Gaming & Guinness X-Wing

In just a few days I'll join a select group of friends for Gaming & Guinness X, and appropriately enough, one of the marquee games this year will be X-Wing Miniatures Game. (Atypically, I did not deliberately coordinate the pun when I suggested X-Wing for this tenth anniversary event.)

Since only a couple of us have played the game before, I figured I'd point the guys to this tutorial video. Even using the advanced rules, the game goes by quickly and easily.

Still, a nine-player game could get a little hairy. A little research reveals that the easiest way to accommodate this number of players is to give everyone 35 points to build a single ship, and then it's every man for himself. While that might be amusing, it's lacking the good-vs-evil simplicity and flair of the original films. I suppose the 35-point method works just as well if we have one team of five and one of four, one side the Rebels, one side the Empire. Perhaps the side with one less player gets an extra 35 points for upgrades to one of their ships...? Yes, seems reasonable.