Speed-0 and a possible need for a fix

By Goknights12, in Star Wars: Armada

My reservations about speed 0 lie more in the objective selection than in the ability to hit the brakes

While I think we should honestly reserve any criticism until we get more games in, especially with more options out, I do fear that the objective system will put an undue emphasis on the initiative bid. Rather than a game like Warmachine, where the objective is randomly generated and strictly positioned equidistant from both players' deployment zones, Armada allows you to skew objectives to your particular playstyle which can (and is intended to be) exploited

Shouldn't any undue emphasis be balanced by the points costs, and by the option for 3 missions to choose from if going first? if people start making 270 (out of 300) point fleets, then others may start showing up with 300 point fleets designed to work with any objectives. I like the system, and I think it should work well in the long run. It adds another layer of decision making that just isn't present in 40k/WM, etc.

I am just going by what we have available to us for now. Wave 1 fixes a lot of things for both factions.

Yes, wave 1 will fix a lot of issues. It's why I'm not worrying about people complaining about the outcomes of 180 pt tournaments. It's also why I'm not concerned about the same issues at 300 and 400 points with only stuff from the core box. The assault frigate is going to let the Rebels play the firepower game and Gladiators are going to help the Imps play the maneuver game.

So let me update my mistake on the winning initiative part. Essentially i meant that I won the bid and chose to go second. Secondly, The player I played is a very skilled player, so I don't really appreciate people calling him dumb or a bad player, with how the league is created I would have won, and it was a closer point game in the end, but he really had no other option than to come at me. Thirdly, I did start moving around turn 3 or 4, but my strategy was to sit and wait for him to show me where he was coming, because there was no way with 4 ties and 1 Vic that I was outmaneuvering his two Neb B's and Corvette, so I had all of the obstacles to my left except one that was just off my front right. I pointed my Vic slightly toward it so when I did start moving and turning I would protect my rear arc and have side/front arc shot on all of his ships.

The game was very fast and boring, but I see that in the future if I was playing someone in a tournament and It was the championship or they needed 2 more points than me to get into the final tables, I would probably turtle up along the edge, make them come to me. I may lose one ship, but they would probably lose more. (thinking ahead to 300 points). This is the issue I have with 0-speed ability. If the Imps win the bid, you pick their objective and they are ahead at the tournament, they will force you to come at them, and with there not being any other penalty for speed 0 other than you can't spend defense tokens, they have a clear advantage to see where you are coming for 2-3 turns before even thinking about moving. What about not being able to spend any other dial at speed 0 other than movement, or you can't spend tokens at speed 0.

It is a strategy , and I understand trying to be a good sport, but if you were playing X-Wing and you knew that you needed a mod win at worst to go into the top 8, and your ship had one hull and all you had to do was run, wouldn't you? I wouldn't call that person a poor sport, that's the game.

BTW I am not a dirty player or a jerk by any means. I saw this as an opportunity to use a strategy that I thought would work and it did. Why would I come to the forums and talk about how it doesn't sit right with me? To be honest, 0-speed could break this game (I know still early in the process), but with ISD comes out, what is stopping someone from Taking two of them, parking them, winning the bid and saying. Come get me.

Edited by Goknights12

I don't understand people flying at speed 0. I always go as fast as possible, the better to get in range of the scum and blast them!

BTW I am not a dirty player or a jerk by any means. I saw this as an opportunity to use a strategy that I thought would work and it did. Why would I come to the forums and talk about how it doesn't sit right with me? To be honest, 0-speed could break this game (I know still early in the process), but with ISD comes out, what is stopping someone from Taking two of them, parking them, winning the bid and saying. Come get me.

Because a smart Rebel Player can get his MC80 with Enhanced Armement and Amiral Akbar flank to face your ISD at range 3 and shoot at you with 6 red dice while you only shoot with 3.

Edited by Wildhorn

I played the other night and noticed at speed 2 with a maneuver command on the dial a corvette can be moved as to have the tool go two clicks left on the first elbow and two clicks right on the second. Now if you have a few of those coming in at long range they are spending quite a bit of their movement going sideways and their forwards movement isn't quite so "fast" as it were. 4-6 red dice vs 3 is going to be bothersome for the Star Destroyer. You can probably do something similar with the Nebulon B but not the 2+2 maneuver. As you are moving you should be able to adjust your ships to be firing through two arcs, at which point that single Corvette is throwing the same number of red dice as the Star Destroyer.

Now as soon as you get to long range the Star Destroyer will open up his engines, but the 2-3 turns of inaction gives you the tactical advantage, you are no longer playing his game but your own. He has already wasted two commands on stoping and geting a Navigate Token. I'll have to run a test, but start at speed 4 and a navigate command gets me a token. On turn 2 does speed 4 get me in range and what of a Squadron Command at that point? On turn three a Navigate command and the token reduces me to speed 2 and I do that rather nice 2+2 mentioned earlier.

The question is, why is the Rebel not playing with missions and if you are why are they not the Rebel Players missions?

Red: Most Wanted

Yellow: Fire Lanes, Contested Outpost or Fleet Ambush

Blue: Dangerous Territory or Intel Sweep

All these look like they would limit a player turtling.

Keep in mind at long range I think the Rebel Defence Tokens are perhaps better than the Imperials at long range, you can remove a red dice, if he has an accuracy that is one less damage to begin with and you do have two Evades. Even with a Concentrate Fire command he is somewhat limited. The joy of the Corvette fleet is that they are not guessing commands on their dials. The damaged ship can stay at long range if possible, the other two moving after the Star Destroyer could either close and add some blue dice or stay at long range and throw down some red.

A tabletop game does not work, if there isn't at least one side with an incentive to move. So you need to set the objectives accordingly. Not all Armada objectives pass the test. X-Wing does not have this problem, because ships have to move forward and space is extremely confined.

"does not work" is a huge exaggeration given the quality of the game

I may be worried about objective generation going into the future, but it's not going to impede the basic functionality of gameplay

And it's also definitely not a "just **** the bed" level of mistake that completely invalidates the point of the ******* game (see X-wing miniatures and primary weapon turrets)

BTW I am not a dirty player or a jerk by any means. I saw this as an opportunity to use a strategy that I thought would work and it did. Why would I come to the forums and talk about how it doesn't sit right with me? To be honest, 0-speed could break this game (I know still early in the process), but with ISD comes out, what is stopping someone from Taking two of them, parking them, winning the bid and saying. Come get me.

Because a smart Rebel Player can get his MC80 with Enhanced Armement and Amiral Akbar flank to face your ISD at range 3 and shoot at you with 6 red dice while you only shoot with 3.

Ah, the Old Tarkin Parkin'. Its nearly unbeatable without wave 1 here.

Imp player goes speed 0 for about 3 turns until opponent in range, then carefully comes forward at speed 1. If he's planned it right, there isnt enough time or room to get behind him.

Seriously....if you see an imp player do this. Just hit the brakes, sit back and take a draw. otherwise, you're prob just giving him a win.

I suspect that this will no longer be a problem when the point limit increases and the Imperial player is forced to take two ships. With one ship, the entire rebel fleet is about as powerful as your ship so maneuvering doesn't really matter. You can simply turn to face them at the last second. However, if the Imperial player has two ship, now there is a cone where each ship can't fire without being obstructed by their other ship. If the rebel fleet, which is not twice as powerful as a single Imperial ship, can attack in that cone, they can greatly diminish the total return fire they receive. So if the Rebel threaten a flank move, the Imperial player is force to maneuver at least one of his ships so that ship can get a clear line of fire.

So the faster, more maneuverable, fleet will be trying to isolate one of the slower ships while the slower opponent must move as cleverly as possible to avoid that.

Ah, the Old Tarkin Parkin'.

Great, now we have to keep it legal just so we can have this name in circulation <_<

(far catchier than "fortressing")

Played in a tournament Saturday and this did not happen. Nor did I see in any of my games where it would have made sense. The correct playing surface is only 3 feet across, which means you can be shooting at a parked ship on turn 2. If you are imperial across from an imperial it *might* take til turn 3, but an imperial can kill any ship in one shot, and one without defense tokens is even easier. You certainly do not need 5 turns to kill a ship, so the fact that a staller can make the shot turn 2 or 3 is not a big deal.

This is a contrived problem, not a real one.

Played in a tournament Saturday and this did not happen. Nor did I see in any of my games where it would have made sense. The correct playing surface is only 3 feet across, which means you can be shooting at a parked ship on turn 2. If you are imperial across from an imperial it *might* take til turn 3, but an imperial can kill any ship in one shot, and one without defense tokens is even easier. You certainly do not need 5 turns to kill a ship, so the fact that a staller can make the shot turn 2 or 3 is not a big deal.

This is a contrived problem, not a real one.

180pts is still played on a 3x6.

Just the learn to play is on a 3x3.

BTW I am not a dirty player or a jerk by any means. I saw this as an opportunity to use a strategy that I thought would work and it did. Why would I come to the forums and talk about how it doesn't sit right with me? To be honest, 0-speed could break this game (I know still early in the process), but with ISD comes out, what is stopping someone from Taking two of them, parking them, winning the bid and saying. Come get me.

Because a smart Rebel Player can get his MC80 with Enhanced Armement and Amiral Akbar flank to face your ISD at range 3 and shoot at you with 6 red dice while you only shoot with 3.
Except that isn't available right now. The discussion is on the current game state. In July when it goes to 400 with a more varied releases, the discussion will change.

Read who I quoted. He talked about ISD, which is wave 2.

For the current stuff, park all day you want, a rebel will flank you to death.

People who die to a parked VSD are those who have no experience and charge mindlessly in the front arc of the VSD.

Three feet across, not wide. If you set up in the opposite corner from the enemy on a 6x3 that is a bigger problem than him going speed zero...

BTW I am not a dirty player or a jerk by any means. I saw this as an opportunity to use a strategy that I thought would work and it did. Why would I come to the forums and talk about how it doesn't sit right with me? To be honest, 0-speed could break this game (I know still early in the process), but with ISD comes out, what is stopping someone from Taking two of them, parking them, winning the bid and saying. Come get me.

Because a smart Rebel Player can get his MC80 with Enhanced Armement and Amiral Akbar flank to face your ISD at range 3 and shoot at you with 6 red dice while you only shoot with 3.
Except that isn't available right now. The discussion is on the current game state. In July when it goes to 400 with a more varied releases, the discussion will change.

Read who I quoted. He talked about ISD, which is wave 2.

For the current stuff, park all day you want, a rebel will flank you to death.

People who die to a parked VSD are those who have no experience and charge mindlessly in the front arc of the VSD.

Otherwise in a couple of weeks this will be a non-topic and the Tarkin Parkin will be just a fun phrase to say.

BTW I am not a dirty player or a jerk by any means. I saw this as an opportunity to use a strategy that I thought would work and it did. Why would I come to the forums and talk about how it doesn't sit right with me? To be honest, 0-speed could break this game (I know still early in the process), but with ISD comes out, what is stopping someone from Taking two of them, parking them, winning the bid and saying. Come get me.

Because a smart Rebel Player can get his MC80 with Enhanced Armement and Amiral Akbar flank to face your ISD at range 3 and shoot at you with 6 red dice while you only shoot with 3.
Except that isn't available right now. The discussion is on the current game state. In July when it goes to 400 with a more varied releases, the discussion will change.

Read who I quoted. He talked about ISD, which is wave 2.

For the current stuff, park all day you want, a rebel will flank you to death.

People who die to a parked VSD are those who have no experience and charge mindlessly in the front arc of the VSD.

But I didn't park all day, I waited until I saw where he was coming, and how do you flank me if my rear arc is on the edge of the map? Again the guy I played is a skilled player, but with the way the league is set up he had no choice but to come after me, otherwise I win anyway because I am the second player with less points. You're very judge mental of players who may make a mistake.

With the objective that I had and he chose, plus dominator, concentrate fire dial and token I took one ship out in one hit. on turn 5. nothing he could do on turn six to change the score enough. You act like he ran all three ships in one at a time at my front arc. I simply waited until I was ready, then did speed one turn right killed one ship, and that was the game on rounds.

This isn't about the imps killing everyone this way, but if I need points, or know that you need points to win the game/to make it to the next round, the imperial player can (Tarkin Parking hehe) and force you to come at him. Destroy one ship is all they need to mess things up. That's the problem with it.

But I didn't park all day, I waited until I saw where he was coming, and how do you flank me if my rear arc is on the edge of the map? Again the guy I played is a skilled player, but with the way the league is set up he had no choice but to come after me, otherwise I win anyway because I am the second player with less points. You're very judge mental of players who may make a mistake.

With the objective that I had and he chose, plus dominator, concentrate fire dial and token I took one ship out in one hit. on turn 5. nothing he could do on turn six to change the score enough. You act like he ran all three ships in one at a time at my front arc. I simply waited until I was ready, then did speed one turn right killed one ship, and that was the game on rounds.

This isn't about the imps killing everyone this way, but if I need points, or know that you need points to win the game/to make it to the next round, the imperial player can (Tarkin Parking hehe) and force you to come at him. Destroy one ship is all they need to mess things up. That's the problem with it.

Interesting...in hindsight, it would seem then that he chose the wrong objective. I'm curious if you think this tactic could have worked if your opponent had chosen one of your other objectives.

If it would have worked with all 3 objectives, then we have a problem. If not, then the objective system has worked as designed. ;)

Turn 0:

The Star Destroyer is 3 range rulers away and positioned as to be on the far edge. It has the speed dial set to 1.

The Corvette is deployed as far forward as allowed and it is set to go at speed 4.

img1.jpg

Turn 1:

The Star Destroyer uses a Maneuver Command to slow to speed zero, or Tarkins' up a token as required.

The Corvette uses a Maneuver Command, takes a token and goes forward 4.

img2.jpg

Turn 2:

Star Destroyer may come forward using the Tarken Token or stay put. There are some tactical considerations as to who is first player and what ships the Rebel has committed at this time.

Corvette player uses a Maneuver Command and the Token to slow to speed 2, he positions his arc to ensure side and front shots at long range. That single Corvette as shown gets 3 red dice in 2 attacks to the Star Destroyers 3 dice in one attack. After that a Manuever command each turn helps ensure that the range is kept at long for as long as he may.

img3.jpg

The deployment area on a 3x6' table is 3x4' so diagonally corner to corner there is a 5 range rulers distance, however, if I deploy first maybe the middle of the board becomes a better choice than a corner? That would add a bout a half a range ruler to the gap if you deploy in a corner. (3.6 range rules corner to corner if Pythagoras has it right.) Though the Corvette may have a better angle of attack coming from a side rather than front on.

In a 180 point game I would be trying to go in with no more than 175 points as the Rebel, playing your mission rather than the Star Destroyers is vital. Even if absolutely everything goes your way, all your opponents dice rolls miss, all yours damage with criticals the shields and hull of a Star Destroyer can take a while to plink down to zero. So using the speed and maneuver to grab some free points is vital. At 300/400 points this may be less vital, but with 2-4 Star Destroyers even a swarm of little Nebulons and CR90's will have a hard time getting a second Star Destroyer down.

I am not suggesting that the Rebels have an auto win, but I don't think a speed zero Star Destroyer does either.

Looks like in our office move the web server has been upset, I hope to get my pictures up in a short time.

Here is the issue I have with your issue.

Even discounting that 3 Rebel Ships can absolutely destroy a VSD in 2-3 Rds of combat, Openning Salvo or not, if they engage it correctly; utilizing the strategy you've espoused provides an absurdly easy path to victory for a Rebel player.

The second the Rebel player sees this is the type of game you plan to play all they need to do is not approach you with 2 out of thier 3 Ships (Corvette). One will continue towards you, slowly. The only goal is to end RD 5 within Speed 4 of you at Speed 2 with a Nav Token. Rd 6 plays out like this.

Rebel activates one of his non-approaching ships. You activate yours, doesn't matter what you do. They activate thier Corvette that approached you, ramp up to the needed speed and simply overlaps you. Game over. You each get dealt a damage and the Rebel player will win on the half points granted by the Objective.

So if you want to play a boring game and hand your opponent a win in that type of scenario, go ahead.

But the real issue I have is with the thought process that how the game plays at 180pts requires a change. Why would that be the case when the 180pt level won't be a thing in a week? It only existed in the first place due to the delay with Wave 1. And certainly doesn't seem like a point level the game was ever intended to actually be showcased at, only there because it is easily doable out of even a single Core Set.

Edited by ScottieATF

But I didn't park all day, I waited until I saw where he was coming, and how do you flank me if my rear arc is on the edge of the map? Again the guy I played is a skilled player, but with the way the league is set up he had no choice but to come after me, otherwise I win anyway because I am the second player with less points. You're very judge mental of players who may make a mistake.

With the objective that I had and he chose, plus dominator, concentrate fire dial and token I took one ship out in one hit. on turn 5. nothing he could do on turn six to change the score enough. You act like he ran all three ships in one at a time at my front arc. I simply waited until I was ready, then did speed one turn right killed one ship, and that was the game on rounds.

This isn't about the imps killing everyone this way, but if I need points, or know that you need points to win the game/to make it to the next round, the imperial player can (Tarkin Parking hehe) and force you to come at him. Destroy one ship is all they need to mess things up. That's the problem with it.

Interesting...in hindsight, it would seem then that he chose the wrong objective. I'm curious if you think this tactic could have worked if your opponent had chosen one of your other objectives.

If it would have worked with all 3 objectives, then we have a problem. If not, then the objective system has worked as designed. ;)

Good question. It would have worked with 2 of the 3. The one he picked, Minefields would have worked, but the other one was the contested space station. That one would not have been beneficial to stay there.

Newness, and Core sets only.

We've only gotten a premature release here without the full sets of upgrades, which in this game amounts to missing half the rules.

Another thing, as described already, is that Speed 0 means no defense dice. That is death for a VSD, even from the front. I will gladly face someone sitting around at speed 0 with rebels. Just focus fire the guy still at speed 0 with nebulons, which are equal in long range firepower to VSDs from the front at long range. Even if you choose to speed up later turns, you've let me get positioning on you first.

I think it's far, far too early to be talking about significant rules changes. I'm not against revision, but the game is only half released at this point.

The interesting thing from my perspective is that generally, it is more advantageous to ram another ship than avoid it through a full stop.