Armed Stations - Orbital Defenses and Platforms

By jhox, in Star Wars: Armada

Has anyone tried using armed stations in their friendly games? Space stations with guns of their own that can fight back? If so, what rules did you use?

I've been thinking about it myself for themed games and missions - I can very easily see a station as a big thing with four evenly-spread hull zones and its own Squadron and Repair values. But would it gain access to defense tokens, being stationary? Would it still have orders?

I'm guessing the simplest way to do it would be to treat it as a ship with Speed 0, but would love to hear more thoughts.

I would class one as a speed zero ship but since it is a space station designed to operate while stationary I would allow it to use defence tokens (apart from the evade of course).

Depending on size I would give it 2x180 degree arcs or 4x90 degree arcs, at least one redirect and 1 brace. Add on shields, hull and attack dice to taste.

It could activate as a ship With orders as normal but the Navigate command could allow the base to rotate clockwise or anticlockwise by 45 (token) or 90 (command) degrees.

I'm really hoping we see stations come out with some new objectives in a synchronous release. I think there could be a lot going on there.

platform gets defense tokens because it can change facing/move.

It can use repair, Activate fighters, and fire power command I let it change facing at will. up to 1/3 facing change per turn.

I also dropped this cards weapons to 2 of each dice color because with 3 when ships got close was popping them like corn. :) used in 5 big 6 player games so far and people like trying to kill it. It is a hard nut to crack with 6 tie fighters and Howrunner.

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Edited by ouzel

platform%20MkI_zpsn3rdvuuz.jpg

Who put this XQ5 on Drugs?

xq5-platform-imperial-card.jpg

Edited by DScipio

I was just about to say, that XQ platform has some ridiculous firepower. :)

The is no real need to have them rotate, unless you were going to assign each section (facing/arc) a set number of hull points, once they are reached, that facing is dead, can no longer fire etc, have it lose a set amount of repair points so repair 4 total, 1 per facing assuming you go with 4 90 degree hull zones.

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The is no real need to have them rotate, unless you were going to assign each section (facing/arc) a set number of hull points, once they are reached, that facing is dead, can no longer fire etc, have it lose a set amount of repair points so repair 4 total, 1 per facing assuming you go with 4 90 degree hull zones.

Just the ability to rotate to get a new face to the enemy, and thus new adjacent hull zone allows those redirects to save your butt from one extra major attack.

Edited by cynanbloodbane

shield facing But mostly pointing the field of fire line at a place you think the target ship will be to get 2 attacks on one ship ;)

They also should only have 3 hull zones to match the design and lay out.

and the extra weapons are not over the top at all, because all they can do is defend a spot on the table and if you time your move right, kill it in one turn.

Edited by ouzel

I think it's pretty boss.

I think to use it we need to put new objective cards in place. In Attack you're trying to destroy the station and you get the value of the station in points to spend on units/upgrades before units are placed. Defense is basically the same except you opponent gets the points to buy stuff. For navigation the station is unaffiliated and hostile. They will fire at the closest ship to them in each arc every turn.

One other rule I would add, and it would mean adjusting dice on the station. Stations by virtue of not moving allow designers to build in larger reactors and other equipment. Because of this larger power budget, bases can fire both anti-squadron as well as normal batteries from all firing arcs every turn. It sounds brokenly overwhelming, but will simply make players maneuver in range of the station with caution.

XQ5

How is that thing worth 400+ points?!

XQ5

How is that thing worth 400+ points?!

Its not. I think the way I built it and used it, its about 120 + the tie fighters

being stuck in place makes it a easy target and if your not getting dabble attacks on it with every ship in range you need to practice your ship driving.

then again it seems there is more same fleet ramming around it when it's on the table

Edited by ouzel

XQ5

How is that thing worth 400+ points?!

It forces you to take a title. The titles are all -400 points. Yes, it's very unnecessary and probably could have been done better.

They also should only have 3 hull zones to match the design and lay out.

I was just thinking that same thing...

I might almost take a run at creating a card for a 3 hull zoned version. Anyone know if there's a template out there or is it all just gonna be copy and pasting?