I was chatting with a buddy of mine about casual play, tournaments, etc. and we came up with the idea of a booster draft play style where you draw pilot cards out of a hat (Imps, Rebs, Scum in individual hats of course and you pick which hat you draw all of your pilots out of), equip upgrades and such and play it out.

Obviously there would be some trial and error on points and such, but you'd be able to get pretty darn close I'm sure... would any of you guys play a random style like this?

Or if you have any ideas that would expand the booster draft feel, please chime in.

X-Wing isn't a game to be played with random squads.

X-Wing isn't a game to be played with random squads.

Hmmmm somewhat of a narrow viewpoint... I was speaking to friendly games more than anything, would be kinda fun to not know what you're going to get and make the best out of it.

And again, this was just an idea we came up with to make the game more interesting from time to time rather than all the focus being on what uber-leet builds can I come up with, a little chaos can be a good thing

Drawing multiple pilots from a hat might be more trouble than it's worth. You could, for example, be giddy because you drew whisper, but then draw 2 other super expensive pilots that prevent you from actually outfitting your phantom. Assuming that most players have all the expansions, you could, however, do something like this:

1) The organiser picks a number of hats per faction (2 for now, 3 when scum comes out)

2) The organiser adds 3 random named pilots in each hat (no doubles).

3) Each player picks a faction.

4) For each player of a faction, have him or her select another named pilot to add to the hat (again, no doubles)

5) Once the process is done, each player picks a pilot from the hat with the following criterias:

- Your squad must include said pilot

- Your squad cannot include the pilot picked up from the hat by another player

So you get the following situation:

- If you add your favorite pilot to the hat, you could end up being the only one to use it... or be forbidden to.

- By "not" adding your favorite pilot to the hat, you could ensure that he is available to play, but your opponents could also use him.

It's a bit convoluted to be sure, so just take it as a weird suggestion to get ideas rolling

What i have done in the past is take all my pilot cards, 1 of each named pilot and 2-3 of the non named pilots and divide them by faction, shuffle them up, and deal x amount of each faction to each player, i did 7 Rebel cards and 11-12 empire pilot cards. I then take 3-4 of every upgrade, shuffle them and deal like 10-15 to each player. Each player looks at all cards dealt to them and picks one faction to use. They then build a 100 pt squad from the faction they choose, only using the cards dealt, both pilot and upgrades. This help with new players. If helps you get out of the habit of always using the same combo with each pilot. It is pretty fun. You can either to 1 on 1 games or a free for all.

What i have done in the past is take all my pilot cards, 1 of each named pilot and 2-3 of the non named pilots and divide them by faction, shuffle them up, and deal x amount of each faction to each player, i did 7 Rebel cards and 11-12 empire pilot cards. I then take 3-4 of every upgrade, shuffle them and deal like 10-15 to each player. Each player looks at all cards dealt to them and picks one faction to use. They then build a 100 pt squad from the faction they choose, only using the cards dealt, both pilot and upgrades. This help with new players. If helps you get out of the habit of always using the same combo with each pilot. It is pretty fun. You can either to 1 on 1 games or a free for all.

I really like this idea, I am going to give it a try this weekend.

I actually like the idea. One aspect of the game I don't like is that there are certain combinations that are just really really good, so you see them repeated, if you play a lot you probobly know what I mean and there are certain things you just don't ever see in actual games which is a shame because they are interesting, but not chosen because they aren't as effective as other things.

Draft would allow the game to take on a more interesting, dynamic style of play where you have to make do with what is available as opposed to the game boiling down to what's the best thing I can construct. Not to say that playing the game that way isn't fun, but I really like the idea. If you ever get a chance to put pen to paper, I would love to see it. I would definitely be interested in trying something like that.

Casual games are basically just a cube draft anyway.

The problem here is that the card pool isn't really as deep as your average CCG.

X-wing's complexity comes from other places.

I had the idea of drafting some weeks ago and posted it in this forum. Getting a random pool of pilots to build you squad brings some fresh air to old habits. What I did to prepare the pool was to make one pile for every ship-type. Add every unique pilot once to each pile and add an amount of non-uniques equal to the amount of models available (i.e. having 9 tie fighters, add 9 academy pilots, 9 obisdian and so on...). Now shuffle every pile and draw an amount of cards into the pool equal the amount of models (again if you have 9 tie fighter, you add 9 random cards from the tie-fighter pile to the imperial pool). This way you get a different pool everytime. Now to the real drafting:

To take up your idea of choosing a faction you divide players to small groups. Maybe you have 3 imperials and 3 rebels. Then everyone gets about 8 cards of their factions pool. They choose one of those and pass the other 7 cards to the left player of the same faction. Pick another card form the new set and pass again. Continue until everyone has 8 pilots. Now build a 100pts list using alle upgrades available as in normal games.

My last suggesteon in this forum was with mixed factions, but you can only use named pilots from your chosen faction. So it would be possible to field biggs with 2 academy pilots, but not with darth vader for example. That brings some more variety into play, but can cause some balance issues.

I actually like the idea. One aspect of the game I don't like is that there are certain combinations that are just really really good, so you see them repeated, if you play a lot you probobly know what I mean and there are certain things you just don't ever see in actual games which is a shame because they are interesting, but not chosen because they aren't as effective as other things.

Draft would allow the game to take on a more interesting, dynamic style of play where you have to make do with what is available as opposed to the game boiling down to what's the best thing I can construct. Not to say that playing the game that way isn't fun, but I really like the idea. If you ever get a chance to put pen to paper, I would love to see it. I would definitely be interested in trying something like that.

This is why I posted the thread... couldn't have said it any better.