The goal of this post is to provide a set of guidelines for teaching X-Wing. This post mostly serves as a resource for returning players looking to introduce new players to the game.
Players of other miniatures games, especially the other Fantasy Flight games (Armada or Legion) will be comfortable with the genre and can be exposed to more complexity early. Other players will be from a board gaming background, and need a more stripped down approach. You'll need to tune your approach accordingly. Obviously we can't guide you through every possible situation - every player will bring different experience, insight, assumptions, and misunderstandings to the table.
The important thing all teaching experiences should have in common is this. Rule 0: you are teaching the game, not playing it. This is the most important of all the rules. All the normal things go out the window. You're allowed to fudge dice rolls, positioning, anything if it makes sense. Change dials on the fly, play with them faceup, whatever you need to do to reduce confusion. Most importantly though, forget trying to win or playing the game "normally" - it may be better if you lose, but ultimately you're likely not trying to "finish" the game anyway. Usually you're going to play a couple rounds then stop, reset, and add some more ships/rules/abilities. We'll get more into this later.
1. Format/Lists
New players are probably being drawn into this game because of Star Wars. As much as you may love Guri or "Whisper" or "Holo" or whatever other FFG-invented or obscure old-canon pilot is your favorite, leave that stuff out. You're looking for iconic characters. Ironically, iconic characters are also one of the immediate traps of playing with new players - old players often try to sell them on playing standard 200/6 format with Han and Luke with 20 upgrade cards. Iconic characters, in this game, are often very expensive ships that can be built out in all sorts of ridiculous ways with way too many triggers to remember. Rule 1: keep it simple. No upgrade cards, abilities, or force tokens. Yes even S-Foils, I don't care. They're all banned. You can still fly named pilots but treat them as generics with high initiative.
Another trap that old players fall into when giving new players lists: building to 200 points. The game is totally playable at less points. It's also a trap to give a new player just one ship, because one X-Wing vs two TIE Fighters isn't really how the actual game feels, but 200 points is also way more than you need. Rule 2: use multiple ships, but don't feel obligated to build full lists.
Finally, here's some lists I'd suggest. Obviously these are just suggestions, but what I would do is ask the new player who their favorite Star Wars pilot is and then give them one of the lists that contains that pilot on this list, and then you fly the thematic enemy faction (so for example if they pick Republic, you fly Separatists). Trade out stuff to give them their favorite pilot, like if they say Leia trade out some Luke for Leia in the Falcon or whatever. If their favorite character is a crew member, you're allowed to add it on somewhere and break rule 1.
Rebels: Luke Skywalker / Blue Squadron Escort / Gray Squadron Bomber
Empire: Darth Vader / Academy Pilot (x3)
Scum: Boba Fett / Black Sun Soldier / Cartel Spacer
First Order: Kylo Ren / Epsilon Squadron Cadet (x2)
Resistance: Poe Dameron / Blue Squadron Recruit (x2)
Republic: Obi-Wan Kenobi / Squad Seven Veteran (x2)
Separatists: Techno Union Bomber (x2) / Trade Federation Drone (x3)
Convenient Google Docs format with YASB links
Convenient Google Docs format with YASB links
2. Playing the Game
So I think this demo guide from First Edition is great. Obviously ignore the first page since it's First Edition specific (gross!) but the demo part is cool. A demo is a lot different than teaching someone the game because of timeframe of course - this demo guide is meant to be run in a couple minutes at a gaming convention or something, whereas you likely have more time to teach someone.
We've tried to convert some of that to a version that can be used for a more generic teaching setting. Set up on opposite board edges, with some asteroids placed on the board that players will have to fly around to get shots.
• Round 1: Explain the basic maneuvers and how the dials system works. Players select maneuvers on the dials, and then execute them in pilot skill
order. Skip action and combat phases.
• Round 2: Again, set dials and execute maneuvers, and also teach the concept of actions - don't bother teaching what all the actions are. Everyone focuses this round.
• Round 3: If ships are in firing range, use this round to introduce dice. The Primary Weapon, Agility, Hull, and Shield values will end up getting explained as part of this. If there isn't shooting this round for some reason, explain reposition, evade, and target lock actions instead.
• Round 4: Whichever of the two things didn't happen in round 3.
• Round 5: Probably a good time to explain stress and advanced maneuvers. You can do this earlier obviously, if your players are super jousty and end up wanting to turn around sooner.
Now you've introduced the whole game so this is a good time to take questions, or just let people play. Depending on how your players feel, it's likely you'll want to play one or two more rounds and then reset and start again with all the rules.
You don't have to do this exactly, but I like this because you're playing the game first and explaining as you go rather than trying to explain the whole thing beforehand. X-Wing is a very intuitive game to play but a very complicated game to explain, so minimize the explaining and maximize the playing.
Explain things generally rather than specifically, i.e. "don't fly through the rocks or bad stuff happens" and then explain obstacle effects and damage when it actually comes up. Of course, if players ask about something feel free to teach it "early", active learning should be rewarded!
The core "fun" of X-Wing is dials and dice, so make sure you're maximizing the time spent on those. Again, rule 0, don't be afraid to leave other stuff out or cheat a little to make sure your players are having fun. Depending on the player, you may be able to jump right in with abilities, actions, and force tokens but ultimately We'd ignore those for most players. Make the game fast and then play another with all the rules if you want.
3. Younglings
Children especially will not enjoy playing a full game right away - the 12+ age restriction on this game is probably high, but you may need to adapt some things. All these notes for children will apply to anyone by the way. You may very well teach a game to an adult who has the same expectations for this game as we describe younglings here.
As a kiddo, the first "hard" board game I played was Axis and Allies, and what drew me in was that I could play with my dad, not against him - I was the US and he was Britain (oh yeah he was all the others too, whatever). Some kids are very competitive, but most will prefer to play something that's more fun-oriented and less competition/winning-oriented. One good way to adapt to this is to play with an X-Wing each vs four or five TIE Fighters using the FFG solo play AI or X-Wing AI (unofficial). There's other places to find unofficial X-Wing AIs as well, if you don't like either of these.
Every time I've taught the game to younglings, I have regretted giving them any abilities. They don't like reading cards and absolutely will not remember triggers for anything. Their action choices also tend to be really sketchy because they just want to roll dice and blow things up rather than think too hard about decision making processes (there's definitely some of that in all of us to be honest, but I think kids in particular do not enjoy risk-adverse, arc-dodging, "ace"-ey play). Too many dice modifications are also kind of boring, so skip things that get double actions or force. A ship like the Lothal Rebel (VCX-100) with absolutely zero upgrade cards or pilot abilities is probably a strong option, compared to, say, Luke Skywalker with a bunch of thematic upgrades like R2-D2 and Proton Torpedoes, as tempting as that might seem.
Pay attention to my turn/your turn kinds of things with kids. Nobody wants to sit around waiting for the other person to overthink five different abilities and where to put them in the queue, but kids especially are going to dislike a game where their turn takes a fraction of the time your turn does. Attention spans normally increase constantly during life, so someone younger than you is likely to get bored sooner than you. If you give a kiddo a Lothal Rebel and they're happy with their five second turns, they still might be unhappy if you're playing something else and taking three actions per turn and comboing a zillion cards - it will seem unfair to them that you take so many more "turns" than them.
Kids often really care about fairness. I don't know if every kid is like me but I really hated being patronized and wanted to just lose fair and square, so don't make it obvious that you're going easy on them or letting them have twice as many points as you or something. Again, the notes I've listed kind of apply to anyone in general, but I think you especially need to be aware of all of this with kids.
4. Conclusions
These are by no means things you have to do, they're just my suggestions from teaching X-Wing to a number of new players over the years. Ultimately it varies based on the person, so the most important part is to listen to the new player and play the game how they want it to be played.
Listen to your players, and be ready to adapt. Some players will react strongly against being patronized and insist on playing the "real" game, whereas some aren't here to ever play the standard 200/6 format and see it more as a social activity. Some players have lots of experience learning games and can jump right in, some will require more time spent on each of the core game aspects.
How about you? Have you taught new players the game before? What worked? What didn't? Comment below!
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