Now wait a minute. I was on the bad side of Mustafar against Boba BH, Aurra JH, Lobot who brought an ASP to keep Aurra out of los. I cannot cross the lava. So I had no choice but to sit in a room and gain fps. My opponent was trying for the cheap 10 rounds no combat win, which I figured. I completely outplayed him to get the 15-5 win.

I didnt enjoy it, I had no choice. Option B was run to the rooms, get shot at, and watch Boba cross the lava. Its almost a sure loss. That is a lot more fun...

Lets not get judgmental about tactics or get into saying stuff like, "Well I would rather lose than win that way"... It doesnt help the situation at all. What we are looking for are ways to improve the game. Morality should not play a part in how you play the game. I have refrained from calling anyone who turtled with reinforcements anything bad, and I expect the same for my play to counter the tactic.

Grambo, I dont think you quite understand how these "turtle" games happen. It isnt one bad player trying to cheat a good player. Its when one player sets up a situation where the opponent has to play on their terms. Its a solid strategy, but should not be guaranteed because of a loophole with reinforcements. Heck the whole game can be seen this way, get your opponent playing the game the way you want them too. However, with the rules as they are, reinforcements can cheat the system. You can charge the field all you want across Mustafar, Deathstar, Starship, or even Rancor Pit against a good player with a good squad. You will lose almost everytime because you played their game.

In fact I love it when my opponent charges me. I can set up whatever I want.

And to be fair, I am absolutely only talking about cutthroat tournaments here. I never do anything like this at the lgs or even in the non-champ gencon tournies. And it had nothing to do with the money. Its a championship, the goal is to have fun and come out on top. I had a lot of fun in most of my games, the 15-5 game was the least fun. Well, that and my final game where I missed 20 shots with Han and lost by 2 pts lol. But hey, I cant complain, it was a great time. I want to make it better, 200pts with the existing rules is much more exploitable than 150. Thats my say on the issue.

I was not making any negative judgement at all about your decision. Or your opponent's.

If anything, my reason for rushing is what is suspect in my eyes. (I noted I did it for fun, not because it was the most tactically sound choice. ) Realistically, I had a much better shot at running him down than you did, and I nearly succeeded.

Completely valid point, Bill. I wasn't there, so I have no idea what sorts of situations were happening. I HAVE seen, however, stall tactics used for the sole purpose of trying to cheat the system (which apparently your opponent was attempting)... and those games are as infuriating as can be.

Regarding what you describe, I concur that if you force your opponent to close in a disadvantageous situation for them, you've won by tactics. I buy that entirely. This aside, if you build your squad for the purpose of setting up a cheezy 10-5 win (or some equivalent), then it isn't just tactics... it is also cheese.

I guess the point is, again, that you can't legislate honor or sportsmanship. Some folks are in it to win, at all costs... while others are in it to win through play, not "rules".

As for my being judgmental about tactics... well... again I wasn't there. I'm not judging you or anyone else specifically. I WILL say, however, that I stand by my statement... I would rather lose than use cheese to win. I would never simply lock myself in a room... even if I could. In fact, I've lost a tournament because of that very reason (admittedly, not a GenCon).

As for the statement of "you can charge all you want and you'll lose against a good player with a good squad"... um... that implies that melee squads cannot win... because I'm sure as hell going to charge you if I'm a melee squad. Yes, I'll try to do so as carefully and advantageously as I can... but I WILL come, because I have no other way to win (I'm pretty sure prayer won't win tourneys).

Let me also observe that your final statement really hits to the core of the issue... you would only play this way at a "cutthroat tournament". Um... to my knowledge, there is no such thing. You make a tournament cutthroat if you wish... that's a personal choice. I've played in the Battletech nationals twice and the Star Fleet Battles nationals four times in my life (won Battletech once, took 3rd the other time... took 2nd at SFB once, and 4th another time). In all cases I played the same way... hard... to win... but as "decently" as I could. I did expect people to abide by the rules, but I didn't try to use any underhanded tactics to win (other than possibly getting into my opponents head a little bit in SFB to try to mislead them as to my intentions). I didn't stall... didn't look for rules loopholes to cheese... and I absolutely did my level best to take it to anyone who did. I'm far from perfect, and I'm a pretty crappy loser sometimes (particularly when I feel I played the better game but get clubbed down by dice), but I am definitely in favor of doing anything we can to help improve tournaments and make them less likely to reward cheese wins.

One last thing... Nickname you're right... spoiler/griefer behaviour would probably make the 50% thing not work either... unfortunately...

I'd like for the championship to be 200 points. If Billiv's idea for making it so reinforcement pieces can't collect gambit points, then I think a 200 point championship could work. I also like the idea of everyone using a specific map for each game.

But guys, seriously. It all comes down to the maps again. How bad do you think guys could turtle on any map that will be legal in 200? Sure you will have the deliberate players and those that play very passively, but with all of the maps legal in 200, its not hard to force a fight without giving much up. Only starship might have any issues, and as a player that plays Jedi, i dont see that being a real issue.

I agree with SD, and if you can't force a fight then you could try to go for the gambit area first before your opponent so that you can force conflict on the board.

On that I definitely agree... but then I've long been a proponent of replacing all of the most unbalanced maps with a series of tournament-quality, balanced maps.

Im a big fan of a map solution as well. But you absolutely can stall on Chancellor's Starship. you can also do it well from the corners of Rancor Pit. Starsip is the best answer for this, and its the worst of the 200 legal maps.

I think the term "cheese" in itself adds a certain level of judging into it. Winning 10-5 is a perfectly legitimate way to win provided you don't stall to do so, and I would never place the blame on the player for game design issues.

If the designers want to punish passive play, then they have to do so through the rules. Period. If a player doesn't want to use certain legal tactics, that's fine, but there's nothing wrong with the player willing to use them.

SWM currently could be better in regard to punishing passive play, but it certainly isn't terrible. Bill's game is the classic example that we discussed pre-Gencon about why we didn't like Mustafar--and it happened. But only that once to my knowledge.

Right, i didnt mean to say that it wasnt at ALL possible, but you have to admit the level of gambit abuse is way less than teh problems caused by Mustafar and the deathstar.

Gambit can be reached and held by either side of the 200 point maps, including the two we hope to have added. With Han STA and swappers out there, the final distance is very easy to breach. Also, the ruined base and throne room map allow for a couple different ways to engage, which is nice.

Until some sort of chess clock system is in place where if one person hits 30 minutes of time usage before 5 minutes remaining in the match, they lose (or some play on the numbers), I have absolutely no interest in seeing 200 as the DCI championship.

The amount of 'non engagement' was atrocious to me in the championship. I can not begin to imagine the amount of delay tactics possible in 200.

[edit]My time logic failed... sounds a bit better now[/edit]

But EMR...How much of that was due to map abuse? When there are agreat many squads that can rush all the maps in 200, it is going to be a lot harder to stall.

I will play a few games with you to convince you this is not true

I guess one of the problems I see is that even if you change the rules so that Reinforcements cannot collect Gambit Points, people will find a way to work around it. One of the biggest ways I gained Gambit during the championship was by waiting until the opponent had activated all of his Accurate shooters, and then moving a Gran Raider out into the Gambit area. Then it didn't matter if he still had some activations left or not, he couldn't kill the Gran because of Stealth. If Reinforcements can't collect Gambit, well, then I'll just use them to shield pieces that can. I think the only true solution to the Reinforcement problem is to make them count for points when they are killed.

Or, perhaps Reinforcements should count for 50% of their points, rounded up? So, if you kill all of Lobot's Reinforcements, that's an average potential of 10 Victory Points. 15 VPs for killing Garm's Reinforcements. For instance, if you bring in 2 Aqualish Assassins, and 2 Ugos, killing each one would yield 4 points for the AAs, and 2 each for the Ugos.

On top of everything, I think that no matter how you change the system, there will still be people who would rather try to abuse the loopholes, then play a good/fun game when it comes to big competitions like the GenCon Championships. It's just human nature. And I'm sorry guys like EMR had to deal with more of those types than it seems some of the rest of us did. Somehow I managed to never play a single person in the Championships that wanted to use that type of tactic. Granted, I never faced anyone on Mustafar either though (won map roll in those instances ), so that might've made a difference.

I did not face a single 'stall' type squad. I witnessed quite a few from those next to me. However, as I said before, I did have 2 games go to time
1) Nickname's, which was him just mopping up, I was dead
2) I think I finished against another Broken Boba with each of us with 90 points on the table (well, until Mas stabbed Lobot for a 25? point lead)

Every other game I played was won/lost by wiping the opponent from the table or a combination of points and gambit for the 150 point win. Against Engineer for example, I had to wait in the middle until I had 35 points because he kept Mon Mothma and Mas alive (well... JH was having fun gripping them).

I was at CIV and I echo what LoboStele said about the HORRIBLE way the A&E release was handled.

I almost didn't join League because of the use of CotF boosters as our starter and BH as prizes the first two days. We got (as mentioned) a few A&E pieces on Saturday and Sunday, but there was still other pieces sitting out for prizes.

The WotC booth didn't even have any A&E to sell after the first few hours. So, supply was definitely an issue that wasn't handled at all correctly.

As for the retailers who "complained" about BH being released early...

I'm not completely clear on why a few players in Indy who'd get KotOR boosters ONE DAY early (Thursday) would matter to the vast majority of retailers. If WotC gives the go-ahead to use their product at a game they are sponsoring, I just don't get why anybody'd care if some seller complains. It's not like we're going to be able to flood the market with singles or a few prize-boosters in the 14 hours before midnight-Friday.

So, if KotOR does get released the week of GenCon, my first preference would -- obviously -- be to use that for League (starting boosters and prizes), for sealed play, and for all prize support that weekend.

If for whatever reason Pastimes can't secure a zillion boosters to cover the needs of all the events, then that needs to be WELL PUBLICIZED. I don't want to go into League thinking I'm getting the new set, only to be presented with something two sets back. The most irritating thing about CIV's use of A&E was that we at the convention actually had to wait until Saturday to get the product, whereas the rest of the world got it on Friday.


Now, for my comments on making the Championship 200 points.

I can see why 200 would be more interesting as far as squad-builds. Additionally, it mostly takes care of the map issue.

But the time factor is what has me concerned. Unlike some others here, almost every 150 & 200 game I played at GenCon went to time. Yet, of those, only one was where I thought my opponent was stalling on purpose. The rest...we just had too many activations between the two of us to accomplish much. Several opponents were San Hill squads, but some weren't.

So, for now, I'm in the "keep it at 150."

The previous problem with a set release at GenCon was with Universe, from what I understand, since I wasn't a first hand observer. I've heard that quite a few LGS and such raised a fuss. Basically, I believe their complaint was that WOTC comes down like a hammer on stores that sell product before the release date, yet GenCon (or Pasttimes/WOTC, in this case) was openly selling it a day early, AND advertising it. I'm guessing that a lot of it is also because the various LGS probably don't get as much in the way of opening weekend sales or pre-orders if they know people will be hoping to win a bunch of prizes at the convention instead. But I 100% agree that if the KOTOR set does release the same weekend, it needs to be very well publicized exactly what sets will be used/alllowed for what tournaments (for instance, would the Championship tourney then allow KOTOR pieces to be used??).

The only thing I can say about the time issue is "learn to play faster". In helping one of our local guys to speed up his playing, I learned a lot myself about playing quicker. Playing tough opponents every single week helps a lot too. The more really challenging games I play, the more I learn to quickly identify strategies and react appropriately. I found that in MANY of my games during the championship that I moved my pieces quite quickly and left my opponent sitting and thinking for several minutes. The whole time they are trying to figure out their moves, I'm looking at their pieces and determining what I would do in their situation. Once I see what would probably be the best couple of moves for them, I start formulating my own strategies. By the time they finally move their pieces, I move mine in about 10 seconds and say "Go ahead". This put my opponents really off balance several times as I could tell they were hoping to have a few minutes to think about their next move while I went. IMO, play speed is really more a psychological factor than anything. Somebody wants to play slow? I'll make you regret it.

The only way to really solve this is to try it. Run a 150 and a 200. If the 200 runs as bad as people fear, then we tried it. It didnt work. Move on.

Actually just do a four round deal with a very nice prize (iPod or something that will bring in the competative people), cap it at 4-ish and see what kind of time abusses pop up. That might give us a window into how it would play without ahving to commit a whole day to it.

How about Reinforcements count for points, but Lobot only counts for 7 points and Garm counts for 15 points? Just subtract the points from the character granting Reinforcements. I'd actually be more likely to use Lobot if he was only worth 7 points when he got sniped...

LOL, that's not bad either. Would definitely soften the blow when I make boneheaded moves and let STSparks Missles 30 my Lobot on the first play of the game, lol.