One thing that's interesting (to me) about being here already before the release of the game, is that we won't be playing catch-up with more experienced players.

With X-Wing, I still use time-spent-playing as a proxy for experience and thus for probable competence at the game. I realize that this is not the best measure, but it's still useful. Because I only started back in April, I still feel like I'm catching up to those players who were in it from the start.

Now, we 're going to be the ones in it from the start, competing in the first tournaments, provided that our local communities will have them. Given that, time-spent-playing is not going to be a discriminating factor between us. And so, I wonder how much other factors are going to matter. What sort of innate/learned abilities will help us be good at this game, as opposed to time spent building experience.

I do see this game as having quite the learning curve, since it will probably be more complex than X-Wing.

Anyway, preface aside: What do you think will separate the wolves from the sheep in this game?

Forward planning is going to be huge. Between the orders and the less agile ships, you better be sure about what you're doing before you do it!

Learning how to move well will really be vital too. Getting the right arcs on your ship to hit the weakspots on the enemy....it'sa not as simple as "point fire arc at enemy ship", if you spend a turn wearing down the port and rear shields of a VSD, you aren't going to want to sudenly be facing fresh shields due to poor movement.

Probably all sorts of stuff tbh!

I like how this game is gonna take the best parts of chess and toss in Starships like chess your gonna have to plan ahead and be ruthless but you also have to watch the other player and see if your gonna have to stop him or if you can use his tatics against him. The learning curve is gonna be step but once we learn it I think it is gonna be a awesome game I also think Armada is gonna be one of those games where your never gonna truly learn everything about it because there is simply to many ways to play.

I think its going to be a game thats going to take a bit to master before any of us get used to it, the movements, the firing arcs, and planning ahead, learning how to read your enemy. To be honest It's going to be a whole new beast to take on, It will definitly be different from X-Wing. Or any other game I have played to be honest

It'll be more difficult to learn for certain, but the first time you start playing out maneuvers that were planned 3 turns ago and seeing them be timed perfectly against your opponent will make you feel like a genius, followed by the 20 games afterward where your VSDs appear to be piloted by primates.

Honestly I feel like a decent portion of the game will be decided by the time the first ship is activated. The synergy of your fleet (we're going to have 300 points after all) and the objective chosen will do as much in my opinion to determine the course of the game as the way it is played. I guess that does make it like chess, the winner will be determined by who makes the least mistakes once the game gets started.

I am looking forward to starting a game from its launch. I think many play styles will be involved but I don't think that learning and remembering rules will be an issue for me. I play GW which has a lot of rules to remember IMO.

It'll be more difficult to learn for certain, but the first time you start playing out maneuvers that were planned 3 turns ago and seeing them be timed perfectly against your opponent will make you feel like a genius, followed by the 20 games afterward where your VSDs appear to be piloted by primates.

Well, all humans are primates, so...

Who else would be piloting the ships in your games?

Of course, the Rebel scum allow fish on the bridge, so in a galaxy like that, who knows...

Honestly I feel like a decent portion of the game will be decided by the time the first ship is activated. The synergy of your fleet (we're going to have 300 points after all) and the objective chosen will do as much in my opinion to determine the course of the game as the way it is played. I guess that does make it like chess, the winner will be determined by who makes the least mistakes once the game gets started.

I think this also.

With the objective system being so intergral it will mean that a lot of skill will be needed to build fleets and decks that are capable of performing in a range of scenarios - so that killer firepower focused list you made for assault missions might leave you high and dry if your opponent draws your navigate mission for the tournament title battle. Being clever in finding the synergies in the ships, cards and commanders will be the key to flexiblity, so the player who understands that will have a big advantage. Then it comes to deployment which we know in X-Wing is critical, followed then by the actual running of the battle/individual ship tactics and commands - particularly for the huge ships like Star Destroyers, where the battle could be all over by turn 3 if you didnt plan your first commands and deployment well.

With the objective system being so intergral it will mean that a lot of skill will be needed to build fleets and decks that are capable of performing in a range of scenarios - so that killer firepower focused list you made for assault missions might leave you high and dry if your opponent draws your navigate mission for the tournament title battle.

Yes. It will likely be the fleet with the most different set of capabilities that will rule. That doesn't sound like an easy thing for Imperial doctrine to...

...oh, wait, my ISB handler is telling me to reject what you just said. Anything capable of being destroyed will be destroyed by killer firepower. In fact, the asteroids are said not to concern the Supreme Commander, even if a navigate objective has been drawn.

I'm glad I'm here before release to soak up some ideas about this game. The list discussions and general strategies people envision using have been interesting.

I've been very excited about this since I heard about it because I was a huge battlefleet gothic nut and I love all things Star Wars. Considering the lukewarm interest people are having at the local store I'm probably going to end up in the position of teaching this game to others.

So how are you guys thinking to teach others to play? I'm thinking I'll use the basic core set list for a 1v1 but will have a setup large enough for a 2v1 giving 2 new players a single vsd to command.

With the objective system being so intergral it will mean that a lot of skill will be needed to build fleets and decks that are capable of performing in a range of scenarios - so that killer firepower focused list you made for assault missions might leave you high and dry if your opponent draws your navigate mission for the tournament title battle.

Yes. It will likely be the fleet with the most different set of capabilities that will rule. That doesn't sound like an easy thing for Imperial doctrine to...

...oh, wait, my ISB handler is telling me to reject what you just said. Anything capable of being destroyed will be destroyed by killer firepower. In fact, the asteroids are said not to concern the Supreme Commander, even if a navigate objective has been drawn.

I read somewhere on these forums that iniative will be a factor in deciding the objectives so someone put forth the premise to run a 2 vsd fleet a bit under tournament total to generally get initiative. If that poster was correct I think the this will result in some interesting list decisions since you could underbid a modest amount to get your preferred objective (like Idk 2 corvettes and some squadrons and go for an objective needing you to maneuver a lot?).

I read somewhere on these forums that iniative will be a factor in deciding the objectives so someone put forth the premise to run a 2 vsd fleet a bit under tournament total to generally get initiative. If that poster was correct I think the this will result in some interesting list decisions since you could underbid a modest amount to get your preferred objective (like Idk 2 corvettes and some squadrons and go for an objective needing you to maneuver a lot?).

Yes, you could undercost your fleet in order to win initiative. If you have initiative (ie. are the first player), then you get to decide which of the second player's three chosen cards (out of four of three corresponding types = 12) will be the objective for the both of you. However, the second player will have chosen three objectives that suit him the best. The first player gets to choose the least of the once that suit his opponent best.

So how are you guys thinking to teach others to play? I'm thinking I'll use the basic core set list for a 1v1 but will have a setup large enough for a 2v1 giving 2 new players a single vsd to command.

? You mean that you're going to play both a corvette and a frigate, and make your two friends fight over a single VSD. That's mean! But, then again, the arguments they have about what to do with that single VSD, might be both educational and entertaining.

A good quick training fleet could be 2 frigates and a corvette vs 1 VSD and 1 Gladiator, with a handfull of fighters each side.

That way you could teach 4 people, 2v2, but it wont take the time of a full 300 pointer

I don't know about being decided on the rest move, because there are a ton of mechanics to keep in mind

After looking at the Squadron command, you can already tell that moving Squadrons to block the enemy is going to be integral and you're going to have to plan that in advance because the command will send them speeding towards you during the ship face. The Corrupter title in particular flings Bombers (little bundles of 1 black die) the entire length of the range ruler before the Victory's even taken an attack.

So we have capital ships to manage, in particular their command, their arcs, the shields on their arcs, their present course and how that corresponds with the former...

we have Squadrons to manage, to hit enemy capitals (a far safer bet given low cost and a lot of ship's low anti-fighter dice), to block enemy fighters, to especially predict how the enemy might move to counter you and block Squadron command craziness..

There's a ton of **** to get used to and any mistake seems like it will swing the tide of battle right around (like a record, baby)

I read somewhere on these forums that iniative will be a factor in deciding the objectives so someone put forth the premise to run a 2 vsd fleet a bit under tournament total to generally get initiative. If that poster was correct I think the this will result in some interesting list decisions since you could underbid a modest amount to get your preferred objective (like Idk 2 corvettes and some squadrons and go for an objective needing you to maneuver a lot?).

Yes, you could undercost your fleet in order to win initiative. If you have initiative (ie. are the first player), then you get to decide which of the second player's three chosen cards (out of four of three corresponding types = 12) will be the objective for the both of you. However, the second player will have chosen three objectives that suit him the best. The first player gets to choose the least of the once that suit his opponent best.

This seems off to me. My understanding is that the lower point player (I'll refer to this player as player 1 regardless of decision made) gets to choose if they are either (a) going first/have initiative or (b) going second for the rest of the game, and so get to pick the objective. If they choose a then they go first and player 2 chooses which of the three objectives player 1 brought will be used. If they choose b then player 2 will have initiative but player 1 will get to choose the objective out of the three brought by player 2. The explanation you give seems off to me as it would imply that player one gets both privileges, which would severely hurt balance. Maybe I'm misinterpreting, but to me initiative=goes first for each turn, other player chooses objective.

I read somewhere on these forums that iniative will be a factor in deciding the objectives so someone put forth the premise to run a 2 vsd fleet a bit under tournament total to generally get initiative. If that poster was correct I think the this will result in some interesting list decisions since you could underbid a modest amount to get your preferred objective (like Idk 2 corvettes and some squadrons and go for an objective needing you to maneuver a lot?).

Yes, you could undercost your fleet in order to win initiative. If you have initiative (ie. are the first player), then you get to decide which of the second player's three chosen cards (out of four of three corresponding types = 12) will be the objective for the both of you. However, the second player will have chosen three objectives that suit him the best. The first player gets to choose the least of the once that suit his opponent best.

This seems off to me. My understanding is that the lower point player (I'll refer to this player as player 1 regardless of decision made) gets to choose if they are either (a) going first/have initiative or (b) going second for the rest of the game, and so get to pick the objective. If they choose a then they go first and player 2 chooses which of the three objectives player 1 brought will be used. If they choose b then player 2 will have initiative but player 1 will get to choose the objective out of the three brought by player 2. The explanation you give seems off to me as it would imply that player one gets both privileges, which would severely hurt balance. Maybe I'm misinterpreting, but to me initiative=goes first for each turn, other player chooses objective.

Close but not quite.

Both players build a deck of 1 card of each of the 3 mission types best suited to their fleet.

The player with the lowest points gets to choose who has initiative.

The player with initiative is player 1, the player without initiative is player 2.

Player 1 must choose 1 of player 2's 3 missions for the game to use - so player 2 has an advantage here having picked the 3 missions that will work best for him. If he is really smart they will be missions with a significant bonus to the 2nd player. (since if he isnt the second player they wont be choosing from his deck to begin with!)

Many missions do advantage player 2 in some way, check out the "objectives" thread for more info.

So whilst player 1 gets to shoot and move first, there are some significant advantages to being player 2.

If you had a specific fleet build that you wanted a certain type of mission, regardless of the actual scenario, then yes, undercosting so you get initiative and then choosing to be player 1 would be a way to try ensure you get that assault mission, or navagate mission for your fleet as there will definitely be one in the opponents deck to choose.

That makes sense also, thanks Maverick!

So how are you guys thinking to teach others to play? I'm thinking I'll use the basic core set list for a 1v1 but will have a setup large enough for a 2v1 giving 2 new players a single vsd to command.

I'll be teaching people from my x-wing group so they should have some familiarity with basic game concepts.

Getting two core sets to start, so I'll probably give the Imperials a Vic-I and Vic-II to teach about different classes in the same ship. Also it will be very important to teach about planning ahead with your command stack, so the Victory should be good for that. Then probably Tarkin as a way of mitigating that difficulty with some Tie-squadrons thrown in.

We don't know as much about the rebel ships to plan training out. I'd like to throw in an Assault Frigate to give the Rebel player a roughly equivalent ship to a Victory, if they wanted to learn Rebels first. I don't think it will be that much fun to be that outgunned on your first game. Maybe keeping it to about 200-225 points?

When I teach people I would probably go for the corvette and the Nebulon vs a victory as a training scenario.

Why?

The lower command stacks in those two ships are more forgiving of planning inexperience. With the Victory, to be successful players will need more experience in knowing the commands, their effects, and the way the battlefield will change over the next 3 turns while the commands come up.

In addition, the wider range of speed movement for the rebel ships provides more opportunities to get the hang of the movement planner. Being able to cooperate two ships together is also a huge part of Armada so it is a good introduction to this idea (even if you had two players sharing one ship each).

Lastly, the x-wings, not being swarm fighters are more suitable to an independent (a polite way of saying uncoordinated) attack strategy, so it would be easier for new players to get the hang of them.

My thoughts anyway

I read somewhere on these forums that iniative will be a factor in deciding the objectives so someone put forth the premise to run a 2 vsd fleet a bit under tournament total to generally get initiative. If that poster was correct I think the this will result in some interesting list decisions since you could underbid a modest amount to get your preferred objective (like Idk 2 corvettes and some squadrons and go for an objective needing you to maneuver a lot?).

Yes, you could undercost your fleet in order to win initiative. If you have initiative (ie. are the first player), then you get to decide which of the second player's three chosen cards (out of four of three corresponding types = 12) will be the objective for the both of you. However, the second player will have chosen three objectives that suit him the best. The first player gets to choose the least of the once that suit his opponent best.

So how are you guys thinking to teach others to play? I'm thinking I'll use the basic core set list for a 1v1 but will have a setup large enough for a 2v1 giving 2 new players a single vsd to command.

? You mean that you're going to play both a corvette and a frigate, and make your two friends fight over a single VSD. That's mean! But, then again, the arguments they have about what to do with that single VSD, might be both educational and entertaining.

I meant giving them each a vsd to command for 2 vsds vs 2 nebs and 2 corvettes.

Wrote that up fairly late last night was really tired