NOVA Open Newsletter Staff had a blast at NOVA Open 2017! We played games, bought new miniatures, caught up with old friends and made new ones, and we interviewed some of the fantastic people that make the NOVA Open such a fun event.
NO:
We're glad to have FFG at the NOVA Open again. Your games are always a big hit with the attendees, and you've got some pretty big games.
FB: Yeah, this is our third year here. This time we brought Legion with us, we have two tables. We've also been doing some staff challenges for
Destiny
, and if you beat our people we give you boosters for the new set.
NO: I bet you've been getting challenged a lot, right?!
FB: I have! Unfortunately, I'm not one of the people you can contest.
We have Matt, from events, and Jeremy Zwirn, developer, on Destiny.
NO: Destiny has become very big, very fast.
FB: Oh yeah. We were kind of shocked, but kind of not shocked, too. Like, we were shocked about X-Wing. When it first came out, you know. As like, "People will probably like it." But people loved it!
This time around, we were fairly confident it was going to be great. And we always want to do it conservatively. You don't want to have too many extra product; that's not good for business. There is something to be said about players wanting more, you know, and not saturating the market with it either.
NO: Destiny is the first time you guys have done a blind booster model?
FB: Well, back in the day we did.
NO:
Yeah?
FB: Yeah. Game of Thrones and Call of Cthulu, back in the day, were both collectible card games.
At the time, the games weren't super big. It's really hard to have a collectible game when you don't know anyone who plays it, because then you can't trade. And this was like early internet time too, so there's not really eBay and that kind of thing to try to find cards. It was not a great time for that. Because of the popularity of the games and everything, switching over to the LCG model made a lot of sense for those. Because then you could get the sets and everything.
But yeah, this is our kind of foray back to that because there is something to be said about the fun of having random boosters and all that comes with that.
NO: People are clearly eating it up. There's a tournament going on up there, there's a whole community that sprung up around it. They have their own YouTube personalities and everything.
FB: Podcasts . . . and yeah, it immediately jumped up to a popular thing being discussed.
NO: And it's an easy game to get into.
FB: Yeah, mechanics are so great, so simple. You do a thing on your turn - it's going to be probably playing a card or activating a character - and that's kind of it. And, obviously, it goes from there.
NO: Destiny has been blowing up, but X-Wing, as you were saying, is a long-standing favorite of wargamers.
FB: Depending on the heuristics, it's doing very well.
NO: Have you gotten a chance to take a peek into the X-wing tournament going on here?
FB: I did actually. I managed to swing in a little bit. Yesterday, there was a lot of imperial stuff in the top tables. A fair share of rebels - which is still true today, as well. Fewer imperials today, more rebels and scum.
It's cool seeing all of these people showing up to play this game.
NO: You fairly recently announced the next wave of X-Wing coming up. Were you involved in the development of any of those?
FB: Some of it. It was primarily Max, but you know, as always I'm there for words of advice and recommendations on wording and that sort of thing.
NO: I understand there's an internet community in the upcoming wave.
FB: Yes. Yes there is. [laughing] The XG-1 Starwing, also known colloquially as, the Assault Gunboat.
NO: Did you ever see the thread on the forum?
FB: Oh, yeah.
NO: Isn't it like 267 pages long of people talking about this ship for a couple years now?
FB: I think it started pretty early on in the game's life. I think the thread might be like four years old.
It's been a fan favorite among people who really played those X-Wing / Tie Fighter games.
NO: And then the rebels, from Star Wars Rebels, they have a new ship, as well?
FB: Yes, they get the Phantom II; I think it might be somewhat of a sleeper hit; as far as like influence over the meta. Everyone is really excited about the Assault Gunboat, of course, but it's going to be a small ship with coordinate, which is going to be interesting to affect how the game works.
NO: It will be interesting to see. Coordinate came out in the capital ships originally?
FB: Correct.
NO: And then it's also in the Upsilon Shuttle?
FB: Upsilon.
And it was doing well over there. It's kind of this fun piece that really plays like a support ship. There's all of these different roles that a ship can satisfy, you know? Being the jouster, turret ship, all that stuff. Support ships have always kind of struggled as far as what their role is exactly. Because if they're helping someone else do the damage - if the guy they're helping is destroyed, then they're not really doing anything. I
t's tricky to make a ship that is so good that is supporting, but not overwhelmingly too helpful.
NO: And then the Scum, once again drawing from Star Wars Galaxies?
FB: The Kimogila.
NO:
Yeah.
FB: That one was really fun. At first, we see it and we're like "Well, it's a big ship with a lot of guns. What do we do with this?" And we were just thinking: It's got a lot of guns facing forwards for a small ship and everything, and we started playing up this idea of the bulls-eye firing arc, which is an area directly in front of the ship. One of our interns was really excited about this idea of trying to get this front arc thing going.
There was some hesitation at first - as far as trying to add this, a new mechanic like this - because you don't want to make the game seem too complex by having this fancy type of arc, this sort of wacky jazz, this new action. You want to keep the game exciting and moving and innovating, but you don't want it to seem like all of these loose mechanics. But this one is a keeper.
We really like having this zone. Players really enjoy trying to line that arc shot up.
NO: There are many Star Wars games, but you have another one that is coming up that's not out yet (which we've known about for a little bit), but Legion: This will be, I think, your first time stepping into the more traditional squad based combat sort of war game. You have Imperial Assault, which is sort of a dungeon crawler with individual units, but this will be a bigger wargame. Can you tell us a little bit about Legion?
FB: Sure. Originally it was actually... we did do a game previously, Dust. Dust Warfare.
NO: That's right!
FB: It had a similar mechanic.
NO: Well it's the first for the Star Wars - ?
FB:
That's true. You're definitely right there. And yeah, we haven't done Dust in a few years. So yeah, it is kind of coming back to those war gaming roots.
Legion is a more classic war game in that there is free flow movement: you have cover, you make attack rolls and armor saves, that kind of stuff.
It starts with rebel troopers, Stormtroopers, scout bikes and the AT-RT for the rebels. So it's going to be classic in the sense that you're going to be rolling a number of attack dice for each unit, and potentially extra ones if you have special units. It's a pretty robust system and it's able to handle a lot of different units and such.
NO: How is movement handled in Legion?
FB: In Legion, unlike some previous people's tabletop games like this, you basically move the squad leader and then everyone else needs to just stay in coherency with them. So instead of having [staccato pauses] To. Move. Each. Unit. Individually [end], you move just the one guy, and then everyone else has to stay close enough.
NO: So, you could sort of leap frog your units - as long as you keep the commander in place?
FB: Yes. The only figure that needs to move, can move the maximum distance essentially, is that one squad leader - and then everyone else sticks around. But their positioning does matter, because they're providing the squad cover or not. So you're not just like, clomping everybody next to him, because their position does matter.
There's lots of special weapons and abilities that are good against armor or other infantry.
NO: When you move the squad leader, or I guess anyone else when you're figuring out coherency, it's a number of inches?
FB: It's actually half of the smallest maneuver template.
NO: Are there are templates in this?
FB: Yes, they can bend in the middle. There's different speeds. And essentially they just slot into the base and you slot the unit into the base on the other end. Sort of like X-Wing, in a way, but you can stop anywhere along the way.
NO: Is that like the Armada tool?
FB: Sort of. It's in a pretty straight line. You can stop anywhere along the way. Kind of like X-Wing, if you resolve a collision. You're moving the units around like that. And then everyone stays in coherency, which is the short width of the one.
NO: When can we expect to see the starter set for that?
FB:
We've announced the start of that will be quarter one next year.
NO: In terms of the NOVA events, do you have a favorite event, a highlight, something that stood out to you?
FB: Yes. I mean, it's very personal, cuz I like met a person specifically. I met a guy who used to paint the figurines for Hasbro for the Star Wars figures. He was asking me about how the process works for painting up ships for X-Wing? Because it's very similar. We know roughly what it's going to look like, then we have someone sculpt it, and then we get that sculpt in, and we have to paint it up and send it off. After that, they have to mass produce the thing we just sent them.
His job was basically painting the model to send over to get... this is how they're going to paint it essentially, and receive it back. So it was pretty cool getting to talk to him about the way he connected with LFL [Lucasfilm Ltd.] and I think he stopped after like, Rebels Season One, right before the LFL purchase, Disney purchase of LFL. So it was really cool seeing, like, his exposure to it versus mine. So that was pretty neat. I liked that.
We would like to thank Frank Brooks and FFG for its continued support of the NOVA Open. You can find more information about your favorite Star Wars games as well as Legion on their website, https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/index/
