Stepping up to 150

By Corellian Corvette, in X-Wing

my friend prefers it as well and I've said I'd do 50/50... now that epic looks d.e.e.d. deeeeed... we don't have to split it again!

How did the idea that FFG is done with Epic become the conventional wisdom around here, despite the fact that there's literally no evidence whatsoever for it?

I believe that it is lack of evidence as confirmation bias, coupled with armada.

There as no announcement at gencon + armada's announcement € nothing is coming, if you want to play with capital ships! we made armada = nothing is coming.

Or in other words, impatience. I find the lack of forum faith disturbing.

When playing in Escalation tournaments, we end up at 150 pts and play on a standard 3x3 board with 6 asteroids and it works well!

I have only had one game at 150 points go a full 60 minutes and end due to the time limit. In that game my opponent had four ships and I had five.

Also, limit the ships to a maximum of 8 of any one type.

In the rulebook, it says you can field a max of 12 small ships of one type.

I build my 125 point lists the way I want to build my 100 point lists but am unable to due to the point restriction. I tend to go for higher pilot skills and more upgrades, but I'll add another ship or two if I can.

My 150+ point lists feel completely different. I usually build them as if I'm stitching two 100 point lists together, usually half heavy-hitters and half fast flankers. Locally, we've only used the standard 3'x3' play area and six asteroids. It is a tighter, more brutal game but it is a lot slower.

We've played a few more 150 pt games lately and they have been a blast! We've really only been adding one or two ships and a couple of extra upgrades in the end over the 100 pt games. Its been making the games more fun!

Just went to 150p tournament. We played 3 rounds, each 90min with 10 people.

Player who had initiative had a chance to ban an asteroid from asteroid pool (couldn't be placed) giving his enemy the first asteroid placement. So it was 5 or 6 asteroids in the playfield (3x3)

There was also a rule that maximum of 10 ships, so you couldn't go for TIE spam

I went with

Horton Salm / 2x Proton Torpedoes + R2 astromech

Jan Ors / Swarm Tactics / Ion Cannon Turret

Airen Cracken / Swarm Tactics

2x Blue Squadron Pilot / Heavy Laser Cannon / Fire Control System

My games went 149 destroyed, 0 lost against 2x fully pimped Firesprays (Boba+Kath) and Phantom (Echo)

Second game I lost my Cracken, 150 destroyed, 21 lost. Against XXXZ+HWK

Last game was pretty tough against 3x Falcons (Han, Lando, Chewie) and won 150 destroyed, 87 lost.

It was pretty fun to play with ships you wouldn't normally play. Going for powerful combos and so on.

I must say that I love now Jan Ors boosted Proton Torpedoes fired by Horton with TL+Focus.. almost 100% guaranteed 5 hits/crits. Or HLC with 5 dice with TL+Focus.. Terrible, Terrible damage!

First game I had a Firespray per turn killing speed.. Echo took 2 turns to kill..

First place was GF9 Gaming Mat which is nice! Also some Luke promo's that I already have.

Has anyone tried a 110p game? Wouldn't chance things much from 100p game, but you could upgrade someone to higher PS, like rookie to Wedge or something, making game more interesting than just generic spam everywhere. Which is why I like 150p games because they are so different.

I wondering if with more then 100 points the balance of the game still works. I guess that 110 or 120 points rebels gets to much advantage, due to upgrades and torpedos. How do you think?

My friends and I typically only fly 150 points- we like the 50 extra points that give so many more options for either faction. Playing on a 3' X 3' with the standard six asteroids works out fine. It allows for some tight maneuvering with TIE swarms, but that is part of the fun.

I don't really think that an extra 10-20 points would favor the Rebels- Imps can always add in an extra TIE for only 12 points which balances out the upgrades Rebels can take.

Edited by Ikka

I wondering if with more then 100 points the balance of the game still works. I guess that 110 or 120 points rebels gets to much advantage, due to upgrades and torpedos. How do you think?

In a properly written ruleset using points, the number of points played should never be seeing imbalance issues! That is the entire purpose of using points in the first place! Hence, going from 90 to 100 to 110 to 125 to 150 sjouldn't make any difference other than the number of ships and/or upgrades taken.

I wondering if with more then 100 points the balance of the game still works. I guess that 110 or 120 points rebels gets to much advantage, due to upgrades and torpedos. How do you think?

It can be hard to say who gains the "advantage" but just adding a few point can bring some pretty big changes. At 105 points you now get Rookie x5 or can run an upgraded Howlrunner with AP x7. Perhaps that doesn't seem like a adding just a few points can make such a big difference in squads but it certainly can.

I have always found that as the points increase, the more of a disadvantage the empire has. Too many turrets, too many arcs, so it makes phantoms and interceptors far less fun to fly. That, and Etahn just scales far too well.

I will admit though, being able to fly multiple named defenders with HLC is very very fun, but only really possible with higher points.

We almost only play 150pts on a 4x4. Like some of you said. More combo, more big name and more option.

On my gaming group im the only one whit this game and I did not buy 12 model of each ship, I ave found some proxis (micro machine cough cough) but still the problem of having to face a overwelming swarm never occur. Even tho one of my favorite roster is the Tie all star.

For the ratio I would say 100 ship/50 upgrade

Most of the time we play home made scenario. I ave a old Deep Space Nine space station toy/model... right now ITS MY imperial huge ship.

I play on 3x3 as well but to me it feel to crowded. Losing a ship beacus it fell off the board semse stupid to me IN SPACE.

So my next step is 5foot hexagon.

As I said before lets not be to hasty with the point creep. I think the 100 point is fine. Point creep and expansion while might bring more memorable games especially if you only have 2 players for that day. Still point creep and inflation can crash the hobby.

Take a look at Warhammer and we will talk about Warhammer 40,000 (although fantasey suffers from this as well), back in the day of rouge trader 250 points was all you need for a match. As time gone by and with 3rd edition the points were at 1,000 on average with often 1,500 matches. Now these days if you don't have 2,000 points of models you do not have an army, and with the apocalypse and escalation expansions for new players or returning players to try and get into the hobby the CO$T entry to get back in is way to high (especially with a slumping economy).

100 points is nice balance, all you need is 2 core sets a rebel and an imperial expansion pack and you have enough for both a 100 point rebel squadron and a 100 point imperial squadron. I think the biggest selling point for this game is that it is rather affordable when compared to others such as HordeMachines and Warhammer.

Again not saying that you should never play at a higher point value, we do have scenarios and epic play for that reason and as long as both players agree to the point limit then it is fine. It is all for fun after all. Just don't be in a rush or hurry for the inevitable point inflation that will eventually come this way. It might do more harm than good.

Edited by Marinealver

150 is great. We recently started doing it, and the number of possibilities gets huge. Support ships become much more viable. Formerly useless ships suddenly become substantially better, save for Fel's Wrath because fork that guy.

I used to play a lot of 151 point games (not sure how we ended up with the extra point), but now I mostly play 200 point games.

we still use the standard 3x3' play area with 6 asteroids for all our games, because all our nice looking playmats are 3x3'. I'll have to look into getting some bigger ones :) Anybody know any good Canadian printers?

120-150 point games are much more expensive ship friendly and more fun IMO. There are many more combos that work at higher point levels and losing a ship is not as detrimental as it can be in 100 point games.

Probably due to next waves are full of big ships, we will start to see around more 150 builds and tournaments...Actually I was thinking how will be possible play IG-88 x4, and 150 builds seems to be the answer :P

Oh yeah, having 150 points of IG-2000's would be scary. I think they are all around 36 points each, so 4 of them would be 144 and 6 points for upgrades, but I think that 3 of them for 108 points and 42 points (or 14 points for each) for upgrades which seems more competitive.

As I said before lets not be to hasty with the point creep. I think the 100 point is fine. Point creep and expansion while might bring more memorable games especially if you only have 2 players for that day. Still point creep and inflation can crash the hobby.

Take a look at Warhammer and we will talk about Warhammer 40,000 (although fantasey suffers from this as well), back in the day of rouge trader 250 points was all you need for a match. As time gone by and with 3rd edition the points were at 1,000 on average with often 1,500 matches. Now these days if you don't have 2,000 points of models you do not have an army, and with the apocalypse and escalation expansions for new players or returning players to try and get into the hobby the CO$T entry to get back in is way to high (especially with a slumping economy).

100 points is nice balance, all you need is 2 core sets a rebel and an imperial expansion pack and you have enough for both a 100 point rebel squadron and a 100 point imperial squadron. I think the biggest selling point for this game is that it is rather affordable when compared to others such as HordeMachines and Warhammer.

Again not saying that you should never play at a higher point value, we do have scenarios and epic play for that reason and as long as both players agree to the point limit then it is fine. It is all for fun after all. Just don't be in a rush or hurry for the inevitable point inflation that will eventually come this way. It might do more harm than good.

I see your point but Games Wokshop treat ther custemer like dunke in a gold mine. If x-wing have a 30 year life of constant renewal the game point will go up ( first glimps with IG-88). The thing we ave to do is beaing responsable for our game. Ther is nothing that restrict me from aving a fun game of Necron vs You at 250pts its juste that I wount be able tho use all my C`Tan toy on shelf.