Here's a last-surviving-ship arena battle scenario based on NOVA's "Hunger Games".

Download the Star Gladiators PDF:

http://www.outworld-studio.com/xwing/pdf/Star-Gladiators.pdf

Check out NOVA's original design and get to the NOVA Open this weekend if you can. (I'm not affiliated with them in any way, except to steal their good ideas and put my own spin on them.)

http://www.novaopen.com/

Looks fun, except the "allies" seem soooo powerful. I know you should just kill the gladiator & ignore the ally, but wow, those guys are like throwing in a fully trained and armed Marine into the Hunger Games to help one of the teens.

Looks fun, except the "allies" seem soooo powerful. I know you should just kill the gladiator & ignore the ally, but wow, those guys are like throwing in a fully trained and armed Marine into the Hunger Games to help one of the teens.

Think of them as lions released into the arena. They should be fearsome and change the tone while they're around.

But I think it's a mixed blessing. Consider that if you get an ally you've used up your 1 allowed container -- you'll never get a chance to get other upgrades. You can still get a function token (which could be very helpful) but your ally will be arriving about as far from your position as possible, and won't be able to come to your aid immediately. There'll be a field of obstacles between you and it. Your ally only lasts as long as your main ship does, so you'll have a huge target painted on you (as if your opponents needed another reason).

Also, there are only 4 ally cards out of 15. Even if every ship in the battle successfully opens a container, there's a fair chance allies won't come into play.

And the cards are merely suggestions -- they're what I'll be using when I run this scenario. You could very easily have the players fill out their own cards with 10 points of upgrades of their choice (or whatever point value or restrictions sound good to you), and shuffle those together, or assign them to specific containers.