First player should definitely changes every round. It is a major design flaw for a <<one vs one>> game.

Also, <<bid>> should be considered as <<upgrade>>, hence counts in the MOV at the end of a game.

2 hours ago, Magnus Grendel said:

Initiative sinks is a problem in any game with I-go-you-go activations without some means to cope with one party bringing more units.

By comparison, "pass the initiative token to the other player" as a one-liner in the end phase and clean up is not complex, and is far more far-reaching:

• If you have ships of the same initiative, the move first/shoot first alternates between turns. All of your ships at initiative 5 move first (or last), but next turn you get to have the drop on your opponent, and so on.
• It also alternates initiative so that mechanics which either neutralise one another or not depending on initiative work, or don't work, on alternating turns. For example, Assaj Ventress/Latts Razzi versus "Muse" - if the player with Assaj Ventress has initiative, they will spend the entire game going "Have stress!" "No." - change the token over every turn and you have a window where the first order are immune to her ability, and a window where they aren't.
• It means the Initiative token being a physical object actually matters, and opens up the theoretical design space for "if you have/do not have the First Player token" as a trigger for abilities, or abilities which allow you/force you to pass the token or take it from your opponent.

Passing first player at the end of each round makes sense - while I'd rather have integrated turns where at the I5 step, players alternate, that's significantly more complex than simply just changing who goes first at top of each round, so I've come around to passing the token. When the decision of going first or second is so heavily weighted to the latter, and that decision either relies on either a straight coin-toss or literally playing less (ie. bringing fewer points) that's a problem in my books. I'm going to see if my group will consider house ruling the first player thing.

Having played in games with high-PS arc dodgers that were practically decided by the dice off for first player (this is the most apparent with multiple TIE Phantoms on the table), I would like a switch to alternating the first player each turn.

On 2/26/2019 at 7:55 PM, Vontoothskie said:

isnt that a pro and not a con though?

the problem with innitiative is that players can often rely on winning if they have it, assuming they are evenly matched and dice dont get too crazy. thus people bring lists with point bids to try and garauntee they get it, the problem is reliance on innitiative and abuse of it, not so much how people are playing once the game has started

It’s not a pro or a con, it just seems there would be a weird stutter in the game. But, anyway it seems worth a try. At least the first person token would get some use.

1 hour ago, BenDay said:

At least the first person token would get some use.

I actually do bring the first player token with me to events and pointedly hand it to my opponent when rolling for initiative.

Most of them - and we're talking store and regional championship winners and nationals and worlds competitors here - respond with " what the heck's that? "

I've never really gotten into the whole initiative debate, since my squads for years have been generic TIE/sk and TIE/fo (initiative "less than you") and Epsilon Ace (initiative "tough, you go first")