Gameplay Design - Ship Activation

By Leowulf, in Star Wars: Armada Rules Questions

Hi guys,

I'm a game design graduate from the Queensland University of Technology.

I've fallen in love with Armada, it's a fantastic game but I have a question/suggestion about a fundamental aspect of the game - it may be a question for the devs.

As we know, ship activation is, player with initiative chooses a ship to activate and performs:

1. Reveal command.

2. Attack.

3. Execute Maneuvre.

Then, the players take turns activating the rest of their ships.

In the core set a situation arises. With the Victory Class Star Destroyer vs the Corellian Corvette and Nebulon B Frigate, a clever rebel player can use the speed of his ships and the fact that he has two ship activations to get two volleys in while the imperial player can't even respond.

That situation would go like this:

Rebel player activates his corvette which is well out of range of all other ships. Imperial player activates star destroyer with no targets and skips his attack, then moves at speed 2 attempting to get a volley off on the Nebulon b which sits in front of it, after the maneuvre the star destroyer is now within long range of the Nebulon B frigate. Then the rebel player activates the Nebulon B, now in range of the Star Destroyer, and fires a volley before moving to the side but remaining in range. Squadrons move and players plan their commands. Then the player with Initiative, the rebel admiral, activates his Nebulon b and fires again, then executes a maneuvre to get out of range of the star destroyer who now activates with no targets in range again after receiving two volleys of fire.

Was this an intentional design choice or something that should potentially be looked at for balance issues? And what are the design reasons for ships firing before moving?

The other issues that I see arising from the current activation is that some ships (due to initiative) seem to arbitrarily get to fire before other ships, and in close situations if this results in a ship being destroyed before it can return fire.

In my games I've already implemented a house rule where ships that were destroyed in this round still get to fire one last time and execute a maneuvre (aka the old "well if I'm going down you're going down with me!" suicidal collision course.) before they are removed, which I think not only makes sense but is kinda fun.

I'm curious.

What are peoples opinions on the pro's and con's of moving armada's ship activation rules to something different and more conventional.

Perhaps, like X-wing but with the "fire-before-moving" armada twist. All ships activate one at a time, then all ships fire one at a time but "simultaneously", then all ships execute a maneuvre.

Or simply firing after executing a maneuvre.

After about 25 games, mostly at the 300 point level, I am having a hard time imagining this as anything but a very rare and singular occurrence, I mean, I can see a single instance of this happening in a 180 game if the rebel player wanted to shoot and then run in a big circle out of range. But several things make this more theoretical than actual.

the map is finite. After even the tightest turn to stay completely out of range, where are the rebel ships to go next? Looking at the 6x3 here on my table, I cannot find where they would go that would in any way help them win the game. If the rebel player's objective was to get one unanswered pair of shots off once, I can see where that could happen, esp if the Victory was alone and cooperated. But where is that in a real game? 180 points is a get by demo that anyone who either has 2 cores or has a friend who has two cores is not playing. There will be at least a second imperial ship and you can fly these two ships in such a way to make the above impossible.

Objectives also make this not make sense. If the rebel is going first, then he chose from the imps objectives, and none of the ones this imp gives the rebels allows what you portray to work.

what are the squadrons doing? if the rebel squadrons are staying near their ships, they are also doing nothing to win the game.

I can also say your suggested house rule is something I would never agree to even if I were into such things. Its not only completely unnecessary, its unfair in the extreme. Go to all that trouble to kill a rebel and he gets a non-rule shot back in revenge that he did not earn? Why would I be into that?

I think the problems with one-on-two ship battles will go away when Wave 1 hits and 300/400 point games become the norm rather than starter box games.

So you're saying in the context of the game (more ships, map size, squadrons, objectives, etc), it would be a powerful maneuvre but not one that's easy nor necessarily wise to pull off - I can accept that but I don't think it fully satisfies the question.

Which essentially was: Is there a better way to do the ship activation rules? Do we need to minimise the effect of alpha striking and is attack-then-move the best way of doing things? Would love to hear some pro's and con's from people who have played a bit :)

So far I think that the pro's of the current rules are:

Ship by ship activation means you can concentrate on a ship at a time when ships are relatively complex - great streamlining - also very engaging and immersive, I've found.

Command, fire, move sequence is nice and simple. Generally quick as well.

The meat: There are tactics there in choosing which ship to activate first, you can escape fire zones, alpha strike, block, etc. and this creates mucho deep tactical planning on both sides as admirals weigh up their options and the possibilities. (In my mind for some reason these are simultaneously con's? - thinking on paper, maybe because the thematic reason for one ship going before another is never explained by the rules)

Getting to activate the first ship is a little bit balanced out by the other player getting to activate second (a minor benefit) (a major benefit in the case of even ships,you get to move the last ship). You get to see where ships have gone (even if it's usually obvious anyway) and act accordingly.

Con's:

Can lead to situations of Ship chasing where one ship repeatedly moves out of another ships range or arc. Chasing ship must accept an alpha strike to get a shot in. (I don't really have a problem with this, adds a trade off between getting your big guns (usually front arc) against their weak rear hull, and having to take an alpha strike from their weak rear armament - usually a good trade) But it can make the game drag on.

Double alpha strike situation outlined in OP - is this just clever play and an example of the current ship activation rules providing tactical depth (where you HAVE to think at least two turns ahead) or is it an exploit of rules that could be better?

Alpha striking thematics (gameplay vs fluff), see underneath.

Whether you go first or second can be outside your control as an admiral, and can still have a huge impact on your options. You could argue that admirals need to simply adapt to this which is fair enough, but I'm asking if it's a big enough issue to warrant a rules change, if it could be done better.

I can understand that alpha striking is an integral part of being competitive (and making the objective cards work) however the arbitrary nature of one ship firing at another ship, who are both in range, but one destroying the other before it can fire back (It's just sitting there and can't do anything even if it's yet to be activated that turn?) seems to go against how I understand a fleet battle would occur, with ships coming into range and exchanging savage salvos. I guess this also stems from the fact that I'm fed up with the necessity of alpha striking (and the arbitrary nature of who gets the first shot - usually the winner of a dice roll ffs) in w40k, a game where an entire army gets to move and shoot before anther army.

How else can you do it?

You can move, shoot, or shoot, move, or everyone moves then everyone shoots. Those are effectively your 3 options.

X-Wing for example uses the everyone moves, everyone shoots method. It does a good job of preventing the "you have to stand there and take it as I shoot then move away" effect you have in Armada.

But there isn't anything inherently wrong with how it works in Armada, other than the idea that a ship is just sitting there and not responding to the other ship running past it with a broadside. Which I agree is a little odd.

But that doesn't make it unbalanced or something that needs to be fixed. Especially when you start throwing more ships on the table and factor in the objectives.

Sure that MC-80 may pull an Ackbar Slash, and not get shot back by that ISD. But that doesn't mean he'll get away without getting shot at. The VSD's behind the ISD will open fire on it, and may get even better shots on it then they would otherwise. Also the MC-80 may be giving up VP's by doing so meaning that while it does get that one turn of unanswered fire, it costs the rebel player the game.

So there's nothing really wrong with the system, other than breaking a sense of logic that you always get when you stagger activations like they do in Armada.

As ships can't fly backwards the Neb could not get out of range so example can't happen.

You seem to be assuming that in a 2 ship v. 1 ship situation, the 2 ship side always has initiative. If you use fleet building rules, the 1 ship side is completely able to come in well under the fleet size and grab the opportunity to be the side with initiative. While in this case it is true the 2 ship side will get to move all their ships while the 1 ship side has to sit there and watch, I feel absolutely confident that neither of those 2 ships will try to dart in on the lone ship — the lone big ship will always go first and is almost certain to deliver a big dish of pain with a side order of ouch to any ship that tries to arrange the kinds of hit and run maneuvers you were describing above.

The scenario in the core set is meant as a learning game, so it is natural there will be edge cases present there that will not likely arise in more normal- sized games. But if you're really concerned about this, put together two fleets with the 1 ship side having initiative and see what happens.

In addition to what others have said. I think the ship activation is one of the best mechanics in the game (and one of the reason its now my favourite game). It makes the game more interactive (no waiting for 10 mins why your opponent nukes half your army), more reactive and more tactical (in larger games with objectives, choosing when to activate each ship is extremely important).

The fact you fire before you move also adds to this and works thematically - this is capital ship combat, slow lumbering ships that require you plan ahead (hence shoot first) whilst reacting to the changing tides of battle. Sure, it seems strange at first (every other game tends to be move then shoot) but you soon get used to it.