Hey all! I had a thought while replying to the Regionals Data thread. A few people have made the point that three rounds aren't really enough in a larger tournament, but that the 2:15 round limit makes it difficult to do more than three rounds in a single day. So my questions are these:

• How often do your tournament games go to time?
• Have you noticed a general feel for how often rounds go to time at tournaments you've attended?
• Do you think the round time is appropriate, or could it be shortened?

I suppose this would focus more on Store Championships and above, maybe even Regionals and above, because below that you should be inclusive of newer players who may just need more time. But once you get to Regionals where (hopefully next year/the year after) tournaments will be much larger, the competitive level also increases, so you might see a higher skill level in the future requiring less time. And while Regionals now don't seem to have many ties (though the top few players tend to be very close) if this game grows as we hope it does, and Regionals/Nationals/Worlds draw X-Wing sized crowds, it's quite probable to have multiple people tied for first, and maybe even go to a third tie breaker.

As some data to include in my point, I went to two Store Championships:

• One had four players. We finished two rounds in about three hours, including unpacking and repacking our fleets.
• The second had five tables (ten players). Only one table went to time all day. Most players finished with a decent amount of time remaining (Reinholt, I know you were there at Tabletop Shop. Am I remembering this correctly?).

• One had four players. We finished two rounds in about three hours, including unpacking and repacking our fleets.
• The second had five tables (ten players). Only one table went to time all day. Most players finished with a decent amount of time remaining (Reinholt, I know you were there at Tabletop Shop. Am I remembering this correctly?).

I think that is the crux of it, however - the larger an event scales, the longer it'll take some tables to get organised, get set up, get playing, and get results in...

Smaller, intimate, familiar events are always going to be much quicker... But only the most decisive games are going to be finished quickly at Nationals/Worlds...

At least, how I see it.

I can run a 6 player event and have 3 rounds done in under 5 hours... Its just how it goes... But the 16 player store champs did take all day. I had some quick games, but then, I was running 5x Vics and Motti... But oftentimes we had 2-3 tables going to time - through no fault of the players, just heavy matchups...

Lots of Squadrons on one side doesn't slow a game. Lots of Ships on one side doesn't slow a game... But get two Lots of Squadrons or two Lots of Ships together, and suddenly, you're at a recipie for careful, tedious movement that takes a lot to go to time, because they're rarely "boom-decisive."

I do feel like tourney lengths in Armada could be shortened to 2 Hours (I don't think I've had a game this tourney season go longer than an hour and a half, in fact). In my experience, it has been very rare for games to approach time with the 2 Hour 15 minute round length. When it happens it is, as noted above, usually because two squadron-heavy fleets are jockeying meticulously for position and at least one player involved tends toward a slower-than-normal pace of play.

Still, it's better to have an overly generous round length, I think. First, you want every game (or as many as practically possible) to wrap-up prior to time being called. You want games to be decided by combat or the universal 6 Round game length, not by the clock and individuals' pace of play. Second, if your games do finish earlier it gives you ample time to socialize, eat, use the facilities, or rest between rounds. In an X-Wing Tournament, you might be looking at playing for 14 straight hours with only 5-10 minutes between rounds as breaks (which is sometimes barely enough to pack up your stuff) if your squad tends to go to time.

When I do tournaments for kits, I tend to make them just 2 hours long. For Store Championships I do the actual 2 hours and 15 minutes. The reason for this is because I want players to get used to a shorter time so that they play and process a bit faster so that in tight situations they are not going to time. This in turn makes their games enjoyable because when they do have that drawn out game and they finish with a few minutes to spare they are happy and excited that they finished with extra time.

I think Pittsburgh's regional for the most part had the majority of people coming in under 2 hours per round. But there was one guy who definitely a slow player and took the full time (and in one case) didn't even finish turn 6.

I'm a big fan of eliminating time from a round.

We have started a tournament in Denmark, where the first round have to be played, between the two paired up players, between 3rd of May and 16th May.

The second round have to be played between 17th of May and 27th May against another player.

And on the 29th of May, we will all gather together, to play the final round.

In this way, we can get a higher attendence and each individual game will not be too hard pressed on time.

Hey we might even squeeze in a larger friendly game on the 29th.

We just had a big event (20+ players). We played 5 rounds at 2 hrs each. Most games did not go to time. And of thosenthst did, I dont think 15 more minutes would have changed that.

And even at 2 hrs, we still went about 13 hours start to finish.

Game is damnably long. Yeah. Should be 1:45 playtime 15 minutes move time. Which can be allowed for 10 minutes of extra length f needed.

Also there should be like a 1hr and 30 min warning to speed up play.

Honestly this is keeping me from wanting to play armada tournaments. I don't want to be stuck in a dingy dungeon with a bunch of overgrown men for 6-8 hours to play 3 rounds.

One thing that I think makes the tournament longer, too, is that setup time. I'm used to playing Warhammer and 40k with a two hour time limit. That includes setting up terrain and setting up the entire army (and remember, 40k can have over a hundred models that have to be placed on hills, in woods or in buildings individually). And we still manage to finish within that timeframe.

Why, for the love of god, do we have to spend ten minutes waiting for everyone to finish deploying, and then have a 2:15 round? That means each round will average two and a half hours, plus probably an hour for lunch, and say twenty to thirty minutes at the end to calculate final scores and award prizes. That's nine hours. I've run 40k tournaments that were done in seven, and you're moving a lot more components and rolling a lot more dice and working with a more confusing and nuanced rules/measurement/LoS system. It just doesn't make sense to me. And more than three rounds is impossible in a single day.

Come to think of it, if you included setup and deployment in that 2:15, it would at least make things a little better. You could probably chop it down to 2:00 and be fine.