So while playing this game we are the Admiral. Looking at simple game play, we are only playing with 1 to 2 capital ships and a few fighter squadrons. Not quite a Fleet but more like some sort of Detachment. Hopefully we can add several more ships and make a Fleet! If not, then you get a demotion to Rear Admiral or Captain.

And where are my Ion Cannons!

Lasers = Hull damage and Small Shield damage, Ion Cannons = Large Shield damage and Electrical damage

Naboobo2000

What is the minimum number of ships before a fleet can be called a fleet anyway?

I'm pretty sure Imperial lists will commonly have 2-3 ships, while rebel lists will have 4-6. Seems pretty big to me.

3 Victory SDs easy, or a number of smaller ships. When we get larger capitals I'm assuming people will move to larger points games, but we don't even have the starter box so it's all speculation on how things will be costed. If the Imperial(or Tector, or whatever) SD ends up being 175-200, then it does limit you to 2 ships ish, at which point the Empire player is playing a skirmish game instead of a grand fleet battle. The big Mon Cal's will likely do similar things to rebel 300 pt lists, but then again, we don't know enough about the game to do more than speculate.

From my relatively soft education on naval matters, I'd say 2-6 ships is a "squadron"(though 3-4 of generally only a single class of ship in a squadron IIRC) or "flotilla" rather than a "fleet". It does rather look like the standard 300 point limit really won't be epic fleet scale combat I'm afraid.

Even in the simplified format we're looking at so far a full on fleet battle would take several hours to play out.

That having been said, as in epic X-wing, whipping out your big, impressive ships will likely require a larger points limit to be set, which may lead to full on fleet scale engagements, much larger points limits to be set, and much longer playtimes.

Those of us with limited funds and carefully managed finances will have to work our way up to fleet scale engagements slowly.

We haven't been shown Ion cannon that I know of, but I'd be flatly surprised if we didn't get them as an upgrade card. The demo games have been keeping it simple to expose as many people to the core mechanics as possible, which I approve of in a general sense.

Under the overall Fleet organization, the U.S. Navy uses the following hierarchy: Fleets, Task Forces, Task Groups. Individual Ships are Task Elements or Platforms. These are temporary organisations composed of particular ships, aircraft, submarines, military land forces, or shore service units, assigned to fulfill certain missions. The emphasis is placed on the individual commander of the unit, and references to “CTF” are common. CTF is an abbreviation for: Commander, Task Force.

There are also squadrons. Squadrons are typically composed (in modern usage) of 3-6 major warships, transports, or submarines A squadron is usually composed of a homogeneous group of the same classification of ships, such as battleships, cruisers, destroyers, frigates or submarines. So you have Cruiser Squadrons, Destroyer Squadrons, Submarine Squadrons, etc.

So, the 300 point games to me are going to represent Task Groups (or Squadrons if composed of one ship type), the smallest formations. But I suspect over time my group will end up playing 900-1200 point games with 3-4 players a side. That will be Task Force sized games.

I wonder what an Ion cannon would do exactly maybe temporarily disable an upgrade card or count as a "free" accuracy to prevent a defense token for a turn? It will be really exciting to find out

Armada's at the section/flotilla level. 2-3 mid-sized capital ships or maybe twice that number of corvettes (depending on exact point costs).

And with a handful of dice representing the combined fire of an entire broadside, we're far beyond the scale of individual specialist weapons (like ion cannons) having any unique effect.

So while playing this game we are the Admiral. Looking at simple game play, we are only playing with 1 to 2 capital ships and a few fighter squadrons. Not quite a Fleet but more like some sort of Detachment. Hopefully we can add several more ships and make a Fleet! If not, then you get a demotion to Rear Admiral or Captain.

And where are my Ion Cannons!

Lasers = Hull damage and Small Shield damage, Ion Cannons = Large Shield damage and Electrical damage

Naboobo2000

Commodore? Do we get fancy hats? XD

Id say the ion cannon should negate any action for at least one turn. The effect it had on the ISD in ESB was devastating.

one turn seems minimal but i suppose allowances have to b made for game play.

We designed a specialized ship for the Rebels back in rpg times that was a frigate with all of its power going to a full size v-150 ion cannon but paying the price with no real defence of its own and discovered that as long as we protected the ship any battle would be won by the rebels since an unpowered ISD is easy prey.

Sadly we decided to introduce an Imperial version built on a Praetor with an auxilliary reactor so it had power to spare for shields and weapons. Then the tide turned again and badly. Oh the joys of escalation.

So far almost none of the capital ships confirmed in the game carry Ion Cannons. In fact the only ship currently listed that does so is the Victory-II class Star Destroyer so special rules for them might come when more ships using them are in the field,

I'd say ion cannons are something we're going to see in the upgrade cards, not the core ships.

Turbo lasers for melting the armor into slag. Ion cannons cause the crits. They scary.

In the books (been reading the X-wing books) Turbolasers slag armor and melt weapons. Ion cannons spiderweb electricity across hulls, starting fires and causing things to blow up in peoples faces as systems overload.

I would think of them less as disabling weapons and more as crit causing weapons, getting the ship out of the fight without taking the hull down to zero.

Also it seems that all capital ships have a mixture of tubolasers and ion cannons, and the % difference in-between the two depend on the design philosophy of the ship designer, it seems.

Also it seems that all capital ships have a mixture of tubolasers and ion cannons, and the % difference in-between the two depend on the design philosophy of the ship designer, it seems.

There are many, many capital ship models which have no Ion Cannons when they come out of the yards. I haven't done a full check lately but I wouldn't be surprised if there weren't more capital ship designs lacking Ion cannons then there are those that carry them really.

Looking at Star Wars Wiki, all the ships with the core set do not have Ion Cannons, including the Gladiator SD and the Assault Frigate Mark II. I

I would agree that maybe an upgrade card for the non Ion cannon ships, but what about the other major ships like the Imperial I or II Star Destroyers and Mon Calamari MC80 Home One or Liberty Class ships all have Ion Cannons from the start as standard armament. Any Ion Cannon for those ships should be on the ship card and not a upgrade.

Naboobo2000

Doubtful. The current ship cards hold no room for special rules. If ion cannons have special rules, those special rules will be on the upgrade card.

What is the minimum number of ships before a fleet can be called a fleet anyway?

Answer: 2

I think it is a safe assumption that Ion Cannons will be handled in a manner similar to X-Wing Miniatures; i.e. if a ship had Ion Cannons, it has the ability to equip an Ion Cannon card. This is necessary for game balance and also allows for more customization.

I think it is a safe assumption that Ion Cannons will be handled in a manner similar to X-Wing Miniatures; i.e. if a ship had Ion Cannons, it has the ability to equip an Ion Cannon card. This is necessary for game balance and also allows for more customization.

I agree with this. It also looked to me like one of the upgrade slots on the Victory II was an ion cannon slot, so I like the look of that.

If there are different types of turbolasers (I think one of the leaked upgrade cards was) it seems like a sucker bet that we will see Ion cannons (if not different types of Ion Cannons)

If there are different types of turbolasers (I think one of the leaked upgrade cards was) it seems like a sucker bet that we will see Ion cannons (if not different types of Ion Cannons)

It will be interesting to see if weapon upgrade slots modify results, grant additional dice, or do something else entirely. I am guessing they will do all of the above in one form or another as different cards are added.

What of the different dice colours represent different weapons?

Turbolasers - Red

Ion cannon - Blue

Proton/concussion - Black

The reason I think this, conjecture - haven't played the game, is the red dice just do damage. The blue have some debilitating effects so good for ion cannons. Do black dice ignore shields?

As to fighters using blue dice, it could just be that the 'ion' dice works best as most fighter weapons can't do much to capitol ships, and any additional effects such as canceling tokens is from maneuverability and being able to harass and distract larger ships/fighters.

That thought had occurred to me as well, but it is hard to say at this point. I would guess that ions and similar effects will be added more through cards than through the dice, but who knows. There could be a lot of flexibility in upgrade cards that allow you to convert certain types of results and things of that nature.

The standard points value for an Armada game will likely change between now and release. I really can't see the team making a Star Wars fleet combat game that bars players from putting two Mon Cal cruisers or ISDs on the table in a standard battle. While all the EU ships are neat, big ol' Star Destroyer slugfests are what many players are going to be looking for.

True I imagine 500 point games or higher will become the standard.

I think it is a safe assumption that Ion Cannons will be handled in a manner similar to X-Wing Miniatures; i.e. if a ship had Ion Cannons, it has the ability to equip an Ion Cannon card. This is necessary for game balance and also allows for more customization.

I 100% agree with this Statement.... If it comes with it we can attach it!

Naboobo2000