One of the best things about playing a huge 500 p.t squad is all the synergy possible between SA's & CE's.
Therefore I'm against any limit of CE's in epic 500, or any other format

I respectfully disagree, and here's why. I don't think restricting commanders effects engenders creative squad building per se, I think it just restricts squad building. I understand that a restriction in and of itself causes people to think a little differently when building a squad (which is good) but the 500 format already has 2 restrictions: you need at least 1 Epic, and a max of 16 activations and I find those to be effective enough without adding a CE restriction. Let's use Captain Rex for example. He's a good cheap Republic shooter who can easily be used effectively without using his commander effect. In a tourny with a CE restriction he won't be used though since he uses up 1 of those 3 slots. Now, I guess one could argue that that could be a good thing since Rex is popular enough already, so people are forced to use other pieces, but it also makes it difficult, if not impossible to use order 66 characters effectively in the 500 point format, thus negating the usage of a lot of Republic pieces.

Going back to the other restrictions, neither one of those overly adversely affects a faction, but the CE one does, again with the IMPs, Rebels, etc. as examples. Yes, the 16 activation limit affects what kind of squads work best, since out activating your opponent isn't an option, but it doesn't cause a restriction in which pieces one can use.

Personally, even though the the OR and Vong have made strong showings in the format, I still think there's too little data to show that CEs need to be restricted. I think making a specific 500 pt map list by Gencon would be best, and then see what happens and interpret those results. And then from there the community could reach a consensus as the what the observed rules and restrictions of the format are.

actually mando conscription in my opinion is more powerful because many of the mando commander effects require you to be a mando. In OR only a few require you to be OR , and yes his is one but that was put that way by design i am sure.

I agree that Mando Conscription effects it's faction more than OR does, but Mandos are hardly tearing up the Epic 500 format. It's Hoth's SA and CE combined w/top shelf Acc shooters that makes them so good. Take away OR Conscription, and Mandos might have a chance. BTW, OR would still be very good w/Mira/Jaq/Onasi still able to benefit.

This makes a lot of sense to me... I've been intrigued with the idea since you first started talking about it. Have you given any thought as to which maps you'd put on that list?

Exactly how many players considered some of the top in the game were playing in this event? How many of the squads were tweaked to perfection and played nearly perfectly?

I'm sorry, one event does not make a trend. You all may well be right, but it's far to early to tell. 14 players, 8 of which probably couldn't beat Trever on a bad day doesn't mean a whole lot to me. Heck, even though a few Vong squads were played, they didn't hit on what I consider the best of the Vong, nor were they played particularly well. They weren't designed with Hoth in mind for some reason (which I cannot fathom because it should be obvious to a Vong player that Nom is well worth the points against Hoth/Bastilla).

As to the others, even if we are seeing the top dog, at this point at best it can only be counted as the gatekeeper. You are not seeing the meta. The meta develops around the gatekeeper once many people start seeing the gatekeeper and building accordingly. Let's see what happens when good players start building to beat OR.

As for the map discussion, I certainly agree that 500 could have its own list, but tell me, who is going to do the testing for a fun format? I know our volunteers are pretty tapped out. So if you want to go through the work Brad does for the 200 list, be my guest. Understand what you are getting into though. You have a nearly limitless set of squads to deal with, and an endless amount of issues.

As for Bastilla, I'm quite amazed no one has figured out the easiest way to beat her. How many Lancers can I fit in 500pts? All you have to do is hit her once, and it's shut down. And guess what, they get there faster than Boba swapping with Zuckuss. Yoda on Kybuck anyone?

On Gamers someone mentioned using Mara, which Trever then claimed would just cost them Mara. No it wouldn't. You time it right. Mara assaults Bastilla, ends her, and the rest of the squad hits the rest. It's a good strategy and one of the ways the NR can win. Point is, there is a lot more out there that people haven't found yet in 500pts. Keep playing and see what you find. You might have to start building squads differently than you have before....

I don't mean to be so negative towards the effort here Jim, I really don't. But I think we've missed the prize here. 500 isn't ever going to be a standard competitive format. It's a fun format. Sure, we are running a 500pt event at Gencon. But is it going to top Tile Wars in terms of competitiveness? Doubt it. And its not meant to.

I'm seeing people view this with far too small of a lens, one they've gotten used to using for 200 or 150. Not with the literally 1000 options available to 500pts. I'm confident people will solve the OR.

With that said, Dennis' rules were balanced for the format a couple of years ago. He did more testing with it than I think anyone can claim from what we've seen and came up with 500pts, 3 CEs, 16 acts. I think playing it wide open is fine, but it isn't going to ever be balanced.

I agree with you completely on this, Bill. Further, the Epics were never tested when designed with the intent of playing them in a skirmish game. I think I mentioned this in an interview on SWMiniverse back in December... we're in relatively uncharted waters here.

We need to have some sort of standard format, though, if we're going to make it an event played at GenCon. In that interview back in December I advocated patience. The fact that this is intended as a fun format means that we really shouldn't pour too much time and energy into it when there are more important things we can be doing for the game in general. However some discussion about how to achieve balance can't hurt.

It looks as though the general public wants to go a different direction with this than I'd hoped. Since it is a fun format, that's ok with me. Also, since some of my opinions have been formed from observations of tournament results I've been directly involved in, I'll admit (and already have) that some of my concerns could be just local meta issues.

Being new to the scene, and not being able to only speak for the attendance on Sunday, I'd say that Ian and Trevor would certainly count among that number. And I hear there are some players showing promise out there.
It may be safe to say there was a lot of field tests being done. Again, I can't personally vouch for Saturday.


You are right in saying, "one swallow does not a summer make." One event is a part of the trend, though. And as Hinkbert and Nader state, as the sample size gets bigger, we'll be able to gain clarity.


Forgive me if I seem out of line, but I take this statement to be elitist. I know that fun was had by all and, let's face it, isn't this what the fledgling SWMGPA wants at the heart of the deal? A bunch of propeller heads (and their kind, supportive wives), some healthy competition and good times? I'm not saying that when we sit down, we're not in it to win it. 'Cause hey, I want that Force FX Lightsaber in the worst way and I'm going pwn up some n00bs to get it. But when the dust settles and the victor is decided, I expect that I'm buying a round at the nearest cantina.
We want to keep the game alive and this means accepting new blood that could become contenders. Besides, if current top tier players can't make every event, then why do we have these periphery events?


Post script: in keeping with the topic, I can agree that building into the 5+ CE range is a bit much. All that buffing is shenanigans.

You can if you want, it's not. (And you aren't out of line to ask it either). Might look like it in some ways, but it's actually simply a statement of fact. If we are to take game results and try to isolate variables to simply look at squad balance alone, then you have to be able to remove player skill at least to some degree to have usable data. The facts are this, Trevor is a Hall of Famer (as of this week :)), he's also a long time great player. He didn't start playing in the last 2 years. It's not insulting to say that half of the field isn't in his ball park. If they were, you'd have far and away the greatest group of players in one area in the world that has existed for the entire life of the game, and it would be 2 to 1 better than the best we have ever had.

That simply isn't likely. Our most competitive regionals don't even hit that kind of a mark. And even then, quite often outside of Gencon, many of the "great players" don't play their best squads. I played 2 totally fun squads both for the first time last year at regionals. That's a fact, and I'm not the only one that does it. And that was at regional events that included more than 4 Hofers at both.

Now, all of this isn't to say that the data we have from these events isn't useful. It most certainly is. But I wanted to give out some of the other relevant information in making decisions. We aren't here to tweak 500 Epic to a competitive format, and we cannot do so from even 5-8 locally run events. What we can do is follow trends over time and see what people do with it. This type of information is very useful for that effect (didn't mean to make it appear as if I wasn't interested in it). What Jim's been doing for us is incredibly useful. But we aren't going to overreact to it either.

Also, I do count Trevor and Ian as players from the top of the game. What I said was that like it or not, a good deal of your field (as I would any local field in the country) do not.

Let me make a relevant comparison for you from my area. I live near Chicago. The group we get together for a big event includes Michigan (4 Hofers who at times can all come), Northern Illinois (4 Hofers who can usually attend), Wisconsin (0 Hofers, but some good players) and 1 from Indiana (Hofer). Further, we've had several other Hofers visit us at times from way out of the area. In addition, we have other guys who have finished in the top 16 at Gencon and won several large events over the years. Even with that, at absolute most, we'd have 10 guys out of 20+ that I would consider at or near the top of the game. Further, at even our regionals, at least half of that group of 10, won't be playing their best squads on the same day. So at absolute best, in perhaps the most competitive area in the country, we will have 4-5 players at an event running their best squads, in the most competitive way.

And 4-5 squads/players does not tell you about faction balance. It can tell you about very limited individual matchups, but it cannot be used to make changes to a format.

Case in point. Last year at Wisconsin, I ran Cad/Joruus swapping with Palleon. I'd never played it before, not even in a practice game. I went 3-2, and tied for 4th place. One loss came to TimmerB, who won the event, running a version of the same squad he won another regional already with (double Lancer/San/Whorm/MTB/Poggle Bombs). I lost, but I could have won it. Had a good strategy in how to counter this match up in mind before the event.

What I did was used Palleon to drop Joruus for Anakin. I then had a choice in the match that even with my extensive experience I wasn't sure how to handle. I had set up a way to run 14, and swap in Cad to either kill a lancer or kill the IG-86. I decided to kill the lancer, as I wasn't sure I'd get another shot before Cad was wiped out. I already had the other lancer down to 10, this was an unhit lancer.

I immediately recognized that I had made a mistake however after doing it, and should have tried to take out the IG. Vader had the power to take out both lancers without dying, but not the IG.

So point is, even with two HoFers playing each other with strong squads, you cannot take results at face value. You have to evaluate what actually happened in a game, not just which faction won, or which faction was most prevalent. Results have to be viewed at on a much deeper level before changes can be made to a format. We are not there yet, not nearly there yet IMO. That was my central point. It was not at all meant to be an elitist comment. I did not see perfection or near perfection in those tournament results. And without it, it's very hard to see accurately the balance or imbalance.