X-wing Miniatures Game

Today's review is of the 2012 release, the X-wing Miniatures game.  For 2+ players, it takes 30+ minutes.

Overview
X-Wing Miniatures is a tactical starship combat game, where players choose Empire or Rebellion in the fight for galactic dominance.  To begin, each player prepares a squad of ships and upgrade cards, each of which has a point cost to play.  (Upgrade cards can be pilots, weapons, or other enhancements that improve your ships' performance and capabilities.)  Players agree on a total point cost (example: 100 points) and assemble a fleet based on that.  This is a living game, where you purchase the starter set and can buy individual ships to expand your options for fleet construction.  So you might choose more 'vanilla' ships cheaper to play, or focus on fewer ships with powerful upgrades.  The choice is yours!  Once players have their squads, the game can begin.

contents of the starter set; image from here

Each player places their ships on opposing sides of the board.  Gameplay proceeds in four phases:
1. Planning Phase: each ship has a maneuver dial, which contains that ship's range of movement possibilities (ships move along lines or arcs, shown in the image above).  Players choose one movement secretly for each of their ships in this phase.

2. Activation Phase: each ship has a pilot skill value.  The ship with the lowest pilot skill reveals its maneuver dial and performs the indicated maneuver.  The ship with the next higher pilot skill does the same.  Repeat until all ships have moved.

3. Combat Phase: each ship may perform one attack (if able).  This time, the ship with the highest pilot skill goes first, and play proceeds in decreasing skill order until all possible attacks have been performed.  Attacks are made rolling a stated number of red dice, indicating hits or other effects; defense with green dice, indicating evasion or other effects.  Comparisons are made to the red and green dice, and any hits that 'get through' either diminish the shields (if the ship has them) or do damage.  Once a ship's damage exceeds its hull value, it is destroyed and remove from the board.

4. End Phase: Any cleanup (as indicated in the rules) is performed.

game in progress (using some custom components); image from here

The phases are repeated until one fleet is destroyed.

Review
This is a great game.  It moves quickly, gives players lots of meaningful choices, and is suspenseful/exciting, with plenty of action.  Though I (conceptually) prefer capital ship battles, this game is better than its big brother, Star Wars Armada, because it moves faster, has better/more frequent engagement, and is intuitively easier to play.  With any living game, it can get pricey and addictive fast, so use a friend's collection if you can't be trusted (like me) to be responsible.  The rules for X-wing are here.

Rating: A