I'm wondering what the general opinion on the MTB in competitive 150 play. The poll question is assuming that you are using LOBOT to bring him in, and won't bring him against San or Han Rogue squads (so you won't need a way to kill him first turn).

What is better generally in 150 play - Bringing more activations/fodder or having a way to kill the Muun Tactics Broker if things go bad?

You've got to have something to kill him off with. There's way too many ways for your opponent to continually run around the board stalling, and just killing off your low-end pieces. And if I play against you, and I'm playing fast (so that you MTB more of your own pieces) and you're intentionally stalling to try and win by going to time, you can bet I'd call a judge in a competitive environment. I would play fast, and kill as much fodder as possible, to force you to start offing your big hitters.

Pretty simple actually. Opponent only needs to get 2 rounds of gambit, and unless you kill every piece on his squad, you're pretty much guaranteed to lose.

Um, both of the above....

LOL, that was my though - both.

I would hazard a guess that I can stall for the time limit if needed once the activation fodder dies off. I would only take MTB through Lobot, but after 5 or so rounds, I could really start slow playing if needed.

Best would be to play over 10 activations and slow play the whole game from the start.

In 150 you will almost always need a way to kill the MTB off, unless your activations are so high you can last an entire game (10+ rounds) without saccing a good mini.

Yeah, but can you: A) do that without ticking off the opponent, and B) can you do it in such a way that a judge wouldn't penalize you for playing slow?

That's what I was getting at earlier. If I see my opponent brings an MTB with no way to kill it off, I'm going to play as fast as possible. I can play 3 minute rounds just fine. At GenCon, several of my games finished before time was called, and almost every one of them went to 9 or 10 rounds. Imagine how many rounds that would be if I was playing even faster.

So between fast playing, and shooting your fodder, and then calling the judge over to make sure you're not stalling....I don't think there's any way a person could consistently win that way.

You can do a *lot* to slow down the game. Ask for one random ruling, or call for a LOS measurement after a die has been cast. Recount squares, etc. If the army had 10-15 activations then that is up to 8-13 rounds of 'I am going to move here.... no wait here' or 'Wait, I don't think you can see me there', or 'I need to ask the judge if I can do this... no no I need him to decide you know, just to be fair', etc. Unscrupulous, sure. But I think I could prolong my turns for a LONG time.

And if you do those things, I will ask the Judge to remain standing over our game because I suspect that you are intentionally trying to stall. It's quite simple to look at someone's build and say "Look, this player has a squad that if the game goes on long enough, he either has to defeat my entire squad, or he will be forced to kill off his own pieces. I believe he is trying to slow down the game to make sure he doesn't have to kill off his own stuff."

All I'm saying, is that even with San Hill, who most people say it takes longer to play games with San squads than some other typical squads, I finished almost every single game at GenCon before time was called. Come to think of it, one of the only ones I didn't finish before time was called was the game against the guy with 40 pieces (Ewok swarm).

On top of all that....if you are so worried about slowing the game down so you can not have to kill your own pieces, then I already have a psychological advantage. Every single time that I move two pieces in 10 seconds and say "Your turn" it's likely going to bother the opponent. Obviously, depends on how confident the person is and such.

Besides, even with all of that, you'd still have to chase me down, and kill at least some of my pieces without losing yours and stay ahead of me in points. I just don't think it's feasible.

I HATED being called to watch for slow play. Because there is NO clear cut ruling on it. Don't get me wrong I realise that it is necessary for tournaments, but JEEZ! I knew going into it that I would issue no warnings concerning this unless the stall was blatently obvious. Back on topic

YOU NEED an Exit strategy, why well what happens if you are playing against someone who is killing off your scrubs. Boba BH doesnt even roll to do this, (Flamethrower). Several Darth Vader pieces can choke the daylights out of you. The fact is very simple, without an exit strategy you can be stuck having to sac big pieces. This is why the MTB without an exit strategy is discussed as being the main piece in a Utinni Tournament. (MTB, Twilek Bodygaurd, Darth Bane) Also why the MTB has been banned from Utinni tournaments in our venue.

Last year, prior to GenCon, Jim and I sat down several times and played using a stop clock. We timed how long turns and phases took. What we noticed was that most phases took the same amount of time regardless of what point we were at in the game, about 90 seconds, except perhaps the first round of the game when opening moves went more quickly.

So the question became: should a player with less than a minute to go in the round (I mean the hour-long round, not the game round) be expected to play faster than his opponent did when there was 11 minutes to go, or when there was 31 minutes to go?

Regarding San and the MTB, I think that it feels longer to the opponent because he/she has finished the round, and is waiting for the opponent to do everything that would otherwise already be done.

Yeah, Jim and I discussed that. But in all honestly, with those restrictions "this is how fast an average round for two experienced players should take" You could say that 2 minutes is reasonable time for a person to take his turn, especially when something unexpected has just happened. Slow play is just one of those things that is hard to judge, no matter what kind of guidelines you have. Perhaps other people would differ in opinions, but give me a question on legal targeting (probably the most frequently confused ruling in the game) any day. Slow play is a tough game to call.

Keep in mind San Hill. . .Give your opponent 20 points EVERY turn. Then what the others said.