59 Point Cross Faction

Hello fellow X-Wing players, Jon Conley was the one who had this brilliant idea to create this format.  He wanted to run X-Wing tournaments at a game store called Adventurer’s Quarter, which was located in Arvada Colorado.  This game store was a two-man operation, before it disappeared, and the owner did not keep the store open past 10. In other words we needed to be discreet and quick about our tournaments.   I am sure that the rest of you would agree that a standard 100-point tournament is anything but quick or discreet. 

The reasoning behind having 59 points was to keep players from playing a five-ship swarm.  If we had made it 60 points, players could run four TIE Fighters and a Z-95, This would have created a dominating swarm Meta for this game type (who knows what it would do currently).  Instead, we can only field a maximum of four ships, which is a nice balance.  Also, we kept the rounds to a maximum 45 minutes.  Currently, I would bump the time up to 50 because there are so many different ships and upgrades that everyone needs to have more time for setup and to observe the opposing squads upgrades.  Also, instead of the standard six obstacles, we use twelve, and they can be placed anywhere on the board except range one from players edges and range one of other obstacles.  This creates a dense field on the entire board to maneuver your ships through.  Playing with this format definitely taught me how to pilot large base ships in tight situations. 

The game has changed dramatically since the inception of 59 point cross faction, but this format has withstood the test time.  There are tons of interesting combinations that can be explored.  Every time a new wave comes out it is interesting to see what new shenanigans can be had. I run this format almost every other month at The Wizard’s Chest and my players enjoy this because it is entirely different and a nice break from the standard format that everyone plays.  I would love to see this format become a standard staple throughout the rest of the country. 

-Samwise 

Lists: 

59 points max 

Minimum 2 ships from different factions 

All faction restrictions removed from upgrades 

6 obstacles per player – Total 12 

Setup: 

Yellow – player setup zone (range 1 from  

board edge) 

Blue – obstacles, range 1 from each other,  

and not in player setup zone 

Original Article by Jon Conley, Asa Graf, and Samwise Shepic November 14th 2017.