My FLGS is having our annual demo day this Saturday and I get to run x-wing. What I want to do is run a 4 person furball for the demos. What I am having trouble with is what ships to put in to make it interesting but not complicated. I would like to have 2 rebel ships and at least 2 imperial. I was thinking one person could get 2 ties and then the other one gets either an interceptor or an advanced.

What ships/pilots would you suggest to make it reasonably fair and fun? Remember fun is more important then perfectly balanced.

Use generic ships, while adding a single named pilot for both sides, Darth Vader an obvious choice for the Imps. This way, no upgrades are used, no fuss over trying to remember effects, except that 'one special ship'.

For really casual play with first timers this is what I did (and I have never run a demo before). I ran a "2 on 2" game with a Father and son opposite each other. The Dad had Luke and the kid had Vader so it was kind of fun and there were no upgrades involved, ships picked purely for asthetics because they were in "the movie". The next week we had a "4 on 4" with X wings vs TIE fighters, players just picked a a random assortment of TIE Fighters so most are generics with a chance of a named pilot. We got Howlrunner and Backstabber with an Obsidian and Academy for example vs Wedge, Biggs and a Red and Rookie. The points didn't come into it, we allowed kids to pick their pilots. If you died you came back with a new pick. I lost 2 TIEs that were "one shotted" and in the end about 5 TIEs down vs 2 X wings and a Y wing. Game limited to about 1 1/2 to 2 hours and everyone had fun.

My first demo i did at our lgs i hade premade squads, but the rules are so simple in this game i quickly found people enjoy building there own squads more in 15 mins, so i would run 50 pt can have a binder with all the cards. Then using the giant sized boba/han card id explain pilot skill, stats, action bars ect all in 5 mins.

People picked it up fast, built a squad, i slapped together one really quick from whatever side they did not choose, or if there were multiple people wed do teams. Then play and have a ton of fun.

I've never done a store demo or anything, but when I've taught people I've used the suggested starting squads in the rulebook- Luke vs Night Beast and an Obsidian. Works fine, introduces them to most of the game aspects, and goes fast. I guess this wouldn't work as well for you since it can only teach one other person at a time, though :\.

I want it to be at least 4 players. We are going to be running through probably 50 people in about 4 hours. I was thinking Luke and Tycho and Vader and Phennir. That way every player gets a named pilot and a cool ability. Might stick R2 with Luke though.