A lot of discussion has arisen over making 100/6 not the same old slug fest each time 2 players sit down. Most of the ideas have revolved around scripted missions, with a preset idea being in place that both players strive towards accomplishing. But what if the player could create a victory scenario themselves (similar to M:TG. . .this is a Poison Deck, a Discard Deck, a Millstone Deck. . .where the deck is not defined by the cards in it, but rather the mechanic in play that allows the deck to win).

I had tossed out the idea in a different thread about having other ways a player can win, and presented this idea:

Condition: Death Mark (15 points)

Choose one of your opponents ship's valued at 33 points or more. Apply a Death Mark Counter to that ship. If you destroy that ship, you automatically win.

You go into the fray a little weaker than your foe, but with an auto win option. It allows "Hmmmmm. . . can I pull this off". You have to balance (a) I'm going in with a point handicap, (b) if there is no big ship I've shot myself in the foot and (c) I may have a chance at an alternate route to victory.

A similar idea was fielded in the CCL with a different mechanic, which I will let the creator share here if they want.

I really makes me feel like there are creative ways out there for a player to change the conditions of the battle, adding variety to encounters and promote more than "TO THE DEATH!!" build strategies.

3 minutes ago, Darth Meanie said:

b) if there is no big ship I've shot myself in the foot

I think this is the big problem: it's too matchup dependent. Some lists will practically be autowins, like if your opponent brings Keyan or Tomax or someone similarly squishy. On the other hand, some lists just put you at a 15 point disadvantage, which you're only going to come back from if your list is SUUUUUPER broken. The result is either (a) no one plays this condition because they're scared of a bad matchup, or worse, (b) everyone plays this condition, which very quickly eliminates half the viable lists out there. The mere threat of it could be enough to eliminate a decent chunk of the meta, which is never what you want.

6 minutes ago, Ailowynn said:

I think this is the big problem: it's too matchup dependent. Some lists will practically be autowins, like if your opponent brings Keyan or Tomax or someone similarly squishy. On the other hand, some lists just put you at a 15 point disadvantage, which you're only going to come back from if your list is SUUUUUPER broken. The result is either (a) no one plays this condition because they're scared of a bad matchup, or worse, (b) everyone plays this condition, which very quickly eliminates half the viable lists out there. The mere threat of it could be enough to eliminate a decent chunk of the meta, which is never what you want.

Ok, make the cost 5 points, where the player is giving up an upgrade slot or 2 to make the handicap smaller.

neat concept for alternate win conditions, but the specific condition to hit any ship 33 points or more just promotes swarms. Or pocket aces that sit under 33 points. Would not be healthy for the game I think.

Don't give it an auto win, but maybe a personal victory? In fact when I'm faced with a 100/6 and it looks dire, I'll pick a ship and decide if I destroy it I win.

Playing rebels these days you need to take what you can get when/where you can get it.

10 minutes ago, Darth Meanie said:

Ok, make the cost 5 points, where the player is giving up an upgrade slot or 2 to make the handicap smaller.

It's an improvement, but it still makes it just idiotic to fly certain lists. Bomber K-Wings, for example; killing one ain't too tough. And I'm not a fan of any upgrade that makes some lists unflyable.

1 minute ago, Ailowynn said:

It's an improvement, but it still makes it just idiotic to fly certain lists. Bomber K-Wings, for example; killing one ain't too tough. And I'm not a fan of any upgrade that makes some lists unflyable.

To be fair, in 100/6 it is also idiotic to fly certain lists, but most have just gotten used to that.

This is really interesting to me, but it's also interesting in the reverse. As part of the Team Covenant Open vassal tournament they have been using an assortment of fixes and adjustments for meta cards. One that caught my eye was their Emperor Palpatine adjustment.

He kept his text as normal, but his squad points was changed to negative eight, with the caveat that if his ship was destroyed or the card discarded, you immediately lost the game.

That's crazy compelling to me - a negative squad point card that offers such a massive bonus but with such a huge weakness. It's so thematic too, because if Palpatine dies, the Empire has lost. It doesn't matter what ships they bring down in return.

I've been playing with a similar idea for the Custom Card League. The ship I've been looking at is Hondo Ohnaka's Last Chance , a stolen Sentinel shuttle. With little to no information about the modifications he has done on the ship, I wanted to play into the name. I'd like a card that offers a last chance to victory in specific scenarios, but that can be turned against you by a canny opponent to end the game in their favour. I had three drafts with varying responses. The first is a dud, in my opinion - there is no interaction from your opponent and that is important for what I am trying to achieve. I think my favourite is probably the second version, as it feels like it has the most tactical play from both sides of the field as well as being a much cleaner written concept than the third.

Another option I thought was interesting, but that would certainly lead to some negative slow play was a Rebel Reconnaissance EPT or System. It would end the game in your favour if it went to a certain number of turns. There's probably a way to feed that style of ability in a positive direction (At the end of the Combat phase, put a reconnaissance counter on this card if an enemy ship suffered damage this turn, then if there are X or more tokens on this card you win the game. I'd need to test it a lot to see what was actually appropriate.)

25 minutes ago, FlyingAnchors said:

neat concept for alternate win conditions, but the specific condition to hit any ship 33 points or more just promotes swarms. Or pocket aces that sit under 33 points. Would not be healthy for the game I think.

Of course it promotes swarms. OTOH, that is completely not a valid reason to poo-poo it. . .FFG constantly promotes or dissuades certain types of lists.

14 minutes ago, Ailowynn said:

It's an improvement, but it still makes it just idiotic to fly certain lists. Bomber K-Wings, for example; killing one ain't too tough. And I'm not a fan of any upgrade that makes some lists unflyable.

2 possibilities: make it only apply to unique pilots (I mean, that makes sense. . .you gotta be somebody to have a Death Mark), or make the point cost only apply to the base cost of the ship so that heavily laiden bombers are not affected.

What it might promote is generics over aces then.

This is something that I've been stumbling over for a while. It's easy to postulate alternate win conditions, but it's hard to input them in the game. I think there should be some balance to the effects.

"If each friendly ship flees the battlefield from your opponent's edge of the play area, you win the game. If each enemy ship flees the battlefield from your edge of the play area, you lose the game."

Does that make for good gameplay? Maybe! I'd need to put it on the field and really try out a few games to find out. It's potentially no fun and awful, a blitz for your opponent's side of the board. But if a single ship goes down the whole effort is pointless, so you really need to commit and can hurt badly if you can't complete your suicide run.

Presumably you would be more equipped to blitz your opponent's deployment zone that they are yours, but that doesn't make it an easy victory. If fact, it's extremely easy to knock down a single ship in crossing, and after that you should be ducks in a barrel.

But is it interesting? I don't know. It interests me.

I'm sorry but the suggestions so far suggested offer too many negatives and not enough positivies in a 100/6 gameplay format; especially "Death Mark" or any upgrade that allows you to "auto-win" or end the game early when you feel it benefits "you" In regards to Death Mark specifically how many Rebels ships can be built for 33 points or less, and this concept basicallly eliminates and Rebel large based ship and how is that not a negative play effect? and as for your 33 point threshold Triple Jumps would return in full force with Boba Fett (crew) the alphastrike would immediately remove a 15 point card you built your whole strategy around. Especially if you added Advanced Homing Missles on 1 JM5000 with Boba round 1 bye bye strategy. It will never happen it's to broken and would end the 100/6 format completely.

8 minutes ago, Mangipan said:

This is something that I've been stumbling over for a while. It's easy to postulate alternate win conditions, but it's hard to input them in the game. I think there should be some balance to the effects.

"If each friendly ship flees the battlefield from your opponent's edge of the play area, you win the game. If each enemy ship flees the battlefield from your edge of the play area, you lose the game."

Does that make for good gameplay? Maybe! I'd need to put it on the field and really try out a few games to find out. It's potentially no fun and awful, a blitz for your opponent's side of the board. But if a single ship goes down the whole effort is pointless, so you really need to commit and can hurt badly if you can't complete your suicide run.

Presumably you would be more equipped to blitz your opponent's deployment zone that they are yours, but that doesn't make it an easy victory. If fact, it's extremely easy to knock down a single ship in crossing, and after that you should be ducks in a barrel.

But is it interesting? I don't know. It interests me.

Mostly, I would think the balance is an appropriate point cost to the player instituting the alternate victory condition. And, as the phrase implies, it is a Condition. Flop it down, change the game.

Perhaps the above idea could be called "Escape to Hyperspace."

The whole idea interests me, too. And I can't subscribe to the "it will ruin the game" mantra. Manaroo was ruining the game, Palpatine was ruining the game. They were fixed. Moreover, I think that the more of these ideas exist, the more the game will have to slide into a more varied play style. A list build will have to think, "What if my opponent has Death Mark?" "What if my opponent has Escape to Hyperspace?"

What if:

Condition: We'll Destroy Them Ship to Ship (5 points).

Cancel you opponents Victory Condition, if any.

11 minutes ago, Cgriffith said:

I'm sorry but the suggestions so far suggested offer too many negatives and not enough positivies in a 100/6 gameplay format; especially "Death Mark" or any upgrade that allows you to "auto-win" or end the game early when you feel it benefits "you" In regards to Death Mark specifically how many Rebels ships can be built for 33 points or less, and this concept basicallly eliminates and Rebel large based ship and how is that not a negative play effect? and as for your 33 point threshold Triple Jumps would return in full force with Boba Fett (crew) the alphastrike would immediately remove a 15 point card you built your whole strategy around. Especially if you added Advanced Homing Missles on 1 JM5000 with Boba round 1 bye bye strategy. It will never happen it's to broken and would end the 100/6 format completely.

Well, there needs to be a mechanic whereby the Death Mark is not assigned to an Academy TIE pilot, cuz that is both mechanically and thematically lame.

And yes, it benefits the player that played the Condition, otherwise, why would you. That is mitigated by a point cost, like anything else.

As far as ending the 100/6 format. . .fudge, that's the whole point.

In the ideal world, it would offer a metagame similar to what exists in Magic.

Yes, there are niche alternative wincons that exist. You can cheat the game by running out of cards and using a certain card to win from this result rather than losing, or winning because you got to a certain life total, or any other number of effective means. But realistically, these are difficult hoops to jump through and the best way to beat your opponent is face to face.

Killing them in the standard way should always, in my opinion, be the best way to win the game. But at the same time, I think that alternative wincons can offer a great way to subvert a bad matchup or offer a victory condition that might surprise or throw off your opponent.

Edit: I keep hitting odd wincon ideas now - how about "If the Damage deck is empty when a Damage card must be dealt or drawn, you win the game." You've got to run out the deck, which is really difficult and takes a really specific squad. How are you going to get 33 cards out onto your ships? It's doable, but not at all easy.

7 minutes ago, Mangipan said:

In the ideal world, it would offer a metagame similar to what exists in Magic.

Killing them in the standard way should always, in my opinion, by the best way to win the game. But at the same time, I think that alternative wincons can offer a great way to subvert a bad matchup or offer a victory condition that might surprise or throw off your opponent.

1,000% my point.

And, as I said above, what if one of the cards was to assert "I want the original win condition."

6 minutes ago, Darth Meanie said:

Well, there needs to be a mechanic whereby the Death Mark is not assigned to an Academy TIE pilot, cuz that is both mechanically and thematically lame.

And yes, it benefits the player that played the Condition, otherwise, why would you. That is mitigated by a point cost, like anything else.

As far as ending the 100/6 format. . .fudge, that's the whole point.

It will never happen. If they ended 100/6 the game would die, everything FFG has done since Wave 1 is because of 100/6.

18 minutes ago, Cgriffith said:

It will never happen. If they ended 100/6 the game would die, everything FFG has done since Wave 1 is because of 100/6.

A. I am not ending 100/6, I'm changing it. B. Completely false: FFG created Epic.

So, if you have nothing constructive to say, could you go read another thread, please.

I'm picking up what you're putting down. Having more than one way to win a game other than the "traditional" 100/6, kill 'em all formula would be (for myself) something welcomed greatly. Having variety, having choices--how can that be a bad thing?

16 hours ago, Darth Meanie said:

Condition: Death Mark (15 points)

Choose one of your opponents ship's valued at 33 points or more. Apply a Death Mark Counter to that ship. If you destroy that ship, you automatically win.

If people are complaining about hyper-defensive metas, this is not exactly going to help. I also don't think there's a way to balance this between 'its so cheap I'll run it' and 'waste of points in >50% of games'.

I like alternate win conditions, but not in this form. They would need to be worked on a lot if they weren't going to be over/underpowered.

15 hours ago, Mangipan said:

This is something that I've been stumbling over for a while. It's easy to postulate alternate win conditions, but it's hard to input them in the game. I think there should be some balance to the effects.

"If each friendly ship flees the battlefield from your opponent's edge of the play area, you win the game. If each enemy ship flees the battlefield from your edge of the play area, you lose the game."

Does that make for good gameplay? Maybe! I'd need to put it on the field and really try out a few games to find out. It's potentially no fun and awful, a blitz for your opponent's side of the board. But if a single ship goes down the whole effort is pointless, so you really need to commit and can hurt badly if you can't complete your suicide run.

Presumably you would be more equipped to blitz your opponent's deployment zone that they are yours, but that doesn't make it an easy victory. If fact, it's extremely easy to knock down a single ship in crossing, and after that you should be ducks in a barrel.

But is it interesting? I don't know. It interests me.

Well, that would literally be the worst decision ever. Shadowport Hunter (Lancer Class) - Burnout SLAM. That is literally an auto win on turn 2, and fat chance killing a full health shadowcaster in a turn. It also removes the counterplay of where to engage. You have to joust because otherwise they go straight off the board edge without shooting.

14 hours ago, Darth Meanie said:

A. I am not ending 100/6, I'm changing it. B. Completely false: FFG created Epic.

So, if you have nothing constructive to say, could you go read another thread, please.

Most of the epic stuff has been aimed at fixing 100/6; that's only really changed a bit with the Gozanti and the CROC is clearly a fix box.

3 hours ago, ThalanirIII said:

Most of the epic stuff has been aimed at fixing 100/6...

That is how it is interpreted by some . But any supposed prevalence (?) of that view on the internet does not mean it was the aim of the expansion. In all likelihood, the first scum Huge Ship was put out because the scum faction did not yet have a Huge Ship.

The rather serious accusation that it was done to bring just a few cards into the 100/6 meta is not very constructive, and only serves to feed the theories about FFG trying to grab cash by putting essential cards in expensive boxes. I don't think we should go down that road.

I like the idea of objectives in X-wing that alter the way you get to a win condition, though for tournament X-wing I think there's still a need to rely on point-based mechanics. So in my view we need to alter the goals of the engagement, not just the way we keep score.

4 hours ago, ThalanirIII said:

Well, that would literally be the worst decision ever. Shadowport Hunter (Lancer Class) - Burnout SLAM. That is literally an auto win on turn 2, and fat chance killing a full health shadowcaster in a turn . It also removes the counterplay of where to engage. You have to joust because otherwise they go straight off the board edge without shooting.

Most of the epic stuff has been aimed at fixing 100/6 ; that's only really changed a bit with the Gozanti and the CROC is clearly a fix box.

I think you misunderstood the idea. EVERY ship has to escape. . .so, unless you can build a 100 point Shadowcaster, the guy he leaves behind to die makes you unable to fulfill the condition and therefore more likely to loose because you just dumped 1/2 your list.

Epic stuff has been aimed at fixing ships. . .100/6 is as stale as ever.

Condition: Bounty Hunt (2 points)

Choose 1 ship to be your bounty hunter. Choose 1 of your foe's ship's to be the mark. In any round these two ships touch, you may add 1 die to a single attack that round.

2 hours ago, Verlaine said:

That is how it is interpreted by some . But any supposed prevalence (?) of that view on the internet does not mean it was the aim of the expansion. In all likelihood, the first scum Huge Ship was put out because the scum faction did not yet have a Huge Ship.

The rather serious accusation that it was done to bring just a few cards into the 100/6 meta is not very constructive, and only serves to feed the theories about FFG trying to grab cash by putting essential cards in expensive boxes. I don't think we should go down that road.

I agree with the fact that the scum epic was released in part because the scum faction didn't have a huge ship. However, the fact that it has a Scyk (instead of a Fang Fighter, Z-95, or G-1A) is because the scyk was DOA in the 100/6 format, which is FFG's primary concern. I disagree with it being to sell stuff, but it is definitely partially aimed at fixing bad ships (in the 100/6 format) - see: the TIE Advanced and Scyk mainly, whilst the X wing was sort-of revitalised with Tarn and Wes mainly.

39 minutes ago, Darth Meanie said:

I think you misunderstood the idea. EVERY ship has to escape. . .so, unless you can build a 100 point Shadowcaster, the guy he leaves behind to die makes you unable to fulfill the condition and therefore more likely to loose because you just dumped 1/2 your list.

Epic stuff has been aimed at fixing ships. . .100/6 is as stale as ever.

I'll run either 1x Shadowport Hunter only with a massive bid, and win every game, or run 2 shadowport hunters built up to 100pts (it isn't hard) and still win in a turn.

I don't think we're playing the same game if you think the 100/6 game is as stale as ever, considering the meta slate was basically wiped clean on Monday. If you don't enjoy the format that's different, and I can see why people want alternatives to play such as HotAC and epic, but clearly a lot of people still enjoy 100/6 and competitions.

41 minutes ago, ThalanirIII said:

I'll run either 1x Shadowport Hunter only with a massive bid, and win every game, or run 2 shadowport hunters built up to 100pts (it isn't hard) and still win in a turn.

I don't think we're playing the same game if you think the 100/6 game is as stale as ever, considering the meta slate was basically wiped clean on Monday. If you don't enjoy the format that's different, and I can see why people want alternatives to play such as HotAC and epic, but clearly a lot of people still enjoy 100/6 and competitions.

Yeah, alright, idea still needs work. I kinda forget, you don't have to deploy 100 points. OTOH, all you need to do is specify Your Fleet Must Contain 4 Ships. Boom, no hanky panky.

No, the we are not playing the same game. I got bored of 100/6 fast. Deploy ships, kill everything. IMHO, X-Wing could be (and should be) so much more. Heck, besides the point change, just changing the combat zone in Epic to 6x3 makes a big difference.

Changing the meta doesn't do anything but say "Deploy different ships, kill everything." For crying out loud, you could even do something as simple as this:

Condition: Open Space (1 point)

You may deploy less than 3 obstacles.

or

Condition: Dense Asteroid Field (1 point)

You may deploy up to 5 obstacles.

or

Condition: Mine Field (1 point)

Instead of asteroids or debris, deploy 3 mine tokens.