maybe players should just arm wrestle for victory:)

but seriously

how about instead of players scoring points for kills, the acting figure scores them and then the points are only possesed as long as that figure is still in play. so if a lancer strafes out and kills 20 points worth of guys, all the opposing player has to do is kill the lancer and then the figure that does the killing gains the points of the lancer and all of its kills. or if an ugnaught runs out at the end of the round and scores gambit, his value is now worth 8 points if killed.

it would prevent players from putting "all their eggs in one basket" so to speak.

I agree that we need to continue to find ways to encourage engagement... I think this should be a continued goal in the game. In the past this has been addressed by both rule changes and new characters/abilities. My opinion is that the changes need not be sweeping or cause errata to be created for existing pieces. Look at how the designers approached DotF. They wanted to close the gap between factions in the highest level of competition, but did not want to tip the balance the other way. In short, some factions that weren't competitive now are; others have closed the gap and with some fine tuning in future sets will be there as well. In that respect DotF was a resounding success, and I applaud the patience and carefulness of our designers. I think we should take this same, careful approach.

I am not in favor of reducing the importance or focus of eliminating your opponent's squad. I believe this is the heart of what a skirmish means. I don't see how we can remove point value rewards and not reduce that focus.

I am not in favor of reducing the point total necessary for victory. In my opinion this doesn't encourage engagement as much as it does 'hit and run' tactics. Wouldn't that result in ranged figures becoming more important in the game? What about a massive strafe or gallop that resulted in achieving that reduced total? I think this would result in even more 'cagey' play with players positioning for that massive strike and every issue we have in the game today becomes magnified in importance.

I say that we start with gambit. What can we do to keep the players engaged? More/bigger gambit zones? More points for gambit?

I think more points for gambit might legitimately be a very good idea. I'd want to play with it to see how it works, but it seems like 10 points for a round of gambit might be worth thinking about. At 5 points a round, it really isn't a big enough deal that a player using pure hit-and-run tactics has to worry about it--even if the opponent has like a 4-0 advantage in terms of rounds in gambit (and it's rare to see more than about a four-round difference), that's only like 20 points, which is very rarely going to be enough to impact the final outcome of a game. If it's a 40 point advantage, though, "strafe and run back to my hidey-hole" starts to become a problematic strategy if you're primarily killing small pieces. 10-point gambit would also greatly increase the size of the lead you need to feel like you're definitely in charge. Right now, if I've got a 22-point lead late in the game against an opponent who still has legit firepower on the board, I might, depending on the strategic situation on the map, have an incentive to disengage from combat, or at least to be very, very cagey about it. With 10-point gambit, though, my opponent only needs three quick rounds to pass me (rather than five) and backing off the middle of the board is a much less attractive strategy.

I'm certainly not 100 percent sure that this is the solution--I'm sort of brainstorming here--but it seems like it could be worth thinking about.

Graham and I discussed this briefly today. Ideas we both liked were adding your opponent's deployment zone as a gambit zone, and even making that zone worth more points than regular gambit, even up to 20 points. Another idea was to have a player LOSE 5 points for each character they have in their starting area at the end of every round (probably after Round 1). That at least pushes people up so they aren't leaving characters in those first 4 rows.

Didn't put a ton of thought into those, and maps would have to all be re-evaluated with these rules (especially the second one, as it could turn a previously lancer-safe map into one with no hiding spots from the lancer), but they're ideas.

I like the idea of losing 5 points for having a character in your starting area, but instead, how about we make it: you are unable to gain any gambit if you have a character in your starting area at the end of that round. It's not directly penalizing them, but it makes gaining gambit impossible unles you move your pieces up.

I like that, too. It also makes bookeeping easier, so you don't have to either actually subtract from the score (which I don't really like) or keep track of anti-gambit or whatever.

the only way to even things out would be to penalize the points leader in a game so they cant have a runaway making impossible for the other player to catch up. but i highly doubt it would be favorable to penalize the winning player.

i still think gambit should be scored by what character you put in the middle too. doesnt seem fair to only get the same points if you risk your GM luke in gambit vs an ugnaught. maybe gambit should be dependant on point cost of a figure too.

I definitely like the general direction we're headed with this, but wouldn't the 20-point back row gambit rule actually make extreme movement breakers even more significant to the meta than they already are, since it would be much easier for Swap or Lancer squads to get deep-strike gambit than it is for other types of squads (and, if they're built around Thrawn or San/Nute/MTB, they would potentially have guaranteed init to get out of there w/ no real risk to themselves on the first activation of the next round)? I mean, obviously there are counters for this, but it seems like this rule change might allow something about the current meta that some people already don't like (Lancer w/ mass activations) to become even more powerful. Obviously this would be trickier to pull off than I'm making it sound, especially on certain maps, but still, something to think about.

What if we keep the one four square gamibit area worth five points but we make itworth ten points if you are the only player in gambit?

I was actually thinking that 10 pts for gambit in a 200 pt game might be enough. I also like the idea of not scoring gambit if you have someone in your own starting area.

I like the concept of scoring pts for being in your opps starting area, but I think the reality is it would just make swap/large movement breaker squads even more powerful (not sure that is the goal) but it may be worth testing out.

Bad, bad, bad idea. What will happen, is that you will encourage stalling. No one will risk being at a disadvantage until there is no time to recover. Where do you think Tempo Control gets it strength from.

I gotta ask are this an idea from Denis the player or Denis the V-set designer?
These are all interesting ideas on different ways to play the game. But I don't see the value on imposing major changes on all the organized tournament players. Why can't this be added as an alternate format?

I do agree that things can appear to get a bit stale after awhile with the epic weenie spinning.

i had to reread the first post just to get a real sense of what was the problem. so basically boris is saying that a player gets a small points lead, like 2-3 points then just runs out the clock? man, i feel like im watching world cup soccer all over again.

how about this:

the player with his entire squad furthest from his own map edge at the of the round also scores gambit points. that way an aggressive player can still score points by moving towards enguagement, and any key pieces "hanging back" will ruin their chances for scoring points.

1 question? about how many rounds does the average game last?

If you want to talk about a floor rules update to gambit I'm open to that. I however am not open to not rewarding players for defeating pieces.

Ideas I like

- no first round gambit

- gambit is 10 points

- you only score gambit when you have no pieces in your starting area

I'm open to discuss these points at the next update (January?) aside from that I haven't seen any I really like without completely changing the game. That being said I do like your idea, Dennis, but for a differant game type. King of the hill/capture the flag?

Yep, that's a good point. The back-row gambit should probably be just 10 points, so as not to encourage this kind of play too much. 20 was just a hypothetical maximum to discuss.

The more I think about it I actually dislike the idea of extending the range of gambit. 4 squares from the center is quite large, and large enough that both players can have characters in Gambit without being immediately threatened on both maps. I think extending it would just encourage sitting guys in safe spots and outactivating an not letting your opponent strike back. As it is now you can usually get from one end of gambit to the other and everywhere in between we just a small movement breaker, if that. Extending the size of gambit means you can have characters in gambit who are even LESS engaged in the fight then they are now, which I think is the exact opposite of what we want.

Heck, make gambit just 3 squares from the center and worth 15 points, and it requires a character worth 15 points or more to collect it, and you get 5 additional points for each other 15+ point character in gambit. That should get engagement going.

I'm currently under the impression that melee is still at a disadvantage.

What if Gambit was 10 points in 200 point games and only medium/small sized melee characters worth more than 10 points could earn Gambit.

I'm going to stay out of most of this discussion to leave the details to those better versed in the nuances of the system, but speaking as a map maker, I would very much like to see an option to define gambit differently on different maps.

The floor rules could (and I've often thought should) include a small gallery of legal maps, and the gambit area could be highlighted on each of these.

It would be up to the community leaders to determine the legal gambit areas on each map, but if you guys end up going in this direction, I'd gladly make suggestions for my maps and provide thumbnail images with your gambit decisions highlighted for easy reference.

Im definitely not against the gambit system being overhauled, but keep in mind that if you are going to change it with the preoper care the decision should be given, then unless the ONLY difference it to change the gambit point amount to 10+, then the ENTIRE map list will need to be re-evaluated. Obviously its not impossible, but its still likely to take a good bit of time.

Also, Im not in favor of anything that keeps your opponent from scoring gambit (the opponent in my starting area thing), or the amount of gambit being a variable based on what figure (point cost, etc) is getting the gambit.

My suggestion would be to keep things the way they are, but add in the opponents starting zone gambit area and make it worth double gambit points (or allow them to score gambit for each character in the opponents starting area).



Sounds like a good case for a new outline color on new maps.

This is a really good idea. DnD minis did something similar, and I always liked that mechanic. I would definitely support implementing this idea, possibly along with others.