I'm going to be doing a bracketted March Madness Tournament for X-Wing on my channel here pretty soon. I'm not planning on including Scum and Villainy yet since well... we don't have them.

Things I'm considering:

• Naked ships only - no upgrades allowed.
• Only small base ships - otherwise obviously it's gonna boil down to falcon V decimator
• Empire on one side, Rebels on the other.
• Filming each battle of each round and posting them.
• I'm probably going to have to play both sides.
• Narrowing the pilots down to 16 from each side. (Nobody wants to watch Roark dogfight Kyle Katarn with zero upgrades).

Any thoughts? I'm putting the list together now.

EDIT- Here is the initial Bracket.

Results:

Mirror Matches:

Round 1: A-Wings

Round 2: B-Wings

Round 3: E-Wings

Round 4: X-Wings

Round 5: More X-Wings

Round 6: Han vs Chewie

Round 7: Dash vs Leebo

Round 8: Y-Wings

Round 9: Firesprays

Round 10: TIE Advanced

Round 11: Defenders

Round 12: TIE Fighters

More coming - lots to upload

I have wanted to see someone do a tourney that includes only ships / upgrades from the core set and the first 3 waves. that is what I would like to see. then we would see some diversity, although your "no named pilots" rule might do much the same thing.

Looking foward to it either way

although your "no named pilots" rule

I have no such rule. In fact I'm exclusively doing named pilots.

Started running something like this last year but didn't end up finishing it turns out... (woops). Mine was upgrades allowed with a 24pt cap, here's some info: http://www.reddit.com/r/XWingTMG/comments/26bj5a/1v1s_lightweight_division_round_1_results/

and here's the bracket: http://challonge.com/xwing24pts

What about every one is required to bring two lists and imperial and a rebel list, then before each match you randomly decided what list you are playing so that every match is an Imperial vs Rebel match up.

The other rules seem like they may be interesting, but mostly they just seem like limitations for the sake of limitations.

So if you play both sides, are you basically going to just joust the ships at each other? Kind of seems like the luck of the dice is going to decide a lot of the battles. It would be a much better tournament if you could get another player to play the other ship. With 1 on 1 engagements, it shouldn't take but an afternoon. How are you going to decide initiative if the PS matches? Could possible do it be seed. Higher seed gets initiative to make it interesting.

I would exclude pilots who's ability relies on other ships. IE Biggs, Howl, etc. That might exclude too many pilots to make 16 though. Might have to run a Vessery or Garven.

Updated the initial post with the initial bracket. I am going to have to play both sides, because it would take forever to play all initial 16 matches with another person. Now when we get down to the semifinals I may have another person come in and play out the duels.

I excluded all ships that are completely devoted to supporting other ships, so no Lamdas and no HWKs. I also removed the Bombers, since we are going without upgrades there is virtually nothing to do with them. For ships that have more than 2 pilots, I picked 2 that I thought would work. The only ship that I liked 3 pilots was the Decimator, but I didn't have room for an odd ship, so Oicunn got bounced. Besides, he'd make for a boring match if he kept bumping. In the cases of Interceptors and X-Wings I added a second set. Partly due to the overabundance of named pilots, but also to make the whole thing add up to have enough pilots.

For round one it is all mirror matches.

My next question: Do you think the first round should be all individual battles, or would you rather just get a highlight reel of the victors? Or have options for both?

No Tetran Cowell?! No Backstabber?!! Are you EFFING kidding me?!!?!

Looks like fun, except I see no way it isn't Falcon v Decimator...

I still don't see how this will be an objective exercise. Since you'll be controlling both ships, this essentially is going to be a point at each other and shoot. K-turn (or spin in circles for turrets), rinse repeat until someone is dead. Its going to rely heavily on dice only. The arc-dodginess that some of these ships rely will be lost. But yeah, barring some miracles in the dice, it will be Chirneau vs. Solo at the end.

I would expect the same, but there could be some surprises. Corran Horn could possible surprise us. Wedge will have a nice advantage over the Falcon at Range 3. One of the Defenders could theoretically beat a Decimator. Dash could possibly win if the fight happens in a heavily populated center full of asteroids.

Aren't the Firesprays in violation of the small-base-only rule?

Aren't the Firesprays in violation of the small-base-only rule?

You know I totally forgot that rule when doing the bracket. Considering that I've got 4 large base ship types in there I think I'm going to abolish that rule.

Aren't the Firesprays in violation of the small-base-only rule?

Since both YTs and the Decimator are there, I'm assuiming that rule no longer stands.

Edit: pipped to the post by crabbok himself, karabast.

Updated. I've finished all of the rebels mirror matches. I have 3 uploaded so far, and the rest should be going up soon. Will update more as more matches get completed.

Well, that should give some strange results and in no way representative of the true strenght of each pilots. Fel without PtL is in no way as scary as he is with it; Tycho ability in itself will have no impact on the game so he just became a PS 8 A-wing, should have replaced him for Jake or even Arvel; since Vessery have nobody to TL his target, just take a Delta instead and save him the humiliation; Dutch ability is useless in a one on one so could also been replaced for a Gold Squadron Pilot and get the same result.

Morale of the story, some pilots do need upgrades or a team build around them to make them shine.

Still curious about the final result: I bet on Chiraneau with his 16 HP and natural focus to crit.

Round 2: B-Wings

Round 3: E-Wings

These link to the same B-Wing round. Was that intentional?

naked ships are not as fun

as much as I don't like what wave 5 has butchered the meta into ( a parade of derivative two bloated ship lists), I don't think I could play without upgrades. No ion control, no stress infliction, no double actions (Vader excepted, of course) for fun shenanigans...the game loses a lot of dimension without these cards

I'd only ever show up to this format with a Tie Swarm, and I'd still miss my Veteran Instinct Howlrunner

Round 2: B-Wings

Round 3: E-Wings

These link to the same B-Wing round. Was that intentional?

Thanks - fixed it.

And I realize it isn't as fun with naked ships. I'll probably do another version of this some day with a moderate level of upgrades.

Thanks - fixed it.

These link to the same B-Wing round. Was that intentional?

Round 2: B-Wings

Round 3: E-Wings

And I realize it isn't as fun with naked ships. I'll probably do another version of this some day with a moderate level of upgrades.

Ordinance only

let the madness begin

Thanks - fixed it.

These link to the same B-Wing round. Was that intentional?

Round 2: B-Wings

Round 3: E-Wings

And I realize it isn't as fun with naked ships. I'll probably do another version of this some day with a moderate level of upgrades.

Ordinance only

let the madness begin

Nah man, I'd do upgrades that are commonly seen and shoot for a 50 point limit. It'd be tough to field Chiraneau that way, probably only give him one thing, but could load up Luke Skywalker fairly well.

I like this idea a lot! Thanks for sharing.

I'm thinking of doing something similar only with a small amount of upgrades (maybe using the ST attack wing points rules). And doing a random 'seeding' from 1 to ??. Or sitting down with each pilot/build I come up with and 'ranking' them and seeding them that way (ala College Hoops and their March Madness). Heck I might even do a rebel and Imp 'play-in' game...where the 4 highest rated non-unique's (2 rebel and 2 Imp) play a mini tourney to join the big boys.

I like some of the ideas I've seen here; like a hard point cap (50-60pts or maybe something like a ship can upgrade up to 25% of their starting points rounded down - so Han and RAC would cap at 57 pts). I also like the idea of having 2 players, play one game and then switch off...each round could be best 2 of 3. I think this would make a great little side excercise and break the monotony of 100pt DF's (although I do love my DFs).

As much as I like the idea, I'd probably get some people together and do fur-balls, awing bracket, gemmer vs arvel vs jake vs tycho.

Y's in with the Z's. No large ships. Defenders in with phantoms, bombers with advanced... 4 uniques or more.

Then bracket out the furball winners.

Updated - All Rebel 1st round matches are posted now. Imperials up next. I think it'll get more interesting once we get into the semifinals and don't see mirror matches anymore.

First two round of the Imperial Battles are up - I'm using the FFG Death Star Mat now, so the scenery is nicer!