A friend of mine is looking at running a charity X-Wing event at our FLGS, and is considering using the Escalation rules for an alternative to the standard 200 point dogfight format. Has anyone run an event using the Escalation rules from the 2nd Edition core rulebook, and if so, how did you find it?

I've got a few specific queries:

• How long did you allow for each round? In my experience Escalation takes a little bit longer to play than a standard 200 point game. This is going to be a casual event so I'm not expecting people to be clock watching to win, but the event will be restricted by the store's opening times. (Probably looking at an 11 AM to 5 PM sort of timeframe for actually playing games, to allow a bit of time either side for setup and takedown.)
• Did you use the standard "start and Threat Level 4, win once you've destroyed 8 Threat worth of ships", or did you adjust from there?
• Did you have everyone build a set list of Quick Builds they'd be choosing from, or did you give them free choice from all of the Quick Build options for their faction when choosing new ships?

This is intended as a casual for fun charity event, so doesn't need to be the most robust tournament system ever, but I thought it was worth seeing if anyone had tried this yet, and if there was anything to do or avoid in the Escalation format.

I'm afraid I can't answer any of those since we've not played much quick build (I envy you as it's really good fun) but I would also flag up one more question you should really have your TO decide before the day:

• Where a quick build card gives a player multiple ships for a single cost (e.g. Alpha Squadron Pilot at 3 threat for 2 ships), when does the player bring on replacements? When the first ship is killed or when both have been killed? What threat is the card worth if only 1 has been killed when the game time expires?

Good questions, thanks for that!