So hypothetically, let us say that you are in a regional or better tournament and you sit down to play an opponent and when you look at your opponent's list you have enough experience to see that it is a Rock to your Scissors. You are very confident (where your assessment is correct or not) that you will not get more than 2-3 points. You have won the initiative bid and are also sure that you can deploy in such a way that your opponent can never get a shot at your fleet. You also have selected objectives in a such a way that your opponent cannot use them against you (i.e. VCXs and Firelanes).

What do you do?

1. Fight the good fight and hope your skill at flying exceeds your opponents enough that you can get a win.

2. Choose second player and fly away to fight another day securing a 6-5 win with no MOV for second.

3. Skirmish with them in a way to get a smattering of points to get some MOV and hopefully a win.

Keep in mind that in a 4-5 round tournament a few victory points can make or break your chances of getting into the top 4.

I know many of you just want to play the game and I respect that but competitive players at these tournaments are here to win and will play within the rules to win anyway they can which is also an acceptable position. In my opinion there is no wrong answer to these but I just want to get a feel for how the community feels.

Please keep this civil.

play for the event i guess.

is you goal top 4/day 2? then you disengage and try to get to the 6 side of a 6-5. Unless its round 1

if its round 1 you go in and you go in HAM. hope the dice are in your favor as you can claw back from an 3-8 or better.

I had this happen to me at GenCon last year. It was frustrating at the time, but I understood why my opponent did it (my fleet would have made his go bye-bye if he had gotten into a real engagement) and as I thought about it after, I could have deployed differently to force the engagement. In the end, I learned a lot (GenCon was my first major tournament).

If you do that, though, don't blame your opponent if they get frustrated. You are preventing them from actually playing the game, after all.

Well... I think that the answer is: it depends.

In early rounds I guess it's better to take 6-5 if it's achievable (and I don't think that many fleets/combinations can do that). However in late rounds most of the time 6-5 will likely get you out of the running so you play more aggressively.

3 minutes ago, Paindemic7708 said:

I had this happen to me at GenCon last year. It was frustrating at the time, but I understood why my opponent did it (my fleet would have made his go bye-bye if he had gotten into a real engagement) and as I thought about it after, I could have deployed differently to force the engagement. In the end, I learned a lot (GenCon was my first major tournament).

If you do that, though, don't blame your opponent if they get frustrated. You are preventing them from actually playing the game, after all.

I completely agree with you. I would hate to have this done to me and even though it would be frustrating I would walk away content with 5 points and a break between games because that match would be fast. Now the question is do you tell your opponent after setup that is your plan and ask them if they are ok with a 6-5? And is that collusion?

Just now, Overdawg said:

Now the question is do you tell your opponent after setup that is your plan and ask them if they are ok with a 6-5? And is that collusion?

You can tell them, but you still need to play the game, I think. Keep in mind that even 1 squadron engagement/loss (even round 6) may switch it from 6-5 to 5-6, so you may end up playing around that.

I'd engage by round 4 if I can to limit the effectiveness of their fleet against me. Try to pick up as many easy points as possible.

This actually happened to me at the NC regionals. First round I played Wufame with my dual Vic Fireball against his TRC90 YT-2400 list. We had played before, so we both knew his list was a hard counter to mine. At the tournament, he picked my Superior Positions, which is also how we had practiced, and he wrecked me 8-3. I deployed in a corner and slow rolled forward towards his fleet. I think we engaged by round 3 since he sped forward pretty quick, and his squads tore my Intel up and the game was pretty much over by then since I couldn't keep my arcs on his ships and my Firesprays died quickly. He got like 8 tokens by the end of the game.

If you are doing well in the tournament, you should try to win. If you are at the bottom tables, you may as well throw your whole force into him and see what happens. Not like getting a 6-5 will help you much anyway if you are already 0-2. And there is no point in cheating your opponent of a chance of doing well because you don't want to lose again.

9 minutes ago, Paindemic7708 said:

I had this happen to me at GenCon last year. It was frustrating at the time, but I understood why my opponent did it (my fleet would have made his go bye-bye if he had gotten into a real engagement) and as I thought about it after, I could have deployed differently to force the engagement. In the end, I learned a lot (GenCon was my first major tournament).

If you do that, though, don't blame your opponent if they get frustrated. You are preventing them from actually playing the game, after all.

How is choosing your best course of action NOT playing the game? Fleeing for 6 rounds is not as easy at it seems.

this is also a big reason why objectives are so important. having things like intel/salvage run/contested outpost, even station assault means that if you go second and they dont want to engage you atleast get a 7-4 out of it.

1 minute ago, CaribbeanNinja said:

How is choosing your best course of action NOT playing the game? Fleeing for 6 rounds is not as easy at it seems.

@CaribbeanNinja Those are my thoughts too. You are right fleeing isnt easy but in my scenario I am assuming it would be extremely difficult to catch my fleet. I am also assuming I am up against a slower superior fleet and my fleet is faster and more agile.

1 minute ago, CaribbeanNinja said:

How is choosing your best course of action NOT playing the game? Fleeing for 6 rounds is not as easy at it seems.

Poor wording, perhaps. Like I said, it was my first major tourney (I had less than 10 games under my belt at that point), and if the same thing happened now, the results would be very different. Also, my expectations were fleet COMBAT, not fleet RUNNING. I had never seen the like, and didn't bring my Armada stuff hundreds of kilometers just to have my opponent run away.

1 minute ago, Paindemic7708 said:

Poor wording, perhaps. Like I said, it was my first major tourney (I had less than 10 games under my belt at that point), and if the same thing happened now, the results would be very different. Also, my expectations were fleet COMBAT, not fleet RUNNING. I had never seen the like, and didn't bring my Armada stuff hundreds of kilometers just to have my opponent run away.

I would say that I have no problems at all with it, if as @Overdawgposts it is a super hard counter. It is dumb as hell to just dive in and get crushed.

Now it is TOTALLY different when a player just has a scaredy cat fleet and flees every game. May their dice be cursed and may they run off the edge of the map every single game...the jerks.

4 minutes ago, CaribbeanNinja said:

I would say that I have no problems at all with it, if as @Overdawgposts it is a super hard counter. It is dumb as hell to just dive in and get crushed.

Now it is TOTALLY different when a player just has a scaredy cat fleet and flees every game. May their dice be cursed and may they run off the edge of the map every single game...the jerks.

No, he did nothing wrong at all. I deployed badly, I should have crushed him. But, it definitely was frustrating lol (partially because of his running, largely because of my own mistakes).

11 minutes ago, CaribbeanNinja said:

I would say that I have no problems at all with it, if as @Overdawgposts it is a super hard counter. It is dumb as hell to just dive in and get crushed.

Now it is TOTALLY different when a player just has a scaredy cat fleet and flees every game. May their dice be cursed and may they run off the edge of the map every single game...the jerks.

Okay, let's look at a scenario then. I have a balanced fleet in which I'm setup to play against most fleets (obviously, we won't bring up the Ram Jam BS) and I enter a game where I see that my opponent has a fleet that is a couple of medium to large base ships and super squads helmed by motti, with objectives that favor the turtle mentality. Slow roll the ships and screen them with the death cloud of squads. Am I supposed to just throw my fleet onto the rocks and try to get to the stations they are gathering tokens from because we are playing station assault or contested outpost? I mean, I suppose I could have taken the blue objective to not bleed points, but they still can sit there and gather their win as second player and do nothing.

Is it worth the 6-5 for them? Probably not, but it's nigh impossible for me to cross the map prior to turn 3-4, get to the ships in one piece after getting shredded by rymer and friends, and have a chance at denting a Motti backed ISD or, heaven forbid, a repair-bot Dictor. Do I run instead, taking my 5 pts at best and call it a draw? I think that's what the OP was asking.

2 minutes ago, CaribbeanNinja said:

I would say that I have no problems at all with it, if as @Overdawgposts it is a super hard counter. It is dumb as hell to just dive in and get crushed.

I would say that in this case you're exploiting the weakness of your opponent fleet by fleeing as a super hard counter fleet won't give you this option.

Going back to the original topic: I think a similar situation happened in my Gencon round 4 game vs @Overdawg

His fleet was a hard counter to mine and I could either not engage and play it safe for a likely 5-6 loss or drive the fleet agressively trying to catch his Gladiators and hoping for the win (and risking a likely 8-3 loss). At that time 5-6 was guaranteed to get me out of top-2 cut so I went all in.

52 minutes ago, Overdawg said:

So hypothetically, let us say that you are in a regional or better tournament and you sit down to play an opponent and when you look at your opponent's list you have enough experience to see that it is a Rock to your Scissors. You are very confident (where your assessment is correct or not) that you will not get more than 2-3 points. You have won the initiative bid and are also sure that you can deploy in such a way that your opponent can never get a shot at your fleet. You also have selected objectives in a such a way that your opponent cannot use them against you (i.e. VCXs and Firelanes).

What do you do?

1. Fight the good fight and hope your skill at flying exceeds your opponents enough that you can get a win.

2. Choose second player and fly away to fight another day securing a 6-5 win with no MOV for second.

3. Skirmish with them in a way to get a smattering of points to get some MOV and hopefully a win.

Keep in mind that in a 4-5 round tournament a few victory points can make or break your chances of getting into the top 4.

I know many of you just want to play the game and I respect that but competitive players at these tournaments are here to win and will play within the rules to win anyway they can which is also an acceptable position. In my opinion there is no wrong answer to these but I just want to get a feel for how the community feels.

Please keep this civil.

What you are proposing is completely reasonable.

You're describing the asymmetrical warfare scenario, and you have to fight/play to your strengths in competitive play.

14 minutes ago, pt106 said:

I would say that in this case you're exploiting the weakness of your opponent fleet by fleeing as a super hard counter fleet won't give you this option.

Going back to the original topic: I think a similar situation happened in my Gencon round 4 game vs @Overdawg

His fleet was a hard counter to mine and I could either not engage and play it safe for a likely 5-6 loss or drive the fleet agressively trying to catch his Gladiators and hoping for the win (and risking a likely 8-3 loss). At that time 5-6 was guaranteed to get me out of top-2 cut so I went all in.

Thats funny @pt106 I do remember playing you that game and I think you even made a comment after our game that you didnt have a choice but to try and dive into my fleet and get as many points as you could. I must admit you surprised me when you drove in with your ISDs and you caught one of my glads by surprise. You did the right thing there but I think you had some unlucky rolls that went my way that allowed me to capitalize on. But you do make a good point...it really does depend on what your points are and where you want to land in the standings on how play this scenario out.

1 minute ago, Overdawg said:

double post...ignore

1 hour ago, pt106 said:

Well... I think that the answer is: it depends.

In early rounds I guess it's better to take 6-5 if it's achievable (and I don't think that many fleets/combinations can do that). However in late rounds most of the time 6-5 will likely get you out of the running so you play more aggressively.

This is interesting, because I would've said the opposite. I'll play it riskier in round 1. Worst case, next round I'm down among everybody else with 2 or 3 points with a good shot at tabling my next opponent to get back into the running.

That said, I personally almost never do the disengage thing. For the most part, if I have enough maneuver advantage over him to avoid engagement for 6 rounds, I also have enough maneuver advantage to get shots in.

I think that putting my point together with PT's is kind of the reason I don't disengage: in the early rounds, I have little to lose by taking a 3-8 or something. In the later rounds, I have little to lose by not going for the throat.

This is, of course, dependent on the event. If you're at the top table with a 5 or 6 point lead over third, you'll probably be okay going for the 5-6. If you're right in the top 4-5 but know you don't have a shot at first, you'll probably be okay taking a conservative game and still landing in top 8.

I don't know... mostly, I guess I just like playing the game too much to actively avoid engagement, even though I'm a pretty competitive guy.

I will throw my hat in the ring and say that part of the problem is that the hypothetical scenario is very... mushy.

As PT106 was alluding to earlier, it's nearly impossible to face lists where they cannot engage you at all. While it can occur once in a while (especially with things like the all VSD list) if there is a massive speed disparity between the two lists, it's relatively difficult to prevent an opponent from firing even a single shot at you the entire game, and doubly so if you brought squadrons of any decent rate of speed (again, nothing but B-wings without AFFM is a different issue). Thus, your assessment of the likely strategy of your opponent has to be correct, and we all know what they say about assumptions.

As a result, I think the real answer comes down to having to dynamically optimize at the table. Where in the tourney standings are you? How likely am I to truly disengage, or is this guy going to be able to chase me and slowly reel me in so that, in reality, I'm looking more at a 4-7 anyways? What if their fleet is actually much faster and that is part of the problem?

To pick on the poster directly above me, I think disengaging from Ard with a 4xMC30 fleet for a 6 turn game is unrealistic. Those suckers could cross the board from left to right in 6 turns if he needed them to...

To that end, I think people often over-think this. A lot of times, the correct answer is to determine your broad strategic goals early, but then dynamically adjust as the game unfolds. If you thought you could only get a 5-6 but the other guy makes a mistake, you can take yourself out of position to capitalize if you locked in your own defeat too early...

My main point of asking the question was to see if the community thought it was poor sportsmanship to avoid an enemy fleet if you have the means. I personally dont think it is as this level of play assuming of course the reason you are avoiding them is to mitigate a perceived match where you dont think you can win by engaging.

4 minutes ago, Overdawg said:

My main point of asking the question was to see if the community thought it was poor sportsmanship to avoid an enemy fleet if you have the means. I personally dont think it is as this level of play assuming of course the reason you are avoiding them is to mitigate a perceived match where you dont think you can win by engaging.

In brief, no. I personally hold the opinion that there are very few things you can do on the table, within the framework of the rules of the game, that are poor sportsmanship.

9 minutes ago, Overdawg said:

My main point of asking the question was to see if the community thought it was poor sportsmanship to avoid an enemy fleet if you have the means. I personally dont think it is as this level of play assuming of course the reason you are avoiding them is to mitigate a perceived match where you dont think you can win by engaging.

seems very similar to this discussion I had about CC

At a regionals or higher level of play, I'm of the approach that anything within the rules of the game is fair. Taking a passive 6-5 or 5-6 by kiting your opponent beats a 3-8 loss because you felt guilty. You might not make a new friend, but that is part of signing up for a competition.

Now, the local store tourneys we run every few months? I care little if I win or lose, so I play smart but not aggravatingly.

2 hours ago, Overdawg said:

So hypothetically, let us say that you are in a regional or better tournament and you sit down to play an opponent and when you look at your opponent's list you have enough experience to see that it is a Rock to your Scissors. You are very confident (where your assessment is correct or not) that you will not get more than 2-3 points. You have won the initiative bid and are also sure that you can deploy in such a way that your opponent can never get a shot at your fleet. You also have selected objectives in a such a way that your opponent cannot use them against you (i.e. VCXs and Firelanes).

What do you do?

1. Fight the good fight and hope your skill at flying exceeds your opponents enough that you can get a win.

2. Choose second player and fly away to fight another day securing a 6-5 win with no MOV for second.

3. Skirmish with them in a way to get a smattering of points to get some MOV and hopefully a win.

Keep in mind that in a 4-5 round tournament a few victory points can make or break your chances of getting into the top 4.

I know many of you just want to play the game and I respect that but competitive players at these tournaments are here to win and will play within the rules to win anyway they can which is also an acceptable position. In my opinion there is no wrong answer to these but I just want to get a feel for how the community feels.

Please keep this civil.

Great thoughts and a wonderful, discussion-generating question!

I am going to give a slightly different perspective. One of a person who has never played in Armada tourneys, but has played in tourneys of another, now dead game.

I am NOT an ubercompetitive player. I want to win, but I want to play well more. I want to get to top tables, but I want to have fun (I know the two aren't mutually exclusive and can be connected). Hence, I will give the perspective of someone who is at the tourney to measure himself, but doesn't have an expectation of being top 4 or whatnot.

I would be very disappointed if one of my five games was my opponent running away. I would feel as if I wasted my time. I would recognize WHY he/she did it, but would not find it a good choice. All of this is subjective.

I believe that the point of the tournament is to prove that you can get the most points by fighting the battle. This, to my very subjective opinion, does not include running away. This is due to a difference between the objective of the game and the method of scoring the tournament. I realize that. I would (and have chosen to in the past) fall on the side of fighting the good fight. Additionally, a win would validate me more than getting top 4 or anything.

The primary point is that the system of scoring seems to be unable to avoid privileging actions (in some cases) that most would consider poor play in a non-tournament game. I, personally, choose to respond by laying down my "right" to take the points in order to play the game as I feel it was meant to be played.

This is my view.