The Problem (maybe):

You've attacked three stormtrooper squads but failed to completely finish off any of them. Each has just the unit leader remaning. All three manage to run away out of your LOS, denying you any points whatsoever when it comes to a tie breaker. (Many games seem to come down to the points-killed tie breaker.)

This understandably can leave you feeling pretty cheezed. You killed maybe 15 minis but not a single point to show for it.

Is this a problem?

I'm not sure.

On the one hand, making kills potentially inconsequential when it comes to breaking down a winner, makes it all the more important that you play the objectives as hard as you possibly can, which I think is a very good thing. I love the objective play in this game (for the most part) and have had many games where my troops where slaughtered but I still won because I played the objectives better.

But the question then comes to the tie-breaker when both players have the same number of objective points. Which in my experience is fairly common.

You can't help but feel ripped off if a unit leader from a trooper unit slips away, or you're left with an enemy AT-ST with 1 hitpoint left...

How X-Wing and IA solved this problem:

X-Wing
X-Wing and Imperial Assault both had to deal with essentially this same issue while growing up competetively.

In X-Wing, the issue was shooting at a big ship (like the Millennium Falcon) and having the game end with it having 1 hull left or something. All that work for nothing.

The solution was to grant "half points" for a ship if it had at least half of it's health removed. Simple enough.

Imperial Assault Skirmish
When Imperial Assault Skirmish was young, you needed to kill all miniatures in a group (unit in Legion terminology) to score the points for it; just like Legion is.
That became troublesome becuase players could reinforce their stormtroopers (something not currently possible in Legion) to keep putting minis back on the table, and then if they only had one trooper left, have it go run and hide.

This was simply called "points denial."

You put in all that work on those troopers and got no points out of it because one little stormtrooper ran and hid in the back of the map.

What they ended up changing for Imperial Assault was you just earned points every time a figure was defeated, rather than when the whole card's worth of minis was defeated.

Applying these methods to Legion?

If, this is indeed a problem in need of fixing (again I'm not quite sure that it is just yet) how would the two previous methods work in Legion?

Half points: When checking points-killed in a tie breaker scenario, if any unit has lost half or more of its minis, or half or more of its health, you get the point total for that unit + upgrades divided by 2. Rounded down.

For vehicles, you could say you only score half points if you've exceeded the resiliance value rather than simply half. (For example you only get half points from an AT-RT at 4/6 wounds rather than 3/6.)

Single Figure Points: For this, Just count each figure as however many points it's worth... um. You know what I mean.

A stormtrooper is worth 11 points; 44 point unit at 4 minis a unit. The personell upgrade is also worth 11. If a heavy weapon mini is killed, you count points equal to that upgrade card's cost.

Personally I think a combination of the two would be best. Use Half Points when it comes to vehicles, commanders, and operatives, and use Single Figure Points for trooper squads with multiple figures.

Has anyone else experienced frustration at having a single unit leader slip away and not get any tie-breaker points for it?

Is this something that should be addressed (as it was in X-Wing and IA)? or is it better how it is, as it really emphasizes how important the objective play is?

I think this is a great, even handed and thoughtful presentation! Thank you!

That said, I'm not really convinced that addressing these issues, in the ways you consider, would be net beneficial to the game. I fear this would make it even harder for folks to learn to focus on objectives over getting into range and "pew pewing".

39 minutes ago, Rogue Dakotan said:

Which in my experience is fairly common.

I'd be very curious to see more stats on how often games come down to even objectives for each side. I haven't played a ton of games, but its only ever once happened, and that was with the most recent moisture vaporators mission.

Personally I'd like to see more missions with fewer ways to end up tied!

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You can't help but feel ripped off if a unit leader from a trooper unit slips away, or you're left with an enemy AT-ST with 1 hitpoint left...

True, but I'm not sure that's a bad thing. In real life units will become less aggressive after taking casualties, and a vehicle that has damage but is not brewed up might be repairable in the field. I personally really like how this echos some of that real world dynamic.

...

The one downside to nearly dead units that does cheez me personally is they can be activated early and do meaningless hidden things to force the opponent to activate a more key unit and end up in range or reveal their intentions. This effectively amplifies activation missmatches.

I think an interesting houserule might be to on random order draws, force you to active the unit with the fewest wounds (justify it by saying that taking casualties increases stress and confusion and makes those units slower to react).

No

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Betteridge's_law_of_headlines

I hate that kind of thing but what can you do? Some people will always seek out ways to game the game instead of play the game. Change the rules to fix it and they'll sit down with a myopic obsession and figure out how to game the half-points next.

Not until they release the AT-AT.

IA and X-Wing aren't objective-driven like Legion is.

I haven't found ties as common as all that, so I haven't thought about it much, but ultimately points killed is a tiebreaker. X-Wing's tiebreaker is just rolling a bunch of dice - hardly satisfying, but, just win instead, you know?

Curious if you're maybe playing the same objectives over and over to get so many tied matches.

4 hours ago, Rogue Dakotan said:

The Problem (maybe):

You've attacked three stormtrooper squads but failed to completely finish off any of them. Each has just the unit leader remaning. All three manage to run away out of your LOS, denying you any points whatsoever when it comes to a tie breaker. (Many games seem to come down to the points-killed tie breaker.)

This understandably can leave you feeling pretty cheezed. You killed maybe 15 minis but not a single point to show for it.

This is not at all my experience locally. I've seen all of one game go to tie-breaker. If you're killing 15 minis and haven't eliminated units, then I recommend focusing your fire on units. Removing activations and unit leaders can help a LOT with winning the objectives.

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Has anyone else experienced frustration at having a single unit leader slip away and not get any tie-breaker points for it?

No, because I haven't had a game come down to tie-breaker yet.

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On the one hand, making kills potentially inconsequential when it comes to breaking down a winner, makes it all the more important that you play the objectives as hard as you possibly can, which I think is a very good thing. I love the objective play in this game (for the most part) and have had many games where my troops where slaughtered but I still won because I played the objectives better.

So, you've won many games based on the objectives, but "many games come down to the tie breaker." Which "many" has occurred more times? Or are both of these cases of primarily remembering the extreme situations?

As pointed out above, X-wing's sole objective (in v1 at least) is to destroy your opponent's units. The "Tie breaker" comes into effect when the round ends due to time restraints. In IA killing units is also a winning strategy as it always increases your objective points.

I guess if games go to tiebreakers a bit it would be good to have a better system but I haven’t seen it. Games I play tend to be definitively won by one side or the other. Especially as we get a full pack of missions with more choice in deck building I would hope we move away from ever needing countback.

1 hour ago, svelok said:

IA and X-Wing aren't objective-driven like Legion is.

IA is completely objective driven, xwing is not. Half points would benefit all of the games.

I've never had a tie game but have seen one, they do have rules for a tie breaker. I think perhaps its the way you're playing though or the familiarity with your opponents thats causing so frequent a game

32 minutes ago, buckero0 said:

IA is completely objective driven, xwing is not. Half points would benefit all of the games.

Isn't eliminating your opponent's models always a way to earn victory points? So even if unit elimination isn't the main objective, it helps you reach the win condition.

Both games also differ from Legion in that their ending condition (outside of timed tournament play) is meeting a specific victory condition. Legion on the other hand, is supposed to always go until turn 6.

I am a fan of the way it is, currently, although it kind of sucks for tiebreakers.

I think tie breakers are more of an issue for winning a tournament instead of winning a game. Simple win/lose with MoV for tie breaker is not the best system for larger tournaments without a cut. As it is, I think it's fine. The truly good players will be able to win with objectives and destroy a lot of points. If you're worried about finishing off a unit, that's where snipers come in. Infinite range with pierce and high velocity should do the trick.

10 hours ago, Caimheul1313 said:

Isn't eliminating your opponent's models always a way to earn victory points? So even if unit elimination isn't the main objective, it helps you reach the win condition.

This is true. Some lists are built more to just murder your opponents lists to win, especially in the Merc faction.

I've had only one tie game, but it might be nice to count the figure points killed for organized play.

1 minute ago, draco193 said:

I've had only one tie game, but it might be nice to count the figure points killed for organized play.

Maybe? I mean, has Legion had any major tournaments yet or is Gen Con/NOVA Open the first major ones? I'd be interesting in seeing how many of those games come down to the tiebreaker. For casual play I don't really care as long as I have a fun game. Competitive is where it really matters for tournament positioning.

13 hours ago, Caimheul1313 said:

So, you've won many games based on the objectives, but "many games come down to the tie breaker." Which "many" has occurred more times? Or are both of these cases of primarily remembering the extreme situations?

more games have come down to objective wins for sure, but I have had a hadful of ties already.

Most recently on the moisture vaporator objective, which seems very likely to come up with ties... Why couldn't it be 3 or 5 vaporators?

1 hour ago, Caimheul1313 said:

Maybe? I mean, has Legion had any major tournaments yet or is Gen Con/NOVA Open the first major ones? I'd be interesting in seeing how many of those games come down to the tiebreaker. For casual play I don't really care as long as I have a fun game. Competitive is where it really matters for tournament positioning.

I think these are the first.

Agreed for casual play. I'm just there to play and hopefully do some epic things.

1 minute ago, Rogue Dakotan said:

more games have come down to objective wins for sure, but I have had a hadful of ties already.

Most recently on the moisture vaporator objective, which seems very likely to come up with ties... Why couldn't it be 3 or 5 vaporators?

That is the only objective I've seen end in ties as well. I guess they wanted to have 4 models in the box? But that does make it more likely to end in ties, especially since the players get to place them, so in my experience two are placed near each deployment zone.

43 minutes ago, Rogue Dakotan said:

more games have come down to objective wins for sure, but I have had a hadful of ties already.

Most recently on the moisture vaporator objective, which seems very likely to come up with ties... Why couldn't it be 3 or 5 vaporators?

Well, no reason not to play with modified deployment restrictions to force less ties...

• Each vaporator must be within range 2 of board center.
• One of each players vaporator must be within range 1 of board center.
• Use only 1 vaporator per player. Place an additional one in board center (leave the fourth in the box).
• Place as normal and add an extra vaporator at board center.

But yeah... the objectives should try and tie less...

I actually like the interaction of having a single mini left. You have to decide if you're going to hide or go for an objective, and your opponent has to decide if they want to focus on one guy and maybe have overkill, or choose juicier targets, but let him remain active. It makes for less automatic decisions.

Legion is already way to complicated as is. Half pts/unit pts works great in a game like AI or x-wing since they are streamlined and rather playable games with fewer units on the table and easier to track like that. Legion is a hot mess and trying to figure out each mini's worth, especially with the add ons, is too much.

This game is most like Armada. You are suppose to finish off your opponents ships and do objectives. Either you get the job done and kill off the unit or the unit survives for another day. You are suppose to play the objectives not try to wipe out the other guys army. It is very possible to lose half your army while doing not much to the other guys army but still win based on playing the objectives.

I do think that moisture vaporators mission needs adjustment. It is far too easy to end in a tie and the objective based game becomes meaningless. It then comes down to who killed who most, which is actually a different game/play style.

I like it as it is. I'm all about objectives based play and have discovered long ago that "kill-em-all" games hold none of my interest. In fact, of all the games of Legion I've played, I have yet to see a tie. The objective points are definitive consistently.

Regarding the vaporator mission, if you both have two vaporators as you like them, then go fight over one of your enemy's ones. This seems like an easy problem to me. Keep the game moving and only play objectives.

I'm undefeated in the store league I play in, because I focus on objectives and my opponents focus on the pew pew pew. But the game is about objectives.

(where's that "it's all about the cones" meme when I need it?)

I like it, I have play more than 30 battles, and I never tied.

My solution is to only enjoy legion if I have time to complete a round.

The campaign in the league taught me to never play this game in a match made time restricted format.

It needs clocks to ensure games end conclusively.

Well the game does end after 6 rounds, so no, you don't need clocks for the game to come to a conclusion, you do need clocks for the game to end without taking all day. A full 6 rounds takes longer than 2.5 hours and the game plays different when you only have 3-4 rounds to play rather than 6.