New to Armada, couple of questions related to it!

By Fragnatix, in Star Wars: Armada Rules Questions

Hi everyone,

First of all, this game is amazing! But some questions around it while the booklet doesn't seems to answer.

1. Squadron movements: If a Tie fighter for example has 4 of move, can he stop at 3 or 2, or he needs to move all the way to 4? And does he have a choice of moving at all in the squadron phase?

2. Navigation dial with command dial, or even token, if I have a Star Destroyer, victoria class, with a speed of 2, can I increase it? If i don't want to use the navigation dial ? Can i save the token for a round further? Can I trash the token whenever I want?

3. How does ramming works?

4. Question around Navigation command, if I change the speed of my ship, is it permanent for the rest of the game, until I have another dial or token to restart my ship or even stop it?

Thank yoU!

Welcome!

1) Squadrons can move anywhere between 0 and their max speed. In other words, you can move a TIE fighter squadron at speed 0, speed 4, speed 2.7, etc.

2) The current speed of a ship cannot exceed it's maximum speed, even with a Navigate dial/token. Since the max speed of a Victory is 2, and the one in your example is already at 2, then your Navigate dial/token can only lower the speed to 1. You can choose to save tokens indefinitely, but there are a couple rules you have to keep in mind:

  • You can only have up to one token of each type in reserve at any given time.

  • The total number of tokens a ship may save is equal to that ship's command value.

If you have a command dial revealed (or a token just taking up space in your reserve), you can spend it at the appropriate time and simply choose to not resolve its effects.

3) Example: If you lock in * a speed-2 maneuver for your Victory , but it cannot complete that maneuver because a nasty little CR90 is in the way, then you have officially crashed. The next step is for you to temporarily reduce your speed by 1 and try again to maneuver. You keep repeating this step until you can successfully complete a maneuver, or your temporary speed reaches 0 (meaning your ship does not move at all during this activation). After that, your ship's speed returns to what it was before the crash, and both ships involved in the crash receive 1 facedown damage card.

[* A maneuver is considered "locked in" only when the maneuver tool is attached to the moving ship's base. A locked-in maneuver cannot be changed, so don't do that until you are quite sure what course you want to set.]

4) Yes, any speed change done by a Navigate dial/token is permanent, until another Navigate dial/token changes it again. You can stop your ship completely, but keep in mind that no defense tokens may be used when you are defending at speed 0.

Hope this helps!

Edited by Quantum Dot Guy

3) Example: If you lock in * a speed-2 maneuver for your Victory , but it cannot complete that maneuver because a nasty little CR90 is in the way, then you have officially crashed. The next step is for you to temporarily reduce your speed by 1 and try again to maneuver. You keep repeating this step until you can successfully complete a maneuver, or your temporary speed reaches 0 (meaning your ship does not move at all during this activation). After that, your ship's speed returns to what it was before the crash, and both ships involved in the crash receive 1 facedown damage card.[* A maneuver is considered "locked in" only when the maneuver tool is attached to the moving ship's base. A locked-in maneuver cannot be changed, so don't do that until you are quite sure what course you want to set.]

Good explanation, QDG, thanks.

Just wanted to clarify on the quoted point, because it's easy to misunderstand how this works if you've never seen it happen before. I'll just quote myself because it's easier than re-typing it...

First of all, the way the rule is written:

If a ship executes a maneuver and its final position would overlap another ship, it cannot finish its maneuver normally. Instead, temporarily reduce its speed by one (without changing the speed dial) and move the ship at the new speed. This process continues until the ship can finish its maneuver, even if that maneuver is to remain in place at speed “0.” Then deal one facedown damage card to the ship that moved and the closest ship that it overlapped.

What does this mean? Let's use an example:

VxU8JrT.jpg

The CR90 is moving at speed 2. He really wants to ram the ISD, but not the MC30. He places the template like so, and tries to land at the third (speed 2) notch. He overlaps the ISD and the MC30. So he backs off to the second notch, where he overlaps only the MC30. So he backs off to the first notch, where he started.

On his projected course, the CR90 overlapped both ships. This means that both are "candidates" for having been rammed. How do we know which one it was?

the closest ship that it overlapped

So we measure to every ship that it overlapped.

0QJ1nyY.jpg

As you can see, the distance to the MC30 is larger than the distance to the ISD at the CR90's ending position. So, even though the MC30 was the first ship that the CR90 would have overlapped along the plotted course, the facedown card actually goes to the ISD.

I find it's easiest to think of it as a list of overlap candidates that is populated as you go through trying to accomplish your maneuver. At each notch of the prospective maneuver, you check every ship for overlap. Any ship that would be overlapped at that position goes on the "overlap candidates" list if it's not already on there. Then, once you have determined your ship's final position, you go through each ship on the overlap candidates list and check the distance to each one. The closest distance is the one that takes the hit.

Edit: sorry the pictures are awful quality and huge. GIMP and I don't get along too well. :/

Thanks for the elaboration, Ardaedhel (or in my own tongue, Tareldalantë ). It didn't cross my mind to look for an illustration, and the rules reference is quite helpful.

Welcome to the game!!!