FFG helped X-wing to grow in the beginning when they came out with themed tournament sets that had one of each ship in a wave and you could win one as a prize. There was Assault at Imdaar Alpha and other similar types of events.

Myself, I would like to see 2 Silencers and 2 B/SF-17 in a box set, with AA Kylo Ren crew cards, acrylic ISYTDS tokens, and the theme would be "Resist the First Order". I would make it a 2 list, 60 point 2 ship minimum tournament. One Empire List and one Rebel. Each round, the player with the better score chooses which list his opponent will fly and his opponent then will pick his list. Top table gets to make a 100 point list with the available ships. Best MOV score gets to choose which faction list they want to fly and their opponent gets the other faction list to use (reverse of swiss rounds). If the tournament is large enough to have a cut to top 4, then the top MOV at each table picks their faction first (and gets the corresponding ship) and the other players get the other faction. Finals could then be a mirror match.

If FFG was to do one of those themed tournaments, what would you like to see as the story element and prizes awarded?

Obvious choice would be Battle of Scarif!

Time it with a release of Heroes of Scarif box set with a new U-wing paint scheme and K2-SO crew and pilot along with an elite generic and fix upgrades. The other ship would be a grey squadron Y-wing or blue squadron X-wing with new elite generics and named pilots from the movie.

The events would be Imperial and Rebel lists only and feature Scarif Shield Gate play mats as prizes (in addition to the new box set)

If they wanted to have it be game accurate, clearly the rebels fighting scum for control of the galaxy's largest bomb factory, which also serves as a Nym cloning facility.

On a more serious note, some sort of missions, likely Scarif (if released now) or TLJ (if released after wave 13) themed would make sense and would be fun.

The issue is that general balance needs serious re-working before missions could be brought up.

A narrative event with Grand Admiral Thrawn as the new centerpiece. Give most Imperial ships a shiny new title that encourages ruthless, efficient play. Rebels get the XJ-X-wing title for T-65s. Time it to come out with wave 13 - which is a revision of wave 1, containing updated ship stats, dials and pilot abilities.

Each player signs up as a Rebel, Imperial or Scum pilot at the beginning of the event, with TOs acting as admirals for each team. Have an interactive map of the star wars galaxy on a projector, and send pilots to different areas to compete in varying size battles (1v1 to 4v4). The "winners" are those that complete the most mission objectives, and prizes are handed out accordingly.

Assault on Starkiller Base would fit for the new movies, Resistance and First Order only.

Usual Alt Art prizes would be fine.

Alternatively base it around the set piece battle in "The Last Jedi" and include the new ships coming out.

We missed a great opportunity for the 40th anniversary to do a Battle of Yavin-themed event. Special playmat, terrain, etc.

I always thought the Imdaar Alpha events were the best. This was the first year in a few that I wasn't able to do a prerelease event like Imdaar Alpha by getting Gencon stuff and hosting a tournament. I think FFG has a great opportunity to work with Local Game Stores around the time the presales of whatever is at Gencon happen. Simply make a tournament with at least two packages (so 1st and 2nd can duke it out, or 1-4th in the case of Imdaar Alpha or small ship release) of the new stuff! Story would be whatever is being released, nobody would care that its released early because its not tournament legal until main release anyway. For this year, it could be a story about heisted, modified ships. Theme is great, for mods to a ship it could be an escalation tournament!

1 hour ago, Hawkstrike said:

We missed a great opportunity for the 40th anniversary to do a Battle of Yavin-themed event. Special playmat, terrain, etc.

That would have been great.