I've never played an escalation tournament, but I understand the concept. I have played league games with similar setups in various point values.

I think I want to run a Scum control list. I want to use Dace's ability inflict extra damage on my opponent, and use Palob as Kaa'tos' personal bank account. Kavil will provide the firepower. The M3-A with Flechette Cannon and Dace's Saboteur are supposed to offer some variety to my control options.

http://xwing-builder.co.uk/view/212384/scum-control#view=full

Round 1 – 40 mins, 60 pts

• Kaa’to Leeachos - Ion Pulse Missiles, Munitions Failsafe (19)
• Cartel Spacer - “Heavy Scyk” Interceptor, Flechette Cannon (18)
• Syndicate Thug - Ion Cannon Turret (23)

Round 2 – 60 mins, 90 pts

• Plus: Palob Godalhi - Blaster Turret, Recon Specialist, Moldy Crow (30)

Round 3 – 80 mins, 120 pts

• Plus: Dace Bonearm - Ion Cannon Turret, Saboteur (30)

Round 4 – 110 mins, 150 pts

• Plus: Kavil - Blaster Turret, R4 Agromech (30)

I'm not sure this is the best way to feed new ships into the list for later rounds, but it seems OK. I generally like to play with lots of firepower and good survivability, so we'll see how this goes. Any suggestions would be appreciated.

People are going to give you advice based upon their own experience and preferences. Just play with what you're comfortable with, and take everything as a learning experience.

As mentioned above fly what you know and the rest will follow.

My main fear with your list is that, other than the Y-Wings, your ships are quite fragile and are at risk of going down very quickly.

Especially in later rounds when you'll be facing 150 points of ships.

You might also be lacking in the damage department a little. Three of your six ships are limited to dealing 1 damage per turn (+1 from Dace).

That said, if you're able to setup an initial exchange that's in your favor, you could potentially wreck havoc in your opponent's squad with your ions and stress!

Make that ion pulse missile count!

People are going to give you advice based upon their own experience and preferences.

And now for me to do exactly this.

Firstly, I see you aren't giving any love to ships you've already introduced as you move from one wave to the next. That is a huge trap, and seems to be forcing you into some sub-par selections later down your list.

You cannot replace any cards as you escalate, but you CAN fill slots you've previously left unfilled.

Secondly, I see you are completely filling each wave with its full points as you escalate. That is theoretically ideal, but can be put off. You don't actually add 30 points to your fleet, you merely advance the maximum points of your fleet by 30 points, meaning you can save points from one round into the next to get better upgrades.

You can 'float' upgrade points between waves to afford better upgrades later. This also gives you the choice of initiative!

Now, list specifics.

I typically break this down by what is "Core", what is "Tech", and what is "Filler" to your fleet.

• Your Core looks to be Dace and Control upgrades, the former using the latter to gain more damage.
• I'd say Palob and Kavil are Tech, as they're desgined to supplement your fleet, rather than re-enforce the core mechanic (Control). The builds you've given both of them are core to those pilots.
• However, the rest of the pilots and upgrades are "Filler". Yes, many of these are vectors and bodies for the core control upgrades, but we can re-arrange them into a better suited fleet.

  Also, Saboteur on Dace has anti-synergy. He will be stressed far to often to use the already questionable crewman.

Typically, you'll want the Core to show up as swiftly as possible in your build.

In this case, we have a choice:

1. Start with Dace early, then fill in with Ions
2. Start with Ions early, then have Dace come once we've achieved critical mass

I prefer the latter, but there are good points to either side of the argument.

Now: Improving your Core.

In 60 points, how can we get the most Ion tokens to the field per turn?

In 90?

For 60 points, you can fit 3 Ion Cannons (on Scyks) or 2 cannons and an ICT (on a HWK). If you want more than one ICT, or a Y-Wing, your limit is now 2.

For 90 points, the maximum is 4 Ion Cannons (on Scyks), or 1 cannon and 3 ICTs (on HWKs or Ys).

Are there additional factors to this decision?

Y-Wings offer the BTL-A4 title, allowing for substantially more damage to come out of your fleet, at the expense of having to aim.

Y-Wings offer the Salvaged Astromech slot, buffing the BTL-A4 title with the R4 Aggromech, or the mobility with the Unhinged Astromech

Y-Wings offer Bomb Loadout upgrade, which we can fill later

HWKs offer the Crew slot, the second most varied upgrade slot in the game (behind Elite Talents). In a control setting, Tactician looks pretty tasty.

Dace can be one of the four Ions available in the 90 point round.

Let's go with that. Dace + 3 Ion Vectors (19, 21 or 23 points a piece) by round 2 sounds pretty friggen' strong for a control fleet.

Now, if we want to keep BOTH your Palob and your Kavil builds, you only have 5 points left of customization at this point.

I'm going to insist on a Tactician on Dace, so that's 2 points right there. Meanwhile, we've left some super-powerful upgrade slots empty (3 Elite Talents, 2 Illicit, 1 Bomb/Torpedo), so there's some stuff that's leaving me with heartache.

However, I look at them and think "That's 60 points for two high-damage ships. Is that really the best tech for our fleet?"

We ARE low-damage, so they're definitely in the running, but let's figure out, specifically, what we're weak against.

1. Control is typically weak against Swarm
2. This fleet is surprisingly fragile
3. This fleet only has a single source of Stress (Dace's Tactician), so we're weak against action-based arc-dodging.
4. This fleet is low-damage. We're not at a disadvantage against Pancakes and Rhinos (as we'll just walk them off the board), but Superfighters (Aggressors, Defenders, E-Wings, Starvipers) and Tanks (Y-Wings, B-Wings, Bombers et c) are going to be hard to deal with.

We can improve our damage and fragility with BTL-A4 Y-Wings or Z-95 Headhunters.

We can improve our Stressors with more HWK Tacticians, or we can get better at Blocking to stop their action economy.

We can improve against Swarm by improving our numbers, or by including a Superfighter of our own

However, I really like BTL-A4 Y-Wings and Z-95s as our solution, so my final breakdown is:

S*** and Control by DraconPyrothayan, inspired by Nickel

Round 1

Cartel Spacer

+ Heavy "Scyk" Title

+ Ion Cannon

._{-=19 points=-}.

Cartel Spacer

+ Heavy "Scyk" Title

+ Ion Cannon

._{-=19 points=-}.

Cartel Spacer

+ Heavy "Scyk" Title

+ Ion Cannon

._{-=19 points=-}.

._{-=3 point float=-}.

Round 2

Dace Bonearm

+ Adrenaline Rush

+ Ion Cannon Turret

+ Tactician

._{-=31 points=-}.

Round 3

Syndicate Thug

.-=20 points=-.

Binayre Pirate

.-=12 points=-.

.-=0 point float=-.

Round 4

Binayre Pirate

._{-=12 points=-}.

Binayre Pirate

._{-=12 points=-}.

[syndicate Thug]

Now: How to deal with that last 4 point float. A tricky question, to be sure.

My suggestions, after a quick brainstorm.

1. Give each Z-95 Inertial Dampeners, and hold 1 point for Initiative
2. Re-arrange Waves 3 and 4 to upgrade the Y-Wing to Drea Renthal
3. Give the Y-Wing Flechette Torpedoes x 2, or FT + Seismic Charges, or FT + Munitions Failsafe + Initiative
4. Give Dace the Moldy Crow title, and hold 1 point for Initiative

No. 1 seems just crazy enough to work, as it makes them even better at blocking, and will frustrate and surprise your opponents to no end. I'd probably go with this one, just for the added kick-in-the-teeth.

No. 2 is a very workable idea, and you can trade the R4 Aggromech for an Unhinged Astromech to buy one more point somewhere, possibly even for initiative.

No. 3 gives us the Stress vector we want, as well as a prospective damage boost.

No. 4 makes our lynchpin tankier, but also costs us 3 more points when he dies.

Unfortunately, I only own one M3-A right now, so that won't work for me until I get a few more.

I've been thinking about my play style. I'm more aggressive than defensive. I prefer lots of firepower and survivability versus speedy arc-dodgers. I usually forget to use my upgrade cards when I have complex synergy, nested triggers, and whatnot, so I tend to keep things fairly simple. I've been playing for over a year now, and usually do pretty well in league and casual games. For some reason, that doesn't translate to tournament play. In the nearly dozen tournaments I've played, I have only won three or four matches. This is the first escalation tournament I've seen in my area, so I'm a little nervous about it.

Here's what I've come up with that (hopefully) fits me better:

Round 1 – 40 mins, 60 pts

• Binayre Pirate (12)
• Syndicate Thug - Ion Cannon Turret. Unhinged Astromech. BTL-A4 (24)
• Syndicate Thug - Ion Cannon Turret. Unhinged Astromech. BTL-A4 (24)

Round 2 – 60 mins, 90 pts

• Plus: Kavil - Blaster Turret, R4 Agromech (30)

Round 3 – 80 mins, 120 pts

• Plus: N'Dru Suhlak - Lone Wolf, "Hot Shot" Blaster (22)

Round 4 – 110 mins, 150 pts

• Plus: Guri - Virago, Push the Limit, Fire-Control System, Autothrusters (38)