Asymmetry: The Holy Grail

I've gone at length at some of the ways that games interest me in the past: visual storylines have always been an important consideration for me, as well as good conveyance between theme and mechanisms. Most if not all of the games I have currently fit the above two categories, (although I will make exceptions for true gems like Caylus or T&E that don't quite fit the mold of either fully), but in recent months I've realised that there is another categories that opens my wallet faster than any of the above, and that's asymmetry. 

First of all, what do I mean by asymmetry? The obvious definition is that asymmetric games are ones in which in can play different roles/sides play differently from each other. This simple definition can cause trouble, however, because I feel that it is overly broad. 

For example, let's imagine a dungeon crawling game: does the fact that you can be a healer or a tank or a damage dealer mean that there is asymmetry within the game? Depending on the game, I wouldn't say that is the case, because largely you are interacting in the game in similar ways to the rest of the team, although you are activating powers that have different effects.

For me, asymmetry not only needs to feature different roles, but different ways to play the game, different rules and different mindsets from one role/side to the other. Also, I largely define asymmetric games as ones where you are in competition with others, and not just having different roles within the same team. It is also important to note that there are degrees of asymmetry, and that 'true' asymmetry is difficult, if not impossible, to implement properly (hence the holy grail in the title of this article).

Starting from the lower end of the asymmetry scale, you have games such as Descent or Imperial Assault. "But Tekopo", I hear you cry, "you just said that team games don't fit your definition of asymmetry". That might as well be true, but those games do feature an antagonist, that often plays in very different terms than what are known as the 'player characters'. Those games, however, do feature a low level of asymmetry because, in the end, the antagonist is more or less playing the role of the game engine, albeit with smarter decision making and some choices in terms of progression.

A further step up from that, you have games such as Terra Mystica. Terra Mystica features a medium degree of asymmetry: the races within the game do play wildly different and each have different special rules, but largely they have the same menu of actions available to them: it might cost more to build houses as the swarmlings compared to the engineers, but in the end you are still building a house. The strategies between races can very quite dramatically, however. If this degree of asymmetry was not present in Terra Mystica, it is likely that I would have given up on the game as just another dry euro.

Next in line I have games like Yomi, EXCEED and BattleCON (with the latter featuring higher up on the asymmetry scale). All these games feature sets of different fighters, with each playing very different from the next. So, for example, a rushdown character plays and feels very different from a more defensive character or a grappler. This is especially true in BattleCON, where characters can have extremely intricate gimmicks that allow them to break the rules of the game. 

However, in all of these examples, all the characters still follow the same rules: in EXCEED and Yomi, you are still playing a single card in the combat phase. In BattleCON, you are still combining a base and a style to decide what to do.

Nestled within these layers are also the majority of wargames. Most wargames feature asymmetric side and this is very notable in, for example, Empire of the Sun, where the Japanese and the US play very differently due to the disposition of their forces.

The next stage in asymmetry, of course, the COIN series of wargames (which many of you probably would have guessed I would mention eventually). The difference between COINs and many of the other games I have mentioned thus far is that in COIN games, not only do different sides play/feel completely different from each other, but in many cases do not have the same actions available and sometimes do not even follow the same rules. Another important factor is that the victory conditions for each side are wildly different.

This, to me, approaches "pure" asymmetry. Once you get to this stage (or any asymmetric game in which there are more than two sides), it becomes very important to allow all the players to have tools to affect all other players and prevent them from achieving victory, which is a notable design hurdle.

The latest, probably most interesting step towards the holy grail of complete asymmetry is a new game that I haven't had the chance to try yet: Vast: The Crystal Cavern. In this newly released game which has a dungeon crawling theme, the sides can be the Paladin, the tribes of Goblins that infest the cavern, the Dragon that the Paladin wishes to slay, or even playing as the Cavern itself! Having read the rules, all the sides play wildly differently from each other, which is why this title has piqued my interest.

Although pure asymmetry is, in my opinion, a noble goal, it is also one fraught with danger. Asymmetric games can be difficult to explain and teach, especially if all the players have interlocking sets of objectives/powers that rely on understanding how all of the players at the table interact. This is true of games like Yomi, in which you only really understand how to play once you know your own character well, your opponents character, and how the match-up is played. 

It is especially true, however, of games like the COIN series and Vast. In games that have low levels of asymmetry, it is usually possible to teach all of the players the basics since most sides will have the same base rules, but for COINs/Vast, it is necessary to explain each faction in turn, which significantly adds to the teaching time required for these games. 

Asymmetric games are also difficult to balance and, if not done correctly, can be horribly broken. Although low levels of asymmetry can be added by injecting small special rules to the sides, these are usually limited and don't reach the levels of asymmetry that I enjoy.

Even regarding all of the above, why is asymmetry a good thing? It can add to the longevity of the game, it can provide a completely different playing experience based on which side you are playing, and, at least to me, it adds to the feeling that the side I am currently playing is 'mine', and not just a facsimile of another faction that another player is currently using. Arguments against asymmetry can be made as well, in that there is something to be said about a game in which the only differences between factions are not anything set out at the start of the game, but built gradually while the game is being played. 

I do, however, think that the depths of design for asymmetric games have not been plumbed as deeply or as widely as for symmetric games, and with the coming of games such as Vast, the future for asymmetric games does indeed look bright.

How I got suckered into buying plastic miniature toys (X-Wing Review)

When I first saw that the X-Wing Miniatures game came out, I was interested but there were a few things that destroyed my interest and largely prevented me from buying into a game that as a kid I would have definitely bought into. Keep in mind that I was already sold on the flightpath system and I already had more than a few Wings of Glory models that I enjoyed playing with. Since I used to be a Star Wars nerd, making the transition would have been relatively easy.

The foremost thing that kept me away from the game was the inclusion of dice. Wings of Glory (or Wings of War) uses a pretty interesting system to model damage: basically, if your opponent is in your firing arc, they draw a number of cards depending at what range you are firing at. The cards can either have a number which shows how much damage you have done, or even a critical hit symbol that shows that the pilot/engine has been hit or a fire has started. You can even draw cards that do 0 damage! It makes damage unpredictable but does make things exciting, especially since you keep the damage cards face down, meaning that you never really know how much damage you have done to the enemy.

This leads to exciting moments when you can't believe how many damage cards your opponent's ship has and it STILL WON'T GO DOWN!

FFG decided to replace the damage card system above, instead having players roll custom damage dice (red for attack and green for defence). Your attacking ship rolls dice to see how many hits he gets, and then your opponent's ship rolls dice to see how many hits they evade.

This immediately turned me off the system, because I could see it as being just a random luck-fest. I was in the 'I hate dice' stage at the time, which also didn't help. So even though I had a look at the game rules, I decided not to buy in.

This was until I saw the release of the TIE Defender. Me and that ship have a history: one of the very first PC games that I had asked my dad to buy for me had been the classic spaceship simulation game TIE Fighter and I can remember spending hours playing the game, destroying the enemies of the Empire (don't worry, I'm not one of those guys). The TIE Defender was the ultimate Imperial ship, able to turn on a dime and being almost invincible: I loved it! So when I heard that the ship was coming out for X-Wing Miniatures, I knew that I had to get a model, even if I didn't want to actually play the game.

That wasn't the only ship I liked though: I also loved the aesthetics of the A-Wing, so obviously had to get a model of that ship as well. And the TIE Interceptor is also awesome, so I needed to buy two of those. And actually, getting a classic X-Wing or TIE Fighter would also be nice: I might as well buy a core pack. And down the rabbit hole I went.

This is the state of my collection now, which includes Armada (the Star Wars capital ship game also by FFG):

Yeah, it kind of got out of hand.

The question remains: why would I collect so much stuff for a game if I didn't like the game system that it used? Well, the answer is that after collecting/buying so much stuff, I actually like the game mechanisms as well!

Although I do sometimes feel the dice can screw you, the most important thing in X-Wing is actually position and action economy. Being able to have the enemy in arc and be out of arc of the enemy ships is very important and this is what drives the game: not having to roll dice in order to defend your ship is always a winning proposition. As well as that, the dice system shows that there has been actually quite a lot of thought behind how it works from FFG's designers.

For example, the red attack dice have a higher number of hit symbols in comparison to the green defence dies and their evade symbols. This means that most of the times you are more likely to hit something than for it to evade damage, which drives the game forward and stops the game from stalling excessively.

That, of course, is changed by the action economy aspect of the game. After you move your ships, you are allowed to perform a single action, which can range from being able to reposition your ship, to boosting your defence/attack. One of the more interesting actions is 'Focus': both the attack and defence dies have 'Eye' symbols that can be turned into a hit/evade if you spend a focus token. This, of course, makes your probabilities to hit/evade higher.

This leads to a system in which if you want to insure the highest probabilities of hitting, you need to be able to modify your dice and since you have limited actions, the action becomes one of the most important decisions in the game (after choosing your maneuver, of course). Do you use your action to move your ship and potentially move out of firing arcs, or use it to boost your attack/defense? This is what truly makes the system interesting.

On top of that, the game has an incredible diversity of pilots, abilities and upgrade cards that you can use to tailor your squadron to your tastes. The game does make use of combos, but allows enough space to make your own innovations. As well as that, most of the abilities feel thematic. One of the premier pilots of the game is, for example, Soontir Fel, a TIE Interceptor pilot. His ability is simple, but makes him one of the most nimble ships in the game, with the only drawback being that the TIE Interceptor itself is an easy ship to destroy if it has too much fire going its way.

What was strange for me is that I have never before been really interested in list-building. All my attempts to play Magic, for example, stopped at the deck construction elements, but in X-Wing I am continually attempting to try new things and see if new stuff works.

Another thing that really attracts me to the game is the competitive element. I have taken part in tournaments before in other systems but I have to admit that I have never met a community as nice and welcoming as the X-Wing Miniatures community. There are bad apples everywhere, of course, but the community motto of  'Fly Casual' largely holds up, at least in my own experience.

I have also been pleased at the extent that FFG has gone in order to balance the game. Although I am a bit annoyed at some of their merchandising patterns (for example, a fix to one of the ships was included in the expensive Imperial Raider ship), they have at least managed to keep the game balanced and even when things seemed to be unbalanced, they have done steps to reduce the damage in sensible ways.

One example of this was one of the ships that launched when I initially started to play the game, the TIE Phantom. The TIE Phantom basically dominated the meta when it came out and eventually FFG did a relatively easy fix: now the ship is still used, but isn't as meta-wrecking as it used to be. This is in direct contrast with the way that Wizkids balanced Star Trek: Attack Wing, a game that probably deserves a whole new article on its own right.

Star Trek: Attack Wing licensed the flightpath system in order to have a miniature game based on the Star Trek license. Unfortunately, Wizkids fucked it up with incredibly unbalanced, unplaytested releases that eventually wrecked the competitive community. Comparing STAW with X-Wing, it is clear that the latter has a much more sensible release schedule and that FFG actually cares about balance in their game.

In conclusion, it is sometimes hard to judge a game by its cover. Although the randomness in X-Wing can sometimes be a bit too much for me, I find the game very compelling, especially when I entered the competitive aspect of it. If you are even remotely interested in the game, I would suggest giving it a go (and avoiding STAW completely): even just the core pack (including the new Force Awakens one) can produce a pretty interesting game, which only gets better when you add more expansions. Just be careful, because once X-Wing has its grip on you, it is a difficult game to escape!