I stand by it. I have played in tournaments of every format and length, from 3 rounds at 75 min each to weekend long affairs of 4 hour rounds. The idea that people can't realistically participate in a tourney at 2.5 hour rounds and two days is incorrect. That is actually, basically miniature gaming standard - Warhammmer and 40k, larger Warmachine events, Flames of War and its derivatives...etc. Just came back from Adepticon where I had both the pleasure of playing some Armada with its designers and talking about this issue and watching thousands of gamers play rounds of 2.5 hour games over multiple days.

What is ridiculous is the idea that a miniatures game tourney taking two days with rounds of 2.5 hours is somehow unreasonable or that people can't realistically participate.

How is it ridiculous that it's unreasonable for some people to be able to participate in a tournament that long? Several of my gaming friends have kids, for example. There's a big difference between finding someone to watch the kids for a couple hours, and finding someone to do it all day, or even two days.

I drive an hour each way to the venue I play HeroClix at. With our tournaments running about 3 hours, that's a 5 hour commitment. If the tournament itself runs 8 hours, that makes 10 hours. With the 8 hours I work (plus about another hour driving time), an hour or two I spend every day checking on my elderly grandmother, that's 20+ hours, which I suppose I could do if I decide to just not sleep.

Some people work multiple jobs, or even a single job with a 60+ hour work week. I know some for whom 80 hours is average. Please tell me how they can just "realistically participate in anything."

If you were to say that it's reasonable for some people to participate in 8 hour long tournaments, I can agree with that. But a blanket statement that people can "realistically participate in anything," seems shockingly divorced from reality. Maybe you can commit 8 hours to a tournament easily if you want to, and so can others. But that in no way means that everyone can, and to suggest that they can is actually kind of insulting.

I have been playing competitively since 1977. The 75 minute rounds of X wing are the shortest I have experienced, yet every tourney I have played in has ended after midnight due the number of rounds played. I have also played in tourneys where the rounds were 4 hours long and took three days. There will always be people that *****, but people can realistically participate in anything. I continue to laugh at posts that make it seem like gaming was invented yesterday and things we have been doing for decades have never been done before or are not considered normal.

There is also the issue that a game company dictating tourney terms to its players is an artificial restriction. You can run events in any format you like. I have run events that did not use the company format, but attracted more players and gave out more prizes than any the company itself ran or sanctioned.

For company sanctioned events, they cannot please everyone, so they go with what will work with that game for the most people. My read is that, for Armada - which has a lot going on per turn - 400 at 2.5 hours is pretty much exactly where they should be.

I'm just going to let the ridiculousness of that statement stand on its own.

Someone's never been to the Boardgame Players Association Word Boardgaming Championships.

No. Been to Origins and GenCon, but that's about it. And even at a convention like those, lots of people decide what events they're going to do based on the time commitment. I know the one year when I played at a Mage Wars tournament, the turnout was abyssmal, and the main reason cited by players that stopped by their booth but chose not to play a tournament was because it was over 6 hours long. Even when people go to an event specifically for gaming, there are still only so many hours in the day to budget.

I love the concept of "Well that's how it's always been, so it will work fine."

That would be great if the world around was also stagnant. But, it's not. For better or for worse, things change.

The miniature scene used to be long hours of gameplay, but that scene has been dying for a long time.

The gamers that were big into miniatures were kids and young adults back in the day. They are now full adults with families, careers, and other obligations. The younger generation doesn't have the time for patience for long play tournaments. I knew some extremely serious miniature gamers from back in the day that have recently given it up all together. Time being a big element of it. Back when they were in college, they could spend all day or all weekend, or several nights a week playing tournaments. Now even an afternoon tournament of X-wing is a bit of a difficult thing to plan around.

For them, being competitive is what is fun about the game. Not being able to participate because a tournament takes all weekend means they won't buy into the game.

In today's environment of instant gratification and super busy schedules, long play times for games/tournaments can be a big negative.

Again, I'm not saying the amount of time is good or bad, just pointing out that the world has changed and fewer and fewer people are into spending all day on one activity.

It'll be hard to judge if the time allotted is too much or too little until we get to that point.

While you make some interesting points in that regard, the issue is there are still games with thriving competitive play events that are all day affairs.

Warmachine/Hordes is probably the best example as thier competitive play circuit has just continued to grow. And at thier most common point level you are looking at a 2 hour long round (under Deathclock). And they don't cap at 3 RDs for anything under 33.

It's certainly not as accessible as the CCG format they use for X-wing, but that's likely fine given the game. Moreover X-wing once it moves to an SC or Regional ends up taking forever. I mean you want to see events that should take place over two days look just wait for the larger Regionals.

One way to look at it though, is how would you streamline the game to the point where you could have 90 minute rounds, while still being a fleet game, with the size and scope it currently has, and maintaining the star wars feel

So, here's what I'm seeing...I highly doubt many FLGS-run casual tourneys are going to have anywhere near 32 players. While there are still three rounds, the fewer players there are, the more likely that the game will be over long before time is called. And the faster a round goes...

FLGS events will probably be an about five hours...but that's not a lot longer than most local-level X-wing games, or any other local-level tourney that isn't a GW game or FoW. And generally speaking, you know long beforehand what the schedule is for an event. You can schedule your time weeks in advance.

The only time we're likely to see a 33+ player event is at a con, and if you're at the con at all, you've already scheduled the time.

I think you need to relook at the event sheet. Per it's specifications anything under 33 is 3 RDs of play. Given that the RD time once we move to 400pts is 2.5 hours. Thus there is no way to finish an event in 5 hours unless you go off book with structure and timing.

I am a little disappointed in the tournament rules for Armada. I think the bigger issue with what FFG put forth is it will not have a clear winner. 3 Rounds of Swiss for 32 people means there will be as many as 4 undefeated players. Since the tournament points are based on Margin of Victory, it means that it will likely be the one of the four players who got the softest opponents (and thus more Victory Points) which will ultimately win the tournament. It would suck very much to "lose" the tournament having never played the "winner" simply because he played a new player in round 1 and got full points.

It also means if you ever lose a match you may as well drop, since it will be unlikely that you could make up the points needed to be in the prizes.

An alternative I had come up with a week before the game came out was splitting the players up into pods of 8 or 16 players and running 3 to 4 rounds of Swiss concurrently (guaranteeing single undefeated players) Then cut to top 2-4 from each and doing elim rounds from there. It means a longer time frame (12+ hrs) but would guarantee a single, true winner while doing its best to conserve time. 12+ hours is a long day, but is doable, if a little grueling, if started early enough.

It's obvious that two-day events will be needed over 32, but I frankly don't see many people/venues being able to dedicate 2 whole days to it, especially when there is already X-Wing, Imperial Assault, Etc.

I honestly think the time needed to play Armada limits its ability to be a serious competitive game. But there is little/nothing FFG can really do about that now other than redesign it completely. Not being competitive may be fine though. I think Armada will thrive as a local League game and will struggle with tournament attendance.

it is all about the players and how badly they want to play the game

it is all about the players and how badly they want to play the game

...and what other obligations they have taking up their time.