Even though wave 2 is probably a good 4-12 weeks away, would it be worth playing wave 1 games with 400 points from time to time just to get used to having that extra 200 points of things on the table?

If you have played a 400 point fight what was the overall impression of the tactical and strategic changes?

I can see it built around a large ship, or 3 Mediums. Tho I think the 3 VSD will be a thing of the past. In favor of 3 AF

AFAIK we still don't know the point costs of the large ships, so a lot of speculation is useless

I would probably add a gladiator 1 to my current setup and more fighters but that is about it.

Considering that I am really sure the ISD 1 will be roughly 90+ points we may see trip ISD lists with fight support

With Wave 1 now released, standard games have been raised to 300 points, I believe. At 400 points all sorts of neat things begin to open up. Try bringing a Rebel fleet with no squadrons, or the same with an Imperial. You'll have a lot of firepower on the field, a lot of ships to move around, and your opponent most likely won't see it coming.

Just be sure to bring some effective anti– squadron capability. I've played a few games like this already and had a lot of fun.

I feel like it gets easier to play the more the points total rises. At 180, you make one bad move and you're basically done. You come up against a hard counter and you're basically done. You have one lousy dice experience, and, yup, you're done.

At 300 you can afford to screw up with half your fleet as long as you manage to do something miraculous with the other half. And your opponent has twice as many decisions to make (aka potential screw-ups to even things out). You can cover more bases and reduce your vulnerabilities.

IMO 400 will just continue that state of affairs. It feels like it was designed for 300-400 point games, and everything starts to click at that level.

I doubt you will see many competitive lists with no Squadrons. Using your Ship fire to shoot Squadrons is largely inefficient.

You will see spam lists of small Ships at 400, with Squadron defensive options.

You will see three mediums with Mixed Squadrons.

Twin large ships and a bunch of Squadrons is sure to be a thing.

I think mostly what you will are a Larger Flagship flanked by smaller Ships, with mixed Squadrons.

I can see it built around a large ship, or 3 Mediums. Tho I think the 3 VSD will be a thing of the past. In favor of 3 AF

AFAIK we still don't know the point costs of the large ships, so a lot of speculation is useless

Not trying to open a thread on speculation, what the ships will do or cost will get clarrified down the line.

As much as the change from 180 to 300 added some extra tactics and strategies to the game will the change from 300 to 400 come with some changes?

Would 3 VSD's and fighter support be as reasonable an expectation as 2 VSD's and fighter support? Will 7 Corvettes be even remotely viable with no squadrons, or will 167 points of sqadrons doom the concept?

If for no other reason that you mentioned them I quite like the idea of 2 AF's as they can fly either side of a VSD. So they risk maybe a turn directly in front of the VSD, and they would fly in a shape that would be "fish hook like" thus as the VSD responed to things one compresses its turn and the other decompresses its turn in order to keep the VSD on their flanks as much as possible. Because the VSD has two redirects I tend to have the tactical premise that I will have to deal 20+ damage to the blasted ship in order to destroy it. Those Brace tokens help here and only further adds damage to the total needed. Now, add 100 points and what happens? You would expect that the VSD now has a backup to help down one of the FA's and the fatties will have help too.....

Thinking about it I think adding more points also adds one other aspect to the game, the ability to swamp a ships arcs of fire with too many choices. Which at he moment probably leads me to the conclusion that 400 point fights could be a tad unfair as the Imperials don't yet have an equal to the Corvette.

I doubt you will see many competitive lists with no Squadrons. Using your Ship fire to shoot Squadrons is largely inefficient.

My regular opponent and I had played some random fleets over the weekend, and my Rebel fleet was a pair of Assault Frigates and a Corvette and Nebulon. I had just a pair of X-Wings. I managed to down his VSD on my last activation of turn 6, that little red corvette plowed into the side of the VSD and triggered a reactor overload. Now had he played the Squadrons better I think he may have finished off both my Assault Frigates.

BTW: We played intel sweep and he was able to deploy after my objective ship. He then had two VSD's protecting his two objectives and ran his Gladiator towards the objective furthest from my objective ship. So, on turn three I had two objectives off my side of the board and he had one. So while he didn't pull of the play on the squadrons he did very well on the mission.

The defensive capabilities of a ship are fairly fixed at 3-4 defence tokens. 400pts won't change this. But there will be an extra 100pts of guns on the table that I think will be a tipping point if you can effectively focus fire. Once those defense tokens are spent you are wide open...

It will also bring the respective admirals into focus. Their effect scales but their points cost doesn't. So those 180pt imperial lists out of the box have actually been more like 150pt lists.

More importantly I'll be able to take home1, Akbar and yell IT'S A TRAP every time my opponent sets his movement tool down on the table

I've only played at 400 points so far. I'll probably be upping it to 600-1000 once wave 2 hits.

I already threw this into a Neb B thread before I saw this one- It think the need to be first player diminishes as the number of ships increases, basically because of what Gibarion said:

I feel like it gets easier to play the more the points total rises. At 180, you make one bad move and you're basically done. You come up against a hard counter and you're basically done. You have one lousy dice experience, and, yup, you're done.

At 300 you can afford to screw up with half your fleet as long as you manage to do something miraculous with the other half. And your opponent has twice as many decisions to make (aka potential screw-ups to even things out). You can cover more bases and reduce your vulnerabilities.

IMO 400 will just continue that state of affairs. It feels like it was designed for 300-400 point games, and everything starts to click at that level.

Is this an official ruling that the fleet cap will go up to 400, or are you just saying you're all going to up the cap for lols?

Just wondering.

Is this an official ruling that the fleet cap will go up to 400, or are you just saying you're all going to up the cap for lols?

Just wondering.

In the original tournament rules it spelled out 180 for core, 300 for wave 1, and 400 for wave 2. With corresponding time increases1.5-2-2.5 hrs. Not sure if the "schedule" is still in the current tourney rules.

Hmm, will we get more clarification when Wave 2 comes out? Like will their be a note in the ISD or something that says "Now you need to use 400 points" or something?

The 400 point limit for tourney after wave two is in the official tourney rules and in the game rules. I haven't even bothered with 300 points, and won't unless a local tourney or such uses it. And I'm already planning for 500+ points.

Hmm, will we get more clarification when Wave 2 comes out? Like will their be a note in the ISD or something that says "Now you need to use 400 points" or something?

Page one of the Tournament Rules. Little blue green box in the lower right.

The 400 point limit for tourney after wave two is in the official tourney rules and in the game rules. I haven't even bothered with 300 points, and won't unless a local tourney or such uses it. And I'm already planning for 500+ points.

So what makes the 400 point game fun to you? Expand a bit on this, I am interested.

I haven't read the tournament rules, so fair enough.

Amanal, I just like more ships on the board. The more points, the more toys I can have on there. Once wave two hits, I can see myself going all the way to 800-1000 points, just so I can use everything in a mass fleet engagement, that actually would FEEL like an armada.

I think 400 points is a good amount to have on the board and get through turns and decisions fairly fluidly.

I can see me going up to 500 points or so but beyond that I think I'm going to be looking to make it a team game. I think three 400 point squadrons per side would work quite nicely, maybe with a 200 point flagship/squadron for the overall commander.

I might have to recruit more players first though.

I've played a 400 game last week and it's definitely more breathing room for your lists. Since one of my friends at the LGS is so gung ho about getting a bunch of people together to play a "huge" game on more than just the 6x3 play area, I'm really interested to know how many points can be fielded in that play area before it feels too crowded. I'm looking to try and get some 600&800 point games in to see how the space feels.

When the game was first revealed at GenCon I immediately imagined the fleet I wanted to play with, 1 ISD, 1-2 VSD, 3-4 smaller support ships and a whole slew of fighter squadrons.

I was immensely disappointed when I finally saw the point values, I'm not sure I can even get that fleet into 600 points, much less 400.

I like the idea of bigger games, however, at some point the ships on the board get too close together and the tactical choices diminish. The game heads towards the setup and scrum in the middle. At what point that happens and on what table size, I say go experiement and have fun learning. Mind you I also like games where the army build contains a higher degree of "opportunity cost". The Opportunity Cost of something is the idea that with 100 points I can buy a AF with some goodies or a Nebulon and Corvette, so if I buy the Neb/Corv combination the opportunity cost is the AF that I didn't take.

Based on the expectation the ISD is 92, I can see a 3-ship build centered around it and a pair of VSD-1s.

That leaves about 160 points for squads and upgrades, or about 135 if the ISD is backed up by VSD IIs.

Based on the expectation the ISD is 92,

Is there some basis for that expectation? Looking at what we have seen of the stats I have a hard time believing it will be less than 100 points.