Disclaimer: I know that the idea of limiting someone force, especially one that a player has chosen with care and played a lot, could immediately cause some backlash. I'm only bring up this idea to get some feedback and thoughts and in no way mean to limit you in a hobby that I know we both enjoy.

I've noticed that on this board, and among my friends, a lot of people have been talking about raising the point ceiling to include more of the new expensive ships. I was wondering if anyone had ever gone the other way and ever played with force restrictions?

It kind of started earlier than the wave 4 announcement with most of the players limited themselves to never taking Chewie Falcon and Han Falcon in the same list. I recently pitched the idea that we should limit our forces to 6 ships or less. After the initial pushback from our Tie Swarm brethren, discussion actually started and it looks like a 6 ship limit could actually benefit the game (and event eh Tie Swarm connoisseurs were a little warmer to the idea after they realized them might be able to use Tie Defenders competitively).

I've always felt that the Tie Swarm factor has played into this game a little too much because that means if you ever intend to play competitively, you have to be able to beat it, and ultimately for a lot of players that means you never take less than 4 ships. By limiting the ability to play swarms (and I do mean any swarms, not just Tie), we've actually found in our playtesting that you actually open up the playing field. What I mean by this is that we lost one or two type of lists (the 7 and 8 ship swarms) but gained a huge amount of variety in 3 and 4 ship builds (and a few 2 ship builds). Playing a 3 elite ship list against a 4-5 ship list isn't too bad so people are more inclined to try them out. It also seemed to limit the modified wins that plagued swarm players and most of the people are looking forward to trying 2-3 Defenders in a list.

Just some thought and wondering what other have found if they've tried it.

Disclaimer: I know that the idea of limiting someone force, especially one that a player has chosen with care and played a lot, could immediately cause some backlash. I'm only bring up this idea to get some feedback and thoughts and in no way mean to limit you in a hobby that I know we both enjoy.

I've noticed that on this board, and among my friends, a lot of people have been talking about raising the point ceiling to include more of the new expensive ships. I was wondering if anyone had ever gone the other way and ever played with force restrictions?

It kind of started earlier than the wave 4 announcement with most of the players limited themselves to never taking Chewie Falcon and Han Falcon in the same list. I recently pitched the idea that we should limit our forces to 6 ships or less. After the initial pushback from our Tie Swarm brethren, discussion actually started and it looks like a 6 ship limit could actually benefit the game (and event eh Tie Swarm connoisseurs were a little warmer to the idea after they realized them might be able to use Tie Defenders competitively).

I've always felt that the Tie Swarm factor has played into this game a little too much because that means if you ever intend to play competitively, you have to be able to beat it, and ultimately for a lot of players that means you never take less than 4 ships. By limiting the ability to play swarms (and I do mean any swarms, not just Tie), we've actually found in our playtesting that you actually open up the playing field. What I mean by this is that we lost one or two type of lists (the 7 and 8 ship swarms) but gained a huge amount of variety in 3 and 4 ship builds (and a few 2 ship builds). Playing a 3 elite ship list against a 4-5 ship list isn't too bad so people are more inclined to try them out. It also seemed to limit the modified wins that plagued swarm players and most of the people are looking forward to trying 2-3 Defenders in a list.

Just some thought and wondering what other have found if they've tried it.

I'm against the idea, and here is why:

The game IS balanced. 100 points can beat any other 100 point squad on any given day. I do not play a swarm tactic, in fact I generally only field 3 (if I play Rebel) or 4 (Empire) ships. There are many different styles of play, and to set any other limit on play other than points would take away from this.

Now, in fun house games... I'm all for whatever the group that is playing wants to do.

I agree.

There is absolutely no reason to place unit or size restrictions on your builds, with the exception being if you were taking on a new player and you wanted to give yourself a handicap so you wouldn't immediately crush him. Even that is not desirable because the other player may want to play fair.

Placing limits like these is not good also because it basically admits that one doesn't know how to make full use of their ships. If you're a good enough pilot, and the forces are balanced, then you should win, or at least come close.

If you want to do this though, I guess there's no harm. Just don't do it around me.

I agree.

There is absolutely no reason to place unit or size restrictions on your builds, with the exception being if you were taking on a new player and you wanted to give yourself a handicap so you wouldn't immediately crush him. Even that is not desirable because the other player may want to play fair.

Placing limits like these is not good also because it basically admits that one doesn't know how to make full use of their ships. If you're a good enough pilot, and the forces are balanced, then you should win, or at least come close.

If you want to do this though, I guess there's no harm. Just don't do it around me.

This idea was basically the counterpoint to the discussion that the new wave 4 stuff might make people want to play higher point games. It was also trying to address the fact that 3 small ship builds have basically disappeared from our tournament scene. No one is handicapped because your chosen force is still 100 points and as of right now it has only limited 7-8 ship Tie Swarms, which themselves were limiting the multitude of 3 ship builds. Your reaction wasn't unexpected and like I said in the beginning, just putting it out there as an idea for people to try. Ultimately we play a lot of unrestricted games but it's an option.

I apologize if the thread comes across as hate against the Tie Swarm, I assure you its just a coincidence that its the only type of list really effected. the talk about restrictions has come up again because some people want to try out the Defender (just using it with the A-Wing dial right now) without worrying about being outnumbered almost 3 to 1 since games are sometimes hard to come by.

I'm not a fan of adding extra restrictions either. You have 100 points, fill it however you want. I do like the idea of having more points, for sure. I've run more 300 point games than 100, and it was tons of fun. Took a couple hours, but they were well spent.

I feel like swarm lists are gonna become either more or less popular soon; we will see Rebel Z-95 swarms, but I'm thinking the ability for Rebels to field a couple extra ships by choosing the cheap Z-95s will deter Imps from playing the TIE swarm, as now the rebels can get 5-6 ships pretty easily.

The thing I don't get about this discussion is that nobody has heard any actual hints of the point total creeping up, from anybody who would actually know. It's total "My best friend's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who's going with the girl" kind of stuff.

They've got epic and cinematic play in the works with the giant ships coming out. We'll see what happens there. But if the point total was going up for regular play, I would think the Wave 4 announcement would have been a good time to bring that up. It wasn't, so presumably the ships were designed to function in a 100 point squad, which means if they made a ship too expensive for you to field 4-5 of them, they didn't WANT you fielding more of them in a regular game or they would have made them cheaper.

You can always argue about whether you think a ship is over- or under-costed or whatever, but FFG clearly wanted these ships to function in a 100 point squad, so I would think upping the squad point cost (keeping in mind everyone is welcome to do whatever their friends will let them get away with in a friendly game...) would actually defeat any attempt FFG was making as far as game balance by where they set point costs at.

What he /\ said

The thing I don't get about this discussion is that nobody has heard any actual hints of the point total creeping up, from anybody who would actually know. It's total "My best friend's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who's going with the girl" kind of stuff.

They've got epic and cinematic play in the works with the giant ships coming out. We'll see what happens there. But if the point total was going up for regular play, I would think the Wave 4 announcement would have been a good time to bring that up. It wasn't, so presumably the ships were designed to function in a 100 point squad, which means if they made a ship too expensive for you to field 4-5 of them, they didn't WANT you fielding more of them in a regular game or they would have made them cheaper.

You can always argue about whether you think a ship is over- or under-costed or whatever, but FFG clearly wanted these ships to function in a 100 point squad, so I would think upping the squad point cost (keeping in mind everyone is welcome to do whatever their friends will let them get away with in a friendly game...) would actually defeat any attempt FFG was making as far as game balance by where they set point costs at.

Personally, I agree with you and I don't think that FFG is going to raise the point limit. It just happened in our group the idea of raising the points was raised to get more of the new ships in. I of course, being the idiot I am went the other way; keep the points the same, just limit ships. Turns out it helped so people have been coming around on small fleet builds a bit since they aren't starting out with a huge string of losses (Tie Swarm was a little pervasive).

I agree.

There is absolutely no reason to place unit or size restrictions on your builds, with the exception being if you were taking on a new player and you wanted to give yourself a handicap so you wouldn't immediately crush him. Even that is not desirable because the other player may want to play fair.

Placing limits like these is not good also because it basically admits that one doesn't know how to make full use of their ships. If you're a good enough pilot, and the forces are balanced, then you should win, or at least come close.

If you want to do this though, I guess there's no harm. Just don't do it around me.

This idea was basically the counterpoint to the discussion that the new wave 4 stuff might make people want to play higher point games. It was also trying to address the fact that 3 small ship builds have basically disappeared from our tournament scene.

As a rebel player, I ONLY field 3 ship squads. Here's my favorite:

http://xwing-builder.co.uk/view/45702/jan-and-the-bwing

My favorite 3 ship build; sometimes Biggs actually lives...

Jan

-Ion turret

-Nien

-Squad Leader

Wedge

-Stealth

-R2 Unit

-PTL

Biggs

-R2F2

-Stealth

I agree. There is absolutely no reason to place unit or size restrictions on your builds, with the exception being if you were taking on a new player and you wanted to give yourself a handicap so you wouldn't immediately crush him. Even that is not desirable because the other player may want to play fair. Placing limits like these is not good also because it basically admits that one doesn't know how to make full use of their ships. If you're a good enough pilot, and the forces are balanced, then you should win, or at least come close. If you want to do this though, I guess there's no harm. Just don't do it around me.

Well said! Tie swarm is a great list, can it be beat ? Heck yes! I beat one last Sunday with my three amigos list.

I agree. There is absolutely no reason to place unit or size restrictions on your builds, with the exception being if you were taking on a new player and you wanted to give yourself a handicap so you wouldn't immediately crush him. Even that is not desirable because the other player may want to play fair. Placing limits like these is not good also because it basically admits that one doesn't know how to make full use of their ships. If you're a good enough pilot, and the forces are balanced, then you should win, or at least come close. If you want to do this though, I guess there's no harm. Just don't do it around me.

This idea was basically the counterpoint to the discussion that the new wave 4 stuff might make people want to play higher point games. It was also trying to address the fact that 3 small ship builds have basically disappeared from our tournament scene.

As a rebel player, I ONLY field 3 ship squads. Here's my favorite: http://xwing-builder.co.uk/view/45702/jan-and-the-bwing

I'm an IMP only player but that list sounds like a blast to play!

It is actually quite easy to take out Dual Falcon lists.

I have always been interested in an alternative tournament format where rebel and imperial builds are restricted to caps of 3 and 5 ships respectively, no large bases. Not that the default squadbuilding rules are broken, but I want to see what the strategic development of this format might look like and what kinds of squad build trends we might see. Wave 4 just makes it even more appealing.

I can see potential for lists where you are limited to 1 of each small base ship type for rebels, and same for Imps (but allow 2 Tie/ln). What you do from there is up to you!

I don't know, there is some merit to the proposal of ship limits. I would not want them for general use or official tournaments but you could still have fun with it and games would definitely be faster (Speed tournament, anyone?). What it would do is encourage use of some of the more elite pilots and upgrades (especially for Imperials) that do not see as much use and that is why I see some value in it. Again, I like bigger battles, bigger than the typical 100 pt tourney format because I like the idea of Epic play and it allows for more ships, better pilots and more upgrades.

Chris

I kind of do "force restrictions" all the time, since I usually set up the scenarios and squads for my group before play. We're very casual. I choose ships and upgrades that seem appropriate for the scenario, or offer interesting synergies without an emphasis on victory.

For competitive organized play, I prefer to have nothing more than the point totals as a restriction. But for "fun" organized play, I'd be happy to play with additional restrictions as long as they seem fair.