Star Wars: X-Wing

What is Star Wars: X-Wing

Star Wars: X-Wing is a starfighter combat game for two players. Each player flies a squadron of pre-painted plastic ships, from X-wings and TIE fighters to bigger freighters, and the game is all about where your ships end up after you commit to a move.

It’s a skirmish game in the sense that each ship is its own piece with its own pilot card. There’s no terrain to climb and no infantry. The table is open space with a few asteroids, debris fields and gas clouds.

Fantasy Flight Games announced the second edition on 1 May 2018 and released it that September. Development moved to Atomic Mass Games in 2020. There are seven factions across three eras: the Galactic Republic and the Separatist Alliance from the Clone Wars, the Rebel Alliance and the Galactic Empire, the Resistance and the First Order, plus Scum and Villainy.

On 13 June 2024 Atomic Mass Games announced “the end of development on Star Wars: X-Wing and Star Wars: Armada.” It blamed “rising production costs, global manufacturing, and pandemic-related challenges” for making pre-painted miniatures hard to produce. AMG kept organised play going until its Open World Championship at AdeptiCon in March 2025. No new ships are coming, and Asmodee’s US store no longer lists any X-Wing products.

That’s why this page is marked out of print. The game itself carried on. The X-Wing Alliance (XWA) formed in 2024 as a volunteer, not-for-profit group “to maintain, develop and grow” X-Wing. It’s independent of Lucasfilm, Disney, AMG and Asmodee. It publishes the points, the rules documents and an errata, and supports the tournament scene. Its site counts 734 pilots and 642 upgrades.

How it plays

Secret moves. At the start of each round, every player sets a maneuver dial for each of their ships in secret and puts it face down by the ship. Each ship type has its own dial.
Fly by template. Ships reveal their dials and move in initiative order, lowest first. You slide a maneuver template out from the base and move the ship to its end. Red maneuvers give a stress token. Blue ones take one away. A stressed ship can’t fly red maneuvers or take actions.
One action each. After moving, a ship can take an action from its card: focus, evade, lock, barrel roll, boost and others. Some actions are red and stress the ship.
Shoot by initiative. In the Engagement Phase ships attack in initiative order, highest first, so the best pilots shoot first. Ships with the same initiative fire at the same time.
Dice and arcs. The target has to be in your printed firing arc. You roll red attack dice equal to your attack value, the defender rolls green defence dice equal to their agility, and each evade cancels a hit. Damage strips shields first, then deals damage cards. Some are face up with lasting effects.
Twelve rounds. Each scenario says how you earn mission points. If both players still have ships after the twelfth round, the most mission points wins.
Squad building. Under the X-Wing Alliance’s standard play, a squad costs 46 to 50 points and has three to eight ships from one faction. Each ship has a loadout value that caps the upgrades it can carry. Standard loadout ships come with fixed upgrades printed on a larger card. Each player brings exactly three obstacles.

How to start

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Star Wars: X-Wing Core Rulebook (free PDF)

The official rulebook from Atomic Mass Games.

Read the rules for free. The core rulebook, rules reference and errata are still up on AMG’s X-Wing documents page. The X-Wing Alliance hosts the same documents, plus scenarios, on its rules page.
Use the current points. Today’s games run on the X-Wing Alliance’s points, not AMG’s last update. The current document is 50P 2.1, effective 16 August 2026, on the XWA points page.
Find a starter. AMG’s last entry boxes were the two Squadron Starter Packs from 2023, one Rebel and one Imperial. The Rebel pack holds a T-65 X-wing, a BTL-A4 Y-wing and two RZ-1 A-wings. The Imperial pack holds two TIE/ln fighters, a TIE/sa bomber and a TIE Advanced. Each comes with the cards, damage deck and dice to play. With production over, expect to hunt for these at game stores or buy second hand.
Build a list. The XWA recommends YASB, a community squad builder with XWA points, and Launch Bay Next for phones.
Find players. The XWA site has a squad map for local groups, and the X-Wing Discord is where most of the community, XWA leadership included, talks.