We are driving our separate local "continuity program" in my play area (about 15 players) where we have taken an approach similar to @DerBaer and his crew. Our focus has been to build a meta using deployment re-cost only and our experience has been very positive.

We did out post summer-review during this weekend and one of our major findings was that with our cost reductions activation counts has gone up, not by horrible amounts but still one or two acts, gut feeling, on average.

From our discussions, we sort of landed on that the ideal activation count for tournament play is 5-6 acts. Enough to have a more tactical view but not so that the board becomes bloated. What is your gut reaction to that statement?

Our next experiment will be to increase the cost of our units with 20-25% since our cost adaptations were more or less to set the costs of each figure to match power level of spectre cell.

4 hours ago, Ram said:

From our discussions, we sort of landed on that the ideal activation count for tournament play is 5-6 acts. Enough to have a more tactical view but not so that the board becomes bloated. What is your gut reaction to that statement?

The tournament meta always was 7 - 9 activations. And I think, that this is absolutely OK.

I prefer 7 activations as a general rule.

I always thought of 6-7 activations being ideal. 5 was playable if you knew how to work your list. 8+ can be fun to get last activation, but I never really found that I needed it.

In my opinion, limiting activation counts to 6 or swings too much power towards multi-figure deployments vs. single-figure & unique figure deployments. 7-9 seems to be the sweet spot.

Thanks for the feedback all! We will give the higher cost->lower activation count a quick test run and see how it feels.

On 8/26/2019 at 5:01 AM, Ram said:

We are driving our separate local "continuity program" in my play area (about 15 players) where we have taken an approach similar to @DerBaer and his crew. Our focus has been to build a meta using deployment re-cost only and our experience has been very positive.

We did out post summer-review during this weekend and one of our major findings was that with our cost reductions activation counts has gone up, not by horrible amounts but still one or two acts, gut feeling, on average.

From our discussions, we sort of landed on that the ideal activation count for tournament play is 5-6 acts. Enough to have a more tactical view but not so that the board becomes bloated. What is your gut reaction to that statement?

Our next experiment will be to increase the cost of our units with 20-25% since our cost adaptations were more or less to set the costs of each figure to match power level of spectre cell.

I've discussed this with groups in the past. One thing I would like to see in Skirmish is a mandatory inclusion of non-unique units.

1 hour ago, Rikalonius said:

I've discussed this with groups in the past. One thing I would like to see in Skirmish is a mandatory inclusion of non-unique units.

Why?

I feel that IA really fills that niche where only unique unit battles can exist. Legion is the game where mandatory fodder units live.

But I want to hear reasons why non-unique units should be a must include because I can't think of those reasons. But I also haven't had my coffee yet this morning. ☕

Certain types of units being mandatory would destroy one of the many appeals of IA that sets it apart from and above many other miniatures games.