It did not come as a surprise to fans of the Star Wars tabletop miniatures games X-Wing and Armada when Atomic Mass Games (AMG) announced the end of official support for the games in June, but for many it heralded the end of an era — and perhaps the start of a new one.
After AMG had inherited the properties from Fantasy Flight Games (FFG), Armada had languished without any new ships for years, while X-Wing had fared better but still faced edition wars with AMG’s rules changes. Still, both games had a thriving and positive community and X-Wing even beat Warhammer 40,000 in player numbers at its Worlds tournament event at AdeptiCon 2024.
The death knell for both games was when AMG announced no new X-Wing or Armada products during a slew of release previews at the Adepticon 24 showcase for its other miniatures games. Only a few months later, it was made official: X-Wing and Armada would have no more development. In their official statement, AMG attributed their decision to “rising production costs, global manufacturing, and pandemic-related challenges”.
A game is more than its publisher, though, and in the month since the announcement, the X-Wing and Armada communities have already put together a plan. Or rather, three different plans covering different sectors of the games’ communities.
All wings check in
The X-Wing Alliance is a group drawing from across the X-Wing community to form an organisation who want to take “community stewardship” of the game. While all the licensing still lies with AMG, X-Wing has a thriving scene of rules hackers and content writers who are taking the opportunity to create the future they want to see for the game. They can’t release new models under the banner of X-Wing but they can create scenarios for organised play, work with conventions to host tournaments and innovate new points changes or whole new sets of rules.
This method of community organisation had already seen success during the pandemic when groups like the Gold Squadron Podcast put together their own international tournaments played entirely online. Considering many podcast and YouTube content creators for X-Wing already create their own custom tokens and fan items as rewards for their patrons or people who play against them in tournaments, it’s only a short leap to prize pools for larger events.
The X-Wing Alliance is focusing on the official latest version of the game, the 2.5 edition from AMG, but another part of the community already has a head start in creating their own fan-made edition called X-Wing Legacy, building on the FFG second edition rules. The format has been part of the tournament scene since 2022 and this announcement is likely to fuel the creators into further development. This comes with its own risks, as splitting any community may well lead to one part of it thriving and the others dying away, but it could also bring people who disliked 2.5 back into the hobby.
Armada might have a more unified outlook due to the lack of rules development over time, but the community itself is smaller as the lack of fresh ship releases over the years has led many gamers to move towards other games with a more thriving release schedule. A core of avid Armada players still come out in force at tournaments at conventions such as AdeptiCon, UK Games Expo and the London Grand Tournament. With the last hope of official releases now dead, fan content has the opportunity to release to an audience hungry for new takes on a favorite game. A YouTube channel called ION Radio is working with the organisers of AdeptiCon and the Armada Ruleset Collective (ARC) to maintain the tournament scene and provide rules updates.
Red Leader standing by
The challenges these groups face are huge, but they are far from unique. The Netrunner collectible card game has survived the end of official support through the work of passionate community members, and Blood Bowl has managed to maintain a committed play scene despite Games Workshop’s inconsistent support. Proof exists that this can be done: with conventions growing larger all the time, having independent tournaments and demos at major events could breathe new life into X-Wing and Armada.
As with any community efforts, the X-Wing and Armada games are undoubtedly facing a period of turmoil. Only time will tell how the changes will affect the local and (inter)national scenes, but with the levels of organization and passion already on display and the support of major competitive champions as well as conventions, the future looks tentatively bright for these games.
Published: Jul 27, 2024 01:30 pm