Here's an idea for a tournament. These are just some general guidelines to start working with. Input is desired.

Three first place prizes, (2nd place, etc if its big enough), for each of the highest place of each faction.

Matches could be set up so that opponents never faced their own faction, highest of each faction would face each other on down the line.

If only one player picked a faction, then they will end up with first place at the end of the day as nobody else was brave enough to bring that faction, next time some will!

This would be fun and end those aggravating mirrir matches, esp. with same named pilots on the table on both sides!

While an interesting concept using a swiss system its almost bound to happen. For example, if you have 8 players, 4 rebel 4 imp and 3 imps win and one rebel next round you have

Pairings:

1 pair of winners

Imp reb

2 winner/loser

Imp/reb

1 losers

Imp reb

In theory this makes round 2 easier on the imperials playing the rebs who lost round 1. Also the 2 highest losing rebels would have to play up meaning that the loosing imp, even if he lost by the skin of his teeth plays the worst rebel.

Single elim also doesn't work because what if one faction sweeps a bracket?

Like I said though, cool concept

why not have all players submit lists for 2 different factions - perhaps stating which faction would be their preference.

When 2 opposing players have stated a preference for opposing factions, the match up goes ahead as normal.

When 2 opposing players have stated a preference for the same faction then decide it by a coin toss / tournament standing / seeding.... whatever

why not have all players submit lists for 2 different factions - perhaps stating which faction would be their preference.

When 2 opposing players have stated a preference for opposing factions, the match up goes ahead as normal.

When 2 opposing players have stated a preference for the same faction then decide it by a coin toss / tournament standing / seeding.... whatever

I've been advocating this for ages. I know very few people who only have ships for one faction and taking two out of the (future) three possible factions would make for much more thematic games.

To me Han Solo in a falcon with a B wing escorts fighting Chewie in a falcon with han as a crew member and an x wing escort is *not* star wars.

Its one of the main things that puts me off organised play. I find it very hard to get into same faction fights, more so when the same 'unique' character appears on both sides.

Our gaming group just doesnt play same faction fights as its got no real star wars narrative.... 'training exercise' only goes so far then becomes a bit lame.

Same faction fights are to me a bit like going 'hey lets play a WWII game' and both deciding to be the USA.

I have no problem with mirror matches.

Those who live by Fat Han die by Fat Han.

Yeah but its not 'star wars' is it?

Its a Star Wars X-Wing Tournament

My point...

If tournament play has such prevalence of things that are clearly not in the mythos of star wars, to me it ceases to be 'star wars'.

It loses a lot of its impact by just being a game of stats and dice if there is not real feel (to me) that it could be a part of the star wars mythos.

Unless we all misunderstood the 'clone wars' and that was clones of han and luke fighting each other around six asteroids...

It is about competition. It's not a novel.

To be fair how many 40k tournaments were wolf vs wolf in 5th, taudar vs taudar in 6th.

People go with the power builds when they want to win something organized.

I hate mirror matches. If I wanted that I'd play chess. At least in 40k people have painted their armies differently; in X-Wing it's just a mess. I would definitely support a "bring two lists" requirement.

To be fair how many 40k tournaments were wolf vs wolf in 5th, taudar vs taudar in 6th.

People go with the power builds when they want to win something organized.

Which is *exactly* why when i ran organised play for GW i used to run campaign weekends where you didnt get 'imperial vs imperial' matches... they sold out as quickly as GTS.. but GTs were put on more because they require much less effort to run and organise.

If its just a competition play chess.

My group play Xwing because of its star wars setting.

Its not that fluff players need to lose in X-Wing.

I am a fluff player and Obsidian Squadron is quite strong...

Look i'd love to argue the toss about this but i've not got time, i'm playing this amazing Vietnam wargame tonight where my NVA are going to totally smash my mates Viet Cong.

I've made a really cool arctic wasteland board for it and everything

Ok - there is a way to prevent mirror matches:

Players need to bring a rebel and an imperial build each.

The player that lost the initiative toss may choose his fraction - the other player need to take the counter-fraction.

AND HERE YOU HAVE IT.

Its just a matter of organization.

Maybe this would be also interesting for FFG as a special tournament mode.

Which is *exactly* what i said about ten posts up

As i said i've been advocating for a while that tournament play would gain a lot of depth if players bought any two of the (soon to be) three factions.

Either agree who plays what or toss for it but you just dont have the same faction each.

Perhaps the player with the lowest points value list gets priority if both want the same faction

Yeah but its not 'star wars' is it?

Its a Star Wars X-Wing Tournament

I'm going to have to go with Gadge on this.

X-wing is one of those rare games that has genuine appeal beyond the "traditional gaming community"

There's two reasons for that and they are:

Star

and:

Wars

I don't want to come across as a dyed in the wool purist, but I still feel like us players (and FFG to a degree) have at least some small duty to respect the source material by creating match-ups that make some sort of sense within the narrative of the wider universe - whether that's in casual play or in a tournament setting.

You can take that as far as you like, myself I would be very reluctant to ever field more than 1 Firespray or YT1300 - because in my book there's only one Slave 1 and only one Falcon - but putting Artoo on someone other than Luke is probably ok (just about lol!)

Bottom line though, 2 swarms of TIE's blasting the BeJedi out of each other not only makes no sense at all in any universe- it's intensely confusing and un-engaging to watch

And like is say .. .. its so easy to fix.

The core rules tell you to each play one of the sides in the galactic civil war but oddly this is suspended for organised play?

If you had to take two lists to an event it would cost hardly anything more for most people.

Most people i know intend to play one faction, end up getting everything.

I mean does it not seem a bit crazy that some characters are 'unique' so you can only field one.... but you can have two 'unique' cards of the same person on the same battlefield.... as long as they are on opposing sides.

Total 'clone wars'

Which is *exactly* why when i ran organised play for GW...

Which is *exactly* what i said about ten posts up

As i said i've been advocating for a while that tournament play would gain a lot of depth if players bought any two of the (soon to be) three factions.

Either agree who plays what or toss for it but you just dont have the same faction each.

Perhaps the player with the lowest points value list gets priority if both want the same faction

Oh well - then just write FFG about it.

Its a special "No Mirror" format for tournaments - each player has to bring 2 builds of different factions.

Since you don't have that much models like in Warhammer, this should'nt me much of a problem to transport 2 'armies'

Yeah, i know i bring it up a lot but thats because it taught me a hell of a lot about the nature of gamers.

different game, same type of people.

When you work with *hundreds* of gamers a week for five years you see the same patterns emerge.

It's called making judgements based on experience rather than 'best guess'

Which is *exactly* what i said about ten posts up

As i said i've been advocating for a while that tournament play would gain a lot of depth if players bought any two of the (soon to be) three factions.

Either agree who plays what or toss for it but you just dont have the same faction each.

Perhaps the player with the lowest points value list gets priority if both want the same faction

Oh well - then just write FFG about it.

Its a special "No Mirror" format for tournaments - each player has to bring 2 builds of different factions.

Since you don't have that much models like in Warhammer, this should'nt me much of a problem to transport 2 'armies'

The problem would be getting TOs to accept the idea.

In any event where lists are pre checked you've just doubled the workload for the TO.

X wing is a relatively new game, it took years for us to do the non mirror match events at GW after listening to players who *wanted* that but because they took a lot more effort to organise, staff and run than a GT they were dropped after Nick and I left.

Here's the problem. This game is not designed for match play. Games are too long. Which leads to the issues that the Decipher card game had with odd number of rounds. Which leads to odd results, especially if there is a bit of an unbalance in between the factions. And then there are the issues people have if they get to play their "stronger" squad more often than another player's.

Is screwing up the tournament scoring worth it for the "theme"? FFG has their answer. What you want to do is fine, but it isn't good for the broader tournament scene.

Rather than "no mirror matches" perhaps it would be better to go with "optional mirror matches"

When signing up for the event you either choose one specific faction or set your choice to no preference and build a squad for both factions. If you choose a faction, then you make a list for it and then play your one list against all opponents like normal. If you get matched with someone else who chose the same faction, you get a mirror match. If the opponent set no preference, they take the opposite faction. If you both chose no preference, you roll for random faction choice

Once Scum and Villainy is out it's a little more complex but it can still work pretty easily. Necessary? No,but I would be interested in the format, mainly as a way to give players the ability to play multiple lists within a single tournament. Faction choice should be randomized when possible to prevent any potential blatant attempts to abuse the format for purposes of counterpicking