"Wings of War vs X-wing" Topic

I got X-wing and enjoyed it, but I was disappointed in how complicated it was. After the basic game, building a force and adding torpedoes and pilots and special abilities really piled up fast.

Is the Wings of W(insert here) equally complex?

Wings of Glory is one or two notches simpler than X-Wing.

Its less complex in that you don't have special rules.

But…you play three cards in advance rather than one dial. Think of it as stacking three dials.

WoW/G also has optional rules for things like altitude, so it can make itself complicated pretty quickly.

For X-W, I started introducing people with just basics. But they really adapted quickly to having two or three special upgrades to keep track of. Okay, it wasn't tournament level understanding of ALL the nuances, usually because players were often surprised at what special abilities their opponents were holding. But nobody was outraged by the surprise.

And X-Wing has asteroids … and how cool is that?

Funny you should ask…. In a basement cleaning exercise, I 'uncovered' my planes, thinking I should get back into it again…

However, now, to be fair, I haven't played WoW/G in years (and maybe there is a reason for that) but I find X-Wing to be the better game.

I think the main thing is the maneuver dial – much easier to use than shuffling through cards. Plus, I think with WoW/G you are picking three moves in advance – very easy to go far away from someone if you 'guess wrong'. X-Wing is just one at a time – although, just thinking now, maybe try WoW with one card at a time…

As far as all the upgrades in X-Wing. My friends and I learned with just one-one-one duels with the base ships. Then, once we got the rules down we started looking at upgrades – still only running one or two ships. Similar to what thosmoss said above.

I don't think it's over complicated, just gets tedious. I've played all 3 incarnations a lot. WWI, WWII, and X-Wing. I played Attack Wing a couple times.I prefer the WWI version the most. They movement cards and range ruler are well balanced.The games go by very quickly, even with a few planes. Attack wing suffers from out of scale models, and it doesn't feel like Star Trek. X-Wing has beautiful models, but for ships that streak across the sky, you spend way too much time maneuvering to get a shot off to roll some dice that end up doing nothing. I figure if the range ruler was longer, the game would move faster. With all the shields and protection many of the ships have, they need to get hit more often. That being said, the game is more fun when you have lots of ships on the board with a lot of people, as you are constantly in play on a 3 X 3 board. The problems are, you need to get 6 or more people together playing 2 ships each, and the standing around waiting for people to resolve their movements and firing. Like I said, it's a beautiful looking game on the board and most of us have an affection for Star Wars, but if I had to choose one version of the incarnations, I would go with WWI.

Much thanks for the information. My personal choice is biplanes but my friends are more inclined towards Star Wars. It has been a successful game, but I kind of wish things like torpedoes and ion cannons were standard instead of "upgrades."

All I have to same about the popularity is, it's Star Wars. George Lucas became a millionaire off the merchandising alone. I am interested in their new capitol ships game. I'll check that out when it arrives,

I too think WW1 is the best, most fun, game. X-Wing plays best with very limited upgrades.
Frankly, I think most of the special pilots and upgrades are specious, and dont add much to the game.
Thats my opinion anyway! – I do fully support those who like added complexity to their games!

Add me to the list of WoW fans. I enjoy X-Wing, but think they tacked on too much extra crap just to differentiate it. For me, the WW2 version hits the sweet spot, as I prefer selecting the maneuver cards one at a time, rather than pre-plotting three maneuvers at a time.