Millenium Falcon Unboxing and quick review

A couple of days ago I picked up the Millenium Falcon from Fantasy Flight Games, for their X-wing miniatures game. I had pre-ordered it and a Tie Interceptor at my local friendly gamestore so I wouldn't miss it in case the first batch sold out. They also got the Slave 1 and A-wing which I will pick up later. (And yes, everything is out of stock at FFG, so I better hurry.)

The fastest hunk of junk in the galaxy, in a pretty box!

At first glance the box looks very attractive with the miniature cleverly displayed. The tear in the upper right corner came from when I eagerly ripped the box open...

The contents of the box; rules sheet, pilot cards, upgrade cards, templates and the miniature in a clamshell pack.

You get quite a lot of stuff in the box, even though it's not as full as it looked. FFG could have stuffed in a bit more if they wanted to, there were plenty of room inside. Still, you get what is needed as well as some extras. There is a four page rule sheet which expands the rules and also contains a special scenario.

Five regular size cards; four pilot cards and a rule summary card.

You get four pilot cards; Han Solo, Chewbacca, Lando Calrissian and a generic smuggler. The named pilots are all the characters that have flown the Millenium Falcon in the movies, so "their" ships all the have same stats and the same possible upgrades, they only differ in their pilot skill and their special abilities. The generic smuggler on the other hand has lower attack, hull and shield points and can't buy as many upgrades. Interestingly the fifth card is a rule summary for a new action that neither pilot can use. There is an engine upgrade though that will enable the Boost Action. It is a standard action for the new Tie Interceptor though and the card is included in that pack too.

Four co-pilot upgrade cards, these are small size as the usual upgrades.

Included is also a new type of upgrade; crew, which we get four cards four. Again we get three named characters and a generic Weapons Engineer. The named characters are all unique of course, so you can't have Luke both flying in an X-wing and manning the guns on the Millenium Falcon, or Chewbacca piloting with himself as a co-pilot. Note that all the pilots can take two crew, even the generic smuggler, so you can have Han piloting with Luke and Chewie co-piloting, just like in the movie. But I miss Leia, she did fly the Falcon in The Empire Strikes back, remember? She should at least be a crew card. Interestingly the Weapons Engineer is not labled "Rebel only" like the others, which hints at Imperial ships with the ability to have extra crew in the future. (Or maybe Slave 1, now that I think about it. But there's still hope!)

Standard upgrade cards, some new, some old.

There's not much to say about the other upgrades; two kinds of missiles, one old and one new, and three new skills which let you tailor your pilots a bit more. None are specific for the Millenium Falcon or the Rebels, so worth getting for imperial players as well. Some are included in the Tie Interceptor and I guess the rest are included with Slave 1.

Titles and Modifications is a new type of upgrade.

Most interesting in this set is five cards called Titles or Modifications. These are special upgrades that any ship may buy, regardless of the upgrades available in the upgrade bar on their pilot cards. Any ship may get ONE modification and ONE title, only restrictions are that some are limited to certain ship types like the title Millenium Falcon. Titles upgrades generic ships to named ships, so you can only ever have one Millenium Falcon in play for example. The engine upgrade (which is a modification) lets a ship use the new Boost Action and the Shield upgrade increases your shields by 1. (I wonder if this means I can get Shield 1 Tie Fighters?)

The heavy cardstock markers.

Then we have the counters and markers. Three number counters (for ID:ing the ship), five shield tokens, two stress tokens, an evade, a focus, a critical hit token, and an ion damage token. No target lock tokens, although you got a lot of those in the core set and first release expansions. Also the base inserts and manuever dial, as well as six special mission tokens for use in the new scenario included. These are three container tokens, two escort tokens and one smuggler token. The mission is about snatching containers from under the nose of their escorts but they might be somewhat useful in other missions. Anyway it's nice to have something for those homebrewn scenarios.

"You came in that thing? You are braver than I thought."

On to the miniature. It's quite big but not unwieldily big, if you know what I mean. The base is larger than the regular bases as is the pegs that is used to mount it to the base. It's supposed to be 1/270 scale which seems correct and it compares in scale to the other ships released.

Hand included for scale.

Details are good, the paint job is quite acceptable. While it's a standard base-coat-wash-details job, I do like the attention to details it has.

Even the underside is detailed.

There are some weathering in form of rust streaks on the underside (which you never see in the game) and soot on the rear hull. Some plates on the hull are of a different colour than the rest of the ship, and a pair of very small quad-cannons are mounted in the middle of the top and lower hull.

Quad Cannon! Note the viewport underneath it.

There's a diamond shaped gash on the underside which I'm not sure of. I suppose it's battle damage but it looks too regular to me.

Battle damage? Note the rust streaks and odd coloured panels.

 The only thing that think really detracts from the paint job is the large engine exhaust in the back. Adding some blue glow in there would make the model really attractive. I might try my hand at that.

I guess the hyperdrive has been deactivated by imperial agents.

And when you are done playing... eh, gaming I mean, everything fits inside the clam shell that was in the box. A nice thought by FFG that I think realised gamers would have too much junk already to save the outside carton box.

Packed away until the next kessel run.

So, what's my verdict? I give the Millenium Falcon 6 out of 5 points.

Yes, seriously. The price point is exactly double that of one of the smaller ships: $29.95. In Europe I believe it's around £24 or €25, maybe a little bit lower. Material-wise it's entirely justified as the model is much bigger. Now, given the beautiful model you actually get for your money it's entirely worth it just for the model alone. Add in the game-play value for being able to fly the Millenium Falcon in the game, I mean it's the Millenium Falcon! How can you not buy it if you enjoy X-wing? Add to that the new maneuver and the new upgrades and modifications, some of which you can also use on your regular ships. Imagine Darth Vader in his Tie Advanced prototype with an Engine Upgrade, doing the Boost Action to outmaneuver the rebels. This expansion expands the core game in more ways than one.

So yes, 6 out of 5 points. If you like Star Wars and play X-Wing, you have to get the Millenium Falcon. It's an essential buy. If not, well, why did you read this far then?