Hey all

There has been plenty of discussion lately (a lot of it by me admittedly, but lots of other contributions as well) about gambit, tournament victory points, when the game ends, etc.

There have been lots of things brought up, lots of great ideas. I have personally tried to stay open to feedback and tried to admit when I am in the minority or see strong resistance. I have had my opinion changed or conceded that it's a losing battle on many of the issues (1pt for losing players, 10pt gambit, tournament score superseding record, etc.)

Through it all a clarity has risen to the surface for my own thoughts on the matter.

That is that destroying all of your opponents pieces is the most pure form of the game. It is how the game was always intended to be played, and is bar far the most satisfying finish to the game - win or lose.

It is truly what embodies "engagement". It is the actual definition of finishing a game.

Things like gambit and tournament scoring systems only exist because not all games achieve this before time.

Think about it - if every game had one player destroy all of the other player's pieces before time - gambit and tournament scoring tie breakers wouldn't really be necessary.

Since time limits are a necessary evil for tournaments, to get back to the pure form of the game (while acknowledging strong resistance to certain changes) - I really see only 2 solutions that are reasonably viable.

I'd love to implement them both, but either alone will be an improvement. I will put each in its own separate thread to have their merits considered individually, and not become a muddled mess (lesson learned)

1. 75 minute rounds (90 on vassal). +15 minutes means more games will finish. There seems to be this fear that the exact same number of games won't finish because players will slow down to fill the time. That is simply not true. Will all games finish? Of course not. However - I am willing to bet that 50-75% of the games that wouldn't finish in 60 min will finish in 75 minutes. In the beginning time limit was set at 1hr for 100pt games. With simple interactions and cards not packed full of complex abilities. Now we are at 200pts with some of the most complicated interactions in the history of the game. Save rolls and defender responses have skyrocketed, thus increasing interaction time. Even with the recent drop in the last 3-4 years in number of activations (which I think m most people would agree is good overall), games are sometimes just too complex to finish in 60 minutes when paired against certain other squads.

I know the first response many players will have is: well I play fast. Great! But in general it is also certain squad types and play styles that "play fast". As a player who has done both extremes and everything in between, I can say that it can be fun and freeing to play a run in and smack them up squad that plays fast (such as my 6 character squad I played 2 weeks ago). But I ALSO like to play cagey squads that have a lot of movement and more fragile pieces. So do we invalidate these types of squads? I think that just narrows the meta, which is a bad thing. I recognize it is incumbent on the player to play fast enough to win, but sometimes games innately take longer. When your opponent just keeps literally making every parry save, what do you do? The number of ways negate damage has skyrocketed, thus innately giving the possibility for games to last longer, even with full engagement. This is key. I am not talking about taking 10 minutes to spin one mouse droid. I am not talking about having a 30 activation squad and getting 3 rounds in. I am talking about full engagement from the beginning, 7,8,9+ rounds, and it's not quite finished.

Even though logic would dictate that if it was 1hr for 100pts, then it should be 2 hours for 200pts. (That's not even taking into account how much more complex interactions are now). I think a meager 15 minute time bump will allow a satisfyingly larger number of games to finish.


Now - my guess is that suggestion will send some people into an absolute panic. The thought of extending game time to some people is akin to having their eyelids ripped off. Keep in mind we have also had it brought up recently that some players actually PREFER to have a little break between games. If they finish early, they get a little extra of that which they are requesting. With so many games on vassal now it's also much easier to take that time in your home.

I just thought I'd voice it so that people can put their thoughts in if they agree. I have had it brought up to me, and I felt it deserved discussion on the boards.

Not panicking, btw I do worry about how much time it could add to events, which already tend to run long. But not rejecting it out of hand.

I would assume the obvious caveat that destroying your opponents entire squad before 5 rounds would also be fine, lol.

The question arises of what happens if they don't do 5 rounds in time.

Do they get extra time? if so how much? What if they still aren't there?

Do they get penalized? If so how do you determine which player, or is it automatically both?


It seems like there would have to be a lot addressed, some of which would need a lot more attention from judges/TOs, and that could get tricky quickly.

If you could get more specific on some of those things we could explore it closer.

I’ll have everyone keep track during the tournament on Saturday.

In the vassal regional it looks like there were 9 games in Swiss the went to time. I was not playing in any of those so I idea how many of those were close to finishing.

The other thing to look at (perhaps more relevant to the other thread) is how many of those 3 point wins were solely do to gambit and how many were where they destroyed all their opponent’s pieces (or where a victory was clear and there would be a concession)

I just looked back at my Vassal Regional. Of my 6 games on the table, I won two games fully, another three as 2pt wins (which would have likely been 3pts with another 15 minutes), and lost one as a 2pt games (which again easily would have completed at 90 minutes). Plus, having my first two 2pt wins being 3pt wins would have put me in the Top 8 and probably far higher as I had head-to-head wins against 4th, 5th, and 6th!

On the other discussion (applying gambit score to kill score only after time expires) I am rather neutral; I think there are good points on both sides of the discussion. It's fascinating, actually.

On this discussion, though, I firmly disagree with the change being proposed, and for several reasons:

1. The original 60-minutes-for-100pts scenario was fully arbitrary. It seems that almost all miniatures skirmish games have 60 minute rounds in tournaments. As far as I know, only Armada and Legion tournaments have games that exceed 60 minutes. (Heck, even SkyTear, an awesome new game that I've picked up, which is loaded with complexity, has 60 minute rounds.) The fact that people could take 60 minutes to finish a 100pt game was irrelevant; they didn't need to...they could've taken 90 minutes as well.

2. Certainly, a 200pt game needs more time than a 100pt game. However, that doesn't mean that players need more than 60 minutes to complete a 200pt game. That's because the original WotC timing was more than necessary; a 100pt game does not require 60 minutes. That is, show me any two 100pt WotC squads and get two competent players to play them in a match. I guarantee that it won't require 60 minutes. Therefore, it is inaccurate to say that an average 200pt game necessarily needs more than 60 minutes.

3. Certainly, cards and squads are more complicated now than ever before. However, damage output is also far higher now than ever before. I remember back when Darth Vader JH dominated the game because he could put out a reliable 90dmg on his turn. (Those were also the days when a piece in LOS of your opponent's squad could often survive 2 or 3 rounds of fire.) Now, those same 75pts can get you several pieces that put out far more damage than Vader ever could, and many pieces can eliminate a significant piece from the opposing squad in 1 activation. So yes, the game is more complex...it's also more lethal. More lethal = less durability = more characters dying per round = quicker match resolution. If you don't understand your squad well enough to play it at least moderately quickly, then don't play it in a tournament and also expect to get 3pt wins.

4. There can be no doubt that adding 15 minutes would allow people to finish more games, which would mean that some players would then make the top cut, who wouldn't have made the cut with our current time limit. This is a truism. The other side of that coin is that there are an equal number of players who would no longer make the cut for those same tournaments. The question is, which players are more deserving? I think this is a po-tay-to/po-tah-to distinction, and is therefore irrelevant. Why not make the rounds a full 2 hours long? That way everyone will get full wins! Because it's a tournament; people don't want to spend 8 hours playing 4 games, when those same games can be played in 4 hours.

5. This one is more personal to me, so I don't expect it to hold weight for most other people: I'm almost always finished well before 60 minutes (especially when I play vs Jason!), and I'd rather just get on with the next round sooner rather than later. I signed up to play, not to wait. I've got a family and other things to do. Adding 15 minutes per round would add a full hour to a 4-round tournament. That time is basically down-time, since it's not enough time to do anything productive. Will it keep me from playing? No. But playing with our current time limit won't keep others from playing either.



Btw, my attitude as I write this post is playful and at least partially tongue-in-cheek, so please don't take offense. You're welcome to disagree with me. You'll just be wrong!

I think there is something in this!