With the discussions on characters usefulness and squad builds I often read about best options for scoring points and getting Gambit. These are obviously DCI Tournament jargon, whereas non-tourney players I'm guessing play mostly by the Rulesbook, "Kill 'em all!" But do they?

DCI vs "Kill 'em all" can be a drastic difference in character usefulness when it comes to winning the game. Tactics will be different too. Using the gambit rules it's possible, as I understand, to win a game without the loss of a character (opponent with no Satchel charge gets locked in a room on turn one while you sit it out in Gambit - unlikely yes, but possible).

So which way do you play in Non-Tournament?


Oh, and there's no right or wrong on the way people play IMHO, I'm just curious.

I dont worry about it either way. I am coming to play a game, bot stall out for an hour every time i face someone. I prefer games with gambit, but my playstyle is, as they would say in pokemon, "gotta kill em all".

In non tourney settings, our LGS plays bigger group battles. We have so many 'anti-camping' rules that the carnage really starts right away. Kill 'em all, or run out of time!

Most of the time the only difference between DCI and Kill em All is time.

Sometimes a player who is behind when time runs out would have won if they had kept going, but that's not the game.

We usually play kill-em-all until time runs out, then the person with more points left wins. We really should start playing gambit.

Kill'em All!!!!

I like gambit in casual formats. Sure, it adds a little bookkeeping, but keeps camping down, gets the fight going and makes games go faster. I find that whenever I don't do the gambit, I end up regretting it later when my opponent starts camping in a room to charge up luke or something.

Also, its less painful. The game will end just a little sooner, but 95% of the time the gambit winner would've been the kill-em-all winner anyway. Just saves having to kill those last 20-30 points.

I've said it before, and I'll say it again here: Kill 'em all!

This has, of course, gotten me in plenty of trouble at GenCon because I'm totally unprepared for the squads that are built to gain Gambit and/or stall for time.

At my FLGS we don't have time limits, as usually we're doing one big multi-player game. (Not good practice *at all* for DCI tournaments.) When I play at home, it's kill 'em all.

So, there's definitely two different mind-sets/game styles out there. It's just a matter of playing to what the particular game allows. (Something I need to do a better job of at GenCon!)

Well I voted "Kill 'em all" myself, but I was kindof expecting the majority to be playing DCI. Interesting.

We've tried a few scenarios but they never seem balanced to me. And I agree with Fool that the Ultimate Missions ones were poor.

Whenever we play casually it's usually kill-em-all, but it really depends on who I'm playing against. Some of the guys like playing Gambit all the time. Most of the people I play with though are really good about not playing 'cheesy' (even in situations where, for instance, one guy has override, and the other guy has no door control and set up all his pieces inside the Rancor Pen room). Most of the time we'll deliberately not take the cheesy win because we'd rather play it out anyways. Granted, we're usually playing silly squads too, because those are the times where we play with the Tier 8 pieces.

I've never kept track of a single Gambit point, ever.

I play, have played and will continue to play Kill'em All.

Gambit, but outside of tourneys (and sometimes there even) we never bother to keep track unless somebody camps in a corner.

I prefer Gambit because I like how conflicts tend to happen around the Gambit point on a given map, so you can plan for what kind of terrain the main fighting is going to be around (small room, big open area, low objects, damaged floor, etc.).

I suck at strategizing more than a few moves ahead, so if I'm playing Kill 'Em All, I tend to just wander aimlessly with my pieces for the first few rounds while I make and remake strategies. With Gambit, I have a central focal point that my shooters are lining up to hit and my melee pieces are charging into.

Gambit also helps me with squad construction. I like to make sure I have characters in my squads that can take Gambit quickly and/or hold Gambit securely.

I don't know if I've ever won or lost a game based on Gambit points. And I'll never play a squad designed to win by stalling and scoring free Gambit points at the end of a round.

I guess I see Gambit like a Command Point in the Battlefront video games. It's just nice to have a spot both teams can be focused on trying to control.

DCI with Gambit for tournies. Kill them all for fun.

Kill 'em all - about 85% of the time
Gambit - about 10% of the time (including 3 way games for points, not just last man standing although we don't always score gambit, just kills)
Scenarios with Victory objectives - about 5% of the time

So, I go with all of the above, but mostly leaning toward the first.

normaly me and my friends play kill them all

Kill 'em all

Two teams enter, one team leaves.

I just play casually with my friends so it's usually kill 'em all. We tried gambit a couple of times when A&E first came out as we were trying to find ways to speed up our games but in those games where we tried it it hadn't really sped up the game. By the end of the hour or whatever time we had alloted it was always just when we were getting to the real meat of the game where blaster bolts would go flying, heads would go rollin' so we just ended up nixing the Gambit rules.

I'm sure in tournaments it works out fairly well as a format but thankfully, when I get together with my friends, no one wants to just camp in a room for too long. Someone might spend a few rounds charging up a character's Force Points or healing them after initial contact, but not to try and win the game by lock out or whatever...

I'm realy surprised at the amount of Kill'em all vs. DCI. To hear people talk I thought gambit would've been 85%.