Bored at work the other day and though of what if we did armada type game with conventional naval forces?
Edited by chr335Real life Armada
Bored at work the other day and though of what if we did armada type game with conventional naval forces?
Funny you mention that:
I've always thought that Armada works really well for several game types. Certainly WWI and WWII navel. Also I was thinking just the ships applied to older Age of sail. Certainly Star Trek seems to have a nitch, but Babylon 5, BattleStar Galactica, Star Gate, and other space opera. Perhaps the Honorverse?
Its a fairly strong system.
Surely the propellers wouldn't work in a vacuum..... ohhh I see. 
You could potentially use it with a number of historical scenarios. As with all conversions, you'd have to figure out what to leave it, what to take out, and what to modify. WW2 might be a relatively easy conversion to make compared to other, but I could see using Armada as a blueprint for any naval battle.
Let's say we try using the system for something like ancients (Greeks, Romans, or even some medeval scenarios like the Vikings). We could easily remove squadrons and the squadron statistic. We'd have to make some more rules for boarding (maybe as simple as changing the anti-squadron rating to a boarding rating). Maybe we change the squadron statistic to something like morale to illustrate the importance at that time in history. Shields could be replaced with manpower (or warrior rating, representing where the soldiers are located on the ship). Yes, there would need to be other changes but it just illustrates the ease of adjusting the system to fit a completely different setting.
I was thinking modern warships and battleships. Red dice to be missiles, blue big guns and black torpedoes. Squadron commands would be the same but you need a dedicated carrier to field any.
I've been thinking about the same with the use of the maneuver tool for instance, the idea of dmg cards and even engineering tokens with appropriate themes. Where I think it slightly falls about is in the dice aspect. Blue/Red/Black really don't map well to pre-dreadnaught to WWII era shooting. The mechanics around armor plate being able to deal with certain calibre and smaller guns again, just doesn't fit in my opinion but there is no doubt the lure to design something that would.
That nexus point of fun game, reasonable historical accuracy and decent game mechanics isn't necessarily as easy as you think it might be....
So yeah I've been working on something. It would be crazy fun to work directly with FFG on something like that, but um yeah .. dream on I guess.
In the meantime....
I've been thinking about the same with the use of the maneuver tool for instance, the idea of dmg cards and even engineering tokens with appropriate themes. Where I think it slightly falls about is in the dice aspect. Blue/Red/Black really don't map well to pre-dreadnaught to WWII era shooting. The mechanics around armor plate being able to deal with certain calibre and smaller guns again, just doesn't fit in my opinion but there is no doubt the lure to design something that would.
That nexus point of fun game, reasonable historical accuracy and decent game mechanics isn't necessarily as easy as you think it might be....
So yeah I've been working on something. It would be crazy fun to work directly with FFG on something like that, but um yeah .. dream on I guess.
In the meantime....
I think you could make up an "upgrade" card that can let a larger ship do more compared to a smaller ship or class. The smaller ships might not even need a card where as a battleship/dreadnought might have 2 or more. There's enough space for a work around various mechanics. What's historically reasonable will differ on the individual too. No, you couldn't make it so historically accurate that it's in league with a game like War in the Pacific, but it doesn't need to be.
Plus, I think a game like armada has relatively easy to teach rules that it would be a great con game.