New article up:

https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2015/7/24/new-orders-from-high-command/

QUOTE FROM ARTICLE:

"During a skirmish, if your opponent has more ready Deployment cards than you, you may choose not to activate a group and pass play to your opponent.” This rule goes into effect on August 15th, 2015, and will not be used at the Imperial Assault National Championships at Gen Con Indy 2015.

When a player passes, his opponent immediately takes another turn, choosing and exhausting one of his ready Deployment cards. A player can pass as many times as he wishes, so long as his opponent has more ready Deployment cards. If a player ever has the same amount of ready Deployment cards as his opponent, he must take a turn.

This rule was implemented because we believe that the activation advantage created when one player has more activations than his opponent has become too powerful, and we needed to recalibrate. With the new rule, a player with fewer ready Deployment cards has the opportunity to pass his turn, which negates the advantage of several low-cost groups.

In our testing, this new rule has performed exceptionally well and it hasn’t swung the balance from high-activation lists to low-activation lists. More diverse armies are now viable and every turn is full of important back-and-forth decisions. In short, the game now behaves as it was intended to: more balanced and more fun for all players.

I like the rule change, it's impactful but easily implemented.

For reference:

The new rule is: “During a skirmish, if your opponent has more ready Deployment cards than you, you may choose not to activate a group and pass play to your opponent.” This rule goes into effect on August 15th, 2015, and will not be used at the Imperial Assault National Championships at Gen Con Indy 2015.

It will definitely help take away the huge activation advantage the imperials currently have and help a little bit against 4 officers.

I also like the rule change. Curious to see how this plays out. Will a 5 activation squad be a feasible opponent now? How much does this dull down the power of activation's?

I like the new activation rule as well. I also very much appreciate FFG working hard at keeping the game balanced, diverse, and fun.

Isn't there a command card that does this similarly? You don't go until your opponent has fewer untapped deployment cards? "Sit Tight", or something? This would completely destroy that card's usefulness, but still probably does more good than harm...

This is a good change. I just find it funny now that they have more or less just deleted a command card though. There's that command card that says as long as your opponent has more active deployment cards than you, you skip your activation. With this new rule, which is a better version of that, that card is now 100% useless.

99% useless; if it still allows you to pass when you are tied.

99% useless; if it still allows you to pass when you are tied.

Read the rule. It doesn't.

A welcome change. Now all we have to do is purge the internets of 4/4 lists (time will do that as different models get released) and we'll be in business.

99% useless; if it still allows you to pass when you are tied.

Read the rule. It doesn't.

(Thus only 99% useless as opposed to the full 100% posited in the post above me.)

It'll help, but I still don't think it's enough. They either need to raise the cost of Officers, or impose some limits on their abilities. I think a very reasonable solution would be to limit all figures to one out-of-activation action per round.

I like this rule change better than releasing a figure that has tempo control. Then that piece would be an auto include figure and we would have same problems with different pieces. With more activations, you still get to go back to back, just not maybe at the end. It doesn't really punish a player with high activations, but it does offer a bit of game control for someone with low activations.

As for dwarfing the Sit Tight card, I see it as an opening in the command deck that can now be used for something else. Win-win for players.

Overall, nice change without being too drastic and not just reactionary. The meta will shift with each new wave, but a rule like this will help balance in the mean time.

I think the new rule change is great!

Officers are fine. With this rule, and the new maps they wont seem nearly as OP.

It will be fun to start considering some 5 activation builds now!

This is really good news. Excited to see how more builds with fewer, yet more powerful, pieces might start diong well.

It is good to see that everyone is in agreement with the new rule. I concur!

99% useless; if it still allows you to pass when you are tied.

Read the rule. It doesn't.

ArbitraryGamer is right! "Sit Tight" does allow you to delay until your opponent ha LESS ready deployment cards than you.

The new rule doesn't allow for that.

It'll help, but I still don't think it's enough. They either need to raise the cost of Officers, or impose some limits on their abilities. I think a very reasonable solution would be to limit all figures to one out-of-activation action per round.

I would like that, but it's very hard to track on the board, don't you think?

I think this is an EXCELLENT change! Now a squad can include more beefy characters rather than being required to include 6+ characters just to be able to compete at the baseline level.

Han

Chewie

Luke

Gideon.

That will be fun.

Vader

RGC

Elite Officer

Reg officer

Also fun.

And coming soon to a table near you...

Boba

Luke

Gideon

{Temp alliance}

Elite Nexu

Trandoshans

I am definitely in favor of this change because it opens up so many new builds that would've never stood a chance otherwise! Thank you, FFG!

Who do you think they're talking about when they say concerns have been raised about the balance of some models? Imperial Officer?

Imperial Officer?

Yep.

And probably the Royal Guards too, but without the officers probably not as much.

Definitely excited for this rule change. I really like this list, and have done well against other 5 activation lists, but Imps with 6+ tear it up. Hoping this will increase my chances.

IG-88

Elite Trandoshan Hunter

Trandoshan Hunter

Elite Nexu

Nexu

It's 39 points, so planning to swap IG88 to Boba when he drops. But I really like this list. The Hunters are brutal. Relentlessness can be really punishing. Here, have 5 automatic strain. Now burn command cards or take damage. It has generally worked well against equally sized lists, even Empire, but not well against highly activation efficient Empire lists, so hoping the new rule helps out.

Yes, I love those relentless lists! They just tend to be low on activations, so they weren't really competitive...until now.

Definitely excited for this rule change. I really like this list, and have done well against other 5 activation lists, but Imps with 6+ tear it up. Hoping this will increase my chances.

IG-88

Elite Trandoshan Hunter

Trandoshan Hunter

Elite Nexu

Nexu

It's 39 points, so planning to swap IG88 to Boba when he drops. But I really like this list. The Hunters are brutal. Relentlessness can be really punishing. Here, have 5 automatic strain. Now burn command cards or take damage. It has generally worked well against equally sized lists, even Empire, but not well against highly activation efficient Empire lists, so hoping the new rule helps out.

I've played a list just like this. I love it. You can swap out IG-88 for elite sabs and regular sabs too I think.

Very interesting. Very interesting indeed.

I sincerely hope this will mix things up. I still suspect Imperial Officers are still a little bit too good for what they do (they'll still help dominate any mission involving grabbing objectives first) but no more will 4/4 or 9Act simply crush a powerless foe. Lists with just four or five activations become viable now. So, while I think there will be more that needs doing, I look forward to playing some games with this change!

To FFG: thanks for listening!