New escalation rules look tough if you want to fit a Falcon into your list. Do you just go all out with the YT in round one (a sixty point falcon seems like crazy talk) or come in under your points allowance in later rounds to ease one in like a gentleman?

A souped up falcon is actually hard to kill with only 60 pts for your opponents squad.

I think I would build the falcon like I wanted it and bank the points for later rounds. Han+ Marks+Gunner comes in at 54. Or Chewie+Expert Handling+Gunner is 49. Either of those wouldn't be bad vs a 60 point list. Alternately you could add more stuff to them, but you have to keep those upgrades on them throughout the tournament, which I'm not a fan of.

Do you have to keep the upgrades on the falcon though? You have to include them in the squad but can't you shift them to other ships?

As far as I know you keep your ships and upgrades "as is" as the rounds escalate. So if they have it in round one they keep it for two, three and four.

Yes the way I would interpret the new rules is that any upgrades associated with a certain ship must remain on that ship round to round.

What are these escalation rules?

What are these escalation rules?

First round 60 points

Second Round 90 points

Third Round 120 Points

Fourth Round 150 Points

Each round must use ALL cards from previous round.

You can see them here:

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/ffg_content/x-wing/support/faq/X-Wing-Tournament-Rules.pdf

Do you have to keep the upgrades on the falcon though? You have to include them in the squad but can't you shift them to other ships?

As far as I know you keep your ships and upgrades "as is" as the rounds escalate. So if they have it in round one they keep it for two, three and four.

Yes, I just looked it up. It reads like this:

When the refit for the Awing comes out, Chewie and a green would be a viable option.

Yea, I would expect to see a lot of love to the smaller Rebel ships in an Escalation, so you can fill out the points.

Then when you make the next jump up, you start tacking on the upgrades.

Chewie+Gold is also very tough to beat at 60.

Or 2 outer rim plum smugglers with autoblasters and Intelligence agents...

Han Solo + Millennium Falcon + Push the Limit + C3P0 + Luke Skywalker = 60 points

In later rounds you can add Engine Upgrade for 4 points. The trick is filling out the 30 points per round, but that's going to be an issue with Rebel squads in general. Not sure its a terribly competitive baseline.

New escalation rules look tough if you want to fit a Falcon into your list. Do you just go all out with the YT in round one (a sixty point falcon seems like crazy talk) or come in under your points allowance in later rounds to ease one in like a gentleman?

I remember a simlar discussion with my wife but regarding an unrelated topic...

The trick is filling out the 30 points per round, but that's going to be an issue with Rebel squads in general. Not sure its a terribly competitive baseline.

Yeah given that some rebel pilots cost more than the 30 point jump between each escalation round you are restricted in who you take and whether you want to "bank" points for next round. You would struggle to add more than one ship per round after the first round. I think we will end up with 4-5 ship, heavily upgraded, rebel lists at 150 points.

Adding 30 points a round puts Swarm players in a bit of a bind as well, as that's only ever 2 ships added.

However, I can't help but think a Bomber Swarm might be the way to go in this format.

Also you can only have a total of 8 small ships of any type or 4 large ships of any type in a squad

Also you can only have a total of 8 small ships of any type or 4 large ships of any type in a squad

Where is THAT rule?

It's poorly phrased, you may only have up to 8 of any 1 type of small based ship. So you could have 8 Tie Fighters, but to add more ships you have to take another type of ship. It's in the Tourney rules.

It's poorly phrased, you may only have up to 8 of any 1 type of small based ship. So you could have 8 Tie Fighters, but to add more ships you have to take another type of ship. It's in the Tourney rules.

and emboldened at that. A new wrinkle for my thought process.

Man, these rules are TOUGH to build. I'm drawing several blanks thus far

I already have my lists all ready. Starts off with 5x academy TIE...

I already have my lists all ready. Starts off with 5x academy TIE...

Is it similar to my 11 ship swarm, posted in "Alright. I think I've got a handle on an Escalation Swarm fleet." ?

I think that you need a very good reason not to start out with 5 x academy pilot, and with the tighter restrictions now meaning you cant swap around upgrades it means you either have to bank huge amounts of points between rounds or never have more than 1 bigbase ship.

i think that it will be a stale 5x AP vs 5 AP first round more often than not

Alternate list pending wave 4:

2 TIE defenders; then 3, 4, and finally 5.