I tried some searches for 'time' and 'length', but didn't find what i was hoping for. My apologies if this has been discussed at length somewhere else.

How long should the average mission last assuming 5 players? Obviously finales will be longer, and there are will always be some swing - but my group feels like it's taking way too long. The other day we started the finale to the Return to Hoth campaign and after 6 hours we still hadn't completed the mission.

Are we playing slow or is this the norm for others as well? Based on what I've read it feels like a mission should take a couple hours, and a finale maybe 3 or 4? I saw a couple times that someone suggested that a 'mini-campaign' of 4 missions could be completed in a day. I'm fairly certain my group could not accomplish that.

That's wildly excessive.

I haven't played the Return to Hoth finale, but I kind of doubt that I've ever had a game go over 90 minutes- and even then, most don't go over an hour for me.

My friends and I aren't super competitive, granted, but it sounds like you might have some serious over-analyzing going on. Maybe you need to remind your friends that it's not world series chess.

The guys I play with are serious over analyzers (myself included). Maybe I'll bring out some 30 second timers for the start of an activation to begin ... and remind them "it's just a game".

The guys I play with are serious over analyzers (myself included). Maybe I'll bring out some 30 second timers for the start of an activation to begin ... and remind them "it's just a game".

I mean, I was mostly kidding. You guys play how you want- I personally think skirmish is probably more suited toward that sort of competitiveness, but campaign is awesome and it's cool that you guys get that into it.

However, if it's become an issue (6 hours... I could fit two sessions of SW Rebellion into that time...) and your players do want it addressed, you might want to do something about it.

I'm curious- if you're on the last mission of RtH. you've presumably played a good deal of other missions before. I know there are reasons RtH's finale would take a little longer than others, but is this pretty common in your group? How long does the average mission take?

For us six hours for a mission is average, but then between analyzing each decision, we also shoot the breeze, break for lunch, fight over snacks, and stuff like that. Each mission becomes a day's event, and we meet on average once a month. While we do joke about taking long to make a decision, I feel it would actually hurt it to rush it, because when you're forced to make a decision, and then regret it the rest of the mission, then its not as fun anymore. And we are a rather competitive bunch in the sense that a poor decision will be noticed and will be capitalized on by the other side, so you really don't want to make too many of them.

For us six hours for a mission is average, but then between analyzing each decision, we also shoot the breeze, break for lunch, fight over snacks, and stuff like that. Each mission becomes a day's event, and we meet on average once a month. While we do joke about taking long to make a decision, I feel it would actually hurt it to rush it, because when you're forced to make a decision, and then regret it the rest of the mission, then its not as fun anymore. And we are a rather competitive bunch in the sense that a poor decision will be noticed and will be capitalized on by the other side, so you really don't want to make too many of them.

Well, to each their own, sounds like you guys have a good time.

This is very common, which is why I'm posting this informal survey of sorts. I think our fastest ever was... 3 hours? We played the core box campaign once and are now finishing the RtH campaign. It's becoming problematic though so I'm investigating how slow we are really going.

That's actually really interesting to me- I didn't know longer playtimes were so common.

My fastest was probably Viper's Den in under 30 minutes. Captured was a pretty quick one, too.

Interesting how we just assume other people do things similarly to us.

Best we ever managed was two missions in a day, at like 3 hours each. Most decisions are made quickly, but there's a few where we know the success either way will depend on what we do next, and spend several minutes staring at the board looking for options. Then there's just the time it takes to analyze the dice rolls and remember all the stuff you can do. Of course that's affected by the fact we can only meet once a month (or even less often sometimes, because of work schedules), that we have to remember each time what our abilities are, it doesn't come naturally. And too often we do forget to use x or y, so many decisions force us to spend time analyzing our abilities to ensure we haven't forgotten something critical.

I've never timed them, but, in my group, an 8 hour gaming session can see 4-6 missions, but, that includes dinner, some beer, potty breaks etc, cheesy fights, sometimes a late start due to xwing, etc

Our group usually finishes 2-3 missions in a 6 hour period which includes breaks for dinner, snacks, etc. However, we have had a few missions go fairly long - up to 5 hours. Although we sometimes hyper-analyze the situation, we have considered implementing a timer so that the missions continue to move forward. If your group is having fun while taking their time then no need to change anything. If everyone agrees that things are taking too long, you might consider putting some time constraints on the decision making. I'm not talking about anything crazy but staring at the board for 20-30 mins seems a bit much but to each their own.

Thanks everyone. I'm getting a pretty strong 2hr/mission vibe here - which is what I was expecting/hoping. I'll try to prod my group as I'm not the only one thinking we are a bit pokey. :-)

i think the game would benefit greatly from a timer.

the game seems prone to analysis paralysis, especially when a single mistake or badly executed turn can lose a game for the rebels (which is the case in many missions).

if there's one thing i could change about the game i would add a (pretty short) timer for both sides and change possible mission results from a binary win/lose-situation to major/minor victory/minor loss/major loss, according to both mission objectives achieved and the time used to achieve them.

if too many players don't like the timer simply add an official option to ignore it. or playing without a timer could be beginner mode.

My rebels also discuss everything. I let them. Sometimes i go get something to drink or visit the toilet. If i think they have discussed enough, i ask them to progress. And then they will do that. Normally the missions are 3 hours long. Sometimes 4 for the longer ones.

Setup + teardown + purchases + play will tend to be 90-120 minutes for larger missions, 45-90 for many that are smaller with up to 3 hours for the few really big ones.

Typical board games are 90-120 minutes. At 6 hours for 1 mission I'd just be playing 3 or 4 other board games instead.

The killer here is the analysis paralysis and we still lose. I think the Rebels won once (maybe twice?) in all of the Core Campaign and have one three times in Hoth - but only after adding the house rule that too many losses and you get half rewards anyway (one of the designers proposed this in an interview and we adopted it half way thru).

Setup + teardown + purchases + play will tend to be 90-120 minutes for larger missions, 45-90 for many that are smaller with up to 3 hours for the few really big ones.

That jives with my experience as well.

Setup + teardown + purchases + play will tend to be 90-120 minutes for larger missions, 45-90 for many that are smaller with up to 3 hours for the few really big ones.

Most of this was done at "work".

Assembling and dissassembling the maps is the biggest useless timesink for me.

I currently build the map while the rebels are performing their upgrade stage. We do the upgrade stages at the beginning of each session instead of at the end.

I have noticed that the rebels do consider strategy more when they gain experience. With new heroes I also keep a close eye on their abilities (to coach and learn myself), so I don't really get to plan the imperial actions that much ahead, so need to take a few minutes to consider what to do with my activation. 3 hours is still pretty good.

(Edit: When we used to play at my place, I always built the map and setup beforehand.)

I currently build the map while the rebels are performing their upgrade stage. We do the upgrade stages at the beginning of each session instead of at the end.

On a similar note, our group takes advantage of the campaign tile guide over at boardgamegeek.

No mission text of any kind, no groups and no deployment points means that everyone can help build the maps.

https://boardgamegeek.com/filepage/117642/campaign-tile-guide

The “analysis paralysis” issue was also discussed in this thread here:

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/201866-turns-taking-forever/

Average play time is two hours, but our Hoth finale actually took 7 hours because we planned a barbecue at someone's house around it so we wouldn't be cramped by a closing time. Even though I pre set up everything while people were cooking and eating, we ended up playing until 1 in the morning. I hate overly long games, but that was still the best IA session I've ever had.

Yeah, to be fair, I'm not counting set up/upgrade times in my estimates- but I typically try to set up the first mission before my group arrives, and upgrade stage is pretty negligible, roughly 5 mins.

Setup can be a pain though, sometimes taking as long as 20 minutes. I have yet to find a good method for organizing the tiles, and far too often one rogue tile hides from me for a long time.

So it's a ... Rogue One tile? :-P

So it's a ... Rogue One tile? :-P

BOOOOOOOOO