I've been playing for a little while now and am thoroughly enjoying the game. One of the more experienced players at the FLGS where we play weekly wants to do an extended tournament. You're paired randomly, fight one week then move up brackets . . . standard tourney stuff. I was thinking of adding a random factor to it and wanted feedback before I presented it. Sort of run it through the ringer with y'all before offering up. This may or may not be an original idea, I haven't searched it, so if I "stole" your idea, apologies . . . it was random . I know no one is shy on this forum hahaha.

I know there are some apps and programs that do random squad generation but not everyone may have access to that inside a game store so I thought this semi-random squad generator might be a fun tourney alternative. It would really shake some things up when it comes to players flying a favorite squad all the time. I hope that it will present players with some challenging builds requiring them to think creatively. There are some potential issues I'll address in a bit.

You show up to play and all you choose initially is a faction. Points can be varied of course but we'll stick with 100. Player A takes all of their ship cards and lays them out or shuffles them in a stack, whatever floats your boat. Player B, their opponent, randomly draws a card from that deck and A now has their first ship of the squad. Player B then draws in a like fashion. Their order can be determined from a die roll beforehand.

From here, the players alternate random draws but must decide whether or not to draw another ship or have upgrades randomly drawn from the separate upgrade categories for a particular ship already drawn. They do this until they reach 100 points OR their last draw puts them over 100. For example, if Player A has 99 points and chooses and elite talent that is worth 3 points, their drawing comes to a close and they sit pat with the squad they have (minus the last drawn EPT).

Here's an example:

Player A chooses Rebels and Player B is an Imp. B has won the roll and so has decided to go last in the draw. Player A presents their FULL Rebel fleet (everything owned by them) to B who does some gentle shuffling and picks one card. A's first ship is Han Solo (lucky scum) for 47 points. The process is repeated with B who gets Tetran Cowell for 26.

Player A us up again and wisely chooses to draw from the title cards. The randomness is negated in this case as there is only one title available for the YT1300, and so he gets the Millennium Falcon. B opts for more guns and chooses another ship and is presented with CPT Jonus. 'A' next chooses a ship and gets Ten Numb while B draws from his missiles for a concussion missile loadout.

This continues until Player A is sitting at 97 points and Player B has 88 (don't ask how they got there, it's just an example and I don't feel like typing that much and you don't feel like reading that much haha). Player A, now having 3 ships, chooses a modification for his B-wing and gets a hull upgrade bringing him to 100 points (lucky sod). Player B, knowing his Imp fleet and the chances of getting a low cost ship (e.g. Academy Pilot) chooses a ship. Unfortunately for him, while he does get a TIE, but he draws a Black Squadron Pilot putting him at 102 thereby ending his squad build and forcing him to put the BSP back and fighting an 88 point squad against a 100 point squad. Obviously B did not choose wisely.

Tournament scoring would remain unchanged from the regular rules so poor Player B might short Player A a lot of points in the end.

The issues I see:

1. People probably won't like the idea of not flying their favorite build(s) and being outside that comfort zone will likely doom this idea from the start. So, how do we make the idea appealing so that folks will try it?

2. This will require a person to bring their entire faction fleet and they will of course need all of their upgrade cards, etc. I foresee that someone who must WAAC will "forget" to bring a certain ship or set of ships thereby improving their odds of drawing favored ship(s) and/or upgrades. So, the "fairness" will be highly dependent on the players involved to bring all of their kit. From what I've seen on the forum and FLGS, I don't think this will be a big problem.

3. S&V factions will, for the time being, have an advantage due to their limited selection of ships (compared to the Rebs and Imps). This will change of course as more ships are released in the near future. I'm also speaking anecdotally as I really haven't sat down to see who has more of what.

4. The setup will likely take awhile depending on how well organized a particular player is. I'm not sure how that might be sped up. Additionally, there are likely some players who won't like the idea of having their cards handled by other folks. You could remedy that by simply putting the cards on the table and having them simply point at the one they choose. But if you're OCD (or CDO), bring a cotton glove for them to wear haha.

5. A player with a small faction collection may have a bit of an advantage depending on what they've purchased but then again, their lack of selection may hurt them as well.

So, what do y'all think? I'd appreciate any constructive feedback you might have to make this idea better. If you're just going to say, "That's stupid!" it's you're freedom to do so but I don't want to hear from you; it's just not helpful. Thanks in advance and fly casual or something.

To me, at least, it seems overly complex and rather time consuming. And I do think it might turn some folks off. That said, I think there's merit in the basic premise, and the desire to play outside the comfort zone.

What if one ship was drawn for each player, but then the owning player finished their list? Or ships are drawn until the player has over 50 points and then they can spend the remaining points however they like (more ships and/or upgrades and/or even allowing drawn ships to be upgraded to higher/lower PS versions).

Or each player builds their own 4-5 50 point blocks and two are randomly chosen to create the list?

Or alternate ship draws where ships 1-3-5 are chosen at random and ships 2-4-6 are chosen by the owning player.

I'm not sure exactly, just thinking out loud there. But I see so much discussion around here revolving around minutia of synergies, that I think most folks will be put off by a total random build. But semi random, or some other form of mitigating the randomness may be more palletable. Either by allowing players to fine tune their randomness or otherwise exert some form of control over it.

At the very least, color me interested and looking forward to more brainstorming and discussion on the matter.

I like your semi-random ideas and I might have to use some of those to make it more "palleteable".

I get the time consuming part, can you elaborate on why you believe it's overly complex?

Thanks very much for the input.

Honestly, "over complex" means the rules are a giant wall of text.

But also I think a pure randomization will be difficult to end close to 100 points. What happens when someone has 69 points drawn and the next draw is a named Millennium Falcon? Or why not "screw" your opponent by not ever selecting upgrades, just make them run naked ships.

I'd totally play your concept for a fun game. League or tourney, though? Not so much. Primarily because the set ups would be exhausting. And partly because I have bad luck and would ultimately draw my opponent a Regionals Winning capable list while personally being handed rubbish that couldn't fight its way past a single damaged TIE Fighter... lol

I think Farseer might have hit the nail on the head here: it's a bit too complicated, and a bit too hard to balance. If I was going to attempt something like this, here's what I would do:

1) Each player selects something like four ships* (eg, A-Wing, YT-1300, TIE/ln, etc). Shuffle all possible pilot cards for those ships. Each player draws cards off the top of the deck until the total point value is 53** or higher.

2) Each player may then equip upgrade cards of their choice, and/or add ONE 12-point ship to their list (Z-95 of TIE), to bring the total to 100.

*Or the whole deck. I just threw out that idea because it gives the player a bit more control . . . and you don't have to shuffle all of your perfectly-organized cards

**Because RAC is the most expensive single ship in the game at 48 points; after 53 points, a single ship could therefore put you over the point limit.

Less randomized, but you still get the basic concept; plus, it helps you learn how to just roll with it. Easier to implement in real life, if a bit less strategy-intense.

(As I wrote that, it occurred to me how humorous it would be to do a blackjack style X-Wing list building . . . shuffle your whole deck of ship cards for a faction and each player goes around and says "hit me." Everyone can see each others' squad point totals; if you go over 100 points, you lose a ship [probably your most expensive one, to make it a bit more punitive to push your luck]. No upgrades -- push your luck as far as you can to get the best squad.)

My idea for a relatively fast, slightly random-but-balanced draft technique

(tried this with my group and it took us less than five minutes to get both squads ready)

Players bring all the cards of their chosen faction.

Divide pilot cards into seperate face-down decks by ship type.

Have a rule that each ship pile must contain at least 4 pilot cards (prevents "forgot the other cards" shenanigans), if a player only owns one or two pilots instead of a set they must combine those pilots with another ship deck at random.

Player A looks away whilst player B rearranges the decks on the table so A does not know which ships are where.

Player A draws the top pilot card off one deck to add to their squad.

You may only draw from the same deck a maximum of two times.

Keep going until you decide to stop or you hit or exceed the 100 cap.

When you stop (or exceed 100) your opponent follows this process to draw his/her pilots.

Any player who did not reach or exceed the 100 limit can freely assign Upgrade cards until they have 100 points.

During pilot selection, if you reach 100 points you stop immeadiately.

If you choose a pilot that exceeds the limit up to 110, you may choose to keep or return that pilot.

If you keep the pilot your opponent may upgrade their squad to equal your new points total (so if you had 102 your opponent can equip their squad to 102 points as well)

If you return the pilot card you may either draw again or stop drawing pilots. If you draw again you may not choose any more cards from the deck that caused you to exceed 100 points.

If you draw a pilot that exceeds the 100 limit by more than 10, you must return that pilot and either draw again (but not from that deck) or stop choosing pilots.

Example: I choose Rebels and bring my collection, diving the pilots into piles of A,B,E,K,Y,X-Wings and YT-1300

My opponent choose Imperial and has decks of TIE/fo, Advanced, Interceptor, Phantom and VT-49 Decimator.

We dice off for first draft and I win the roll.

I draw from a random deck and first find a Y-Wing Gold Squadron Pilot (18). Not wanting another Y-Wing, I try a different deck and find a K-Wing Warden Squadron pilot (23). My current total is 41 so I am feeling good for a three ship build and gamble on what I now know is the K-Wing deck and am rewarded with Miranda Doni (29). Now I am up to 70 I hold there to give myself plenty of upgrade points.

My opponent draws from a random deck and finds TIE/fo "Omega Ace" (20). He tries a different deck and is lucky to hit Soontir Fel (27). He is at 47 but he likes a bit of a swarm so he returns to the one he knows is TIE/fo and gets an Epsilon Squadron pilot (15). His squad stands at 62, so he tries to push his luck for another cheap TIE, but he cannot draw another card from the TIE/fo deck and he manages to pick out the Decimator deck, getting Patrol Leader (40).

This takes him over the cap to 102 points. Now my opponent has to decide if he wants to return the Decimator and either chance another ship or leave room for upgrades, or he decides to keep his 102 squad and I am free to upgrade my squad to a 102 total. He keeps his Decimator, and I get to upgrade my squad to 102 points worth of TLT, Conner Nets etc.

Again, I don't think this will appeal to people in a tournament setting but casually we enjoyed a few games this way. It adds a new level of tactics regarding how many pilots you try to draw and do you let your opponent have more upgrades if you have more ships... hope it helps

I think another issue to consider is pilot cards vs actual ships since those usually have a 4:1 ratio. Once you pull a pilot (for something the person has only one of) there's three left in the draw deck he can't field. So you will have instances of draws that don't work. Yes, easy enough to discard and redraw, but now a lengthy process gets slightly longer. Another fix to this problem, and one that gets back to my original point of mitigation/control, would be let the owning player choose to discard the new draw, or keep it and discard the earlier draw - the ship is randomized, but the pilot is only "kinda randomized."

I like the ideas. I haven't sat down and tried mine yet but I agree that it would be very clunky and slow. While away, I was thinking of just randomizing the ships and like Ailowynn said, do something like blackjack while having something similar to Pheonix8472's system.

So, you choose from your ship/pilot cards. Similar to blackjack, you either play it safe and hold pat or push your luck to get as close to 100 without going over. If you go over, you return that ship and play with what you have. If you stop before 100, you use your remaining points to purchase upgrades. Your number of models will regulate how many of each ship you can field. For example, I'm not going to bust my random draws with Han and Chewie because I only have 1 YT1300 in my rebel fleet.

A friend (Stoneface) proposed having a chit system to draw from. So, one set of chits for faction, one set for points (88-100 maybe), a third set for builds (e.g. no named pilots, no PS above 4, etc.), and a fourth for upgrade exclusions (e.g. no glitterstim, etc balanced for factions of course). That is a lot of chits to make haha.

Oh, also, this is a bit of an informal tourney thing (at least that is my understanding) to liven up the weekly play night. I don't think there are any prizes on the line or anything official.

I just had a thought, this might be a great system for a free-for-all with the points brought down to the 30-50 point range. Random thought haha.

Thanks for the ideas and critiques, I appreciate the input. I'll post the trials and the final system decided upon.

So, after chatting with the guys at X-Wing night and some help from Stoneface, here's what we came up with.

The format will be a random 32 point free-for-all with 6 obstacles literally tossed onto the board. The only restriction there is that the obstacles must be 2 away from the edge and cannot overlap (touching is ok). Players set up within range 1 of a corner or the middle of an edge and if there are more than 8, players, it's adjusted so no one's ships are within range 3 of an opponents ship's.

The week before, you roll a D20 for your squad and consult a list that includes all factions. The next week, you bring that squad (or arrange to borrow someone's if you don't have a component) and fight. This prevents you from having to bring your ENTIRE collection. Points are awarded a player based on the kills they rack up. I'm thinking of taking away expended ordnance from that tally but other upgrades and unexpended ordnance count. If a player flies off the board, splatters on an asteroid, etc. then the player closest to them gets those points (this prevents folks committing suicide for the sole purpose of no one getting their points). At the end of the quarter (3 months) a victor is declared. Other than bragging rights, I have nothing to give the winner, that's a discussion to have with the store I suppose.

I envision game night at the FLGS starting or ending with the friendly free for all.

Feedback welcomed, especially regarding whether or not to have expended ordnance counted to a player's kill points. Thanks for the help and ideas.