X-Wing Miniatures Game - In Review

So last night I had a good friend come over and he showed me X-Wing the Miniatures game.  

First Impressions
The game appears to be a heavy movements game.  And by movements game I mean you will win or loss the game based on how well or poorly you move your ships in the space provided.  Dice didn't seem as strong of a factor in the game due to the focus mechanic and the chance to hit via hits,crits, and focus on the attack dice.  So where other games you have the potential of lady luck kicking you in the nuts, with the embedded focus mechanic you are more likely to keep her vengeance at bay.  This also drives towards movement being so critical.  If your opponent can capitalize on your movements there is a much higher chance of doing enough dmg to knock out your ships early on.  An in a game of only 3-6 ships in your fleet even a single lost ship is a crippling blow.  

My List

Now I will not admit to any level of expertise (seeing as just above I admitted to only a couple games in), so take what I say next with a grain of salt.  After the couple mechanics learning games, we hashed out a 100pt Rebel List (100pts appears to be this games standard "tournament" format at the moment) which looks like this:

(X-Wing) Biggs Darklighter (25) w/ R2D2 (4)

(X-Wing) Red squadron Pilot (23)

(X-Wing) Graven Dreis (26)

(A-Wing) Green Squadron Pilot (19) w/ push the limit (3)

Total: 100pt.

General Tactics
Run the A-Wing as a flank harasser.  He's not going to get much love from Biggs being mostly out of Range Band 1 but with his low pilot skill and high maneuvering he will get into places to choke up movement lanes and prevent activations while arriving with both a focus and a evade token due to Pushing the limits.  An since he is running close to the enemy to choke movements I went with A-Wing as it has 1 higher Agi on it.

The 3 X-Wings are a slow moving juggernaut with Red and Dreis running point and Biggs running rear guard.   Basically I am trying to position so that the two other X-wings are near Biggs to get his bonus, But Biggs is running far enough away to tank with 3 Agi dice at Range 3 (aka R3).  Between increased Agi Die at R3 and R2D2 returning a shield each turn he is the tank to allow Red and Dreis to do the work.  Dreis will push forward and take a focus.  Red will push forward and take a target lock on any target priority that will be gunning for Biggs.  Dreis goes first shooting target priorities and then push focus to Red.  Red will activate and shot Target lock taking Dreis's focus to hammer said target lock home.  I didn't see any cards that increase shot potential besides Expose which is a 4 point upgrade (out of the list potential) so using Dreis and Red to provide 3 Re-roll focus shots is the best "punch" I can come up with.  Wedge would be nice with Dreis but at 29 points he is so outside of point budget it's not worth removing 2 ships to fit him in.

Early Conclusions
After playing both sides of the game (Imperial and Rebel) and looking over the cards my friend had, the bell curve of power seems to lean more towards the diversity of the Imperial fleet. I would suspect that many will gravitate towards the Imperial Fleet as a result of this curve.  In a game of so few models, being two models up (due to low point values) is a pretty big thing.  There was just something missing from the Rebel Fleet.  It's possible this missing element is things found in the Y-Wings (as we had none of their models or cards).  It's even possible that the game is written in such a way that the balance element is the scenarios of the game (we didn't have a chance to get in any scenario games).  I could see the Rebel fleet having a better control in a game where sitting on an objective and weathering fire through droids and shields would net you wins.  Further game play and review will be required before I can put any level of approval down on the balance of the game.  Over all it was an enjoyable game to play, not sure if it's going to be the runner for end all be all best miniatures game, but it's still in it's infancy and time will tell.