Hi all,
A local Boys Brigade Captain has approached me to spend one of their meetings teaching X-Wing to the youth. I'm really excited about it.
How would you run an introductory session for 10 people, when you're the only one that can play? Its a little daunting.
They are tactically minded, with them being a military based group.
I was thinking of a mission that gave everyone 1 generic ship with no/few upgrades and see how it goes.
I am really open to any ideas.
Help please!
Furball with everyone taking a 25pt ish small base ship.
Rebels get an X wing with an astromech (integrated), B wing with FCS, Y wing with dorsal and r2 astromech, and a T-70 with targeting astromech
Imperials get a TIE/SF (zeta specialist with primed thrusters?), TIE Advanced with Accuracy Corrector, and an Aggressor with unguided rockets
Scum get a vaksai with engine upgrade and shield upgrade, starviper Mk2 with autothrusters, and a G-1A with tractor beam.
Then you play a deathmatch format, where each damage gives you 1pt (the G-1A will get 1pt per ship which damages a tractored ship) and a kill gives you 3pts. You respawn the turn after you die and have a set number of rounds (10?). You could also introduce a bounty system where you get +1pts for killing the leader at the time, and a ship swap system where people swap ships with other 'dead' players. Explain the rules at the start, allow pre-measuring moves, and walk the group through an X wing & 2 TIEs doing movement, actions, shooting, dice mods, etc.
If I had to guess, I would say that these kids are not only tactically minded but there is probably a lot of focus on team work.
I would give an objective like a damged ship at each end of the map. This ship cant move or shoot and has a small amount health. Each squad is tasked with defending one and destroying the other.
Keep the squads simple so they can just worry about flying.
Rebels have the pilot skill advantage, Imperials have speed and numbers. Each team will need to get their bombers into position to fire their ordnance while preventing the enemy from doing the same.
For added fun, use actual ship models for the objectives. Raider, Transport, Falcon, Slave 1 would all be iconic enough to get those kids pumped just to see them.
Edited by pickirk01
may i humbly suggest Mario-kart x wing - its our go-to for intro and have-a-go play as it keeps things light hearted, you control the balance with pre-built ships, and its quite good at teaching the basics (plus we run with a re-spawn system to death is now a learning experience
)
These are all great ideas thanks. I will message the Captain and see what he thinks.
They all love paintball so the damaged ships idea would work. I know that some of them are gamers, so Mario Kart would work too.
Do you have a good set of rules and tracks for Mario Kart? There seem to be a few but not sure which one you would recommend Surak.
29 minutes ago, player2456237 said:These are all great ideas thanks. I will message the Captain and see what he thinks.
They all love paintball so the damaged ships idea would work. I know that some of them are gamers, so Mario Kart would work too.
Do you have a good set of rules and tracks for Mario Kart? There seem to be a few but not sure which one you would recommend Surak.
i have a few recommendations, but there is a massive thread on these very forums that lists ALOT of different ways of playing Mario-Wing (or X-Kart of you prefer
)
personally, if I'm running it as a demo game I aim for 30-40pt builds, with a mix of named and generic pilots, all pre-built, and all small based. I then take all the pilot cards and shuffle them and have the players cut the deck and pick between the top and bottom ships of the cut to see what they are flying (removes arguments)
i have a few markers on the map to represent the classic Mario pickup boxes - if you land on one or fly over it an action gets you a random upgrade card (i normally mix cannon, turret (no tlt), ept, and missiles) that you add to your ship - you can only have 1 at a time
I've got a number of pictures of track layouts in the other thread (I'll link to it when I'm not on my mobile) but in general i try and make the first few corners fairly open as people get the hang of the templates, and then have a more complex bit towards the end of the lap
I too recommend Mario Kart X-Wing.
I would encourage a respawn mechanism in anything you do to keep all the kids engaged, as was mentioned in the deathmatch and MK posts above.
Here is a google drive link with MK track images, rough draft of rules (for one style of play) and some deck sheets for thematic mystery crates, if you elect to use them.
How long would a standard MK game last? I recon I have about 1.5 hours.
1 hour ago, player2456237 said:How long would a standard MK game last? I recon I have about 1.5 hours.
Ours have lasted between an hour and 8 (that was on purpose at a 40k launch event as a side game)
I'd suggest a cut-down Dagobah Dave's trench run, but that's hard to pull off in 90 minutes.