Our second tournament took place this Sunday.

Squads were:
Chewie 11, Han 10, Leia 6, MDH 6, C3PO 2, Gideon 3, eSmuggler 2 with smuggler and a couple leader cards.

Darth Vader 13, Kayn Somos 6, eStormtroopers 6, eJet treooper 6, eE-web engineer 4, 2 rOfficer 4, Zillo 1 with trooper and some vader cards.

Boba 8, Shyla 7, Onar 6, Bossk 6, Dengar 4, Vinto 4, Greedo 4, Doubt 1 with all evil hunter cards.

Darth vader 13, Royal guard champion 9, Inquisitor 7, eRiots 7, 2 rOfficer 4 with mix of braler and force user

Chewie 11, Han 10, Lando 5, Jyn 4, 2x eSmuggler 4, Gideon 3, C3PO 2, Balance of the force 1 with pretty much every smuggler card in existence.

And mine: ATST 10, 2x eJets 12, Kayn 6, eOfficer 4 2x rOfficer 4, eProbe driod 4 with the heavy vehicle cards.

We only had three maps this time as I forgot mine at home so we rotated on ISB HQ, Jabbas and Mos Eisley back alleys.

I will not do a deeper round by round in this one. The bands were better built, command decks as well and we played a more “professional” game when it came to missions and such. I beat the smuggler box by killing support units and staying clear of the bigger guns. I beat the first Vader band basically by rolling like a god with the ATDP and by him focusing too much on it. eOfficer is awesome, E-web engineer was good (!). I got hammered by the Hunter-band that both out-gunned and out-speeded me ending the game with a total team kill. I lost against the Vader-Inq-RGC as RGC simply hunted and killed all my support and the ATDP is slow. I lost against the smuggler band in a reasonable tight game.

My reflections on my band are fairly straight forward. ATDP is still overcosted at 10 points. Its too slow, too cumbersome to move and still not really the hammer it should have been. We will reduce cost by one more to 9 and also put the Repulsor tank to 6.

As for others, Dengar at 4 is really annoying so we will raise it to 5. I saw the first E-web engineer on the board today and it felt perfect at 4.

We had a long discussion about Chewie and Han. They keep popping up in the games and they are always heavy pieces but they are still not blowing everything away. They actually feel perfectly costed as they are now. We will keep playing and find out.

From these mini-tournaments we have also concluded that there are still lots of figures where the point cost decease simply has not been big enough to warrant play. There are a lot of figures that we think about reducing the cost even further. To name a few, Maul may go to 5, Weiss to 11, a lot of the low cost figures may drop even further etc. We decided to use Zeb and Sabine as our primary guides for re-costing and they are still powerful pieces compared to many of the re-costed figures. I will post an updated price list soon.

But as a conclusion, I can really recommend this format. I expected the game to change quite a bit when we tried it, but I never expected it to feel this “fresh”. Fenns assault and Kayns ability are now fun to play when they are not overcosted and you have decent cost troopers, Boba is now a pain to play against as is Dengar. Leia is a force and the new heavy hunter band is awesome to play. And the E-web as a support immobile heavy glass cannon felt spot on.

Actually you want to recost Shyla or Bossk 9 rather than 7/6... if they're 9 you can get unshakeable on them and open up to Parting Blow. Her ability to pull figures and resilience to harmful conditions would make them a great duo. Maybe recost Shyla to 7 and Bossk to 9. Also Drokkatta would fit well in a trio with Wild Fury + Hit and Run or Cruel Strike + To the Limits + Rally (or alternative cards for removing conditions).

About Chewie, he's ok-ish as it is. Just give him a reroll and he'll be a fine figure. Han is fine as it is, you just need to play him carefully to get the best from him.

Or since that card costs me a strain and a point, just remove the deployment cost clause.

This thread is exactly what I was looking for. It's great! Great job mate do you have a full list please?

I dont have many opportunities to play but even with a few games we realised we would never use RGC for that price again. An updated cost list would be gold

I should have done this a while back in a more proper way (GDoc or similar) but as time has passed I will give the content of the last sheet I have on this. Its not 100% up to date, but most pieces are costed in the same way that we played them. The ones with no number after the little ► has had no cost change. Also, we did not recost the regular versions in most cases. Also, all fix cards are banned.

I appologise for the horrible formating...

Rebels:

15▪ Chewbacca ► 11

12▪ Han Solo ► 9

12Alliance Ranger ►

12▪ Luke Skywalker (Jedi) ►

11Wookie Warrior ►8

10▪ Luke Skywalker (HotR) ► 8

9Rebel Trooper ► 6

9Alliance Ranger ►

9▪ Fenn Signis ►7 (candidate for 6)

9▪ Biv Bodhrik ► 6

9▪ Drokkatta ►

8▪ Gaarkhan ►6

8Echo Base Trooper ► 6

8▪ Leia Organa ►7 (candidate for 6)

8▪ Verena Talos ► 6

8Wookie Warrior ►

8▪ Ahsoka Tano ► 7

8▪ Zeb Orrelios ►

8▪ Kanan Jarrus ►

7Rebel Saboteur ► 6

7▪ Diala Passil ► 5

7▪ Obi-Wan Kenobi ► 6

7▪ Ko-Tun Feralo ► 6

7▪ CT-1701 ► 6

7▪ Ezra Bridger ►

7▪ Sabine Wren ►

6Echo Base Trooper ►

6▪ Lando Calrissian ► 5 (candidate for 4)

6Rebel Trooper ►

6▪ Davith Elso ► 5

6▪ Saska Teft ► 3

5▪ Jyn Odan ►4

5Rebel Saboteur ►

5▪ MHD-19 ►

5▪ Jarrod Kelvin ► 4

5▪ Tress Hacnua ► 4

4Alliance Smuggler ► 2

4▪ Loku Kanoloa ► 3

4▪ Murne Rin ► 3

4▪ Hera Syndulla ►

3▪ Gideon Argus ►

3▪ Mak Eshkarey ► 2

3▪ R2-D2 ►

3▪ C1-10P ►

2Alliance Smuggler ►

2▪ C-3P0 ►

Imperials

18▪ Darth Vader ► 13

16▪ General Weiss ► 12

15▪ Royal Guard Champion ► 9 (candidate for 10)

14AT-ST ► 10

12Royal Guard ► 9

10▪ Kayn Somos ► 6

10SC2-M Repulsor Tank ► 6

10Snowtrooper ► 7 (?)

10Sentry Droid ►8

9Stormtrooper ► 6 (candidate for 7)

9▪ The Grand Inquisitor ► 7

9AT-DP ► 8

8E-Web Engineer ► 4

8Royal Guard ►

8▪ General Sorin ►6

8Heavy Stormtrooper ► 6

8▪ Emperor Palpatine ►

7▪ Captain Terro ►

7ISB Infiltrator ► 6

7Jet Trooper ►6

7Snowtrooper ►

7Riot Trooper ►

6▪ Agent Blaise ►5

6E-Web Engineer ►

6Stormtrooper ►

6Heavy Stormtrooper ►

6▪ BT-1 ►5

6Sentry Droid ►

6▪ Thrawn ►

5Dewback Rider ►

5Imperial Officer ►4

5ISB Infiltrator ►

5Probe Droid ►4

5Riot Trooper ►

4Jet Trooper ►

4▪ 0-0-0 ►

4Death Trooper ►

3Probe Droid ►

3Death Trooper ►

2Imperial Officer ►

Mercs

13▪ Boba Fett ► 8 (candidate for 9)

12▪ IG-88 ►8

11HK Assassin Droid ► 9 (candidate for 8 )

10Trandoshan Hunter ► 8

10Rancor ► 9

9Bantha Rider ►8

9Wing Guard ►7

8▪ Bossk ► 6

8Gamorrean Guard ► 6

8▪ Shyla Varad ► 7

8HK Assassin Droid ►

8Wampa ►5

7Trandoshan Hunter ►

7▪ Dengar ►4

7Weequay Pirate ►

7Tusken Raider ►

7▪ Maul ►6 (candidate for 5)

6Nexu ►5

6Hired Gun ► 5

6Gamorrean Guard ►

6▪ Onar Koma ►

6Wing Guard ►

6▪ Jabba the Hutt ► 5

6Clawdite Shapeshifter ► 5

6Loth-cat ►

6▪ Hondo Ohnaka ►

5▪ Vinto Hreeda ► 4

5Weequay Pirate ►

5Wampa ►

5Ugnaught Tinkerer ►

5Tusken Raider ►

4Nexu ►

4▪ Greedo ►

4Hired Gun ►

4Clawdite Shapeshifter ►

4Loth-cat ►

3Ugnaught Tinkerer ►

3Jawa Scavenger ►

Sorry, this might be a daft question, but I don't play Skirmish often. With many things being costed down, what happens to the size of teams? Does the game end up becoming a much larger skirmish ?

I've said it already, but I'll reiterate. Why does nobody consider raising the costs of figures FFG woefully under-costed? It would be a far smaller list than all the cutbacks, some of which are extreme and will only lead to list bloat. People express they want to see the return of troopers, but all these reductions do nothing to make that happen. I say we ban everyone with Spectre in their name, sans Hera, and only because I like her as a character. And maybe increase E. Weequay pirates.

I wish I had more time to playtest, but I'm stuck on the couch recovering from Achilles surgery, but has anyone ever considered, just for the sake of finding some balance in figure costs, of playing the game Without Command Cards? We are proposing all these cutbacks to figures but only a few changes to command cards.

30 minutes ago, Master Wang said:

Sorry, this might be a daft question, but I don't play Skirmish often. With many things being costed down, what happens to the size of teams? Does the game end up becoming a much larger skirmish ?

In general in our plays (four tournaments now), we see a lot more of a quality increase then a count increase. However, noone in out groups has really tried trooper floods for instance.

33 minutes ago, Rikalonius said:

It would be a far smaller list than all the cutbacks, some of which are extreme and will only lead to list bloat. People express they want to see the return of troopers, but all these reductions do nothing to make that happen.

Well, going increase or decrease are both viable options. It is more a matter if you want to play with more figures on the board or less of them.

However, I disagree with cost decrease not bringing troopers back. Both elite Stormtroopers and elite Wing guards have seen a lot of play in our games and troopers in general are very viable in our local "meta" with the cost reduction on Kayn Somos and Fenn Signis.

Are these test games intended as testing for or proposed options for the IACP? I see a lot of figure costing here that aren’t reflected on the website.

Also, as others have also mentioned in other threads, I strongly believe, that if we are to have a chance at evaluating testing results of re-costed figures, we shouldn’t change to much, to fast.

On 4/30/2019 at 8:51 AM, Rikalonius said:

Why does nobody consider raising the costs of figures FFG woefully under-costed?

It was something I considered years ago when I first started messing around with my skirmish fixes. Re-considering it now, I still wouldn't want to raise the cost of Weequays or other Skirmish Deployments made since Jabba's Realm:

• There's more player agency with more Deployment groups in play. Obviously we don't want to move IA to a point where armies with 9 or 10 Deployment groups are common: 6-8 seems to be the sweet spot for having enough Deployment groups without slowing the game down to a crawl. In the case of armies with more than 6 Deployment groups, typically several of those groups are single-figure, which makes them quicker to resolve.
• Less Deployment groups makes single figure deployments more vulnerable to focused fire and makes high-priced unique single figure deployments almost too risky to play. It also limits list building combinations, especially if under-costed support groups (regular Imperial Officer, Gideon, Threepio, R2-D2) are increased in cost.
• It doesn't fix the power curve issues of newer deployments. If Weequays are increased to cost 10/5 or 12/6, they can still can Hunter card dump a single high-Health figure off the board in one activation.
• It doesn't fix the power curve issues in older deployments. Raising the prices on Deployment groups isn't going to make Gaarkhan playable at 8, Saska playable at 6, Tusken Raiders playable at their current costs, etc. Those figures need ability and attack math reworks.
• It increases the likelihood that dice variance swings a game too strongly towards one player. In Legion, there's essentially just 6 turns for each player to do things, but overall the dice variance is limited due to the massive handfuls of dice one rolls when attacking & the way defense dice negate the attack results. In X-Wing, positioning and the attack math is designed to keep ships on the table long enough so that the rolls typically average out. In Imperial Assault, Focus & Command cards amplify the damage output massively; and there's always Dodge. With less attacks per round, each attack carries more weight; with more figures and more attacks, the impact of those 1 in 100 or 1 in 21`6 dice roll occurrences aren't as game-ending.
• Concerning raising the costs of Command cards: Price cost increases based on power level works in some games like X-Wing where there are multitudes of ship/upgrade combinations, so that certain combinations cannot be made but similar builds exist. It doesn't work in IA because the apex cards are so much more powerful & important than other Command cards -- a Hunter player is going to pay whatever price he/she has to pay for Assassinate/Heightened Reflexes/Tools for the Job; a Smuggler player is going to pay whatever price for Tools & On the Lam, etc.

Increasing the price of an under-costed card is a tool to be considered -- used with the right Deployment, it makes sense. But as the sole solution to the current game state of IA Skirmish, I think it hurts more than it helps.

On 4/30/2019 at 8:51 AM, Rikalonius said:

... but has anyone ever considered, just for the sake of finding some balance in figure costs, of playing the game Without Command Cards? We are proposing all these cutbacks to figures but only a few changes to command cards.

I think removing Command cards from Skirmish removes a core experience that makes Skirmish unique compared to other tactical board games. The Command deck provides options for playmaking that an opponent must consider when planning out his or her moves. It can add a good kind of variance to the game; allowing melee figures to gain extra movement so they can reach figures for attacks, empowering attacks from figures that typically don't hit hard, etc. It also personalizes the player's list to a desired playstyle: Does a Creature/Brawler army with a Rancor focus on defensive cards, Brawler cards that buff attacks, Creature cards that protect just the Rancor and whatever other Creature might be in the list, cards that allow the player to re-activate the Rancor or combine the Rancor's activation with another figure's activation, or some other unique flavor the player thinks might work?

There's definitely issues with certain Command cards, but changing them is a fairly non-invasive way to tweak negative player experiences. IACP has already addressed Hunter cards and On the Lam. In the future, we'd like to see if the community feels that something should be done to the Take Initiative/Element of Surprise/Negation combo that feels like a "must have" due to their influence over game state. We'd also like to see how the community feels about re-activation cards (Son of Skywalker, Blaze of Glory, New Orders) and activation-combining cards (Strength in Numbers) and if they should also be tweaked. Reducing costs on some existing Command cards might make them better fit into a player's deck.

Removing Command cards outright also doesn't solve the problem with older Deployment cards, which were designed to be balanced with Campaign and Skirmish. Modern Skirmish -- the game that really took off during Jabba's Realm and Heart of the Empire -- recognized the need to have cards designed specifically for either game mode. Modern Skirmish also recognized the need to increase attack output enough to encourage attacking gameplay.

Taking all the Command cards out of the game doesn't make Gaarkhan or Elite Stormtroopers any better versus fixed Han, fixed Vader, Weequays, Alliance Rangers or even Jet Troopers.

Even though I disagree with you about it, I do hope you get a chance to try it out. I've had a lot of fun pretending to be a game designer the past couple of years with my Skirmish Fixes document. You should enjoy that too!

On 4/30/2019 at 8:51 AM, Rikalonius said:

... but I'm stuck on the couch recovering from Achilles surgery...

Oh man! I'm sorry you're going through that. I hope you feel better soon.

On 4/30/2019 at 11:15 AM, Doowa said:

Are these test games intended as testing for or proposed options for the IACP? I see a lot of figure costing here that aren’t reflected on the website.

These are @Ram 's cost changes that Ram used with Ram's local playgroup/friends. I'm glad they're trying them out! The experiences that they had with Ram's changes means they're enjoying Skirmish more! And if we're lucky, Ram will share what he learned from his/her fixes later with me, which will help improve IACP.

9 minutes ago, cnemmick said:

It was something I considered years ago when I first started messing around with my skirmish fixes. Re-considering it now, I still wouldn't want to raise the cost of Weequays or other Skirmish Deployments made since Jabba's Realm:

• There's more player agency with more Deployment groups in play. Obviously we don't want to move IA to a point where armies with 9 or 10 Deployment groups are common: 6-8 seems to be the sweet spot for having enough Deployment groups without slowing the game down to a crawl. In the case of armies with more than 6 Deployment groups, typically several of those groups are single-figure, which makes them quicker to resolve.
• Less Deployment groups makes single figure deployments more vulnerable to focused fire and makes high-priced unique single figure deployments almost too risky to play. It also limits list building combinations, especially if under-costed support groups (regular Imperial Officer, Gideon, Threepio, R2-D2) are increased in cost. 
• It doesn't fix the power curve issues of newer deployments. If Weequays are increased to cost 10/5 or 12/6, they can still can Hunter card dump a single high-Health figure off the board in one activation.
• It doesn't fix the power curve issues in older deployments. Raising the prices on Deployment groups isn't going to make Gaarkhan playable at 8, Saska playable at 6, Tusken Raiders playable at their current costs, etc. Those figures need ability and attack math reworks.
• It increases the likelihood that dice variance swings a game too strongly towards one player. In Legion, there's essentially just 6 turns for each player to do things, but overall the dice variance is limited due to the massive handfuls of dice one rolls when attacking & the way defense dice negate the attack results.  In X-Wing, positioning and the attack math is designed to keep ships on the table long enough so that the rolls typically average out. In Imperial Assault, Focus & Command cards amplify the damage output massively; and there's always Dodge. With less attacks per round, each attack carries more weight; with more figures and more attacks, the impact of those 1 in 100 or 1 in 21`6 dice roll occurrences aren't as game-ending.
• Concerning raising the costs of Command cards: Price cost increases based on power level works in some games like X-Wing where there are multitudes of ship/upgrade combinations, so that certain combinations cannot be made but similar builds exist. It doesn't work in IA because the apex cards are so much more powerful & important than other Command cards -- a Hunter player is going to pay whatever price he/she has to pay for Assassinate/Heightened Reflexes/Tools for the Job; a Smuggler player is going to pay whatever price for Tools & On the Lam, etc.

Increasing the price of an under-costed card is a tool to be considered -- used with the right Deployment, it makes sense. But as the sole solution to the current game state of IA Skirmish, I think it hurts more than it helps.

I think removing Command cards from Skirmish removes a core experience that makes Skirmish unique compared to other tactical board games. The Command deck provides options for playmaking that an opponent must consider when planning out his or her moves. It can add a good kind of variance to the game; allowing melee figures to gain extra movement so they can reach figures for attacks, empowering attacks from figures that typically don't hit hard, etc. It also personalizes the player's list to a desired playstyle: Does a Creature/Brawler army with a Rancor focus on defensive cards, Brawler cards that buff attacks, Creature cards that protect just the Rancor and whatever other Creature might be in the list, cards that allow the player to re-activate the Rancor or combine the Rancor's activation with another figure's activation, or some other unique flavor the player thinks might work?

There's definitely issues with certain Command cards, but changing them is a fairly non-invasive way to tweak negative player experiences. IACP has already addressed Hunter cards and On the Lam. In the future, we'd like to see if the community feels that something should be done to the Take Initiative/Element of Surprise/Negation combo that feels like a "must have" due to their influence over game state. We'd also like to see how the community feels about re-activation cards (Son of Skywalker, Blaze of Glory, New Orders) and activation-combining cards (Strength in Numbers) and if they should also be tweaked. Reducing costs on some existing Command cards might make them better fit into a player's deck.

Removing Command cards outright also doesn't solve the problem with older Deployment cards, which were designed to be balanced with Campaign and Skirmish. Modern Skirmish -- the game that really took off during Jabba's Realm and Heart of the Empire -- recognized the need to have cards designed specifically for either game mode. Modern Skirmish also recognized the need to increase attack output enough to encourage attacking gameplay.

Taking all the Command cards out of the game doesn't make Gaarkhan or Elite Stormtroopers any better versus fixed Han, fixed Vader, Weequays, Alliance Rangers or even Jet Troopers.

Oh man! I'm sorry you're going through that. I hope you feel better soon.

Just to be clear, I wasn't advocating removing Command Cards. I was merely suggesting testing without Command Cards to determine some of the costs. It is stripping back one element of skirmish only for the purposes of determining costs, i.e. is character A suitably cost against character B, C, D, etc. And then once that is done, looking at command cards to look for further problems. I wasn't advocating the game not have Command Card, which, as you said, are an integral part of the game.

Now, as far as the cost of figures. I wasn't suggesting only increases, there are some characters that legitimately need a decrease. I just think your of changes would be smaller if you made some increasing in cost to unbalanced figures, and that absolutely means Gideon. You want to limit dice variance, stop having people regularly throw 4 dice. Making some of the high damage characters cheaper, the ones that incorporate pierce, extra damage, and damage tokens to one-shot another character, isn't going to change that they do that, it is only going to bring in more characters that do it. Maybe the answer to skirmish is just to increase health instead of reducing costs, since FFG has allowed so much more damage output than there was a while ago.

1 hour ago, Rikalonius said:

Just to be clear, I wasn't advocating removing Command Cards. I was merely suggesting testing without Command Cards to determine some of the costs. It is stripping back one element of skirmish only for the purposes of determining costs, i.e. is character A suitably cost against character B, C, D, etc. And then once that is done, looking at command cards to look for further problems. I wasn't advocating the game not have Command Card, which, as you said, are an integral part of the game.

Now, as far as the cost of figures. I wasn't suggesting only increases, there are some characters that legitimately need a decrease. I just think your of changes would be smaller if you made some increasing in cost to unbalanced figures, and that absolutely means Gideon. You want to limit dice variance, stop having people regularly throw 4 dice. Making some of the high damage characters cheaper, the ones that incorporate pierce, extra damage, and damage tokens to one-shot another character, isn't going to change that they do that, it is only going to bring in more characters that do it. Maybe the answer to skirmish is just to increase health instead of reducing costs, since FFG has allowed so much more damage output than there was a while ago.

My fault for misunderstanding you about testing figures without Command cards. I think it would be interesting to see some playtesting without any Command card usage, or with a restricted deck of Command cards (like only 0-point cards, excluding cards made for specific unique figures and Take Initiative).

One of the things I don't think IACP will be able to change is Focus and preventing 4-die attacks. I do think a discussion should be had about Gideon and what value he brings to an army relative to his cost. (That's a discussion that I know everybody has a very strong opinion about!)

I definitely agree that some older figures need a bit of a Health buff considering the post-Jabba's Realm damage math. Most of the older Rebel Campaign Heroes in particular need help in that area. But most of them also need help in attack math, in abilities that make sense for the modern game and given the current suite of Command cards, in setting what role they play in lists, and what price makes them fit into list building easier. Even for figures that have really well-balanced abilities and stats for their cost, they still need a little something to make them worth putting on the board. Obi-Wan Kenobi is a good example of a figure that is one-little-something away from convincing players into using him again.

2 hours ago, cnemmick said:

My fault for misunderstanding you about testing figures without Command cards. I think it would be interesting to see some playtesting without any Command card usage, or with a restricted deck of Command cards (like only 0-point cards, excluding cards made for specific unique figures and Take Initiative). 

As much as I'm in favor of weakening the powerful ones than boosting the weaker ones (to me the sweet spot is around wave 7 so just before wave 8's Jabba), I think removing command card usage is a big mistake because it allows you to ignore traits and removes any threat from command cards

For example, I would definitely play very differently vs. Jedi Luke if I know Son of Skywalker isn't in the deck, my strategy would be very different vs. IG-88 if I know Blaze of Glory is out

4 hours ago, cnemmick said:

These are @Ram 's cost changes that Ram used with Ram's local playgroup/friends. I'm glad they're trying them out! The experiences that they had with Ram's changes means they're enjoying Skirmish more! And if we're lucky, Ram will share what he learned from his/her fixes later with me, which will help improve IACP.

I will share one experience from our re-costing; It has a huge effect on the meta. The meta becomes a lot more diverse and squad building becomes more interesting with more viable options. However, it is a lot more difficult then I thought it would be to tweak the costs. One point down on a couple of figures can warp the meta. We have in our group fiddled with the costs of mainly Chewie, Han, eSentries and some of the weaker Force users, mainly the imperial ones and just going up and down by one point on these queen or near-queen pieces has caused pretty big upsets on our squads and also on our experiences. Now, our adaptation process of the costs has been too fast, making updates before each game night. It should be a slightly longer process. But as far as sharing goes, that is our biggest takeaway along with the fact that the game has becom fresh again.

9 hours ago, cnemmick said:

It was something I considered years ago when I first started messing around with my skirmish fixes. Re-considering it now, I still wouldn't want to raise the cost of Weequays or other Skirmish Deployments made since Jabba's Realm:

• There's more player agency with more Deployment groups in play. Obviously we don't want to move IA to a point where armies with 9 or 10 Deployment groups are common: 6-8 seems to be the sweet spot for having enough Deployment groups without slowing the game down to a crawl. In the case of armies with more than 6 Deployment groups, typically several of those groups are single-figure, which makes them quicker to resolve.
• Less Deployment groups makes single figure deployments more vulnerable to focused fire and makes high-priced unique single figure deployments almost too risky to play. It also limits list building combinations, especially if under-costed support groups (regular Imperial Officer, Gideon, Threepio, R2-D2) are increased in cost.
• It doesn't fix the power curve issues of newer deployments. If Weequays are increased to cost 10/5 or 12/6, they can still can Hunter card dump a single high-Health figure off the board in one activation.
• It doesn't fix the power curve issues in older deployments. Raising the prices on Deployment groups isn't going to make Gaarkhan playable at 8, Saska playable at 6, Tusken Raiders playable at their current costs, etc. Those figures need ability and attack math reworks.
• It increases the likelihood that dice variance swings a game too strongly towards one player. In Legion, there's essentially just 6 turns for each player to do things, but overall the dice variance is limited due to the massive handfuls of dice one rolls when attacking & the way defense dice negate the attack results. In X-Wing, positioning and the attack math is designed to keep ships on the table long enough so that the rolls typically average out. In Imperial Assault, Focus & Command cards amplify the damage output massively; and there's always Dodge. With less attacks per round, each attack carries more weight; with more figures and more attacks, the impact of those 1 in 100 or 1 in 21`6 dice roll occurrences aren't as game-ending.
• Concerning raising the costs of Command cards: Price cost increases based on power level works in some games like X-Wing where there are multitudes of ship/upgrade combinations, so that certain combinations cannot be made but similar builds exist. It doesn't work in IA because the apex cards are so much more powerful & important than other Command cards -- a Hunter player is going to pay whatever price he/she has to pay for Assassinate/Heightened Reflexes/Tools for the Job; a Smuggler player is going to pay whatever price for Tools & On the Lam, etc.

Increasing the price of an under-costed card is a tool to be considered -- used with the right Deployment, it makes sense. But as the sole solution to the current game state of IA Skirmish, I think it hurts more than it helps.

Oh man! I'm sorry you're going through that. I hope you feel better soon.

I agree with pretty much everything you say above, but I will also lite to add that it has been troublesome to tweak everything down to match the power curve of Spectre cell. In out group we decided not to tweak anything up and it actually has hurt us a couple of times because it actually decreases the granularity of the cost curve to a point where we want two figures to have different cost but where it still feels wrong to have one of the figures raised to the above point cost. Case in point mostly 5-6 and 6-7 range. The current idea we are fiddling with is to raise the points allowed from 40 to 50, modifying all point costs to fit in that span (Spectre cell still clocking in at an even 50) and go from there. However, it may be too much work for too little bang, we are hesitating.

2 hours ago, Ram said:

I agree with pretty much everything you say above, but I will also lite to add that it has been troublesome to tweak everything down to match the power curve of Spectre cell. In out group we decided not to tweak anything up and it actually has hurt us a couple of times because it actually decreases the granularity of the cost curve to a point where we want two figures to have different cost but where it still feels wrong to have one of the figures raised to the above point cost. Case in point mostly 5-6 and 6-7 range. The current idea we are fiddling with is to raise the points allowed from 40 to 50, modifying all point costs to fit in that span (Spectre cell still clocking in at an even 50) and go from there. However, it may be too much work for too little bang, we are hesitating.

I think there is value in increasing the available granularity. I would argue part of what has driven the restricted meta is that every point is worth 2.5% of a list, so it is difficult to assign a reasonable cost to situational abilities. Situational abilities either cost more than players are willing to pay (provided there is an alternate 'vanilla' option), or you have very similar cards where one has an apparently free ability (even if it is not always useful), which will invariably be taken.

If you are looking at increasing the granularity, I would go the whole hog. Multiply every cost by 2.5 and build lists to 100 points. Tweak the individual costs from there.

We've played games with 60 point squads. It's a lot of fun!

I've played a lot of different skirmish games in the past: Star Wars Miniatures, World of Warcraft Miniatures, X-Wing, etc. In each case, after I've grown accustomed to the "base" or "official" squad size, I've ALWAYS found it fun to increase that number (usually by 50% or more). Here are some of the benefits to playing an "epic" (or increased squad limit) format from time to time:

1. It opens up whole new squad options. Han-Rangers can now become Han-KoTun-Ahsoka-Rangers, or VPT can now become VPT-Terro-ATDP, etc.
2. It creates a new meta; the current top squads might not dominate at 60pts the same way they do at 40pts....or at least not as strongly
3. It gives an "epic" feel to the battles: "Wow, now I can use all of the Millennium Falcon crew together!"
4. It gives you room to build those combos that you've always wanted to build, but couldn't realistically do: Vader, RGC, and Inquisitor can now have more than 4 activations. Or double-Bantha squads can now add a Rancor or IG-88, etc.
5. Bonus: Spectre Cell SUCKS at 60pts! Just sayin' They have a good 39pts, but there's no way that they can make good use of another 11pts without negating their ability to use the SC card.

The games do take a bit longer, but not all that much longer. A 60 point game doesn't take 50% longer to complete.

Also, we've discovered that it's usually good to add some extra cards and points to the Command Deck, just to keep the balance between Deployment-and-Command card balance. We've usually gone with 18 or 20 cards and 18 or 20 points for the Command Decks when we've played with 60 point squads.

2 hours ago, Ram said:

I agree with pretty much everything you say above, but I will also lite to add that it has been troublesome to tweak everything down to match the power curve of Spectre cell.

Honestly I think the power level derived from the Spectre Cell upgrade shouldn't be considered as the baseline. That card has thrown the game way outta balance. I agree with the IACP decisions to ban SC for now and to set the power baseline around figures from Heart of the Empire and Jabba's Realm. Ultimately I want to see IACP introduce a SC-like card that gives the enjoyable parts of playing SC (6 unique figures, an unique once-per-round move and attack mechanic, limited reliance on Command card draw) without the game-breaking & unfun parts of SC (figures are too tough to punish when they over-extend, the extra move and attack impacts the game too strongly).

51 minutes ago, Alastairk said:

If you are looking at increasing the granularity, I would go the whole hog. Multiply every cost by 2.5 and build lists to 100 points. Tweak the individual costs from there.

Increasing Deployment cost granularity is something the IACP Steering Committee would love to try in the future. In our initial discussions, we felt like increasing the scale of Deployment costs to fit 60 or 100 point limits was going to be very difficult to do, as to support such a change, the whole Rules Reference Guide would need to be rewritten -- the IACP has no domain over that document. We've also recieved significant feedback from community members that are against broad changes to the game. We were also concerned that making such a huge change might increase the learning curve for new players.

We also discussed what we thought might be a less intrusive way of increasing granularity: Supporting half-point Deployment costs. There'll still be problems with adding complexity to the game, but at least adding rules for this mechanism won't require rewriting the RRG. We didn't get too far into the weeds to suss out how half points should translate into VPs, but sticking to whole numbers and rounding up or down for scoring seemed to be the best idea.

In the end, we felt like our priority should be on making more Deployment groups playable and diversifying the metagame at all levels of play. #FixBobaFett. If y'all would like to discuss Deployment cost granularity more, let's start a new thread about. I feel bad that I derailed @Ram 's thread with this post.

14 hours ago, cnemmick said:

Honestly I think the power level derived from the Spectre Cell upgrade shouldn't be considered as the baseline. That card has thrown the game way outta balance. I agree with the IACP decisions to ban SC for now and to set the power baseline around figures from Heart of the Empire and Jabba's Realm. Ultimately I want to see IACP introduce a SC-like card that gives the enjoyable parts of playing SC (6 unique figures, an unique once-per-round move and attack mechanic, limited reliance on Command card draw) without the game-breaking & unfun parts of SC (figures are too tough to punish when they over-extend, the extra move and attack impacts the game too strongly).

That is definitly one way to go. You have adoped a way higher degree of freedom then we have in our much smaller experiment. In our group we are pretty much all play-as-printed people. We dont want to print own cards etc. IACP would probably benefit from having a different strategy.

14 hours ago, cnemmick said:

If y'all would like to discuss Deployment cost granularity more, let's start a new thread about. I feel bad that I derailed @Ram 's thread with this post.

Well, you really dont need to feel like that at all for my sake. It may be good to have a separate thread about this anyway though, under the IACP "umbrella" for searchability.