Not sure if this idea has been had before, but I was driving home from work and had an idea on how to randomize your pilots. Just take a numbered list of named pilots and a numbered list of ships you'd like to chance placing them in and roll an X-sided die accordingly. For example:

Pilot pool (D10):

1: Wedge Antilles

2. Han Solo

3: Soontir Fel

4: Darth Vader

5: Corran Horn

6: Rear Admiral Chiraneau

7: Dash Rendar

8: Rexler Brath

9: Luke Skywalker

10: Maarek Stele

Ship pool (D6):

1: X-Wing

2: TIE Advanced

3: E-Wing

4: TIE Interceptor

5: A-Wing

6: Firespray-31

When I rolled, I got:

Wedge Antilles - TIE Interceptor

Corran Horn - Firespray-31

Luke Skywalker - X-Wing

Rear Admiral Chiraneau - A-Wing

Wedge Antilles - E-Wing

Han Solo - TIE Interceptor

I know Star Trek AW has the problem of putting busted character effects on ships that make them even more busted, but hey, maybe randomizing your chances of ship + pilot would help. I think it would be interesting to field RAC in an A-Wing and Han in an Interceptor. For cost purposes, if the original pilot cost more than 40 points and is from a large ship placed into a small ship, subtract 1/4 of the point cost and apply that to the ship the pilot is placed in. Of course, I have no math to back it up, just a quick recommendation.

You can even keep the ships and pilots faction-specific for thematic balance or even go up to whatever die maximum you wish. So maybe you want to see Vader in a Firespray or Dengar in a StarViper. Maybe even Poe Dameron in the Falcon, or Chewbacca on the VCX! Of course, you can do this without the randomization, but I figured that randomizing the pilot and ships would make for fun games.

Let me know what combos you get just for fun! (Hint: http://www.brockjones.com/dieroller/dice.htm makes it easy!)

If you use one of the many web based list building sites, you can usually hit the RANDOM SQUAD button to randomly generate a ship list. You usually can put in your whole inventory of ships and get only ships that you own. It's actually quite fun to play against another opponent who plays the same way.

I really like this idea, looks like a lot of fun for a casual game night

It's a lot of fun to do random lists. Sometimes we will allow each person to change 1 thing on the list as you sometimes get things that are just horrible horrible choices. Still, though, it's part luck with what you get and then part skill to play with "bad" ships.

There are so many ways to play the game beyond 100 pt tournament mode.

I also like B-team lists. You agree to play a game with no top choice pilots. No Soontir Fels, Carnor Jax, Inquisitor, Emperor, Poe Dameron, Dash Rendar, Han Solo, Jumpmasters, or Bro Bots. You can even put in a ban of no one over PS 6, but that excludes someone like Cobra Talonbane. There is also the idea of banning anyone with an EPT. So, just play with generics or uniques with no EPT.

It's fun until you get something mental like Vader in a Phantom...

Very interesting! I'd be curious to see how some of your combos play out.

Han Solo in a Firespray....

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uh..

is there a Carbonite card somewhere?