Agreed. I got out of 40k to escape that attitude, and if people want to play that way, then they can go crawl in the pit GW has dug themselves and sit there until the universe suffers from Heat Death. I can't even begin to tell you how many RAW vs RAI arguments i saw over obvious oversights in a rule or unit design. It's unbelievable the straws people will grasp at just to be kept from being proven wrong.

Quasistellar, I agree with you, but there are a healthy number (or unhealthy, in my opinion) of players who argue that stalling or fortessing is a valid tactic because the rules don't say otherwise.

Common sense isn't a priority for these types of players, so having something in writing that forbids it will help prevent unnecessary bickering.

I'm not even arguing about validity. The tactics used in the games in this tournament were 100% legal.

This is an issue of what FFG wants this game to be. My opinion, based upon the whole "fly casual" thing, is that FFG probably doesn't want this tactic to ever become strong enough that players legitimately use it in a tournament like worlds.

The Funny part about all of this trying to make it personal on the part of Richard vs his " Room mate ". Yes, Richard extended his room and shared it with this now infamous opponent, Josh. Richard told me prior to the Worlds event that he found an new top level X wing player in FL and was going to have him take my spot ( I was going to room with Richard ). And he was better than I was. Well.. lol.. I have to go back and let everyone know I have known Richard since 1998. And he is a Naval Officer who at first I had a hard time getting a read on. As I got to know him we both held similar view points:

To help people, but never to go into a fight with a no win mentality. And to always look for the " out of the box " idea to shake up people, moving them out of their comfort zone. We do this when we play poker, or any game. Part of his and my own idea of Fly Casual is to always help the community by growing it with new players and building excitement for the game. In Washington, a state he just was transferred from in the Navy, Richard helped build and organize over 15+ stores growing the North West X-wing Community to over 200+ players. He did this by always making sure to meet each player, getting their email and phone numbers along with us setting up a Facebook and Googles group to keep everyone who plays in touch and informed with upcoming events. Richard also took the lead with our over 200 players being the face of our questions to FFG. Yes FFG knows Richard HSU. You just say his name and they will blush. lol. Not in a bad way, just that he is relentless when it comes to people doing what they are supposed to do or just getting answers to problems. I would be bragging to say our group along with Richards drive has lead to about 20% of the FAQ updates over the past 2 years. Many leading to some of the major changes to how the game is played and scored in tournaments and what was and was not legal. For example, prior to our testing you could barrel roll your ships to both sides to see what you like the best. This was fixed. Many great players like Jonathan Gomes also know and hold Richard as a friend. But... Any of his friends will tell you when it come to playing a game, Richard will NEVER just let you win. At the same time he give you the coat off his back if you are his friend. " for a good price lol " inside joke. Needless to say he would never cheat you. Having been an Naval officer now almost retired he has helped more people than I have time to name.

After the match Richard realized that his joking and style of play really hurt Josh when he offered his hand saying good game and Josh rejected it at first. Later Josh warmed up and shook Richards hand. I know Josh if he had know Richard longer wouldn't have taken any of this personally knowing who he really is. No one is perfect, unless your crazy then you might think your are. ;-) So to end this rant.. I have to take the blame for this. Due to I helped come up with the idea and by not showing up to Worlds lead to Keith playing... " again a joke " kind of. At least Richards first statement to me prior to worlds " I found a Great Player who could win worlds " was very true. Sadly two great players ended up knocking the other out of the bracket to make that chance come true. Something many of our north west players know all to well as do many other X-wing families. Richard Hsu holds a dubious title as being one of the few players to have played from coast to coast North to South and Canada, And will soon add Mexico, and a few European events to his belt. If you play X-wing you have played or know some one who has played Richard live or on Vassal. He is truly one of the best and most competitive players I have ever meet next to my self.

I can see some validity in the folks who say that the game needs objectives. The only minis game I played prior to X-Wing was Dungeons and Dragons Minis, which had an interesting "victory area" mechanic. Here's a very rough first draft adaptation of it for X-Wing.

* Each player gets a 100mm cardboard square (the "objective area" or "OA").

* After normal asteroid and ship placement, each player (in init order) places his OA within Range 2 of the opponent's edge.

* At the end of the end phase, if any ship fully occupies an OA, took an "OA" action, and no ships occupying that OA were fired upon, the occupying player collects 5 points. (Not "per ship." 5 points, if (1) a ship fully occupies the OA, (2) that ship took a special "OA" action, and (3) no ship occupying the OA was fired upon.

* The first squadron to 100 points (OA points and kills) wins the game.

Being that I basically just pulled this out of my butt, I'm sure as written it has problems. But the concept of it, at least, could be really interesting. And it's very simple in terms of set-up, equipment, and play.

It does some cool stuff:

* It makes nimble re-positioning ships have additional value. A-wings, for example, would be fantastic OA-point collectors.

* On the other hand, slow 1-forward (like X-wings and Z-95s) ships can collect OA twice, if not rousted.

* It makes set-up of ships, and even obstacles, more strategic.

* It inherently balances hyper-mobile ships like Phantoms. Yes, they're fantastic OA-collectors ... except that the attacker may very well know where they're heading. They make awesome OA-defenders, except that, again, attackers can anticipate that.

As an alternate thought, set up only one OA, 150mm square, in the center of the board. This would be set up pre-asteroids and ships, and asteroids could not overlap the OA. Otherwise the same rules. This would probably work better for timed games, because it really, really encourages engagement.

Anyway, I think FFG will do something about fortressing (and quite possibly edge-running), likely by classifying it as "stalling," and thus text-book bad sportsmanship, but that doesn't invalidate the good point that objectives might be good for the game also.

DavidWa, get your posts under control. There is absolutely no need for the huge text or all bold. Anything you had to say just got insta-ignored.

You will need to add in. Flying out side of the opponents firing arcs, Moving to avoid being shot. Moving up and down a line with out turning other than to K Turn, And the list goes on and on. I would rather just let this minor tactic be used due to it doesn't break any rules and can be easily defeated. Please don't make this more than it is. A basic move anyone could do that doesn't give you an un-winnable advantage. Not counting it will kill the Lambda.

DavidWa, get your posts under control. There is absolutely no need for the huge text or all bold. Anything you had to say just got insta-ignored.

LOL wow..

Thank you.

Threads moved on from that topic DavidWa, and if you want to continue this thread another 20 pages about things we won't ever agree on feel free to do it by yourself.

My god the belly aching in this thread.

Quite honestly, the finals showed why the "wait till the opponent commits" strategy is a bit popular at the top. I think it was last year at Gencon, when the Rebel player lost, and he said it was because he turned before the swarm. And look at what happened when Morgan was baited into the asteroids.

This is utter BS. Watch the game. The Rebel player lost because he put Biggs ahead of Wedge and Luke, and parked him on an asteroid right in front of the swarm. Committing too early had absolutely nothing to do with it.

Threads moved on from that topic DavidWa, and if you want to continue this thread another 20 pages about things we won't ever agree on feel free to do it by yourself.

At least I have you attacking me vs Richard for a bit. lol

Then maybe I'm remembering a different game. I know someone at a major tournament admitted that he lost because he was the first to turn in from the side hugging.

Sigh. I didn't attack you at all. You had piss poor forum etiquette and set your font size

to this.

For no reason. If you think me calling you out on that is "attacking" you then that says more about you than it does me.

And i never once attacked Richard as an person. I attacked his sportsmanship and tactics for that match. I didn't get nearly as nasty as other people got towards me in this thread.

Geez, i can not fix the spacing on this thing. But this is as annoying to read as yours was until you fixed it.

The lack of engaging is tied to in game mechanical issues.

Richard was going to have a very hard time with the decloak of the Phantom. He chose to cover his flanks with the edge of the board.

Typo took advantage of the fact that it's incredibly difficult to kill a Fat Han in 75 min. The longer you wait, the more likely you are to win.

These are more issues with tournament rules, mechanics, and scoring. One culprit is the time limit, which I don't think about which anything can be done (there has to be one, obviously), though I wonder how people would feel if this had been the final game...how long would Richard have sat there? Would the crowd have stood for it?

Another is the point threshold in X-Wing. In a lot of games, there is a "draw" margin that you have to get beyond to gain victory. In X-Wing, that number is one. No doubt Richard would have had to come out of the fortress earlier if he needed to kill more than one tie. However, I do think that overall, the fact that x-wing has so few draws serves it well, but in this game, it didn't.

Finally, there's the notion of only getting points for destroyed ships. I do think we're reaching a point where doing more than half damage to a large base ship should earn back half points. That wouldn't have affected the match discussed here, but would definitely impact the way large ships are used as points denial, especially when they are low on hull.

There is also the small issue of Swiss rounds vs Single Elimination rounds.

It was a bad tactic, but he got lucky.

Doesn't give him the right to be a jerk about it, but is it really worth 22 pages?

When you're out gunned and out matched, increasing the variance against your opponent, basically the amount luck influences the outcome, is really your only choice.

23 pages of shenigans!

Why do people keep feeding these threads? Oh wait, I just did it too...

Cause we like to see threads turn into mindless shenanigans with the few who randomly still try and argue points of the original post

Nothing to ask Jiimbo. I think the expression of your experience shows what the result of this tactic is. If I see you at GenCon 2015, I'll buy you a beer.

Seconded!

Sounds good to me

In the meantime Jimbo have a virtual beer on me

Love Brew Dog beer, we've got a great Brew Dog pub in Nottingham.... and i've still not had time to catch up with this thread.

Studio day today writing the new album so unlikely to be able to make a sensible on topic contribution til this evening either

DavidWa, you be you. Don't let caustic individuals muck up how you communicate in a free form internet forum. There are no grades here.

Requiring someone to post in a legible format is being caustic now? What a crock of !#%&.

You want to call me caustic for attacking the Rebel players arguably poor sportsmanship and tactics thats fine, don't you dare attribute that to me asking DavidWa to clean up his posts when they come out in size 48 font and bolded for no reason. Thats simple "IM YELLING ON THE INTERNET" and had I done that on any of my posts would have been rightfully blasted and ridiculed.

I don't think fortressing is a good tactic, fairly easy to beat.

But I think it's in FFG's best interest to do something about it, simply to stop these threads from showing up again.

The issue is, there is nothing illegal about the tactic, and that's the only thing that matters really. I don't care how cheap or unsportsmanlike people think it is. Unless FFG changes the rules somehow then there's nothing a TO can do about it.

So I think FFG should just say that the fortress tactic isn't legal and let the TO decide when it happens. They can either DQ someone using it, or IMO a better choice is have the TO assign a dial to someone who is using it.

Yes it's a subjective call, but so is stalling and other things in the Tournament rules. If we trust the TO to decide those things we can trust them to decide this.

FFG doesn't even need to justify the ruling, it's their game so anything they do is justified. It's not like they needed to justify the staling rule.

Funny had any one posted that the Judges at FFG. Who help make this game, love this game, live this game. Let him do this as a legal and valid game play? Let the hate flow... It just makes Richard stronger lol.. Oh and when they asked Players like Paul about this.. he said.. I don't care.. I could beat it.