History TabletopGame / XWingMiniatures

A miniatures game by Creator/FantasyFlightGames based on ''Franchise/StarWars'' and inspired by the star fighter battles within. The game is focused on the Galactic Civil War of the original trilogy and features most of the fighters from the films and many of the fighters from [[Franchise/StarWarsLegends various other sources]], including comics and video games. It is the sister game to ''TabletopGame/StarWarsArmada''.

In November 2020, Fantasy Flight Games' parent company Asmodee USA reorganized their subsidiaries to create specialization. As such, Fantasy Flight lost control of Star Wars Legion, Star Wars: Armada, and Star Wars: X-wing the Miniatures Game to Atomic Mass Games. Shortly thereafter, AMG released their own "update", [[FanNickname termed 2.5]] to the rules to bring it more in line with their other table top games. These changes were [[Administrivia/RuleOfCautiousEditingJudgment controversial]] within the community itself and as such there remain strong followings for both

In November 2020, Fantasy Flight Games' parent company Asmodee USA reorganized their subsidiaries to create specialization. As such, Fantasy Flight lost control of Star Wars Legion, Star Wars: Armada, and Star Wars: X-wing the Miniatures Game to Atomic Mass Games. Shortly thereafter, AMG released their own "update", [[FanNickname termed 2.5]] to the rules to bring it more in line with their other table top games. These changes were [[RuleofCautiousEditingJudgement controversial]] within the community itself and as such there remain strong followings for both

** Consciously averted with AMG's changes to 2.5 edition. Most notable has been the re-costing of generic pilots to be the same price as named ones, making generic pilots objectively useless over named pilots. On top of this, upgrades no longer cost points for the overall squadron, instead filling up each pilot's individual allotment of upgrade points. As a result it's now far more practical to field [[StarWarsIVANewHope Luke Skywalker with R2D2 in an X-wing and a pair of proton torpedos]] than it would be otherwise

* BribingYourWayToVictory: Was a relatively large issue in 1st edition, as the only way to get access to upgrades was to hold the physical cards containing them. Since cards came only with specific releases, in some cases the [[ Huge Ship only]] releases, a sizeable investment was necessary to ensure your squadrons had the upgrades necessary to stay up to date with the current meta. The release of the [[StarWarsVIIITheLastJedi Star Fortress Heavy Bomber]] notably sold out specifically because of how one of its upgrades completely broke the game (as mentioned above under AwesomeButImpractical).

* BroadStrokes: The game takes inspiration both from the new Disney canon as well as the old ''[[Franchise/StarWarsLegends Legends]]'' [[AlternateContinuity continuity]]. So if you've ever wanted to see how [[Franchise/ShadowsOfTheEmpire Dash Rendar]] would fare against [[WesternAnimation/StarWarsRebels the Inquisitor]], or pit [[ComicBook/StarWarsCrimsonEmpire Kir Kanos]] against Hera Syndulla, you can do so here.

** Rebellion are the Powerhouse Rangers when it comes to fighters, with Generalist when it comes to Large ships. They want to cooperate with one another to keep each other alive, with a large emphasis on becoming MightyGlaciers, StoneWalls, and LighningBruisers through their abilities.
** Empire are the Subversive, with their tricks coming mostly from their Large ships. They rely on speed, unusual abilities, and other quirks in their small ships, and their large ships are enormous MightyGlaciers that want to use their crew slots to trade expendable mooks for high value targets on the enemy team

Examples on this page might only apply to one of the two editions.

* AceCustom: Can be invoked on a number of ships using available 'Title' upgrade cards. While not all of them do this, and a few actually downgrade ships to represent prototypes and such (the benefit in that case being reduced point cost to play the ship), at least half give the ship a significant boost along with the name. The Millennium Falcon herself is a double example, not only having the available boost from the "Millennium Falcon" title upgrade, but the YT-1300 is the only example in the game so far where the lowest 'generic' version has different stats, significantly lower from any of the named pilot versions.

* ActionBomb: Ships with Illicit upgrades can equip the Deadman's Switch, which means that they explode when they die.

* AwesomeButImpractical: Most ordnance secondary weapons hit hard and have devastating effects. However, their point cost, exhaustibility, and the setup required to use them in actual combat make them highly impractical to use in competitive play. Fantasy Flight games has gradually gotten a bit better at making effective ordnance weapons, but they still struggle.
** The E-wing is almost as maneuverable as an interceptor, packs a hefty punch, and can use the incredibly powerful systems upgrades. However, they're also very expensive, and as a result, the generic pilots are almost never seen.
** The TIE Defender has a fantastic statline, with 3s across the board (yes that includes both evade and shield), plus one of the best maneuver dials in the game, as fast as the A-Wing, better turns and the only ship in the entire game with a U-Turn maneuver that isn't red. Problem is it's incredibly expensive, with the basic, Pilot Skill 1 pilot being more expensive than Darth Vader, so it's rarely seen. The "Imperial Veterans" expansion is intended to rectify this with its "TIE/D" (0 points, allows a free primary weapon attack every time a cannon secondary is used) and "TIE/x7" (-2 points, sacrifices the secondary weapon slots but gives out free evade tokens for every speed 3 or greater maneuver) title cards, as well as 3 additional Defender pilots (2 unique, 1 generic).

* BribingYourWayToVictory: Mostly averted as expansion packs are non-randomized and a full 100 point tournament list can be as few as two ships. However, some squad builds require upgrades that only come with specific ships that may not see use or are hard to find. This is a particularly sore point when it comes to upgrades and pilots that come in the epic expansions, as huge ships are not legal in standard play (although the rules allow a player to use a huge ship as an obstacle instead of asteroids or debris fields in casual games) and the expansions are much more expensive compared to standard expansions, but all of the the huge ships thus far have included at least one metagame-defining card that 'is' legal in standard play
** The Rebel Transport gets less flak than the other huge expansions for being the cheapest of the huge expansions, but some people still grumble about how a critical piece of Rebel Control Builds (R3-A2) is only found in this expansion
** The Tantive IV expansion doesn't even include a small base ship, but the R2-D2 and C-3PO crew cards are incredibly powerful defensive upgrades. C-3PO is particularly egregious as he is a key part of the popular "Fat Han" list.
** The Imperial Raider is particularly contentious because it contains the TIE Advanced x1 upgrade in addition to new pilots for the TIE Advanced and the powerful Emperor Palpatine Crew Card (the centerpiece of the "Palp Aces" lists that currently dominate the meta). A vocal group on the fantasy flight forums are upset about a card that is almost mandatory to run the TIE Advanced competitively is only available in a one hundred dollar expansion. At least FFG was kind enough to include 4 copies of the card (as well as 4 copies of Advanced Targeting Computer, the system upgrade normally used in conjunction with the TIE/x1 title) in the expansion so anyone who wants to run a squad of nothing but TIE Advanced doesn't need to buy multiple copies. That also makes it easy for those who ''don't'' intend to run multiple TIE Advanced in a squad to [[Website/{{eBay}} sell the extras on eBay]] and recoup a good bit of the money spent on buying a Raider.
** On a smaller scale, the [=StarViper=] is a Scum-only ship that costs a bit more than others of its scale, but the Autothrusters modification that comes in it is considered virtually mandatory for any ship with the Boost action, such as the T-70 X-Wing and especially the TIE Interceptor. The situation will be somewhat improved with the release of the also-expensive TIE Silencer, an Interceptor-like ship which also comes with Autothrusters, although Rebel players are still out of luck.

** Taken even further with the TIE/fo, TIE/sf, Upsilon Shuttle, Quadjumper, T-70 X-Wing, TIE Silencer and Resistance Bomber. [[AnachronismStew You can mix and match ships from both the Original Trilogy and the new films]], and indeed some benefit greatly from this (Poe Dameron's Focus-based talents combo very well with a fully upgraded Kyle Katarn's ability to generate tons of Focus and hand them out like party favours).
** There are also a few characters assigned as pilots to fighters they were never associated with in canon. This was somewhat inevitable given, for example, the lack of named E-wing pilots in ''Legends''. Corran Horn has always been primarily an X-wing pilot (and even personally owns his X-wing), while Etahn A'baht is not known to have been a pilot at all (his sole known connection to the E-wing was commanding a fleet that used them as their main fighter); oddly enough, Luke, who ''did'' own an E-Wing for a while (he gave it back) is not one. The upcoming ARC-170 expansion also contains entirely pilots who are not yet known to have ever flown one. Surprisingly enough, Airen Cracken is not one of these; while he's better known in both Legends and the new canon as the head of the Rebel spy network and it's his son Pash (not yet in the game) who's known as a fighter ace, he really did (at least in Legends) fly a Z-95 Headhunter in the early days of the Rebellion. Gavin Darklighter is placed in an E-wing, which--like Corran--he had a 50/50 shot of being in one. Most confusing is the edition of Ibtisam in an ARC-170 fighter.
*** Corran Horn had a 50/50 chance of flying an E-Wing in the ''ComicBook/CrimsonEmpire'' series, when Rogue Squadron was using B-wings and E-wings together for a short while. Assuming that the time period didn't overlap with ''[[Literature/JediAcademyTrilogy I, Jedi]]''.
** And since the Slave I was released before Scum & Villainy's addition as a third faction, a few decidedly non-Imperial pilots can fly for the Empire. While Boba Fett was hired by the Empire on many occasions, this was as a bounty hunter and not to aid in space combat. Kath Scarlet is a pirate with a habit of ''specifically targeting Imperial transports'', since they tend to have the most valuable stuff to steal. And Krassis Trelix was an Imperial ''deserter'' who only started piloting a Firespray after joining a slaving guild.

** The twin laser turret upgrade specializes in this. It makes two highly accurate attacks at each opportunity, but each attack can only deal one damage.

** Arc dodging requires you to be good at predicting where your opponent is going to go, avoiding lines of fire, and protecting ships with tiny hull totals that cost a third of your points. If you ''are'' good at all of those things, you can fly in circles around jousters.

* FactionCalculus: Not very clear cut anymore, but when the game first started, the Rebels were the Powerhouse faction, with mostly tough, elite fighters and the Empire was the Subversive faction, mostly consisting of fast, cheap and expendable craft.
** In addition, the three factions are now somewhat identified by their (basically) unique shticks:
*** ''Rebels'': Heavy Shields & Shield regeneration (especially egregious on the X-Wings, making them nigh-unkillable in 1v1 dogfights)
*** ''Empire'': High maneuverability (Barrel Rolls & Evade actions, 5-speed maneuvers, lots & lots of White and Green maneuvers, multiple K-Turns and S-Loops, etc.)
*** ''Scum'': Strange effects and Illicit upgrade slots, with a willingness to sacrifice HP and even ships for some tactical advantage (such as protecting a tougher ship, or using Deadman's Switch for a suicide run).
* FixedForwardFacingWeapon: The default, although a few ships have auxiliary firing arcs out the rear (the Firespray-31, ARC-170, VCX-100 and TIE/sf) or the flanks (YV-666), a few others have either integrated turrets (K-Wing, YT-1300, YT-2400, Jumpmaster 5000, and VT-49 Decimator) or a turret slot (VCX-100, HWK-290, Attack Shuttle, Y-Wing, and the K-Wing again), or can rotate their guns to face in any direction with an action (Lancer-class pursuit craft). Taken UpToEleven with the Kimogila fighter, which has a secondary "bullseye" firing arc inside its normal firing arc, that allows it to do more if it lines up perfect shots - starting with denying them the option to spend tokens defensively and moving up to the effects of the unique named pilots.
** Second Edition brought the bullseye arc to all ships, with upgrade cards allowing their general use.
* FragileSpeedster: A-Wings, TIE Interceptors, and from early previews, the Concord Dawn Protectorate Starfighter, are capable of blistering speeds, but only have 3-4 total hull and shield. TIE Strikers with the Adaptive Ailerons title upgrade are even more notable: unless they're stressed, they automatically execute a free range 1 straight or bank move, meaning that they ''can't'' move less than range 3 in a given turn (if they reveal a range 1, they move 1 before moving + base length of 1 + actual range 1 move).

** Multiple ships in "Legends" material such as ''The Complete Guide to Vehicles and Vessels'' are said to have a sublight speed comparable to a Y-Wing. Because a Y-Wing is in stiff competition with the HWK for the worst dial in the game, most of those ships are actually faster than it.
* GlassCannon: The TIE Phantom has the highest primary attack value in the game, at a stunning 4 attack. However, it only has 2 Hull, 2 Shields, and 2 Agility - compared to other ships of the same value, it is remarkably fragile. Most Phantoms take advantage of [[StealthInSpace cloaking]] to augment the Phantom's poor agility value.

* JackOfAllStats: The [=TIE=] Advanced and [[Film/TheForceAwakens T-70 X-wing]]. The classic T-65 X-wing from the original trilogy tries to be this, but because it lacks any sort of reposition ability and is too expensive to be used as a blocking ship, it's mostly limited to the role of jousting. [[MasterOfNone Prior to Wave 8, the generic pilots weren't even good at that.]]
* LastChanceHitPoint: If a YV-666 with the ''Hound's Tooth'' title is destroyed, the pilot launches in the ''Nashtah Pup'' Z95, allowing them to continue the fight in a much smaller and weaker fighter.

* MightyGlacier: The ARC-1300, YT-1300, Lambda shuttle, TIE Bomber, Y-Wing, M12-L Kimogila and B-Wing all have fairly poor movement without upgrades, but a lot of HP and/or shields. For example, both Y-Wings and B-Wings have a total of 8 hull and shield points, but very few green manoeuvres (making it hard to recover stress) and lots of red ones (making it easy to gain it), while the Kimogila has no forward move faster than speed 3, but can reload its ordnance and has that bullseye arc to be dealing with.
* {{Nerf}}: Fantasy Flight is not shy about releasing errata to weaken overpowered builds. The March 2017 errata, for example, depowered Palpatine (you now declare you're using him ''before'' rolling, meaning you can't rely on him for a success just when you need it), Manaroo (her ability to give free stuff to allies now has a harsh range limitation, preventing her from churning out buffs from the other side of the board), the Zuckuss crew card (he now can't be used if you're already stressed, meaning you can't use him on every attack), and the x7 title (it's now an ''action'', not a free token, which means you need to keep an eye on stress and can't pull it when going through asteroids). They also clarified away the Kylo Ren/Darth Vader crew combo (Kylo Ren's ability specifies "during an attack", Vader takes effect after one.) Subsequent errata also limited Attanni Mindlink (the single most commonly seen Elite upgrade in Scum lists) to two copies per list and seriously limited Biggs Darklighter's fire-drawing action for power level concerns, took upgrade options away from the Jumpmaster 5000, and did away with the "Genius" astromech and Advanced SLAM modification's ability to reliably deploy bombs right in front of enemy ships.

* ObviousRulePatch: When the YT-2400 came out, it was the first Large ship with a native Barrel Roll action. Fantasy Flight Games updated the Barrel Roll rules to nerf the positioning options of Large ships.
** When the TIE Phantom proved to be too much of a GameBreaker, the decloaking mechanic was changed to happen at the beginning of the turn instead of just before the Phantom moved. This particular fix has proven to be wildly popular, in part because it actually makes the ship seem more like it's actually cloaked as opposed to its previous LastPlaceYouLook approach.
** Fantasy Flight Games prefers to update its weaker (or just overpriced for their strength) ships with more powerful options than to nerf existing gameplay options whenever possible. Examples include the Chardaan Refit upgrade for the A-Wing (which lets it ditch the missile upgrade slot to save 2 points to spend on other stuff), the Integrated Astromech modification for X-Wings (which lets them use their astromech as a bonus hull point - for free) and the [=TIE/x1=] title upgrade for the TIE Advanced, which lets it equip any systems upgrade with a discount of up to 4 points. The TIE Defender can be taken in both directions, either upgraded with the TIE/D title card (allows an extra primary weapon attack after a secondary cannon is used) or downgraded with the TIE/x7 title (loses the cannon and missile upgrade option, but saves 2 points and adds an evade token after speed 3 through 5 movements).

* PowerCreep: The designers attempt to avert this; if an older ship falls behind in the metagame, FFG will most likely release new upgrades and pilots for that ship to make it relevant again.
** The extent to which newer ships are cheaper and more effective can be most easily seen with the original (T-65) X-Wing. Originally a competitive ship in itself, it now has access to a zero-point upgrade that gives it an extra hit before dying, a one-point astromech that lets it boost or barrel roll without an action, a zero-point modification that gives it access to boost and green moves, or barrel roll and T-roll turns, and most egregiously an upgrade that gives up a torpedo slot in exchange for reducing the cost by two or three points and gives a second modification slot.

** In standard tournament rules, players are given 100 points to spend to build their squad. They may spend those on cheap, disposable ships, beefy large ships with lots of upgrades, or a mixture of the two.
** The game's second edition adjusts this dynamic. The point limit has been increased to 200, and ships are broadly less expensive than before. To compensate, upgrades have increased in cost, often quite significantly. The end result is that the difference between quantity and quality lists have become far more pronounced.

* SpamAttack: Ships with the Gunner crew member or Luke Skywalker on board can make a second attack if the first attack misses. Double-Edge and IG-88B can also perform similar attacks with secondary weapons, and IG-88B [[PowerCopying can even share that ability with every other version of him in your squad]]. And the TIE/D title allows a TIE Defender to shoot twice (with both its cannon upgrade and its regular attack) every turn, limited only by being restricted 3 point or less cannons so the most devastating ones aren't available.
** Twin Laser Turrets always make two accurate but weak attacks, and the upgrade is typically run on several ships at once.
** The TIE/SF pilot "Quickdraw" is able to get off a potential ''four'' 2-die shots a turn in exactly the right circumstances: if she's got front and rear line of fire, she gets one shot in each direction from the Special Forces Title upgrade, then gets another one when she loses a point of shields (or just flies through an asteroid or exploits some equipment combo to ensure losing a point of shields). If she has Snap Shot as her pilot talent, she can even make a fifth if someone moves to range 1 of her. Of course, she can only do this a maximum of three times, but it's still a staggering number of shots for someone who costs less than a baseline TIE Defender.
** The Ruthlessness pilot talent allows the ship with it to deal ping damage to a ship near the enemy they hit.

* TacticalRockPaperScissors: ''Generally'', you get three kinds of strategy that work this way. Jousters rely on flying into the enemy and shooting the crap out of them. Jousting is countered by arc-dodging, which relies upon small numbers of highly elite, mobile ships that swerve past enemy fire arcs and pick on them from unexpected angles; jousters lack the mobility to fight them effectively. Arc-dodgers are countered by turret builds, which rely on big, chunky, durable ships that don't ''care'' about fire arcs and can shoot you from any angle with a turret. Turrets, however, are countered by jousters, which can soak up the relatively low number of shots most turrets fire and simply beat them into submission. The various upgrades do shift what's available, though.
** This got amended somewhat in 2E. While turrets still counter arc-dodger to a certain degree, most turrets have to point into one of four directions now[[note]]the rest points towards two opposing directions simultaneously[[/note]], making arc-dodging difficult (because turrets can be rotated to a new direction), but at least possible .
* TakingYouWithMe: The Deadman's Switch upgrade allows Scum players to rig, for example, a Z-95 Headhunter to explode when someone kills them.

* CanonForeigner: The Imperial Raider was designed in collaboration between Lucasfilm and Fantasy Flight Games as an original ship for this game to give the Empire a Huge ship that could compete in the game on the scale of the other ships (that is, a ship that was big, but not as [[MileLongShip ridiculously big as a Star Destroyer]]). They originally considered the ''Lancer''-class frigate, but decided that at 2/3 longer than the ''Tantive IV'' it was still way too big. The fact that the Raider was designed [[TwoDSpace for a tabletop game instead of real space combat]] is somewhat obvious, on account of it having six turrets ''that are all dorsal''. It would be helpless against anything that goes underneath it.

* AcePilot: Numerous. Every ship has at least two named pilots, each boasting a [[ActionInitiative higher Pilot Skill value]] than the generics and a unique pilot ability. The highest base Pilot Skill value is 9, which is held by ten pilots: Darth Vader (TIE Advanced x1) and [[ComicBook/XWingSeries Soontir Fel (TIE Interceptor)]] for the Empire, Han Solo (YT-1300) and Wedge Antilles (X-wing) for the Rebellion, Dengar ([=JumpMaster=] 5000) and [[VideoGame/StarWarsGalaxies Talonbane Cobra (Kihraxz Fighter)]] for Scum and Villainy, the "Heroes of the Resistance" version of Poe Dameron (T-70 X-wing) for the Resistance, Kylo Ren (TIE Silencer) and "Quickdraw" ([=TIE/sf=]) for the First Order, plus [[WesternAnimation/StarWarsRebels Fenn Rau]] who's available for Scum (Concord Dawn Protectorate Starfighter) or Rebellion (Phantom II) . Thus, every faction has three or four options for Pilot Skill 9 - although with Heroes of the Resistance, the Rebels get two different abilities for Han.

* ActionGirl: Quite a few. Rebels have [[WesternAnimation/StarWarsRebels Hera Syndulla (the 'Ghost'' and ''Phantom'') & Sabine Wren]] (the ''Phantom'' and TIE Fighter), [[Film/TheForceAwakens Rey (YT-1300), Jessika Pava (T-70 X-Wing)]], [[ComicBook/XWingSeries Ibtisam]] and Nera Dantels (B-Wing), [[VideoGame/DarkForcesSaga Jan Ors (HWK-290)]], [[Literature/BlackFleetCrisis Miranda Doni (K-Wing)]], [[Literature/StarWarsAftermath Norra Wexley]] and [[ComicBook/StarWarsShatteredEmpire Shara Bey]] (ARC-170), and [[WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars Ahsoka Tano]] and Sabine Wren again (Sabine's TIE Fighter). The Empire has [[VideoGame/StarWarsGalaxies Kath Scarlett (Firespray-31)]], [[VideoGame/StarWarsGalaxies "Howlrunner" (TIE Fighter)]], "Echo" (TIE Phantom), [[VideoGame/TheForceUnleashed Juno Eclipse (TIE Advanced)]], [[VideoGame/StarWarsGalaxies Countess Ryad (TIE Defender)]], Major Vynder (''Alpha''-class Star Wing), and "Quickdraw" ([[Film/TheForceAwakens TIE/SF]]). And the Scum have Serissu ([=M3-A=] Interceptor), [[Literature/DarkDisciple Latts Razzi (YV-666)]], Kath Scarlett again, [[Literature/ShadowsOfTheEmpire Guri (StarViper)]], [[WesternAnimation/StarWarsRebels Ketsu Onyo, Sabine Wren again]] and [[WesternAnimation/StarWarsTheCloneWars Asajj Ventress]] (all on the ''Shadow Caster'') and [[Literature/TalesOfTheBountyHunters Manaroo (Punishing One)]]. Not always obvious due to the 'pilot cards' showing only the ship, but can be seen on the 'crew' cards and Armada cards. A number of the crew cards also count, including Leia herself and Mara Jade.

* QuantityVsQuality: In standard tournament rules, players are given 100 points to spend to build their squad. They may spend those on cheap, disposable ships, beefy large ships with lots of upgrades, or a mixture of the two.

A second edition was announced in May of 2018, and was released in mid-September of that year.

* CrackIsCheaper: Surprisingly {{Averted}}, {{Invoked}}, and {{Subverted}} all simultaneously, depending on how you look at it.
** '''Averted''': If you dedicate your purchases entirely to building only ONE Squad, especially using ebay to buy only **exactly** what you need, you can build a tournament-quality squad for around $100.
*** Compare this to other miniatures games, like TabletopGame/Warhammer40000, where $100 will get you only ''part'' of a ''SMALL'' army.
** '''Invoked''': However, if you don't use ebay, you'll end up buying whole expansions ($15+ when not on sale) just to get the necessary pilots, minis, and upgrades you need for your preferred squad. Spending $300+ this way is not hard at all.
*** Of course, FFG purposefully designs expansions this way: each ship only comes with about 2/3 to 3/4 of the upgrades needed to perfect it, with the last necessary upgrade(s) packaged with at least 1 other ship, so you'll end up buying tons of extra ships. If you want to kit out a squad of T-65 X-Wings with all their preferred upgrades, those humble $15 ships can end up costing in excess of $50 each.
** '''Subverted''': ''HOWEVER'', spending all that will probably get you 1 copy of most, if not all, ships in a single faction, if not most ships in the game, period. This means you'll quickly be able to build ''multiple'' squads for each faction as a result.
*** It's actually not uncommon for only 1 person in a group of friends to own X-Wing, yet have enough minis for the entire group to play different squads. And since this these are [[CoolStarship fighters]] from ''Star Wars'', [[RuleOfCool and all...]]