I would make the bonus for destroying ships at close range related to the ship that was destroyed original cost. Say 50% of the value?

I had just been thinking about Objective Cards, DA! Do you have a link to those templates or somewhere to DL them?

Yes, the first of the new objectives. Very cool DA!

The Imperial Intradictor experiment may be put on hold until next weekend in favor of a little GAR vs. CIS battle. My plan is 100-150 pts, so I can test the three droid squadrons vs a mix of GAR squadrons. My intent is to go with a max squadron list for both sides, with a single medium ship. Upgrades and the admiral will make up the difference.

I had just been thinking about Objective Cards, DA! Do you have a link to those templates or somewhere to DL them?

Not yet. They're a bit of a mess right now as I've built them for my own use... I'll tidy them up for easy editing when I have some time.

Wes, I'd rather avoid any in-game arithmetic beyond simple addition. Plus I actually prefer objectives not to be build-neutral. Anyway, the cheaper, faster ships are going to be much harder to catch at close range, especially in a swarm fleet with activation advantage, so it's self-balancing to some extent. Nevertheless, given the reduced lethality of the scenario, I suppose the incentive to close in might need to be a little higher. I guess I'll change it to 25.

Fair enough, I just figured it seemed kind of underwhelming at 15 pts.

Yes, I agree completely. When writing the card, the VP bonus was an afterthought - obstruction was the primary effect. I then added obstacle movement as a 2nd player bonus, but it still felt a little bland. So I added the VP bonus... but now that feels weak. Ah, the fun never ends

...and 3 more:

Wounded Prey is strongly asymmetric, in that only the first player has an objective ship. As with Most Wanted and Advanced Gunnery, its value is double if destroyed. However, if it survives, its owner scores 75 points. The catch? It starts with 3 damage cards and one gets flipped up each round.

Stand-off Engagement is purely squadron-centric: all squadrons gain Rogue, but are worth double points at the end. Probably not a top pick for CIS due to the Droid keyword - on the other hand, the second player gets an all but assured first strike.

Battle Line increases lethality on both sides: The second player places six tokens in the play area; ships near those tokens gain rerolls while attacking. The second player can reroll 1 die for each nearby token; the first player is limited to 1 die even if there are multiple tokens in range.

Mel just dropped the LAAT bomb. Another Republic Squadron anyone? I think I am going to simply start with a Victory and add some Republic squadrons. Time to repaint a Vic.

I know this may not be the ideal time to mention this, but did we forget about the Vindicator Cruiser? Mel makes a great model and we don't have any stats for this modular cruiser short of the 418.

Ah yes, I never bothered with the Vindicator because it's not a ship I was very excited about and, if I recall correctly, you had already put together a perfectly good card for it. I don't recall the stats off the top of my head, but I do remember agreeing with them. I'll try to find it (I assume it's in your Heir thread?) and make a Shipyards-styled version.

As for the LAAT, I guess I'll recycle the Board keyword from the DX-9 and ATR-6. Is there anything unusual about it that needs to be reflected in the stats?

Here we go, along with a revised Interdictor:



The Vindicator is slightly tweaked as I felt the original stats were a little too close to a VSD-II. The Interdictor is almost unchanged, but I dropped the speed to 2 to prevent it being used off-role as a cheap and durable speed-4 anti-squadron platform with Engine Techs (which still let it achieve speed 3). Now it feels more like a proper support ship. Also replaced the artwork for better results when printing.

Hey there -

I was looking at your work, and I'd say I could definitely open a section on Armada Warlords for your stuff. This section would be specular to the existing default Armada one, which won't be touched, but it will show all your work as it does for the standard stuff. Plus, I could open a fleet builder that will merge canonic Armada with your custom assets, and a completly separate one for Clone War stuff. We can discuss of all this if you like.

Nevetz

That's awesome of you Nevetz to offer that and I REALLLYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! hope DA takes you up on that offer. It would be amazing to have these cards to be in one of, if not the best fleet builder for armada. I support that 100% if that maters what so ever.

That's awesome of you Nevetz to offer that and I REALLLYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! hope DA takes you up on that offer. It would be amazing to have these cards to be in one of, if not the best fleet builder for armada. I support that 100% if that maters what so ever.

Well he asked in my thread some time ago, so now that AW has most of the basic things up and running, it's quite easy for me to branch my database and framework for an expansion such as DA's work. Meanwhile I can proceed with my works on the main application, which will also affect a possible expansion.

I do think that neither me nor DA have something to lose with such collaboration.

If we find a practical way to make this work, it would definitely be amazing . I've sent you a PM to discuss the details.

I really appreciate your kind offer!

Thanks Diablo, the Vindicator was going into our playtest list. I am also excited about the fleet builder prospect, very cool. Lots to include though, hope you like work Nevetz lol.

As a side note my group is going on another playtest bender over this next month along with wave 2. We are taking a serious look at Tie Avengers, E-wings, Z-95s, Gunboats, Imperial Shuttles, Assault Transports as well as the Dreadnaught, Interdictor and now Vindicator.

I know we don't have a Tie Avenger profile yet but it will be going under the following profile for testing:

Tie Avenger

Escort

Counter 1

Speed: 4

Hull: 4

Anti-Squad: 4x Blue

Anti-Ship: 1x Blue

13 pts

If you can find some good card art for it and mock us up a base model the group would love it. Many of us have models for these guys already flying about.

On another note, we have many E-wing games under our belts at this point and we all agree that the Red/Blue bomb combo was too powerful, but the lone red is underwhelming and the X-wing at a point cheaper is preference. Our final suggestion to mitigate this is to use a more consistent blue dice instead. This should give the best result between damage vs power. We also gave Corran more running at his current text and have a simple suggestion. Re-word it to:

'After you destroy an enemy squadron, spend a defence token and each other squadron engaged with you suffers 1 damage.'

Otherwise increase his cost to 20 cause he is an angry dude.

I need to stop being busy so I can just do this stuff. Dammit guys...

I like a lot of the new objectives. As soon as Myrmecology and I get the wannabes in our area into the game properly (we're all too busy, I hate it), I for one am going to run away with the new cards. We're at a point where we both take only the same three or four objective cards, so the new six should mix it up. (Hopefully the newbies can do that too, but that involves getting them to play...*indistinguishable angry muttering*) Neither of us are going to complain about a fleet builder either. Doing all the fleet calculations by hand is a pain.

I really like the new Vindicator cruiser. It's nice and punchy, fairly durable, and most importantly, the above while being cheap , something the Empire's capital ships don't do well. It can definitely come out of drydock for a spin. For the TIE Avenger, I'm skeptical of those stats. Against an Advanced, I'm going up a point, losing one HP, but picking up Counter 1 (which is a gigantic pain, especially with Escort in play) and a blue AS die. As an Imperial player, all my Advanced would immediately be supplanted by the new fighter (although I have taste in high-power high cost squadrons to begin with; I fight like an American, sue me). If you dropped the battery to a blue, or picked up another point in cost, I would consider it balanced but that is just my two cents.

Thanks for the input Pallaeon. The 4 hitpoints with escort however is also squishy. And it is supposed to be blue anti-ship, not sure why I wrote black. I edited that above. Looking for ace ideas.

As an Imperial player, all my Advanced would immediately be supplanted by the new fighter (although I have taste in high-power high cost squadrons to begin with; I fight like an American, sue me).

Isn't that why the Avenger was invented?

How rude do you want it to be? Supposedly the fighter was equipped with tractor beams and missiles, so options are variable. You could reduce the speed of enemy fighter units within distance 2 (3 if you think 2 is too short, but distance 3 is a long way), or let accuracy results count for damage, roughly equivalent of Darth Vader (maybe only one accuracy per attack can count this way?). For the pilot, I'm lost, although Steele supposedly flew this ship. The Avenger was the evolution of the Advanced x1, which was Vader's personal unit. The Avenger then evolved into the much better known and produced Defender, rendering it the lot of the MiG-19, excellent in its own right, but supplanted in the historical consciousness by its predecessor and successor. And yes, the Empire was experimenting with less expendable fighters, but the bulk of the fleet remained unshielded TIE/LNs and TIE/INs. Units like the Avenger, Advanced, Defender, Phantom, et al., were all flown by small elite units. Of the above, only the Defender reached full production. Harkov prevented the Avenger from doing the same when he attempted to defect, despite Vader's approval for it.

What was the consensus on the named squadron idea, one token apiece, for fighter cards? We've got plenty on our plate but I'm curious what we think. I've forgotten what happened last this was brought up.

Also, for those following my dreadnought experiments, an enlarged Providence-class warship will be the first off the slipway, as soon as the shipyard receives the final technical readouts. (I'm having file issues, but once those are sorted I have a printer ready to go.)

Hmm the tractor beam simulator would be cool for the elite pilot ability. I am familiar with the Avengers back history, I was just more in the tune of giving you grief over your loss of Vader's personal tie swarm. Plus my guys love the the Avenger and how it looks so it is only fair to feed their addiction.

I think there was discussion about single defense token elite squadrons, but I don't believe anything was ever agreed on in that regard.

Good to know on the E-wings. I haven't sprung for E-wings yet, but as I just recently found my old Dark Empire graphic novel, it is only a matter of time.

As it is, I am trying to figure out how to get a starting CIS fleet, all the Thrawn trilogy ships, and all the old WEG ships into my next few orders from both Mel and Utar.

Speaking of the Thrawn trilogy, I am going to give creating a unit or two of Space Troopers a go as soon as I can track down my Epic Space Marine bits box.

For the V-wing ace that is still lacking, may I suggest, a "Red Guard" Squadron, Palpatine's personal guards during the closing years of the Republic, later renamed the Imperial Guard.

Seems like a reasonable starting point for the Avenger, though as you guys know I'm fond of units with glaring weaknesses (Ints are squishy, Advanced aren't punchy), as I find them much more interesting than efficient, well-rounded jacks-of-all-trades. My main fear with the current proposal is that it would, in effect, replace both, at least at that price point. Which may fit the lore (in that it probably would have, had Harkov not interfered), but also weakens the game overall. A way around this could be to make it a named-squadron-only unit in the vein of the Jedi starfighters, with only a few unique cards (e.g. Alpha Squadron and Avenger Squadron, and/or even Marek Stele and E.C. Nerwal).

For the E-wing, a change to a blue battery die seems very reasonable. I'd have thought most people would regard red as better (I sure don't, but I understand that it can feel like a greater potential threat, which has non-negligible value in itself), but if your group is happy with that tweak then so am I. I have to say I'm surprised by the feedback re Corran's ability; my instinct ranks it as slightly worse than Mithel's (same effect, less dependable trigger). Though maybe Corran is so much harder to kill that it will inevitably end up surrounded. Could you elaborate on your experience?

Corran is an easy one. In most games Mithel is moving into combat usually no more then once before being aced by some quick thinkers. His only other way of being able to activate is with Intel or Chirenau once engaged so really he requires additional investments to work. Corran on the other hand takes more damage and is usually going after the weakest or wounded enemies frequently with his attacks, sometimes allowing him to trigger 3-4 times a game. Even better when my enemy used Yavaris and Corran to attack twice, killed two tie flights, and dealt two damage to each other tie flight. Lets just say his damage total was about 16 in one turn. Rare case, but shows that his ability is capable. The sacrafice of the defense token also helps make him vulnerable while using it.

The blue dice on the E-wing was a hot topic yesterday. We actually sat down as a group and discussed it over about an hour. Nerdy I know but a fighter that everyone loves the look of so it got a lot of attention. The 25% increase in chance to a roll a damage was deemed more worth while then the 1 in 8 chance of 2 damage. This also reflects the larger torp payload over the X-wing in our mind.

I brought the Avenger in as a general squadron cause I am pretty sure that everyone playing Empire at my end has at least 4 flights of them lol. I think you would be suprised at Imperial thinking. 13pt squadrons really dip into their swarm mentality. And being what the custom world is I doubt we would see the masses swaying to Avenger replacement builds. 90% of my players want them cause 'They look cool.' which is half the fight to begin with in model games.

In further discussions we looked at the K-wing and Missile boat as well. The idea of fast and heavy assault bombers was really interesting. We sat there thinking about how to make SLAM work in Armada then we realised this could simply be reflected in the crafts speed. The thought of the K-wings multiple turrets was also a debate. In the end we felt a similar dice profile to the stock YT-1300 would best reflect its anti-fighter capabilities. Essentially they would both be heavy but quick for their size. If I remember the missile boat moved near Tie Defender speed... Either case minimal anti-fighter with heavy, speed, durability and one scary anti-ship punch along with a point cost to reflect their special nature. Anyway just a thought.