Hey guys !

I love this game very much and my post count on here is quite an indicator of that When it comes to on table tactics, I've been like a dog with a bone trying to fing awesome moves and plays fielding Rebels, and I'd very much like to make a blog or video series on Armada.

But, seeing that there are some very profilic writers, podcasts and video series out there, I don't want content to overlap too much with them, so I'm turning to you for ideas on what content would you like to see when it comes to Armada tactics and strategy

Feel free to pitch in ideas ! Otherwise, I was thinking of having a very focused approach on specific points of the game, with each article or video focusing on one point such as :

1) Rules and mechanics analysis

2) Placement, movement, deployment

3) Ship/squadron analysis without upgrade cards

4) Upgrade slot analysis

5) Upgrade cards analysis

6) Objectives

7) General tactics (target priority, activation)

8) General strategy (relative advantage, list building)

Thanks a lot

For what its worth the most common problem among Armada players is wrapping their head around the tactics of movement. In Armada this is both the single most critical element of the game and the most complex and difficult thing to get good at as well as the least commonly talked about subject about Armada. There is a huge gap in good tactics articles and videos about Armada movement.

What you can skip talking about is upgrades, generals and ships because the internet is quite literally drowning on information in this area.

I would specifically suggest not starting at the beginning either. There is a tendency of new bloggers and video bloggers to start with "lets learn about the basic stuff in Armada one card and one ship at a time" kind of thing which has been done to death.

I would recommend getting super deep into specifics right away and focus on presenting information people might not have already learned in a thousand other videos about Armada.

Not to discourage though we always need more bloggers! In particular there is a real shortage of experienced sort of expert level Armada players blogging. Its always far more interesting to read and listen to alternative perspectives and approaches to the common fair so I do agree if you can find a way to distinguish yourself from the rather repetitive content out there you would be filling a real gap.

If I see one more article that talks about how to build a Rhymer Bowl I'm building a Death Star!

Yea. Blogging is nice but I like the ease of just recording a vlog. I just did a Dengar vs Admiral Chiraneau video at a game store (will likely need to redo due to noise of MTG players) in all of 5 minutes. Followed by a battle report when Iskandar4000 showed up for our game.

Very interesting feedback you two !

@BigKahuna : Don't worry, I'm not discouraged or anything, content suggestions is the point of that thread, because I want to bring something different to the blogs and podcast that already exist. I'm a firm believer in everyone getting their own niche, no point in competing for content. You make a good case for advanced Armada tactics delving into the mechanics of movement and fleet maneuvers, this is a topic that I find extremely interesting and with which I'm quite experienced in due to playing a lot of small ships where placement and timing are crucial.

I will also love to provide alternative take on list building and general strategy, I love to shake the bees' hives

Overall, do you guys prefer the video blog format or the written format ? I plan on using Powerpoint-like pictures to illustrate my cases, so they work decently in both formats, it really depends on what people prefer

Finally, I was thinking about doing more like an "in universe" perspective for theming and fun purposes. For example, if and when I reference Earth based military concepts, I would use them as a mythical reference What do you guys think about that ?

EDIT : Keep them ideas flowing !

Blog with pictures are usually the easiest for people because they can go over things at their speed.

Don't make anything too long either

I for one prefer blogs over vlogs, but I'm not much into videos so I dunno if this is useful.

When learning, or concentrating on some subject, I prefer to take my time and think about what I'm reading rather than having it handled to me in a "it's like this, follow what I say" format. Plus, as a non native english speaker, it's much easier for me to read english than to understand someone speak it.

As for content of said blog, I too recommend you go into the details of things: devil is often found there.

My two cents I love write ups. Videos are great but sometimes a write up is all I can access (work, school, etc) a good write up with pictures is my preferred "study method" for the games I play

Personally I'd love to see more vids of complete games. The WWPD guys do this but (no offense) they often use lists that I won't play with or against (like the 7 corvette swarm, though that was entertaining). Mainly to see how other people set up and move their lists.

Very interesting feedback !

So, it seems that when discussing in detail a single concept, it's easier to have a write up with pictures so people can go back and forth within the different parts. But video format is more interesting to showcase multiple elements that take place over time as it actually includes time as a dimension of its narrative.

So far it looks like I'll begin by doing write ups and maybe move on to videos of battles if interesting or as illustration. I'm not a native speaker though, so I wouldn't want my awesome French accent to get your hormones going on, which explains why the video production might not be high in my priority list for battle reports (and for time reasons as well)

Can I suggest a "what if?" format?

Set up a situation (doesn't have to be too fancy) with say, the flavour of the week fleets and work through some permutations about what could happen next.

Obviously you can't work through all possibilities, but it's often interesting to wonder; what would happen had I turned into an attack rather than moving past or turning away?

While it's unlikely to give you a true conclusive outcome in many cases, it gives you a practical platform to show the strengths/weaknesses of different ships and the possibilities for their use.

Edit: the benefit here would be as much about demonstrating maneuver and order assignment as much as the best statistical dice combination.

Something that I find interesting is a 3rd party analysis of a game. Meaning like a sports commentator that is not actually playing the game but watching and analysing the actions and possible thoughts of both players.

This would be best presented in a timelapsed battle report with a voice over. That way it doesn't take forever but we can still see everything and you can pause/slow down the video to show crucial parts

Obviously the issue with this is time. Taking 2-3 hours to watch the game and comment and then another hour or 2 editing plus actually recording the voice over.

So that's what I would like to see

When discussing tactics/movements, both blogs and vlogs work for me. I actually prefer vlogs as it is usually easier to see the actual tactic/movement being discussed rather than trying to visualize it it my head while reading a blog (even if pictures are provided).

Something that I find interesting is a 3rd party analysis of a game. Meaning like a sports commentator that is not actually playing the game but watching and analysing the actions and possible thoughts of both players.

This would be best presented in a timelapsed battle report with a voice over. That way it doesn't take forever but we can still see everything and you can pause/slow down the video to show crucial parts

Obviously the issue with this is time. Taking 2-3 hours to watch the game and comment and then another hour or 2 editing plus actually recording the voice over.

So that's what I would like to see

My Local Store, TheSentryBox, currently has a Twitch channel dedicated to X-Wing on Monday Night, that provides overlays for the dice rolls / cards, etc, as well as full commentary of the battles each week.

Soon, that'll be branching into Armada.

I think that's something a lot of people will be wanting to see more of - Full Games that are broken down with Commentary and editing that shows everything, rather than just the table + talk... Which is a **** good baseline, and a hell of a lot of work already... But that editing stick might just be a bit further...

... of course, that may rely on me, the full-time-stay-at-home Dad to do, in his own time

When talking about ship movement and deployment, I wonder if using some limited animation might offer some insights? I usually prefer webpages to video as I can read it at leisure, or at work. But capturing the dynamics of movement and the relationship of moves amongst ships (CR90 vs VSD for instance) cries out for anything but a static image.

I'm not sure how best to implement that though. Animated gifs from vassal screenshots? Using a program like Prezi instead of PowerPoint?

Vassal will help in the limited pictures

Probably the most important thing for you to answer is:

What knowledge/skills do you have that would provide added-value to the community, in comparison to what's out there? (Also, more importantly, what would be fun for you to do?)

Probably the most important thing for you to answer is:

What knowledge/skills do you have that would provide added-value to the community, in comparison to what's out there? (Also, more importantly, what would be fun for you to do?)

I have a very particular set of skills, that I have acquired over a very long career On a more serious note though, I've got a pretty good track record at winning games and helping out friends completely outsmart their opponents through creative, result oriented thinking based on objective facts

The value added bit is precisely the point of the thread, I can think about a hundred things that would bring value to players, so I'm looking for what they feel is the most valuable to them.

Based on the feedback so far, I think I'm going to dip my feet into advanced armada tactics and analysis, based on thorough game mechanics analysis, in order to provide bold commanders the tools to understand the game at a high level and create their own playstyles based on that newfound comprehension.

For instance, I've read a few posts and articles about deployment and activation advantage and (no offense to the authors), I feel that they don't go far enough to explain what these two advantages bring and don't bring or how this actually relates to going first or second. I've seen people in my meta who absolutely wanted to go first yet did not have a fleet built to be ready to go first.

So, I'll probably take common topics and go one step deeper into the complexity and the strategic elements that you can take advantage of, which aren't particularily evident at first glance.

Sounds like my play style. It just ends up with me outsmarting myself. . .

Probably the most important thing for you to answer is:

What knowledge/skills do you have that would provide added-value to the community, in comparison to what's out there? (Also, more importantly, what would be fun for you to do?)

I have a very particular set of skills, that I have acquired over a very long career On a more serious note though, I've got a pretty good track record at winning games and helping out friends completely outsmart their opponents through creative, result oriented thinking based on objective facts

That's good. I'm afraid that my fairly decent track record is largely explained by my appeals to the Dark Side, which is creative, but process-oriented based on subjective notions... or something like that.

Based on the feedback so far, I think I'm going to dip my feet into advanced armada tactics and analysis, based on thorough game mechanics analysis, in order to provide bold commanders the tools to understand the game at a high level and create their own playstyles based on that newfound comprehension.

For instance, I've read a few posts and articles about deployment and activation advantage and (no offense to the authors), I feel that they don't go far enough to explain what these two advantages bring and don't bring or how this actually relates to going first or second. I've seen people in my meta who absolutely wanted to go first yet did not have a fleet built to be ready to go first.

So, I'll probably take common topics and go one step deeper into the complexity and the strategic elements that you can take advantage of, which aren't particularily evident at first glance.

That sounds pretty good. For my own sake, I hope you go with a written blog format (with illustrations), which is probably a better means of communicating complex ideas. But, some embedding of videos could also be helpful.

To be fair though, I don't think that the win/loss ratio is the best element to determine whether a statement is accurate as long it can logically be explained and can't be argued against, so I'm not discounting any ideas of people with no track record or a bad one as long as they're tactically sound ^^

Thanks for the vote of confidence man ! I'll probably launch a first article tonight or tomorrow to test the waters and get first feedback, I'll keep the community updated on that

Win ratio should never matter. If you have an opinion and can illustrate it, put it out there. That's how I have almost 300 subscribers to Armada Tactics News

Should you decide to go into movement, which I hope you do, maybe some time lapse sequences to show the tracks different ships might take over multiple turns.

I think you could do a hybrid, do a blog with pictures from above showing the board at the start of each round. Then explain the activation order, commands, and what happened for each ship that round. do that rounds 1-6 then at the end of the game you give your thoughts on what could have changed the outcome of the game, mistakes, deciding factor etc.. Give your analysis at the end. You then post a video of the match where people can see the actual movements and fine details. Maybe speed it up by 1.5 or edit parts of it but show the actual maneuvering of each ship. I prefer analysis to be in written form, the video is just nice to watch maybe with some play by play.

I would like some more articles out there on formation tactics, flanking, using commands properly with those tactics. I would like a video breakdown of different deployment strategies, for both a list with 4+ activations like Clon's current Vassal list and something that is more of a carrier and fighter list etc.. I know this would be very situation dependent but you could just give several examples, how to space say Raiders for various tactics etc.. It seems like people lose more because of improper activations, maneuvering, being out of position etc.. far more than because they weren't running whatever the current meta said to run.