I just had a thought, try casual games with a limit on the number of ships and no limit on points! Perhaps limit it to small ships as well! This would make for true dogfights, I believe...

Ex. four small ship limit, may upgrade each as usual or perhaps limit each ship to one or two upgrades. This would simulate two squads out on a mission running into each other and duking it out...

Thoughts/attempts!

4 Falcons
what.

As for four smalls...4 E-wings could be a nightmare. As could 4 pimped out Phantoms.

Four defenders with HLC, proton rockets and a shield upgrade.

I'm not sure a format that assumes Wedge is worth the same as a Rookie Pilot, and that each is also worth just as much as an Academy Pilot and Rexler Brath, can ever be balanced.

This format wouldn't be about balance though, right? I could see it working in a larger campaign where not every fight had to be balanced and allocation of resources was part of the point. It is fairly thematic and kind of cool when mixed into a narrative.

I'm not sure a format that assumes Wedge is worth the same as a Rookie Pilot, and that each is also worth just as much as an Academy Pilot and Rexler Brath, can ever be balanced.

That's kind of the point though, isn't it? If you were to choose 4 ships with no point limit you'd be seeing all high PS ships. Imagine a list with Wedge, Ten Numb, Keyan Farlander, and Corran Horn or some other awesome pilots Vs Soontir, Whiper, Rexler and Carnor Jax, or some other combo. Could end up being at least almost balanced.

Rebels top 4 pilots v Imps top 4 pilots cant be that far off from eachother.

Edit: to respond to OPs post, I think it is an interesting idea, I think limiting it to small ships and limiting the number of upgrades makes more sense (then it doesn't give an unfair advantage to ships with more slots). Could be fun!

At my local store we often play a 4+ player free for all with 1 ship each, no point limit. If your ship looks scary, you tend to get targeted. If you bring a Falcon (in a many person game usually) you tend to get targeted. It feels like it balances itself out. Certainly, no one has seriously attempted to bring a TIE. It has to be a ship that is able to take a few upgrades, so we've seen everything from E-wings to Interceptors to Y-wings (a Y-wing with R2-D2 is not to be trifled with! it won one of our 8 player games).

I don't think it would ever be balanced, because the balance comes from the points system. If you eliminate that, you get the same stupid problem you have with Attack Wing: that being that ships which have the same stats but VASTLY different pilot abilities cost the same, only it's exacerbated by the fact that each ship counts as 1. Imagine four TIE Defenders armed with HLC, AS, and Assault Missiles with all named pilots going up against four Z-95 Headhunters, two named, and all armed with Assault Missile. It would be a disaster.

Of course, there's no reason why you wouldn't take something else, like B-wings, but the point still stands that unless both players use the same design, you're not going to have balance.

If you want to do custom scenarios, sure. But I don't like winning/losing before the match simply because I can't field as many falcons/ TIE Phantoms/ etc. So no it isn't something I'm likely to try without a custom scenario to go with it.

You could add a ship number limit for certain scenarios.

125 (heck, even down to 75-80 could work) points per team but each team has to field no more than 4 ships and each ships needs to be the same type. That could give us the aesthetically pleasing 4 v 4 squad fights with more fairness.

What about 1 of each ship on each side? So one tie fighter, phantom, bomber, ect. Vs one xwing, Ewing, ect. No limiting upgrades either. I'd be very curious who wins

Not a chance.

I can recall a thread where someone was playing against someone who use that "we both have to have the same number of ships" line with no regard to actual points. The fight was then Y-Wings against Interceptors (pre-Aces even) and I hope you can figure out who wins that fight when upgrades are still limited to what you could put on a ship. There wasn't a lot you could do with Interceptors (maybe an EPT and a modification) but when you could load a Y-Wing for free (Astromech, two torps, and turret) you can pack a lot of power in there.

Now saying "one ship up to X points" could actually be interesting provided that X is such that neither side is excessively restricted by it.

What about 1 of each ship on each side? So one tie fighter, phantom, bomber, ect. Vs one xwing, Ewing, ect. No limiting upgrades either. I'd be very curious who wins

Rebels. I don't think it would even be close. Fat Han, Fat Dash, Roark, Wes/Opportunist combos, Etahn. The amount of shenanigans the Rebels could pull off with unlimited points would be truly disgusting.

An alternate format that a friend and I have tried and enjoy is 125 points with no generic pilots allowed. Definitely seems to capture a thematic feel. Other than that, thematic scenario building is fun, like waves of generic fighters each with a named squad leader. Those have been harder for us to keep balanced though.

I think this would be interesting. If two players just picked 4 ships and loaded them to the teeth. It would probably balance as both players are able to max out both ships. If you did 4 ships it would probably become 2 bwings and 2 ewings vs 4 defenders, or 2 defenders and 2 phantoms. (assuming there were no large or big ships)

How about this...

"The Army You've Got"

1. every player chooses 2 ships (any type or faction or one of each faction) and 4 upgrade cards (any type but do not assign to ships at this time).

2. Players roll-off (draw lots, pick a number from a hat, whatever...)

3. In order (highest to lowest), players take turns choosing 1 ship.

4. Then, in reverse order (lowest to highest), players take turns choosing a 2nd ship (must be same faction as first ship).

5. Shuffle all the upgrade cards together and deal them (face down) to the players.

6. Each player then looks at their cards and selects 1 card to give to the player to his/her left and 1 card to give to the player to his/her right.

7. Each player then discards 1 upgrade card.

8. Assign upgrades to your ships.

9. Pair-off for 1v1 games or, better yet, play a multi-player game (more players = more FUN).

10. Play the game with the ships & upgrades you got.

Reasoning-

A. As no player can guarantee which ships/upgrades they will get, the fight will be "FAIR", if not "BALANCED".

B. In the "real world", there is no such thing as a "fair fight". Every combatant seeks to gain what advantages they can in order to better ensure victory. Only an idiot seeks a "fair fight". Likewise, no army ever goes to war with the army they wanted... the go to war with the army they have (and must make the most of a less than ideal situation).

Options-

1. Vary the number of ships/upgrades.

2. Allow mixed faction squads

3. Play with more than 2 opposing formations

4. Rank people by experience (or age) rather than draw random lots- least experienced/youngest gets first choice of ship...

5. Once each player has chosen 1 ship, the other players will choose that player's 2nd ship.

Variant-

As original proposal but...

A. Each player gets only 1 ship at the start of the game.

B. When a player's ship is destroyed, that player gets to chose from the remaining (un-selected) ships and re enter the fight, following all deployment rules. Any unused upgrade cards in the player's possession may be assigned (if appropriate) to the new ship.

C. The new ship must be of the same faction as the player's first ship (in 1v1 games) or any faction (in multi-player games).

What about 1 of each ship on each side? So one tie fighter, phantom, bomber, ect. Vs one xwing, Ewing, ect. No limiting upgrades either. I'd be very curious who wins

The rebels have more ships that benefit from this kind of tom foolery so you will probably see more points on that side. The more the points skew the worse the match will be.

I can see this being fun, but huge swaths of ships become unplayable in this kind of format. While other ships, like E-wings, load up on obscene amounts of gear.

I also recall the thread where, Black Knight I think, related the story of the schmuck who would only play ship to ship. That kind of play ignores the balance of the game.

At my local store we often play a 4+ player free for all with 1 ship each, no point limit. If your ship looks scary, you tend to get targeted. If you bring a Falcon (in a many person game usually) you tend to get targeted. It feels like it balances itself out. Certainly, no one has seriously attempted to bring a TIE. It has to be a ship that is able to take a few upgrades, so we've seen everything from E-wings to Interceptors to Y-wings (a Y-wing with R2-D2 is not to be trifled with! it won one of our 8 player games).

Does seem a bit of a bonkers way of doing things and reminds me of the way children played 40k when i ran warhammer worlds events.. ie 'all my 'warhammers' (sic) vs all your 'warhammers' '.

In a reffed campaign or scenario you can do away with points costs as a ref can balance forces and pick thematic sides but as a stand alone game... as other have said you'd just get an 'all stars death match' which would be really un 'star wars' and i think a little silly.

Can really see that balancing out.

I do like the idea of one squadron. 100pts, one named pilot allowed as squad leader, all the rest must be from the same squadron.

You see *thats* characterful, i like games like that.

This format wouldn't be about balance though, right? I could see it working in a larger campaign where not every fight had to be balanced and allocation of resources was part of the point. It is fairly thematic and kind of cool when mixed into a narrative.

To expand on Baron's point, I took part in a Flames of War campaign where we began with a finite pool of units to build lists from. Late in the campaign I was having to send massively understrength armies on some of the missions to ensure I had a nearly full list by the end. The GM balanced this by creating a round-based objective, where I won by delaying the enemy for at least X turns before they routed me.