Only award a 1 point loss for 100 points of actual kills?

I really think we cannot adopt both the 10pt gambit and the 3/2/1 system at once. They both will have an impact and combined it may really be too much.

We may actually find that the second one of the 2 becomes superfluous when you add the first, or that the change to the dynamic at that point would be minor in comparison.

+1

I don't know if both would be too much. Our community wants real changes to competitive gameplay.
It surprises me how often that subject comes up when speaking to current and former swm players.

Sadly, im not sure the 3/2/1 system would require a change in playstyle for some people or help all games conclude faster.
Players (winners and losers) could still continue to fall back on old tricks of high activation, retreating, stalling and lockouts tactics.
Those are inherent aspects of the game, clever or dishonorable, that were intended to be mitigated by gambit as introduced by the origional wotc design team in 2005.

Perhaps after a season using 10pt gambit and tracking player's victory points, we'd have enough data to see how a 3/2/1 scoring system would work with it.

Not so. It could easily happen.

Player A - 3-1, with two 2-pt wins, a 3-pt win, and a 0-pt loss (and beat player B) = 7pts
Player B - 2-2 with two 3-pt wins, and two 1-pt losses (and lost to player A) = 8 pts

Player B goes to the top 4, player B sits and wonders why the sysytem is so screwed up.

I'm sorry, but a better record and winning head-to-head should always place you above someone else in my opinion.

I know it's already true that it is possible, but it's in an extreme case, and I am fine with it in that case.

3-2-1 would allow it to happen much more often.


I do want to encourage more engagement, but I don't think this accomplishes that goal. I think 10 point gambit is a much better way to do it. Effect each game directly, not tournament structure.

I think that's part of the difference. You see a 4-0 player with 8 points being behind a 3-1 player with 9 points as a rare, unfortunate side effect of the 3-2 system; a necessary evil of sorts. Others (myself included) see it as an awesome feature that does a better job of ranking players by the skills we wish to rank them on (not just winning games, but winning them convincingly, quickly, and with sufficient interaction).

No, that's not the way I see it. It is rare (I don't actually recall it happening, and if it has it is seldom) - but not an unfortunate side effect. I see it as appropriate, since 4 two point wins is a pattern, as is 3 three point wins. I am also fine with 3 point vs two point wins breaking a tie between opponents with the same record. But I do not think a couple 3 point wins or a couple 2 point wins makes a pattern. Therefore I would always rank a 3-1 who beat a 2-2 higher than that 2-2. Where as the 3-2-1 system allows space for that not to happen.

I see the issues that everyone is talking about are due to several factors, but in my opinion, tournament structure is not to blame. Inherent unavoidable game mechanics, overpowered/undercosted pieces, varying playstyles, all contribute. The tournament system is not to blame though. So I don't see the need to change a system that is working well.

what people want, and have always wanted, is engagement and games to finish. They don't want to be locked out, they don't want to be killed without having some chance at rolling dice and they don't want to watch the other opponent take ages over their turns so that at the end of the game you've played for 20% of the time and the opponent 80%.

That's been the core issue of all the rule changes in the tournament scoring, AFAIAC.

I just don't think that a significant amount of games are conducive to being finished in an hour. Whereas i tend to reject the overall rock/paper/scissors paradigm that gets thrown around in the game i've used it here as a generality of how i figure games to go in the different matchup based on my experience.


Rock V Rock - no problem, generally low activation squads, probably comes down to an init and then a snowball death

Rock v paper - bad match up, probably finished in an hour as the rock crumbles being unable to catch the paper.

Rock V Scissors - probably doesn't finish as the scissors attempts to stay away from the rock strength while the rock mops what it can. Rocks lower activations makes it hard to get at all the activation in the scissor squad. Scissors probably doesn't have enough oompf to take out the Rocks core and so needs to win on points. Lock outs are common victory paths for the scissors.

scissors v Paper - Slower game due to increased activations on both sides. Both sides will have a bunch and will be well aware of the penalties of making a poor move. Advancement is slow and cautious as is the overall game.

Paper v Paper - slightly faster because the cheaper pieces do damage and can be sacrificed without a huge loss. Engagement is early and often as a result but generally too many activations to finish in an hour, especially with many figs on the back row as non or poor combatants.

scissors v Scissors - sleeping bag time. Loads of activations with one or two big hitters that are very cautious to engage. Plays very much like scissors v paper but the penalties for poor movement really drags the speed down (lots of counting, disengaging, spinning and retreating).



The most favored squad type is Rock. A few heros with some tech, lower activation. Its what new people play because you're more likely to have named figures on it and it isn't a headache to pilot. They promote fast games, lots of die rolling and duels everyone has fun.
Scissors and paper are generally less favored but they've almost always been stronger. Activation advantage is huge and both those styles generally have a lot or incredible range and methods of dealing with a lot of activations against them.

Now that the current gatekeeper activation is about 26, this bodes very poorly for rock squads and thus for the speed of the game.

From the NZ tourney it was mainly rock/paper. Rock v rock and rock v paper finished, paper v paper generally struggled to.

There is only so much the victory conditions can do. A massive part of the tourney outcomes is design ramifications.

To summarize, i think you can mess with the tourney victory conditions ad infinitum but core aspects of the game will always dictate how it plays.