One thing that FFG should do that would greatly increase the speed of teaching the game is to print newer range rulers with a reminder that range 1 attacks in red get +1 dice and range 3 defenses in green get +1 dice. It would be easy to see right there on the ruler and less to explain with your words, when there's already so much to remember/absorb when learning this game.

Oh, that's right, the quick-start rules don't take account of range either....

If I were to do an intro game... I would probably pre-build a small 2 Reb vs ~3 Imp squad, using 1 unique pilot each side.

Then play standard rules no asteroids, start closer to engage by 2nd round. Keep it simple but use some of the options available. Maybe script out the first 2-3 rounds, show off all the actions like barrel roll, target lock etc.

Sorry to raise this thread from the dead, but my library program is coming up at the beginning of the next month. What I'm thinking is this:

Have one or two games of flight school, in which each kid flies one ship, randomly handed out from two decks (Rebel and Imperial), with the Imperials being more elite pilots (Obsidian Squadron) against mostly Rookies in order to give them the PS advantage.

Then, once they get a sense of it, have an epic-ish game with a bare-bones corvette on one side being little more than a moving piece of terrain, but as a narrative stake - the rebels having to defend, the imperials having to destroy. I'd still have the kids flying one (or maybe two) ships each, and have one or two big 3x6 tables, depending on turnout. Also, to impose a timer on dial selection, in order to keep things fast-paced.

Thoughts?

I think that sounds like it could work. Let them get used to the idea how the game works then let them get involved in something epic to set the hook

I've found that I don't like the quick rules so much. I think a key component is doing the actions. Then again......it depends. If you have just 2 kids show up and they are really hesitant, then go for it. If you have something like 4 kids and only 2 are playing at a time, then jump in with the actions. Let those that are more eager go first. The others can watch and pick it up.

Part of the quick rules is that it takes forever to kill someone with no Focus or TL. That can have an impact, especially if there is a line.

I've found that I don't like the quick rules so much. I think a key component is doing the actions. Then again......it depends. If you have just 2 kids show up and they are really hesitant, then go for it. If you have something like 4 kids and only 2 are playing at a time, then jump in with the actions. Let those that are more eager go first. The others can watch and pick it up.

I'm looking more at 8-14 attendees.

Then I don't think you want to do quick rules if you have limited sets.

Part of the quick rules is that it takes forever to kill someone with no Focus or TL.

Which quick rules don't have focus or TL actions?

The ones in the rulebook. At least last time I looked. I can always be wrong as it's been a long time since I did it, but that's one thing that I remember.

Part of the quick rules is that it takes forever to kill someone with no Focus or TL.

Which quick rules don't have focus or TL actions?

The ones in the rulebook. At least last time I looked. I can always be wrong as it's been a long time since I did it, but that's one thing that I remember.

Yes, indeed. Those quick rules leave out actions, and don't even involve stress from red maneuvers.

Hey I'm looking forward to helping out. Here are some of my ideas:

Personally, I think that it should start with a bit more than the quick start rules. When I play with a new player, usually we do a quick start like game with actions and stressful maneuvers. I think they're very important to learn at the start. Also, I feel we should MAYBE have an asteroid or two. Not sure on that one though

I like the quickstart but I add back in the perform action step, otherwise, you are inessence, teaching them incorrectly, and then they will be forgetting to do their action after they move, but I agree with keeping it small without asteroids and no upgrades.

I agree playing 2 academy Tie Fighters to 1 Rookie Xwing, and no upgrades, but I go ahead and teach them Asteroids, stress, range, and actions: target locks, barrel roll, evade, and focus. Obviously not all at once. The five times I have taught this game. Here is how I start:

• Let them pick a side. Outline the cards.
• Discuss the maneuver dial. Let them play with it and the movement rulers to get a feel.
• Show them the asteroids and talk about what happens when you shoot through one, land on one, and pass through one.
• Set up the board. Talk about placing pieces (lowest number first) This gets the intro of pilot skill without getting into initiative.
• We set our maneuvers and launch.
• After the first ship moves, I bring up actions. If I am lucky, I am playing Empire and I show how barrel roll, evade, and focus work. Even though we won't be in range of one another, it illustrates the order of operations and how those three basics work.
• Normally, we both launch at top speed at each other, so the X Wing is often in range for a target lock, even if not arc. Now, I have demonstrated all the actions.
• I do a battle check. Again, order of operations is important to teaching the new. If we are in range 3 of each other and in arc, I explain how shooting works, range ruler and all.
• We throw down!
• Normally, the Tie will take a hit, so I explain the damage deck quickly. Again, its not a huge discussion, but to not use it really messes up future game play.
• Then we clean up. I explain how focus, evade tokens go away but target locks stay.
• Back to the Maneuver dials. If I am within range 3, I choose this moment to demonstrate K Turns. It allows me to talk about stress, losing actions, but putting myself behind a target.
• Go through the normal steps. I talk them through different actions, especially if they are playing Empire and have evade, barrel, and focus to play with, since I will probably be behind them now. It leads to small moment of arc dodging conversation.
• Fire!
• Clean up
• Repeat till one of your frozen corpses is littering the space lanes.

I have taught playing Rebs or Empire, so it doesn't really matter. I do make sure that they see examples of all the basics. Once we have done that and they feel comfortable, I always say let's play a real game and give them the option of Rebel or Empire pre-built lists.

A New Hope

Empire Strikes Back

The Rebel is just 3 X and 1 Y. But it has Luke, R2D2, and the two ships the casual Star Wars watcher probably has seen without adding large ships. I am trying to avoid the pilot skills they just had, and balance the number of ships. Only Luke has special abilities or a droid or an add on, so the player doesn't have too much. Everyone but Luke has PS 4, putting them higher than the Empire, and the Y will soak up some serious hits.

Empire has 5 Obsidian Ties and Darth Vader. They will probably never see Vader again, so lets make it memorable. They

have more ships, but that is thematic and appropriate, plus at PS3, they will be the last to fire. It can be overwhelming, but all those ships are the same. Like the Rebel list, only Vader has anything special going on, and all the rest move at the same time, limiting confusion.

It has worked well for me to get them a full game that has some complexity, but not enough to blow minds or shut down interest.

I think they arrest people for getting kids addicted to things don't they?

I'd skip starter rules and go full on with two ties vs two z-95's so its a quick demo but gives an idea of the differences between rebels and imps.

I too am against the quick start rules. Though if you're taping off a gaming surface, I'd say go with the 2x2 they recommend instead of the 3x3 of 100 point matches. I would have some premade squads available at 55 points, which I've found to be a much more even and creative point limit than 50 (and 60 gets uneven since you can put 5 TIEs in the list). I would also recommend using some named characters like Luke and Han, as it increases the fun and drama over just having some Rookie pilot get blown up.

As for literature, I know at that age, I was really attached to the Young Jedi Knights series. It's everything a kid wants - people his age (going through the same struggles they are) learning about how to be Jedis and building Lightsabers and conquering the bad people. I haven't read them in over a decade, so I don't know if they're actually good books, but I enjoyed them at that time.

Here are some squads I put together (based on what I had) about a year ago when I ran a demo.

Rebels:

1

Imperials

The attempt was to show off a bit of the different play styles that the game had, while keeping it relatively simple to grasp. As such, I tried to limit it to the squads really only having 1 person with special powers (don't want to overload the player into remembering too many things), though that isn't always the case, such as Wedge + Gold w/ Ion, or the Garven + Dutch list.

When I ran something for my friends, I set it up like this;

6'x4' play area

Everyone ran a single ship

3 Imperial Players for every single Rebel Player

Each Imperial player got an Academy Pilot (12 points)

When 4 are there; the first Rebel gets Luke Skywalker w/R2-D2 & Proton Torpedoes

When 8 are there; the second Rebel gets Biggs Darklighter w/R2-F2, a Shield Upgrade & Proton Torpedoes

When 12 are there; the third Rebel gets Wedge Antilles w/R5-D8 & Proton Torpedoes

When 16 are there; the fourth Rebel gets "Dutch" Vander w/Ion Cannon & 2 Proton Torpedoes

Continue until time or one side wipes the other

Edit:

I forgot to mention - the board was set in a "slice" for each group of players ... as you added players you increased the width as below:

4 - 2'x4'

8 - 4'x4'

12+ - 6'x4'

Whoa this is blast from the past!

Hey I'm looking forward to helping out. Here are some of my ideas:

Personally, I think that it should start with a bit more than the quick start rules. When I play with a new player, usually we do a quick start like game with actions and stressful maneuvers. I think they're very important to learn at the start. Also, I feel we should MAYBE have an asteroid or two. Not sure on that one though

Superb. Yes, I agree.

I am thinking to first set up about four separate tables with 3x3 mats, which will allow us to do a couple of bouts of flight school, kind of what MrTyres was talking about on the previous page.

However, as I also mentioned, I'm planning to just give the kids one ship each, chosen at random from two separate decks. These decks will be composed based on the number of participants, and I will try to have 3-5 kids per 3x3 table.

2/table: Obsidian + Academy vs. Rookie (Imperial player controls 2)

3/table: Obsidian + Academy vs. Rookie

4/table: Obsidian + Academy vs. Rookie + Bandit

5/table: Obsidian + 2xAcademy vs. Red + Bandit

After two rounds of this flight school, I want to have one or two large battles, with one or two 3x6 tables. Those who won their flight school battles would be allowed to play a special character (Luke, Vader) or a special ship (Y/B/A-Wing or TIE Bomber).

In those bigger battles I'd like to also use somewhat naked huge ships that myself and/or Commander Ontar (if he's interested) could fly as narrative objectives and essentially moving terrain pieces. Maybe have it so that the Imperials need to destroy the huge ships before they can get away to hyperspace, and the rebels have to protect them. Just something to tie in (or TIE/in ) with the overall Star Wars story.

Also, we'll be seeing about getting some of the SWU novels and reading materials from the library's collection on hand. Ultimately, this is a library program after all.

Oh, Off-Topic: I saw Timothy Zahn tonight, as he was talking up his newest books at the bookstore.

Hey I'm looking forward to helping out. Here are some of my ideas:

Personally, I think that it should start with a bit more than the quick start rules. When I play with a new player, usually we do a quick start like game with actions and stressful maneuvers. I think they're very important to learn at the start. Also, I feel we should MAYBE have an asteroid or two. Not sure on that one though

Superb. Yes, I agree.

I am thinking to first set up about four separate tables with 3x3 mats, which will allow us to do a couple of bouts of flight school, kind of what MrTyres was talking about on the previous page.

However, as I also mentioned, I'm planning to just give the kids one ship each, chosen at random from two separate decks. These decks will be composed based on the number of participants, and I will try to have 3-5 kids per 3x3 table.

2/table: Obsidian + Academy vs. Rookie (Imperial player controls 2)

3/table: Obsidian + Academy vs. Rookie

4/table: Obsidian + Academy vs. Rookie + Bandit

5/table: Obsidian + 2xAcademy vs. Red + Bandit

After two rounds of this flight school, I want to have one or two large battles, with one or two 3x6 tables. Those who won their flight school battles would be allowed to play a special character (Luke, Vader) or a special ship (Y/B/A-Wing or TIE Bomber).

In those bigger battles I'd like to also use somewhat naked huge ships that myself and/or Commander Ontar (if he's interested) could fly as narrative objectives and essentially moving terrain pieces. Maybe have it so that the Imperials need to destroy the huge ships before they can get away to hyperspace, and the rebels have to protect them. Just something to tie in (or TIE/in ) with the overall Star Wars story.

Also, we'll be seeing about getting some of the SWU novels and reading materials from the library's collection on hand. Ultimately, this is a library program after all.

Oh, Off-Topic: I saw Timothy Zahn tonight, as he was talking up his newest books at the bookstore.

That sounds like a good plan. Let us know how it goes.

Hey I'm looking forward to helping out. Here are some of my ideas:

Personally, I think that it should start with a bit more than the quick start rules. When I play with a new player, usually we do a quick start like game with actions and stressful maneuvers. I think they're very important to learn at the start. Also, I feel we should MAYBE have an asteroid or two. Not sure on that one though

Superb. Yes, I agree.

I am thinking to first set up about four separate tables with 3x3 mats, which will allow us to do a couple of bouts of flight school, kind of what MrTyres was talking about on the previous page.

However, as I also mentioned, I'm planning to just give the kids one ship each, chosen at random from two separate decks. These decks will be composed based on the number of participants, and I will try to have 3-5 kids per 3x3 table.

2/table: Obsidian + Academy vs. Rookie (Imperial player controls 2)

3/table: Obsidian + Academy vs. Rookie

4/table: Obsidian + Academy vs. Rookie + Bandit

5/table: Obsidian + 2xAcademy vs. Red + Bandit

After two rounds of this flight school, I want to have one or two large battles, with one or two 3x6 tables. Those who won their flight school battles would be allowed to play a special character (Luke, Vader) or a special ship (Y/B/A-Wing or TIE Bomber).

In those bigger battles I'd like to also use somewhat naked huge ships that myself and/or Commander Ontar (if he's interested) could fly as narrative objectives and essentially moving terrain pieces. Maybe have it so that the Imperials need to destroy the huge ships before they can get away to hyperspace, and the rebels have to protect them. Just something to tie in (or TIE/in ) with the overall Star Wars story.

Also, we'll be seeing about getting some of the SWU novels and reading materials from the library's collection on hand. Ultimately, this is a library program after all.

Oh, Off-Topic: I saw Timothy Zahn tonight, as he was talking up his newest books at the bookstore.

Sorry I didn't reply sooner. Sounds like a great idea! Although the Obsisian and academy versus bandit and rookie seems a bit one sided for the rebels. I would love to fly a huge ship, heard a lot and read a lot about them but I've never actually flown one before so I'm not sure having be my first time would be a good idea. Is it harder than it looks?

Standard rules with no asteroids on a 2x2:

Game 1: Red vs. 2 academies

Game 2: 2 Bandits Vs. Tempest

Game 3: Add in a special character on each side (named ties and Luke are always good fun)

Game 4: 55pt squads with asteroids and larger table.

If all goes well they should have all the actions down (besides cloaking!), have sequence figured out, and have a good enough grasp on maneuvering to make it fun. They also have all the basic ships figured out. Add in upgrades slowly.

I neglected to get back to the forum on this.

Yes, I had the event last weekend, but I'm told that Saturday at noon was not the best timeslot to get people. (Now they tell me.) So, there were just a small number of people. I basically just made a deck of TIEs (BSPs, APs, and 1 Darth Vader), and then a deck of X-Wings (Rookies and 1 Luke), and allowed people to draw from it, figuring I would do 3:2 Empire:Rebels.

It certainly worked as a way to showcase the game. The small group had fun, and as a library program it provided the proof-of-concept. I'm going to see about having some of the other branch librarians over at the house to have them play the game, so they can think about the fit of the game with their community. (Also, just to have some fun with it.)