Hello, what have we here? It’s the first installment of That Theme’s Operational! a new article series where I’ll be taking a closer look at cards and mechanincs in Fantasy Flight’s Star Wars games (mostly X-Wing for now) and how they either nail the theme or miss the mark.

Many people often refer to theme as “fluff,” though I don’t like this term as it seems to imply that the theme is extra; a nice add on to the actual meat of the game. I disagree.

Theme is arguably one of the most important aspects of X-Wing Miniatures.

The theme is what informs the mechanics of this game. The mechanics wouldn’t be the way they are without some theme as a basis. The theme acts as guides for the designers when coming up with new mechanics.

The theme is also what sucks you into the awesome world of Star Wars dogfighting. This game would be boring if it didn’t have an awesome them attached to it no matter how great the mechanics were.

In the case of X-Wing, the theme and the mechanics are two sides to the same coin. One can’t exist without the other.

So theme is more than fluff, even if there are cases where, for balance’s sake, the mechanics and gameplay are placed ahead of the theme. (We’ll be looking at cases of gameplay over theme later on in this series.)

For our first article we’re going to be looking at Lando; only appropriate as he gave us the punny title for this series.

Lando Calrissian

“…you’re quite the smooth-talking smuggler.“

“Smuggler? Such a small word. I’m more of a…galactic entrepreneur.“―Hera Syndulla and Lando Calrissian

We have two instances of Lando Calrissian in X-Wing miniatures. We’re going to take a look at both of them and take a look at the theme within these cards.

Let’s start with the Lando Pilot card.

This is obviously Lando in Return of the Jedi, when we see him flying the Falcon during the Battle of Endor.

But does his pilot ability match the man?

After you execute a green maneuver, choose 1 other friendlyship at Range 1. That ship may perform 1 free action shown in its action bar.

Lando gives out free actions. Giving things away for free doesn’t sound much like Lando, though in this context, where he’s Gold Leader, we can think of it more like him commanding other ships, making their tactics more efficient.

So far so good, but this could work for any leader type pilot. What makes this special to Lando?

“After you execute a green maneuver.” Green maneuvers are smooth; easy going; laid back. That’s Lando.

Lando’s pilot ability has managed to connect with Lando’s signature smoothness, as well as his role as a leader in the Battle of Endor.

So does it nail it? Almost. The pilot ability clearly works for Lando. But we had to do some digging to figure out why. It wasn’t initially obvious.

I’l give the Lando Pilot Card 4 capes out of 5 for theme.

What about the Lando Crew Card?

You don’t need a puffer pig to to sniff out how this card fits Lando perfectly.

The fantastic artwork on this card already has us on the right track. Lando’s a gambler. A risk taker. He’s willing to roll the dice and hope for the best while not sweating the downfalls involved with a bad roll.

ACTION: Roll 2 defense dice. For each focus result, assign 1 focus token to your ship. For each evade result, assign 1 evade token to your ship.

This card can pay out big, or leave you with nothing. The perfect gambling mechanic for the galaxy’s best gambler.

Not only does this card perfectly fit Lando, but if you yourself want to run this card on your ship, you need to be like Lando. You need to be unafraid of uncertainty. You need to be ready to roll the dice and adapt to how they land.

The Lando Crew Card might be one of the most spot on bits of theming in X-Wing; immediately recognizable as having the traits of its namesake.

I give the Lando Crew Card: 5 dashing smiles out of 5.

So that’s our first installment of That Theme’s Operrational! Did I miss anything? Which cards would you like to see covered in the future? I won’t just be covering cards that nail it though. Examining cards that don’t make any sense theme wise will also be a focus of this series.

Until next time…