You perhaps can't totally stop it, but you can certainly curtail it to almost nothing. Judge makes clear the expectations before the tournament that both players need to wait for a late concession for the judge, and if they don't the judge can/will rule it a 2pt win instead of 3. In the case where a sore loser tries to cheat by walking away instead of waiting, that would be a pretty easy case for the judge to rule a 3pt concession. I really don't think these are significant issues. There's no advantage to giving your opponent a 3pt win that he/she didn't deserve, so I really don't see it as something that's going to happen so much that it's worth worrying much about - nor as you said, is there a whole lot we could do beyond setting the expectations. Generally, it's pretty easy to determine if a player or both are lying, as there will almost always be others near by that the judge could consult in a truly questionable situation. Most people want to be 100% honest, and simply setting the expectations and intended working of the rules at the beginning will cover almost all situations.

I have read this thread and I guess dont understand why Dennis' ideas are met with a bit of hostility.

Comments like you should play the game more have nothing to do with understanding the game. I have not played football competitively for 20 years now.. Does that mean I couldn't figure out that Wade Phillips wasnt going to take the Cowboys to the Super Bowl????

I have not played Minis at regular intervals for about 2 years.... it did not change my ability to understand a bad squad or what would work.

So I think Dennis has some decent ideas and they should be explored.

In case no one has noticed this game everyone is so passionate about is at a critical point. Everyone that chimes in on these boards and talks are good players. In their local game they are perfectly capable of going 3-0 or 4-0. Doesnt mean they do it but they can.

The problem with the future of minis is the ability to keep the guy that goes 0-4 every week and leaves with a smile. Those are the guys that keep the game alive. The people that go to Gencon should represent 5% of the gaming community they are the top 5%.... The other 95% is the life of the game. Those people are the ones that play and dont mind getting the stuffing beat out of them.

I am not being rude but I think Dennis has a point. You dont have to believe him but I can tell you as someone who has stepped way back. The fact Lancer is still the top dog and not something from DOTF says maybe that more things then just good game design need to change. I am not accusing anyone of getting the rock rolling down the hill. But I would not dismiss Dennis' idea or you could risk losing one more group of people.

I think of how many people no longer play this game. Most of them are people I did not know all that well but the thing is they were people with big smiles always having fun. The numbers are getting smaller every year and if that is my fault I am sorry. But I think some of this needs to be talked about.

The key is to make as small a change as possible, while the ideas presented may not be bad, it is rather drastic to change so much at one time (yes I know these are only proposed changes that still require play testing) which may be the bulk of why there is so much "hostility" towards it.

I agree. It is rather drastic. But I feel like if I had suggested less, then less would be changed. So I stretched pretty far.

Looking back over my comments, I realized I wasn't completely clear about something. Kill em all is still the way you win. If you kill all your opponents' figures, YOU WIN. This thread is about changing how Gambit allows manipulation of that system. It tries to address all the differing viewpoints and find the middle ground. The goal is to eliminate the mentality that I can just get a big points lead and then cruise control my way to the end of the time limit because that is not fun for people. At the same time, it tries to preserve the concept of playing strategically within the rules of the game. Really, the suggestion that total Gambit scoring NOT include a character's point cost is not that much different in terms of philosophy from the suggestion that you score points based on the total amount of damage dealt. The only significant difference is that scoring points in that way becomes more important and not less.

In my proposal, scoring points is almost completely moot.

I definitely think that using the 3/2/1 system that Bill proposed accomplishes this fairly well, with maybe an adjustment to Gambit zones/amounts. My primary concerns with your original proposal were with having kills not worth points (as that seems opposed to the spirit of the game more than anything you're trying to fix) and the Override thing, which seems like something we should just handle with new pieces instead of rules changes.

I think at the real hear of the matter at some point people became more concerned with winning versus just playing the game.

For old timers when the game was new everyone worried about getting the pieces to play and get new pieces to make new squads. At some point winning became the goal versus the playing..... i remember when I would get so jazzed for weekly tourney and buying some minis hoping for the new piece I did not have or wanted another of. I remember the trading that always occured in between games. I dont want to sound like the game is not as good. I just think at some point playing should be the focus not winning and that attitude should be over and above anything else.... especially with a game being designed by the players and no official product support.

Slow playing and things like that should not be an issue at this stage of the game. I mean really if you are playing in what like 3rd or 4th Championship.... You should never slow play. How long does it take you to figure out how to play the game within time. I am all for changing gambit locations and worth of gambit. I am all for getting people out of their starting areas. But at this stage of the game unless you are totally new to the game (which isnt very likely ) then you have zero excuse for not completing the game.... NONE. If you have not learned in 7 years how to complete a game you probably never will. If you are top 5% player and say you cannot complete a game you are just full of crap. There is no way you got to top 5% without the ability to think fast and recognize situations. Think of it in football terms..... Quarterbacks generally suck for the first couple of years in the NFL... they have to get used to the speed of the game and learn to read a defense. Someone like Peyton Manning has not gotten quicker in his 40 time with age but he is a better QB because he knows what he is doing.

The same applies to minis. I remember judging one year at Gencon watching a well known player literally take 10 minutes to decide who take initiative. Really?!? The game is that hard for you? No that person was just flat out stalling.

I like Dennis idea to mix things up but I dont think playspeed is an option for anyone who has played over a year. If you cannot complete a game there better have been some really crazy saves or weirdness in general during the game because otherwise there is just no way you cannot finish in the alloted time.

I disagree. I think points for kills is at the root of stall tactics. I get the points lead and then I can really play a LOT slower, even if I am able to finish game in time, I absolutely do NOT have to. I can continue to just spin out and go for the 5-round draw if I want. I have seen that happen.

Plus, it takes away the fear of continuing to engage with a heavily wounded main figure, which (not to beat a dead horse) was a problem at GC last year when players who were winning strategically backed off with their high-cost figures. So when I said I was looking for middle ground, this goes a long way toward it.

Try out the ideas before you just dismiss them. It's fine to be skeptical, but try to have an open mind. You may be surprised by the outcome.

That's what the 1-point win is for. I honestly think that changing timed wins to just 1 point would go a long way to encourage full wins, with the possibility of a 3-0 actually getting placed lower than a 2-1, people will try for those 3 point wins.

I'm certainly open for trying them, and everything I've said up until this point and will say between now and when I actually play should be considered just first impressions. I just think it will take a whole lot to convince me that these are good ideas.

It seems to me that if kills aren't worth anything then almost all squads would revolve around tactics broker/high activations and a great movement breaker or 2.

Basic strategy

PLAY SLOWWWWWWW
get to gambit (thrawn/panaka/kybuck/lancer/heck even old school speeders)
win init and get out with the won init. At end of round put another guy in gambit
do this for 5-6 rounds and use up the whole time

Win on gambit when you didn't fire a single shot


Since there are no points, there is no reason to worry about what my opp kills and no reason to engage him at all because I AM NEVER BEHIND IN THE MATCH THUS HAVE NO INCENTIVE TO PLAY FASTER. All I need to do is get to gambit and earn more of it than my opp to win the game.

And no I haven't played it or tested it or anything, I am just bringing up abusive situations.

What if you got a set number of points per kill to a max of X. All character kills are worth 5 points until you have achieved 50, you can only score gambit if it is uncontested (IE you are the only player in gambit.) You would actually be incented to play lower activation squads, anything less than 10 works in your favor since you can only lose 40 points to character kills.

I'm pretty sure that Dennis stated above that killing your opponents entire squad within the time limit still wins the game.
It's just that killing pieces won't count for victory points in the absence of a full win, only gambit.
Not sure if I interpreted that correctly.

Maybe if the cost for a piece to get gambit was increased significantly so you couldn't just throw a diplomat in there, and then amount of gambit earned was a sliding scale according to the amount of qualifying points each player had in gambit, it might force a real brawl.

I suppose that still leaves it open to filling gambit with mostly garbage acts, and then concentrating fire on whatever your opponent tries to get in there.

You did.



Set Gambit to 10 points per round and then require at least a 10 point piece to hold it. Interesting.

DDM had a concept of "contested" zones, meaning you only got the points if no one else's figures were in the same Gambit area. So basically if I have a piece in the middle of the map and you don't, I get points. Otherwise, one of us is beating the snot out of the other.

In a single statement, you discount every potentially valid point you bring up. One thing card design has taught me is that everything sounds equally good and equally bad in theory, but playtesting bares all.

So 10 rounds in a 200 point game. That should get the game moving, if there is a chance neither player will earn a win on gambit points.

thats not really fair, Boris.

Jasons strategy is valid until proven otherwise and its probably the perfect start point for testing this theory. I mean, how many playtests have you run this plan through?
Playtests give you information, but the amount of information is totally dependent on the design of the test itself. Casual tests show you if the pieces play as you think but top tier tests are where the pieces are shown to be broken or not. In my experience, Jason excels in these aspects because he creates the thought experiment first and then pursues it. Several crucial design alterations have been made off the back of his squad builds, you would do well to heed and test his opinion.

I like the idea of 10 pt gambit in a 200 pt game but leave it at 5 for 150 and 100. I also think that if you do not get the points to finish the game it should get a tie. This will have some poeple with records like 2-1-2 but when it come time for tie breckers wins are the second tie brecker. IDK just think if we change it to much we might lose some people.

Yep, if you change it too much, we will lose people.

I like the idea of gambit being 10 pts (even with a 5 pt character getting it still) Maybe even more than 10 pts, that would require some testing.

I honestly don't remeber the last time I played a 200 pt squad where I cared about gambit. Lancers at last year's gencon? nope didn't care. Echanis at regionals? Nope, didn't care. OR Boba, BH at regionals? nope, didn't care. That right there tells me that gambit should mean more (ie be worth more).

I like the idea of getting points for having a character in your opps starting area at least conceptually (although this might make some of the movement breakers too good). Need some testing on this one. And this one may be too much at this time (we certainly don't want to turn people away by changing everything)

Guys, isn't this just talking about ideas to test?
Are there actually any core rules being changed here, or just floor rules?

It was mentioned above (by Bill I think) that these ideas could be pursued as an alternate format to see if it gains traction.
And besides, you top-level guys will find a way to win under any rule set.

@urbanjedi - just my opinion, but I don't think that raising the value of gambit, but still letting garbage acts collect it helps enough. Though I like the idea of advancement behind enemy lines so to speak, I do think that getting points for being in your opponent's starting area will probably make movement breakers even stronger (as would earning higher gambit for low point cost characters probably, as it is too easy to just run them over).

I think players should be motivated to risk something of value in gambit to get the points, and be rewarded accordingly. Since you don't want your gambit-getter to get wiped off the board instantly (say, if you are out-activated), it will need to be something with better staying power, either on it's own or with support. Your opponent won't want to let you just collect gambit freely if it is worth a significant amount of points, so they will need to risk something as well.

How about:
X points of gambit for every Y points of characters in the zone worth over Z cost , per player each round.
Hell, anything is worth trying out in testing.

This is a very interesting thread. We don't really have any problems with the current rules, because half of our games are more casual than super competitive. And likewise, sometimes we play one-hour gambit matches and other times we just go for total annihilation. But there are many suggestions that would be fun to try out.
I like the idea of gambit being worth 10 points instead of 5, as that would make it much more desirable. Those 5 points rarely make the difference in a game that only lasts 5-6 rounds tops.
If i were to suggest something (and sorry if this was brought up already), it would be that only one player could score gambit each round. Either by being the only one with characters in the gambit area, or even by being the person with the highest total point cost worth of characters in gambit. That could maybe force people to beat eachother up more. Just a thought.

This actually represents my concern with raising gambit value. In games that go more than 5-6 rounds (as almost all should be or slow play is involved), 5-6 rounds of gambit is a lot of points. Consider a typical situation that I see a lot in my own games. 2 fast players, we play 8-9 rounds. We each reach gambit in round 2 and for the most part claim it every round (let's say we each get it in 6 rounds). That's 60pts. Our game comes down to round 8 or 9, where his 20hp Kyle lives in gambit to hit 200, and my 80hp General Skywalker also gains it. However, because his piece is 54pts, and mine is 49, he wins the game because he has scored more points, even though we both played fast, we both were aggressive, and we had 10-15 minutes left on the clock to finish the game if gambit were not at 10pts ending our game (which I would clearly win if played out). Gambit isn't meant to change the winner in these types of situations, which is why the value must always be balanced between being cheap, and being worth collecting. It shouldn't be turning winners into losers because two squads had a hard time finishing each other in the middle of the map over several rounds of attacking. I'm not saying this prevents changing to 10pts, I'm simply saying that it has the potential to cause other problems.

2nd - I'm not sure it solves much, and might actually lead to people playing slower again. It's a lot easier to get to 200pts when you double gambit scoring in fewer rounds. It makes guys who are really slow playing, able to reach 200 easier while appearing to have played fast. I'm not saying it will be a huge impact, but a concern to look at.

Yes, this one I've thought about for a long time, and I absolutely cannot support it. Here's why, this makes an absolute premium on outactivating and putting the biggest character in gambit. It actually makes the game much much worse. It won't force people to beat up on each other, it will force the player with less activations to either put their biggest piece in gambit (assuming it's more points than their opponent's best piece) and risk losing it all for 5-10pts, or simply give up 5-10pts to their opponent for absolutely no return. At least in the current rules, both players can get it, so you aren't losing 5-10pts to the high activation squad simply because it has more acts, you are both gaining the points. It has to remain for both players.

And while I'm on the topic, I also don't support granting multiple sets of 5 pts to each character in it, that too would end up being way too abusive.