Epic battle without point limit

By Shivaja, in X-Wing

Hi guys i am looking for advice i plan to run epic battle without point limit. The idea is to throw everything i have on the table (witch is everything there is at least once ) and have big three way battle Empire vs Scum vs Rebels.
Does any one done this before any of you guys got any experience with that kind of epic epic battles ?

I was thinking of doing some scenario or missions for the three representative fractions, maybe some that favors Scum fraction as the other ones empire and rebels will have at least two Huge ships on the battle field.
The other thing is that i plan to run it as event on our annual EvE online players gathering so i will have 10 -15 guys to play with me, any one done this before any one have any idea how long such game can take ?

Any input or advice well appreciated.

Are you setting up the teams? Could be a problem if not.

Run it as a scenario, rebels have to get cr90 across the table, imps have to kill it before that happens, scum just have to get a kill a ship then flea off the map. Giving everyone something to do would be more rewarding than just kill each other.

If your making list make sure you have "simpler" builds for newcomers

If playing with no point limit u might want to have a rule that if a ship bumps it is destroyed and taken off the board. Thus taking more ships isn't necessarily a good idea

While I can see no point limit - I would ensure that ya'll are at least similar in power. For example, I probably have twice as many rebel ships as imps, and most of the imp ships are cheaper in points anyways. So if they all loaded out to the max, rebels would dominate. But if I was to say that every rebel ship at the cheapest price, was 827 points, then perhaps set the limit at 1000. That way you can take 150 points of upgrade for the rebels, and maybe 400 points of upgrades for imps. Still might not be the best, but it'll be better than the rebels taking 700 points of upgrades to fill every slot, ending with ~1500pts on the board, while the imps fill every slot and are only at 1100.

Generally, if you are not using points you need some kind of limit and some kind of objective.

Objectives and how they are handled are the best alternatives to points in terms of balancers.

2500 x 2500 x 2500 on a 6 foot by 12 foot map would rock!

3 way scrum.

I terms of mission/objectives i was thinking of an asteroid base in the middle of the play area and each side have to dock there and complete some objective steal some data , evacuate scientists, hijack shuttle etc. preferably different for each fraction.

Have cardboard asteroid base and containers build working on new foam and plastic one plus some extra corelian shuttles and escape pods so i got plenty material for missions

2500 x 2500 x 2500 on a 6 foot by 12 foot map would rock!

3 way scrum.

In terms of the play area am not sure if i shall go for 2 standard play maths next to each other or 4 of them. I was even thinking of separating one play math from the rest and throwing in some Hyperspace jump rules for traveling between the 2 battle arenas but that would probably over complicate things to much :(

Does this annual event last 3 days? Because that's how long it's going to take to play with a game that large. With that many guys are they each going to control 3-5 ships each?

As for a scenario, I'd play the Imps have control of an ateroid prison facility on their side of the base. Rebels have to dock and rescue a prisoner and get him back to the Transport or Corvette and then escape off the map. The Rebel ship docked(would have to have an open crew slot) with the prison would have to stay docked for a couple turns while the prisoner is resuced out of his cell. That ship would be untargetable while docked. Scum would move in for easy pickin's(looting, salvaging destroyed ships for role play puroposes).

Rebels start on one side with a full fleet. Imperials start at the prison asteroid with half a fleet. At a determined time ( 2 or 3 turns into the game) they could call reinforcements and bring in 1/4 of the rest of the fleet. But would have to do it from their start point. After/if the prisoner is resuced the Imps could reinforce the last 1/4 of the fleet from behind the Rebels. Scum could enter the game over the course of a few turns, as they detected the battle going on and moved in. They could choose from to enter from any side and wouldn't have any limit to the ships they can move in at a time.

Rebels win if they rescue and escape with the prisoner. (might need some tweaking so the prisoner ship isn't too easy to destroy).

Imps win if they destroy the prisoner ship or prevent the Rebels from resucing him in the first place.

Scum wins if they reduced both Reb and Imps down to a specific number (5?) ships a side. Forcing a retreat, for role playing purposes.

Ships entering late could be used by new players to the game that way they could get the gist of game play.

Oh my gods I knoW!!!

HAve two players show up with all their stuff. Place some buonty cards on each player's side to gain for points. They can be destroyed.

Then, set up. WHOEVER GETS SET UP FASTER GETS TO DEPLOY FIRST. HAHAHAHAHA. IF YOU LAG BEHIND YOU AHVE TO TRY AND SET UP WHILE PLANNING DIALS TO GET REINFORCEMENTS HAHAHAHAHA.

If playing with no point limit u might want to have a rule that if a ship bumps it is destroyed and taken off the board. Thus taking more ships isn't necessarily a good idea

Not sure if this is a good idea. Could be exploited: Take a number of cheap scrap fighters, bump intentionally high-point expensive large base ships to death (like 12pt Z95/TIE or 14 pt Scyk killing off a 40-60ptsship ).

I would suggest playing in the normal 3x3 area.

Saves you the trouble of manuvering all those ships since they'll be in an Infinite block.

Does this annual event last 3 days? Because that's how long it's going to take to play with a game that large. With that many guys are they each going to control 3-5 ships each?

As for a scenario, I'd play the Imps have control of an ateroid prison facility on their side of the base. Rebels have to dock and rescue a prisoner and get him back to the Transport or Corvette and then escape off the map. The Rebel ship docked(would have to have an open crew slot) with the prison would have to stay docked for a couple turns while the prisoner is resuced out of his cell. That ship would be untargetable while docked. Scum would move in for easy pickin's(looting, salvaging destroyed ships for role play puroposes).

Rebels start on one side with a full fleet. Imperials start at the prison asteroid with half a fleet. At a determined time ( 2 or 3 turns into the game) they could call reinforcements and bring in 1/4 of the rest of the fleet. But would have to do it from their start point. After/if the prisoner is resuced the Imps could reinforce the last 1/4 of the fleet from behind the Rebels. Scum could enter the game over the course of a few turns, as they detected the battle going on and moved in. They could choose from to enter from any side and wouldn't have any limit to the ships they can move in at a time.

Rebels win if they rescue and escape with the prisoner. (might need some tweaking so the prisoner ship isn't too easy to destroy).

Imps win if they destroy the prisoner ship or prevent the Rebels from resucing him in the first place.

Scum wins if they reduced both Reb and Imps down to a specific number (5?) ships a side. Forcing a retreat, for role playing purposes.

Ships entering late could be used by new players to the game that way they could get the gist of game play.

Well the event last 4 days so am planing to run 2-3 tables on the firs two days where the guys can play all my tournament setups against each other and learn all the rules and tricks and on the third day run the big epic battle. Most of the guys are veteran players of other miniature and card games plus we play each year big 20+ Wings of War FFA Dogfight game witch is awesome fun to so am sure they catch up pretty quick.