What follows is mostly second nature and "common" sense practice for experienced players, but puts terms, and mental images to many techniques commonly used in games of Armada. I apologize for any incoherence in advance.

Introduction

Formation flying, in my experience, is probably the single most important aspect of winning at Armada and elevating your game, but it is not the only aspect. Engagement Area Development, or EA Dev, is one of those other elements. A properly developed battlefield can disrupt your opponent's formation, while an improperly utilized obstacle can come back to bite you in the butt. What follows are my thoughts on EA Dev as it relates to Armada. To skip the fluffy definitions and read the other important parts (it's all important), go on to the second reply (Screening).

I lay this out by first defining what I mean when I say engagement area, giving several tidbits of personal experience in using pieces of terrain, going in depth describing various obstacle patterns, and finish with giving some closing thoughts

Definitions:

The engagement area (EA) is first a mental construct, and then a physical manifestation as the battle plays out. As a mental construct, the EA is how you view the battlefield prior to deploying your forces and how you plan to deploy your forces. You do this in order to (IOT) take advantage of obstacles to seize, retain, and exploit that advantage with respect to your opponent's forces and the objective in play. As a manifestation, it is how you react to unfolding events (RNG and maneuver commands) IOT seize, retain, and exploit battlefield advantages.

Development is a part of the mental construct. As a mental construct, for the purposes of Armada, this includes the placing of obstacles and planned deployment of forces. These posts will focus on the mental construct portion of EAs (pre battle) because the manifestation would just be too much.

In short, the EA is where the bulk of the battle takes place, but it has to be more nuanced in your mind than "pew pew" in order to be an effective construct, leading to a devastating manifestation. Thus, EA Dev seeks to establish methods IOT facilitate your strategy and achieve the manifestation you want.

The way I see it, EA Dev should be influenced mainly by your fleet composition, the objective, and by whether or not you think you can out-brawl (table) your opponent (their fleet composition). How big of a win you want should also come into play.

Tidbits

The objective: I view objectives as needing different types of engagement areas—brawling, funneling, turtling, and screening objectives.

The magnet: the station tends to act as a magnet. If you can place it first, place it first to help dictate where the battle will take place.

Steeplechasing: positioning yourself so that an obstacle located between you and an enemy ship forces them to take a non-optimal maneuver. They must decide to land on the obstacle but catch you in a primary double arc, "jump" the obstacle and land in your primary arcs, or slow down and stay behind the obstacle.

(in this steeple chase, whichever player has initiative has a significant advantage over the other for forcing a close range double arc)

Backstop: a lone obstacle that can be used offensively or defensively. Rather than being placed for effect, backstops usually are identified as the battle plays out, and you maneuver to make use of them.

Offensively, it goes behind your ships, so that an enemy ship attempting to make a pass is faced with a hard choice. IE, an MC30 has last-first activation against you. It lands in double arcing close range, shoots, and then attempts to get out of dodge. A backstop gives them no good options to do so. Either land on an asteroid, or land in the primary firing arc of a ship that has yet to activate. This is much more useful as second player you position your main ship (or whatever you think your opponent is going to gun for) so that their last/first ship can't just shoot and scoot without a scratch.

Defensively, it is the station, and you want to land on it after making a pass on an enemy ship. In some instances, a debris field is plenty acceptable to hide a ship in, and certainly preferable to landing in most primary arcs. In my own preference, for brawling scenarios, I always use the station as a backstop, and I accomplish this by placing it centered on my opponent's deployment edge. Using fast ships, I'll make a pass on their ships and aim to land on the station turns 3 and 4.

Screening:

These objectives often include objective ships and some objective tokens/pieces. Most wanted, hyperspace assault, and Intel sweep are good expamples of when to screen. I have also had success with screening for Station Assault, which might work better with a turtling EA Dev. Each objective is not pigeonholed to one strategy

In the screen, you want your opponent to come to you, but you want them to take a specific path or pay dearly for it. As second player in most of these objectives, you often receive "deployment advantage" in terms of placing the obstacles. Use this to your advantage to "draw a line" and place a "pike."

Draw a Line: You place the first obstacle, and then your opponent places his. Wherever he places it, you will always be able to make a relatively straight 3-point line with your second obstacle. If he/she places it in an opposite corner or something, then you'll just have to build your own line and deal without a pike. You can go for equidistance, near side stack, or far side stack. The line should be slanted towards the middle (pics to follow).

Place a Pike: this is an obstacle that forms a mouth to the funnel at the open end. When your opponent comes up to the mouth, they either enter the funnel, skirt to the outside, or eat it. So it should probably be an asteroid, but bigger obstacles have a better effect at the pike position than on the line. If the big asteroid is taken, go with a debris field.

Offense vs defense: the screen can be used offensively or defensively.

Offensively, the screen should be placed so that the wide open end is facing your opponent (far side stack), and closer to your opponent's edge. It is best used with small ships against large ships. You want the line to be tight so that it provides cover to your incoming swarm and prevents them from weaving through the line without taking damage, and works more like a funnel than a screen. This forces 1 of 3 things: they go fast to jump the line, they fly along the screen (essentially making it a funnel), or they deploy away from the screen. Use deployment advantages to try and read where your opponent intends to direct their main force so you can prepare a flanking element.

(Offensive screen: the lone asteroid is the "pike." placing the obstacles this way only allows enough of a gap for their ships to come through one at a time without hitting obstacles. The station is a magnet, because that is where your ships are headed)

Defensively, the screen protects the objective (ship, token, etc). The obstacles should be placed further apart, and the wide open end should be facing you. The key difference between screening and defending with a turtle comes into play during manifestation. You need to view the screen as a mobile, living defense. The location of the EA changes round by round in a screen, whereas a turtle tries to hold it in the same general location. But now I'm starting to digress from EA Dev into tactics.

(Defensive screen: the positioning of the line between ships allows for steeplechasing. Again, the station (where your ships will be) acts as a magnet, pulling them across the line to you.

The Turtle

Honestly I rarely use this because I rarely use turtle fleets. It's simple, really. Just use the station as a solid foundation around which to build a barrier to your flanks.

Typically, turtlers will try a corner deployment (for ships) or something cheesy like that, but I like to have the ability for some good aggro when I turtle. So what follows is not simple turtling.

In my turtling, I determine that the fight will take place in front of the station in the middle of the field. This does expose you to significant flanking, but it also presents you with a lot more flexibility for escape routes and not getting pinned down (IE, trapped in a ramming bubble or getting pooped on by Rebel Bombers (hint- if you're facing a bomber heavy list, don't try to turtle). I use the station as the central position from which my turtle will deliver devastating blows and recover much hull (thanks to ramming mechanisms and invoking of obscure rules). Around the central position, I have erected barriers, barring the approach of my opponent for getting in range of my weak hullzones.

Central Position: Place the station central to the battlefield, and right up next to your own distance 3 edge. Ideally, your opponent will "not see this coming" and will place his/her first obstacle close to the station. They have decided for you where the first barrier will go, and thus which direction your fleet should deploy in. If they don't, then you erect your own barrier. When you deploy, you should aim to be on the edge of the station by the end of round 2. The heavy fighting will commence round 3 or 4, so landing there now will ensure that you don't get blocked from landing on it in round 3, and you can still land on it with your tail end if you don't get blocked.

Barriers: Barriers should ideally consist of 2 obstacles placed side to side, at distance 1. If your opponent places an obstacle in a position acceptable to be used as a barrier, emplace your next obstacle off of theirs. They have just helped you create the first barrier, and you are free to form a half barrier for your other flank with your remaining obstacle. If not, make your own barrier to protect where you see your flank being on round 3. Ideally, this is centered around the station (I keep saying that, it must be important).

During the battle, your opponent will try to identify avenues of approach to get into the weak arcs of your turtle. Using obstacles to form barriers against those future avenues of approach will hem them up as early as deployment- they will need to decide upon deployment/round 1 wether they will speed ahead to try and jump the barriers to start shooting on round 3 (risking being engaged early themselves) or play it safe to line up shots for round 4 (thus increasing the effectiveness of your turtling strategy). You will gain an understanding of how to employ barriers to best influence your opponent's battle tempo as you play more games.

(in this beginning third round pic, the empire has elected to try cutting off the space pickle at the front, but the presence of the debris-asteroid barrier is inefficiently placed to force a steeple chase of the raider. Additionally, the rear barrier goes completely unused, but has allowed a flanker to flank. Despite the empire successfully getting around the barriers, the rebellion has achieved the EA they wanted and influenced the empire's maneuvers through using the barriers as deterrents. Something will eat at least 2 Ackbar side arcs this rounding the pickle will stay on that station)

(in this match, Rebels have the initiative against a Contested outpost. Clearly a turtling mission, however my opponent has gone with a corner screen EADev, having placed 4/6 obstacles with a hard boundary to his left, and an obstacle screen to his right, he has canalized himself without many options for an escape route or controlling where the battle will take place)

(halfway through the third round. The Arqs were suppose to flank both of my sides, but his hard boundaries prevented one of them from being able to do so. He still got off great shots, but limited maneuvers forced them to take some crushing blows, and his ISD was herded right into powerful double arcs. However, my rear MC30 did get steeplechased pretty hard on that first asteroid, but the ISD went down before I jumped the rock into a front arc)

Brawling

Really, any obstacle deployment strategy can suffice in a brawl, as long as you don't hamper your own ship deployment strategy.

Does your opponent have low hull ships? Place the asteroids first near your opponent. But don't place them too near the station, as they could easily eat a damage card one round and discard it the next. Debris fields are much better placed between your opponent and the station because the station can't repair those shields. You want to maximize passive damage potential from obstacles.

Alternative to using obstacles is just scattering them to the four corners. This is ideal for large ships. Use your own ships as barriers to cover the flanks of your important ships, and don't worry about running into obstacles.

When to Choose Which Obstacle Strategy

It comes down to fleet composition and objective choice. Several articles have already been written on formation flying, and offer good tips on how to maximize your fleet's potential through formation tactics. Which tactic is your fleet best suited to? Fast and flighty? Use the screen or funnel. Target saturation? Use a turtle or brawl.

Some of my general categories regarding objectives (some fit into more than one category):

Colors: it really doesn't take a genius to recognize that a red assault objective is ideal for brawling or funneling. Yellow defense objectives are ideal for turtling or brawling. And blue Navigation objectives are ideal for screening or funneling. Like, it's basically in their name. So the rest of these obstacle deployment strategies will only list objectives outside of their respective ideal colors.

Screening:
Most wanted (protect your objective ship, isolate your opponent's)

Turtling:

Funneling:

Brawling:

Im mentally exhausted at this point. Can't function. More to follow. Maybe.

I'm kinda following, but if you ever get pictures embedded, itll be much clearer. What exactly is a pike? The word itself doesn't help me that much to figure it out.

1 hour ago, Blail Blerg said:

I'm kinda following, but if you ever get pictures embedded, itll be much clearer. What exactly is a pike? The word itself doesn't help me that much to figure it out.

The idea is like a "turnpike," in roads from back in the day. Basically a way to force a ship to commit to going either left or right.

And im trying figure out the picture thing. Doing this all from my phone

I gotta admit, reading through this I was waiting to hear you incorporating fires. Very helpful read.

[ img ] www. Image . Png [ / img ]

Upload to a image sharing site, such as imgur, and copy the .png or .jpeg link.

@Parkdaddy

Adding some images would turn this from a wall of text only readily available to those already in the know, to a great article.

Dare I add pretty please?

10 hours ago, Green Knight said:

@Parkdaddy

Adding some images would turn this from a wall of text only readily available to those already in the know, to a great article.

Dare I add pretty please?

Pictures here.

12 minutes ago, Ardaedhel said:

Pictures here.

Shhhhhush!!!

Dont give away all my secrets...

but I am working on the pics. I've setting up and taking photos all morning since I have the day off.

It's tricky doing it when you're playing against yourself. So much easier when you have an opponent

1 hour ago, Ardaedhel said:

Pictures here.

My eyes are bleeding. An infantry officer I am no longer. I crave ships, like a true admiral.

The pictures will begin rolling in today. I'm going to try getting some "candid" pics during a match today.

And if I find enough time, I could probably find a few battle rep pics from other's posts to copy-paste here and point out some good engagement areas.

I enjoy this a lot thanks! Great stuff, the pictures are worth 1000 words

Bump. (Thank you!)

On 26.3.2017 at 6:58 PM, Parkdaddy said:

The pictures will begin rolling in today. I'm going to try getting some "candid" pics during a match today.

And if I find enough time, I could probably find a few battle rep pics from other's posts to copy-paste here and point out some good engagement areas.

You could also use vassal. Just for the top-down images.

7 hours ago, Green Knight said:

You could also use vassal. Just for the top-down images.

Second this. Even if it did nothing else, Vassal is fantastic for creating clear illustrations of these kinds of posts.