So...

• Your default squad must be threat 4.
  • Since you must use quick build cards, this dramatically limits the options available to existing quick build cards (2 ship types each for Galactic Empire & Rebel Alliance, 3 for Scum & Villainy)
  • More notably, Rebels and Scum & Villainy both lack a threat 1 ship, and quick build squad building is a threat which 'adds up to' not 'adds up to equal to or less than'.
    • For rebels, this pretty much restricts them to a pair of threat 2 ships
    • Scum could instead field a single threat 4 ship (Lando Calrissian, Boba Fett or Emon Azzamen)
• Your reinforcements arrive from your choice of hyperspace token (assuming there is a free 'docking point')
  • Reinforcements arrive facing a randomly rolled direction. The odds are equal that it will be either the [boom] result / your choice, or one of the other two.
    • Therefore point the [boom] result at the likely direction of the fight.
    • you do need to be aware of the risk of jumping into the fight pointed the wrong way. A hyperspace token only needs to be beyond range 1 of the board edge, but if you place it there with a 'docking point' pointed at the board edge, nothing other than a TIE/ln or Fang (small base w/speed 1 turn) can survive exiting there.
    • There is an argument in favour of selecting reinforcements with rear or turret arcs for this reason; as you can get them into the fight faster.
  • Reinforcements can be 1 or 2 ships whose total threat = the destroyed ship's threat +1
    • This means you can technically 'de-escalate' - in that you can replace a threat 3 ship with two threat 2 ships. Not that it's again not 'up to',
• Victory requires you to kill 8 threat worth of ships at the end of a round before your opponent does, or (if you both do that in the same turn) to have a higher kill score than your opponent (if one of you scored more than 8 threat) or to keep playing until the next kill.

The major choices are:

• Your squad (obviously),
  • Galactic Empire has the best range of choices - you can (in theory) field Vader as your solo first ship, followed by a 2-threat ship and a 3-threat ship if Vader is killed, and steadily getting swarmier as the game goes on, or to field 4 TIE fighters to begin with and bring in the heavy mob (or even more TIE fighters !) to replace them as they're killed
    • Once the escalation swirl gets going, with ships arriving and dying all over the place, holding a tight formation is very difficult. I would avoid "Howlrunner" as she can have at most 2 wingmen to start with and will probably be dead before a decent swarm can form up around her
    • Since reinforcements are (hopefully!) arriving on a board with damaged enemy ships, Gideon and Del are a good idea for mid-game back-up.
  • Scum gets Fangs, Firesprays and Custom YT-1300
    • You can start with Lando Calrissian, but a 2-dice turret (however tough the ship is and however many rerolls it gets) is hardly going to carry the field.
    • Since you know where reinforcements will arrive, Emon (who carries mines), and Boba/Fang Fighters (who want to be 'in close') are probably both good options
  • Rebels get X & Y wings, so only have threat 2 and 3 ships. Since they have to start with 2 threat 2, their squad structure is pretty predictable (though they have a lot of pilots available!)
• Obstacle placement
  • Standard rules apply. Obviously, you can 'adapt' your squad if the board is densely or sparsely packed (galactic empire player choosing an elite TIE fighter instead of a less manoeuvrable TIE advanced as a threat 2 ship, for example)
  • Rebels currently have no quick build ship with a speed 1 turn, and Y-wings - even with barrel roll - remain not much better than the un-manouvrable hogs they've always been. Equally, whilst Lando's Falcon can ignore obstacles (Qi'Ra can ignore locked obstacles and Lando can reroll any dice, including obstacle damage), it takes either actions or stress, so it doesn't want to have to, and it's both on a large base and not very manoeuvrable.
• Hyperspace token placement
  • The first player can put it almost anywhere
    • Placing it with one 'side' at range 1 of a board edge is nasty if facing a rebel player (see above) as it means there's at least a 1/4 chance of any ship using that marker being destroyed, and ditto for any scum ship other than Fangs. Of course, you'll have the same problem if you want to field TIE/x1 reinforcements.
    • Equally, you can 'sabotage' a hyperspace token by placing it between a range-1-separated pair of obstacles, which can easily render 2 'sides' not certain death but inevitably resulting in a collision if used. The token only needs to be 'beyond range 0' (i.e. not in contact with) any obstacles.
    • Remember that if a side is blocked, you default to the next side clockwise. This means that if you have two reinforcements arriving from the same token, the second one placed has at least a 50% chance of arriving by the point to the right of the first arrival, whether you want it to or not.
  • The second player has a more tactical choice to make.
    • The second token must be more than range 3 from the first. If placed as close to range 3 as possible, then ships can easily exchange fire the turn they arrive, whilst placing it on the far side of the board means you will have a turn to 'dress' your approach before engaging - but equally your surviving squad elements will be without reinforcement for that long.
      • The latter point is most relevant with 2 threat 2 ships; losing 1 ship out of 4 for a turn is no huge deal if two ships will replace it next turn, whilst a threat 4 ship means no surviving squad elements save those that are now jumping in.
      • This is also relevant for ships which want to approach more slowly and fire off torpedoes on their approach (especially rebels, many of whom have torpedoes).
• Whether to commit to a fight near hyperspace tokens or far away from them.
  • This is particularly relevant for Firespray-31s, Fangs, and T-65 X-wings - all of which can boost - especially the elite Fangs and Vader, who haves the combination of a speed 5 straight and afterburners and can reach a fight very quickly.

How long are people finding Escalation takes to play? I've found it's significantly longer than a standard game from the bit of experimentation I've been doing.

I'm looking forward to this.

Edit: Thanks Magnus. Can you add a link to your threat level value analysis thread?

Imperial Quick Builds

Quick Build 'Cost-Effectiveness" compared to points value

I really ought to do the other factions, but I'm somewhat less confident with Rebel and Scum stuff.