On friday I will be going to Sydcon ( gaming convention in Sweden) and have a Demo-table with x-wing.

So here is the challenge:

1

I need to use my excisting collection to create 3-4 imperial and 3-4 rebell squadrons.

(not at the same time)

2

I want to use just a few special abilities to keep things easy.
It is ok with one special ability per side, but no more.

3

I do not want to change tempelates on the ships, so if i use dutch and a gold sqd pilot, I will nut use any other y-wings (I have 2 in my colletcion)

These are my ships
3 x-wings

2 y-wings

2 a-wings

4 b-wings

1 HWK

2 z-95

3 e-wings

1 falcon

AND

5 tiefighters

1 tie advanced

3 tie bombers

4 Interceptors

1 lambda

1 firespray

1 Tie defender

Go with:

1. basic set of 1 X- wing (Red Squad) and 2 Academy pilots to start.

2. Falcon (Chewie) vs Firespray (Kath + Rebel Captive)

3. 2 A-wing (Green squad) vs 2 Interceptor (Alphas)

4. 1 Tie Bombers (Gamma) with Proton torpedo vs 1 Y wings (Gold) with Proton torpedo

Demo's should be quick games to show off ship abilities and explain the game. You have the basic, large ship rules, fast movers, and bomber rules with the above lists.

I'd run 50 - 60 point lists on each side. Big enough for a flavour, but doesn't take too long.

Leave out pilots who break mechanics (Tycho, Biggs for example) are are reliant on certain cards (Soontir & PTL for example)

Don't bother with combo-tricks (which I think leaves the HWK and the Shuttle out)

If there will be non-gamers have some recognisable people from the films (Han, Luke, Vader, R2-D2, Boba/bounty hunter)

Examples:

Rebel - 60 point

Luke, R2D2

Red squadron, Proton torpedos

Rebel - 60 point

Red squadron

Red squadron

Tala squadron

Rebel - 60 point

Red squadron

Tala squadron

Blue squadron, FCS

Imperial - 60 point

Vader - predator, engine upgrade

Academy

Academy

Imperial - 60 point

Academy

Academy

Academy

Saber, Push the limit

Imperial - 60 point

Bounty hunter, Darth Vader

Academy

Academy

That should give people a flavour of how the game plays...

My tip is keep at less than 50 points. I started directly at 100 points, and i find it awesome, but most people i had made demo's too get too overwhelmed when they have to move more than 4 ships, and since you want the ships to be simple and straightforward, you shouldn't use many nameds.

Luke + Rookie 49 points

4 Tie Fighters 48 points

You could give Luke R2D2, and add a named Tie fighter (Backstabber, night beast or dark curse) to the imperial army.

I am also doing demo games for some of my friends who are not hooked up, but i am planning to give them one ship to each, and run waves of Tie fighters into them. I will give wedge to one, luke to another, etc etc... They ussually enjoy more the cooperative gaming side, so i hope that will work out, and it also makes it much easier since i can have 4 of them playing instead of watching

Furballs work better from my personal experience at our local game con back in March.

Do up a bunch of ships, at around 30-35 points each with all offensive builds (no shield regen). I scanned the pilot & upgrade cards along with the shield tokens and hull points, so they can cross them off as they got hit.

You only need to give each interested person a few minutes of instruction on how to play, then just let them go on a map with everyone else. We had anywhere from three to six people playing at a time, all with different ships in a free-for-all.

It allows you to have people come and go when they're ready.

If you have space, set up a second table with small squads for anyone to "graduate" from the Furball table to a more complex squad scenario.

Good luck!

People are drawn to this game because its Star Wars. You have to sell Star Wars, not a rules set. What is Star Wars, its heroes and villains. Its characters we love and characters we love to hate, but are still awesome. You need to show that. If Star Wars was the story of how Red Squadron pilot number 5 grew up on tatooine then blew up the death star it would be cool, but it would not resonate with us, because Red Squadron Pilot is a faceless, no name person.

For the demo games, you need to interject characters. Recreate the dog fight in Episode 4. Also, the squadrons are not optimized, they are thematic. Theme is better than optimization when you are trying to grab people.

Rebels (100 points)

Luke Skywalker + R2D2 + Marksmanship

Wedge Antilles + R5P9 + Swarm Tactics

Biggs Darklighter + R2D6 + Ellusive + Hull Upgrade

Imperials (100 points)

Darth Vader + Squad Leader

Mauler Mithel + Outmanuever (crashed into the Trench)

Backstabber (killed by Han causing Vader to smash into Mauler)

Dark Curse (killed by Wedge when he was on Luke's Tail)

Black 8 (Black Squadron Pilot) + Predator

This will get them excited to play the Battle of Yavin, will introduce a lot of the concepts of the game, and get a great feeling for the differences between the Rebels and the Imperials.

I recommend against using large ships, anything with turrets, secondary weapons that remove the effects of range on attack/defence. Use the stuff in Wave 1 that was balanced against each other. Dont worry that your lists are not tournament lists, you want to entice and wet the appetite of your demoees, not beat them down.

I like a lot of people fell in love with this game based on being able to relive the movie attack on the Death Star. I would if running a demo have the following.

3 x-wings,

Luke with R2D2, Proton Torp

Wedge with Proton Torp

Biggs with Proton Torp

2 y-wings

Gold

Gold

1 falcon

Han with Chewie copilot

Against

5 tiefighters

1 tie advanced

Vader

This would recreate the attack on the Darth Star, If you lose your ties bring them back at the start of each round. Also have a point that Luke will need to attack to win,

Always let the new person win it gets them most invested.

I ran a few demo games and from that experience: KIS (keep it Simple)

-One X-wing vs 2x Tie (academy pilots) is *always* fun.

You can have 3 players having a go at the same time too!

I'd stay away form ALL upgrades and named pilots. Really. You should.

*one* exception; if you want to show large ships; show/play the Millennium Falcon vs 4 Academies.

Be enthusiastic and you will do fine. The game 'sells' itself.

I've only done a few demo game, but you really need to keep it simple (KISS). I'd say 100pts is too big, way too many things to remember for someone (even if they have some basic mini experience). Also, one on one ships can work, however, I fear it would turn into too much of a K-turn joust (which isn't the most appealing from the get go). So if you have a few ships on the board, you can see how focus fire and the furbal works. Thus I would stick to 2-4 ships on each side. Also, like Zoccola said, the reason people come to the game is STAR WARS, so getting some main characters in there really helps. So I would suggest:

Rebels: Rookie pilot and Luke (with a 4pt upgrade)= 53 pts

Imperials: 2 Acadamies and Vader = 53 pts

For Luke's upgrade, you can use either Proton Torp (make stuff go boom quick!), R2D2 (for theme, but run the risk of Luke vs Vader at the end when no one dies), or shield upgrade (don't have to think about it and adds some buffer to keep Luke from blowing up too fast).

Just note that the theme of the list does have the potential to drag on (since its hard to do damage to both Luke and Vader), so I would put either a time limit or turn limit on the game unless the player wants to keep playing to the death!

Is getting another TIE(borrowed or something maybe) and just using the sample game setup of Rookie X-wing vs Academy and Obsidian three times not an option? I'd just go with the bare bones sample game list if I were trying to demo to someone for the first time, honestly.

Then maybe a 4th setup, still low points, introducing some more things. Ships with boost maybe, an ion weapon somewhere. Maybe Outer Rim Smuggler + Prototype A wing vs Bounty Hunter + Alpha interceptor. And make sure at this table you have copies of the rules cards for every new element on each side.

I know you are short on the Zs, but the lists I currently use for demos are:

2xTala

2xBandit

2xAcademy

2xObsidian

Exactly 50 points and much more even than most other 50 point games. I generally skip asteroids in a demo. You get the PS variety, most of the major actions and relatively simple dials to start off. No one feels like they are at a 'disadvantage' because they have same number of ships with different, yet similar, capabilities. I prefer 50 points since it keeps the game short enough that you don't spend forever chasing each other around the board, but is long enough that you get a good feel for the game.

Thus far this has worked well for me.