Hey all, I have an Escalation tournament this weekend and wanted some input on my squad,

So the first round starts out with 60 points, second round is 90, 120, 150.

So first round ill be flying chewie solo, second round throwing in the bandit squadron, the last two rounds I'm iffy on, i dont know if i should field Poe or Horn in the third round and then field the other in the 4th round. Any thoughts?

I think the actual ruling says that you need at least two ships in every squad. This would mean you have to try to get the z in the first wave.

Escalation is pretty tough to squeeze in all these expensive aces without really sacrificing points in other rounds, basically making it not worth doing. You either want your most expensive ship in there right off the bat and fill from there, or have them come in with limited or no upgrades at close to 30 points then add the upgrades later.

It is true that you must have at least two ships in the opening 60 point round. You could do Chewie with c3po and a z. Then the following round flesh out his upgrades and add another z. Then start to think about what you can add at about 30 points because again if you are 10 points or more away from the point max, trying to save points for the following round, you will likely lose most of the games in that round being so much less than you could be. I have played some escalation and have a Chewie based list if you're interested. I actually went with another list featuring Etahn, Biggs, and generics. Generics are much easier to fit in and get your full value out of.

Yeah ive never done an escalation tourney before, could i reference your list? if so pm it to me please. thanks Skeether!

The question is, what do you expect from the squad. What do you expect it to do. Most players think about what they have in their 60 pts squad against a "fat" han. And by "Fat" Han I refer to any YT-1300 builds at 48 Points. So there is not just little chance that you may face a prepared enemy. Also I think that the last game is extremely important to your outcome in the event. So what I normally do is create a nice 150 pts squad. And from there on the rest is playtesting and discarding thoughts. So maybe you dont wanna play a modded falcon in the first game. Maybe you could go with a minimal falcon and some more ships (2 x Tala?). But these are just my thoughts on escalation.

Looking at this myself, torn between fielding Rebels with a YT-2400, Poe, some Y-Wings, etc... But too many of my ships are at or just above 30 points, so worried about playing the 60 point game at a BIG disadvantage given that the TIEs with say, Crack Shot can be fielded in serious numbers at any point level... The "safer" option for me would be to field several 30 point S&V ships, but REALLY like the Rebel build at the higher point levels...

YT-1300: · Chewbacca (42)

Draw Their Fire (1)

Gunner (5)

Z-95 Headhunter: Bandit Squadron Pilot (12)

X-Wing: · Biggs Darklighter (25)

· R2-F2 (3)

B-Wing: Blue Squadron Pilot (22)

Heavy Laser Cannon (7)

HWK-290: · Jan Ors (25)

· Squad Leader (2)

Twin Laser Turret (6)

-- TOTAL ------- 150/150p. --

So the point of this list is to spread fire around. I know you might want a fatter chewie so you can do more upgrades if you wanted to on him and lose HLC or something on the B. Also note, I didn't have c3po when I made this. I would probably take that and something else over gunner now.

But anyways, you can slam Chewie with gunner or c3po and another upgrade with a z95 into the first round.

For the 90 point round add biggs with r2f2, and put draw their fire on chewie. Now the spreading of the damage comes into effect. Don't fly Biggs right up there immediately. You want chewie to take some shots at something and take damage or if they try hard for biggs punish them for going after him. Try to make them take range 3 shots at biggs who with r2f2 will have 3 agility and have chewie draw the crits to keep biggs alive as long as possible.

Now for the 120 point round things get a little more offensive. Adding the B-Wing with HLC is going to try to lay down a lot of fire from long range with biggs near him covering, while the bandit goes for blocks and chewie looks to get shots in too but you can spread them out a little. If they start going for chewie then you can fly biggs to him, but your blue will be HLCing away so he will probably be wanted dead.

Then I decided to go with Jan Ors to give the B-wing 5 attack dice with the HLC. Squad leader is actually for biggs so he can grab a focus token for defense, but can be used however you like. I feel like TLT boats don't need their actions as much so keeping biggs alive longer is going to help you protect the b or chewie as long as possible to get painful shots off. Feel free to use parts of or the entire list. It is tiered pretty well to add things in easily and being close to maximum points each round so that for every round you have a pretty solid list based around a turreted ship and spreading fire so that you can take an early advantage.

What I wanted in this squad was to have a hard to kill falcon, two nice arc Dodgers ptl+bb8 and ptl+adv sensors, with a low level blocker and the stressbot r3a2, with the option to deal out 2 stresses on two targets with horn. I do have a few y wings so one with ion turret and r3a2 with btl/a4 would be nice for nasty control with wedge with ptl+bb8 instead of horn and Poe with pred/ptl with r5p9.

Ok well you definitely need to have the falcon in first, it just costs too much to add later, and a bandit will be your blocker. Corran Horn is pretty much written off at that point. He's 35 naked and won't be much use that way even if you save 5 points in a previous round to jam him in the next round. Poe is also pretty expensive but could be doable with maybe just r5p9 when you bring him in at first, then add pred/ptl when you bring in your stressbot. I think having regen early is best as later on he could just get focused down on larger lists and not survive early combat. Your other arc dodger would probably have to be an a-wing around 30 points like Jake to finish off your list.

Ok here is a revised lineup:

Round 1:60 points

Chewie with draw their fire c3po and title 47 pts

Bandit squadron 12 pts

59 total

Round 2: 90 points

Add Biggs with r2f2

87 points total

Round 3: 120 points

Add gold squadron pilot with twin laser turret r3a2 and btl/a4 y wing

Total 113

Round 4: 150 points

Add Poe with veterans instincts r5p9 and autothrusters

Total 150 points.

Looks pretty good to me. Well balanced every round. Might not have a ton of damage going for it but with stressbot y wing it should get some juicy targets while biggs and chewie spread damage around. Biggs and chewie are after all still 3 attack dice ships though, and poe as well when he enters the fray. Just be careful with poe at 150 point level. A regenerator will certainly be a prime target so you might just want to fly him back with biggs and keep him alive for later rounds. Remember that chewie can soak some damage for a round and will probably be alright. Use him as bait and bring biggs up to him if enemy goes all in on him.

@Skeether
the other squad i was thinking of running was a scum squad that was

basically have Torkil to harass the target of choice while throwing out an impressive amount of attack dice. what are your thoughts on this one?

Unfortunately I don't know much about the S&V ships yet outside of the ones I've played against. X-wing is a money sink and I haven't had enough to invest in that faction yet. Basically, I'd say just keep the same principles in mind when building these lists. Try to stick to keeping as close to the max on each point value. As long as you think each tier can stand on its own, then you have yourself a playable list - because they basically have to. It's one of the most challenging things to create a good escalation list, so it is for your opponents as well. It took me a long time and after making 4 lists, I decided to go with one centered around Etahn A'baht and Biggs to cover him. The rest are generics that are easier to fit in and all benefit from free crits from Etahn. My escalation is a league where we play 3 matches each week at the current point value and is still going on now.

60 point round was 2x Blue Squad and 1 Prototype at 59 points. I won 2 out of 3 games with this simply blocking with the prototype and punishing with the b's.

90 I introduce Biggs naked and save 6 points for Etahn the following round. I won all 3 of these matches with Biggs basically protecting the b's as long as possible.

At 120 I add Etahn with ptl. He can tl and focus while biggs is alive to slam in the damage and now everybody gets free crits. Only was able to get 2 games on this tier and won one lost one to some k-wings that were just slippery as all hell to focus down. My friend played 3 of them, one miranda and slammed with whoever I tried to focus on, and stressed the crap out of me with tacticians.

150 is actually going to be tomorrow. I add sensor jammer, bb8, and hull upgrade to Etahn so he survives longer once Biggs is down. And then I throw in a rookie pilot x-wing. I am basically going with a swarm of things that will hit a little harder than z's. Plus I only have one Z otherwise I might have gone differently with this. Seems to have worked out pretty well so far. I'll let you know how tomorrow goes