Excerpts from the 2016 Tournament Rules v2.0.1 are as follows:

"The TO determines what mission all players will use for the round. To do this, the TO draws a Mission card at random from the legal missions for the tournament (see “Legal Maps and Missions” on page 5) using the rules in the Imperial Assault Skirmish Guide. Once the TO selects a mission, he or she removes that Mission card so that the same mission cannot be chosen a second time during Swiss rounds of the tournament."

"Players determine initiative using the rules from the Imperial Assault Skirmish Guide. The player with initiative is responsible for providing the components needed to set up the selected Skirmish Mission map."

"Each player must bring all components needed for their army and games. This includes (but is not limited to) Deployment cards and corresponding figures, Command cards, dice, tokens and counters, and all map tiles and Mission cards for any legal skirmish missions. The TO is not expected to supply any game components to players."

"Starting January 1st, the legal maps, and their accompanying missions, for the season are: Kuat Space Station, Training Ground, and Mos Eisley Cantina. All competitive and premier tournaments must use these maps and missions unless otherwise specified by Fantasy Flight Games."

The problem with this is it effectively forces tourament players to have the Twin Shadows expansion in order to participate, or else risk forfeiting a round (possibly two or even more in a large tournament). Exacerbating the situation is the fact that this expansion is currently out of stock just about everywhere. My FLGS is looking to host IA tournaments, but the possibility of bringing in new players is severely diminished by this aspect of the rules.

Possible work arounds/solutions are:

-Allow the TO to host a tournament that doesnt include Mos Eisley Cantina and its corresponding missions.

-Allow a proxy for the Twin Shadows tile pieces.

-Play with a 40 point army and pray.

Is it possible to get a rules clarification on this?

Thanks.

You mean you actually have to buy the game to play at a tournament level?! Madness!

Edit: To clarify, they need to keep it like it is otherwise we'll end up with nonsense like with the X-Wing damage decks.

You mean you actually have to buy the game to play at a tournament level?! Madness!

Edit: To clarify, they need to keep it like it is otherwise we'll end up with nonsense like with the X-Wing damage decks.

On one hand , I agree with you Stabbald. A company looking to push its products has every right to require players to purchase the new product in order to compete. It's Wizard's entire business model that has been extraordinarily effective. So, Zychon, yes in order to compete in tournament level play, ownership or at least the capability to produce tiles from the new set are necessary.

I disagree with the business model, even though I can clearly admit it is working. In this case, consider yourself lucky Zychon that it's only a roughly $60 expansion. It could be a $100, or you could need to purchase $500 worth of product in order to build your tournament competitive deck. More so in X-Wing than in IA, the fact that, until recently, you had to purchase a $60-100 model for a single upgrade card (C-3PO, Emperor Palapatine, R5-P9, etc.) for use in your squad, even though you're not using the model that it comes with at all, as in it's not even allowed in the regular tournament, is ludicrous. Just thank your lucky stars you didn't select a hobby that rhymes with Borehammer.

The X-Wing damage deck "thing". Ugh. Why, oh why, didn't they just print up thousands of new damage decks and sell them as a singular item for $10?

On the other hand , that's all just my own personal rant. To get back to Zychon's original post, please note that nowhere is he complaining about the cost of these products. He states that it is out of stock and sold out almost everywhere, and thus it seems this isn't a price point problem, but an availability problem.

Zychon, as much as I promote purchasing from your LGS as much as possible, you may wish to look online for a solution. There are several online stores that appear to still have them available.

Yeah, not ranting here. I don't see this as a money grab or anything. They're just trying to rotate the maps in, but there are features unique to Imperial Assault (as opposed to X-Wing and Armada) that make that a little hairier than usual. Someone's got to have the map tiles. Where the other titles are "basic set plus whatever you like", this introduces a specific additional thing you must have.

Price is also not an issue. Just accessibility. "Hey everyone, you must have a Mist Hunter to play in this X-Wing tournament" would not seem like a good idea either.

My question though is would it be within a TO's power to say "Hey, were just using the other two maps today"? This would of course be fine for casual tournaments, but for a store champoinship it would potentially affect higher tier tournaments. It's a small detail, yes. But da rules is da rules.

Also interesting is that the rules state that "Proxies of cards and figures cannot be used." and makes no mention of proxies for tiles. Are stand-in tiles verboten? What if you lose a tile piece? Buying an entire basic set or expansion again?

You mean you actually have to buy the game to play at a tournament level?! Madness!

Edit: To clarify, they need to keep it like it is otherwise we'll end up with nonsense like with the X-Wing damage decks.

Whatever you managed to extract from reading my post that would cause you to post this as a response must have been some kind of mutilation. Perhaps you should hit the refresh button on your browser and take another stab at it.

Yeah, not ranting here. I don't see this as a money grab or anything. They're just trying to rotate the maps in, but there are features unique to Imperial Assault (as opposed to X-Wing and Armada) that make that a little hairier than usual. Someone's got to have the map tiles. Where the other titles are "basic set plus whatever you like", this introduces a specific additional thing you must have.

Price is also not an issue. Just accessibility. "Hey everyone, you must have a Mist Hunter to play in this X-Wing tournament" would not seem like a good idea either.

My question though is would it be within a TO's power to say "Hey, were just using the other two maps today"? This would of course be fine for casual tournaments, but for a store champoinship it would potentially affect higher tier tournaments. It's a small detail, yes. But da rules is da rules.

Also interesting is that the rules state that "Proxies of cards and figures cannot be used." and makes no mention of proxies for tiles. Are stand-in tiles verboten? What if you lose a tile piece? Buying an entire basic set or expansion again?

Certainly changing the maps for an official FFG tournament would not be legal and most likely would result in complaints from other players and possibly end in the venue being blacklisted from FFG. That being said I do know of TO's/tournaments where printed maps have been used/preferred. Mainly to speed up the time between rounds since you don't have to build the maps.

Certainly changing the maps for an official FFG tournament would not be legal and most likely would result in complaints from other players and possibly end in the venue being blacklisted from FFG. That being said I do know of TO's/tournaments where printed maps have been used/preferred. Mainly to speed up the time between rounds since you don't have to build the maps.

Glad to hear printed maps are sometimes used. That would also seem to open the door for simply printing out a one inch grid and penciling the tile in.

It's unfortunate that the Twin Shadows reprint is still not available (though it's close!), when the store champoinships are at the beginning of the year. Again, I'm not saying theres anything nefarious going on, it's just bad timing.

Use printed maps. I always do. Best case: Your FLGS has printed maps for all players.

We run all our tournaments with printed maps. I (the TO) always bring 2-3 Sets of maps, and the other players bring the rest.

Printed maps cost around 4-5$/map, but they save nearly one hour each tournament, so they're definitely worth it.

I would not want to live without them anymore... ;-)