In my experience you only really see imbalance when you increase the points by a small amount. Like going to 105 points which lets you add in another academy pilot with howlrunner, for 8 Ties, and Howl with SD. But you can't really add a ton more to a rebel ship with 5 points.
But if you stay with multiples of 50, such as 100, 150, 200, 250, ect... It seems to work out.
My 5th rookie would disagree with you
My 5th rookie would disagree with you
Yeah you're right. I thought I was missing something with I said that but couldn't think of what, due mostly to a lack of coffee.
Not broken. Expect 45-60 minutes per 100 points per side. We've played 500 vs 500, and I remember it being pretty fun and taking 4ish hours. We expanded table size to ~4 x 4; could have been even bigger. Surprisingly few collisions, especially because we were drinking heavily.
That game had remarkably equal casualties, too.
As others have already said, the differences between elites and mooks become magnified at larger points. The first time we played 300 points, the rebels actually outnumbered the empire...which didn't end well for the empire. Having enough numbers to survive a big battle is a pretty fundamental need.
Another thing that changes as you go up in points is that support ships & flankers become extremely valuable. The HWK ship has a lot to do in a big game, for instance. Similarly, my consistent murder-machines were a trio of GSP's with PTL & Assault missiles. Overall, it's much easier for an individual (small) ship to get lost in the battle, whereas big ships seem to draw a disproportionate amount of fire...
We've play lots of 150pt battles at our FLGS. They run around 2'ish hours for us, but we're not playing fast. The longest match was two TIE swarms against each other... high agility & low firepower turned it into an almost 4hr marathon.
I play with a group of 4. We always play 150 point games as teams. Doesn't seem unbalanced at all. The dice... maybe! We have found that no private communication between teammates can bring an interesting element to the game. But I will say some lists we build are really designed with a need for tight flying and so sometimes we allow secret strategy talks. Also makes for alot of fun. Next up are four 75 point lists for a total melee scenario! Should be fun.
I like playing 130 points a side. It lets you load up 4 or more ships a side to maximum effect. Its very balanced and lets you put all the bells and whistles on all your ships.
I agree with many of the sentiments before me. We play 150 and 200 point games regularly now and same points in team play. The balance seems to be pretty fair. I'm wanting to give a couple 400 point games a try as soon as my preorder of E-Wings, Phantoms, Defenders, and Z-95's come in.
- Lord Cedric