I was thinking on how to make a speed mode. i have some friends that would play xwing, but dont have patience to sit and play for 1+ Hours. I was thinking of playing it so all ships have like 1 less Agility, maybe ships with 0 alread lose a hull or two.

what do you think would keep this balanced? no evade actions? no reinforce? what are your thoughts?

im thinking it can be set up with quick build, and played in 40 minutes tops.

Play a hundred point list ?

100 pts game, no named pilots, max 1 upgrade card per ship?

Smaller points level of Quickbuilds?

@J1mBob ‘s site www.Infinitearenas.com has quickbuild cards you could print out so you don’t have to do any card setup at all; they’ve got the ship’s stats and abilities as well as upgrades all written out on them. Works great to streamline things for less experienced players who don’t want to invest time into listbuilding, etc.

every hit is a critical

55 minutes ago, Rickwilljames said:

I was thinking on how to make a speed mode. i have some friends that would play xwing, but dont have patience to sit and play for 1+ Hours. I was thinking of playing it so all ships have like 1 less Agility, maybe ships with 0 alread lose a hull or two.

what do you think would keep this balanced? no evade actions? no reinforce? what are your thoughts?

im thinking it can be set up with quick build, and played in 40 minutes tops.

When you start messing with defense without adjusting offense things get broken quickly. An X-wing becoming a slightly worse B-wing is far better than a TIE fighter becoming a Vulture. Lowering the list points or using like 5 threat quick build is a much better solution.

2 hours ago, Rickwilljames said:

i have some friends that would play xwing, but dont have patience to sit and play for 1+ Hours.

what are your thoughts?

Um.

Xwing is not for you tops my list.

Play a couple games of Armada.

After that the quick pace of X-Wing will be refreshing.

A similar problem has been addressed in threads talking about how to introduce the game to new players in a demo-like setting. To summarize what those threads have stated:

* Pre-print quick build cards (infinitearenas.com has a page for either selecting quick build cards to print or printing the whole deck by faction).

* Set a lower points limit. Using quick builds, set it to 3 or 4 points (roughly equivalent to 75-100 point lists).

* Play a fur ball where 3 or 4 players play one ship each. Take your deck of 8 to 10, 3 to 4-point quick build cards, shuffle, and have players draw cards. When their ship explodes, they draw another card and keep playing. Keep track of kills to determine winner, or don’t keep track (depends on the temperament of your play group).

* Ignore printed initiative on the pilots. Instead, have a “first player” token. That player moves first, then the player to that person’s left moves. After the round is done, the token is passed to the left. This solves some of the problems inherent in having a bunch of Init 5 and 6 aces with equal quick build prices on the map, and also adds a neat tactics twist!

(Thanks for the shout-out, @SpiderMana !)

2 hours ago, J1mBob said:

(Thanks for the shout-out, @SpiderMana !)

Any time! It's a great tool!

Increase all attacks by one die. Things will die super fast that way. Beware of arc-dodgers or swarms though!

Play smaller squad sizes. 100-125 (4-5 threat) can be super fun and has really interesting choices.

Set time limits for things like dial setting/action choice. If your games are taking way too long it may be analysis paralysis.

Practice a lot and you'll get faster at playing, too.

Use small ships only:

Give each player 1 named pilot with matching dial and 2 generic wing men of the same ship type

During set-up, increase your deployment zone from range 1 to range 2

Use the new Epic Wing tool (see below) where the leader is the only one who sets a dial and the wing men just move with him\her during the activation step (ships still engage in Initiative order)

Restrict wing-men action options to focus or calculate only

If the Wing Leader is destroyed, any remaining wing men are counted as 1/2 points and instantly flee the battle

Any overlaps (bumps) cause all ships involved to be dealt 1 face up damage card (ignores shields)

Enjoy !

In X-Wing v1, I found that playing with 50 or 75 point squads didn't necessarily make the game shorter. With more points, there are more ships, but the extra attack dice that you can throw will help ships come down quicker.

Fewer points just leads to the endgame where one ship is arc dodging and the other is trying to catch it, and that can take forever.

I'd suggest trying out squads that aren't high-mobility, high-agility ships. It's fun to do damage, so that'll let everybody get some easier hits in (and more fun!) rather than a few TIEs facing off where 1 hit happens every once in a while. Then with the low mobility, your best option isn't to arc dodge, but to K-Turn and face the enemy. Leads to shorter games in my experience.

On 5/16/2019 at 7:09 AM, JohnWE said:

In X-Wing v1, I found that playing with 50 or 75 point squads didn't necessarily make the game shorter. With more points, there are more ships, but the extra attack dice that you can throw will help ships come down quicker.

Fewer points just leads to the endgame where one ship is arc dodging and the other is trying to catch it, and that can take forever.

I'd suggest trying out squads that aren't high-mobility, high-agility ships. It's fun to do damage, so that'll let everybody get some easier hits in (and more fun!) rather than a few TIEs facing off where 1 hit happens every once in a while. Then with the low mobility, your best option isn't to arc dodge, but to K-Turn and face the enemy. Leads to shorter games in my experience.

Very much this. All a smaller point value does is lower the amount of complexity. You still want to bring ~3-4 ships so the actual time taken, damage done and hitpoints to be dealt with don't change all too much.

You could also do "speed mode" just by bringing lists that simply play more quickly

An example of a "slow" list would be double Jedi + double torrent: very positioning heavy and reliant on two very mobile aces that excel at hit + run

A "fast" list would definitely be an alpha strike, ordnance heavy list that plays hard and goes home either with laurels or in a body bag. Jonus bombers are basically the Pinnacle here (in hyperspace), and they can make things even faster by using seismic charges to clear out obstacles that aces like to use for cover and/or to deter slower ships

Note: don't use swarms. They hit hard but there's SO MANY SHIPS which'll take a while

Four bombers move and kill (and die) much more quickly

Strikers are also good in this capacity AND can also carry seismics. Vader Vermeil is another exceptional glass cannon if you can learn to fly a Reaper

I've been runing some demo games to get people interested in the game in my area, mainly friends and such.

I have them play Tie Fighters vs Z95s, no upgrades. 1 or 2 ships max per player. Games are fast and fun, and since they dont know any better, they find it a full experience.

Once we had more time, I ran a second game, all players having a X-Wings (again no upgrades) against a "lean" millenium falcon I flew. Last X-wing managed to down the falcon, still felt like a group achievement. Lots of fun and different from previous battle.

Has worked good so far.

1) If you're playing casual, run half-hour games. The folks I play with, because it's later at night, have a house rule of 65 minutes rather than the typical 75. There's no prohibition on changing the length of time a game takes when you're not in a tournament. We also played half-hour games in tournament testing, since the objective was to figure out our lists' strengths, weaknesses, and openings.

2) Set the victory condition to be first ship destroyed (just don't play Separatists if that's going to be the case ;)). Alternatively, no ships can have shields. Place no shield tokens during setup.

3) I like the furball idea for quick games.

4) Set a limit of one upgrade per ship (of any that it can take; i.e. a ship with a Missile, a Mod, and a Talent gets the choice of one of those three).

5) Use a chess clock or a timer to limit the time moves take. You have one minute per ship to decide, and then let the consequences shake out as they may. Fly off the table? - ship's gone. Bump? - that's a normal game event anyway.

6) Reduce the playing field to 2 x 2 and have only 1/3 of the terrain (1 terrain object each).

There's numerous ways to get creative with the game if you take a few moments to figure out what the actual issue is. Too long? - shorten the game. Too complex? - simplify. Build them up into the full delight the game provides for the rest of us.