See, this really proves the point. Already the mindset is - more engagement, less scrubs.

Looks like a win/win to me

Gambit is great. Let's face it though some pieces are meant to stay in the back. Rightfully so, they are non combatant types.
However, that gives stall tactics a clear advantage. With closed doors and diplomats and cloaked characters etc.
I wish there was a way to reward aggressive play.
I don't know how but thoughts could be
If you kill a commander in the opponents starting area plus 10 gambit.
Or
Every time you kill 3 opponents add 5 to gambit.
So you kill 3 ugnaughts that's 11 gambit.
This would be fun because it can help stop 3 pt piece abuse.

Agreed. Hopefully the opponent would concede or bring out the commanders since there's no advantage of hiding in the back anyway.

From 2015...

670. Scoring and Standings (All Tournament Formats) Victory In all tournament formats, a victory shall be awarded 3 match points to the winner of the match. A victory is declared when the match is completed by one of the players by either destroying his opponent’s entire squad or by scoring the required number of victory points (for example in a 150 point match victory is declared when 150 or more points is scored). A bye for the round is considered a complete game victory and shall be awarded 3 match points.

Gambit promotes interaction. We play first to 200 or 199, 198 or whatever your opponent's squad listed for. We all can think of scenarios to benefit our particular point of view, so this is not a worthy way to decide the question. The fact is, if someone will not engage and wants to out activate and attack late as many players will do, gambit scoring is a way to force them to engage and allow for their opponent a chance to achieve points toward their needed victory total that would not be available otherwise, at least without a suicide run.

Honestly, the system is fine. I have zero interest in being forced to play to kill an entire squad before counting gambit points. Saying that, I have had many games where an opponent hit 200 points before me and if we kept playing, I would have won and even easily as my pieces were often relatively unscathed. I think of Vong squads in particular with recent powerhouse squads being able to smash opponents to pieces while more than 50 points of commanders were in the rear. Only in the end would they emerge and head towards to fray and only if necessary. This is not a desirable interaction and at least gambit offers the opponent a chance to gain points that definitely would not be attainable if playing to the defeat of all enemy characters were required.

Slow play is a much more detrimental factor in our game. If anything, there should be a minimum number of rounds required in the 60 minute time limit. Honestly, if 6 rounds of play in 60 minutes were required, the chances that game scoring would be higher would seem likely to increase -- which would be a good thing.

No it doesn't. It shows they got to the middle first. They may have locked the room and kept their opponent out. They may have forced their opponent into a flanking maneuver. Or they may have set up the kill zone hallway for the enemy to 'willingly' to into to try to get some, any, points they could.

Earning gambit allows for more chance of engagement, but it doesn't guarantee it.




See?

You can win by killing or gaining gambit. The rules allow it, so I'm not faulting the players. We're all playing by the same rules. But I just don't think the current rules promote better games.

I support the thought that games don't end at 200 points by adding gambit after the game finishes or time is called.

But I also strongly believe scaling gambit back will promote engagement and not an alternate win.




That was the mentality of Nascar fans until a few years ago. Then Nascar changed the system. Fans bashed the idea before the season started. Then they saw it action. Huh. Races got more interesting by rewarding drivers for winning rather than consistent, safe wins. The product got better because they have incentivized 'the type of game they want to have played.'




See post #5 in this thread for some options. That guy is a genius.

Another idea I'll throw out to ya'll -

Gambit is not earned if both players are in gambit.

The purpose of gambit has been achieved, so it is not necessary in that case.

It then becomes only something to prevent someone from not coming forward.

Interesting. On first glance think I like this option more than the other (about continuing until the entire squad is destroyed). That would prevent gambit points from artificially finishing games before combat has concluded (ie, all combatants defeated). And then when you have defeated your opponent’s attackers, gambit would kick in again because you’d be the only player scoring gambit.

And for clarification, in order for a piece to be counted as “in gambit,” that piece must be able to actually score gambit (that is, 10+ pts and not a reinforcement).

That's kind of along the lines of one of the options I suggested. (If you're engaging, neither side earns gambit. But my definition of engaging allowed for more than sitting in the center.)

Would we also consider expanding the gambit zone? The middle 'plus sign' (within four squares) is pretty restrictive. I'd like to see that open up.

I think we may be on the right track

I actually like this ides quite s bit. J and I actually (coincidentally), just finished a game where we kept track of gambit both ways. The only thing that changed was that the losing player had a harder time getting to 100 points (it took an extra round). The winner was still clearly the winner, no matter how we added up the gambit. I don't know that that changes anyone's opinion of the idea, but thought I would put the data point out there.