I assume this has probably been discussed in various reddits and forums, but I'd like to ask you opinion regarding the current point cap (400).

I know FFG stated that 400 will be the point cap for tournaments and there's nothing stopping casual players from increasing this by whatever amount they wish.

Some of you in this forum probably already tried 500+ games and I'd like to know your thoughts about such games.

Basically, I'm interested in the following:

1. Is it more/less fun than standard games? (I assume that at least visually it would be more striking to see 3 ISDs + other ships + and a bunch of squadrons)

2. Does the time required to finish a game increase significantly?

3. Does it alter the balance between the imperial / rebel side? I.e. Would having 3-4 ISDs make it impossible for rebels to win, for example, in case the ISDs alone can cover pretty much half the play area?

1. I enjoyed our 600 point doubles games where each admiral only effected that players 300 point fleet and there were 2 admirals per side with no duplicates of unique cards. In singles play at more than 800 points I found we tired a bit with lots of dice and occasionally forgetting to move a ship or squadron as concentration lapses.

2. Play time increased but not by as much as I expected. With more firepower on the table the ships die at an increased rate and this speeds things along. Massed squadron combats can take a while however. Some groups restrict squadron points to 20% or 25% in very large games.

3. In large games some admirals can have more of an effect than others. Ackbar for example has more effect on a 7 ship build than a 3 ship build. Other admirals such as Dodonna will have an increased effect in a large game but not by the same proportion.

There is more firepower around so basically if the enemy want something dead it can be achieved if they are willing to commit enough force to it. It can create a tall poppy syndrome where people stick to 1-2 upgrades per ship knowing that anything that stands out as expensive and dangerous can be killed by ganging up. If you have 6 VDS-Is and 1 Demolisher guess what gets targeted first. Players may wish to protect admirals in fast ships that stay out of the action but with lots of enemies hunting you it can be tricky unless you increase the table size.

I also think initiative is less important than at 400 points. With maybe 8 ships a side the initiative player gets to move one ship and maybe get a kill but this is only 12.5% of the enemy force and not as hard to come back from. The second player could also threaten 2-3 targets and the first player can only save one of them in the initial activation and so may loose one of the others.

3. In large games some admirals can have more of an effect than others. Ackbar for example has more effect on a 7 ship build than a 3 ship build. Other admirals such as Dodonna will have an increased effect in a large game but not by the same proportion.

Ackbar: more side arcs= more red dice.

Dodonna: more shots fired= more crits= more fishing.

Rieekan: more ships dying= more ships living till the end of the round.

Screed: more ships shooting= more crit flips.

Motti: more ships= more hull.

Tarkin: more ships= more tokens.

I can't think of a single admiral that scales more or less with increased points values. I've certainly never seen one that did so, and I've played from 180 to 1000.

I wouldn't like to take Ackbar in a 180 point game. I don't think he would be worth the 38 points which at that level is a sizeable chunk of the total. I could probably get a similar increase in damage from 1-2 ordnance experts or leading shots. In a 1000 point game however he is a lot more points efficient than buying these upgrades for all 8+ ships.

So you're talking about the cost scaling for a fleet-wide upgrade scaling better for a more expensive one? I guess I can see that perspective, but then I think you would kind of have to apply the same limitations to pretty much any upgrade that gives AoE buffs: Home One, Redemption, Rhymer, and others will all scale disproportionately in larger games.

Hey now Rhymer would be fun. I wonder how many fighters you could get in his zone of effect?

I wonder how many MC30's I could fit in Home One's area of effect.