Yeah and I was at dinner with Paul and Richard later that night and we all called him an ******* (lightheartedly)

Though I hate to feed the ridiculousness that this thread devolved into, I will chance it by posting on the OP.

There is nothing wrong with fortress. The "boring game" that occurred was a result of BOTH players refusing to engage, it is entirely inappropriate to criticize the fortress while giving a pass to the side that refuses to engage by flying back and forth.

Also, there is already a powerful mechanism in place to prevent the fortress from being a good strategy in general. Initiative means that both sides are NOT equal. In an elimination match (where a draw is not possible) the player without initiative must engage, or lose the game. The player with initiative can use this information to ensure that the battle occurs on his terms. This is an advantage the player with initiative enjoys, just like the advantage of shooting first and moving to block his opponent, offset by the intelligence advantage the player without initiative has (because he can see more of the board state before making decisions).

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?

Indeed they did let him do it. It's not as they had much choice; they don't make or change rules on the fly, even when they're being clearly and shamelessly exploited.

That doesn't mean they liked it or approved of it, though. In fact, I believe it's been documented that they didn't.

even when they're being clearly and shamelessly exploited.

Frank and Alex said this is not an exploit, in fact they said it in the video linked some pages back in this thread.

Also the TO had a pretty wide latitude on dealing with what they consider to be unsportsmanlike conduct so they could have in fact stepped in if they wanted to.

The TO, at his sole discretion, may remove players from the tournament for unsportsmanlike conduct.

Frank and Alex said this is not an exploit, in fact they said it in the video linked some pages back in this thread.

This video, VanorDM?

Rationalize the behaviour however you want; fortressing is an exploit of the games' movement mechanics. As far as I'm aware, neither X-Wings or Z-95's have "0" moves on their dials, so they shouldn't be able to sit in a corner, in formation for an indefinite period of time.

The tricky part is separating fortress strategies vs issues with traffic jams, blocking, and accidents. Fortressing isn't nearly strong enough to justify screwing up with those other issues.

The tricky part is separating fortress strategies vs issues with traffic jams, blocking, and accidents. Fortressing isn't nearly strong enough to justify screwing up with those other issues.

Maybe three months later, and after watching the weekend's events they'll have an opportunity to review that particular opinion.

And as I said, I hope they do.

Also as I said the TO's could of stepped in and stopped if if they wanted to. Hell they could of had Frank or Alex step in and fix it for that matter.

Though I hate to feed the ridiculousness that this thread devolved into, I will chance it by posting on the OP.

There is nothing wrong with fortress. The "boring game" that occurred was a result of BOTH players refusing to engage, it is entirely inappropriate to criticize the fortress while giving a pass to the side that refuses to engage by flying back and forth.

Also, there is already a powerful mechanism in place to prevent the fortress from being a good strategy in general. Initiative means that both sides are NOT equal. In an elimination match (where a draw is not possible) the player without initiative must engage, or lose the game. The player with initiative can use this information to ensure that the battle occurs on his terms. This is an advantage the player with initiative enjoys, just like the advantage of shooting first and moving to block his opponent, offset by the intelligence advantage the player without initiative has (because he can see more of the board state before making decisions).

It reminds me of the thread from a few months ago where a Y-Wing player complained that his opponent killed one ship and spent the rest of the match running from the Y-Wings' ion turrets.

Though I hate to feed the ridiculousness that this thread devolved into, I will chance it by posting on the OP.

There is nothing wrong with fortress. The "boring game" that occurred was a result of BOTH players refusing to engage, it is entirely inappropriate to criticize the fortress while giving a pass to the side that refuses to engage by flying back and forth.

Also, there is already a powerful mechanism in place to prevent the fortress from being a good strategy in general. Initiative means that both sides are NOT equal. In an elimination match (where a draw is not possible) the player without initiative must engage, or lose the game. The player with initiative can use this information to ensure that the battle occurs on his terms. This is an advantage the player with initiative enjoys, just like the advantage of shooting first and moving to block his opponent, offset by the intelligence advantage the player without initiative has (because he can see more of the board state before making decisions).

This is a very good point. How is it bad form that Richard kept his ships in a fortress formation for 70 minutes and refused to engage his foe at a disadvantage, while it's not a problem that Jimbo spent 70 minutes flying around and refusing to engage Richard because doing so would have put him at a disadvantage?

It reminds me of the thread from a few months ago where a Y-Wing player complained that his opponent killed one ship and spent the rest of the match running from the Y-Wings' ion turrets.

There is a huge, HUGE difference between flying defensively with a highly manoeuvrable (and highly fragile as it turns out) squad and not moving at ALL.

The beauty of this game is that you’re not supposed to be able to stop and wait to see what your opponent does, you need to keep moving and plan 2-3 turns ahead and have contingency plans, flying in formation or not and trying to counteract your opponents moves. You can't counteract something that’s not moving.

In this instance Jimbo flew defensively, emphasis FLEW, knowing that he has the manovreability advantage. His opponent while less manoeuvrable has the durability advantage. As pointed out Jimbo had initiative and could have sat and let the time go, however I believe that the perception of “Fly Casual” as well as the obvious discontent from those around compelled him to engage, sadly to his detriment.

If anything Jimbo should be commended for refusing to allow the match to become a complete farce.

Anyone espousing the virtues of “Fly Casual” whilst condoning the tactics of Richard as justified need to take a hard look at themselves, no one more so that Richard who was apparently wearing a “Fly Casual” shirt as well.

Yes the nature of elimination rounds change tactics, but this is one tactic that good or bad should not have been considered, and in turn the officials on site should not have been put in a position to make a call, which they did not in the end even though evidence suggests they were deeply unhappy with how it played out.

No, it isn't different. In fact, if your goal is to waste all the time available then moving your ships is far more effective than simply forting up. Just assign all of your ships a 1 turn or 2 turn, never change them and fly in circles until you can call it a day. Make sure you fly each of them very precisely so you don't accidentally fly off the table and waste time. Or, green, k-turn, green, k-turn, over and over. You don't go any further, but it takes a lot more time to accomplish than simply not moving.

I hammered a Whisper, Backstabber, Soontir list with 2 Zs and 3 Bs this weekend (not in the tournament) by moving forward, and returning to my starting position when it became apparent that my opponent was attempting to draw me into the asteroids. I wasn't forting up, neither was I intending to keep this up for ever, but I was certainly intending to get my opponent to commit before I did and pull him through the rocks. I don't feel in any way bad about that, it wasn't inherently different than the fact that my opponent turned Backstabber away from me in order to bait me into chasing him while he lingered outside with his other ships. We both wanted to control the initial engagement.

This is a very good point. How is it bad form that Richard kept his ships in a fortress formation for 70 minutes and refused to engage his foe at a disadvantage, while it's not a problem that Jimbo spent 70 minutes flying around and refusing to engage Richard because doing so would have put him at a disadvantage?

It reminds me of the thread from a few months ago where a Y-Wing player complained that his opponent killed one ship and spent the rest of the match running from the Y-Wings' ion turrets.

Well, that's precisely the point of this thread.

Because one thing is refusing to engage by following the "normal" flow of play, like going back and forth, using asteroids to obstructs shots etc etc... And another entirely different thing is "abusing" a game mechanic to prevent your ships from moving at all, when by definition, ships have to move every turn.

Overlapping ships is something that players should actively avoid... not something desirable to gain an advantage off. If a game mechanic is concieved as something punitive (losing your action step), and despite so, players make use of the mechanic to their advantage, something is definitely not working as intended. In this specific case, it seems that a given player decide to fortress because the benefit of not moving overweights the disadvantage of skipping the action step. In a way, he is cheating the rule by obtaining an advantage greater than the penalty.

My personal take on this?

"According to the overlapping rules, if the ship performing the maneuver is returned to its starting position, it suffers one damage."

Did Jimbo try throwing feints at Richard? Send his TIEs screaming in, then breaking off to see if Richard would shift position to engage? In the Sigma Six battle report, it was mentioned that Richard didn't keep his ships in formation when he saw the triple Phantom squad coming right at him. If he had no reason to believe his opponent would bring the bring the house, he had minimal reason to do anything different.

There is a difference there Kinetic, as you had to "Make sure you fly each of them very precisely so you don't accidentally fly off the table and waste time. Where as the Rebel player merely had to flip his dials up, then flip them back down, over and over. And what would have happened if your opponent saw you turn around, and proceeded to advance towards you getting into engagement before you have a chance to reposition? You could easily be out of formation or be stressed due to K-turning.

There is a difference there Kinetic, as you had to "Make sure you fly each of them very precisely so you don't accidentally fly off the table and waste time. Where as the Rebel player merely had to flip his dials up, then flip them back down, over and over. And what would have happened if your opponent saw you turn around, and proceeded to advance towards you getting into engagement before you have a chance to reposition? You could easily be out of formation or be stressed due to K-turning.

Exactly. Which makes it a much better way of accomplishing the same thing. The "flying precisely" was meant to indicate that you are super careful with the templates while moving, which takes a ton of time. After all, there is no precision required in selecting 1 turns for EVERYONE and simply never changing the dials. By doing a quasi-fort / no-advance series of movement (actually, it is called declining an engagement and in real world tactics the ability to decline an engagement is the #1 advantage of having the tactical or strategic initiative) you can bait your opponent into pushing in.

Looking back at the initial photo of the formation, there's a band about two inches wide on the side of the board where the only ship with coverage is Wedge. A group of TIEs could have tried threading the needle there and flown in to engage. That would have forced Richard to either break formation to counter, allowing Whisper to start working magic, or to allow Biggs to eat a lot of firepower without much of a response.

It takes tricky flying to get in there, but this is World's.

And since Richard wasn't moving AT ALL, the Imperial player had literally all the time he needed to set up a precise approach. If I had faced Richard with the same list, I would have sent the swarm up one side and Whisper down the other. At some point Richard would be forced to break formation or be destroyed by the swarm, and I could put him in between my two hammers. Which is just a variation of what I did when I played Richard, tailored for a different list. You control the circumstances in which the shooting starts, so you can force Richards hand and make him choose to either trade fire with 1 of his 5 actions (very much a losing proposition), or break formation and allow you to out position him with your Phantom. The Imperial player did neither. I don't know what his strategy was, so I won't comment on his decisions except to explain what I would have done in his shoes.

Except thats not how the game is meant to be played. You can call it subjective all you want, but lets look at examples.

The current way to perform a zero maneuver by yourself currently are a Shuttle performing a Red 0 maneuver, generating a stress and denying you an action unless you pay an additional 3 points for Advanced Sensors.
Upcoming ways are Inertial Dampener, which takes up an illicit slot, limiting it to one faction, costing 1 point, and requiring you to discard it after, AND receive a stress.

More complicated ways involve taking a Black Squadron with Wingman and parking it behind a Lambda clearing the stress off of it and preventing the Black Squadron from moving past the Lambda, but you can't set this up in the deployment zone.

Previous infamous examples utilized two Falcons face to face bumping with 1 Straights.

How can you serious tell me that FFG intended for perpetual self-bumping to be a part of the game design? They clearly made any ships capable of performing 0 maneuvers pay a price for it or jump through hoops to accomplish that feat.

Kinetic, the game simply wasn't designed for any and all ships to be able to hit the handbrakes all game long.

its sad that the imperial player felt the need to force the issue, he had the initiative so in theory the rebel player should have been in a position that if he didnt engage he would lose.[...]

From the article the Imperial didn't force the issue. Rather they flew back and forth until the rebels came out. And since the Imperial had initiative if the Rebels hadn't come out the Imperial's would have won.

The best way to deal with players who attempt such unsportsmanlike tactics is to immediately concede the match [ ...]

See above:

I think the best, if not most boring move, would be to K-Turn back and forth, fly in circles or see if you can fortress yourself even though it is after setup. With initiative the Imperial would have won without any combat.

Kind of kills the enjoyment for me. But then the Millennium Falcon builds takes a lot away for me too.

How can you serious tell me that FFG intended for perpetual self-bumping to be a part of the game design?

Did they when writing the rules foresee it happening? No I don't think so. When it did start happening, where they made aware of it and said that they were fine with it? Yes they did.

So what they intended doesn't matter in the least, what they are saying is acceptable right now does matter. If they didn't want this type of tactic to be allowed they could of come with any number of ways to address it.

But the bottom line is, no matter how much some people may dislike it, FFG has said that doing so is fine by them, but they're keeping an eye on it.

You or I may have opinions on how the game is meant to be played, but only FFG has any authority to make that call, and they have said doing so is ok with them for now.

They didn't say they were fine with it, they said they were going to be keeping an eye on it, which it means it was a concern but so low priority it didn't warrant immediate attention.

They didn't say they were fine with it, they said they were going to be keeping an eye on it

And yet, they haven't done anything about it. So it that means they are in fact fine with it, even if it's only through omission. If they didn't want it to happen, they would have addressed the issue before now.

No decision is a decision of a form in this case.

Also arguing how the game is "meant to be played" is a pointless exercise because that is purely subjective opinion. If you want to discuss the issue then do so with objective reasons why this is bad for the game. Arguments of sportsmanship and Spirit of the Game leads nowhere.

Edit: I just watched the video again, the question comes up at 26:00. Frank just kinda blows the whole thing off, and Alex says that he does not consider it enough of a problem to do anything about. He said if it becomes a winning tactic then perhaps, but right now it isn't that good and as such he doesn't feel he should need to address it.

So yes, FFG is fine with it as is, because that is pretty much exactly what Alex said in that interview.

Oh so you expect them to announce a new ruling a few days after they had a high level gameplay incident? Your expectations for their errata turnover are very high.

Oh so you expect them to announce a new ruling a few days after they had a high level gameplay incident?

No but they could of done something in the year or so that this has been getting discussed around here. This is far from the first thread that the fortress tactic has been been brought up. It's also not like they weren't aware of this for some time.

In the video from GenCon 3 months ago, which is plenty of time to address this if they chose to, they said quite clearly they didn't think it something they should try and fix. Which is the same thing they said about a year ago when someone emailed them.

It's odd, it doesn't work well, and unless that changes they're not going to change the rules to stop it.

Even in the case from Worlds, it only worked out due to some really bad luck by the Imperial player, and IMO a poor choice on his part by not being more aggressive.

The more this forum thrives, it is becoming apparent my word choice was accurate. But, perhaps I should have said "DavidWa, ignore these scornful and acidulous posts."