more and more high point ships, more really cool bells and whistles to add to our ships.

if we use these then that leads to fewer ships, we have started playing 150 point games in my group and the play time hasn't really changed due to us using more upgrades then adding more ships.

do you think the time for increasing tournament point limits may be coming?

I certainly hope so. I personally find 100 points too limiting, it really kills some great ideas.

It's also the reason I've never flown a HWK.

I've kind of wanted that myself, but then 12 ship tie swarm, or 10-11 with better pilots and or upgrades sounds very sick, and that would take a lot longer to fly, so in that case tournament times would have to increase which I don't see happening

Would it be too limiting to just say there is an 8 ship cap?

yeah, 8 ship cap just like in epic play, that's what I was thinking

No.

Part of the reason one my find 100 points "limiting" is because it actually forces you to make hard choices. When you start going higher you start removing those choices even if you happen to be adding other ones. Even if restricted to eight ships of a given type you can still get 10+ ship swarms.

I'm experimenting with changes to the standard format for our quick local weeknight tournaments, but it's really just to have some variety in between standard format tourneys, which we also run. We have an upcoming event with 110 point squads, optional huge ship obstacles, and mobile asteroids. I still think the standard format is fine, and don't see any reason why it should be officially changed.

We routinely play 125-point squads for any of our fun & casual games at our FLGS.

i think 150 is too much flexibility but 120-125, that makes more sense to me esp in a competitive format.

do you think the time for increasing tournament point limits may be coming?

No.

Part of the reason one my find 100 points "limiting" is because it actually forces you to make hard choices. When you start going higher you start removing those choices even if you happen to be adding other ones. Even if restricted to eight ships of a given type you can still get 10+ ship swarms.

This! Playing at 100 points is supposed to create difficult decisions about what to include and what to leave out.

While I don't support increasing points for "standard play" I would say going to 150 is MUCH better than going to something like 110 or even 125. With 50 more points you may get to see some really different things while just adding a few more points will mostly amplify what you already see.

An increase to 150pts would make the Escalation format a little awkward. We would all have our 150pts standard squads that we would just be build up to. It takes the uniqueness away completely.

Anything over 100 is inviting to me! Going 125 makes a lot of sense and 150 opens the door to lots of possibilities!

No.

Part of the reason one my find 100 points "limiting" is because it actually forces you to make hard choices. When you start going higher you start removing those choices even if you happen to be adding other ones. Even if restricted to eight ships of a given type you can still get 10+ ship swarms.

I disagree with this argument, since I have heard it before plenty of times. It was pretty common back when 40k events escalated from 1500 to ~2k as standard to hear the same thing. That the lower points means you have to make harder choices in list building.

I think, in a lot of respects, that is a good thing. The skill in the game should be less focused on list building, and more on what you put on the table. But there is something else to consider here, rock paper scissors.

One of the big issues of lower point lists is that you have to either focus heavily on winning in one fashion, ie all interceptors, b-wings with laser cannons, swarm, or whatever. Or you go for an extremely generalist type build. The problem is that generalists builds cannot bring enough to fully counter everything, so you end up playing with a disadvantage as soon as lists that dominate one aspect of the game can be in their element.

Lists that focus on winning in one fashion have to hope they don't play their hard counter. A list of 3 b-wings with hlc/fcs will dominate against falcons, but is going to be in trouble against a tie swarm or phantoms.

When you allow people to bring in more points, it lets them build better rounded lists that have the tools to handle everything and develop some redundancy, while still retaining a bit of personal flavor. This means you lessen the effect of rock paper scissors, and the game becomes about executing best on the table top.

Inevitably, I think most games end up escalating beyond their initial standard points level, as the game starts to add more content.

An increase to 150pts would make the Escalation format a little awkward. We would all have our 150pts standard squads that we would just be build up to. It takes the uniqueness away completely.

I thought this too, but escalation has the weird rule about all previous ships have to stay in the list, so that may not be possible. What I will take to an escalation tournament Saturday looks totally different at 150, than it would if I simply had to go from 0-150.

The other thing though, is that I don't think anyone plays 150 regularly, so there are probably loads of weird combinations and tricks available nobody is trying.

There's an 8 ship cap in Epic? wdf??

125 points is MUCH better. Only about a 10 minute increase average. Also lets you THINK like 100 but gives you a little more room for cooler options.

I think also increase what we call the "population cap" or "supply cap" or "total point cap" decreases the "ineffectiveness" of bad upgrades and decreases the effectiveness of good upgrades.

This is... until the added total cap allows for exaggerated focus firing, .... at which point you get starcraft. Which is a thread for another time. (Meaning, not good for this game. Not being mass focus fired is a good thing for the game.)

Hopefully that would make 75 minute games absolutely standard, with perhaps going up to 90 minutes...

But then maybe limiting tournaments to two days and three rounds a day. That would be much smoother and for many smaller stores, bring in people for two days, increasing customer time in the store.

Also, it wouldn't have to be everyone: Its just the top 8 or so. And if you can't do it, you can probably extend to the next week, same day.

As I said before allowing the inevitable point creep in too fast will ruin the game. Examples 250 point armies in Rouge Trader now a 2000 point Warhammer 40,000 (or more if you play Apocalypse or Escalation) or take a look at HordeMachines after the (correct me if I get names wrong please) Colossus and Gargants(I think) are released. Now you might say this is ridiculous but do you really want CR-90s and Transports to be standard because with point creep that's what you will get. Now your counter argument is that CR-90s and Transports are epic as they cost epic points. My reply to that rebuttal is the Baneblade superheavy tank use to not be standard in Warhammer 40,000 but now with escalation it has been moved to Standard. Not saying that I don't like Epic (just played a game this night and loved it). But I prefer to keep X-wing focused on the starfighter dogfighting (even if I do hope for a Star Destroyer model for Imperials in the future).

Yes I know this isn't Warhammer so let's keep it that way. Epic, missions and scenarios, and of course escalation leagues that can have rounds that pass 100 points are fine. But lets keep standard well standard for as long as we can. As this game grows in popularity you can count on it growing past the 100 point standard. It will happen, lets not rush it.

With all the ships and upgrades now available surely there are plenty of builds yet to be tried at 100pts never mind 125/150pts. I for one wouldn't like increasing the official tournaments points, 100 seems fine, it keeps the game in check with low PS swarms and high PS elite builds, with everything else in between; increase it and I think you'll lose the dog fight feel of the game. Also increasing points will increase play time, there are more decisions to make whether you're adding ships or upgrades. And given all the crying on the boards as it is with Fat Han etc etc, do you really want to see tooled up triple falcons? There's a match up I wouldn't want to bother playing against very often.

As I said before allowing the inevitable point creep in too fast will ruin the game. Examples 250 point armies in Rouge Trader now a 2000 point Warhammer 40,000 (or more if you play Apocalypse or Escalation) or take a look at HordeMachines after the (correct me if I get names wrong please) Colossus and Gargants(I think) are released. Now you might say this is ridiculous but do you really want CR-90s and Transports to be standard because with point creep that's what you will get. Now your counter argument is that CR-90s and Transports are epic as they cost epic points. My reply to that rebuttal is the Baneblade superheavy tank use to not be standard in Warhammer 40,000 but now with escalation it has been moved to Standard. Not saying that I don't like Epic (just played a game this night and loved it). But I prefer to keep X-wing focused on the starfighter dogfighting (even if I do hope for a Star Destroyer model for Imperials in the future).

Yes I know this isn't Warhammer so let's keep it that way. Epic, missions and scenarios, and of course escalation leagues that can have rounds that pass 100 points are fine. But lets keep standard well standard for as long as we can. As this game grows in popularity you can count on it growing past the 100 point standard. It will happen, lets not rush it.

I can really really really appreciate your concern and thoughtfulness.

Certain things I call mechanics-balancing impede supply-cap (total points) increasing.

The main one is Focus firing. If you increase the number of ships that can fire on one point you will increase the power of ships that shoot first, and increase the power of taking out fundamental parts of a squad.

ex. Nationals Buzzsaw Whisper Soontir and Yorr won't work nearly as well as you can take out a major component piece quicker.

This hurts builds that function on roles and synergy instead of brute power (swarms, good-value-ships).

Basically, you can increase the power that is concentrated into one spot on the field a considerable bit when you extend total point value cap.

This is why Etahn is amazing in Epic. He basically function on the intersections of attack power zones.

Mechanics would need to be introduced to impede the natural tendency to clump, via AOE damage or via asteroids, blocking space so that ships cannot fire/be in the same space as well. This might mean reducing asteroid spacing, or adding more asteroids.

In our Epic games, we use 6x5 (two tables with one edge slightly smaller at 2.5x6), but also 24 asteroids. We also pack AOE into our lists which between the two, creates a spread out multi theater battlefield that is more reminiscent of a true battleground versus a concentrated 300 vs 300 slugfest like you see in many Epic games that simply have everything on one side of the map.

Creating map objectives/strong "ground" also would make for more interesting choices of positioning.

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All that said. I like 125 point games, they tend to devolve into 2 theater combat and feel like enough ships to be a big conflict. 100 points is really a skirmish. At 150, you start getting real balance exaggerations (like Etahn or 12Zs) and lists and concepts start changing.

No.

Part of the reason one my find 100 points "limiting" is because it actually forces you to make hard choices. When you start going higher you start removing those choices even if you happen to be adding other ones. Even if restricted to eight ships of a given type you can still get 10+ ship swarms.

Exactly. But not only that, with the current time limit even 100pts games can be hard to finish.

or take a look at HordeMachines after the (correct me if I get names wrong please) Colossus and Gargants(I think) are released.

As a big Warmachine/Hordes player (Warhordes or whatever people call it irritates me to no end) this statement is wrong. Colossals and Gargantuans have actually been met with a mild response in competitive play. There are 10 of these and only 2 are worth playing. You are putting all your eggs in one basket and they're surprisingly easy to take down.

They also made a jump from 35 to 50 points (would be like going from 100 to 125 in X-wing) for most competitive play to promote bringing support to the game.

That said, I don't know if X-wing is balanced for play outside of 100 points. I'm fine with it as-is, but don't expect me to start bringing HWKs anytime soon.

Yeah. The game is balanced around 100. And quite delicately so.

Etahn plus 8 z? Ow.

Everything in X-Wing is designed to be balanced at the 100 point level. You cannot arbitrarily change that cap without potentially unbalancing the game with future products.

X-Wing is not Warhammer. The army sizes in Warhammer may change, but so do the individual units and their respective costs. X-Wing is static, so the comparison is a poor one. I sincerely hope nobody is suggesting that FFG should follow in GW's footsteps and start issuing revised costs for all the ships every year.

would a points increase breath life into any ships that see little table time, like the bomber or hawk?

In my limited experience i've found that slightly larger games dont always take that much longer to play because you tend to filed ships that can do more damage.

With all things being equal, 4 red dice will usually roll more hits than 4 green dice will roll evades... i've found the *really* long games are where we've both had just one or two low FP dice ships (z9s, TIE/ln etc) left trying to hit each other and failing for ages

FFG already made design choices that prevent them from increasing the standard points level. Pilot skills like Abhat's (sp?) have no limit on how many ships can benefit, making their benefit open-ended as more ships are added to a roster. So, they are essentially only appropriately costed for the points level that they were designed to be a part of, which is 100 points.