After 12 years of delighting fans with miniature space dogfights and fleet battles, tabletop publisher Atomic Mass Games (AMG) has announced it’s stopping all development on the Star Wars X-Wing and Armada miniature wargames.
In a brief, 121-word statement published on AMG’s website on Thursday, the studio said it made the decision to shelve Star Wars X-Wing and Star Wars Armada “after long and careful consideration”.
It claimed it had to cancel the long-running Star Wars miniature wargames because “rising production costs, global manufacturing, and pandemic-related challenges” had made it unsustainable to keep making their famously detailed, pre-painted miniatures. The cancellation comes after 12 years of game development for X-Wing (which launched its first edition in 2012) and nine years for Armada, which came out in 2015.
But AMG says it’s “not stepping away from these games entirely”, and will continue to support the competitive X-Wing and Armada community through tournaments and sending organized play kits to local game stores. In its statement, AMG confirms the Open World Championship for both games will still go ahead at the Adepticon 2025 wargames show in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, March 26-30 next year.
AMG’s other wargames under the licence, Shatterpoint and Star Wars Legion – some of the best Star Wars board games ever made – reportedly remain in active development, with parent company Asmodee promising “ongoing expansions and developments” in both games via Twitter on Thursday.
While both games have won dedicated communities of fans with excellent gameplay design, high quality models, and wide support for organized play, they’ve seen struggles in recent years, and it seems the publisher is no longer selling enough models to cover its increasing costs.
AMG took over the Star Wars miniatures games from fellow Asmodee publishing house Fantasy Flight Games in November 2020, two years after the troubled launch of X-Wing second edition, which replaced all the cards and components for every ship in the game, requiring long-time players to buy pricey ‘conversion kits’ for their existing fleets of minis, and making the old ones obsolete.
Armada – seen by fans as more of a specialist game, due to its more complex rules, slower pace, and more component-heavy play style – has always had a smaller, more niche community, and AMG had already cancelled work on any new ships in August 2021.
If you want a silver lining to that cloud, though: AMG’s newer 2023 skirmish wargame Shatterpoint is really, really good – read our Star Wars Shatterpoint review for full details.
Alternatively, check out our list of the best board games on the market, or our picks of the best strategy board games to play in 2024.
Source: Wargamer
