Using Minefields as Imperials

By Boothy, in Star Wars: Armada

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Many imperial lists (particularly those including a victory or two) seem to take minefields as one of their objectives. Generally speaking this makes a lot of sense, the empire has a lot of short ranged firepower and generally slower ships that turn badly (very broadly speaking – I know engine tech gladiators are nimble and turn really well, even the regular gladiator is okay). The mines cut down the safe space that a more nimble fleet would normally exploit thus hopefully driving them into the empires guns. Easy right?


There seem to be a few ways to deploy the fields to make the enemy engage…..you can make a funnel, you can make one half of the setup area hard to navigate within, you can force peple out of their deployment zone etc.


Something that has been lurking in the back of my mind since the start of this game is how to turn someone’s mines against them, but I haven’t really given it too much thought, it’s in the box of ‘something to try further down the line, let’s get the hang of individual ships, fleets, and formations first’. Well, last night I had a game and the mines were well and truly turned against me:


It was an imperial vs imperial match. I was the second player and had:

Victory-I (Screed, expanded hangers)

Gladiator-I

Gladiator-I

5 Fighters

4 Bombers (including the major)


My opponent had:

Tarkin

Two Gladiator-I’s with all of the upgrades (ALL OF THEM)

A load of squadrons - something like 2-3 interceptors, 4 fighters (including Howl), 2-3 bombers (including the major).


The fleets aren’t that important and this isn’t a battle report. What is important is that we both have short ranged fleets, I have a load more dice and hull than him, but he is far more manuverable than me, and he is the first player.


I set the mines up creating three possible funnels – one down the middle with mines on either side. And one down each edge of the setup area, the funnels sides created by mines and the table edge. The strategy being – orchestrate a more or less head on collision where his greater manuverability is hampered by mines or the table edge and then grind them out with my greater hull points, attack dice, and bombers.


During deployment my opponent sets up to come down one of the flanking funnels, I setup to intercept. Then during his first turn the gladiators start using navigation commands and tokens to the max and begin turning through about 160 degrees to loop round into the middle funnel……..as you can imagine this still takes some time to execute (especially since I slam the breaks on and start repositioning my gladiators), however this immediately takes the victory out of the fight….or forces it to fly through my own minefield (nice move!)


At this point I figure I have two options, try and fluke a minor win….but my two bare bones gladiators really should not beat two maxed out ones barring mistakes/strikes of pure genius……or I fly straight down the original flanking funnel and refuse to engage….at that point we have a draw or a minor win one way or the other depending on what the squadrons do.


And now to the main point. While this situation could generate a draw that is not something we want forced against us by our own objective! If this had been a great matchup in a tournament I would have been gutted to have a potentially good win robbed from by my own mission.


This got me thinking on how I could make good use of the mines without enabling my opponent to turn them against me with his greater manuverability. The ideas I have so far are as follows (note that I haven’t actually tried deploying these yet, not sure if the distances work):


- Put at least part of the minefield in their deployment zone. This way if they pull a U-turn some mines will detonate.


- Mine one half of the setup area. This creates an extreme flanking funnel (which should be obvious if they are going down) and the rest of the table. It won’t restrict their movement as much as an optimal funnel, but it’s not as double edged either (hopefully).


- Set the mines up behind where my ships will be on turn 2-5 (depending on individuals play style), this should restrict where a more speedy fleet can escape to after making their initial attack run. Ideally we want to force them to either sit in front of our guns, overrun into the minefield, or disengage completely playing no further part in the battle.


What do we think? Anyone have any particularly clever (and safe if the opponent decides to play silly buggers!) ways they like to deploy the mines?
Edited by Boothy
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I think setting up lanes can work but as your example shows it is not a gauruntee. I think the best bet is simply writing off 1/3 - 1/2 the board by putting all the obstacles and mines on one side of the board and cut the board to a 3x3-4. Yeah the mines and obstacles won likely do anything but it still forces an engagement more on your terms.

Edit- and it's probably just me but your blue on grey text is hard to read.

Edited by Indomitable
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Trying things out on the kitchen table I've liked something similar to your second scenario for setting them up. I'll aim for a rough triangle blocking off about 1/2 of the opposing deployment zone, tapering off to block the short edge of the set up area. The thinking there is that my fleet likes those close engagements, so he fights more on my terms. Alternatively he splits his fleet up to go around the minefield, which isn't terrible. The only thing that makes me nervous is that my opponent might also what that close quarters fight.

I like your idea of putting the mines such that my ships can thread the gaps, forcing the opponent to either hit me, or run over the mines. My victory's like that, it hinders flankers, but my gladiators don't care for that since i'd rather use the broadsides.

A combination of the 2 wouldn't be bad at all.... Block off a chunk of the board, leaving a lane for the victory to fly down, while the gladiator(s) control the open area.

Edited by ransburger
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@Boothy, could you edit your post and remove the formating? It is dark blue text on dark gray background which make it unrreadable.

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Yeah, funneling doesn't really work with small base ships. The minefield is not thick enough to prevent them from crossing over. I vastly prefer to just deny half of the board. Really puts the fight on the VSDs terms

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I have edited the first post, hopefully its now black text…….I couldn’t see a dark grey background though, so let me know if that has persisted.

I had a play with a few more deployments last night as well. So far I haven’t found a way to set up a dense minefield that can’t be turned against me by faster ships trying to hide in a corner for a draw. I forgot to check the wording, but if memory serves the obstacles have to be deployed in the setup area, so there will always be the two blank funnels down the sides that the enemy can fly into if they want……so trying to block 1/3 of the table works if they want to actually engage, but if they run to the far side the field gets in the way again.

Setting up the mines just to the sides and behind my fleet was pretty good (I went for three groups of two). It can force some very precise moves from the faster ships if they try and fly through or round the formation, but the mini-fields don’t get in the way too much if the faster ships run for a corner.

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Funneling isnt all that great instead I would create a wall that forces them to fly straight through which allows a better change of a flanking attack.

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Don't be too afraid of a draw as second player, as you win the draw, and that puts pressure on player one to engage you.

Speaking as a Rebel who flies a twin NebB and CR90 fleet, I would worry more about losing half the area to mines, than offering me one or two lanes to fly through.

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Coastcityo - While player two technically wins a draw it’s a pretty hollow victory. Taking a 5:5 ‘win’ is only going to help in a tie break, it’s not going to help getting into a place where that tie break is very worthwhile. I guess this is the difference between casual games and tournament games. In a casual game a win is a win regardless of size (with variable levels of bragging rights I guess). For a tournament I’m trying to avoid instances when I have a match I feel I should win 8:2 being turned into a 5:5 by my own minefield (the type of match where I feel I can win, but not if my own ships have to get pummelled by my mines).

Kinnison – yes we can set a wall up, but I can’t see any way for a slow fleet to actually benefit from this if the opposing fleet is prepared to take a 5:5.

I see a few permutations with the wall strategy – A wall just outside the deployment zone, or a wall a move or two beyond the deployment zone (their 1/3 of the table). Position of the wall is then combined with speed of fleet on either side to give the variations in how this might play out.

Notionally a fast fleet could put a wall just in front of a slow fleet and run straight at it. If the slow fleet drives through the mines the fast fleet might catch them before the engineering commands nullify the mine effects (an engineering three ship with brace can repair the damage from a single mine in one turn unless it’s one of the more horrible crits). Alternatively if the slow fleet parks up/runs parallel to the wall the fast fleet could loop round behind them, the close wall should prevent the slow fleet from turning round safely. This seems like a good plan. No matter what the slow fleet does the fast fleet can turn it to its advantage.

It gets a bit harder when a slow fleet uses the mines. In a slow v slow match the enemy slow can go straight through a close wall and repair before the engagement. Or run parallel to the wall/stop and wait for the mine owner to either drive through his own mines, or take the draw.

I can’t see a wall ever working against a fast fleet…….they just jump straight over the wall without detonating the mines (a speed 4 ship – so CR90’s and engine tech gladiators – can leap over the mines from beyond distance one to beyond distance one). As long as they don’t loop right back around into the mines they can forget about them for the rest of the game. At this point they have the advantage of being first player and the second player has got almost nothing from their mission. The only advantage gained is it forces the fast fleet to be at speed 4 when it wants to leap the mines – not insignificant, but not major either unless you are fast enough to capitalise in return.

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and thus is the tactical problem all armies have face with fixed emplacements that the enemy knows where they are. Billions of monetary units were used for the Maginot line, and in the end it just made the Germans go around it through Belgium. Even Farragut's classic "**** the torpedoes, full speed ahead!" can be applied to this game.

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Great topic OP, and way to look for the next level.

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My point wasn't "a win is a win", my point is that in a tourney setting, it's better to take the 5-5 win over splitting your fleet and hoping you get lucky when rolling dice against a superior force. Those were the original options listed when this discussion started.