I would love to see larger games. I would also love to see a large play surface and more obstacles. As for play time in tournaments, I found X-Wing to be overly generous, as anyone who has played in a 50 point Warmachine Deathclock tournament can attest to.

Here is what I would love to see:

1) increase to 150 points or even 200.

2) increase in table size

3) increase in the number of obstacles

4) objectives and scenarios, beyond the gimicky ones that come with the expansions.

5) deathclock mechanism.

For those unfamiliar with Deathclock it functions as follows:

Each player is allocated a certain amount of time for the ENTIRE game. This is put into a chess clock style timer (actual chess clocks, kitchen egg times, app on your phone, etc.) Everytime the game is waiting on you, you have your time engaged and your time is ticking away. When your opponent is moving, your time is stopped. If you run out of time, you loose.

How would this work for X-Wing? Simple:

Say for 100 points each player gets 30 minutes of time. You set up the asteroids, then deploy your fleets and the moment the game starts, both player start their timers. Timers are ticking down while you set your dials. Once you have placed all your timers down, you stop your timer. Then, as you activate one of your ships, you start the timer and turn it off when you stop activating your ships. Same with firing weapons.

And then rinse and repeat.

I think the limited time would add a sense of urgency and panic to the game that would really fit with the dog fight feel. Already this is my favourite game, and I have had epic battles where Tycho was weaving and dodging against Howlrunner for like 14 turns, but those turns were slow as we tried to out guess each other and analyze what the best move was. Imagine if you not only had to worry about where he was going to go, but how much time you had left to play? Split second decisions! Like realy dog fights.

This would not be a game I ever wanted to play.

We play 150 points sometimes. 12 TIE is no joke and can decimate a Rebel force in 3 turns.

I totally wish there were a bigger format, with even bigger ships, like a Rebel Transport, and a Tantive IV...

oh wait.

I don't think tournament play will ever step away from the 100 point standard due to time and game balance. I can't tell you how many time I've thought I've made a great squad and found out that I'm one point over. It's happened enough that I'm pretty sure FFG either did it on purpose for game balance or they hate me personally. With the new cinematic and epic play I think we are going to get bigger point games and a much bigger space field to play on.

The thought of a two hour plus game just sounds like a game night well spent. Not everyone has access to big ass tables that may be called for, but the concept sounds really cool. Imagine a large table with two parallel edges representing opposing capital ships trading blows with all the smaller ships scrapping in between, now that sounds awesome!

If the game expanded to 150 points what happens depends entirely on your point of view. If you play casually they what's stopping from doing it now? Oh, that's right, nothing which why you see reports of people playing large games. Now if you play in a timed environment what happens when you increase the points 50%? You could easily increase the time it takes to finish a game by 50%. Now if you're trying to get in X number of games in Y minutes you've just made that much harder if not impossible.

If you increase the "official" point value then you're also going to need to do things to limit how many ships get brought into play. As previously mentioned a couple 12 ships swarms going at each other may be impossible to finish in an hour. If you put a cap on the number of units ships that can be used then you'll run a very good chance at seeing everyone run that many ships; at least that was my experience with DDM and it's 8 figure limit granted play order worked different there.

I would love to see larger games. I would also love to see a large play surface and more obstacles.

In the 200 point game I played recently we used a 6'x4' play mat. It looked really impressive, but I was disappointed that we didn't really make use of the larger area, almost the whole game clumped into a 2'x2' area in the middle and we were constantly colliding.

I have played a few with increased point counts, and unintuitively I did not notice a significant increase in play time. I am sure that as you continue to add points there will indeed be an inevitable lengthening of the game, but I don't think you will see much at 150.

The reason is that while you have more ships, focused fire becomes much, much more effective. Actions/tokens make a ship much more survivable but those are only useful against a single attack, so as you add ship numbers you do not see a linear increase in survival time. For example, if your XXBB list were to focus on a TIE, you will likely kill it with maybe one ship left to fire. When that ship fires, it likely does zero/minimal damage because the second TIE will still have a defensive token available. If you were to add two more X/B wings, that second TIE will be destroyed as well. You get double the fatality from an increase in firepower of 50%.

If the games were to progress smoothly, with each side losing equal points values of ships, this would simply lengthen the game as eventually you would reach the point of 100 vs. 100 where the other game started. But what actually happens is that one side or the other gains the upper hand, and the increased number of ships firing allows that side to eliminate their opponent faster than they would have in a smaller game. A one on one X-Wing vs. TIE represents a 2 to 1 advantage for the Rebel, but can take a quite a few turns to conclude as both sides struggle to land hits. A four on four X-Wing vs. TIE is the same ratio, but will end much more quickly as the Rebels vaporize at least one TIE every turn. When there are 200 points left on the table it is rarely 100 vs 100, it tends to be more like 120 vs 80 or so, and lopsided fights generally end much more quickly.

Also, the larger play area is mostly wasted. The effective battlespace is limited by the speed of the ships and the range of their guns, having twice as much unused board space doesn't really change anything. The whole melee tends to turn into a giant scrum in one small area, with collisions abounding (incidentally increasing the pace at which ships are removed and further speeding the game), not a spread out affair.

If others have tried larger games (as in 120 to 150 points or so) I would be curious to hear if their experiences differed from mine.

If the game expands to 150 points, be prepared for the drove of angry forum posters screaming that the sky is falling/FFG is runing the game/power creep/ etc etc.

Otherwise, I think it would be fun, no reason not to play 150 or bigger games casually. It may not be as well balanced, but it sure is a great time

I would be very interested to see what the points-to-play area size ratio would be for those people that played bigger games.

When does it become a factor to increase the size area as the points cost is not indicative to how many ships there are?

What would be a good size for the 150 (Keep it at 3' x 3')?

What would be a good size for the 150 (Keep it at 3' x 3')?

I once played 120 points on a 4x4 and that was a ton of fun and seemed a good size, I bet you could go up to 150 on that and still be good.

Honestly, like I said above, even in a 200 point game we stayed in a small area on the big board. I think for larger games you not only want a bigger field, but also some mechanical reason to spread out, otherwise the benefits of focused fire cause everyone to bunch up into a big traffic jam anyway.

4) objectives and scenarios, beyond the gimicky ones that come with the expansions.

I'm quite curious what the defining line between 'proper scenario' and 'gimmick' is.

If the game expands to 150 points, be prepared for the drove of angry forum posters screaming that the sky is falling/FFG is runing the game/power creep/ etc etc.

You know, I hear a lot of "if" in this thread, as if point expanding is something that's still undecided. But people, the increase in point limits is already imminent. Its herald? The CR90 Corvette.

Just the fore and aft sections of a basic Corvette cost 90 points. That's 90 point stock on a basic Corvette, before any of the upgrades or weapons are taken. Just the spoilered upgrades already cost an extra 17 points at their cheapest, and those don't include the crew and team upgrades yet. An incomplete, basic Corvette, not even fully upgraded, is already ticking at 107 points. And it will only go upwards from here on.

There's no reason some events can't up the points limit, as desired. We play large games as all night events from time to time; it's a blast. That being said, I prefer 100 for several reasons:

• I REALLY enjoy that you can get 4+ rounds of this game done in an afternoon. Coming from a 40K background, getting 3 rounds in 7-8 hours was a chore. It makes it much more accessible.
• Further, short games give you a short memory. You suck it up in one game, you're into the next so fast that you don't dwell on it. Also, when you have that alpha-striked moment, you aren't forced into sitting through a losing battle for another 2 hours. It's done.
• 100 points seems really balanced. It's hard to get a "broken" combo into the game, but a larger point allowance would allow for greater extravagances. Not to say it would break the game, but the challenge of maintaining balance is greater the larger the allowance.
• You don't need more points to prove skill, so there's nothing inherently gained by it. Further, this isn't a wallet-driven game like 40K. You don't need to put a thousand dollars' worth of tanks and aircraft to try to autowin. It's balanced to 2-7 ships; that's it. Larger games (even though the investment isn't nearly as large) could favor those who can buy in bulk and for no real reason.
• Larger games at once encourage special characters (because points aren't as tight) and water them down (they seem less special). I find them about right in 100. Nice to see, valuable, but bordering on overcosted, so seeing more than 1 in a list is unusual.
• The "silliness" aspect gets ramped up in larger games. You start seeing stuff like 12 TIEs or 7 shuttles. It's not entertaining and ultimately become the reason stupid things like "Force Organization Charts" start getting developed. Let's avoid that. It's great now with the freedom within the restriction of 100 points.

I'm sure there's more reasons, but that's enough to make my point.

There's no reason some events can't up the points limit, as desired. We play large games as all night events from time to time; it's a blast. That being said, I prefer 100 for several reasons:

• The "silliness" aspect gets ramped up in larger games. You start seeing stuff like 12 TIEs or 7 shuttles. It's not entertaining and ultimately become the reason stupid things like "Force Organization Charts" start getting developed. Let's avoid that. It's great now with the freedom within the restriction of 100 points.

While seven shuttles is quite silly, twelve TIE's is really just a full squadron. I don't see what's so silly about it.

My son and I have started playing 120 points lately. Take a 100 point squad and add some upgrades to make 120. Keeps the limitations of the smaller squad but lets you use some of the toys you don't always get to play with.

I would rather see 120 points over 150. It adds only 20% more points as opposed to 50% more. We would see more upgrades than more large swarms.

If others have tried larger games (as in 120 to 150 points or so) I would be curious to hear if their experiences differed from mine.

I've played some 150, and 200 point games - at varying sized play areas

Our conclusion was that time is more directly related to the number of ships and size of the play area - and thus indirectly related to the points. It's also indirectly related to the number of hit points and average attack to defense ratio of the ships. One of our 150 point games was 8 interceptors, and 5-6 rebel ships, The interceptors died quickly - but they did a lot of damage fast thanks to having more attack power than 8 ties. That game didn't take as long as our 8 ship tie swarm vs AXXXA list did.

Larger area tends to increase the number of turns, as ships have further to run, and more time in the opening approach. If you limit the number of ships, and keep the area 3x3, 150 point games can easily be very close in length to 100 point games. If however you go from a greater portion of expensive ships / upgrade cards to more cheap bodies - your planning phase gets more complicated and bogged down - that's where most of the time is really spent I think - planning and activation.

Dogfight is 100 points, that's it's very definition. That's the primary tournament focus, lots of balancing has been done for that total, and I suspect will continue to be.

Last year at FFG's Worlds event they had a new format: Escalation. Four rounds:

• Round 1: A 60 points, 45 minutes.
• Round 2: A 90 points. At least 30 points from the 60 point list, 60 minutes.
• Round 3: A 120 points. At least 50 points from the 90 point list, 75 minutes.
• Round 4: A 150 points. At least 75 points from the 120 point list, 90 minutes.

The last round was the top 4 and top 2 used the 150 point list.

I think the event went well, I had a lot of fun with it. Didn't make the top 4. Hopefully this side event will continue and allow for some larger squads, but still maintain focus on the 100 point format. It really does open up some options, but the point escalation makes it interesting.

I really enjoy playing the larger games, (biggest so far was 200). They really are a blast and if you are in a small area like I am you don't have a lot of players around so a good way to mix it up while playing with the same people is to increase the point cap. Big game = big fun! Just be sure to leave yourself plenty of time.

150 point TIE swarm can still get wiped out to 3 lucky assault missiles.

in 150 point games I might expect bombs to see more use.

We haven't played anything over 800 points yet

I think it will make little difference in that you will probably see the age of support ships more than before