just take a listen and let me know what you think.

you start a tournament with 1 pilot in your squadron that represents you on the battlefield.

he gains experience points for fighting in the battle, hes even if he is shot down (he ejects) but he gets more if he survives.

he then can spend these experience points between rounds to purchase pilot upgrades, including skill increases.

this would mean releasing a whole new deck of pilot upgrade cards for this.

i am going to try an implament this into my own gaming group and see how it goes, but i think it would add some RPG style fun to games

ok, so what do you guys think?

For a tournament? Most likely awful.

It would probably provide me with the incentive to not attend.

i like the concept - i tink it is best suited for a league where ur experience can carry over to later battles and help you customize ur fleet as u go. it would actually work really well for missions i think.

For playing through narrative missions, or perhaps an organised league, yeah sure. But tournaments are generally one day events and players rock up expecting regular rules, not stuff designed from the imagination of the TO.

The main problem with 'gaining experience through a tournament' is this:

• The better/luckier/more competitive/whatever players' ace pilot will probably survive.
• Their opponents' probably won't.
• You therefore have a 'compound interest' effect where the better players' fleets are getting better faster than weaker players' over the course of the day.

Now don't get me wrong; I like the idea of a campaign pack (as opposed to tournament pack) release for X-Wing, where everyone involved starts with a squad of basic dudes and develops their own ace characters over the course of the campaign.

A card deck of 'special character abilities' (if thought through properly) to support a campaign along with a deck of scenario cards would be a great release (pack it in with one imperial and one rebel repaint if you absolutely must have models in the box)

It might not be bad if it were more to the tune of:

Your ship costs a Base X points.

You can pay Y: to gain Pilot Skill

You can pay Z: For things like focus, Target Lock, EPT, and the like.

For a total cost of (X+Y+Z)

Maybe even have Generic abilities printed on cards that you can 'purchase' for your custom pilot.

The problem there (with giving them points values) is that I wouldn't really want them drifting into general play. Customisable heroes are very hard to balance across X ships times Y special abilities..... in a campaign, that's fine but not in "normal" games.

I would like to see it done on cards. One of the big advantages of X-wing is that there's very little book-keeping, and a unit is a unit card plus (maybe) two to three upgrade cards, nicely printed with artwork and all the rules immediately to hand.

I can see something similar in a 'campaign' set - one "Hero" card per squad to be 'you' and maybe one "Wingman" card* to be your buddy. Initially free, with no real advantage, and must be attached to a non-unique pilot (you're developing the story of your character - named pilots have no real place in this!).

The Hero and Wingmen cards let you attach some extra abilities to the fighter they're bolted to - not standard upgrades, but things unique to and linked to the campaign...so, for example:

If your pilots get killed, you can take cards like:

Rookie Replacement.- Rookie's luck (rerolls?) at a cost of pilot skill

Bionic Hand - Some sort of immunity to stress

Near Death Experience - Give you more defence dice as you get closer to being shot down again

Seek Revenge - get free target locks on the guy responsible?

If you got kills

Don't Get Cocky - get some sort of free focus

Learn Quickly or Die - gain an elite pilot talent

Customised Fighter - gain ???? (Some sort of upgrade slot)

etc, etc. You essentially get one new card per game you play in, from a list depending on won/lost, survived/shot down and scored kills/no kills, up to a limit of maybe three cards (more than that gets too many special rules on one guy for this game) - although you can substitute cards based on later games. Essentially the cards build up a 'narrative history' of your pilot's achievements over the course of the campaign.

* You might say that you get one 'wingman' if your 'hero' is in a 20-25 point fighter, two if he's in a <20 point fighter and none if he's in anything more expensive; hence providing a balance if one player wants to take a rookie TIE fighter squad and the other wants to be in an E-wing....

I really like the idea but can't see it working in a tournament. Definitely something i'd give a go among my gaming group though!

well i apreciate the feedback guys.

thanks for the ideas and honesty