Learn to play SUPER fast yourself. Have a plan for your turn. Move and shoot quickly and without delay. THINK about your move and potential targets during your opponents turn. IE...give your slow opponent even more time to waste.

Makes it much easier to prompt your opponent for slow play when you have actually been playing for only 20min of a 2 hour game and he has taken the rest of the time.

This game was maybe not designed (yet) for tournament play.

Let's face it, sometimes they release things so we will buy them but they haven't fully thought everything through

These are all the same problems that are faced in warhammer, flames, 40k etc.

Doesnt stop those events been fun, despite occasional issues.

For these events sometimes there is a rule where if the same player failed to finish more than 2 games (from 6) they lost points.

Doeant stop the occasional “slow play” issue or “I would have won if we played another turn... etc

Legion objectives would also need to be clarified in case game finishes turn 4 (ie who controls in turn 6 or end of game)

On 6/5/2018 at 9:49 PM, DangerShine Designs said:

You keep making the same argument and not adressing my point - a tournament game is two hours, not six rounds. The number of activations is irreverent as the game is timed and a winner can be had by the end of round 1 or 2, even if those rounds take two hours to complete.

again, all I’m getting is “we can’t play 6 rounds in 2 hours” - yup, this game’s design doesn’t lend itself to quick play but a tournament game IS built around a time limit.

You're operating under the faulty assumption that the game is designed around the 2 hour limit instead of the 6 Rds.

FFG is designing and balance the game to work within the 6 Rd rules they've developed. Adding a time limit is simply a logistical necessity for tournament play it isn't going to be something they are designing around. I say that with confidence because what you're suggesting is that FFG is developing essentially two different games within the game and that's not something they or anyone do.

If the 2 hour time limit is causing games to end after only 3 or 4 rounds it's going to cause issues because FFG will have balanced a created the units and scenarios around getting the 6 in. That breaks down when games don't naturally conclude.

You also can't design a game to a time limit without some way to force the players to pass the action between each other.

FFG should look to chess clocks to deal with this issue.

Tournament play is OBVIOUSLY built into FFG's business model.

Legion is just fine for tournament play.

15 hours ago, Deadshane said:

Tournament play is OBVIOUSLY built into FFG's business model.

Legion is just fine for tournament play.

FFG OP is the most maligned element of their operation beyond keeping an accurate product timeline. It's likely what they do worst as a company.

We ran a tournament and had 12 people play in the tournament. We gave players 2.5 hours a round since this was our first tournament. We only had one game go beyond 2 hours. Otherwise all the other games finished in under 2 hours, so that 17 out of 18 games finished under 2 hours. 2 hours seemed like plenty of time for a tournament. The one thing I noticed versus our casual games is there was not as much casual talk, our causal games will get close to over three hours so you can get an idea of how much nongame chatting or theory talking goes on.

But why did they finish under 2 hours? Surrendering? Was it a "serious" tournament with people stalling? What were the lists like?

1 minute ago, Deuzerre said:

But why did they finish under 2 hours? Surrendering? Was it a "serious" tournament with people stalling? What were the lists like?

You’ve made a biased assumption there.

... That “serious” or inferringly “legitimate” is only gained by cheating.

16 minutes ago, Drasnighta said:

You’ve made a biased assumption there.

... That “serious” or inferringly “legitimate” is only gained by cheating.

If there's a real (****, can't find a word. Objective?) it'll often bring the worst out of some people, and in tabletop tournaments, it brings stalling for time.

I play Malifaux on Tournaments. Malifaux is a tabletop game that, like Legion, uses alternating activations, victory points to determine the winner and has a round limit.

I have yet to encounter a single instance where a player would stall a game to win on that account.

Legion games go long right now because players are unfamiliar with the system and the units. They will get faster.

2 hours ago, Deuzerre said:

If there's a real (****, can't find a word. Objective?) it'll often bring the worst out of some people, and in tabletop tournaments, it brings stalling for time.

Your opinion seems predicated on the point that you can’t have a “serious” tournament without it.

Which is patently false in my opinion.

I also find it - on a personal level - kind of insulting that I inherently don’t Run “real” tournaments because I’ve policed those things away in the past and they don’t exist in my scene here (which granted is Mostly Armada, but I feel as a vet 40k TO, the point is the same).

7 hours ago, Drasnighta said:

Your opinion seems predicated on the point that you can’t have a “serious” tournament without it.

Which is patently false in my opinion.

I also find it - on a personal level - kind of insulting that I inherently don’t Run “real” tournaments because I’ve policed those things away in the past and they don’t exist in my scene here (which granted is Mostly Armada, but I feel as a vet 40k TO, the point is the same).

I sometimes play on tournaments on other games, and there are inherent behaviours related to these.

When doing the math, you know on your last match that you will end first on anything but a loss: You play extremely slow so the battle ends in no one's favour (no risk).
When you see you're about to lose, you start to go take a piss, take more time to decide on what to do.
When you are winning but know that on turn 6 it'll be a loss, you stall for time.

I've had all of these done to me. It is inherent with human nature.
A lot of people go to tournaments (me included, because I'm not that great) just to have a challenge and a good time. But there are others that are a minority but frequent enough to be easily noticeable that will resort to these "unfair play" behaviors on a competitive setting. Having a strict 2h limit is too short. 2.5 is OK though.

18 hours ago, Deuzerre said:

But why did they finish under 2 hours? Surrendering? Was it a "serious" tournament with people stalling? What were the lists like?

It was a store tournament. We had prizes for participation and placing. A local terrain maker made some custom tatoinne terrain set that we gave away to the winners. Since it was a store tournament it was a friendly tournament, not sure what you mean by serious. Everyone finished their games in the time allotted, I was the TO and made sure to answer the questions on rules as soon as possible. So, I sort of made sure the games flowed smoothly.

The lists varied, we had 7 rebels and 5 empire players. There was one double AT-ST list, people played Veers, Vader, and Luke. We had lists with dual speeder bikes and 6 troopers, triple AT-RT lists, it seemed to vary. The owner of the store did send the information to their FFG rep, mostly to make FFG aware of the events, we do to promote Legion.

I am not sure if it is in the tournament rules for Legion but in Armada, stalling is considered unsportsmanlike and could get a person removed from a tournament.

1 hour ago, modise said:

I am not sure if it is in the tournament rules for Legion but in Armada, stalling is considered unsportsmanlike and could get a person removed from a tournament.

In any game tournament it's considered unsportsmanlike, but it's often hard to spot on a single match (more so on bigger tournaments with 8-10+tables) because you have to call a ref first, then have him check on the match... And it's always hard to differentiate a slow player from one stalling if you haven't seen the early turns.

Last tournament we ran (10 players) there were maybe 1 out of the 5 games each round that ended before time, that said, people are new and learning their lists. I don't think there's a whole lot you can do at this point but prompt players to be expedient.

On ‎6‎/‎6‎/‎2018 at 8:15 AM, Amanal said:

Because you don't know if you are playing for 2-4-6 turns you can't develop a strategy or tactics to cover the game length in turns.

That's right. You need to adapt your strategy and tactics to unforeseeable events. I see that as a challenge. The player, that is better or more flexible at adapting his strategy and tactics will win. I think, that's a good thing.

On ‎6‎/‎6‎/‎2018 at 4:28 AM, Gun4hire said:

If each round takes 30-40 mins than once one side is in a winning position theres not enough game left for the other side to react in just 3 or 4 rounds.

Key positions and breakthrough are good examples i guess. So with key positions say the blue player has 12activations and red has 12 activations. Your saying 3 rounds if enough play time for the red player to march across and fight the blue player for objectives?

Say breakthrough, the blue player has 13 activations and the red player has 9. So 3 rounds is enought time for the red player to try and even up unit numbers while still moving to the other deployment zone?

The way I read that, your main point is, that the current rules are unfair for either the red or the blue player.

But as a matter of fact, both players have the same mission, the same choices, the same number of rounds, the same time. So how's that unfair?

Or to stick with your examples: How is key positions harder to achieve for the red player than for the blue player. And how s breakthrough harder to achieve for one side or the other?

On ‎6‎/‎10‎/‎2018 at 10:23 AM, Dave Grant said:

Legion objectives would also need to be clarified in case game finishes turn 4 (ie who controls in turn 6 or end of game)

That one is so obvious, that I wouldn't expect any clarification: When the game ends after round 4, then apply "end of game" points after round 4.

On ‎6‎/‎10‎/‎2018 at 10:08 PM, ScottieATF said:

FFG is designing and balance the game to work within the 6 Rd rules they've developed. Adding a time limit is simply a logistical necessity for tournament play it isn't going to be something they are designing around. I say that with confidence because what you're suggesting is that FFG is developing essentially two different games within the game and that's not something they or anyone do.

If the 2 hour time limit is causing games to end after only 3 or 4 rounds it's going to cause issues because FFG will have balanced a created the units and scenarios around getting the 6 in. That breaks down when games don't naturally conclude.

How do you know, that the game is balanced for 6 rounds and not 2 hours? Pure assumption.

How do you know, FFG are not designing around a time limit? Or that no one does? Pure assumption. Counterargument: Imperial Assault most definitely is most balanced at 65 minutes, not at the natural "Who scores 40 points first." Vader is nearly unbeatable on the latter and in balance at 65 minutes.

Your term "naturally conclude" is a pure assumption again. What if 120 minutes is the natural conclusion? Or do you know more than all others do?

Actually, as a tournament player, I would like to see chess clocks. 60 minutes per game per player. That's just fair.

I've played a 3 games tournament last Saturday, and I can tell you 6 hours of gaming is enough. If you add in, that my last game was like. "OK, my first activation on turn 5 is Stormtroopers, they aim and shoot ..." "TIME!" ... so that game was more like 140 Minutes.

I'm absolutely against more time per round. 2 hours is perfect.

And I'm even more against chess clock time per player per round. On turn 1 this will never be enough, no matter how fast you are, on turn 6 you will have a lot of spare time.

1 hour ago, DerBaer said:

That's right. You need to adapt your strategy and tactics to unforeseeable events. I see that as a challenge. The player, that is better or more flexible at adapting his strategy and tactics will win. I think, that's a good thing.

Losing because you didn't get lucky, did something stupid or just plain and simple got out played is fine.

Losing because your opponent played too slow is a rubbish reason to lose. I don't see cheating being a good thing at all.

1 hour ago, DerBaer said:

The way I read that, your main point is, that the current rules are unfair for either the red or the blue player.

But as a matter of fact, both players have the same mission, the same choices, the same number of rounds, the same time. So how's that unfair?

Or to stick with your examples: How is key positions harder to achieve for the red player than for the blue player. And how s breakthrough harder to achieve for one side or the other?

I don't know about breakthrough, but key positions generally favors blue player because they get to place 2/3 objectives, meaning red player has to assault at least one objective that is theoretically already held by the blue player.

But the red player has the last choice on "Defining the Battlfield", so it's his own fault, if that mission is played?