Tournaments 10 Unit Cap

By lologrelol, in Star Wars: Legion

I dont think activation cap solves alot. People who show up with 8 activations will still be at a disadvantage for activation count. Also this will hit rebels and support commander lists harder than others.

I rather see something like a cap of 1 strike teams or none for a tournament or a mandatory heavy. Just to see how the game playes out.

I think with the objectives favouring many trooper units that there is the place to start looking. I hoped for something like that with the vital supplies pack. Objectives that maybe favoured heavy, support or non strike team special forces, but it didn't happen.

I rather see love given to heavy, support and creature/emplacement troopers as these are not favoured in most objectives nor conditions. Their given role is to deal dmg and act as fire support, sadly alot of normal troopers can do this just as well while still being able to hold objectives and gain other bonuses. There is often no reason not to fill your list with many activations of trooper units rather than support/heavy unless the unit itself is exceptionally good like tauntauns.

6 hours ago, jocke01 said:

I dont think activation cap solves alot. People who show up with 8 activations will still be at a disadvantage for activation count. Also this will hit rebels and support commander lists harder than others.

It solves everything. If I know I’m the blue player at 8 activations, I can build my deck to ensure I get the missions I want. Leaving it points based just promotes min/maxing big bids on large activation lists.

On 7/14/2020 at 5:15 AM, Achinadav said:

Nobody mentioned determining blue player by activation count yet? Usually comes up by now.

Blue should be determined by that. Lower activations is a HUGE disadvantage in competitive play.

9 hours ago, jocke01 said:

I dont think activation cap solves alot. People who show up with 8 activations will still be at a disadvantage for activation count. Also this will hit rebels and support commander lists harder than others.

I rather see something like a cap of 1 strike teams or none for a tournament or a mandatory heavy. Just to see how the game playes out.

I think with the objectives favouring many trooper units that there is the place to start looking. I hoped for something like that with the vital supplies pack. Objectives that maybe favoured heavy, support or non strike team special forces, but it didn't happen.

I rather see love given to heavy, support and creature/emplacement troopers as these are not favoured in most objectives nor conditions. Their given role is to deal dmg and act as fire support, sadly alot of normal troopers can do this just as well while still being able to hold objectives and gain other bonuses. There is often no reason not to fill your list with many activations of trooper units rather than support/heavy unless the unit itself is exceptionally good like tauntauns.

I agree with most of your points, but activation cap will solve a lot of those issues.

If there is a cap of 10, that 8 activation list will only be 2 activations down. Not a big disadvantage. But an 8 vs a 12/13/14 is a big problem.

The whole purpose of a 10 unit limit is to make larger units/upgraded units more viable, because you need to fill those points out.

3 hours ago, lologrelol said:

I agree with most of your points, but activation cap will solve a lot of those issues.

If there is a cap of 10, that 8 activation list will only be 2 activations down. Not a big disadvantage. But an 8 vs a 12/13/14 is a big problem.

It will still be 2 activations down, how many 13+ are there really out there and how dominant are there?
Most lists I play/face in tournaments are 9-10 activations. Sure some will come with 12+ or 8 or less, but I don't think it's a majority. Granted due to covid there haven't been any tournaments for about 6 months where I live so I dont have any fresh numbers to back it up. Our last prime 9.375 was the average activations in top 8 and 9.2 overall. I just don't think high activation lists are what kills 8 activation lists. More the fact that going 8 activations is a disandvantage in a game that requires alot of troopers to hold objectives. Maybe if we included some objectives that favoured fewer but stronger activations?

6 hours ago, Mokoshkana said:

It solves everything. If I know I’m the blue player at 8 activations, I can build my deck to ensure I get the missions I want. Leaving it points based just promotes min/maxing big bids on large activation lists.

Solves everything?, I doubt it. Heavies is still at a disandvantage since they take alot of points, give you only one activation and can't hold most objectives. You still lack activations and the red player got last ban for objectivess/deployment. Also alot of the objectives still favour more trooper activations. I actually didn't know that the low activations = blues player was included, I prob missed it.



My point is, that activation cap might stop rebel list that goes with cheap commanders and alot of units, it might hurt empire going with 3 snipers. Otherwise it won't do a whole lot for the variety in units being played nor stop the importance of non creature/emplacement trooper units for the games objectives. A ban of strike teams will prob do the same job and promote some more variety in units being played. I rather see a buff to big activations like heavies and supports.

3 hours ago, lologrelol said:

The whole purpose of a 10 unit limit is to make larger units/upgraded units more viable, because you need to fill those points out.

I can see the intention. However this favours armies that have more expensive units. Granted it's prob only rebels that go for 11+ lists, but I don't think they need the cap to stop them dominating. I might be wrong though. I rather see stuff added to the game that favours larger units/upgrades and heavies. Maybe some kind of control objectives where it's not the amount of trooper leaders that is the deciding factor, but the rank of the unit with heavies/support carrying more weight or the amount of models holding it. That can of course backfire with units like battledroids, however they are far easier to peel down into small units than deathtroopers or phase 2 clones.

However if you do a tournaments like this, I would love for you to do an analysis of it afterwards and see if there is a major difference in the success of 8 activation lists, heavy focused lists or if some "unpopular" units are currently seeing action. :)

Edited by jocke01
3 hours ago, jocke01 said:

I rather see a buff to big activations like heavies and supports.

As someone who runs heavies often, I support this. I had a thought about it, what if heavy units got a rule that gives them two activations a turn? They typically cost at least as much as two core units, maby a second activation each turn would make them more worth their points. Or would that be a little too powerful?

6 minutes ago, KarlVonCarstein said:

As someone who runs heavies often, I support this. I had a thought about it, what if heavy units got a rule that gives them two activations a turn? They typically cost at least as much as two core units, maby a second activation each turn would make them more worth their points. Or would that be a little too powerful?

Double activations would be insane yes. They deal dmg and can take alot of punishment. However they cant do anything for capturing objectives and that is such an important thing in the game. I would love a "contested outpost" kind of objective like the one in armada where bigger ships counts more than smaller ones in holding the objective.

I mean I'm just don't see very large spread out lists as much of a threat. Yes they have move units but their units are generally worse then lower activation list and only have an advantage if they can bring their numbers into single engagements. There's ways to play around and mitigate this. I honestly think it would be unhealthy for the game to bring it in.

My two cents is that clearly when they designed the game they never realized activation count would be such a huge deal, and now it's a part of the game they have to contend with.

This can most easily be seen in the effort that was made to include an extra trooper mini in every single unit pack ever released, only for that upgrade to essentially never see play. That's a lot of extra resources that go into producing that extra mini, so they must have thought it would be worth including at least some of the time, but these are never used any more in favor of more activations.

52 minutes ago, OneLastMidnight said:

My two cents is that clearly when they designed the game they never realized activation count would be such a huge deal, and now it's a part of the game they have to contend with.

This can most easily be seen in the effort that was made to include an extra trooper mini in every single unit pack ever released, only for that upgrade to essentially never see play. That's a lot of extra resources that go into producing that extra mini, so they must have thought it would be worth including at least some of the time, but these are never used any more in favor of more activations.

I must dissagre, aside from corp units alot of units lacks the extra trooper mini. I would love that on rebel commandos, wookies or pathfinders, but it's not really a thing for special forces. The extra trooper is ok for corp units, however with the trooper upgrade and specialist box we have better options like coms specialist, astromech or medical droid. So I can give you that the extra trooper upgrade isn't highly used (allthough I often take it on b1's), but that the personel slot is never or rarely used I have not noticed at all.

Edited by jocke01

I did mean corps, not all units, sorry!

I find the B1 to be the notable exception because it's dirt cheap and it's more ablative wounds for the Heavy Weapon.

For Corps unit, you're either taking a specialist, or nothing at all, unless my experience has been way different than most people's.

1 hour ago, OneLastMidnight said:

My two cents is that clearly when they designed the game they never realized activation count would be such a huge deal, and now it's a part of the game they have to contend with.

This can most easily be seen in the effort that was made to include an extra trooper mini in every single unit pack ever released, only for that upgrade to essentially never see play. That's a lot of extra resources that go into producing that extra mini, so they must have thought it would be worth including at least some of the time, but these are never used any more in favor of more activations.

They should have. I think they borrowed it from one of the DUST games and Armada which have similar activation systems, so "they should have known"

7 hours ago, jocke01 said:

Double activations would be insane yes. They deal dmg and can take alot of punishment. However they cant do anything for capturing objectives and that is such an important thing in the game. I would love a "contested outpost" kind of objective like the one in armada where bigger ships counts more than smaller ones in holding the objective.

How about borrowing a mechanic from armada and giving all heavies the option to grant their controlling player one activation pass per turn?

11 minutes ago, KarlVonCarstein said:

How about borrowing a mechanic from armada and giving all heavies the option to grant their controlling player one activation pass per turn?

I honestly think we're going to get some sort of command card or upgrade that will let a player take a pass.

16 hours ago, jocke01 said:

It will still be 2 activations down, how many 13+ are there really out there and how dominant are there?

Yes, it is a problem. The upper tier metta for most tournaments is 12-14 activations.

In competitive play, the only faction I see as being able to get around this is clones. Due to double tapping with standby, and support fire options.

8 minutes ago, lologrelol said:

Yes, it is a problem. The upper tier metta for most tournaments is 12-14 activations.

See people keep saying this and I'm not seeing it at all. I once ran into a 14 activation list with an 8 activation and just tore it in 2 because it was filled with lots of cheap not upgraded unit.

Look at the invader league statistics on the 4th post in this thread (the only tournament scene running at the moment and has some of the top players)

there usually seems to be 10-11 activations in the meta.

Activation Counts from invader league.
- 8: 2
- 9: 9
- 10: 18
- 11: 18
- 12: 10

Not a single 13 or 14 activation list.

2 hours ago, Tris87TJ said:

See people keep saying this and I'm not seeing it at all. I once ran into a 14 activation list with an 8 activation and just tore it in 2 because it was filled with lots of cheap not upgraded unit.

Look at the invader league statistics on the 4th post in this thread (the only tournament scene running at the moment and has some of the top players)

there usually seems to be 10-11 activations in the meta.

Activation Counts from invader league.
- 8: 2
- 9: 9
- 10: 18
- 11: 18
- 12: 10

Not a single 13 or 14 activation list.

Fair enough. That makes sense to me.

What 8 activation list were you running? What was the 14?

24 minutes ago, lologrelol said:

Fair enough. That makes sense to me.

What 8 activation list were you running? What was the 14?

I ran Palp, Bossk, royal guard, 3 storm troopers, 2 scout snipers

He ran 2 rebel officers, r2, chewie, 3 rebel troopers, 3 snipers, 3 rotory gun at-rts, 1 X34 speeder. The snipers and AT-RTs were the only things with upgrades which was just the weapon upgrades.

I had HH-12 with the storm troopr specialist so it could aim, shoot and refresh in one turn. Bossk shoots at least twice a turn because of Palp. Royal Guards protect whatever needs protecting and palp is giving then an order and a surge each turn plus I was running 2 medical droids. AT-RTs were the only thing that gave me trouble but they struggled to get past range 4. His snipers concentrated on mine which allowed bossk to get within range 4 of 2 of them and go to town. His command hand didn't have anything that I had to play around. Royal guard triggering offensive push charging into a wounded Chewie gives you a non-walking carpet.

Like there was a lot there and I had to make sure not all of his force was coming to bear on me at once but it just felt like I could pick it apart piece by piece as it came.

9 hours ago, lologrelol said:

Yes, it is a problem. The upper tier metta for most tournaments is 12-14 activations.

In competitive play, the only faction I see as being able to get around this is clones. Due to double tapping with standby, and support fire options.

Do you have any sources for that. Like I said the normal for tournaments here is 9-10 activations on average. For a 10 cap to be needed, I would think 11+ activations to be majority of top 8 lists.

Otherwise, just make it a 8 activation cap, however this will make some units useless

1 hour ago, jocke01 said:

Otherwise, just make it a 8 activation cap, however this will make some units useless

I don't think I would play in tournaments with an 8 cap. A 10 cap alone would restrict and kill so many different list types.

Honestly I think the game is fine at the moment. Sure some things could be made a bit better but I don't see anything as really broken or overpowered.

Just making an observation on the 8 unit cap.

Edited by Tris87TJ

I remember one Q&A the developers did and they said that too many activation would start to hurt the players. Looking at the invader League stats the go to activation count is 10 or 11. It is those strike teams that really seem to be the issue. Good value that pads the activation, but sort of makes a lot of list all look the same.

Makes me wonder if we will ever get a true horde faction with those two factors in play.

Looking at ARCs, Inferno, and Clan Wren it looks like they will double down on strike forces, but with a twist. Will be interesting to see strike teams of named heroes will beat out basic snipers in the near future.

The worst thing to me is that activations being so valuable is forcing players to take as many naked units+heavy weapon a possible with very little customization. That kinda sucks.