@Ardaedheland I started a 500 point game on October 17, 2016 when the last FAQ came out. We will play until the next FAQ comes out.

Turn 3...

Why not 1500?

Personally I agree with Beatty. 500 and up is where the fun is at.

For teaching games, I prefer a 2 vs 2, 300 points each layout. Feels grand, but without too much to keep track of.

If you have a day, go for 1000 points or more. It is so worth it to actually feel like you are commanding an "Armada"!

I will only play at 500 points or more now. I cant go back to 400 now that I've experienced what feels like a real fleet. I've never played in a tournament and never will. I play at home with friends and don't have to worry about the strict rules of that scene. To each their own. The best thing about playing at home is rules tweaking and the casualness.

Me and Destraa played 1500 points, using the CC all out assault scenario. Took us about six hours to play five turns. Bear in mind, I'm an old time GW player from way back....four or five hour games are normal to me.

however, I don't see an 800 point game taking more than four to six hours, and I think I'll enjoy more between 600 to 800 points. I want to run a fleet, doggone it.

You wanna turn things on the head...

Play at 300 points and limit the number of flotilla's. I'm starting to see flotilla's used as a gimmick to slip in more activation's to prevent people from taking the isd/liberty/mc80 in fear of losing out to a guy with 7 activation's.

11 minutes ago, Gottmituns205 said:

You wanna turn things on the head...

Play at 300 points and limit the number of flotilla's. I'm starting to see flotilla's used as a gimmick to slip in more activation's to prevent people from taking the isd/liberty/mc80 in fear of losing out to a guy with 7 activation's.

I still think Sloane will curb that Flotilla over use a bit. 1 or 2 may still be a thing but if they take a bunch and sink a lot of points into it only to have Ties strip that Scatter off making them easy points the "Meta" will change.

I said a number of times that all Miniature Games go through a cycle. There is excitement about a new release, then initial disappointment as it doesn't live up to unrealistic expectations, then it becomes too OP as players don't have their counters worked out yet, then they settle in as the next release brings in the new toy to go through the same cycle.

Lets talk at the end of summer.

I see that the main argument is "500 points would take too long" and i keep thinking, well how? I play 700point games regularly and it only takes about 3hrs, because the game mechanics havent changed, just an extra 1-2 activations, an extra 5min a round. (Over 6 rounds, thats an extra 30min each side)

Of course it may be that my fleets are nore upgrade heavy, but even when i run a 700point MSU, practically naked ramming fleet i dont find it takes that much longer than 3-4hrs , so i think upgrading to 500 points isnt that much of a stretch

If we could have ways speeding up the game, that would be great. But Idk what. (other than massive overhaul. Simultaneous firing! Combat damage as a step!)

Also for new players or occasional player, the regular 400 pt wave5 game can take 3 hours.

I play either 300 points (3x3) for a quick skirmish or 500 (6x3) for a real battle, depending on time.

There's no tournament scene here so I can do whatever me and my few opponents feel like. Highest we've got to was 1,200 points and that was like playing IG vs orks. Time consuming, but great fun.

I feel Armada would be much better at 500 points with 1/5th squad max (100 points). The focus would return to ships and games wouldn't take any longer, and would be probably be over quicker with less squads and more firepower, save for the rare 15 Gozanti fleet with 100 points of squads. That will always take a long time to play.

38 minutes ago, Thraug said:

I feel Armada would be much better at 500 points with 1/5th squad max (100 points). The focus would return to ships and games wouldn't take any longer, and would be probably be over quicker with less squads and more firepower, save for the rare 15 Gozanti fleet with 100 points of squads. That will always take a long time to play.

Then you might as well ban squadrons.

100 pts is not a real threat at 500, so you'd have little incentive to take more than a token screen. If any at all.

Me and my friends are playing a dice before a game to know how many points we can bring to the table. 300-400-500 or 600.

This way, all our game are not the same and our fleet composition are really changing each game.

It work fine and we have alot of pleasure

Ive found its not the point size as much as the players that determine game length. When I lived on the west coast I got through 400pt games in an hour and a half or so, out east alot of my games have been over 3 hours, and in rare cases as long as seven hours, for the same size of game. The fleets didnt change thaaaat much during the course of a year, but the experience and the methodology of the players certainly did.

52 minutes ago, Grey Mage said:

as long as seven hours

I am a slow, methodical mofo who takes his time and flies large numbers of ships, but... How is this even possible? Is one player just not paying attention, or making McDonald's runs mid-game or something?

*spreads hands* It was, odd, and a bit frustrating. Hes a good guy but he wants to go through every possible movement scenario- and playing CR90s etc that gets rough. It was one of his first dozen games aswell.

500 Pt games are fun to mix things up for regular games.

I'm not convinced that squadron game actually works properly at 167 pts max. It felt ridiculous with full compliments.

On 3/17/2017 at 3:36 PM, Beatty said:

Ok, don't want to take a discussion onto multiple threads but I think this deserves its own thread.

I have a strong suspicion that 400 points is just too confining for a number of players, especially the ISD players. So we have to play at 400 in tournaments and those are events that have a strict time limit so 400 is a good point level. (Can you imagine the length of a turn of a MSU player with a full Squadron list at 500?) But why play at 400 for regular games?

I've played CC and my list got to 500 quickly and it is a 4 Ship fleet and my MC-80 and Mark II are kitted out to the max and I loved it. I think that is the point level Armada really starts to shine. So why are we not playing at that level Normally? We have that ability and FFG seems to be encouraging us to go higher than 400 without saying it directly.

Am I in the minority that thinks this would be good? Think of the kitted out ISD with all the support ships and Squadrons? Doesn't your mouth start to water thinking about it?

500 points

one side says "too big for tournaments, could you imagine an MSU with 165 in fighters, it'd take too long"

on the other hand, if would offer a more balanced play as kitted ISDs could have some defenses in squads....

It's almost as if FFG should keep the fleet point total at 400, so people don't go ape **** over MSUs at 500. Then all they'd have to do is offer a 100 point fighter allowance, but here's the kicker.... only standard fighters. Aces and some special weapons as purchasable upgrades with your standard 400 points..

A.) everyone gets a fighter wing
B.) Ship players can opt out of aces to kit ships
C.) Squads players can opt out of ship kit to have aces...

Tadaaaa

Everyone wins and there's no huge gap to fill that can break the tournament time requirements......


I swear I posted about this before?

lol

Won't argue wth any of this. A MSU list at 500 would be a nightmare to wait behind if the player wasn't well experienced. But my thought was that instead of taking more small ships people would take those points for upgrades. Finally have the wiggle room for those upgrades you always wanted but couldn't afford before.

Honestly, I think they can drop the time for 400 point tournament games. People play to the time limit in tournament settings.

For what it's worth, I think you can bump to the points to 500 in a 2 hour game but you'd have to limit fighters to 100 points. Less moving parts on the table.