Talk:IG-RM Thug Droids/@comment-26972511-20170711140823/@comment-454133-20170713161934

I have... several issues with that.

First, I'm telling you that more than 1 or maybe 2 thug droids is a poor use of slots and points. It's not about the money game at that point. At epic you can afford more expensive upgrades, and there are very valuable roles you're not correctly filling by focusing only on flipping a few cards faceup. I don't think you understand the limited utility of that vs stronger shield regeneration, for example, or powerful support crew. That's min-maxing yourself into a powergamer's corner, long before it's about the money. And unless you're playing a tournament, just proxy the cards. Almost no one in the X-Wing world will bat an eye at that. And Epic tournaments are rare; Epic is the most casual aspect of x-wing.

Second... I want to counter that pessimism with (what I think is) well-founded optimism. I think you're exaggerating the role money plays in this game. I've seen what other miniatures and card games do. FFG does want you to buy a variety of expansions, and some cards are quite valued for certain builds right now, and the buy-in cost for this game (as with other miniatures games) is high (perhaps around $100). But it's nothing like other games that make you buy booster packs and play the random odds, buy the single mandatory, "victory" rare for a massively scalped price, etc. In X-Wing you know exactly what you get in every expansion: what ship, what upgrades, what tokens, everything. If you want to win tournaments, you can buy a couple expansions and/or buy/borrow a few single cards, and do extremely well... if you're good at the game.

And that's the clincher. X-Wing is, at its core, a game of skill. So many choices and guestimations are made throughout the game that make or break you. I've had people come in with total confidence of their fleets' superiority because they looked up Paratani or something similar online, and I've decimated them with financially cheaper ships (my ships were considered much weaker on the meta, too). I've gotten decimated myself, against foes who were just better players. Compare that with top MTG tournament decks that were (when I played) often near-faceroll victories; the player just had to buy the cards, follow a sequence of steps on a flowchart, and not be obscenely unlucky. You can't get away with that in x-wing: if you don't learn to fly, you die.

In x-wing there are a few upgrades that are very valuable for specific builds (e.g. autothrusters, and some dick moves like locking away fixer upgrades in expensive epic ships like the raider, and some ships that are out of print like the damn K-Wing), but this game doesn't reward money past getting your first few expansions. This isn't Magic The Gathering, you can't net-deck your way to victory without knowing the game extremely well inside and out, and practicing a lot. And frankly, on a fleet-by-fleet basis, this game is far cheaper than other games I see in the game store. What's a proper tourney-ready Warhammer or MTG army/deck cost you these days? (actually that's a good question, and I may be off base here; it may be cheaper these days)  Plus assembly & painting for warhammer? When I last played MTG I avoided all tournaments because the $100 to $400+ decks just won. Every damn time, and the players were awful showboaters about it. It's never worth it to try to compete with that. In X-Wing I can throw together a great tournament-ready fleet with 2-3 ships that are selling new for ~10 to 40 bucks each right now, depending on where you buy them, and the community has always been super-nice. And my cards don't expire every year, so I can continue using R2 Astromech five years from now (hello MTG!).

X-Wing's tournaments have been very balanced lately, thanks to FFG's errata -- it has not been a money game where you have to have a specific card or you lose. You can ignore the scalpers, and simply ignore certain ships if you don't wan tthem. The last time we got close to meta dominance, FFG released the Great Nerf and brought things back into balance. There are problems with this game, and it's expensive, but I'm still pleased at how well it treats its players.

That's why I play X-Wing; that's what got me so excited about it and encouraged me to spend money on all the expansions (which I have, usually buying used or discounted ships). Despite costing a good deal of money to get started, it's not near the money game like some other stuff being played at my game stores or online. I play both casual and tournament games and they're all a lot of fun, and my skill level closes any gap in money.

So I have a very optimistic view of the game. X-Wing does cost quite a bit -- as all miniatures games do -- but not nearly as much, and you can strategically plan purchases that get you excellent fleets for relatively cheap.

But one thing you said does ring extremely true: your focus should be having fun. I wouldn't be willing to play tournaments if they weren't enjoyable (my drive to win is relatively muted, so much so that I play weak-meta ships at tournies quite often, and sometimes I snatch up the win). I'd have left the game long ago if it started feeling abusive. And the X-Wing community is totally down for casual, fun games that move away from the focus on winning and min-maxing. We just played a casual tournament, $5 buy-in, where everyone had to have 3 ships, each from a different faction, in the same fleet; from a balance perspective, this is a bad idea because the factions are only balanced without mixing. And yet we had a lot of ridiculous fun. I got 9th place out of ~17 players, and had a great time losing. Whether you play serious tournaments, or casual games on the kitchen table, hold on to the love of having a good time and X-Wing will treat you right.

Err... sorry for writing a novel. :D