Okay, so, I know we have X-Wing already, but part of me wonders if it might be fun to adjust the rules of Armada to only use Squadrons for smaller, quicker games of Armada. Basically, you'd skip the ship phase and go straight to the Squadron phase. Activated squadrons in the squadron phase can move and fire in the same manner as if they were activated by a ship's token/command dial. It would probably be prudent to trade off activations one to one, rather than two-by-two like in regular Armada.

Of course, it'd make bomber-type ships much less useful, but I think it'd still be entertaining to play some of these games (especially while we wait for Wave II to drop )

Before I get the obvious reply of "Why not just play X-wing then!?": the way you deal with squadrons in Armada is far more simple, and thus, I think it'd lend towards much more casual, fast paced matches. You could pump out two or three games in the time it took to play a single game of X-wing or Armada.

That sounds very interesting. It would be cool to see something like that. I'd just have to make a few points.

1) Points limit. Maybe 150 max otherwise it could get hairy. 300 points of squadrons? Wowzers.

2) Saturation. I see people rolling all Interceptors or all A-Wings or the ilk. it would be made quite basic in some ways and cut out many of the units.

3) Objectives. Would you just blast all holy hell out of each other until no-one is left? Or do you have objectives of sort?

(For number 3 I'd love to see a trench run if objectives were to play. X-wings, Y-wings, TIE Fighters and Vader TIE Advances. Could be cool.)

4) Clusterf**k Clusterfun. It may just snowball into a massive engagement where everyone is engaged at which point Escorts will have a serious impact.

5) Obstacles and The Station. The obstacles sort of become useless and the Station becomes a boon if used properly.

It seems perfectly feasible with some rule tweaking but I wonder if the playability will be worth it. Will it be fun or will it be meh? I make no judgement, I just pose the question. If one has any ideas for rulesets please post them and maybe the community can give it a go. We've got all ship builds anyway, eh? Why not give it a go with the squadrons.

While you might see some attempts at spamming, I don't think you'd actually get many effective lists of it. Rules like Counter and Escort could be used to efficiently put the hurt on lightweights like A-Wings. You'd have to play around with points limits to find something that felt comfortable. I'd want to try out the game at 50, 100, and 150 points to see how each of them feel.

You could also throw in some scenario-type matches. Maybe the Rebel ships have to defend a Nebulon-B transport that's undergoing emergency repairs, or, like you said, the Death Star trench-run. There are a bunch of ways that you could make it more interesting, and having such a lightweight set of rules regarding how they operate makes it all the easier to do so.

You'd have to adjust the rules for obstacles somehow, that's true. Dunno what you'd do exactly. Maybe their opponent gets less dice to hit them with if they're in it, but they also chance taking damage when they enter and leave it (making it a risky but potentially life-saving maneuver, like Han going into the asteroid field in Episode V).

Another fun side effect would be it allowing people to show off their well painted starfighter minis more!

Also: This will be even more fun once Wave-II gives us the Rogues and Villains pack!

I've thought about this although rather than squadron vs squadron fleets I would like to try come up with rules that would allow a fleet of ships with or without fighter support to face off against a fleet of pure squadrons.

The problem I have thought of re just allowing fighters to move and shoot in the same squadron phase is that it makes the rogues rule a bit pointless. So you need to find something to replace that with or adjust the value of those units.

I was considering giving character squadrons the rogues rule and another rule called leader which allows X Squadrons within close range to activate as though activated with a squadron command.

I'd definitely like to here what you come up with as I picture rebel fleets of starfighters dropping out of hyperspace without capital support as an iconic rebel raid.

I think it's an interesting proposition for the purpose of testing out different squadron options for in the real game, but I don't think it'd be that great of a game in its own right.

In my mind, squadrons are intended to be a side-show to the main event, which is the ship-to-ship combat.

Totally agree, Mikael. The attraction I have though to the squadron-only game is sorta like this: say you're at a game night event, and your game finishes a bit earlier than your friends' game. Rather than having to twiddle your thumbs as you wait for your friend, you could fit in a squadron-only game in that time. Maybe even two! So, yeah, I don't think it'd be a main attraction, but it could be a fun little diversion between matches or while waiting.

Isn't it called X-Wing?

Isn't it called X-Wing?

Called it.

Does not work. I go U go makes it a stupid game of exchange. Bombers would be utterly useless. The Imperials would have an auto win with the Vader, Fel, Mithel combo.

so why would i use bombers in an all sqaudron game?

no, there needs to be one command ship. Otherwise it is kind of silly.

Bombers could be used for scenario based games, as described above. Example scenario:

"A Nebulon-B has been severely damaged by an Imperial patrol. While they were able to ultimately fend off their attackers, the Imperials will certainly be returning, and in greater numbers.

The Rebels have sent several squadrons of starfighters to protect the damaged ship, though repairs may take some time.

And unfortunately, they've run out of it..."

Begin the game with a Nebulon-B adjacent to the Rebel Player's set up area. The ship has lost its shields, and is at speed 0 for the game. It can muster up some anti-fighter capability, but only enough to have an anti-fighter value of 1 Blue, and it can only fire from one of its arcs per turn, what would normally be the ship phase (pre-squadron activation). The ship also doesn't receive commands; its captain is busy making repairs to get them underway as soon as possible.

The Imperial fighters and bombers have a single objective on their mind: destroy the Nebulon, and further weaken the Rebel cause.

You'd have to play around with the points to figure out a fair balance for this scenario. I'm thinking 100 points per side, that way you can't get too many named characters, but the Imperials will still have a descent chance of killing the Nebulon. The Imperials have the advantage of only having to kill the Nebulon, but the Rebels have the advantage of the Nebulon's defensive fire to add to their attacks.

I was kicking around this and think that if each side played 1 CR-90 with what ever commander you want, upgrades are limited to 20 points, it would be really fun. Think of it like starwars battlefront 2 where you have a counter for figther reinforcements or if you can deal 40 points of damage to a CR-90 you win.

What if we played x wing with just the huge ships? Makes you think.