Should we have a cap of 10 units for 800pt tournament games?

PROS:

• No activation spam.
• Mixes up the meta.
• No large unit activation disadvantages for those who would like to run less activations.
• No large deployment advantage if a person with less activations meets someone with lots.
• Less focus on lots of small units, with a few powerful units, that sit and wait til all of the enemy units have activated, to then move wherever they want.
• It forces people to focus on outmaneuver with what they have, rather than outmaneuver after the fact, by waiting til the enemy has exhausted their moves.
• We get to see more units with maxed out upgrades.
• We will see more of the tanks and/or bigger units.
• Players have to make harder choices in game because they have less room for failure. More units means they can be more expendable.
• The major pro - we won't see big unit activation disparities. If someone who runs 7-9 activations comes up against someone with 12-14, the player with more gets 4+ moves after the fact. It's pretty OP and I think doesn't reward better tactics, but is simply a cheese used to out-'game' the system.

CONS:

• The meta will naturally shift (I argue for the better).
• Less unit spam means units will be less expendable and bravery 1 units are more vulnerable to suppression weapons. Suppression specific weapons will become stronger.
• Actions will become more precious, so refresh skills/weapons will be less desirable.
• Lists could become more predictable, but I argue in tournaments they already are. High end tournament results are showing high unit count armies are more effective because they game the system of an alternate action game that has no pass mechanic.

I am only arguing for this limit to be applied to tournament games, not friendly games. I think a 10 unit cap will make players make harder choices in list design. It gives players more certainty and confidence if they choose to take a low activation count army, because they know the disparity in count will be lower. Yes it shifts the meta, but there already is a meta.

Hope the devs and regular tournament players see this and at least consider play testing the idea. Again its only for competitive tournament play.

I think a hard activation cap would encourage people to use more expensive but lesser used units. Things like command/scout trooper full squads. More importantly it will speed up rounds since at worst you could have 24-26 units to activate in rebel vs rebel games. The disadvantage is though, that swarm tactics to put the window which should be a viable option also.

A lot of games have pretty bad imbalance in the basic scoring mechanics. This gets heavily exploited and alters the game from what the background might suggest.

The solution is to fix scoring. Not have a cap IMO.

Sometimes I do advocate for caps. I thought (and still do) NERO PCs should cap at 12th level. After that, acquired XP should have been logged towards free character re-writes.

Maybe just try to fix strike teams to get the same results? Seems that a lot of issues can be traced back to strike teams with how they pad out activation and have such good value.

I'm not completely opposed to capping activations, but I do think it could create some other issues. For example, I think Rebels would be hit hard by a 10 activation limit. Neither of their heavies are particularly strong, and they don't have any crazy strong non-creature Trooper units (yet). With what they currently have, I think all Rebel lists would basically have to include Luke, Sabine, and/or Tauntauns, even more than they currently do. So Rebels would still be capable of fielding good lists, but their options would be severely limited.

14 hours ago, Lochlan said:

I'm not completely opposed to capping activations, but I do think it could create some other issues. For example, I think Rebels would be hit hard by a 10 activation limit. Neither of their heavies are particularly strong, and they don't have any crazy strong non-creature Trooper units (yet). With what they currently have, I think all Rebel lists would basically have to include Luke, Sabine, and/or Tauntauns, even more than they currently do. So Rebels would still be capable of fielding good lists, but their options would be severely limited.

I'd have to check but I'm pretty sure most of my rebel lists are only 10 and I don't use Luke, either heavy, and only sometimes Sabine. I think they would be just fine.

I'm not convinced activation capping would lead to a meta that is more diverse or 'better' (whatever the metric for that is anyway). In general I find artifical boundaries like that seldomly a good solution. Anyways, if they would implement a cap they'd have to rework Clones and CIS, which are designed as lower activation armies, but with higher quality units and ressource sharing (Clones) or easy acccess to perfect activation control (CIS). A cap would negate their (current) weaknesses mostly.

No.

If there is going to be a cap, it should be on the number of similar squads you take. So no more spam issues. Or you can only take 1 unit with the same upgrade.

So 1 strike team with sniper rifle. The other would have to take the bomb or you would take the full commando unit.

Or cap at 2 of the same unit. So only 2 sniper squads, 2 Tauntauns, 2 AtRt, 2 rebel troopers (the 3rd would have to be vets or fleets)

You'd still get similar-looking squads in a tournament. The most efficient units and upgrades will always get spammed in competitive play.

Or just self-regulate, i don't thing organized play will ever place a.cap

I don't think an activation cap would solve anything. Sure it would mix up the meta a bit but after a while it would just shift the complaints to something different 🙃 . I even think list creation will get more stale. Now you have to carefully decide between quality and quantity which is probably the hardest decision during list building.

I do think though that activation advantage should and will be addressed. A good way to go would be an exhaustable upgrade that lets you skip an activation if you have fewer activations as your opponent.

2 hours ago, buckero0 said:

No.

If there is going to be a cap, it should be on the number of similar squads you take. So no more spam issues. Or you can only take 1 unit with the same upgrade.

So 1 strike team with sniper rifle. The other would have to take the bomb or you would take the full commando unit.

Or cap at 2 of the same unit. So only 2 sniper squads, 2 Tauntauns, 2 AtRt, 2 rebel troopers (the 3rd would have to be vets or fleets)

You'd still get similar-looking squads in a tournament. The most efficient units and upgrades will always get spammed in competitive play.

Or just self-regulate, i don't thing organized play will ever place a.cap

So how would CIS or clones currently build a list like that. Only 4 troop core choices total I don’t think so.

What if strike teams were required to activate as one activation? So you were still able to bring 3 snipers but had to share the same action token? Not sure how it would play out but it might fix with the activation padding?

19 minutes ago, Atromix said:

What if strike teams were required to activate as one activation? So you were still able to bring 3 snipers but had to share the same action token? Not sure how it would play out but it might fix with the activation padding?

That would be horrible. Getting out 3 sniper shots at once would be bonkers.

12 minutes ago, SailorMeni said:

That would be horrible. Getting out 3 sniper shots at once would be bonkers.

I don't think that is what they meant

No. The game has not been designed with that cap in mind so the ability to run a large separatists or rebel gets cuts off and restricts the meta while not really affecting GAR or Empire.

Further more if you are talking a lower activation list then you will have better units then your opponent but you know that your opponent will have more activations and have to plan for/play around it. This is a good thing. If you're running a small decked out force then yes a larger activation list has a chance of overwhelming you so you have to know your list back the front and know what you're doing or you're going to be in trouble.

A solution would be to change how activation order works. Instead of ABABABAA, it should be AABAABAB.

Of course, this might require applying casualties at the end of activation phase, to avoid problems with focusing two consecutive attacks on one squad.

4 hours ago, Atromix said:

What if strike teams were required to activate as one activation? So you were still able to bring 3 snipers but had to share the same action token? Not sure how it would play out but it might fix with the activation padding?

Umm...buffing snipers is not the answer.

4 hours ago, Tirion said:

I don't think that is what they meant

I don't see what else they could have possibly meant?

2 hours ago, costi said:

A solution would be to change how activation order works. Instead of ABABABAA, it should be AABAABAB.

Of course, this might require applying casualties at the end of activation phase, to avoid problems with focusing two consecutive attacks on one squad.

I think AABAABAB would cause just as many issues as ABABABAA. Sometimes you'd prefer to go twice at the start of a round, rather than have extra activations at the end.

Perhaps another solution would be to give the player with fewer activations a number of 'pass' activations equal to the difference. On that player's turn, they can choose to activate a unit with a face-up order token, pull from the order pile/bag/stack, or use a 'pass' - effectively giving them control over when the opponent gets to take back-to-back activations. The 'pass' activations could reset each round, so they could also act as a sort of 'catch-up' mechanic; the player who ends up down a lot of units gets 'pass' activations as consolation. Only have one unit left? At least you get to decide when in the round that unit activates.

I think I definitely like the idea of pass command upgrade. Like:

Exhaust

Play when you are about to activate a unit during the activation phase.
If you have equal or less total units than your opponent, skip your turn. Your opponent must activate a unit.

etc

6 hours ago, lologrelol said:

I think I definitely like the idea of pass command upgrade. Like:

Exhaust

Play when you are about to activate a unit during the activation phase.
If you have equal or less total units than your opponent, skip your turn. Your opponent must activate a unit.

This sounds like Armada to me. It should cost significant points out of your 800 allotment to do this.

I frankly eliminate most of this by just not playing in tournaments. Unfortunately, even though FFG makes fun games, they do not make games balanced or designed for competitive play. X-wing, Armada, and it sounds like Legion (which, let's face it, is an amalgamation of most of their previous games) do not make decent tourney games. People get too weird about trying to get a competitive edge.

I'd be ok with an activation cap, but I don't think it's the best solution. Introducing some sort of pass mechanic, as either a change in the basic rules or an upgrade card, would be better.

Personally I think the best way to deal with tournament activation spam is to give all strike teams the detachment keyword with their parent unit.

9 hours ago, XR8rGREAT said:

So how would CIS or clones currently build a list like that. Only 4 troop core choices total I don’t think so.

2 P1 and 2P2

That's the way it would be. I don't really care. I don't think FFG will change anything is what I'm saying. I think self - regulation is the only way to go. The strike team will always be more efficient than the full squad and activations will always be at a premium in a competitive setting. Live with it (you don't have to attend the tourney), be a part of the problem and spam activations, or choose and practice with different units.

My point is FFG is not going to fix it. They raised the price on the all the Strike teams (do you see everyone spamming the Proton Charges Saboteurs?) What they should have done, was actually identify the problem (Activations are good, 50pts will get you a quality activation) an raise the cost of the sniper gun in ONLY the strike team. People take Death troopers because they get them free with Krennic. Except for Tirion, do you see anyone praising the virtues of Pathfinders? Wookiee Warriors? Anyone?

CiS and Republic with be the same within 4 weeks of the release of their snipers. You'll never see anyone run a full squad of Droid Commandos or ARC Troopers either.

The way to combat this is either release something similar in the same slot that can compete (they haven't yet and the ISF isn't going to take the spot of snipers, Mandalorians might edge out a sniper team from Rebels) in efficiency or cap the number of actual squads you can take. They could cap just everything but Corps, but that still may not solve the problem, just create different ones (which this thread and similar ones previous have explained) FFG will just keep moving along business as usual.

Great list of pros/cons. I used to be in the 10 activation cap camp. Most lists I like to play are at 10 so it just feels right to me.

Now, I think it would be great to see a variety of Tournament rules employed through a “season”. Maybe GenCon caps at 10 activations and Pax is a Skirmish format. NOVA uses a campaign, grand army, or team rules. LVO (as a tune up) and Worlds at Adepticon sticks with 800pts. I like the idea of needing to creatively adapt to different situational competitive play but I don’t think capping at 10 is a good universal rule for competitive play.

23 minutes ago, buckero0 said:

CiS and Republic with be the same within 4 weeks of the release of their snipers. You'll never see anyone run a full squad of Droid Commandos or ARC Troopers either.

I don't know about ARCs, but plenty of people are using full Droid Commando squads on TTS to good effect. I think they usually use the swords.

13 hours ago, buckero0 said:

No.

If there is going to be a cap, it should be on the number of similar squads you take. So no more spam issues. Or you can only take 1 unit with the same upgrade.

So 1 strike team with sniper rifle. The other would have to take the bomb or you would take the full commando unit.

Or cap at 2 of the same unit. So only 2 sniper squads, 2 Tauntauns, 2 AtRt, 2 rebel troopers (the 3rd would have to be vets or fleets)

You'd still get similar-looking squads in a tournament. The most efficient units and upgrades will always get spammed in competitive play.

Or just self-regulate, i don't thing organized play will ever place a.cap

How about just a cap on certain units? No more than 1 strike team for example.

6 hours ago, arnoldrew said:

Umm...buffing snipers is not the answer.

I don't see what else they could have possibly meant?

That you can only activate 1 a turn.... But that makes as little sense as 3 snipers in one activation.....