The X-Wing group for my FLGS was a little bored with the idea of yet another round of 100 point dogfights, so I cooked up something new for this week's gathering that was met with an extremely positive response, an "Escalation Furball". The idea is that you start with a very basic ship in a race to kill a set number of points worth of ships, and every time you die, you get to re-enter the match with more points to spend on your ship than before. It's essentially a Furball that you can't be knocked out of permanently, and you get to quote Obi-Wan over and over again ("If you strike me down, I'll become more powerful than you can possibly imagine").

This was a great warmup for our upcoming campaign format (more info on that later), served as a good intro to the game for someone new that could focus on flying one ship at a time this way, and the experienced players seemed to love the chaos. If you're looking for something new to spice things up within your group, I highly suggest giving this a try.

Full details on our trial run and the exact rules that we used are at www.tabletopgeneral.com/2014/11/06/x-wing-escalation-furball/

This is in the Atlanta area, right? I loved the idea of this, but was unable to participate. Hopefully I can get to one of these sometime soon. It looks like it would be a blast!

Much like some of the training missions in the video games..

Destroy a Z95 rookie .. Then YWing rookie shows... Then xwing rookie shows up.. Then z95 expert.. Then YWing expert... Etc

This is in the Atlanta area, right? I loved the idea of this, but was unable to participate. Hopefully I can get to one of these sometime soon. It looks like it would be a blast!

That's right, that must mean you're a member of the super secret Facebook group and know the club handshake. And the more, the merrier, we can always kick out people playing other games.

Much like some of the training missions in the video games..

Destroy a Z95 rookie .. Then YWing rookie shows... Then xwing rookie shows up.. Then z95 expert.. Then YWing expert... Etc

I had COMPLETELY forgotten about those! Thanks for the very welcomed flashback!

I participated in this, and I can confirm it was completely bonkers from start to finish. It makes you value some otherwise under utilized ships and put together combos you wouldn't normally try.

For instance, Mahler mithel with predator is my new go-to for 20 points. For the points, nobody deals as much damage.

I'm thinking..

Fighter, Interceptor, Interceptor, Bomber, Defender..

Vs

Z95, XWing, AWing, YWing, EWing...

Each player gets one ship, and when it's destroyed, the next ship in the series spawns... Last player with a ship/lives remaining, wins...

Or, for example, turr phenir stole the show. He killed 100 points before even taking damage, largely due to his built in PTL.

I'm thinking..

Fighter, Interceptor, Interceptor, Bomber, Defender..

Vs

Z95, XWing, AWing, YWing, EWing...

Each player gets one ship, and when it's destroyed, the next ship in the series spawns... Last player with a ship/lives remaining, wins...

Very few people made it past the 30 point stage.

I think this sounds like a lot of fun. I particularly like how it gives an advantage to the weaker players. If you've been killed 5 times and someone else hasn't been killed yet, you get 25 more points than they do. I like that the score is based on kills and not surviving, all on all games need this to encourage people to get in the middle of the fur-ball and fight.

I think I am going to recommend this at my LGS.

I think this sounds like a lot of fun. I particularly like how it gives an advantage to the weaker players. If you've been killed 5 times and someone else hasn't been killed yet, you get 25 more points than they do. I like that the score is based on kills and not surviving, all on all games need this to encourage people to get in the middle of the fur-ball and fight.

I think I am going to recommend this at my LGS.

You should. It's the most fun I've had at this game.

A hint: z-95's with ordnance are the early scorers.

One aspect that I expected to be present in this game type but didn't appear to be a major factor in the initial run (to my knowledge) was players coming in for revenge kills, gunning for whoever knocked them out. But then again, I didn't expect to be playing on a 9x3 field with 12 pilots either until I looked around and saw the crowd that had showed up to try this.

The random respawn a helped curb revenge kills. The likelihood you would remain in place to make a revenge kill was well, 2 in 5.

People respawned for easy kills yes, but not to kill their nemesis.

True. I think that aspect might play up a little more with a 6x3 or 3x3 arena.