I don't mind the canon inaccuracies. I mean, the CR90 (as an example) is about ten times too big. If it were correctly scaled then no one would believe it could ever damage an ISD, it would be like a a speedboat with a machinegun trying to take on a battleship.

But if we imagine that the ship is representative of a flotilla of smaller ships replete with support craft, then we can reconcile the size difference. And the size difference between the ISD model and CR90 models is large enough that it gives us an impression of how big the ships are compared to each other, and that's really a representation of the rules as a whole: They provide a representation of how a battle between the two forces might go, rather than an accurate simulation of a battle. It's more about the 'vibe' than getting the details right.

I personally think FFG puts way too much emphasis on upgrades and special rules, and I think they do this mostly as a way to promote sales and keep the tournament experience fresh which I dislike, but clearly a lot of people like it (although I also know a lot of people who don't like it).

Things that would happen if Armada was totally "canonically thematic":

There would be about 100 TIE fighters everywhere blowing up a few rebel squadrons...

The Empire would start with amazing destruction of the rebel scum but ****** defeat from the jaws of victory...EVERY TIME...

If you brought Luke he'd blow $h*& up ALWAYS at the end of the game for the win...

THIS IS ALL REBEL PROPAGANDA! IT DIDN'T HAPPEN THIS WAY!

ALL WE WANT IS ORDER AND PEACE...

Hang on what Star Wars movies have you been watching? I saw a single xwing blow up the Death Star. Then a single Awing took out Executor. Then back to Xwing + millennium falcon blowing up Death Star 2....

By that precedent a CR90 blowing up an ISD is totally doable. Maybe Dodanna had a covert operative sabotage the ISD deflectors at the opportune moment to let the CR90 hits through to score critical damage? That is totally Star Wars!!

Armada abstracts all the detail which is great because it allows our imaginations to step in and justify what happened. This is why the game is so **** good - yes the mechanics are great but also you are narrating your own goddamn Star Wars movie while you play it!!!!

If you brought Luke he'd blow $h*& up ALWAYS at the end of the game for the win...

I know you are joking, but this is a seriously viable tactic.

By that precedent a CR90 blowing up an ISD is totally doable.

? Corvette is too big to damage an isd.

I think a lot of canon idealist are way overstating the effectiveness of Star Destroyers. The size itself means that it can't bring all it's weapons to bear on something as small as a corvette and even though its designed with a wedge shape it actually can't shoot all of its guns forward. Watch ROTJ and even Rogue One. The Rebel fleets just doesn't automatically explode even when engaging ISDs at close range.

I'm not saying that ISDs aren't awesome, they are.; just not a auto win button even in the canon.

Hang on what Star Wars movies have you been watching? I saw a single xwing blow up the Death Star. Then a single Awing took out Executor. Then back to Xwing + millennium falcon blowing up Death Star 2....

don't forget what a few Y wing and a corvette did to 2 ISD in a more recent movie

anyone who thinks that having the most powerful weapon in a battle and expecting an auto win because the have the most powerful weapon WILL ALWAYS LOSE THE BATTLE. Battles are won because of tactics. those who know how to use there weapons, big or small, with the right tactics will always triumph against those that have no idea of battle tactics

Remember its not the size that counts its how you use it

Armada may look like Star Wars, it may sound like Star Wars but it is not Star Wars!

Armada is a tactical miniatures game with a heavy Star Wars skin and flavour.

When I brought into Armada I new it wasn't a Star Wars simulator. Afterall how can you have a simulator based on fantasy, on something that never existed?

It looks cool. It plays cool. And it is a game.

I think the problem many of us see is that the sliding scale that FFG uses is all kinds of off when it comes to ship stats.

For game balance a CR90 needs to be able to face an ISD. However it's VASTLY overpowered when compared to its cannon counterpart. In that same fashion, the ISD and MC80's are VASTLY underpowered when compared to their cannon counterparts. I get that they need a balance for gameplay, but this balance is way off base, the broadside of a Star Destroyer has twice the firepower of a Corellian Corvette?

Furthermore, Armada hasn't taken into account Activation advantage (their errata for Imperial Assault gives me hope) as such large ships carry an unfair and unfluffy disadvantage for being expensive.

With this in mind, let's look at an example: A pair of CR90s have the same broadside as an ISD-2, yet for (almost) the same points you get 3 CR90s. Now taking activations into account, the CR90s get 3 to the ISDs 1. With 3 concentrate fire commands, those CR90s now have more than double the broadside of the ISD. With the current fire then move order of operations, the ISD will typically only get 1 good shot off (if the Corvettes know how to fly) before being pinged to death.

THIS is what I have issues with, the large ships are so underpowered that they are more of a liability than a good decision.

All that said, there is no other game in town so I'm stuck dealing with it.

Edit: I recognize that in my example I'm not taking into account fleet support, this example was for ship to ship comparison.

I don't mind the canon inaccuracies. I mean, the CR90 (as an example) is about ten times too big. If it were correctly scaled then no one would believe it could ever damage an ISD, it would be like a a speedboat with a machinegun trying to take on a battleship.

But if we imagine that the ship is representative of a flotilla of smaller ships replete with support craft, then we can reconcile the size difference. And the size difference between the ISD model and CR90 models is large enough that it gives us an impression of how big the ships are compared to each other, and that's really a representation of the rules as a whole: They provide a representation of how a battle between the two forces might go, rather than an accurate simulation of a battle. It's more about the 'vibe' than getting the details right.

I personally think FFG puts way too much emphasis on upgrades and special rules, and I think they do this mostly as a way to promote sales and keep the tournament experience fresh which I dislike, but clearly a lot of people like it (although I also know a lot of people who don't like it).

10 times too big might be an exaggeration. Only 2 times too big would IMO be a correct estimation. I remember Rogue One and in it the CR90s seemed to be firing a pretty hefty amount of lazer beams.

Besides, do people know the history of the small American destroyer who heavily damaged a Japanese Heavy cruiser during WW2? Small does not always matter!

Thats all well and good. But it doesn't account for what else the ISD is good at, Gadgetron.

Because 3 Corvettes becomes 2 Corvettes when you Bomb them.

I don't mind the canon inaccuracies. I mean, the CR90 (as an example) is about ten times too big. If it were correctly scaled then no one would believe it could ever damage an ISD, it would be like a a speedboat with a machinegun trying to take on a battleship.

But if we imagine that the ship is representative of a flotilla of smaller ships replete with support craft, then we can reconcile the size difference. And the size difference between the ISD model and CR90 models is large enough that it gives us an impression of how big the ships are compared to each other, and that's really a representation of the rules as a whole: They provide a representation of how a battle between the two forces might go, rather than an accurate simulation of a battle. It's more about the 'vibe' than getting the details right.

I personally think FFG puts way too much emphasis on upgrades and special rules, and I think they do this mostly as a way to promote sales and keep the tournament experience fresh which I dislike, but clearly a lot of people like it (although I also know a lot of people who don't like it).

10 times too big might be an exaggeration. Only 2 times too big would IMO be a correct estimation. I remember Rogue One and in it the CR90s seemed to be firing a pretty hefty amount of lazer beams.

Besides, do people know the history of the small American destroyer who heavily damaged a Japanese Heavy cruiser during WW2? Small does not always matter!

Include a japanese battleship as well, one had parts of its topside structure set on fire by US destroyers, in one of the battles at Guadalcanal

I always imagine that the models on the table represent the holographic tactical image of the battle and the ships positions, where in order to identify each ship and squadron more easily, the models is a zoomed in image.

Imperial tactical holoprojectors is preprogrammed to show MC80 cruisers as much smaller vessels than the really are, in order to boost the ego of Imperial fleet commanders

Even though it would kill all the detail and personalization I love, I always thought it'd be interesting to see a collection with Rebel ships as just shades of blue and Empire as shades of red, so the entire game would look like a holotable.

For the most part, I think the game captures the 'spirit' of the canon just fine.

I mean, I think we can all accept that in our games of Armada the imperial player's 300 point fleet is one aspect of the gargantuan imperial Navy perhaps 30,000 'points' big, but that Rebel fleet with Home One over there is a much bigger proportion of their arsenal.

This is how I make sense of "balanced" fleets.

"Balanced Fleets on the Table" is not the same thing as "Equally Powerful Factions In All Respects".

10 times too big might be an exaggeration. Only 2 times too big would IMO be a correct estimation. I remember Rogue One and in it the CR90s seemed to be firing a pretty hefty amount of lazer beams.

Besides, do people know the history of the small American destroyer who heavily damaged a Japanese Heavy cruiser during WW2? Small does not always matter!

I just had a quick squiz at my models and I think the CR90 is between three and four times too big to fit into the hangar of the FFG ISD. As a quick scale comparison, this is the Zvezda ISD and it is scaled at 1/2700 and for this scale the CR90 is STILL too big:

And of course history is rife with David and Goliath examples. However it needs to be said, that most of the time Goliath wins...

At any rate, I don't mind the scaling issues too much. I think the core mechanics of the game are pretty good and it provides a very Star Wars feel to the game. I think there's too many powerful upgrades that almost break the game, but that's a personal taste thing.

I've always seen the fights that happen in Armada as those rare cases where the rebels saw a chance to assemble a fleet and fight an imperial fleet that was of roughly equal size. It's the story of those fights, not the ones where the empire had 10 star destroyers and just stomped the rebs (or there was no fight cause the rebs knew it was hopeless).

There are some odd situations in the rules, like if a squad of Tie Bombers were to stumble on a flotilla of transports out in the wild, they would never be able to kill them. It would take at least 2 squads of bombers to do it.. and it might take a while. But as an asymmetrical balanced game of interesting choices and luck that gives the gist of a fleet admiral in a big naval star wars battle, it's really well done.

I get that some people feel that ISDs should roll rebel fleets every time, but that doesn't make for a good game experience at all. Why would anyone ever play a game where the empire always destroys all the rebels? That isn't fun for either side.

Roll rebel fleets, not exactly. In Return of the Jedi we saw an ISD get blown up in the window of Admiral Akbar so they are not invunurable. But they are defiantly not the terrors that would suggest they are. It almost seems like given a fight between an ISD and a CR-90 the CR-90 could win? Okay well it can't but even in retreat a CR-90A still has the possibility of getting though the front shields of the ISD II. That might be a little out of theme. At least it was bombers and a specially designed frigate (for ramming) that took out the two Star Destroyers in Rogue One.

I hate to see this guy, the thread creator, arguing in a historical war game forum. The point isn't about being canonical. There's no fun if one player or faction just wins every time. The point of the game should be playability, reasonable fluff to mechanics, and fun factor.

And miniatures.

I hate to see this guy, the thread creator, arguing in a historical war game forum. The point isn't about being canonical. There's no fun if one player or faction just wins every time. The point of the game should be playability, reasonable fluff to mechanics, and fun factor.

And miniatures.

Sure lets just have another thread complaining about the overpowered squadron game. No seriously i would like to see thsoe big flagships become a powerhouse in Armada. I don't think the game is broken but clearly the ISD is the Armada equivelant of the TIE-Defender (Wave 4 launch). It has great stats but is too expensive to be effective in the game.

The ISD isn't effective?

... What?

I've seen a Warhammer 40k match where a Space Marine Knight got killed in 1 turn by a squad of Tau Infantry using EMP grenades (something like that). If that thing can happen, then a CR90 can certainly damage an ISD.

Back on topic, just like in ww2 naval games, a good game assumes a "fair" fight. Otherwise it's much more difficult to come up with rewarding scenarios for both sides... But how often did equal fights happen in ww2? Practically never.

I'm considered somewhat of a canon expert by those who know me. Have read just about everything EU, canon or Legends. Breathe and live Star Wars.

And I love the game, because it's a GAME, based on Star Wars....NOT a simulation.

As for two ISD wiping out a rebel fleet, someone needs to go see Rogue One.......

I did. And 1 ISD wiped out the entire Rebel Fleet . . . .

Cinematic license can be interpreted both ways.

No. An ISD wiped out the remnants of a fleet, some of which had already fled to hyperspace and the remainder of which had already taken heavy damage.

Omg games are not accurate portrayals? So you mean real life special forces don't heal from near death by not taking hits for a few seconds? You mean I can't command army's from a computer and have the units obey all orders instantly? All my truths are falling apart.

My only complaint too many squadrons interactions and diffetent abilities to keep track of. Does Biggs need his own squadron? Isn't he a wingman? I want this game to be about the big ships!