One of the topics discussed on the Sith Holonews Network tonight was slowplay. Frostycon saw a lot of games go to time. We talked about some of the possible reasons that it happened, but then questioned how we avoid a trend of more games going to time moving forward. As the regional season looms on the horizon, what can we do to have more complete games? I'll start the ball rolling with a few observations, but I'd like to hear what the community thinks.

Know your squad: While it's not unusual to ask your opponent to show you the card of a piece you've not seen played very much, how often do you catch yourself looking at your own cards during play? One way I see to speed up your own play is to know your squad. You should know the stats, of course, but also know the role that each piece plays in your squad. Sometimes the same piece will play differently depending on the squad that it is in. Not knowing the very best way to play a piece not only robs you of possible synergy and squad strength, but you'll naturally play more deliberately. Why is he in there? Should he be exposed to attack? Is he an early round spin or maybe a late round swap piece? Know the strategic answers to all of the questions you could bring up about the pieces in your squad, and you'll shave a lot of time off of mid-round deliberations.

Just like some players naturally play faster than others - some SQUADS play faster than others. You have to know what type of squad you have.

More activations take more time. You may hear the argument that number of activations doesn't change how fast the squad plays, but this is wrong. It does take longer, and therefore if you play high activations, you must consciously play faster.

Typically squads with mass killers (galloping attack, strafe, blaster barrage, furious assault, Kaan Bomb, unleash the force, etc) play faster - though there are exceptions. The typical high activation single lancer squad can take a very long time to play the first few rounds. Counting out different routes for 72 squares can take quite a lot of time. (Pawn, lancer, auto win init with MTB and lancer again) - BUT - it SHOULD make up the difference by killing enough to balance out the time. In other words, there are typically less rounds in Lancer games. It's an unfair assessment in such squads to simply time one round, but you must be able to finish games in order to not have that come into play in the judges eyes.

Melee also tends to be faster than non-melee believe it or not. Melee HAS to engage, so win or lose action is going to happen.

Mobile/stealth/cloaked shooter squads, especially ones without major movement breakers (ie thrawn) tend to play the slowest. Especially high activation squads of these types. Mandos and Rebels tend to be these types of squads.

And of course when these squads face each other, then it's a real cagey match which is hard to finish.

Similar number of activations and similar squads can actually create a standoff sort of situation as well, and make games hard to finish.

Now don't get me wrong, I am not saying that all shooter and or rebel/mando squads are slow and cannot earn 3 pt wins. They can - but the player may have to play that much faster.


So analyze if you are innately a faster player or not. If not - think about the squad type you are using. Try more Melee, and/or less activaions. If you must play high activations, include a mass killer or a large movement breaker to get to key pieces fast. Regardless, learn to play your squad very fast, to make up for the times you may be playing a slower player.


Full disclosure - I innately am not a faster player. In fact I enjoy the game much more when I can finish a full game at leisure, with both myself and my opponents getting to make their best move. When I play casually, I will take a game to conclusion and not care about time. But that doesn't work at tournaments. I had to accept that other people don't like to play this way. They don't enjoy the "chess match" games. Some certainly still do, but we as a community have moved to make competitive play fit into an hour, whether or not the game really lends itself to that anymore (which I think that it does not, but that is a different conversation).

So about 3 or 4 years ago I had to try and consciously make the transition to finishing games in tournaments. It took some effort, and I am still not perfect, but I certainly finish far more than I don't now. A big part of that was squad building. I really feel like there are some strong squads out there, that just don't play fast enough to get consistent 3 pt wins. IG-86 swarms, Mando death-shot scouts, Weir storm commandos (without a speeder) are some to name a few. Rock solid tough, but so hard to get 3 pt wins with them unless you are playing noobs or facing mostly melee that has to throw themselves at you. So I was very thorough in my squad building to build squads that can play faster. It became a requirement and very early assessment point on if I would play a squad. Stealth N Blue has the big mass killer in Arica with her sniper twin blaster barrage. Thrawn helps her get in place and usually get at lest 2 off (end of round and beginning of next round). Then you have Cad Bane to finish off the big guys. The downside is that they are both squishy, so you still have to play it cagey. My Sith squad "Jaqed Up!" uses the big movement breaker of Reven to get Kaan in place for the mass killer bomb, and has Jaq shooting for up to 100 damage to kill bigger stuff. Reven is sweet sweet cleanup. Just a couple of examples of being cognizant of how I am going to kill lots of figures. Having one or two big dudes that can lay down 120-200 damage on 1 or enemies if great if you face that type of squad. But what do you do when you face a swarm? Some people will play high activations, and you may have to face them. If you can only realistically kill 1-2 figures a round, how are you gonna kill all 25 activations on that high activation squad? Knowing WHAT to do against any type of squad sure speeds things up. My rebel squad I played this weekend didn't play fast enough for me, and I won't play it again. It didn't help facing nearly all other mobile/stealth/cloaked shooter squads, but that is something that is out of my control and you have to prepare for.

So that is my long winded bit of advice simplified: It starts even before "knowing you squad". It starts when you build it. Build it to play fast.

IE, "scream and leap".

This topic does the rounds every now and again and while a lot of the advice above is worth adhering sometimes its just the tactics that prevent games going to time.

If an opponent doesn't give you anything and is playing defensively then often its not worth your while engaging. It can cause stalemates but other than losing outright what other choice to you have?

If an opponent brings a map/squad your not prepared against (which is much more common these days with the choice at the top) then that can mess with your thought process and retard play.


At some point you have to realize that often the game itself doesn't adhere well to an hour.
If you assume a phase every 30 seconds and people are playing 15 to 22 activations with tempo control you're looking at a 20 minute round, that's 4 rounds an hour not including the difficult phases that will take longer.

Republic and sith squads are fine generally. Its usually kill or be killed, lots of easy to play and field mass killers and speed out the wazoo. Round or two of set up and then smash.
OR are also pretty good with no tempo control and good power (also a way to reduce opponents tempo control) which can speed games up.
NR are pretty good because the tempo control tends to be used as a set up to throw a nuke of some kind at the opponent.

Mando's and Vong suffer with lack of movement breaking and so need to wait for the opponent to give them things. Its a slow process and cagey. Hopefully vset 5 might address the issue further with what Vset 4 started.

Separatist squads (top of the top tier at the moment) are often irritating to play against because they tend to sit behind mass tempo control with a mass killer lancer. Playing against it often gives people brain freeze (at least with me it does) and you have to play overly cautious to avoid getting wrecked. This can make for some slow paced rounds that you can't really pin on the guy who's trying to deal with the prospect of getting 50% of his squad wiped with a single bad move.

Imps play similar but they don't really have a mass killer other than Arica and less effective spamming of cheap units make them less of pain. But still they play with generally weaker pieces that over-reach and so must play carefully with caution. As such, games can take time to develop.

Rebels are like imps without a swap. Lots of pieces, fairly fragile but decent power, no real mass killers. However, they are probably more reliant on Tempo control than any other faction because of their fragility even though they probably don't use it as well as the Seps because they don't have such a reach. They do have some tanks but they are generally not their best pieces.

Perhaps these are some things to think about when designing in future.