Can anyone post what the winning fleet was?  Other top fleets?  I only had enough room in my budget this weekend to pick up the core set, a Y-wing, and a TIE Advanced, so knowing what strategies are working could help direct future spending.  I've realized that I can build an 80 point fleet with just the X-Wing and Y-Wing, but I'm thinking that going that big on two ships (which would end up with a vanilla X-Wing or Y-Wing as the only other ship I could add and stay under 100 points) is not the ideal strategy.

I know the guy who won was running 1 Y-wing and 3 X-wings.  I forget exactly which pilots and upgrades.

As for myself, I actually threw my squad together 15 minutes before the tourney started.  After 4 rounds of Swiss, I finished 5th at 3-1 with 13 points.  JUST missed the cut to Top 4 due to a partial victory in Round 1 instead of a total victory, which was a bummer because my tie-breaker would have put me at the 2nd seed, as I recall.  This is what I was running:

• Darth Vader, TIE Advanced - Determination and Concussion Missiles
• Storm Squadron Pilot, TIE Advanced - Concussion Missiles
• Howlrunner, TIE Fighter - Expert Handling
• Mauler Mithel, TIE Fighter - Expert Handling

I realized not long into the tourney that, despite their relatively higher initiative values, Expert Handling wasn't great on Howlrunner or Mauler Mithel, as most pilots who could Target Lock them would move after them.  I think I used Expert Handling a grand total of once.  If I'd had time to really think about it, I'd have come to the conclusion that most people wouldn't have enough minis to run Rebel swarm, so any competitive Rebel squad would have high initiative pilots like Luke and Wedge.  And I think I was the only person running more than 1 TIE Advanced, so….didn't get a lot of return against Imperial squads either.

I can't say if Determination was a great pick or not for Vader.  No one really targeted him a lot during the tourney.  He's one tough SOB.

I've got some co-workers interested in trying the game, so I'll be experimenting with some various squads over the next few weeks.

 Hey guys. Was just wondering how long each game lasted roughly? Were they played to a certain turn number, or last man standing? 

Thanks!

I heard they lasted anywhere between 45 and 90 minutes from a FFG staff.

I was fortunate enough to be the tournament champion, and though I might be bias… I had a blast.  Just about everyone I played against had a great attitude and seemed to be there for the right reason… to play a great game and have a good time doing it.

As for my fleet list, it consisted of the following:

Luke Skywalker (Xwing) with R2D2
Garven Dries (Xwing) with R2 Astromech (?? without my cards in front of my I think this is right, its the one that treats all 1 and 2 turns to green)
Rookie Pilot (Xwing) with R5 Astromech (?? the one that allows SHIP criticals to be turned to normal hits)
Gold Squadron Pilot (Ywing) with R5 Astromech (?? the one that allows SHIP criticals to be turned to normal hits)

My strategy in the fleet build was "as many ships as possible".  I knew that the Imperial Fleets would have a lot of numbers and in the 1.5 games I got in before the tournament (playing late into Thursday night) it seemed that more ships was superior to more upgrades (except R2D2, he is a must have) in dealing with it.  The Xwings were my attack ships and the Ywing was my bait and damage sponge (as there were no points to allow an Ion cannon, though if the tournament allowed 105 points it would have been my next upgrade).

I won't give away my general in game strategy, but in the championship round it was called "Kill Vader"!

Hope that helps, I think I will be writing a summary article for Fantasy Flight Games… so more to come.

And because I can't resist…

"May the Force be with you!"

 Any body at the tourny have a some recaps on how the battles actually turned out, maybe even pics with recaps?  Thanks

 I used this force in the tournament (scored 8 points):

Vader with concussion missiles and squad leader

Stele with cluster missiles and marksmanship

Dark Curse

Winged Gundark

Warklaw said:

Congrats on the win.  Welcome to the SWXM Hall of Fame!  

Yeah, Warklaw is like our IRL Wedge.

Agrivar said:

There's already a built-in negative to taking fire from multiple attackers in the form of how you spend the tokens you get from your action(s).  If you burn your evasion or focus token(s) defending against the first shooter, you won't have them to defend against the second.  And some pilot abilities and upgrades seem to help benefit moving and attacking together. So no need to house rule anything.

-DavicusPrime