So one of the local stores (local being an hour away for me) just posted this saturday theyre going to host an unorthodox tourny. They called it Iron Man, and ive never seen this idea before but i kinda like it.

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Basic Rules:
1) 225 points total for the day
2) At the start of each round, you may field up to 75 points from your reserve
3) When a ship is destroyed, it's no longer available to play in future rounds
4) Any ships still alive at the end of a round are returned to your reserve
4) The last player with ships left wins!

Nuances:
1) Shields *do* regenerate between rounds
2) Expendable ordnance *does not* regenerate between rounds
3) Hull damage *does not* regenerate between rounds, but all damage cards will be returned to damage decks at the end of each match, so crits will not be persistent.

REINFORCEMENTS: At the start of a turn, if you have fewer than 75 points on the table, you may take ONE ship from your reserve and place it as you would normally at the start of the game, outside of Range 3 from any enemy ship. You can only do this if you will not exceed the 75-point table limit. It may then play as normal. But be careful! When you're out of ships, you're out!

Ships will need token numbers for tracking hull damage. During registration, list ships on the left side of the standard FFG tournament sheet. The right side will be used to record hull damage. Whenever a damaged ship comes into play (either at the start of a round or from reserves), deal a number of face-down cards to it as specified on the list sheet.

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I actually really like this idea. The 75pt per round prevents pretty much all of the usual "ridiculous" combos such as dengar nym, rebel jankyard, or palpaces, but the risk of permanent death makes "sacrificial lambs" a really bad idea. It also prevents alphastrikes from just dominating the game since only if you have a way to regen the ordnance do you get it back.
What do you guys think of this?

I like it. Adds a little different flavor to the standard 100/6 fare.

It's also going to force the players to think deeper than normal. You should see some very different squads on the table.

11 minutes ago, Stoneface said:

I like it. Adds a little different flavor to the standard 100/6 fare.

It's also going to force the players to think deeper than normal. You should see some very different squads on the table.

Hmm. I'd be worried how it plays out for shields vs. hull health. I think as written it too strongly goes against hulls, which is painful for a lot of the 0/1 shield imperial/scum small bases.

The 75 points on the table at once is interesting though, as it really hurts 50+ point ship setups. They'll need chaff every round and that'll drain the reserve. I just straight would not even try to field a VT-49 in that at all.

But overall I really like the idea. It makes me wonder how more suicidal ship loadouts (Deathfire, EM, mines for instance is basically throwaway after doing its drops) will work. Also makes shield-piercing more valuable, since towards the end of the day being able to field things like Wampa against ships that might be at 6 shields and 2 hull could start dropping things fast.

Edit: Yes, I would absolutely throw in Wampa in my reserves for later. Just for the chance to flip off a K-wing, Jumpmaster, etc. with the ability. Ooh, the one Imperial pilot who can flip up damage seems fun too.

Given how a lot can happen in a day I think there should maybe a turn limit or some option for a ship to disengage by going off the table. As for ordnance and discarded cards I don't think it is too fair that some discarded upgrades get refreshed while others stay discarded. I believe there should be a way to refresh cards. Maybe have a repair/rearm allowance per each round for refreshing shields/upgrades, maybe even discard face down damage or flip face up damage cards with the ship trait face down (pilot traits can remain). OF course you would have to set the allowance so that turning a face up card face down only happens about once per round.

Anyway interesting format, I would suggest try to get it into a scenario format (set up, special rules, goal). would go a long way into getting others to test it out. Try to publish it on X-wing Mission Control. It has the page background although the map and ships haven't been updated since Wave 6, I find the general formatting is a great way to publish alternative formats.

https://tools.fantasyflightgames.com/xwing/

Issue im seeing for imps is dang near every ship i want to use is 36pts lol. 72pts with 2 ships

Wampa and Colzet are kinda mandatory. Bare naked Colzet would probably irritate people with how many facedowns there are at the start of a later round.
Shield Upgrade might be common, i actually threw one on Ryad since she largely doesnt need Mk2. Almost slapped a shield on QD/BD but that pushes them to 39/40pts....ouch
edit: Colzet w/ title and FCS. Keeps him stupid cheap and his action goes to Evade every turn since he literally doesnt care about dealing damage, just actually attacking to get the TL for card flippyness lol

I agree on the shield vs. hull comment. It could also heavily favor agility defended ships since tanking damage wouldn't be an effective method of getting a win given later rounds. If this is true, it would favor Tie Defenders, Corran Horn, IGs and other agility + shield ships limiting what is viable to a very small number of ships and very specific play styles.

If a ship survives a battle it should be returned to full health for the next battle.

Expendables should be returned or you should at least be able to have unassigned ordnance in your main pool so you could replenish used ordnance.

Ships that flee the battlefield may score full points for that battle (you are still tracking points aren't you?) and will not return but are available for later battles as they survived the encounter the fled.

I admit i think hull should somewhat come back. Not completely, otherwise a Decimator could be a real problem (or Rey), but say if it survives the battle it gets 1 hull back, making super fat ships less viable but at the same time not horribly crippling smaller ships that take damage.

Ordnance coming back would mean everyone uses alpha strike lists since hands down any 4die attack + gchips is far more reliable than any main gun, and with -25pts the odds of facing the super tanky ships are unlikely so everything would die horribly to 2 missiles max. Making them not come back balances this by making them that much more valuable, i'm contemplating bringing a loaded out bomber for late game and just alpha down people that are weakened. Assuming i live that long lol

I am not sure if points are being tracked or if its just a slugfest to the last man standing, but i dont think being able to flee the battlefield is fair either. Otherwise you can just deny so much death via 5fwd off the board. Not to mention unless the ship has a hyperdrive installed, how would they leave? Majority of TIEs dont have that.

16 minutes ago, Knave Squawk said:

I agree on the shield vs. hull comment. It could also heavily favor agility defended ships since tanking damage wouldn't be an effective method of getting a win given later rounds. If this is true, it would favor Tie Defenders, Corran Horn, IGs and other agility + shield ships limiting what is viable to a very small number of ships and very specific play styles.

Nah, I think that cheap ships that can punch hard would be viable - I mean, you can spend 21 points to get a TIE bomber loaded with two cruise missiles or plasma torps and LRS to ensure a full mod shot. That will almost certainly deal more than 21 points of damage, and can still block and take potshots after unloading.

What would lose out are the big ships taking tons of upgrades. Running ships lean will be the order of the day, to maximize durability for points spent. And good riddance, I see enough ships with 8+ upgrades at normal tournaments.

/x7s are definitely high on the list of power ships for that though. Standard Ryad+Vessery would be a solid lineup for a round, clocking at 72 points and all-around strong. TAPs are cheap for generics - fully kitted with missile+chips is doable for 20 points. Triple TLTs? God help the poor bastard facing those.

I want to fly in this so bad, if it's not clear. I think this actually works really well for imperials, who have tons and tons of small ship builds that can be had for 25 or 35 point ranges for filling out the lists. And oh yes the TIE bomber. 16 point ordnance carrier. Deathfire the budget bomber. Etc.

Speaking of cheap ships that hit hard, ironically i dont think Sabaac would be a wise pick. Without 2 other rather deadly more obvious targets hes going to get picked quickly, and all it takes is 2 damage cards (which last forever) to shut his ability down.
And that feels weird to say since hes in practically EVERY IMP LIST I MAKE lately lol

Yeah. I'd run strikers for sure, but not Sabaac. Too high priority. VI Duchess as a budget arc dodger, something off Black Squadrons, or PS1s.

This idea (or variations of it) have been floating around for a while now, but it's awesome to see someone actually doing it. Let us know how it goes!

I don't like the reinforcements mid-game though, it seems like a bad idea for a tournament structured event. How do you determine the winner if more ships keep coming? What about the poor bloke who has a bad matchup first round and burns through 3/4ths of his reserve in the first game?

Also I think there ought to be a way for hull to regen, and ordnance, but maybe with some sort of cap on each. Or maybe you get a set number of repair points to spend between each match or something.

As as far as strategy goes, I wouldn't discount tanky ships as much as everyone else seems to be doing. Remember that your opponent only has 75 points to fire at them with. For example, you could take a palpatank (Captain Kenkirk, Palestine, Ysanne Isard, other upgrades to taste) and so long as you can consistently arc-dodge or ram at least one of their ships you only have to weather 1 or 2 shots each round.

Oh yeah, reinforcements could be an issue. If someone burns their whole reserve to beat you, they've lost. If you don't burn your whole reserve back, you lose regardless? I guess if it's purely swiss... and you'd need to have enough rounds that a round 1 loss can still take first.

9 hours ago, Herowannabe said:

I don't like the reinforcements mid-game though, it seems like a bad idea for a tournament structured event. How do you determine the winner if more ships keep coming? What about the poor bloke who has a bad matchup first round and burns through 3/4ths of his reserve in the first game?

Agreed.

I like everything, except the mid-game reinforcement.

Some players might not even bother bringing in another ship due to the points limitations. Unless you have a lot of ships that are the same exact price, its quite easy for a combo to exceed 75. Say QD is at 36 and Maarek is at 37. You lost QD, and realize Maarek would be amazing against whats left...except that puts you at 76pts. you could bring one of your cheapos in, except you probably have a specific reason for that ship existing and its not in this match.

9 hours ago, Polaritie said:

Oh yeah, reinforcements could be an issue. If someone burns their whole reserve to beat you, they've lost. If you don't burn your whole reserve back, you lose regardless? I guess if it's purely swiss... and you'd need to have enough rounds that a round 1 loss can still take first.

I think that would be the point, you just keep doing rounds of swiss until you only have 1 player with ships left. A loss doesn't matter, a win doesn't matter save for pairings but someone has to win to end the round and you can't run away. You can only throw in more ships, which you would only do in hopes of saving your ships. It's a nice balance.

Corran would ace this if your first few opponents didn't recognize the threat.

Reading this threads some 12 hours ago I immediately thought about having up to 9 Vaksais. Missiles, Guidance chips, Munition fail safe and Scavenger cranes could be really strong!

But could not post the idea. And now came the second preview for the Vaksai ...

This sounds like an amazing format. Honestly, I can't even guess what would be good without playing through first. My first instinct was Commander Kenkirk, as @Herowannabe mentioned, and maybe "Night Beast" or "Dark Curse" for fillers because they just survive. "Fel's Wrath" could be an interesting choice, but very few people would agree with that. Soontir Fel has a good chance of rocking it with 75 pt limits for each match. Defenders sound great, too, but I don't know of TIE/D or TIE/x7 would be stronger. Assuming other people are tanked up, TIE/x7 will have a hard time breaking through, but TIE/D will be weaker to alpha strikes. Conundrum.

Not Iron man enough. Ships and cards which are destroyed should be torn up/smashed with a hammer. That's proper Iron man rules.

How many TIE fighters can I fit into that list ??????

5 hours ago, spacelion said:

How many TIE fighters can I fit into that list ??????

18 academies with a few points left over

If i had that many ties, i would lol just because.

Honestly, I would make it a 4 round tourney. Make the first 3 rounds have unique 75 point lists. Each one is a brand new list that cannot contain any duplicate uniques. Then round 4 would be put everything you have left - at the health they have left on the board and pewpew away. Score the first three just like a normal game, except MOV is out of 150 instead of 200.

Pair round 4 based on ranking after swiss (including MOV) so you end up with two people with equalish points. It also provides a tough decision - do you kill off your 26 point Omega Leader on 1 hull in Round 2, dropping your MOV, but then when you match up in Round 4 he doesn't count for your ranking - so hopefully you have the advantage of only having high health ships against someone who might have more damaged ships... or alternatively to do you risk it and get paired against someone with a higher MOV and OL returns with just 1 hull (but counts as full MOV). Last round is scored out of the full 225 MOV.

2 hours ago, Khyros said:

Honestly, I would make it a 4 round tourney. Make the first 3 rounds have unique 75 point lists. Each one is a brand new list that cannot contain any duplicate uniques. Then round 4 would be put everything you have left - at the health they have left on the board and pewpew away. Score the first three just like a normal game, except MOV is out of 150 instead of 200.

Pair round 4 based on ranking after swiss (including MOV) so you end up with two people with equalish points. It also provides a tough decision - do you kill off your 26 point Omega Leader on 1 hull in Round 2, dropping your MOV, but then when you match up in Round 4 he doesn't count for your ranking - so hopefully you have the advantage of only having high health ships against someone who might have more damaged ships... or alternatively to do you risk it and get paired against someone with a higher MOV and OL returns with just 1 hull (but counts as full MOV). Last round is scored out of the full 225 MOV.

Insteda of doing everything you have left from the start for the final round (because it could be really unfair if someone lost extra ships as reinforcements in earlier rounds so one player has like 150 points while the other has 75 or 100), instead you start with 75 points as normal, but you keep reinforcing as ships die until one player has no ships left. It still gives the advantage to the player with more points available, but if you can come out of the first engagement ahead as the player with less points you're in a better position than you are if you just start out with 2/3 the points the opponent has and they can focus fire with a lot more ships.

49 minutes ago, VanderLegion said:

Insteda of doing everything you have left from the start for the final round (because it could be really unfair if someone lost extra ships as reinforcements in earlier rounds so one player has like 150 points while the other has 75 or 100), instead you start with 75 points as normal, but you keep reinforcing as ships die until one player has no ships left. It still gives the advantage to the player with more points available, but if you can come out of the first engagement ahead as the player with less points you're in a better position than you are if you just start out with 2/3 the points the opponent has and they can focus fire with a lot more ships.

If I understand Khyros correctly there are no "reinforcements" in earlier rounds. I look at his suggestion and basically see "play three games at 75 points and then play the fourth with what ever survived the first three rounds." If you wipe the floor with all of your squadrons without losing a single ship in the first three matches you'd go into that last round with all of your ships available and ready to go. If you LOST each of those first three you might not have anything going into that fourth round.

That last round is the interesting one. I could see where having the maximum 225 points on the board could lead to overcrowding but most matches shouldn't have that issue as ships have already been killed off in earlier rounds. Now completely destroying your opponent shouldn't be with 225 but just based on what gets killed; here matching teams with similar points remaining is very important as it rewards the opportunity to kill more.