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In this latest guest post, Samuel Webb, an experienced news reporter and copywriter based in Coventry, discusses why some X-Wing Miniatures fans are unhappy with the company that they claim is ruining this beloved Star Wars tabletop skirmish game.
The X-Wing Miniatures Game was once the most popular game in the multi-billion-dollar world of wargaming. Released in 2012, it featured ship-to-ship dogfighting between the iconic craft of the Star Wars universe, including X-Wings, TIE fighters, and the beloved Millennium Falcon. The gameplay was widely praised for its secret movement dial mechanic, beautifully pre-painted miniatures, and fast-paced rules. The Fantasy Flight Games (FFG) Disney franchise sold like crazy and tournaments attracted hundreds of gamers. It was revamped with a second edition in 2018 that streamlined and improved the rules and added prequel and sequel factions like The Republic and First Order. In 2020, the Star Wars licence moved from FFG to Atomic Mass Games (AMG), another division of parent company Asmodee, the tabletop monolith behind games like Carcassone and Pandemic.
Now, many fans are furious with AMG, accusing the studio – which also oversees Disney stablemates Marvel Crisis Protocol and Star Wars’ Shatterpoint – of giving up on X-Wing despite a passionate fanbase that has invested heavily in the game and continues to organise events despite dwindling numbers. Players point to a slow-down of game-balancing points updates, sporadic or non-existent communication with fans, poor organised play support and a dearth of new miniature releases despite fresh Star Wars ships appearing in TV shows The Mandalorian, Ahsoka and Andor. A sweeping rules and gameplay overhaul, dubbed “X-Wing 2.5“, following the pandemic also sharply divided fans.
Despite repeated attempts, neither Asmodee nor AMG provided a comment for this article.
“Its soul is now dead and gone.”
Former world champion Oliver Pocknell says it is impossible to ignore AMG’s effect on the game’s popularity and is damning of their approach to play-testing and balance, claiming some ships and play styles are wildly overpowered.
The teacher from Brighton said: “Popularity wise, the game has been struggling. It’s not just down to AMG that these changes have happened, the game has been through the COVID years, but I can’t help but blame AMG for a large part of this. The biggest problem AMG face is their frankly terrible communication skills. They are damaging their reputation repeatedly by not communicating regularly or effectively. In the past few months we have had developers tell the community on stream: ‘If you don’t like our game, you can quit’.
“It is this mix of radio silence, combined with incompetence, that has caused so many players to feel frustrated and abandoned by this new version of the game that feels so very different to the game that they started and enjoyed.
“This was my biggest hobby and I’ve made some lifelong friends playing the game, but I have completely lost all motivation to play the game as it feels as if its soul is now dead and gone. I no longer want to play a game of X-Wing for fun anymore as it is just boring to me. The real shame is it feels like most of this could have been avoided with some proper communication.”
Dave Cook, an X-Wing player from Plymouth in the UK, said the lack of new ships is “pretty woeful”.
He added: “It’s hugely disappointing to see their other games churn out release after release while X-Wing got barely a trickle. Our community here has massively contracted, we have gone from about 20 regular weekly players to less than a handful. Many players have just drifted away. I have moved on to other games, namely Kill Team, Battletech and Adeptus Titanicus. I still love X-Wing but don’t feel AMG really wanted the game and that’s pretty apparent by how it’s been piloted.”
“It feels like they just don’t care.”
Walsall-based Liam Baker, one of the hosts of X-Wing podcast Sith Takers Snap Shots, says he has “zero confidence” in AMG’s ability to help the game thrive.
He said: “I personally feel like X-Wing is an unwanted game for them and it feels like they just don’t care. The support for the game has been poor. There isn’t an understanding of what the greater community wants and needs.
“We were treated respectfully and well by FFG. Our emails containing questions were replied to, promises of follow-up emails were acknowledged and fulfilled and we had communication regarding new projects and releases.
“My enthusiasm for the game has dwindled. I’ve lost a lot of trust in AMG over the recent months and that feeling has meant I haven’t bought any Marvel Crisis Protocol in a year, I haven’t picked up the Shatterpoint game and I’ll only buy X-Wing releases – which is a shame because we aren’t getting those.”
François Couret, a former French champion who lives near Brest in France, has been playing since late 2013 and says gamers are drifting away to other, “better-supported” games, like A Song Of Ice And Fire.
He said: “The X-Wing community in Brest has seen a clear decrease since the rules change. The monthly 12-20 people tournament has become a three or four times a year 6-12 people event. We also used to host a 45-person tournament once a year, but it has vanished. Support from AMG is, in my opinion, very poor. They didn’t really explain the rule changes, and the lack of ship releases will probably slowly kill the game. Overall, I think AMG turned an awesome game into a good game.”
“I think we are moving in the right way.”
Many X-Wing gamers are a bit more positive about the game’s future.
Joaquin Felipe Gonzalez Mendez, a UK-based Spanish Chilean, said: “Currently the game is in good health, the store championship season really helped a lot and we started to have new players at our Thursday night sessions. I was happy to see people that apparently left the game playing again this season. The only thing that I miss is new ships for Resistance and First Order, but I think that we are moving in the right way to grow again as a big community.”
Elliot Weights, who lives near Bristol, says his local X-Wing community is expanding.
He said: “Organised play is lacking, however (AMG) is a smaller team. It would be better […] if we had regular new products to shake things up. The comms have improved, they started out a bit shaky and now we get articles and regular updates via a Discord channel. For the size of their team, they are doing a great job.”
How About You?
Now I would like to know what you think. Have you played X-Wing yourself before? Do you think it’s going into decline? Is there still an active community behind it? Please share your thoughts and experiences in the comments below.
Useful Links
- Samuel Webb: https://samwebbreporter.
com/ - Star Wars X-Wing Miniatures: https://www.
atomicmassgames. com/ xwing/ - Fantasy Flight Games: https://www.
fantasyflightgames. com/ en/ index/ - Disney: https://www.
disney. co. uk/ - Atomic Mass Games: https://www.
atomicmassgames. com/ - Asmodee: https://www.
asmodee. co. uk/ - Pandemic review: https://tabletopgamesblog.
com/ 2020/ 01/ 18/ pandemic-saturday-review/ - Oliver Pocknell: https://medium.
com/ @oliverpocknell - Sith Takes Snap Shots podcast: https://open.
spotify. com/ show/ 4pbIE9FZderY7SYKeKuspU
Audio Version
Intro Music: Bomber (Sting) by Riot (https://www.
Music: The Boy Who Never Existed by Michal Mojzykiewicz
Free download: https://filmmusic.io/song/10072-the-boy-who-never-existed
Licensed under CC BY 4.0: https://filmmusic.io/standard-license
I think the game itself took a good step with the objectives but the listbuilding and loadoutpoints make the game unplayable. I don’t know what people say about storechampionship season helped. But in Stockholm in a storechampionship only 9 player showed up… in nordics there was only 53 players when 2.0 was out first nordics were 132 player played… the game is dieyng and i think list building is the main reason. 200 point was perfect in every aspect. But let change the question why legion and armada have 800 and 400 point why not 80 and 40 and loadout points? They work perfect with objective points.
Also there is an old ffg article about x-wing 1.0 how they messed it up with “only” 100 points and how hard to balance the game. That was the main reason why they vhanged it to 200 easier to balance. Now every ship is basically a swicth. Best ship in the game or worse. Best example is jsb jingoist tie fitghter. For 2 points best ship 3 points worse ship…
Hello Csaba. Thank you so much for sharing your thoughts.
Hello,
I agree totaly with you.
In Florence we had One of the most populated team in Italy with near 25 player. We played 1.0 and 2.0. We organized many event with many player from Italy and Europe.
With 2.5 everything get worse. 2.5 Is not X-Wing, it’s a bad version of Marvel Crysis.
Today we play with 2.0 Legacy (x2po.org) and the new version 2.0 Wild Space with 250 pt lists and objectives but the game Is oriented to DogFight!
It’s very fun. Last saturday web had 12 players tournament.
I hope that AMG abandons support for the game and leaves players the possibility of managing a 3.0 version (Wild Space).
Thank you.
Hello Francesco. Thank you for sharing your experiences with X-Wing.
I like this game a lot, however the lack of new ship releases makes me sad. Also, reprinting some older ships would be awesome but it seems that it’s not what AMG wants to do. There is no excitement built around this game anymore and it seems that AMG or Asmodee doesn’t do a good job to market the game appropriately for new players. Also, trying to keep the fire alive for existing players is a struggle. A once thriving game seems to dwindling down to a sad demise. However, I’ve invested a lot into the game and I will keep up with whatever this uninterested (AMG or Asmodee) company will do. Hopefully there will be more effort to keep the game going and getting it to a better spot in the wargaming hobby!
Hello Rick. Thank you for sharing your experiences with X-Wing.
Hi,
First off i’m going to assume this was done in a non-trolling fashion, and you were just unable to find anything useful on the happenings around the tabletop game industry and X-wing as a whole.(Trust me, I know, It can get frustrating filtering through all the crap) However, I am commenting to set the record straight because there is straight up libel in this article, and leaving it unanswered feels like a dis-credit to not only you, but also the people who are going to read this and get the wrong message.
I’m not really sure where to start with this, so in no particular order:
A) Tabletop Wargames is not a multi-billion dollar industry in general. “Hobby games” in general do cross that threshold, but tabletop Wargaming is a niche part of that market. the mainstay of most plastic toys sold in this niche genre, GamesWorkshop, is set to have another record profit year, but it’s only at around $500 million. (https://www.statista.com/statistics/993955/global-revenue-of-games-workshop/)(https://investor.games-workshop.com/category/trading-statements)
Fantasy flight was top seller in 2016 (https://icv2.com/articles/markets/view/35145/top-5-non-collectible-miniature-games-spring-2016) and generated $377 million (https://www.belloflostsouls.net/2017/04/financial-asmodee-profits-soar-2016.html).
While GamesWorkshop is trending that way, at no point has either GW or FFG been at the “Multi-Billion” dollar industry level. Atomic Mass Games is in a similar boat. It’s also borderline negligent to call them such even being owned by Embracer group because of Embracer’s group nature as an umbrella corporation that owns like 50 companies, and while it collects revenue from them all as seen with the recent layoffs in their videogame side it does not distribute revenue between it’s different holdings. (https://www.theverge.com/2023/12/5/23989128/new-world-interactive-layoffs-embracer-group-insurgency-sandstorm)
B) Atomic Mass Games has had, overall, rather excellent communication. When The license was thrust into their lap with the transfer (During the middle of a global pandemic), there was a lull in communication, (For obvious reasons) but once it was safe to go outside again, AMG began to outline their plans going forward. We players were straight up told their would be rule changes, there would be a slow down in products as AMG, and that there would be less points adjustments than FFG as AMG worked on their vision of the game. (Here’s a link to the stream, it was live cast on twitch: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YxwAfvIPWEw&list=PLxCfR4yTLyiH1ZggBFiexK97ObE7mqksE&index=18)
Now, I will admit their first website had some minor difficulties navigating to find the relevant star wars stuff, but it was always there, and I refuse to believe a bunch of sub-30 year olds aren’t too stupid to navigate a website. the new website they rolled out this year upped the accessibility (https://www.atomicmassgames.com/xwing-transmissions/) Articles/rules/everything you could ever need to know about the game, made it way easier. Also if you look at their social media presence on Facebook/Instagram/X, etc. it is crystal clear they have not been ignoring fans of the game. Even before the website was fully fixed they had an active and open rules forum, that only got shuttered because the team their got so many death threats.
What they(AMG) have been ignoring is the salty trolls who continue to infect their presence on this game. riding an air of some made up clout with fake titles that no one cares about, these people continuously bash the game they hate watch so much, while wishing for some made up dream scenario that FFG would magically be handed back the license when they no longer have the support structure in place to even produce such a game. Most of these people are based in Europe, which has had it’s share of import struggles much like the rest of the post pandemic world, so I get the lack of access of product and prize support, but this isn’t a problem unique to X-wing and is not evidence against AMG. We’ve also had members of the community step up to make sure support gets where it needs to go internationally, and make sure international members can make it to the biggest convention of the year, Worlds. There is literally zero reasoning behind any complaints other than not liking the current iteration of the rules. These are the people you are quoting in your article and really cannot be trusted as a reliable source of information regarding X-wing.
Worst of all is the legacy 2.0 project, which constantly harasses people with their homebrew iteration of the game, which neither resembles FFG’s 2.0 version of the game and just generally creates confusion among new and returning players.
What AMG has done, is made an easy to access website, clearly defined their outline for their vision of the game, and followed that pretty much to the letter. The only complaint is that “I don’t like it”, which is ok, but twisting the narrative to say that AMG “doesn’t care” or “The soul of the game is gone” is just not true. Sometimes we outgrow things, sometimes they outgrow us. Both of those are ok. What’s not ok is constantly bashing the thing you used to love because someone else might love it now that’s it different. that’s toxic. This toxicity is slowly killing the community from the inside because the trolls are failing to move on. It’s time to stop feeding them.
Hello Richard. Thank you for sharing your view on the situation. It’s nice to see you’ve added links to further information.
100% agree with Richard here.