My local gaming group has shown interest in doing a campaign for armada, and we feel that no story in the galactic civil war is complete without the Death Star. while it will be easy to incorporate it into the galactic conquest adding it to the battles will be another story...

https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/index.php?/topic/135845-my-take-on-the-galactic-conquest/ (link to my topic about the galactic conquest)

Anyway we are unsure how to incorporate the death star into battles since we want it to be significant and impactful, (probably the main goal of the entire game) but without making it impossible for the rebels to destroy (or to easy to destroy)

does anyone have any thoughts on how we might incorporate it into battles themselves?

reserved for future use

Death Star I or Death Star II?

Death Star I or Death Star II

doesnt matter, the diffrence is not significant enough to distinguish in the conquest

if you mean, a completed death star vs a constructing death star

we are talking about a completed death star

It does when Death Star II is capable of destroying capital ships with its laser.

so was the death star 1 it just didnt have any to shoot at

The Death Star II had a [relatively] lower-powered rapid fire mode specifically for greater anti-ship capability didn't it? So the DSII's capability on the tabletop would be significantly greater than DSI - the DSI would auto-destroy any one ship basically, then sit recharging its capacitors for the rest of the game, whereas the DSII could fire maybe every other turn.

The Death Star II had a [relatively] lower-powered rapid fire mode specifically for greater anti-ship capability didn't it? So the DSII's capability on the tabletop would be significantly greater than DSI - the DSI would auto-destroy any one ship basically, then sit recharging its capacitors for the rest of the game, whereas the DSII could fire maybe every other turn.

but this would lead to the death star being too powerful for a competitive game

I'm thinking instead of "auto destroy a cap ship" every time a ship attempts to attack the death star it gets to throw 6 dice back or something like that in order to make it fair, but that still leaves the problem of the empire gaining this huge thing for their battles, so it would probably have to be a victory condition that if the rebels manage to destroy the death star they win the entire conquest

but i am not sure how we should incorporate something like that, of course we wont know for sure untill we play the game but im looking for ideas now so that we can start the conquest as early as possible

I was just commenting on the canonical differences between the two. Honestly, if you want an accurate, fully functioning Death Star in Armada, I don't think it is going to be balanced. It was purposely designed by the Empire to be unfair, and there is a reason that only super heroes with plot armor were able to stop it

I think it would work better on the campaign level. It would have effects like adding additional objectives or restrictions to scenarios.

Totally forgot there was a DS thread, I commented on the Epic Armada thread, but I'll drop the question here. Do you see fielding a DS in game as more of a 1v2+ kind of game, not a 1v1? Imperial player gets small defense fleet and a DS, maybe representing his edge of the table, and on the other side is 2, 3, 4 Rebel players? Now you have to take the overwhelming firepower of the DS and split it against several incoming fleets with their own attack vectors. It feels like it might "balance" out this type of game.

Also consider tactically why a rebel fleet would be attacking a DS. Would it make sense that the Rebels know of a way to actually disable/destroy the DS easily? Or just commit a huge fleet to attack it? In cannon, they really don't have the resources to just keep hitting the DS without some sort of assurance they might be able to be successful.

Rebels start with 100 extra points of fighters. If rebel fighters get within short range of the empires deployment zone they are considered engaged with the Death Star. Once engaged with the Death Star rebel ships cannot be attacked by Empire capital ships. They can however still be attacked by fighters and Death Star anti fighter armament. The Death Star has no shields, but significant Hull and maybe defense tokens. It's antifighter armament will be fairly weak at 2 blue dice but figure it will get a shot at every fighter in short range. Every other turn the Death Star may make one attack against at any Rebel ship in play with 4 black dice. Victory condition would be all Rebel ships destroyed or Death Star destroyed. That's where I'd start at and tweak it with play testing.

How about using the death star dial from the LCG game where it clicks up 1 per round and for each victory point you get either from the mission objective or for every ship destroyed. Then once it hits 12 the imperial player can roll a die to destroy 1 ship.

Rebels start with 100 extra points of fighters. If rebel fighters get within short range of the empires deployment zone they are considered engaged with the Death Star. Once engaged with the Death Star rebel ships cannot be attacked by Empire capital ships. They can however still be attacked by fighters and Death Star anti fighter armament. The Death Star has no shields, but significant Hull and maybe defense tokens. It's antifighter armament will be fairly weak at 2 blue dice but figure it will get a shot at every fighter in short range. Every other turn the Death Star may make one attack against at any Rebel ship in play with 4 black dice. Victory condition would be all Rebel ships destroyed or Death Star destroyed. That's where I'd start at and tweak it with play testing.

Good idea,I will have to try something like this

You could also keep the death star from firing until some number of Imperial models have been brought down (Empire being overconfident and not thinking they will even need to use the uber death ray).

This will really depend on which minis you have at your desposal. We are planning on a 3 battle campagin based on the original trilogy using all three games.

Yavin 4 played with x-wing the board is the death star classic trench run.

Hoth IA mini version, Imperials attacking Echo Base. (we have lots of the old wizards starwars minis so once we get a card we can use these for force multipliers)

Endor, Armada fleet Action, As long as you are within a certain distance(not yet determined) you will not be able to be targeted by deathstar2

each battles vp totalled to determine winner

A Death Star playing piece in Armada feels as awkward as jamming a Star Destroyer into X-Wing, in my opinion. For one the firepower potential is vastly superior to anything normally thrown around in Armada. For another, it's much too big to be depicted. You didn't say it would be Clon, but I wanted to head off that line of thinking first...

I have thought about doing an Endor special event depicting the Death Star II and I know I'm going to face this same problem. I think what I'd do is make it so that every three turns or so, the Empire player can destroy one of the largest ships remaining in the Rebel fleet. I would need to designate...2? 3? off-board points for line of sight though, since that's how the Rebellion had even a fighting chance at Endor once they mixed it up with the Empire. Drawing LOS through an imperial ship makes that shot impossible.

The Death Star would be offboard just like the barrage tokens for Imperials are in one of the Transport missions.

(After a specific turn of course, the Rebels can send their fighter squadrons to the Imperial board edge and rack up victory points on destroying the Death Star).

I like this! I will have a think and post up anything worth sharing!

A Death Star playing piece in Armada feels as awkward as jamming a Star Destroyer into X-Wing, in my opinion. For one the firepower potential is vastly superior to anything normally thrown around in Armada. For another, it's much too big to be depicted. You didn't say it would be Clon, but I wanted to head off that line of thinking first...

However, it is such an iconic part of Star Wars that not having the option to buy one would be sad.

I am buying the Star Destroyer for X-Wing, will I ever get to use it? Probably not, but that is besides the point IMHO, its going to look so cool.

As for its use, this is a mission based game with a turn limit. So you could have the same miniature represent the Death Star I or II and the card differenciate the effect it has.

I think you could also have some regard to the mission you have as being part of the overall mission. So there are other ships being shot at and other fighter squadrons at the battle. Thus, the stats for the Death Star are diminished somewhat as to provide details of what the Death Star can do in direct action against the opposing fleet you are in control of.

You could also allow the Imperial player to buy more than 1 Death Star card and make each 200 points say so the Death Star (and I just can bring myself to abreviate this.) can scale up as the battle gets bigger. Each card just represents the portion of the Death Star that the player controls directly. This gives the Imperial player points for ships, fighters and cards other than the Death Star.

I can imagine the FFG Home page: "Armarda made Epic!", "Order you Death Star now."

A Death Star playing piece in Armada feels as awkward as jamming a Star Destroyer into X-Wing, in my opinion. For one the firepower potential is vastly superior to anything normally thrown around in Armada. For another, it's much too big to be depicted. You didn't say it would be Clon, but I wanted to head off that line of thinking first...

I have thought about doing an Endor special event depicting the Death Star II and I know I'm going to face this same problem. I think what I'd do is make it so that every three turns or so, the Empire player can destroy one of the largest ships remaining in the Rebel fleet. I would need to designate...2? 3? off-board points for line of sight though, since that's how the Rebellion had even a fighting chance at Endor once they mixed it up with the Empire. Drawing LOS through an imperial ship makes that shot impossible.

The Death Star would be offboard just like the barrage tokens for Imperials are in one of the Transport missions.

(After a specific turn of course, the Rebels can send their fighter squadrons to the Imperial board edge and rack up victory points on destroying the Death Star).

But it already is in Armada have you not seen the FFG play mat?

A Death Star playing piece in Armada feels as awkward as jamming a Star Destroyer into X-Wing, in my opinion. For one the firepower potential is vastly superior to anything normally thrown around in Armada. For another, it's much too big to be depicted. You didn't say it would be Clon, but I wanted to head off that line of thinking first...

However, it is such an iconic part of Star Wars that not having the option to buy one would be sad.

I am buying the Star Destroyer for X-Wing, will I ever get to use it? Probably not, but that is besides the point IMHO, its going to look so cool.

As for its use, this is a mission based game with a turn limit. So you could have the same miniature represent the Death Star I or II and the card differenciate the effect it has.

I think you could also have some regard to the mission you have as being part of the overall mission. So there are other ships being shot at and other fighter squadrons at the battle. Thus, the stats for the Death Star are diminished somewhat as to provide details of what the Death Star can do in direct action against the opposing fleet you are in control of.

You could also allow the Imperial player to buy more than 1 Death Star card and make each 200 points say so the Death Star (and I just can bring myself to abreviate this.) can scale up as the battle gets bigger. Each card just represents the portion of the Death Star that the player controls directly. This gives the Imperial player points for ships, fighters and cards other than the Death Star.

I can imagine the FFG Home page: "Armarda made Epic!", "Order you Death Star now."

You must be kidding, Amanal. I'm presuming you're kidding rather than launch into a refute post.

At least the (yes I hear you, quiet down!) Super Star Destroyer is a spaceship in a game about spaceships. The Death Star is a planetoid. If you want a game about battling planetoids I suggest checking out Star Wars: Original trilogy Risk.

Quick, clarification (this thread is a little off track now)

the Death Star is to be used as an advanced objective in a campaign that is being ran, there will be no model and it will have limited effect on the battles them selves

Edited... Think my last post was so big it killed a thread! Sorry guys!

PS - I am still building a Death Star Trench!