Golden Age of Star Wars Gaming

Let me just tell you how much I love Fantasy Flight Games.  Since they have gotten a hold of the Star Wars license they have been doing an amazing job of producing games.  Their games don't feel like the Star Wars theme just pasted onto a basic game system in order to make money off of the license.  Rather, most of the games would stand well on their own mechanically without the Star Wars theme.  The FFG Star Wars games feel balanced, are amazingly fun, and do a great job of capturing the essence of Star Wars in their game mechanics.  

Star Wars RPGs - After a long hiatus, an RPG group that I played in returned to our Edge of the Empire campaign.  It was a long enough break that I had misplaced my character sheet and needed to create a new character.  I was able to take advantage of some of the new source material to come up with something that I think will be fun.  I won't bore you with details of my character, but rather talk about the system itself.  The custom dice mechanic really lends itself to some fun roll playing opportunities.  Many systems feel very pass/fail when it comes to rolling dice for various checks.  In FFG's system, there are varied degrees of success that really add a nice layer to the game play.  The books also contain some truly fantastic artwork and they flesh out some parts fo the Star Wars universe in great ways.

Imperial Assault - I am also playing in my third Imperial Assault campaign.  I used to be an avid Descent player, but sold my collection some time ago and now have dove head first into Imperial Assault.  This game gets plenty of play in my house as my wife loves running the Imperials and squashing the pitiful Rebels.  FFG has really taken the lessons that they have learned from the various editions of Descent to make a fun, balanced game system.  I can't wait for the new campaign expansion Return to Hoth.

Aside from the excellent campaign play, Imperial Assault comes with a skirmish mode.  I used to play WotCs Star Wars miniature game and Imperial Assaults skirmish mode just blows it away.  Much more balanced and better paced, the skirmish missions help keep it from turning into a series of repetitive death matches.

X-Wing - I think like many Armada players, I played a lot of X-wing when it first came out.  I loved it for a few reasons.  I was a big fan of the old X-Wing computer games, which it really seemed to draw from.  The game system was fun and really felt like a Star Wars dogfight.  The models were great and fun to pick up.

Still though I remember thinking that what I really wanted was a capital ship game.  I think that's why at this point, my favorite game mode for X-Wing is Epic.  I love throwing my CR-90 or GR-75 on the table and watching the fighters zip and roll around the big center piece.  The recent preview for the Imperial Assault Carrier has me really happy as the new modifications will really boost the existing Epic ships.  I wish there were more Epic scale tournaments out there.

I'm also excited for the ships from the Rebels cartoon to make it into X-Wing as I really have been enjoying that show.


It's a great time to be a Star Wars gamer.  The new movie is approaching and looks fantastic, the Rebellion board game looks like it should allow for another level of play that we haven't had yet from FFG, and there seems to be a lot of new exciting expansions on the way for all of the game systems.  Not sure how I will afford to keep up!

When I came home from GenCon this year I brought back the new releases for FFGs Star Wars games and ran a fun tournament.  The first round was 100 point X-Wing, followed by Epic X-Wing, Armada, and then and Imperial Assault Skirmish.  We had 8 players show up and play with each getting the chance to take home something new.  If I can make it to GenCon next summer, I will be sure to try it again.

For now though, I am working on a campaign system that would allow for each of the miniature games to be played leading up to a final climactic battle.  Watch this space for details.