Just now, Alzer said:

Sure, but how is that bettering the health of the game? Would being able to field two large ships with support flotillas be better than fielding 8-9 ship MSU? Or 166pts of Squadrons?

Variety is a good thing?

I mean, the more lists that are competitive, the better. Right now, there's 1 archetype that beats pretty much anything else. If we start to see different lists here and there performing well, that's the game and the players who are the big winners overall.

7 minutes ago, Sybreed said:

I mean, the more lists that are competitive, the better. Right now, there's 1 archetype that beats pretty much anything else. If we start to see different lists here and there performing well, that's the game and the players who are the big winners overall.

8 minutes ago, Sybreed said:

Variety is a good thing?

I'm not trying to argue those points, I'm just asking if the increase would make that change palpable in the way we need it to be. Would it be actually better for the health of the game, or would we just get more of the same, but at a slightly larger scale?

I don't have experience with anything over 400pts (and limited at that value) so I'm wondering what experiece others have in such regard.

1 minute ago, Alzer said:

I'm not trying to argue those points, I'm just asking if the increase would make that change palpable in the way we need it to be. Would it be actually better for the health of the game, or would we just get more of the same, but at a slightly larger scale?

I don't have experience with anything over 400pts (and limited at that value) so I'm wondering what experiece others have in such regard.

I have to admit, I don't have experience over 400 pts either. But, let me tell you that fielding interdictors and VSDs will be a lot less a gamble if I can at least back it up with more stuff.

30 minutes ago, Sybreed said:

except if they're boring flotillas.

You take that back

5 minutes ago, Sybreed said:

I have to admit, I don't have experience over 400 pts either. But, let me tell you that fielding interdictors and VSDs will be a lot less a gamble if I can at least back it up with more stuff.

Oof, you brought the Doctor into this...low blow mate...low blow.

I certainly wouldn't mind throwing a cheapo raider into most of my lists to round them out, or to be able to fill out squadrons.

To those talking about the game already taking too long- FFG has already implemented a change to help, with the 'no squadron shuffle rule'.

The problem is its not an easy rule to enforce without seeming a prat.

How about a point increased to 500 but only 25% of those points can go towards Fighters that gives you 125 points for Fighters. That's less than you get now but you can still field up to 8 squadrons fairly easily but you won't be able to take as many aces which fixes the reiken aces problem that is being discussed so presently on the forms. and because you have more points to get more Capital ships bringing the game back to being more about Capital ships and still have a very nice Squadron game as I'm a fan of both and I don't think you would have a fleet combat game without squadrons. Squadrons would still be viable if that's how you like to play. Capital ship list with a light Squadron screen would also be viable I feel like it's the perfect happy medium.

450 points is just enough for Raider I with OE and if I find one point somewhere I can add fletchette Torps....take as many aces or squads as you want Mwuhahahaha!

No. Played a guy this week that spent 20 minutes activating 3 squadrons. I shudder to think how much time would be wasted with 33 more points worth of little guys.

Just now, TaeSWXW said:

No. Played a guy this week that spent 20 minutes activating 3 squadrons. I shudder to think how much time would be wasted with 33 more points worth of little guys.

the problem was your opponent though, not the game

1 minute ago, Sybreed said:

the problem was your opponent though, not the game

I think it's a fair generalization to make that there are not an insignificant number of bad actors out there who slow play making the excuse that "I don't like squadron play" or "squadrons are difficult". Adding more squadrons to the game only allows them to double down on this weak attempt to slow the game down.

Squadron complexity scales exponentially with numbers. Our 500 pt CC games with 2 carrier builds, and multiple copies of every keyword in the game (including the crappy Cloak!), was super painful to just figure out what the heck was going on with all the squad keyword interactions. It was crazy when 30 squads were balled up in a 1x1 area! Escort, Heavy, Intel, Ketsu's ability, Biggs, Relay, all of which may or may not have been within range 1 of each other. Total nightmare. All game-flow was lost and I wanted to just concede to end the pain, hah!

3 hours ago, Sybreed said:

I was saying that in jest, but I do believe some amount of fixing is required, and bumping to 450 and making flotillas count in the squadron count would help big ships make a comeback.

I really like this. 450 max, with up to 150 for squadrons, flotillas count as squadrons. Sounds fantastic.

It won't stop squadron dominance, and would actually exacerbate the problem. Carrier fleets have been proven to operated just fine with 2 activations, and they would quickly convert to 150 points in squads. I know mine would.

On 5/5/2017 at 9:52 AM, Thraug said:

Did you watch worlds finals? Each turn took a long time due to a table covered in squads. They didnt make it to turn 6 before time, or were very close to not making it?

More that the high level of tactical decisions encompassed in part by playing a large squadron ball, after playing 6 other games of Armada in the last 40 hours as well as the fact that you are playing in the world championship, surely that won't slow you down. All these factors come in. I play a lot of squadrons, my games usually finish about 1 hr 15- 1hr 30. Squads alone are not something that slows down the game much if at all, it is the gravity in this case that is the prime contributor (followed by fatigue, certainly).

As far as 500 points, I am not convinced 500 points with the 33% squad cap works properly at all, the synergy options get ridiculous, even 450 is just monty haul more than anything. We don't need more than 400 if we want to make interesting sacrifices and specific goals for our fleet, as it is we need to choose, and that is good. More is not better, and adjusting the framework to meet a higher point count specifically is a bit silly. As previous, 400 is best, it is what everything is designed at and playtested for. Stretching in either direction would require a lot more playtesting in a competitive setting than just 'go for it'

For a large backdrop of experience (50+ games) upping the points is both more fun, and less time consuming than expected even for casual games where we spend most of it chatting.

Ive played plenty of 800 vs 800 games that only take between .5 - 2 hours longer than a normal game, so i dont see how putting the points from 400 to 450 would be a time problem at all.

450 (or above) also brings in a lot more strategies and ship build varieties that help keep me interested, in fact the armada group i play with generally never plays a single list type constantly and switches it up all the time (even if we do have our favourite list types, we all play differently each game)

This is just my casual experience though, it might be different in a tournament setting?

On 5 May 2017 at 1:21 AM, ouzel said:

I think table top games need to use a chess clock. If I don't say "come on pick a ship and activate it" at least 30 times a game it would be a miracle. So many players just seem to stand there and talk about what each thing they can do over and over, seems they need to be pushed into picking one every time.

Sounds like you need to be a little more patient personally ? Some people like to think before they move and mull things over. ? Everyone is different.

500 is Waaaayyyyy too much. Everyone who wants 450 is also going overboard. The points you want to increase to is <drumroll> 420!!!!

That's it! Squadrons will be an even number (140), you don't have so much bloat that you'll extend the game too much and you have those few extra points to "round out" the fleet.

420!!!!

I think The game should be played with a timer to keep the pace up. It shouldn't take 5 minutes to make a decision.

2 minutes ago, ninclouse2000 said:

I think The game should be played with a timer to keep the pace up. It shouldn't take 5 minutes to make a decision.

Agreed. It's hardly fair if one player takes up 75% of the game time doing their turns.

42 minutes ago, WGNF911 said:

500 is Waaaayyyyy too much. Everyone who wants 450 is also going overboard. The points you want to increase to is <drumroll> 420!!!!

That's it! Squadrons will be an even number (140), you don't have so much bloat that you'll extend the game too much and you have those few extra points to "round out" the fleet.

420!!!!

413 is the correct number.

3 hours ago, Green Knight said:

413 is the correct number.

Green is my favorite color but now you're just being silly ;-)

That number will just leave us with a weird infinitely repeating remainder for figuring out squadrons. It's not healthy for those with OCD issues. How does .6 repeating work?! Where does the other 1/3 of a squadron come from????? AHHHHHHHHH

3 hours ago, ninclouse2000 said:

I think The game should be played with a timer to keep the pace up. It shouldn't take 5 minutes to make a decision.

I'm sometimes guilty of this. Space Hulk (at least the original) had time limits for the Space Marine player which made things interesting and fun.

Would chess clocks be an appropriate fix? Say each player gets 1 hour or 45 minutes, or whatever would make the game appropriately timely? I know it was an immense help in my warmachine days, and unlike a set-timer applies well to the back-and-forth nature of Armada.