In your games of Armada, what lessons have your games taught you?

Here is one I learned tonight.

When you have less activations and are rebels use your speed and don't ram.

I learned a well timed increase in speed by two can allow a double tap followed by a fly by out of arc. Worked great with a nebulon with a victory bearing in..... Took a volley on the nose....lived. Blasted away with salvation, then jetted up to speed three and blew past the victory. Surprisingly effective as the vsd was then out of position and useless the rest of the game

Also, the rhymes ball becomes much less effective when the battle is split in two. Making the opponent decide on activating a capital ship first or the rhymed ball is useful.

Also, the rhymes ball becomes much less effective when the battle is split in two. Making the opponent decide on activating a capital ship first or the rhymed ball is useful.

You don't say...? I like the idea a lot.

But how did you force your opponent to split his fleet rather than just focusing down one half of your fleet, then the other?

Firepower is useless if you can't bring it to bear - maneuver.

Appease the dice gods before every game - dice matters.

1. Keep squadrons in command range of the carrier, thats after they move and after the carrier moves
2. Use squadrons to shoot the side of the ship that the carrier will be shooting at, especially when the carrier as XI7s
3. Squadrons are awesome
4. B in Bwing stands for Best!

“If I determine the enemy's disposition of forces while I have no perceptible form, I can concentrate my forces while the enemy is fragmented. The pinnacle of military deployment approaches the formless: if it is formless, then even the deepest spy cannot discern it nor the wise make plans against it.”

“If I determine the enemy's disposition of forces while I have no perceptible form, I can concentrate my forces while the enemy is fragmented. The pinnacle of military deployment approaches the formless: if it is formless, then even the deepest spy cannot discern it nor the wise make plans against it.”

Can you interpret that Chinese for us?

Me: Not to walk in front of any squadrons. Or Yavaris. I hate that thing.

Trick so far for me to playing against Yavaris is to fly away from it. Works like a Victory.

The most well known of which is to never get involved in a space war in Asia, bit only slightly less well known than that is to never go up against a Rebel Sicilian when death is on the line!

“If I determine the enemy's disposition of forces while I have no perceptible form, I can concentrate my forces while the enemy is fragmented. The pinnacle of military deployment approaches the formless: if it is formless, then even the deepest spy cannot discern it nor the wise make plans against it.”

Can you interpret that Chinese for us?

Edit: also I have to start applying this in my total war games more often

ECM is ungodly good against large ships.

Might as well make accuracy useless.

“If I determine the enemy's disposition of forces while I have no perceptible form, I can concentrate my forces while the enemy is fragmented. The pinnacle of military deployment approaches the formless: if it is formless, then even the deepest spy cannot discern it nor the wise make plans against it.”

Instead of coming in straight, come in at an angle. and angled deployment means your ships can move early to intercept instead of having to make a hard turn to move to the opposite end of the board.

Also: The best weapon upgrades are the ones that mess with Defense tokens, either by ignoring them (ACMs, APTs), reucing their effectiveness (XI-7s, Heavy Turbolaser Turrets) or directly harming them (NK-7s, Overload Pulse).

Slow ships in the right place at the right time are just as effective as a fast ship and may not have been accounted for by your opponent.

Fighters are a ship upgrade, not a unit.

“If I determine the enemy's disposition of forces while I have no perceptible form, I can concentrate my forces while the enemy is fragmented. The pinnacle of military deployment approaches the formless: if it is formless, then even the deepest spy cannot discern it nor the wise make plans against it.”

Can you interpret that Chinese for us?

He means that you don't make mindlessly adhere to your plans. Be flexible in what you do and the lists you build.

ECM is ungodly good against large ships.

Might as well make accuracy useless.

Home One guarantees accuracy for the brace and x17 nearly cancels out redirect for your AFIIBs and on the MC80 Intel officer + plus x17 achieves a similar end.

I'm curious how the erratad AP is playing out force Rebels? As I have not got in a proper (I had teaching game with a newbie, yesterday) game since the new FAQ. Are the imps packing x17s now? Are the Rebels being blown away, because they can,t redirect any more?

Home One guarantees accuracy for the brace and x17 nearly cancels out redirect for your AFIIBs and on the MC80 Intel officer + plus x17 achieves a similar end.

I'm curious how the erratad AP is playing out force Rebels? As I have not got in a proper (I had teaching game with a newbie, yesterday) game since the new FAQ. Are the imps packing x17s now? Are the Rebels being blown away, because they can,t redirect any more?

I have found that anything over 4 red dices is great with XI7's.

You need to be doing on average 4 damage or more.

Don't commit to one plan.

Don't be in a rush to hit the opponent. Sometimes going slow let's them make the bad positioning choice.

You don't need to win every game 10-0. Sometimes it won't happen, so fight for the draw/ least impact on your score.

Sometimes you have to give your opponent a distraction so good they can't pass it up to force a better engagement.

Think like a NFL coach: you can pull your units like a offensive line, or you can cross routes like receivers do. Pulling your line to one side while you have a Neb crawl up slowly is pretty effective for the last two to three turns. Typically by turn 3 or 4 your opponent has committed to chasing down its original targets, not bearing down on the incoming ship.

1. I have learned that not all intentional 'Collisions' are beneficial. Colliding and preventing an enemy ship from moving forward INTO your other ship arcs does him a favor. Collide responsibly.

2. *Low mobility and/or high Squadron count fleet shouldn't engage as soon as an all ship fleet. If your big hitters are in danger of dying at or around turn three there may be too much time left to escape. Whereas if you are on the verge of death turn 5-6, game end helps you. ex. If your opponent is already hitting your side and outside your VSDs front arc on turn 3...you are in trouble. Not so much on turn 5-6...hopefully.

3. I learned NOT to make risky single ship movements. If you are playing safe but take a risk with a single ship from time to time, you are only helping your opponent by giving him the obvious choice, taking away the possibility of a poor choice. If you are going to take a risk, make it with all your ships. Flood the area and force your opponent to choose. He can't hit every ship in that case. Risking one ship at a time *lets him takes away the chance he makes a bad decision about target selection.

4. Don't take someone's word on a rules question when you can look it up yourself. It takes all but 30 seconds of effort.

*Editted/Typo bits

Tantive with Raymus is great

Rhymer bomb is powerful but boring, good in tourneys but less so in friendly play.

Demolisher is horribly powerful but fun to play with and against, it intimidates me every time I face it but the challenge is fun to deal with.

Don't deploy your fighters in front of your ship unless you are opening with a fighter command. It just lets your opponent redeploy your fighters. Doh!

Ships turn slower than you think (except the corvette)

Imperials and Rebels are very different to play.

Nebs have weak sides

You must think of fighters as CAP and area control and not interception

Fighters need carriers.

You really need to understand LOS, arcs, range and ship angles.

“If I determine the enemy's disposition of forces while I have no perceptible form, I can concentrate my forces while the enemy is fragmented. The pinnacle of military deployment approaches the formless: if it is formless, then even the deepest spy cannot discern it nor the wise make plans against it.”

Can you interpret that Chinese for us?

He means that you don't make mindlessly adhere to your plans. Be flexible in what you do and the lists you build.

I don't believe that's what Sun Tzu meant with that statement. Sun Tzu is all about perception and misperception. Tvayumat is quoting two sentences that don't appear back-to-back in the translations that I've seen, but have a number of other statements between them.

The first sentence means: When I know where the enemy is located and what the enemy is doing, while he cannot do the same of me (because fog of war), then I can bring my forces together and strike at his divided forces.

The second sentence means: The best deployment is one in which your forces are concealed.

This is not particularly applicable to Armada, except in the deployment phase when your opponent doesn't yet know where you're deploying your forces.

Maybe also when you can make it so that you opponent thinks you're going to do one thing, when you have carefully laid plans to do something else. This is also something that's difficult to pull off in Armada, because the ships don't move on a dime, and planning the navigate commands to change your 'disposition' comes at a cost of other things. Also, your opponent may be clever and take into account what you might do in addition to what you look like you're doing.

'Collide Responsibly' love it

Garm is underrated; nav tokens will save your ass so hard

Always nav token on everything

Never speed 1 on Nebs except in extenuating circumstances; it turns you into worse VSDs (same chart, far worse arc distribution)

The vulnerability of Neb side arcs is overrated

Titled Nebs are absolutely disgusting

All Nebs are inherently expendable if they let you kill something else

Imperial no squadron is overrated and easily countered by Bwings

All squadron is overrated and easily countered by imperial no squadron

Concentrate fire (not the command, I mean actually pour all your fire onto one target if possible; heavily mitigates defensive tokens)

Planning ahead sometimes means ignoring VSDs or ISDs when knowing you cannot bring sufficient concentrated fire to bear; instead going for the squishier GSDs even it means the larger destroyers get to plow through your (expendable) small ships

ISDs look amazing and WILL dominate your table (visually)

“If I determine the enemy's disposition of forces while I have no perceptible form, I can concentrate my forces while the enemy is fragmented. The pinnacle of military deployment approaches the formless: if it is formless, then even the deepest spy cannot discern it nor the wise make plans against it.”

Can you interpret that Chinese for us?

He means that you don't make mindlessly adhere to your plans. Be flexible in what you do and the lists you build.

I don't believe that's what Sun Tzu meant with that statement. Sun Tzu is all about perception and misperception. Tvayumat

is quoting two sentences that don't appear back-to-back in the translations that I've seen, but have a number of other statements between them.

The first sentence means: When I know where the enemy is located and what the enemy is doing, while he cannot do the same of me (because fog of war), then I can bring my forces together and strike at his divided forces.

The second sentence means: The best deployment is one in which your forces are concealed.

This is not particularly applicable to Armada, except in the deployment phase when your opponent doesn't yet know where you're deploying your forces.

Maybe also when you can make it so that you opponent thinks you're going to do one thing, when you have carefully laid plans to do something else. This is also something that's difficult to pull off in Armada, because the ships don't move on a dime, and planning the navigate commands to change your 'disposition' comes at a cost of other things. Also, your opponent may be clever and take into account what you might do in addition to what you look like you're doing.

[blah, blah]... Sun Tzu... [blah, blah]

This is not particularly applicable to Armada, except in the deployment phase when your opponent doesn't yet know where you're deploying your forces.

Maybe also when you can make it so that you opponent thinks you're going to do one thing, when you have carefully laid plans to do something else. This is also something that's difficult to pull off in Armada, because the ships don't move on a dime, and planning the navigate commands to change your 'disposition' comes at a cost of other things. Also, your opponent may be clever and take into account what you might do in addition to what you look like you're doing.

With each new form of war, new concepts on these old tried and true methods are evolved to fit the style of war.

Yes, and that's why Sun Tzu is timeless.

However, despite all the books that Sun Tzu has inspired (e.g. Sun Tzu and the Art of Business, Sun Tzu: Strategies for Marketing, Sun Tzu's The Art of War for Romantic Relationships, The Art of War for the Management Warrior), there are some really nonsense applications. If you can apply something to anything, that something is probably worthless. (Unless it's duct tape. Duct tape is awesome.)

I'm sure you can find clauses in the Art of War that apply to flexibility and changing your plan, but I don't think that Tvayumat's passage would be the one you're looking for. Also, they'd be so general that you'd probably have to mangle the original intent in order to make it practically applicable to games of Armada. I don't think you'd really find much there that people who are used to and good at tactical/strategic games would not already find intuitive.