It's a good thing you clarified this now.

I was planning to be 8pts short in the first round (100pt) so that I could add 58pts of stuff for the 2nd round (150pt). I thought that's what we could do, since we're adding 50pts to the squad total every round, and we can't change any of the pieces (if we're not upgrading to a more expensive version of one unique piece). But if I can't bank or save some points from one round to make room for something in a later round, then the entire development that I came up with for my squad is worthless.

Ugh. I'll see if I can find something else to play.

I could use the Sith again...but I just played them 5 or 6 times in a row, and another 8-12 games with them doesn't sound nearly as appealing as 8-12 games with another squad entirely.

I just really wish that (if you can't drop any of your characters from 1 squad to another) we had the option to intentionally short our squad at any round because we want the room to make a certain choice in the next round. We wouldn't be gaining any advantage by doing so, but rather the opposite: we'd have a harder battle (sometimes much harder) during the round in which we're playing with 92pts, or 146, or whatever it ends up being.

I think we can make it work if you want to bank up to 10 points if you only put it towards 1 character in the next round. I just wanted to avoid people banking points to give them some more ability to add a counter things. So if you bank 6 points, you would need to spend them on a 56 PT character. I feel that this would be fair. I was worried people might bank 10 points and then add in 10 more points of things in the next round to counter what others are having. I probably was worried over nothing and seeing that many people are wanting to bank more than 1 point, I feel that 10 is a good enough number when combined with the upgrade option. I am going to say however that you can't bank points going into round 4. I would like keep the 175pts at that number for very specific reasons.

This makes no sense and seems needlessly restrictive. What if you want to get two 30pt characters for the next round? or a 25 and a 35pt character? or a 13 and a 45pt character (banking 2pts for the next round)? Not all characters or combinations of characters add up to a specific number (whether 50 or 60 or whatever). This is beginning to look more like a math problem than a SWM event.

Another option, instead of requiring extra points to be put into just 1 character in the next round, would've been to ask people to send in their squads for 100 and 150 (or maybe even 200 also) together, before the tournament begins. That would prevent people from gaming the system to gain an advantage by countering other squads. The thing is, I’m not sure that’s necessary anyway: just about every participant is going to have to carefully pre-plan each of their squads because otherwise they won’t be able to meet the squadbuilding requirements for each round…therefore they won’t have much (if any) room for customization, at all.

Certainly one of the concepts of all time.

I think I can see your point, and I do appreciate the feedback! It does seem a bit restrictive to limit it to 1 mini if you bank up to 10 points, which was actually going against my original plan of being able to bank 1 point. I had originally allowed people to use the 51 pts however they wished. So I feel that your point about allowing multiple minis to be used is a good suggestion. I will update the rules for banking points accordingly.

I would like people to not feel so restrictive in squad building. Sorry for all the confusion.... this format is new and will have some growing pains. I'm just happy people are excited about it and I hope it is fun for people! I've been thinking about this kind of tournament format for years after I heard about other games doing something similar and it working there.

I really appreciate everyone's feedback on this event! It shows people are passionate about the game and want to see something new succeed. Galactic Escalation is like building a car. You start out with a base frame, add a few modifications and then you add some bling on it for the final touch-up and it's all suped up and awesome for the race.

I think it will probably be fine to upgrade into a team piece. I was initially not wanting to have it work that way, but there are few pieces that count towards that, so it probably will be fine. The only thing I will say is that you if you have Chewbacca and Han in your squad, you wouldn't be able to upgrade into the Han and Chewie epic because you would have an extra Chewie or Han in addition to the team piece. However, if you have just one Han or Chewie going into round 4, you can upgrade either of those to get the Epic duo. I won't usually allow going from a duo piece however to a single character piece. It's the intent that you use everything that contributes to a round to carry over to the next. If you can somehow get the duo to be in the next round, it can be allowed if you have both characters represented by their mini's. You could upgrade Luke's land speeder to Luke and Leia on speeder only if you have a rebel Obi wan in that next round. How I will likewise allow a duo to upgrade into a Epic, is that you would need to have the duo character be your second mini in the 175pts you have available. So for example, you couldn't go from Luke's land speeder to Epic Luke if you don't have Obi wan as your second. However, you can use most rebel versions of Obi Wan as your second mini because they mostly fit into the cost difference between Luke's land speeder and Epic Luke being subtracted from the 175pts given. I think there are only a few interactions like this, so hopefully it isn't to confusing. In a nutshell, if you can get all characters to be represented from round to round, I am fine with it. The intent of the format is again to add things and not take away, so I don't want people to take away Obi Wan or Leia or Yoda if they choose to go from the duo piece with Luke into a single version of Luke in the next round.

Outstanding!!!!!

Ready to send my squad in!

Yeah, I'm really excited about it! It's new and innovative, and I wonder if it might even end up being one of those formats that shows up a lot at GenCon and VassalCon (though probably 1 round per point level, for time's sake).