In our community we have mosty mature players with families, and all of us got into the game since December last year. We have limited numbers of painted minis, and prefer to have all painted armies on the table so we’ve so far been playing skirmish games rather than full 200pt games. So far we’ve found them really fun and engaging and they take a very convenient amount of time. Has anyone else played much skirmish? If so, how did you find the transision to 200pts, especially in terms of the time a game takes to play.

My group is currently introducing 3 new players to the game and so I have played quite a few skirmish games in the past few months. I actually really like playing skirmish games and will probably continue to try to play them even when all of our new players are ready for the full 200 game.

We have tweaked it a bit to be 110 points for skirmish games and we sometimes include terrain. I find that 100 points makes it tough to build a reasonable skirmish army with a hero. That extra 10 points gets you there.

It's a good start into the game. You might find as you go along that the lure of more More M0RE starts to set in, 200 point games have their own set of tactics and fun.

I used to think that full 200 point games didn't take much longer than a skirmish, maybe half an hour longer. But my last few 200 point games have literally taken the full 2 hours. It makes me want to try skirmish again for some shorter games. If you have enough models to make interesting skirmish lists (I like the 110 points cap for added creativity), then you can really have some fun. Playing with just the core of each army make Kari very strong. Almost too strong. That's my opinion.

I wouldn’t include heroes at 100 points. Kari, Ravos, Maegan, Aliana, and Ankaur can all have a disproportionate effect on a match at low points.

100 with generics gives you a neat match

18 minutes ago, Parakitor said:

But my last few 200 point games have literally taken the full 2 hours

Huh? How do you have a 2 hour game? As you saw last night our league games are ~60-80 min.

My experience has been that skirmish games tend to be more dramatic. 200 points gives you the chance to bounce back from a bad roll or a poorly positioned unit, but 100 points really makes you pay for your mistakes. It's still really fun, but you have to be ok with lopsided victories and defeats happening more frequently. I also think Church14's idea of steering away from heroes is a very good idea.

I honestly have no idea why my games have been going 2 hours. My games in the past have easily been 90 minutes or less. My best guess is that the last two games have been mirror matches against a newer player, so planning phases have been long. That's the only explanation I can think of. But the fact that he's new hasn't been that much of a factor, because we haven't really been done planning until about the same time. Maybe I just need to play against Waiqar more often.

18 minutes ago, Parakitor said:

I used to think that full 200 point games didn't take much longer than a skirmish, maybe half an hour longer. But my last few 200 point games have literally taken the full 2 hours. It makes me want to try skirmish again for some shorter games. If you have enough models to make interesting skirmish lists (I like the 110 points cap for added creativity), then you can really have some fun. Playing with just the core of each army make Kari very strong. Almost too strong. That's my opinion.

2 minutes ago, Church14 said:

I wouldn’t include heroes at 100 points. Kari, Ravos, Maegan, Aliana, and Ankaur can all have a disproportionate effect on a match at low points.

100 with generics gives you a neat match

This is correct. Hero's are all much stronger in skirmish games... but I like that! You only get to pick one hero and they feel the way hero's should feel. I had a skirmish game the other day where Ardus was my MVP... that rarely happens in full games.

I do agree that 100 points is best with regular units though. But if you want heros you can just up the cap a bit and it works.

I wonder how scenario based skirmishes would be. Some friends have done that with small format Armada. I may have to look into something like that. List limits, breaking rules, and the like. They run small format Amada tournaments regularly.

44 minutes ago, flightmaster101 said:

Huh? How do you have a 2 hour game? As you saw last night our league games are ~60-80 min.

Hey Sitzkrieg is a totally viable tactic. And it goes well with beer.

2 hours ago, Parakitor said:

against a newer player

I thought it would be ok to do a full 800 point game while teaching someone legion. man that took a long time. ?

3 hours ago, QuickWhit said:

We have tweaked it a bit to be 110 points for skirmish games and we sometimes include terrain.

We use the Skirmish deployment ‘card’ from the back of the rules reference (one of us has the bonus actual card) so we use one defensive and one dangerous terrain. We also use objective cards, which I am fond of as I like the variety they bring to the game.

I think that skirmish games listbuilding is quite interesting and have constructed some list for my casual friends to choose from. I also find that by playing sqirmishgames you get a betther sense of the units inividual strength in the list. The negative is the limited objective play/deployment although middigated by houseruling a bit. Find using skirmishlists in my 200 point games by just combining two of them is quite rewarding too as you are used to how the units move although on a smaler map...