I like Armada like everyone else, but a small thing I find a bit annoying is how round 5 and 6 are often "optionnal rounds". In a lot of games, you have ships running away from each other and therefore can't take good shots, resulting in a lot of people coming to an agreement that the game is over instead of wasting time just moving ships/squadrons around.

I think a little change that could keep the action going is to let the redirect token to keep its effect while going at speed 0. This way, some ships might be less inclined to keep their speed up and might risk taking a non-braceable shot by staying at speed 0, just so that pesky mc30 or CR90 doesn't go outside of their main arc for an additionnal turn.

It might be a too big of a buff to MC30s (they could stay black range longer as well), but I think big ships like ISDs and MC80s might find this interesting. The risk/reward becomes a big part of the strategy and perhaps it would make the later rounds more action packed than what we have right now.

Anyway, I'm throwing that idea around. Consider it food for thought.

... you dont need to park your ship to start taking double shots. you have to lead the opponent's ships and learn to guess where they will be afterwards. this is a HUGE part of the game. why take away a part of player skill? to make it more list-centric?

I find that rounds 5-6 are still very important. Those turns literally make or break it for my fleets since I play super aggressive and will chase you around. The only reason I wouldn't have something to shoot at is because I killed my target or my ship died. And in the cases where there is little action going on, we can end the game early. So I don't see a down side in either case.

I don't see how this rule would benefit large ships. They can't use their other defense tokens, which is typically needed to keep them alive. It would enhance H9s power as well. Just need to roll 1 Acc and change another die and now they don't get any defense tokens. More importantly, they get to waste an ECM on a Redirect instead of a Brace.

If you have problems with keeping the fighting going, a smaller map would work better. 3x5 or 3x4 would prevent ships from running away, but that also gives a huge buff to large ships and nerfs MSU because there is less space to maneuver.

More importantly, I don't think there is any situation where I would want to be at speed 0. It takes too long to get back up to speed unless I have Comms Net helping. If I want to stay in place, I'd rather ram and stay speed 2 or 3. Maneuvering is the best way to keep the action going.

6 minutes ago, Kikaze said:

... you dont need to park your ship to start taking double shots. you have to lead the opponent's ships and learn to guess where they will be afterwards. this is a HUGE part of the game. why take away a part of player skill? to make it more list-centric?

where's the logic in redirect not working because you're not moving though

2 minutes ago, Sybreed said:

where's the logic in redirect not working because you're not moving though

where's the logic in a ship with 1 hull remaining fighting with full dice?

this is a game, not a simulation.

and games should be "easy to learn the basics, but for mastery, as complex , difficult and skill-intensive as possible". your proposal eases up so many things regarding maneuvering.

9 minutes ago, Undeadguy said:

More importantly, I don't think there is any situation where I would want to be at speed 0. It takes too long to get back up to speed unless I have Comms Net helping. If I want to stay in place, I'd rather ram and stay speed 2 or 3. Maneuvering is the best way to keep the action going.

This. So many people gripe about the ramming rules; so few actually use them effectively.

I end up with a ram or two in most games just to keep me in position. And I do it with one of the most cost-inefficient-hulled ships in the game.

12 minutes ago, Kikaze said:

where's the logic in a ship with 1 hull remaining fighting with full dice?

this is a game, not a simulation.

and games should be "easy to learn the basics, but for mastery, as complex , difficult and skill-intensive as possible". your proposal eases up so many things regarding maneuvering.

okay sorry I annoyed you.

you did not annoy me. i am trying to understand why this game should become easier by allowing easier use of good fire arcs. its self explanatory that games should be hard, right?

3 minutes ago, Kikaze said:

you did not annoy me. i am trying to understand why this game should become easier by allowing easier use of good fire arcs. its self explanatory that games should be hard, right?

the main goal was to make the later rounds less boring stuff by keeping the ships closer together. In my last few games, we always ended up skipping round 6 and counting the MoV

I left a flotilla at speed 0 for 2.5 turns against Broba the other day near an mc30.

It took two medium range front shot and then activated as my second ship to move at speed 2 into close range side arc where it scattered.

Dont be scared of speed 0, you know the odds.

3 minutes ago, Sybreed said:

the main goal was to make the later rounds less boring stuff by keeping the ships closer together. In my last few games, we always ended up skipping round 6 and counting the MoV

Many battles I'm in have turns 5-6 be the place where the remaining squadrons try to leverage more points and push a victory before the game is over.

It sounds like this is more a result of your play style and lists. Which is totally cool.

If you have nothing left in turn 5 but squadron-less ships facing away from each other - it could certainly make for a boring end game.

Just now, Democratus said:

Many battles I'm in have turns 5-6 be the place where the remaining squadrons try to leverage more points and push a victory before the game is over.

It sounds like this is more a result of your play style and lists. Which is totally cool.

If you have nothing left in turn 5 but squadron-less ships facing away from each other - it could certainly make for a boring end game.

hmmm it could be. The squadron meta hasn't picked up as much here. Mostly because we have a 4 MC30s/Salvation Rieekan player kicking our asses, squadrons shooting at him or not. It's quite scary.

3 minutes ago, Sybreed said:

the main goal was to make the later rounds less boring stuff by keeping the ships closer together. In my last few games, we always ended up skipping round 6 and counting the MoV

If that's the problem, how many points is being destroyed on both sides? If it's over 300, the game is basically over. If it's under 100, you or your opponent is not being aggressive enough. In between is the questionable area.

I'm all for this rule change. It let's me kill ships easier if my opponent is dumb enough to drop to 0. And it means I know exactly where my opponent will be, since it's either speed 0, 1 or 2, which really limits the range of movement. Ozzel can extend it, but still, you're at 0.

Instead of a rule change, upgrades would be a better way to implement this idea.

Offensive slot: You may spend 1 defense token when you are at speed 0 while defending.

MC30s can't take it, so you don't have to worry about that. ISDs and MC80s can take it and ECM so they can protect that token.

It's not uncommon for my games to end up like OP's. Very broadly speaking, if a (non-Madine) MC30 swarm doesn't table you on turn 3-4, the last half of the game is likely to be him running away at speed 4 with you chasing his shieldless, tokenless hull-2 ships trying to scratch out those last couple of points of damage.

This is very much tied to play style, though. Squadron lists, in particular, need that fifth and sixth round to make their money after the fighter battle is resolved, and that's often the most devastating part of the game for those lists.

I dunno, I definitely agree with your point that rounds 5-6 tend to be lighter on the action, but I'm not sure that's necessarily a bad thing. The action of the game rises R1/2, peaks in R3/4, and falls R5/6, and I think that's just good pacing. Gives you strategic space to flex your pacing earlier (Dras' face-punch round 1 Rhymerball) or later (defensive Ackbar AF2's or VSD fortresses), and keeps the game from feeling unresolved because you were right in the middle of an epic fight in turn 6. And if nothing is going on for those two rounds, it doesn't really take that much time to resolve them anyway, so it's not like you're sitting through an hour of nothing happening.

2 hours ago, Sybreed said:

I like Armada like everyone else, but a small thing I find a bit annoying is how round 5 and 6 are often "optionnal rounds". In a lot of games, you have ships running away from each other and therefore can't take good shots, resulting in a lot of people coming to an agreement that the game is over instead of wasting time just moving ships/squadrons around.

I think a little change that could keep the action going is to let the redirect token to keep its effect while going at speed 0. This way, some ships might be less inclined to keep their speed up and might risk taking a non-braceable shot by staying at speed 0, just so that pesky mc30 or CR90 doesn't go outside of their main arc for an additionnal turn.

It might be a too big of a buff to MC30s (they could stay black range longer as well), but I think big ships like ISDs and MC80s might find this interesting. The risk/reward becomes a big part of the strategy and perhaps it would make the later rounds more action packed than what we have right now.

Anyway, I'm throwing that idea around. Consider it food for thought.

Read my paper(fluff) on the alpha-pass:

I am of the proposition that Armada matches operate around what I coined the alpha-pass, but I don't think I have as much experience as many others here to be able to write an actual tactical gameplay article on the alpha-pass. Regardless, I believe rounds 5 & 6 are left for certain things, such as MSUs whipping round for a second salvo(which needs to be maneuvered in round 5 so that they can fire in round 6). raiders that do not dash away could spin round at speed 2, and mc30s have good yaw at 3. It also depends on what angle you had initially approached the enemy from. Moving to fire on a second or third enemy ship is much easier(imo) than trying to turn about to your initial target. Several others above also mentioned the wrap up of the squadron game which is particularly true of surviving bomber wings, giving them more time to finish off enemy ships. Finally don't forget toilet bowling. A good broadsider might be able to keep his guns on the enemy all through to round 6, which is extra unopposed damage for him if the opponent cannot also turn round in time.

EDIT: commanders maddy and jerry might also provide further opportunities to continue fighting in rounds 5 and 6

This game would be so much better if ships/squads moved and fired twice as far as they do now. Each game would have more action (rarely does anything happen on turns 1 and 6) and there would be more movement options (slow ships barely move 1' over an entire game), and the clustering of game pieces would be greatly reduced if ships/squads moved larger distances and fired further.

These are my hopes for Armada 2e!!

The only times round 6 doesn't matter in my games are when someone was tabled during earlier rounds or when someone was nearly tabled and one fast ship got away. I see no reason for this particular adjustment.

Mind you, I don't object to a speed 0 oriented upgrade. I don't agree with this change to the base rules.

See last two rounds as clean up of the speed 4 ships and squad getting a few final shots in on ships or other squads. Only time I run is when my ships are crippled or playing CC, otherwise I'm circling and trying to get more shots.

On Saturday, March 25, 2017 at 0:46 AM, Undeadguy said:

More importantly, I don't think there is any situation where I would want to be at speed 0. It takes too long to get back up to speed unless I have Comms Net helping. If I want to stay in place, I'd rather ram and stay speed 2 or 3. Maneuvering is the best way to keep the action going.

I read this and started laughing, i spend the first 1-2 rounds at speed 0 in most of my games and let my enemy come to me, before increasing to speed 2/3 in one round (token+dial+entrapment formation usually) and going broadsides against the other ships lol, but thats just my usual strategy

Of course occasionally i also engine tech it and my ships go from speed 0 up to the equivalent of speed 4 ( example, Neb-B speed 0, dial+token+EF= top speed, then engine tech)

Turns 5 and 6 are half the reason I take small base ships with good broadsides in a fleet....

I think turn 5 is critical in most games I play.

12 hours ago, DrakonLord said:

I read this and started laughing, i spend the first 1-2 rounds at speed 0 in most of my games and let my enemy come to me, before increasing to speed 2/3 in one round (token+dial+entrapment formation usually) and going broadsides against the other ships lol, but thats just my usual strategy

Oh, man, My Nose Punch list loves you.

1 hour ago, Drasnighta said:

Oh, man, My Nose Punch list loves you.

Plageus did well in his first match. Lambda plus Jendon means Corrupter doesnt have to follow them at all or even be nearby. Lots of flexibility in the game.

He took Demo out with it by crippling it first activation.

10 hours ago, Drasnighta said:

Oh, man, My Nose Punch list loves you.

Lol I know all about your nose punch list Dras hahaha, there's a reason I said its my usual strategy, not my only strategy

On 3/25/2017 at 10:01 PM, DrakonLord said:

I read this and started laughing, i spend the first 1-2 rounds at speed 0 in most of my games and let my enemy come to me, before increasing to speed 2/3 in one round (token+dial+entrapment formation usually) and going broadsides against the other ships lol, but thats just my usual strategy

So you take a Nav first round and drop to 0? Because you can't deploy at 0. Seems inefficient in terms of commands.