Thought I'd start another thread about this after this weekend's enjoyable tournament... We did something kind of different but it was a lot of fun.

Using the standard 100 point system, we changed it a bit. On top of the standard rules, every list had to have one ship with an intelligence agent crew. The crew itself was free, so you could in theory have a 101 point list. To avoid a super quick win, Boab (crew) wasn't allowed to discard the intel agent.

The other difference was that the match was over as soon as the ship with the intel agent was destroyed. Winning got you 2 points, a draw was 1 and a loss was 0.

This of course creates a interesting new problem in both list design and tactics. You want something that can protect the intel agent, but need enough firepower to take down whatever ship he's on.

We played 3 rounds of it and everyone seemed to have a fun time. Some people actually remembered to use the intel agent himself.

The other was one I mentioned a few weeks ago, the escalation game.

That one had everyone starting with a 15 point ship, when it was destroyed they'd 'spawn' in a 20 point ship, then a 25 point ship, then 30, and so on. Didn't have to be in the same faction all though you could rule that way if you wanted to.

In that one, the winner was the first one to destroy 100 points worth of ship. After the games we discussed the idea of losing points when your ship was destroyed, not the full value. Maybe 5 points or half the ship value, but never tried it so I'm not sure how well it would work.

Anyone else have any interesting formats they've tried, ones that would work both for casual games or for tournaments?

Hunger Games is one done at Nova Open, from what I hear. It sounds really fun and I would like to try it some time.

I had a thread called "Bounty Hunter Rodeo" for something I wanted to do, but haven't gotten around to yet.

Mario Kart X-wing is fun and we are planning something for GenCon. You can even make it a league and have your pilots get more EPTs or something.

29 point 1 ship every one vs every one (last man standing), some cards like lone wolf are banned

escalation, official rules here on the ffg website

mirror match, you play each other twice but swap lists for the second game

Epic, official rules here on the ffg website

Movie canon only... ships that weren't in the films can be played

standard 100 point

shuffle all of our pilot cards for each faction and deal eight of each faction to each player, then each player picks a card and passes the rest to the left forming the ships/pilots you are allowed to make your list from.

we had to go and veto some things like whisper and darth vader though, but we also drafted unique upgrades, so the chances of getting palp and a shuttle/decimator to carry him on were so slim that we figured we'd leave that in

Pretty sure there's a few other threads like this in existence. Anyways; here's a little something we did last year. Seems like the idea caught on with the Armada guys as there was a Vassal tournament using the premise going on for a while.

Deal or No Deal

£50 entry

£60 RRP of ships for a single faction in a box.

Each player chooses a box for their chosen faction.

Everyone then opens said mystery box and builds a 100pt list out of the contents.

4-5 rounds of swiss depending on numbers.

Winners.

Pirate tournaments are also fun. I think they have one planned for nova this year.

No faction restrictions. No unique cards. Only one of each ship type.

Shuttle Tydirium is also planning a Narrative Event at GenCon. We are going to then share the rules, missions, etc. to be used by anyone after that. In fact, we were thinking of doing a global campaign where people can play it and send in their results to get an overall big result.

I do like that Ontel Agent idea. Sounds like it could be a lot of fun!

i know i harp on about it but Kessel Run is a good format

4 mats, everyone has 1 big ship only with a total of 65 points to use. there are various obstacles on each table (like mines/asteroids etc) and capital ships to avoid as well.

the other tweak was that you an forgo your attack to scan a satelite and draw from a deck of Boost and Ion cards! seeing boba not shoot for 6 turns and boosting to victory was hilarious!!

Kings of the (space)hill:
2 to 4 players, 100 to 200pts (3x150 and 4x 100 tested)

• Draw a circle (4-range diameter for me, but it's not on a standard tourney map) at the center of your playing area.
• At the end of each combat phase, players get points for each ship in the circle : 1pt per small ship (& large ship with less than the half of their HP), 2pts per large Ship.
• The first player to 20pts (15-30, depending on the number of players and lists size) end the game. Rank player by "area points", resolve tie by remaining squad points.

With some friends, we trying to create a little 100pts tournaments based on this system. In pairing 4 players per table and running 3-4 round of 90min.

Sounds like it could be a lot of fun!

One other thing that may need tweaking is what ship can have the intel agent. One guy, who won the event with 6 points. He put the intel agent on the Phantom which was docked on the Ghost, and had Biggs as an escort.

This means you had to effectively destroy Biggs, then the Ghost then the Phantom. I wouldn't say he did anything wrong it was a legit tactic even if it was a tiny bit cheesy... But it did give him a rather large advantage.

One Idea our group was looking at for a league based event (60/80 pts, Different squad each game if desired)

Made up of components found in their choice of Core or Aces pack + 1 expansion.

If anyone's run anything like this I'd enjoy hearing your thoughts on it.

One other thing that may need tweaking is what ship can have the intel agent. One guy, who won the event with 6 points. He put the intel agent on the Phantom which was docked on the Ghost, and had Biggs as an escort.

This means you had to effectively destroy Biggs, then the Ghost then the Phantom. I wouldn't say he did anything wrong it was a legit tactic even if it was a tiny bit cheesy... But it did give him a rather large advantage.

Got a fun tournament with similar rules. Organizers restricted the VIP crew (your "intel agent") to be on large ship.

Worst. Squad. Ever.

An idea I've had for a while but haven't gotten it played yet. The goal is to make the worst squad possible. To ensure that players are properly motivated to make an actual terrible squad the rules are that when the game is played your opponent uses your squad and you use the opponents.

Additional squad building rules would be that the squad must be EXACTLY 100pts for obvious reasons. All cards must be functional. Like for instance Stygium Particle Accelerator is a mod that has no printed restrictions so technically by base rules you could equip it to any ship, but it is non-functional on anything that doesn't have a cloak, so for this format you wouldn't be allowed to waste points on it by adding it to a ship without cloak. No munitions failsafe without munitions etc. Also, I think I would probably either ban the HWK or require it to be equipped with a TLT because it would be OP bad if you could add the worst one with no upgrades.

Just had another idea typing up my last one haha

Suicide Squad

The goal is to die first. No obstacles are used and ships cannot flee the battlefield. If a ship would flee, it is placed back in play at the point it would have left the field with its back parallel to the board edge.

Attacking is mandatory, you can select your target freely but you MUST fire if you have a valid target and all focus results rolled on attack automatically become hits.

Worst. Squad. Ever.

Also, I think I would probably either ban the HWK or require it to be equipped with a TLT because it would be OP bad if you could add the worst one with no upgrades.

HWKs with Ion Cannon Turrets are legit, too.

The best part is that you have to provide the ships that you make up your list. So....you have to have 5 HWKs if you want to use them.

Sounds like it could be a lot of fun!

One other thing that may need tweaking is what ship can have the intel agent. One guy, who won the event with 6 points. He put the intel agent on the Phantom which was docked on the Ghost, and had Biggs as an escort.

This means you had to effectively destroy Biggs, then the Ghost then the Phantom. I wouldn't say he did anything wrong it was a legit tactic even if it was a tiny bit cheesy... But it did give him a rather large advantage.

Yep. Creative builds like that are to be heartily congratulated. . .and then banned for the fun of future events. The original user can at least have the pride of being the only one who was ever able to use that trick! (Remember that little maneuver at the Battle of Tanaab. . .)

Just had another idea typing up my last one haha

Suicide Squad

The goal is to die first. No obstacles are used and ships cannot flee the battlefield. If a ship would flee, it is placed back in play at the point it would have left the field with its back parallel to the board edge.

Attacking is mandatory, you can select your target freely but you MUST fire if you have a valid target and all focus results rolled on attack automatically become hits.

Five PS 1 quadjumpers with Seismic Charges can set up in such a way that they suicide on the first round of the game.

Besides bombs, you can also do Daredevil on ships without boost, Darth Vader crew, Chopper crew, and other such self-damaging abilities.

Pirate tournaments are also fun. I think they have one planned for nova this year.

No faction restrictions. No unique cards. Only one of each ship type.

What kinds of lists have you seen people field?

I've considered the "no uniques" format before, but I always assumed it would be dominated by swarms and Glaive Squadron. Adding the "max 1 of each ship type" restriction fixes the swarm problem, but still leaves certain pseudo-ace generics as very strong. I hadn't thought about the "no faction restrictions" idea before, though - does that just mean you can have ships of different factions, or do you allow faction-restricted upgrades on wrong-faction ships too?

There aren't many non-unique faction-restricted upgrades anyway, though - just Ruthlessness, Systems Officer, Mindlink, Fearlessness, K4 Security Droid, and Outlaw Tech. The only one of those I could see being a serious problem is Mindlink - you could link together a Glaive, a Gamma Squadron Vet, and some other filler, for example, or four Red Squadron Veterans, or something like that.

There is also a max PS bid you can put in. What if you put it at PS 4? That could limit a few things. Also, people can load up on things like Assault Missiles for all the Tie Formations that people will bring.

Pirate tournaments are also fun. I think they have one planned for nova this year.

No faction restrictions. No unique cards. Only one of each ship type.

What kinds of lists have you seen people field?

I've considered the "no uniques" format before, but I always assumed it would be dominated by swarms and Glaive Squadron. Adding the "max 1 of each ship type" restriction fixes the swarm problem, but still leaves certain pseudo-ace generics as very strong. I hadn't thought about the "no faction restrictions" idea before, though - does that just mean you can have ships of different factions, or do you allow faction-restricted upgrades on wrong-faction ships too?

There aren't many non-unique faction-restricted upgrades anyway, though - just Ruthlessness, Systems Officer, Mindlink, Fearlessness, K4 Security Droid, and Outlaw Tech. The only one of those I could see being a serious problem is Mindlink - you could link together a Glaive, a Gamma Squadron Vet, and some other filler, for example, or four Red Squadron Veterans, or something like that.

Since it was only one of each ship type, it wasn't too dominated since one glaive isn't too terrible by itself. The funniest thing I saw was a decoy/ swarm tactics a-wing taking the ps from a vi royal guard interceptor and passing it to a ps 3 phantom with acd. But it took the entire list to do that so it wasn't a top table or anything.

I posted this in another thread similar to this one. Normally I wouldn't bother but there seem to be four similar threads going at the moment. Not to mention I spent nearly an hour working on this. So in case you missed it the first time around. I present (drum roll) the Deal With It! squadron creation rules.

So if you are doing a tournament you could also put in a no duplicate unique rule.

It pretty much guarantees that nobody is getting what they want.

Just had another idea typing up my last one haha

Suicide Squad

The goal is to die first. No obstacles are used and ships cannot flee the battlefield. If a ship would flee, it is placed back in play at the point it would have left the field with its back parallel to the board edge.

Attacking is mandatory, you can select your target freely but you MUST fire if you have a valid target and all focus results rolled on attack automatically become hits.

Five PS 1 quadjumpers with Seismic Charges can set up in such a way that they suicide on the first round of the game.

Besides bombs, you can also do Daredevil on ships without boost, Darth Vader crew, Chopper crew, and other such self-damaging abilities.

Right, well like I said I just thought of it so I hadn't run through all the contingencies. That's a simple fix though, anything that self damages is banned for purposes of this format.

My group has a multi-player variant we call Bounty Hunt.

Squad Limit is 48 points.

No large base ships.

No Lone Wolf.

You may only have one ship on the board at a time. If a ship is destroyed, the player puts their next ship at their original starting position during the next Planning Phase.

Every player targets the player to their left. That player's ships are your bounty. You may attack the ships of any other players, but you only score points for destroying your bounty. Points equal Squad Point value and the player who scores the most Bounty Points is the winner.

We are currently finishing our third campaign and are about to start a fourth that uses a map.

Move your markers around on the map and when you and an opponent enter the same territory you fight. If you have friendly markers adjacent, you get a bonus to your points for that match.

The rules are a work in progress, but the most current are here.

https://docs.google.com/document/d/177Otp80LgIxcrJvN1mvCws53XIkVlQGlay5ANcC6KpU/edit?usp=drivesdk

The format adds assymetrical battles and environmental effects.