Does anyone have advice on how to set up 2 vs. 2 team games (600 points max per side, with each player bringing a max 300 point list)? There was a previous thread discussing the rules used at Worlds, but the big question that I didn't see an answer for was how to handle objectives and initiative.

My group here (Cincinnati) played a team game last night and it was a blast, but with more ships and points on the board, some objectives definitely seemed unbalanced. So we decided to not use objectives at all, but rather to flip first activation throughout the game. Team with lowest points total got to decide before we started whether to go first on the 1st, 4th, and 5th turns, or the 2nd, 3rd, and 6th turns. The idea being that going first during the 4th and 5th turns is most beneficial, giving some reward to the team that won the bid.

Any additional thoughts on planning 600 point team matches? We'll be exploring custom objectives next (a modified Station Assault, for example, sounds like fun).

Usually either 200 Pts per player or normal 400pts just one player does ships and the other does squadrons.

The advice of the Rulebook is as follows (Bold Emphasis Mine):

Team Play

Star Wars: Armada is designed for two players, but it can be enjoyed by more; simply split the players as equally as possible into two teams.

Each team controls one fleet.

Each team must also nominate a Team Commander from among its members.

Each player takes exclusive control of one or more of his team’s ship and squadron cards and makes all decisions for the corresponding ships and squadrons. This includes choosing commands, attacking, spending tokens, etc.

During the Command Phase, each player chooses commands for only the ships that he controls. He may discuss his choices with his teammates, but he must do so openly at the table and cannot show his command dials to another player.

During the Ship Phase, the players must agree on which ship to activate when it is their turn to activate a ship.

During the Squadron Phase, the team must agree on which squadrons to activate.

If teammates cannot come to an agreement on a choice, the Team Commander makes the final decision.

If all of one player’s ships and squadrons are destroyed, his team continues to play and can win by destroying all of the opposing team’s ships or by having the highest score after six rounds.

So, reading into the Situation:

If we're going to maintain the spirit of the rules, and not the Letter:

Setup of Obstacles should be done by agreeance, and without agreeance, the Team Commander. Boom. Solve that part of the issue....

But when it comes to "fair" and "points":

Objectives and Obstacles are based around the 400pt Game... If you are increasing the Game Size by +50%, then you should consider increasing rewards for objectives by the same amount, and the amount of obstacles by the same amount... Make Contested Outposts worth 30 points instead of 2 per Token, for example... To avoid minimalising them as scoring bonuses.....

The advice of the Rulebook is as follows (Bold Emphasis Mine):

Team Play

Star Wars: Armada is designed for two players, but it can be enjoyed by more; simply split the players as equally as possible into two teams.

Each team controls one fleet.

Each team must also nominate a Team Commander from among its members.

Each player takes exclusive control of one or more of his team’s ship and squadron cards and makes all decisions for the corresponding ships and squadrons. This includes choosing commands, attacking, spending tokens, etc.

During the Command Phase, each player chooses commands for only the ships that he controls. He may discuss his choices with his teammates, but he must do so openly at the table and cannot show his command dials to another player.

During the Ship Phase, the players must agree on which ship to activate when it is their turn to activate a ship.

During the Squadron Phase, the team must agree on which squadrons to activate.

If teammates cannot come to an agreement on a choice, the Team Commander makes the final decision.

If all of one player’s ships and squadrons are destroyed, his team continues to play and can win by destroying all of the opposing team’s ships or by having the highest score after six rounds.

So, reading into the Situation:

If we're going to maintain the spirit of the rules, and not the Letter:

Setup of Obstacles should be done by agreeance, and without agreeance, the Team Commander. Boom. Solve that part of the issue....

But when it comes to "fair" and "points":

Objectives and Obstacles are based around the 400pt Game... If you are increasing the Game Size by +50%, then you should consider increasing rewards for objectives by the same amount, and the amount of obstacles by the same amount... Make Contested Outposts worth 30 points instead of 2 per Token, for example... To avoid minimalising them as scoring bonuses.....

I didn't really even think about how the Rulebook discusses this, but I like the idea of maintaining the spirit, if not the letter, as much as possible. I suppose since we've upped the point total, we've voided the warranty, so to speak, and normal rules and setups don't really apply. I'd love to hear how the Worlds Team Tournament ended up going, since it has some official status being an OP event.

I'd imagine it's handled with one set of objectives per team, with obstacles handled as normal since the playing field is not increasing in size. I don't see scaling up objective rewards as being necessary, as each team is handled as a total, and not two individual, during end of match scoring.

I'd imagine it's handled with one set of objectives per team, with obstacles handled as normal since the playing field is not increasing in size. I don't see scaling up objective rewards as being necessary, as each team is handled as a total, and not two individual, during end of match scoring.

And I'd agree... if the Battle were still 400 points.

WHen you consider the weighted shifts of objectives - in a Standard 400 pt Game, Contested Outpost can potentially net you 120 points... A Good almost-25% of a potential score addition...

If you don't change anthing, then in a 1000 point game, Contested Outpost can potentially net you 120 points... Now, that score addition is barely 10%.

It weights things differently.

All I am suggesting is keeping the Weights even proportionally.

I'd imagine it's handled with one set of objectives per team, with obstacles handled as normal since the playing field is not increasing in size. I don't see scaling up objective rewards as being necessary, as each team is handled as a total, and not two individual, during end of match scoring.

And I'd agree... if the Battle were still 400 points.

WHen you consider the weighted shifts of objectives - in a Standard 400 pt Game, Contested Outpost can potentially net you 120 points... A Good almost-25% of a potential score addition...

If you don't change anthing, then in a 1000 point game, Contested Outpost can potentially net you 120 points... Now, that score addition is barely 10%.

It weights things differently.

All I am suggesting is keeping the Weights even proportionally.

Of course. My core argument is that scaling is something that should be considered... Wether or not one needs to quibble on the status of the scaling is another thing indeed... I tend to approach these things from a clinical, rules based perspective of "how can we maintain the spirit and letter as much as possible"...

Which would entail scaling based on any and all changes to the game size

My view often neglects "simple fun".

Dras is rigth (as habitually) on the fact that scaling the objective will keep the interest in them.

Don't forget that those objectives are what's making this game more interesting than only destroying your opponent for the win.

If it's worth anything, I played in the team tournament at Worlds and I can confirm it was one set of objectives (unchanged) per team and the team with the lowest combined fleet score decided which team was first or second player. The game proceeded exactly as a normal game, except when it came time for your team to deploy/activate, you could choose which person deployed/activated.

If it's worth anything, I played in the team tournament at Worlds and I can confirm it was one set of objectives (unchanged) per team and the team with the lowest combined fleet score decided which team was first or second player. The game proceeded exactly as a normal game, except when it came time for your team to deploy/activate, you could choose which person deployed/activated.

If it's worth anything, I played in the team tournament at Worlds and I can confirm it was one set of objectives (unchanged) per team and the team with the lowest combined fleet score decided which team was first or second player. The game proceeded exactly as a normal game, except when it came time for your team to deploy/activate, you could choose which person deployed/activated.

Thanks for the first-hand info. Did you all form teams and build lists ahead of time so that they were complementary, or was it a random pairing by faction at the start of the tourney? I can't remember if registration for this was discussed on here.

Each player brought a list of max 300 points, then when determining which team would have initiative, each team calculated their total fleet points by adding the 2 player's lists together.

Since the 2 players on a team couldn't share unique cards, you really had to meet before playing to get your lists together. At worlds, they put out the registration list exactly 24 hours before the start of the team tournament. It was a little strange - they only put 8 slots to sign up, plus a section for alternates. FFG ended up letting everybody play who signed up including all the alternates. I don't know why they only planned on 8 teams... but good on them to let everybody play, and in fact I heard they were frantically looking for 1 more team to sign up so that nobody got a bye. Having 3 hour rounds, in a 2 game tournament, would have really sucked to get a bye in.

Oh yeah, that's one other change - a 3 hour round.

As far as pairings, it was exactly like a regular tournament, so completely random for the 1st game, and then seeded normally for the 2nd game.

If you won 1 game, you got a set of the acrylic objective markers (not the tokens, the ones that the top 8 players got). We didn't win our 2nd game and I never heard what the 2nd prize was. IIRC, the participation prize was an alt art Luke.

All in all, I highly recommend the team game tournament at worlds - it was an absolute blast to play in, plus had some fun prizes too!

Also there was no point system, just purly based on win or loss, therefor the non scaling objectives weren't an issue as much.

Two wins got you the plastic alt art VSD 1

Whenever we did a team game it was always just basically a one V one game but we'd divide a larger point total in half and each player would have that as their fleet and freely share things.