I am definitely going to play a lot of scenarios. (ex: the Rebels need to strike an imperial station under the protection of a victory class star destroyer and its fighters. The rebels have a nebulon B frigate and a sizable contingent of fighters and bombers.)

Begs a question. Even matches are fine. But much of the time and for many scenario battles I would think that:

a) forces would be asymmetrical

b) deployments would likewise be asymmetrical or at least not simple head-to-head confrontations.

How do we reproduce these elements, if only in homebrew situations? I'd imagine we'd need to come up with a few things:

1) a mechanic for "surprise" attacks where the defender deploys prior to the attacker who then jumps "in system" for deployment

2) a square, instead of rectangular, board size to allow for setups that do not feature head-to-head deployments

3) a means of balancing asymmetrical forces with appropriate objectives

Optional and/or more advanced elements:

4) a mechanic for reinforcements, for either side, to be both costed and arrive

5) a mechanic for ships to enter hypespace in order to escape, retreat, or redeploy

6) a mechanic for boarding ships, attempting to take them over, and a ship to ferry boarding parties

So... anybody got ideas?

[Reserved for ideas]

Unfortunately, I think a lot of the answers to your questions would need to be answered in the rules of the scenario, with balancing being done with repeated play testing. Using your Rebel attack on an Imperial station, there could be a satellite HoloNet objective that if destroyed early enough, delays the arrival of the Imperial fleet, forcing the station to rely only on its fighter contingent for defense several more rounds before reinforcements arrive.

If operating a larger campaign, jumping to hyperspace could require a ship to be moving at speed 1 for X number of turns while the jump is calculated, with no turning allowed and possibly requiring the ship be oriented toward the location they intend to go (though they could also be making a short hop to a nearby object to prepare for their jump to their actual target).

Mission: hit and Run

A large enemy force has been detected prowling amongst an asteroid field. We must launch one last ditch atttack before the enemy can muster a defence

Forces: Defender 400PTS, Attacker 300PTS

Deployment:

the defender sets up his force within the centre 1,x2' of the board, facing one of the short edges. The players then take turns placing 8 obstacles anywhere outside of medium range of the long board edge and at least short range apart from each other or the defenders ships.

The Attacker then Sets up his forces anywhere within short range of any board edge. The attacker may set up to speed 3 on ships that are capable.

Objectives: as normal. The attacker has the initiative

You guys play "Flames of War"? They have a lot of this asymmetrical stuff flushed out. Fighting retreats, ambushing and reserves. I mean yes, a different game system, and maybe not 100% applicable. But it might provide a good basis to start more advanced missions in Armada.

http://www.flamesofwar.com/Default.aspx?tabid=53&art_id=3163

I have to say that have an interesting group. We tend to play uneven matches and historical games. We never really seem to mind uneven fights. It makes for more dramatic battles and memorable victories with unique tactical challenges.

This definitely won't work for every group, but we very much enjoy assymetrical matches and the challenges that come with them. After all, no famous battles began with, "Hey! He's got more troops on the field. Let's do this again with even points."

I'm not trying to be condescending towards the tournament minded fun, we just don't get our kicks in tournament games as much.

Plus, when did the rebels ever have a force that matched what the empire had. I'm sure we'll come up with rules and I'll post them on this forum for anyone else to try.

1. I'm mulling over a campaign system where as the campaign goes on people who win objectives will get tangible benefits that will skew matches to bring in a degree of asymmetrical warfare by offering one off benefits and for particularly lucky ships a slight cost reduction they will keep until they are destroyed in which case they revert back to the normal full cost. Objectives will come off a list that will basically be used up as battles are fought to complete a round and then after several rounds which should take a few months a final big battle for all the marbles.

2. Tournament play of course needs lists and cost balancing, but scenarios just need a degree of balance. One side may have more on the board, but have a setup that limits their ability to bring it to bear as well, or one side may get more to setup over a period of a few turns. So get creative, but remember that balance of who will win on paper should be kept close to 50/50. Its fun to play uneven matches if you still have a reasonable chance of winning, but no one is going to be gung ho for long if they keep getting the short end of the stick in unbalanced scenarios. Your other option is to make those truly unbalanced scenarios be fast enough that you can swap sides and play it twice.

3. My personal to do list for scenarios is to recreate some of the fleet battles you are part of in the Tie fighter pc game. If you haven't played it there are several missions in the latter campaigns where easily a dozen plus capital ships are going at it while you run around in a tie defender. I fully expect that these will be uneven matches but much of that will be mitigated by giving a limit of how long the weak side has to hold out before they can bug out. One example of this might be to say you have send a squadron to the objective marker and back to your capital ship before you can bug out. The distance to the marker and back should set a basic limit on how many rounds that will take and games wont go much past that very often.

4. I would suggest you start compiling a list of scenarios you want fleshed out and seek input on them. You might get some good ideas bounced around.

I'll start on #4 by suggesting an intercept mission. Imperials get 2 sd's of some sort setup on opposite ends of the board longways. The target is a shuttle represented by token or some such which is transferring something or someone important from one sd to the other. Both of the star destroyers will have a modest squadron of ties deployed and more to launch as the scenario plays out. The shuttle token as an escort and will setup somewhere near the middle of the board with the rebels entering the board somewhere on the long sides but more or less on the center 2 feet. rebels get 1 corvette and 4 squadrons player's choice to bring in for the the intercept. The shuttle token must be taken using ywings or bwings though using some form of rule for ion weapons and the corvette must then intercept the token to take it on as cargo. Rebels get a major win by taking on the token as cargo for the corvette and then exiting the board. Rebel minor win is destroying the shuttle. The imperials get a major win by getting the shuttle to one of the star destroyers and by destroying the corvette. minor win if they save the shuttle but corvette gets away.

So basic forces for that scenario would be:

2 star destroyers most likely vsds or a vsd and a gsd

4 tie fighters on patrol 2 with each sd

1 tie fighter escorting the shuttle

2 tie interceptors to deploy on turn 2

2 tie bombers to deploy on turn 2

1 corvette

4 rebel squadrons with a minimum of 1 ywing or bwing

If balancing seems off try some of the following to remedy based upon what seems off:

adjust table length so the star destroyers are closer to shuttle (ie start with a 4x8 table then go down to a 4x6)

delay the arrival of the corvette by a turn or two after the rebel fighters

let the imperial deploy more stuff to intercept

adjust the size of the escort

adjust speed of the shuttle token

adjust the starting orientation and speeds of the star destroyers. Ideally they should be set to speed 1 at the beginning of the match and pointing towards each other.

Remember the goal here is tie's vs a small rebel force and the sd's won't likely be much of an impact other than their ability to command squadrons. Ideally you want the sd's to control good sized segments of the board while the corvette squeaks through between them to steal the prize. The imp squadrons want to delay the rebels by making the shuttle survive of by making the corvette have to turn around because he overshot the target.

Other ideas:

Corvettes fleeing past vsd

gsd and fighters chasing a crippled neb that is escorted by some corvettes

scouting mission with rebels having to get within range of several tokens while a pair of vsds and their squadrons try to prevent the rebels from obtaining the intel

change the scout to a raid. give rebels a neb, a few corvettes and some fighters with the vsd or 2 defending several stationary tokens that the rebels must destroy (consider it a depot in space and give the imp some stationary defenses as well)

On the note of stationary defenses I'd recommend getting a pile of tokens to represent them. Treat stationary defenses as fighters 1hp each and each with a black die. 1hp is so you can just remove as they are hit, treated as fighters so they fire in that phase and dont mess up activations. The one exception is I would say the stationary defenses can not lock the fighters into a dogfight so fighters can opt to ignore and fly by. black die will mean the long range cap ships should be able to destroy them with ease and minimal risk provided they keep their speed down, but fast moving corvettes might run up on them too fast and get hurt.

Hey guys. You know...I keep bringing up Battlefleet Gothic...someone's going to whack me over the back of the head at some point! Hehe.

You guys play "Flames of War"? They have a lot of this asymmetrical stuff flushed out. Fighting retreats, ambushing and reserves. I mean yes, a different game system, and maybe not 100% applicable. But it might provide a good basis to start more advanced missions in Armada.

http://www.flamesofwar.com/Default.aspx?tabid=53&art_id=3163

Good stuff there, InvisibleCalm!

"Surrounded (Defensive Battle)" sounds AWESOME.

"Breakthrough (Mobile Battle)" sounds like...you're in a really really bad place. Hehehe!

Could definitely use some ideas from there for 'house rules'.

Still, I'm clammoring to see what sort of scenarios FFG's going to publish for us. So excited -can't wait!!

For hyperspace, allocate a portion of the board, perhaps 1/4 to 1/3, as beyond the grav well. If a ship starts and ends its turn beyond the hyper limit it may jump at the very end of that turn. Unless it has some sort of engineering critical (hyperdrive is out).

If the whole battle is beyond a grav well, have a ship be required to spend an entire turn on one heading without turning, than it can jump at the end of the turn. Add a turn for calculating jump, if desired.

You can use a similar approach for arriving ships / reinforcements.

Speaking if reinforcements, starting turn X, roll a blue die and on a hit (not crit) reinforcements arrive just beyond the hyper limit. Or something to that effect. Use earlier turns for quick responses or turn limited games. Use later turns if you want a slower response and/or not turn limited. Use a different die or a 6 sided die as you prefer. There needs to be some randomization to simulate quick-slow responses or lags in communication.

For hyperspace, allocate a portion of the board, perhaps 1/4 to 1/3, as beyond the grav well. If a ship starts and ends its turn beyond the hyper limit it may jump at the very end of that turn. Unless it has some sort of engineering critical (hyperdrive is out).

If the whole battle is beyond a grav well, have a ship be required to spend an entire turn on one heading without turning, than it can jump at the end of the turn. Add a turn for calculating jump, if desired.

You can use a similar approach for arriving ships / reinforcements.

Speaking if reinforcements, starting turn X, roll a blue die and on a hit (not crit) reinforcements arrive just beyond the hyper limit. Or something to that effect. Use earlier turns for quick responses or turn limited games. Use later turns if you want a slower response and/or not turn limited. Use a different die or a 6 sided die as you prefer. There needs to be some randomization to simulate quick-slow responses or lags in communication.

Hey, those are some good ideas up there. Would certainly add a bit of 'fog-of-war' flavour to any given scenario. Hehe.

The other option around hyperspacing reinforcements is to break out the old Warhammer 40K scatter dice and a D3. (D6 halved)

Place the lead unit where you want it, roll the scatter dice and D3, move the ship in the direction indicated by the amount rolled (1-2, range 1, 3-4, range 2, 5-6, range 3). Direct hit result, unit stays where it is. Then field any accompanying units around the lead unit within range 2.

Say!

Adding to that though...see, MaverickNZ, this is where you've got me foaming at the mouth with rabbid excitement (whoa, bad imagery there -sorry!).

Reinforcements, scatter dice...

Right on the mark (Direct hit) result could probably be instituted as an Interdictor mechanic of some sort? Allowing for greater deployment accuracy!

The idea of Reinforcements in general. Will these units be taken from the original 300pt pool? Or would there be an agreed pt pool set aside?

See, this sort of ties in with the whole 'Escalating Engagement' scenario where: "It's a TRAP!" could be called out by rebel and imperial alike! Gee so excited.

OT: Rofl! Imagine they made a special token that actually says: "It's a TRAP!" that gives the owner +2 to 'Evade' over the usual +1 Evade.