen to the above video broadcast from Even and Leo please do so if any of this is remotely interesting. Leo is a huge gaming nerd in all the wonderful ways that those people are full of imagination and hope—and his thoughts about X-Wing Miniatures reflects my own. He has played many of the big games from the past, The Magic The Gathering and those types of things—and is presently obsessed with X-Wing Miniatures attending tournaments all over America. And I totally get it.
By looking at the pictures here of a match my family had during Boxing Day (the day after Christmas at my kid’s house) it is easy to see how we took a dining room table and made a battlefield out of it. The strategies are very similar to Galactic Starfighter—the video game, but I find the slower pace and deeper strategies of X-Wing Miniatures to be infinitely more rewarding. There is a freedom of movement that is simply amazing—every inch of the 3’X3’ game mat is up for grabs strategically—and that is very attractive to me. But more so is the way the game allows you to visit this secondary world of Star Wars with the shared experience of family and friends on a group level. In the game showed in the pictures it was a very tight match which went on for over an hour and it came down to a final dice roll of two evasion dice—which was highly unlikely—but occurred. It was a literal cliffhanger, and all our hearts were beating furiously at the end—both the winning and losing side—and I can’t think of too many activities that can be done around a kitchen table which provokes that kind of reaction. It is blistering fun!
I have several hundred dollars invested in the game from what is seen in the pictures. That investment will easily excel into the thousands during 2014 and 2015. As Leo mentioned in the Mos Eisley Radio broadcast the big excitement of 2014 will be the expansion packs of the Imperial Aces featuring two specially painted TIE Advanced ships, the massive Tantive IV CR90 corvette which looks spectacularly stunning, and the Rebel GR-75 medium transport. Fantasy Flight Games who publishes X-Wing Miniatures hasalready produced something special even without these 2014 announcements. If all they created were what has been seen through the first three waves of release, the Millennium Falcon from Wave 2 and now a ship I use all the time, the HWK-290, (CLICK HERE TO READ SPECIFICALLY ABOUT THIS SHIP)I’d be content. But Fantasy Flight Games is only getting stronger as time moves on—making the game constantly more complex and dynamic. They are introducing a whole new play formatted called Cinematic Play which will specifically involve these larger ships on a much greater table top. And in tournaments, they are introducing the Epic tournament format which will allow players to field ships of all sizes in massive battles that will echo thought the Star Wars universe. In the game’s Epic format the Rebel transport can support the efforts of a squad with its frequency jammer, and the Tantive IV can fire its powerful lasers against opponent’s TIEs. These mentioned items are not part of Wave 4 which hasn’t even been announced yet. One can only speculate about what those ships will entail and new playing options that will come with them. 2014 will be a very exciting year for X-Wing Miniatures.
I wish sometimes that I didn’t have such a complicated life with so many hooked to my star. There are many days that I would love to be able to travel around and have the kind of free time that Leo does attending tournaments for X-Wing Miniatures. I would be a very happy person with a table full of X-Wing ships and a pizza from LaRosa’s sitting on a nearby counter playing all day every day for the rest of my life. That secondary world of Star Wars as it is specifically translated in that particular game is such an effective living mythology that it exceeds my personal creations. I understand how P.L. Travers felt about Mary Poppins, and how Tolkien felt about Middle-earth, because I feel the same way about my own creations. But when it comes to these Star Wars games, that secondary world smartly has been expanded in a unique way that Walt Disney—the new owners of Star Wars and the former owner, George Lucas have nurtured for decades. P.L. Travers had a nervous breakdown at the premier of Mary Poppins because of the dancing penguins, and the portrayal of Mr. Banks who was essentially her father. Lucas has allowed other independent minds to help shape his secondary world in a way that has held back Tolkien and Travers work in the past. If The Old Republic had to get George Lucas to approve every addition to that world, it would have been stunted. Even more so with X-Wing Miniatures, that game is great because as Leo and Even stated the game makes great use of the Expanded Universe—aspects of the Star Wars mythology that was created by the novels, comics and television shows by people only remotely guided by George Lucas with a thumbs up or thumbs down—and that is what makes this secondary world of gaming such an incredibly rich experience. It takes an individual to drive the visions forward, but it also takes knowing when to let things go so the creations can take off on their own and flourish—kind of like raising children. X-Wing Miniatures is the product of a successful metaphorical child of Star Wars and an offering into a secondary world that can hold a lot of excess pressure. It does for me.
I know my readers here want to see more fire and brimstone from me, and they will get it. I feel the tug of those chains upon my star and I don’t complain. I offer the free ride to see how much I can pull without it destroying me—because I want to know where my limits are—and I have not yet found them in my life. But I do feel the pressure, and the way I cope with it is to become involved in these kinds of secondary world activities as the primary world is full of burden. I play at real life like I’m playing a game—it takes the edge of the bitter realization that life is not a game, decisions are final, but chances must be taken to advance ideals. By playing games for recreation, one can sort of work out what is a successful strategy and what isn’t. Starting off a New Year, I enjoy thinking about these kinds of things, so I do it for myself more than anything—but I share it in case anybody wants to learn a thing or two about stress management. At times like this I often would not mind having a simple nondescript job at some fast-food restaurant where I could live the life of Leo attending X-Wing tournaments all the time free of those chains dragging behind. But I am grateful to have the release of these types of games in a time when I need them for my own sanity. I have found that the more I utilize these things in my life, the more I can carry as my star shoots across the sky, and the many that are dragging behind hooked to it by my invitation will succeed.
For me the Millennium Falcon from Star Wars is a symbol of freedom. It was the pirate vessel of the smuggler Han Solo and became the premier deterrent against tyranny in the plight against the evil Empire. I love the ship in the fictional context for which it is presented. When I ride the Star Tours Ride at the Disney Parks I always hope for the beginning shown below, where the Falcon is sitting in a hanger surrounded by Imperial troops before suddenly leaping off the deck to launch itself into a firefight in space before escaping. There is no presidential address in human history which moves me more than seeing the Falcon sitting there at the opening of the Star Tours ride. The video below does not capture the mood completely, only in reference. On the actual ride, it is quite spectacular because visually it is captivating, but metaphorically, it is multi-dimensional—and important. There is no level of sign stimuli more appealing, no sporting event more dramatic, and no political event more powerful to me than watching the Millennium Falcon in flight.
I became hooked on the new Star Wars game called X-Wing Miniatures because of the fantastic model they had made of the Millennium Falcon. There has never been another more meticulous model of such a thing ever produced to my knowledge for the simple task of playing a game. But that game has deep combinations of options that are much more dynamic and interesting than any game of chess known to intellectual circles. The 3’X3’ game surface of a typical X-Wing game holds seemingly infinite strategies to use against an opponent which is refreshingly wonderful for strategy prone war gamers—such as myself. It has been many years since I have loved something so much as I love Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures.
I look for reasons to play with the Millennium Falcon at every opportunity, but because it is such a powerful ship I have found that I can’t use it the way I want as I have been teaching players new to the game to play using simpler rules instead of my Falcon build which involves many complex options. I have been looking for a great support ship for my Falcon that points-out right at 65 points. I shudder to consider spending so much on one ship in the game, but if my reason to play the game is to play the Millennium Falcon, then I owe it to the game to find a way to justify the experience. Most 100 point games in X-Wing come out to three ships, sometimes four or five. So tying up 65 points on my Falcon build is a steep price indeed. That means the Falcon will be continuously outnumbered and will have to take a lot of abuse to survive—which is ironically the actual role it had in the Star Wars mythology. Winning is not guaranteed under such conditions, but it’s the way I like to play the game. It requires excellent piloting instead of attacking opponents with mass, which is usually the best strategy for everything.
The ship I found to support my Falcon is the HWK-290, which just came out on Wave 3 from Fantasy Flight Games. Manufactured by the Corellian Engineering Corporation in the decades preceding the Battle of Naboo, the HWK-290 was a concentrated effort by talented shipwrights at breaking into a new market. Focusing on making the new design appeal to the wealthy of high society, the HWK-290 was an attempt at capturing business outside of its normal audiences.
Major marketing research was conducted on the demographic segment CEC sought to capitalize upon. As such, they designed the ship to appeal to entrepreneurs and wealthy merchants. One concern of the individuals questioned during the research phase was that the current designs of the time were often delayed at checkpoints and customs stations because they were armed; it was thought that the time it took goods to be delivered could possibly be reduced by removing the armaments of the ships. Additionally the majority of those interviewed said that the ideal ship would not only be fast but aesthetically pleasing as well, unlike most freighters, which are bulky in appearance.
The research provoked a design totally independent of the iconic YT-series freighters, which tended to be associated with the less savoury elements of society. The HWK-290 prototype had the appearance of a large bird of prey and when displayed at trade shows and conventions brought about many questions as to the availability of the ship. Designers also listened to initial feedback regarding the ship and made minor modifications to the interior until it was determined that the right balance of aesthetics and functionality were achieved. At that point, production began in earnest.
When the HWK-290 rolled off the production line, it was an unarmed, extremely fast, agile ship that could outmaneuver and outrun most fighters and had largest weight capacity for carrying cargo of any freighter up to 30 meters long. It also contained an impressive state of the art sensor array for a ship of its size and class, the purpose of which was to detect trouble before falling victim to it. Additionally, it was a lot more luxurious inside than normal freighters, boasting large passenger and sleeping areas, entertainment consoles and a cockpit that was designed with the comfort of the pilot and co-pilot in mind.
While only seeing relatively moderate success in contrast to that of the YT series, production of the HWK-290 was discontinued during the Clone Wars in favor of military production. Despite no longer being manufactured, the HWK-290 has found popularity in the inventories of smugglers and pirate groups, a far cry from the original clientele for whom it was initially designed.
I ordered the HWK-290 well in advance of its release date, and it shipped to me from American Hobby Supply in a box coming from Fantasy Flight Games. As I was helping my daughters get set up for their big party over the weekend, knowing that at least one of my nephews from out-of-town was coming, I was hoping my HWK-290 would arrive in time for the party so I could fly it while teaching him about the game. Sure enough the tracking information showed that my HWK-290 was coming and it arrived right on time on my front porch. Receiving that package was one of the most thrilling things I have put my hands on in years. That statement is not in reference to a lack of options in my life—quite contrary. But in my life mythology is extremely important, and the X-Wing game is a perfect symbiotic relationship of hobby model building and strategy mixed with deep metaphorical mythology. In that context the HWK-290 is the perfect complement to my Millennium Falcon and it was exciting to put my hands on it after thinking about it so much.
The reason I love that ship so much even though it is comparatively slow as opposed to the A-Wings and Tie Fighters is that both my Falcon and HWK-290 feature a 360 degree shooting radius. The strategy I plan to use with these two ships is not for everyone as the key to winning with them will be in maneuvering strategy. When the package arrived the day was a picture perfect sunny day in Southern Ohio, the sky was cloudless and the temperature was in the lower 70s. It was a weekend day with little pressure other than the upcoming party at my kid’s house for my first grandson. Opening the package from Fantasy Flight Games with the HWK-290 so carefully packaged within the box revealed the climax of such sentiments. At that moment it was a perfect day in every respect.
Of course I played with it that night as I showed my nephew how the game worked. It was challenging to fly, but I got used to it quickly and can see how it will play out in many future strategies to my liking. But seeing the HWK-290 parked next to my Millennium Falcon brings back to my mind that wonderful opening on the Star Tours Ride at Hollywood Studios, where the Falcon begins in captivity, frees itself, nearly collides with a cruiser in space during an intense battle only to escape in a nick of time into the safety of hyperspace. The HWK-290 and the Millennium Falcon go together well and I am excited for the many wonderful adventures that await those two during epic battles yet to be fought.
I have a running fantasy that someday the government will show up on my doorstep with tyrannical intentions and shred off the pretext of decency for open warfare. At that time I will be free to do what I do best and have loved since my feet could carry me upward, and that is to fight—fight for independence, fight for respect, fight for the human race—fight for anything—but fight. Now when I say fight, I don’t mean “serving” for some greater cause made up by a statist government. I mean fighting where my strategy and effort destroy an opponent no matter how great the numbers or odds of victory, the worse, the more attractive. So the fantasy of a large statist government having the audacity to believe that they will win my submission with force is an attractive one to me.
I do not make a good soldier material, or a sports player who simply does what somebody else dictates. That is not the kind of fighting that I’m good at. In sports I never wanted to be a player, only the coach or the owner of a franchise, never some meat head player who was simply a field soldier. In the military, I never wanted to be a soldier, only a commander. But the way the human race is set up, they expect people to run through some kind of social initiation period where they start on the bottom and work their way up. However, by the time that such people find themselves in charge, they have been beaten down into submission and lose the ability to “think” uniquely. So I avoid all structured war games like the plague, and always have. When I play at war whether it is politics, business, or physical submission of one group over another, I require being in charge otherwise I’m just not interested. If people shut up and listen, they find that they benefit greatly by doing what I tell them. I don’t get out of such arrangements anything from the participates—any level of camaraderie, any back slapping from social respect—any feeling of “fitting in” to the structure of human existence. I simply enjoy winning in games of conflict.
One of the greatest aspects of being human is that we are thinking creatures and find many ways to entertain ourselves. Of the many things invented to entertain the human race, war games for me have always been the thing that I most enjoy. When I was a kid I ran into tabletop war gaming from a military history class I took where famous Revolutionary War battles could be re-enacted. As an adult my wife introduced me to similar games such as the Star Wars: Assault on Hoth which we played nearly every night during the first couple years of our marriage. When I started having kids I played a lot of video games with them—all of which were about war, fighting, and combat. I never approached the games as an escape from reality, but as the only way I could do the types of things I enjoyed doing without destroying the fabric of the world around me. Then of course there was the Wiz Kids Pirate Constructible Strategy Game that I have discussed in great detail here before, which my family spent a good five solid years playing together.
As fate would have it, one of my son-in-laws is a serious table top gamer. He plays games I never had the patience for like Magic the Gathering relentlessly and will play any board game that has ever been invented. He simply loves games. He along with my nephews over the past summer introduced me to the Dungeons and Dragons like game, Hero Quest which I enjoyed greatly. But I have since discovered something much, much cooler—Star Wars X-Wing Miniatures by Fantasy Flight Games. This game has all the things I enjoy and have only found possible since LucasArts produced the old video game X-Wing, which was a combat flight simulator that I often spent entire nights playing. As video games became better and moved online, Star Wars: Galaxies had Jump to Hyperspace, which was the latest evolution of the old X-Wing game, but it has since left the scene since Star Wars: The Old Republic arrived. There was a void in my heart that was there in the years between the exit of Jump to Hyperspace and the creation of Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures that wasn’t filled by anything else. Now that I have discovered X-Wing Miniatures, it has been like revisiting my favorite games of the past with new updated spins which should be expected with evolution, and I have been soaking up. I have enjoyed myself more since the discovery of X-Wing Miniatures than I can remember consistently in decades. I have been buying up ships for the game like crazy and getting very serious about it.
Both of my son-in-laws have also been getting into the game, so over the weekend we went to Yattaquest in Mt. Healthy to purchase a mat for our X-Wing Miniatures game as the playing surface is supposed to be a 3’X3’ area and we wanted something nice. So we went to Yattaquest and saw that the place was absolutely rocking with activity as they had a game night where the back room was filled with players. I was stunned how many other people were playing these games for the same reasons that I do, and I was shocked by how many different games were on the shelf at Yattaquest. There was an entire section for Warhammer—it was simply amazing.
I picked up my game mat and the last two ships they had for X-Wing Miniatures, a couple of A-Wings.
Then all my kids along with my wife went to Sci-Fi Cincinnati over in Northgate Mall and found two Y-Wing Fighters and a Tie Fighter Advanced, which are both extremely rare. I bought them up knowing that they were selling for over $50 dollars a piece on the internet because of their rarity. I felt I had just uncovered a gold nugget—a rare treasure and it made my entire weekend.
We arrived home late after the mall had closed and began playing X-Wing as a family with the game ending at around 3 AM. We then played most of the next day and I can report that it is some of the most fun I have had in years. It has many of the elements that I personally enjoy more than anything, it’s about miniature detail models, strategy, technology, large concepts, and it has a creativity level that is limited only by the player—which is very attractive to me. After our very successful weekend of playing X-Wing Miniatures, I treated myself to a rare privilege; I pre-ordered a ship that I am hungry to get as a compliment to my Millennium Falcon builds, the new HWK-290. In a 100-point game, the HWK-290 will provide for me the perfect support for my aggressive style of game play and I am very happy to see it come available as it does not technically ship to the general public until September 11th. Fantasy Flight Games pre-released HWK-290s during Gen Con in Indianapolis, but until then and since nobody has put their hands on them.
The ship is a sentimental favorite for me; it’s from the video game called Dark Forces which my daughters used to play with me. So it meant more than just a game piece for X-Wing Miniatures to make the purchase, I am just ecstatic that it will be coming to me. It is a unique item that I can’t wait to put my hands on, and it feels good to have something which drums up so much happiness. Yes, there are a lot of very bad things going on in the world, and I have written about many of them here at Overmanwarrior’s Wisdom. But the new game X-Wing Miniatures has given me new juice where few things prior provided. I simply love the game for what it does. But more than anything it is allowing me to build a squad that has the Millennium Falcon as a tactical option with the HWK-290.
I don’t socialize much, but it was nice to see so many people with similar interests at Yattaquest. The place was huge and very busy as business was good. I’m obviously not alone in my love of combat because most of those games were themed around conflict resolution. As I stood in the center of Yattaquest I had the sense that if the first American Revolution started in pubs around New England, then the second and third will be in places like Yattaquest. The game players were simply enjoying some escapist fun while not compromising their minds in the process. Those people are not compliant statists of the type who built the trouble of LBJ’s Great Society. They are rebels, commanders, and tacticians that nobody else takes serious as they have fallen through the cracks of the establishment only to become the next sleeping giants awakened during the next great crises. But never before that I can recall did so many people flock to games like Warhammer, Magic the Gathering, and X-Wing Miniatures as they do now. I attempted with all my resources to find Y-Wing fighters but could not, because they were sold out everywhere I looked, even on Ebay and other online outlets. I found them by chance at Sci-Fi Cincinnati and quickly bought them up. They weren’t sold out because the company didn’t make enough of them—quite the contrary—they were sold out because the demand is that high. I find that extremely encouraging.
I might have to wait for my fantasy of a statist government gone mad showing up on my door step to declare war against me and my family. Obama can’t even make a decision against Syria, so I’m not worried about progressives making a visible move against the American people who would cost them terribly—because such things at least require courage, which they lack. But until then, I love that there are games like X-Wing Miniatures that I can play with my family late into the night and all the next day. War gaming is a good substitute for the real thing and I love being a member of the human race because it invents such things. But one thing that is a running theme among these gamers is that submission is not an option. They enjoy war gaming because players contemplate resistance and wish to play out scenarios that bring about such results. The exchange is peaceful so long as participants have an outlet. But heaven forbid that places like Yattaquest didn’t exist. These are not the games of our grandparents, these are the direct response to large-scale statism, and the minds drawn to them are not compliant.
I’ve bought cars, homes, taken exotic vacations and raised families. I’ve been successful, won many real battles and have enjoyed my life immensely in many capacities. But let me just state that when I purchased the HWK-290 for $14.95 a chill of delight went up my spine that I can’t get from anything else in this world…………….and the reason is beyond the comprehension of the average statist politician. Only people who play such games understand.
Since receiving the new game X-Wing Miniatures, I have been reading the rule book extensively and mock playing several games against myself so I can understand all the different scenarios. I find the game endlessly intriguing, and an amazing achievement. It is fun, fast, and free in many ways that sustain the best attributes of a gaming experience. I simply love it. My wife with a polite jest asked me as we were logging on the other day to play Star Wars: The Old Republic as I was reading the X-Wing rule book, if we were being “White and Nerdy”—a reference to the old Weird Al Yankovic satirical song. I told her, “absolutely, and proud of it!” At the current moment I have a number of very key strategies in real life that are being played out and I have learned that over time, the best way for me to stay engaged and keep my mind sharp enough to deal with things on a large-scale is to give my mind a vacation while in the heat of the events. By means of vacation I don’t mean a physical vacation which we take often enough—and costs many thousands of dollars every time we do it. I mean a vacation that the mind enjoys, and during the year 2013 that has been The Old Republic which she and I play often. We enjoy our short trips to the Star Wars galaxy and they are always beneficial. But of late, I have found the new X-Wing Miniatures strategy game to be even more intriguing, and infinitely fascinating.
It can’t be missed that even though Weird Al is poking fun at nerds in his music video of “White and Nerdy” that many of the attributes exhibited in the video are good ones, intelligence, moral aptitude, social innocence, creativity among them. And the humor of that video is that it is more or less true. I know, and have known a lot of nerds, and they are like the people in the “White and Nerdy” video. However since that video came out, “White and Nerdy” types have not declined in number throughout American society, but have rather increased. To get a sample, just visit Gen Con in Indianapolis each August and meet the members of the “gaming” culture, people who enjoy strategy games to a larger extent than I do. They are people who spend even more time playing The Old Republic than my wife and I, and they are every bit into the new Star Wars Miniatures strategy game.
Outsiders might say that the gaming industry is being driven by a desire for escapism—that many of those “gamers” would rather play Dungeons and Dragons than participate in the political process. It is highly likely that many of the people who attended this year’s Gen Con did not vote for Mitt Romney or Barack Obama in the last election, and instead played games from Fantasy Flight around their kitchen tables. So that demographic is being overlooked in poll counts. These “White and Nerdy” types are not watching Fox News, CNN, or showing up for President Obama’s latest diatribes about education funding. Most of them find the entire political process repulsive, and have elected to drop out of it all together. They are either currant Ron Paul supporters, or future supporters of his son, Rand. And until the political machine gives them the kind of candidate they can get excited about, they will spend their time and effort of leisure playing the kind of games sold at Gen Con. Listen to the following broadcast about gaming from the guys at Mos Eisley Radio to get some perspective.
Playing these kinds of games is not an escape from reality in the same way that watching television is, or watching sports. I know a lot of mainstream people who get very excited about their Fantasy Football picks or their latest score on a golf course. The people who play games like Star Wars X-Wing Miniatures are choosing to spend their leisure time in a very thinking type of scenario. You have to enjoy thinking to be good at a game like X-Wing Miniatures. For me that is the grand appeal. I simply love that game. At 2013’s Gen Con Fantasy Flight Games who produce the X-WingMiniatures game made a grand announcement, displaying for the first time they are taking the epic table top game and “going big” with it. They are producing the Tantive IV corvette and the Rebel Transport in a scale that has not been seen in any strategy game. The enthusiasm present upon that announcement can be seen in the interview below. The prospect of playing a game that features those large ships in a strategy format is very exciting to me. I am already planning giant matches that take up specially made tabletops taking up entire basements. It was in reviewing these recent announcements that provoked me to read so intensely the X-Wing rule book.
Tantive IV
“Tear this ship apart until you’ve found those plans and bring me the passengers. I want them alive!”
–Darth Vader, Star Wars: A New Hope
The Tantive IV is perhaps the most famous of all CR90 corvettes. Not only that, it is the first starship to appear in the classic Star Wars trilogy. We see it fly across the screen, racing from right to left across the bright surface of Tatooine, firing its rear lasers, until the shape of its hull is nearly lost behind the glow of its eleven ion turbine engines.
Coming soon to X-Wing, the Tantive IV Expansion Pack allows you to command the starship that first hooked us into the greatest space opera of all time!
Designed for use in Cinematic Play and the new Epic tournament format, the Tantive IV miniature doesn’t match the 1/270 scale shared by those starships legal within the game’s standard tournament format. Instead, this carefully detailed and pre-painted miniature is sculpted at a relative scale that feels good on the tabletop, alongside the game’s starfighters and other huge ships. In addition to the miniature, the expansion features new missions that promote deeply thematic play experiences, whether played individually or linked into a larger campaign, and Imperial players will have their chance to try to capture this notorious Rebel blockade runner.
The Tantive IV won’t be legal for standard tournaments, but you’ll be able to bring it to battle in both the Cinematic Play and Epic tournament format. Furthermore, you’ll gain the opportunity to crew it with the indomitable Rebel hero, Leia Organa!
Rebel Transport
“The first transport is away.”
–Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back
When the Empire launched a massive assault against the Rebellion’s Echo Base, it dealt the Rebel Alliance a tremendous blow. Still, the Rebellion’s losses could have been much greater. They were lucky to escape with the majority of their command structure intact, and the very fact the Rebellion was able to continue its liberation efforts after the battle owed much to the GR-75 medium transport and the role it played during the famous evacuation effort.
With new rules, one Rebel transport miniature, one X-wing miniature with an alternate paint scheme, and a wealth of new ship cards, upgrades, and missions, the Rebel Transport Expansion Pack allows you to recreate the drama of the Rebellion’s desperate escape from Hoth.
Like the Tantive IV, the Rebel transport is too large for standard tournament play. Smaller than the CR90 corvette, the GR-75 medium transport is nonetheless large enough to dwarf its starfighter escorts. Even though the Rebel transport is depicted at a scale that allows you to maneuver it in battle, it is still so large that it comes with multiple new damage decks to track hits against different sections of its hull.
I thoroughly enjoy the kind of people who attend Gen Con, even though they tend not to be intensely social, or politically active. For them, playing those types of games are done for the same reason I do it, to preserve their mind in a rebellion against a society that looks down on those who are “White and Nerdy,” or otherwise, those who wish to think, and be genuinely good people. I have seldom encountered another person who attends Gen Con regularly and spends their spare time playing games like this to be overtly “bad,” or “malicious.” They are genuinely good, as their hobby is “thinking.” These games just give them the mechanism to do so in an entertaining format.
If games like X-Wing Miniatures were not so popular then the game would not be expanding into a large format with the new ships discussed above. So the delight is two-fold when hearing these kinds of announcements. First, it is nice to see creativity permeating our culture in such a positive way. Second, it is nice to see so many people excited about it. It is nice to see people genuinely happy about something that doesn’t involve drugs, sex, or debauchery, but does involve thinking. The demographic of “White and Nerdy” types who love Gen Con, and share with me a passion for X-Wing are a group who at some point will become interested in what is going on in the “outside world.” That time will come when they don’t have money for Gen Con any longer, or have the ability to stay up all night playing X-Wing or The Old Republic. For a government addicted to statism, many of these game players use fantasy strategy to give themselves a vacation away from the types of people who are not “White and Nerdy” and are willing to avoid them to keep the peace. But, when it comes a time that those “White and Nerdy” types can no longer enjoy their leisure time, then the ramifications will not be pleasant for the establishment. The future largest demographic growth sector is not women voters, Latinos, or even African Americans…………it is the “White and Nerdy” types who simply want to be left alone to think, but if prevented, can become the statist’s worst nightmare. It is unwise to ignore them. Because they are smart! And they “think” as a hobby, something that modern politics requires people to avoid.
Mechanisms like these types of games work in tandem with difficult real life strategies because they are essentially “concept” building exercises. As I’ve explained in these pages on previous articles, before any idea in real life can be understood, it must be held as a “concept.” A concept is like a bowl holding water. The bigger the bowl, the more water it holds. If the bowl is too small, it can only hold so much water. If a concept is too small, it cannot hold big ideas or strategies that are required to solve complicated problems. These days, small concepts are advocated by statism so much of society does not have the ability to hold large concepts in their minds. They cannot wrap their thoughts around them. By playing games like X-Wing Miniatures or some other variation of strategy game the practice of “concept building” is exercised allowing a mind to hold larger ideals. This is why these kinds of games are a tremendous benefit to the people who play them, and those who don’t are always at a tactical disadvantage.
At Mos Eisley Radio these guys not only talk news concerning the most recent Star Wars Game X-Wing Miniatures, which I am crazy about, but a lot more. Have a listen to them for in-depth looks at classes, guilds, lore, and everything else fans care about in the galaxy far, far away. But related to this article, they go into great detail about the strength of ships and strategy of the game for those who are prompted to get more involved by the conclusion of this article. Have a listen while reading the below text!
Recently while on vacation in Florida my nephews along with my kids, my wife and I played a very cool Dungeons and Dragons type of role-playing game called Heroscape over pizza from the best place in Central Florida till the late hours of night with the condo door open to the ocean outside. We had turned our large dinning room table into a war zone and found ourselves intensely engaged in mortal combat with dragons and warriors. Like the referred to pirate game, I enjoy those types of games that allow you to play with several live players around a dinner table. It is a great way to bond with other family members and actually speak to each other, while exercising the brain. I find those types of games to be stimulating in a similar way to reading a novel, or playing a great video game. The difference is that you have to work with other people in a way that is only possible with this type of strategic gaming. For many years these role-playing strategy games have increased in popularity from a sub-culture of Dungeon and Dragon players, to what is now considered mainstream geekdom at major conventions all over the country. The transition came officially from the popular game, Magic the Gathering. The gaming industry in that market has never been the same, which is wonderful for the human race. A short history of this type of gaming can be seen at the link below.
However, for me, I always loved that Pirate game from Wiz Kids the best of any that I have played in the last twenty years. My entire family was deeply into it and our playing time together represent some of the most fun we’ve had together, which is quite a statement. So I have missed it as Wiz Kids stopped making the game in the format we enjoyed, and time and distance has moved us away from the contents. However, I recently received news from Lucasfilm about their latest version of a Star Wars Role Playing game by Fantasy Flight Games which I thought at first would be gimmicky, but upon investigation quickly found that it was a quite in-depth game that actually combined the type of game play that I enjoyed so much in Pirates, the Constructible Strategy game by Wiz Kids and the Heroscape. The new game is called Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures Game.
Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures Game is a tactical ship-to-ship combat game in which players take control of powerful Rebel X-wings and nimble Imperial TIE fighters, facing them against each other in fast-paced space combat. Featuring stunningly detailed and painted miniatures, the X-Wing Miniatures Game recreates exciting Star Wars space combat throughout its several included scenarios.
Whatever the chosen vessel, the rules of X-Wing facilitate fast and visceral gameplay that puts you in the middle of Star Wars fiercest firefights. Each ship type has its own unique piloting dial, which is used to secretly select a speed and maneuver each turn. After planning maneuvers, each ship’s dial is revealed and executed (starting with the lowest skilled pilot). So whether you rush headlong toward your enemy showering his forward deflectors in laser fire, or dance away from him as you attempt to acquire a targeting lock, you’ll be in total control throughout all the tense dogfighting action.
Star Wars: X-Wing features (three) unique missions and each has its own set of victory conditions and special rules; with such a broad selection of missions, only clever and versatile pilots employing a range of tactics will emerge victorious. What’s more, no mission will ever play the same way twice, thanks to a range of customization options, varied maneuvers, and possible combat outcomes. Damage, for example, is determined through dice and applied in the form of a shuffled Damage Deck. For some hits your fighter sustains, you’ll draw a card that assigns a special handicap. Was your targeting computer damaged, affecting your ability to acquire a lock on the enemy? Perhaps an ill-timed weapon malfunction will limit your offensive capabilities. Or worse yet, your pilot could be injured, compromising his ability to focus on the life-and-death struggle in which he is engaged…
The Star Wars: X-Wing starter set includes everything you need to begin your battles, such as scenarios, cards, and fully assembled and painted ships. What’s more, Star Wars: X-Wing’s quick-to-learn ruleset establishes the foundation for a system that can be expanded with your favorite ships and characters from the Star Wars universe.
The hook for me was when I saw the game’s version of The Millennium Falcon which is for me one of my favorite fictional symbols in film history of rebellion. CLICK HERE FOR MORE. I remember vividly when I toured the Smithsonian Museum in Washington D.C. to see the actual model of the Falcon in a traveling display that was set up there. I traveled to Washington that weekend just to see the Falcon. I spent nearly two hours looking at it, photographing it and memorizing every pipe, dent, and burn mark on a ship I had watched so many times in the feature films. It was for me one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen in my life. When I saw the level of detail that Fantasy Flight Games had poured into the Millennium Falcon game piece for the X-Wing Miniatures role-playing game it called to my mind memory of that original model in sheer detail and I instantly fell in love. I immediately bought a starter set of the X-Wing game and launched my family onto a new generation of game play that is sure to engulf for many years. In the game players can fly the legendary Millennium Falcon into fast-paced battles for the fate of the galaxy! The Millennium Falcon™ Expansion Pack for the X-Wing™ Miniatures Game allows players to blast through hyperspace with Han, Chewie, Lando, and more. The Millennium Falcon comes with four pilot cards, thirteen upgrades, and all requisite tokens. New rules expand the X-Wing galaxy to include large ships and modifications. With its pilots, upgrades, and lovingly detailed miniature, the Millennium Falcon Expansion Pack is a beautiful addition to the X-Wing game! It may be the coolest thing I have seen in years regarding this kind of thing. It is a marvel to look at and unbelievable to have as a game play option. I consider it stunning.
If the Millennium Falcon didn’t close the deal for me on the new X-Wing game the promise of the next ship did. It doesn’t come out until the end of August, but when it does, I will buy it immediately. It is the HWK-290 designed by Corellian Engineering Corporation to resemble a bird in flight, the “hawk” series excels in its role as a personal transport. The HWK-290 Expansion Pack comes with one detailed miniature at 1/270 scale, a maneuver dial, all necessary tokens, six upgrades, and four pilots, including the renowned Kyle Katarn. Each HWK-290 provides a wide range of support options for your squad and can be outfitted with both a turret weapon and crew member. The reason this ship is significant for me is because it was the featured spacecraft of the main character in the video game Dark Forces.It never appeared in a Star Wars film, but was the home craft of the video game character Kyle Katarn, who would later become a Jedi Master in the novels years later. One of the very first video games that my oldest daughter ever played was Dark Forces. It was a first person shooter that came out in 1995. My daughter was only 6 years old at the time and helped me play it by pressing the space bar on the key board when I told her to which caused my character to jump. She was too young for the complex shooting and strategy it took to win the game, but she knew how to hit the space bar when I told her to and it was that game that launched her into a lifelong love of video games. She and I will always share that unique father/daughter experience, and I will always think of her when I think of the HWK-290. I was dazzled to learn that Fantasy Flight Games was actually inserting that ship into the game mythology before other types of ships, which let me know that the game designers were very serious about expanding the Star Wars experience of role-playing gaming in a format that hasn’t seen such a level of attention since our beloved Pirate Constructible Strategy Game.
Now that I’m going to be playing, it won’t take long before other members of my family will also and soon we will be ordering LaRosas pizza late at night and lining up 2-liters of Coke along our kitchen counter playing Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures Game well into the night. It doesn’t matter that everyone playing will be well over 20 years old and in my case their 40s. I still get a thrill about purchasing new strategic game pieces that can be used under battlefield conditions that have infinite possibilities. I do not feel this kind of passion for other types of games. The reason is that the role-playing games allow for complete independent freedom of strategy, unlike board games where the path is set and random chance puts players often into a position to win the game. With games like X-Wing Miniatures all the conditions of battle are set and designed by the player, and that is why I love these experiences so intensely. For me the game is only part of the fun. I enjoy often reading the stats of the cards and infinitely considering various strategies before hand. The game only proves a theory good or bad.
I have played these games with people who are really good. They are very quick with their mind and spend a lot more time playing the games than I ever will. It is fun to watch these kinds of players at tournaments and conventions. I will never put the kind of time into these games that they do, but I admire their efforts. Too many adults in our modern age believe falsely that games are for kids and that such things should be put away as adulthood consumes our lives. Games are not for kids, they are for minds. Games like the Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures Game feeds the mind with more than entertainment, it provides mental exercises that are invaluable to real life. I can’t say how many times I have been locked in epic political struggles and other situations where I resorted on the practices used in these strategy games to apply some skill I tried and won with in theory, against real opponents in real scenarios.
So as I sometimes take breaks from the rebellions of the real world to embark on these flights of fantasy, even in my leisure, strategy is an important part of my life. It is far safer to make errors in judgment among friends and family over pizza and Coca Coke than when it really counts in real life.
And with that said, I am ecstatic to see this new Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures Game available at what might only be termed, an essentially important period in my life. The timing couldn’t have been more perfect and I am so glad that the good people at Lucasfilm put the short playing clip of the example with Wil Wheaten and Seth Green up so I could see the Millennium Falcon playing piece for the first time and become enticed enough to investigate further. That investigation will yield tremendous benefits that can only be found when adults play the games of young people and further develop their minds against the antagonists who have lost such abilities to their own detriment. Sometimes being good at strategy isn’t about being better at the game itself, but is due to working against un-armed opponents. Those who don’t play these kinds of games find their minds unable to think strategically enough to compete when it really matters, and every time a new game like Star Wars: X-Wing Miniatures Game comes out, I am deeply thankful for the opportunity to feed my mind with the contents that have benefits which extend beyond convention. When a vacation is needed, it’s not just the body that needs rest, the mind does also. But the mind enjoys stimulation, not stagnation, and often a game like this can provide the crucial ingredient that the mind seeks with abundance in all the best scenarios.
To get the gist of what I’m talking about read this review from Boardgamegeek.com. It reveals why this game is so much better than most other games, and why it will become one of the most enduring games of its type in this generation.
Harrowing dogfights, family drama, shootouts, a tender moment, amazing monsters, humor.
There’s a tempo to Star Wars. We all remember Luke screaming NOOOOOOO at Vader. For different reasons, we remember Anakin turned Vader screaming NOOOOOO. But we also remember Leia offering a little cracker to an ewok. We remember first seeing Darth Maul’s double lightsaber. And we remember Han saying “I know.”
It is NOT all pew-pew-pew. It is NOT all Vrusssshhhhhhhzwwwmzwwwmmm. It’s a cycle of teasing action and drama.
Even though the X-Wing Minis game plays out some incredible dogfight sequences, the play of the game is NOT a straight forward flow.
I’ve got dozens of rounds under my belt now, and I’ve been wanting to write a review, and it finally came to me what it is that makes this game such rip roaring fun.
It’s not the astoundingly detailed minis. And anyone complaining about scale needs to take a close look at the movies, where the scale of the ships to each other changes from shot to shot due to the compositing techniques used at the time.
The minis are awesome. I’m somewhat surprised that different ships use different plastics, but I understand why. That denser stuff used on the X-Wing would collapse a Falcon into itself.
The prepaint jobs are incredible. The cards gorgeous, the components just off the scale. Even with the bit more they must pay in royalties to Uncle George, the massive appeal of this game allows them to make a ton of copies and the price, while at first glance seems daunting, isn’t a lot for what you get.
What makes the game work is the pendulum swing. The rhythm.
First, the setup. The agonizing squad building. Is it worth 2 points to raise this pilot’s skill, not knowing what the enemy force contains? It could easily be two points that have ZERO effect on the game. Terribly tough gambles. Now that wave 2 is out and you could just as easily face a hulking mothership like a decked out Slave I or a swarm of the world’s most annoying TIE fighters, you really have to prepare for a wide contingency of opponents.
This setup is tense. You want flexible. But strong. Synergistic support between squad members, but not so much that the loss of a key ship means defeat. And you ALWAYS want about 3 more points for that perfect build. No matter how many points you choose to fight, you will kill for another 3.
So it’s got that whole squad building aspect down great. Especially now that there’s a ton of options. Who knows what your opponent will bring?
But the flow of a turn is brilliant.
Everybody chooses their maneuvers. No downtime. But here in the game is where you are playing cat and mouse. Maybe psychologically toying with the opponent, making them think your plan is A when it is actually B.
Hidden agendas and secret moves. That’s the next game that plays out after the squad building math.
Then the wonderful move system. Everyone slowly reveals their moves, in what might be the games most questioned rule. The lowest skilled dudes go first, and eventually the better skilled dudes, which mean they have a fairly good chance of accidentally hitting and losing their action, where the lower skill guy might pull it off.
But it works in the long run, because it keeps higher skills in tailing positions.
Bit in this phase of the game, again, very, very little downtime, as the nefarious plans and maneuvers are revealed.
Squeals of glee and grunts of horror abound as unexpected collisions happen and skillful turns are executed.
But then comes the start of your devastating on the spot decision making. While plotting your squadrons moves, you had an overall plan. Now, each ship must choose it’s precious action.
Evade? How many guys might end up firing on you? Target? Are you clear to get the shot this or next turn? Focus – the all purpose “Egads, I need help” token. Or maybe that barrel roll or super freakin cool new Boost – move a bit maybe out of a firing arc or -surprise – snap someone into your arc. Maybe you execute some trick of your specific pilot.
Here is where you are tempering your odds. Things that will alter the upcoming luck sequence. carefully guiding the gods of luck to your favor.
The tokens build up on the board as actions get selected. At first, this is a pile of confusing cardboard. In a few games, the counters become invisible, simply reminding you of who plans what.
Whew. So, strategic planning in the squad build, then the secrecy of move plotting, then the agonizing action choices. What more does this game need?
Raw luck.
Bring out the dice. Or the iPad app, if you prefer.
Its Star WARS and the dice bring on the war. Now MORE decisions that hurt. Do I spend my focus token to get that extra damage possibly in, or hold on to it to help me avoid possible damage? What if I hold it and no one fires? What a waste… Two hits coming in… Do I evade? Or hold on to the evade since a crit might come next?
Hopefully, you’ve pile bonus upon bonus on your fighters. Distance, skill, weapon, focus… Or maybe all you’ve got is a shot in the dark.
Fire away.
Even defenders are active, choosing focus and evade moments.
Again, very little downtime. Lots of whining and cheering. Little downtime.
Start the cycle again. Hidden choices, movement reveals and actions, combat.
I think THIS is why X-Wing is such a stunningly successful design. It bobs and weaves each turn. No phase is long enough to overstay its welcome. And you must juggle and balance each phase to support the others.
An excellently designed system that overcomes any of it’s perceived problems due to the overall strength of play.
I find those types of games to be stimulating in a similar way to reading a novel, or playing a great video game. The difference is that you have to work with other people in a way that is only possible with this type of strategic gaming. For many years these role-playing strategy games have increased in popularity from a sub-culture of Dungeon and Dragon players, to what is now considered mainstream geekdom at major conventions all over the country. The transition came officially from the popular game, Magic the Gathering. The gaming industry in that market has never been the same, which is wonderful for the human race. A short history of this type of gaming can be seen at the link below.
For some hits your fighter sustains, you’ll draw a card that assigns a special handicap. Was your targeting computer damaged, affecting your ability to acquire a lock on the enemy? Perhaps an ill-timed weapon malfunction will limit your offensive capabilities. Or worse yet, your pilot could be injured, compromising his ability to focus on the life-and-death struggle in which he is engaged…
It never appeared in a Star Wars film, but was the home craft of the video game character Kyle Katarn, who would later become a Jedi Master in the novels years later. One of the very first video games that my oldest daughter ever played was Dark Forces. It was a first person shooter that came out in 1995. My daughter was only 6 years old at the time and helped me play it by pressing the space bar on the key board when I told her to which caused my character to jump. She was too young for the complex shooting and strategy it took to win the game, but she knew how to hit the space bar when I told her to and it was that game that launched her into a lifelong love of video games. She and I will always share that unique father/daughter experience, and I will always think of her when I think of the HWK-290. I was dazzled to learn that Fantasy Flight Games was actually inserting that ship into the game mythology before other types of ships, which let me know that the game designers were very serious about expanding the Star Wars experience of role-playing gaming in a format that hasn’t seen such a level of attention since our beloved Pirate Constructible Strategy Game.
The Overmanwarrior 
