22 minutes ago, Quack Shot said:

This wouldn’t necessarily discourage @Crimsonwarlock from using the strategy, because he’d probably have enough wins for the cut. But its been suggested before on changing the Swiss tiebreakers.

Wins>Points Destroyed>MOV>SOS

This means that players are now encouraged to go out and kill their opponents ships.

“Wins” don’t factor in at all. If you have a 3pt bid I dance around the board after killing a 24pt ship, my final VP is 27 and that is added to my grand total regardless of the VPs you score.

In most reasonable occasions with a decent turnout, the overall tourney winner would be the player who killed the most stuff that day. Seems appropriate to me. 😁

8 hours ago, jagsba said:

Like bumping your ships into each other to not move or like blocking enemy ships?

Idk..i just think blockings a cheap tactic. I try not to do it at all. Just try to out fly them

1 hour ago, Flurpy said:

At Essen Spiel they are giving away free Starvipers and E-Wing because they have way too many of them left for clearance.

My friend took 4 just to mess around with this list. Prepare for an influx of Starvipers in Europe.

I would love to get my hands on at least 1 more e-wing to mess with a trip e list i want to toy with.

2 hours ago, pheaver said:

Ok, this has gone past the "if you plan on doing this tactic, talk to your head judge first, because many (like myself) won't allow it" to the normal FFG forum nonsense.

I guess the question still remains as to what would constitute stalling? I can see moving parallel to your back edge for multiple turns would, but what else meets that definition? Rebel beef moving one forward for multiple turns? A defender opening with several K-turns? And are you going to start dictating what maneuvers or speed someone must select to engage? This seems like it could start getting really subjective. We're also starting to open a can of worms here that has no rules support. According to my local TO, there's nothing in the rules that defines either slow play with respect to dial selection, slow play with respect to engaging your enemy, or even how to enforce those if you do think a player is doing either or both.

As a TO I can understand wanting to stay ahead of any potential problem that might pop up. But as a player who plays one of these builds, I guess I also want to know what maneuvers I might be selecting that could be construed as slow engaging. I usually spend the first two or three turns along one or more board edges. Is that slow approaching? I've never heard any complaints, but it certainly might fill the criteria.

It seems like if judges are going to start making rulings on slow dial selection or slow engaging, then there needs to be valid definitions of both that players can refer to. I don't play in that many tournaments, but I'd like to know that rulings are going to be somewhat consistent from tournament to tournament. Without anything in writing, it seems like lack of consistency in rulings could become a problem.

1 hour ago, Delta8 said:

Idk..i just think blockings a cheap tactic. I try not to do it at all. Just try to out fly them

I once had someone tell me that my sense Jedi list was frowned upon in competitive play and would get me kicked out of tournaments, then threatened to quit if I kept doing it

54 minutes ago, Maui. said:

I once had someone tell me that my sense Jedi list was frowned upon in competitive play and would get me kicked out of tournaments, then threatened to quit if I kept doing it

Sounds like someone was a sore loser.

36 minutes ago, underling said:

I guess the question still remains as to what would constitute stalling? I can see moving parallel to your back edge for multiple turns would, but what else meets that definition? Rebel beef moving one forward for multiple turns? A defender opening with several K-turns? And are you going to start dictating what maneuvers or speed someone must select to engage? This seems like it could start getting really subjective. We're also starting to open a can of worms here that has no rules support. According to my local TO, there's nothing in the rules that defines either slow play with respect to dial selection, slow play with respect to engaging your enemy, or even how to enforce those if you do think a player is doing either or both.

As a TO I can understand wanting to stay ahead of any potential problem that might pop up. But as a player who plays one of these builds, I guess I also want to know what maneuvers I might be selecting that could be construed as slow engaging. I usually spend the first two or three turns along one or more board edges. Is that slow approaching? I've never heard any complaints, but it certainly might fill the criteria.

It seems like if judges are going to start making rulings on slow dial selection or slow engaging, then there needs to be valid definitions of both that players can refer to. I don't play in that many tournaments, but I'd like to know that rulings are going to be somewhat consistent from tournament to tournament. Without anything in writing, it seems like lack of consistency in rulings could become a problem.

Admittedly, it is definitely a subjective thing. While judging, at about 15 minutes in, we would look to see what matches have not started engaging. Many times they are due to valid reasons: a player is feinting with an ace and pulling opposing ships out of position, etc. Sometimes it was due to unintentional slow play: the engage will happen in a few minutes, but they'll never finish the game in time. That would correct itself after we told them they need to step up their pace of play. If a player is being completely passive and has the tools to maintain a location for the entirety of the game, then we'd have to step in. This could be due to Starviper rolls, Defender K-Turns, whatever. Happily, it didn't occur at NOVA.

No, we will not dictate what moves people have to make. If you are moving towards engagement and interaction with your opponent, that's good.

I disagree with the lack of rules support:

Floor rules 3.6: "players are expected to play at a pace that will not set their opponent at a disadvantage because of the time limit. Slow play is an issue that arises when a player takes more time than necessary to perform one or more game actions." This covers slow dial setting, action choices, etc. It is a subjective call by the judge.

How to enforce: "oftentimes a simple 'I need you to play more quickly' from the judge is all that is needed to remedy the situation." This is true: most times when I said that I never had to deal with the player again. It goes on to say Normal Warnings are applied if the judge has to deal with them again, and it could escalate to a game loss.

As for rules saying you cannot not-fortress by staying passively at one location, it requires a bit of reading and interpretation. "It [fortressing] is considered a form of stalling, as it seeks to create and exploit a stalemate." If you (as I do) infer that anything that creates and exploits a stalemate is therefore stalling, then any tactic that says "the score is 0-0 and I'm setting up a static position, it's on my opponent to force us to play a game" is creating and exploiting a stalemate and runs afoul of the stalling rules.

Hope this helps your TO!

I don't see an issue with stalling.

Aces can tuck their tails and regen, but it's okay because they cost more and have fancy names.

Buh. Stupid.

3 hours ago, Delta8 said:

Idk..i just think blockings a cheap tactic. I try not to do it at all. Just try to out fly them

Pardon me, but what?

Setting up a block is part and parcel of “out flying” your opponent. It’s been part of X-Wing since 2012 when the game originally released.

It’s a core tactic when facing aces, as blocking them is often the most viable way of stopping them.

I mean, heck, some ships literally only exist for the purpose of being cheap blockers. There are plenty of examples, but for a perfect one, look no further than the Gold Squadron Trooper. 25 points for an initiative 2 pilot in a garbage ship with a garbage dial but 5 hull and barrel roll linked to evade? The thing literally exists solely to function as a blocker (and it’s phenomenal in that role).

Edit: okay, maybe not “solely,” Sinker plus a V-19 mini swarm is hilarious.

1 hour ago, pheaver said:

As for rules saying you cannot not-fortress by staying passively at one location, it requires a bit of reading and interpretation. "It [fortressing] is considered a form of stalling, as it seeks to create and exploit a stalemate." If you (as I do) infer that anything that creates and exploits a stalemate is therefore stalling, then any tactic that says "the score is 0-0 and I'm setting up a static position, it's on my opponent to force us to play a game" is creating and exploiting a stalemate and runs afoul of the stalling rules.

Yeah, the problem is you are interpreting that ruling out of the context of the Fortressing rule by removing the very pertinent preceding sentence of ...

Quote

“Fortressing” is conduct violation relating to a game state in which one or both players are using the rules for overlapping ships to prevent the movement of their own ships. It is considered a form of stalling, as it seeks to create and exploit a stalemate.

... and are inferring "anything" instead of "using the rules for overlapping ships to prevent the movement of their own ships"

Its a very important distinction, and a bit of an over-reach, I feel.

Now again, I didn't see all of his games (forgive me if his other openings were drastically different), but from then one I did see posted in this thread, he was moving final positions, not bumping, his arcs were changing directions in his final positions ... he was just dragging his opponent through the rocks, which is a perfectly legit tactic.

I mean, your tournaments, your rules, but as a judge you can expect to hear about it when you make what others consider to be a "bad call". Professional ref's catch it a lot worse

My personal beef in this is that I don't think you should have informed him of this in the middle of the tournament that you were not judging, as it would possibly affect another player's choices; they may start to second guess themselves thinking, "am I actually doing something wrong here?" when what they are doing is perfectly fine outside of you and Dee's tournaments. After the tournament would have been fine.

That was BS, it was bad and you should feel bad

3 minutes ago, kris40k said:

My personal beef in this is that I don't think you should have informed him of this in the middle of the tournament that you were not judging, as it would possibly affect another player's choices; they may start to second guess themselves thinking, "am I actually doing something wrong here?" when what they are doing is perfectly fine outside of you and Dee's tournaments. After the tournament would have been fine.

I did not speak to Mr. Raab at worlds. Anyone telling you otherwise is lying to you.

Just now, pheaver said:

I did not speak to Mr. Raab at worlds. Anyone telling you otherwise is lying to you.

Oh, I was misunderstanding the situation then, I had understood that this had started during the tournament.

I apologize.

It's not fortressing, but fortressing is also not the only means of stalling.

7 minutes ago, Maui. said:

It's not fortressing, but fortressing is also not the only means of stalling.

"It is considered a form of stalling, as it seeks to create and exploit a stalemate."

so you're telling me, that fortressing is a form of stalling that seeks to create and exploit a stalemate. But that there might be other forms of stalling as well?!?! Maybe one's that aren't as clearly defined as strict fortressing is?

3 minutes ago, jagsba said:

"It is considered a form of stalling, as it seeks to create and exploit a stalemate."

so you're telling me, that fortressing is a form of stalling that seeks to create and exploit a stalemate. But that there might be other forms of stalling as well?!?! Maybe one's that aren't as clearly defined as strict fortressing is?

Absolutely not.

FFG is telling you that

35 minutes ago, pheaver said:

Stuff...

Hi @pheaver

23 hours ago, PhantomFO said:

What if FFG changes the mechanics behind final salvo so that it's not based on the printed attack values of ships? Maybe something where you get one red die for every 20 points you've destroyed, rounded up? That would eliminate the ability for a list to set their win conditions based on "I'm going to avoid conflict and trust my larger pool of red dice to give me the win over that two-ship aces list."

Is "Final Salvo" an actual rule? I've used it, I know what it is, but does it appear in the official tournament rules? Just curious if it can be changed.

5 minutes ago, feltipern1 said:

Is "Final Salvo" an actual rule? I've used it, I know what it is, but does it appear in the official tournament rules? Just curious if it can be changed.

Section IV (Tournament Concepts), Subsection 3 (End of Round), b (on page 7, left column of the text version):

Final Salvo
If both players have the same score at the end of a game, they must fire a Final Salvo to determine the winner. To fire a Final Salvo, each player adds together the highest printed, unmodified primary weapon value of each of their remaining ships (those that have not been destroyed or fled) and rolls attack dice equal to that number. The player who rolls the highest total number of combined hits and critical hits wins the game. If both players roll an equal number of hits and critical hits, they roll again until a winner is determined.
If a game ends in mutual destruction, each player instead adds together the highest printed, unmodified primary weapon value of each of the ships in their squad and rolls attack dice equal to that number.

This whole thing makes me uncomfortable. I often fly 4 X-wings which have the same final salvo advantage as the quadvipers. I'll often fly to a place that I think is to my advantage (for example, a corner free of asteroids when facing Nantex), knowing my opponent will need to pursue due to my final salvo advantage. Now I've learned this could be interpreted as "abusing a stalemate condition" and I could be given an official warning or be disqualified. This means, I'll be obligated to engage the enemy at disadvantage due to the number of red dice I have.

I always thought Final Salvo was, in part, designed to give advantage to lists with lots of low initiative generics in order to force highly maneuverable ace lists to engage.

This topic is still going? Shut it down.

2 minutes ago, RunnerAZ said:

This topic is still going? Shut it down.

This topic is going to persist until FFG explicitly rules on it in a way that there’s no more room for confusion or personal taste...which means it’ll likely last for a good while yet. Technically it’s been an open topic since at minimum June 2019.

FFG had a golden opportunity to settle this at Worlds ,but yet here we still are beating a dead hoarse.

1 hour ago, Flyingbrick said:

FFG had a golden opportunity to settle this at Worlds ,but yet here we still are beating a dead hoarse.

Well they did, they said it was fine. Brent Wong the judge of the event said, “just because you disagree with a tactic a player used, does not make that tactic illegal. Regardless of if I agree or disagree with a strategy, I must treat all players with fairness, and I try my best to remain impartial. All of you deserve and warrant no less.”

Judges have had a long history of using World’s precedence on future events that they run. The whole point of the judge illuminate was to agree on controversial rulings until FFG set precedence or rule reference change. Here we have top level judges deciding that they aren’t going to follow FFG.

Thanks, apparently this was something i missed.

I’ll point out that the FFG stream that ran at least two of the vipers’ matches and had two prominent X-wing voices commentating did not seem to have issue with the way the vipers were being flown. Perhaps it was more egregious in earlier rounds?

Cleary there was some kind of undercurrent at Worlds about this particular list and perhaps a lot not being said in this thread (understandably so) about past experiences, but it seems like FFG cleared the way they were being flown in this instance.

The stalling thing does seem open to interpretation. I also think that @pheaver‘s take of checking at a certain match time to see if ships have engaged or are on a path to engagement (or willfully avoiding it) sounds like the best way to mitigate this, but also sounds like it could be difficult to make into an official rule that won’t lead to some other abuse. Still, they did it with fortressing. It would be nice to have a ruling.

Ill also say that there’s been a bit of forum jank in this thread as always, but this debate is very interesting, especially for someone like me with a pair of Jawa that don’t let me get to many tournaments. I’m not sure there’s much more debate to be had, but the debate has been good! And I bet FFG will address it because they do seem to pay attention to what players are debating.