I first want to say that Armada as a casual game is fine and nothing needs to change for people who only want to play it at home with beer and chips. What I propose here is changes to make this game more competitive fore competitive players my ideas don't even have to be the standard tournament play we could have 2 types Casual and Competitive. However I would like to see Store Champs Regionals Nationals and Worlds adopt the competitive format at they are meant to be competitive after all.

1st we need a pass rule. click here for talk on that topic

2nd the scoring system needs to be fixed. I have seen it happen to many times where a player wins all there games only to lose to a player who wins 2. Often the player who wins on 2 wins lost to the person on 3 wins. Doesn't that just rub in the salt. I have seen 2 people on 3 wins lose to a person on 2 wins. What I would like to see introduced is a scoring system where you get 1 point for a win 0 for a loss. Both players keep what they kill and score through victory points to go towards there MOV. First tie breaker should be dominance followed by MOV followed SOS. FFG have random as there last but I would like it to be first registered at the tournament but ill let other decide where to go from there as the chances of it coming up is rear. in the event of a draw the second player gets the win and both get a 0 MOV.

the biggest Problem with the scoring system is if a player does well in the first 2 rounds a lot of the time all they have to do is not lose bad in the second and the win the tournament. Yum yum salt. I don't know why anyone would want scoring system that rewards losing and punishers winners. lets also not forget the bad feeling you get when you have had one of those slog fests where a lot dies on both sides it a gruelling fight but you manage to take that risk and win the match and get a 6 which you could have gotten if you just killed a few squadrons then ran away. The current scoring system does not reflect how the individual games played out and that really bugs me

Now I already here you saying if first player picks Superior Positions or Sola Corona then they will set up in the other corner and get an easy win well that will lead us into...

3rd Make the play area size smaller. 6x3 is just to big for a 400point game 4x3 is all we really need think about it do you really need the extra foot on each end. unless you running lifeboats away to live another day its just to much space. So lets try a 4x3 making the setup area distance 3 from the short and long ends for each player. I my experience and from what others have also told me this is the size of the play area we use anyway most of the time so why not make it official it would save space in shops and allow for room for more players and it would force the combat. nothing worse then when a players strategy is to sit in a corner and get a easy win or not lose bad. now I here you say what about the objectives only 2 need a real change just a clarification in the tournament rules for everyone to reference would be all that is needed. changes would be Blockade Run "within 1 range ruler length" Fleet Ambush not so much a change but just a bit smaller ambush area I don't see it as a big deal. I don't think there are any other objectives that really suffer from a smaller board but a few could be helped by one like Targeting Beacons. I think it will also help with the Obstacles becoming more relevant which leads me to...

4th I want more Obstacles. 6 over such a large space is not enough what I would like to see is a rule change like in X Wing where each player bring half the obstacles. I would like to be 4 from each player and the can be any obstacles as long as they are unique for each player. so one player cant bring 4 stations. they could bring 3 rocks and 1 dust field for example. there can also be a situation where there would be 2 stations on the battle field or non at all. if a player was to bring Close-Range Intel Scan the 2 of there obstacles would have to be the Dust Fields. Station Assault they would have to include 1 station in the list of obstacles and add a second if the first player picks it. Jamming Barrier wouldn't need a change the second player will just get the chance to remove 2 obstacles from the "pool" and add 2 dust fields if there are none there already. the same rule would also apply to Salvage Run but the second player would also need to include a station in there list of Obstacles as they would if they had Navigational Hazard. I think a rule like this would add a lot more strategic planning to the game. you could also play mind games with you opponent by bring a station and have no station objective same with the Dust Fields. I would always bring 3 rocks and a dust field as I don't like stations and having the chance to place a obstacle to block attacks I think can be very powerful

Well that's all the changes I think FFG could make to really make this wonderful game a real completive game. I know my 3rd suggestion on making the board size smaller probably wont happen but I guy can hope. let me know what you all think. please remember these ideas come form a competitive mind set for casual players nothing really needs to change

100% Agree with everything excepted the 4th point especially since you want to reduce the playing area. Armada should be you against the opponent not you against the elements ^^.

1st, I don't know if I actually agree with this, what Im sure of is that FFG will never change the core rules of the game. They will just change the meta trough new content and faq.

2nd, I completely agree with you in this point. It has happened to me winning 3 games on a regional (7-4, 7-4 and 6-5). And ending up 8th out of 14-15 contestants can't remember. The winners of the tournament won 2 matches out of 3 and made it to the finals just because they managed to make a single 10-1 in a game. Its kind of frustrating. Dont know the solution to this but the 1-0 or win-loss idea without margins of victory sounds good to me since the skill cannot be really measured in victory points with so many variables in play. Moreso, if a player starts a game knowing that the only possible result is win or loss he will porbably avoid chessy tactics to get the precise margin of victory he needs to get to the next round.

3rd, I think the play area is ok as it is right now. Truth is, in most of my games we finally end playing in 90x90. In the end its all about the deployment but its good to have the choice of being an agressive player or a conservative one. It makes games different.

4th, If the play area remains as it is, more obstacles could be interesting. As in the previous point, most of the time we end playing on the "clear" area of the table leaving the obtsacles in the other half. Again, its all about player choices, you still have 3 obstacles to make use of. I agree with this in the frame of an objective that would allow you not only to move or avoid obstacles, but also to include more in the play area saturating the battlefield in your advantage.

The competitiveness of armada is 100% based on time. Heck, I was following Team Covenant for awhile until they openly said that Armada is not a viable competitive game (at that point, I knew their podcast wasn't really directed at me). It takes far too long to actually play for streaming purposes. If the games were smaller, maybe. 2 hour games are just a bit too much.

The flipside to margin of victory is that without it, if you say a win is a win is a win, you turn on some really dumb strategies.

Since a 6-5 is as good as a 10-1, all you need to do is find a way to earn a single point - destroy one Z-95 or score one victory token - and then run away forever.

No to all of it.

1st one: Maybe but it would need thorough playtesting. I'd still prefer this to the power creep we currently have **cough-sloane/quasar-cough**

2nd one: No. I like that how you won or how you lost actually matters in tourneys. What you suggest is similar to what we see in video games and these systems just don't work. Performance matters.

3rd one: At first I would have said yes, but the more I play, the more I use most of the play area, so no. Plus, you would need 4x3 mats for that and these doesn't really exist.

4th one: NOPE. Having a limited number of obstacles means there's a strategy to placing these. If you have not understood this yet, maybe you just need to play more tournament matches. It dictates deployments and how the game on turn 4-5-6 will go. Plus, just play blockade run! There's plenty of obstacles in the way when you flip the board around.

1st - Lets not bring this into a new thread.

2nd - Is a 6-5 a victory? Thats the crux of this. Is it actually a win? 8-3 and above is a victory to me. 4-7 is a draw, and 3 or below is a defeat. So I have no objection to the current system. Encouraging players to win by very small margins is not good for the game. There are a lot of ways to "win" 6-5 that are no fun for either player. Xerpo suggests there is cheesy play to hit certain margins. I suggest that this is preferably to a sixth round tie fighter kill to claim 6-5 after not engaging all game.

3rd - Single or G7s actually revitalises fleet ambush as an objective. I'm not dead against this. With my expansive MC30 fleet I used to use the whole play area. Its actually quite tough to face an MSU without being able to drive wide into the corner, so I would like to keep at least 6 inches of space either side of the deployment zone. I dont like that a lot of fleets fly in very tight formations, I am not sure that shrinking the play area helps with that. Instead use all the space by spreading your fleet out, force your opponent to split.

4th - Sure, lets add more obstacles so those immovable vics and mc80s become non options.

I agree with the scoring system, I do feel that if you win big you should get more tournament points than just 1. The biggest thing for me is the bye I feel like if you take the bye or get it by default you are at a disavantage already. I think if you get the bye you should be awarded the same points and mov as the player that scored the most that round. This might not be perfect, but if you get the bye you're not at a disavantage. Let me give you an example. I was at regionals and lost pretty bad in first round. Me and another guy where tied for the bye he ended up getting the bye, I won my next 2 games big 9-2, 10-1 and came in third if I got the bye I would have come in 11th because of one tornament point. I like the idea of a system where if you face a list that directly counters yours and don't do so well if you show your list can perform and do well in other games you can make a comeback. I feel like the point system tries to eliminate the luck of the draw effect by giving you a chance to come back, but I don't like the bye, and I don't like if you have done well in the first two games in the third you just run away. In short I think the bye should be adapted in some way as to help place the person with the bye in a competitive possistion, and make it so that the people that do well in the first two rounds still need to compete for first, without compromising the comeback mechanic built-into the point system it is a fine line to walk.

I agree with 1, but 2 I don't. If you just do straight up points, this game becomes a high bid for 2nd player and lists built to stay away from engagement. That doesn't sound fun for me. Oh cool, another CR90 list that never shoots. What a fun game. The issue you're describing actually gets fixed by having more than 3 rounds. Then match-ups are much less of a factor.

As for 3 and 4, this isn't great either. A lot of ships rely on the ability to disengage after attacking in order to survive, which the smaller play area hinders and would lead to these ships not being played. As for the obstacles, that would actually punish large ships, and along with your play area decrease proposal would make these much less played. I do like the idea of having obstacles supplied by other players, but I also understand that bringing your own missions for second player randomizes things well enough.

38 minutes ago, Ginkapo said:

3rd - Single or G7s actually revitalises fleet ambush as an objective. I'm not dead against this. With my expansive MC30 fleet I used to use the whole play area. Its actually quite tough to face an MSU without being able to drive wide into the corner, so I would like to keep at least 6 inches of space either side of the deployment zone. I dont like that a lot of fleets fly in very tight formations, I am not sure that shrinking the play area helps with that. Instead use all the space by spreading your fleet out, force your opponent to split.

Oh I already have 8-3 and 8-3, sneak peek around the other results on the hall and come to the conclussion that you only need a simple 4-7, so sit back and let the other come around. Is that fun?

If youre not granted with the victory before you even start the game you will play to win because you need it. Thats my point.

1 hour ago, Truthiness said:

No to all of it.

Like

To quote Hamilton, "How do I say no to this?" Seriously, all of this. Possible exception is 4, which bring the objectives that give more obstacles, those do exist

1 hour ago, Ginkapo said:

2nd - Is a 6-5 a victory? Thats the crux of this. Is it actually a win? 8-3 and above is a victory to me. 4-7 is a draw, and 3 or below is a defeat. So I have no objection to the current system. Encouraging players to win by very small margins is not good for the game. There are a lot of ways to "win" 6-5 that are no fun for either player. Xerpo suggests there is cheesy play to hit certain margins. I suggest that this is preferably to a sixth round tie fighter kill to claim 6-5 after not engaging all game.

Or just bid hard, go second and don't engage at all.

1) We have a pass mechanic. It costs 18 points for Rebels, and 23 points for Imperials to incorporate one in your list. In an interesting twist, the pass mechanic is represented by an actual ship, so it can be shot at!

2) NO. GOD NO. First off, if you're "winning" games 6-5 or 7-4 you aren't doing well. Maybe it's a hard fought game? Maybe it's a bad matchup? But do you deserve to be at the same level as the guy who has won all of his games 10-1? This is a fleet battle game, where you have degrees of victory, not some skirmish where you are just trying to win. We've already seen problems where a cheesy "wins, but tight" fleet scares everyone, but drops off because it can't handle an actual tournament.

3) Disengagement? What's that? If you've got fast ships that DON'T die in the initial engagement, you need somewhere for them to go.

These are all bad ideas, with the possible exception of the general premise of 4. But I think objectives are a great way to introduce variable numbers of obstacles, and that's already a thing.

1.) Seriously, another of these threads?

2.) Have you watched final cut games? Do we really want Armada to look like that all the time?

3.) I'm sorry, I don't get the justification for this at all. Do you not use the whole board? I can count on one hand the number of games that I've not used the whole board, and they were pretty much all W1 300-point games when I was a noob. Not flying on a given part of the board isn't the same thing as not using it. If you're having problems with people castling in the corner, bring an answer to it, done and done.

People seem to be missing the MOV kept in the scoring system for tournaments. If a person wins by running and killing a single Z-95 or TIE that's fine, their MOV is 7 or 8. Person next table over won theirs by scoring a bunch of Sensor Net objectives, killing various things and yeah, losing a bunch of things but that ended in a MOV of 90, so the chance of someone playing to win three matches all with a MOV of 7 or 8 is only going to be in the final four if everyone (or everyone -3 people) in their meta/tournament is playing that way.

Currently you can have someone with one really good match-up that allows them a ~400 MOV and that makes them a winner or top 4. One good game, probably determined more by match-up determining the winner.

I am not sure if I agree with this but it just seemed a lot of people complaining about it were using as an example (kill one thing and run the rest of the time) a strategy that doesn't net a tournament win as an argument against it. Under the current system this would be like someone bringing a list which consistently will only ever net a 6-5 for why the current scoring system is broken. You've designed a bad strategy, it will never get the success that is needed to win a tournament. I believe the reply to such is 'git gud'?

I agree with the majority of the seasoned players who have posted.

Most of the objections do not represent well-reasoned analysis, but a fundamental misunderstanding of what it means to be a game of Armada as opposed to something else.

4 hours ago, X Wing Nut said:

2nd the scoring system

Actually, this prevented Rieekan from wrecking tournaments... For a while.

So, you want Armada to be more like X-WING?

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Yea, I'm going to be in the "No Thank you" group on this, but could be prompted to join the "Oh Hell No" group.

seams a few people didn't understand my idea for the new scoring by suggesting that all players will do is kill a Z95 and run and take the 7 point win. That wont work in the long run. as I said MOV will be the 2nd tie breaker if all you do is kill a Z95 for 3 games and another player on 3 wins went for the big wins then your not getting anywhere. I don't see this being as big a problem as the one we have now. the way thing are at the moment if a good player gets paired up against a baby seal in the first round there is a good chance they will only need to win 1 more game and not lose bad in the final round. how is that good for the game. I would be happy to keep the scoring system we have now if we get rid or random pairings and put players of the same skill together. but that just gets to complicated and I like easy solutions. the scoring system we have now has no way of representing skilful tactics or games against tough opponents and rewards luck all to easily. it would not be a perfect system no system is but it would be a lot better then what we have now.

I know we will never get a smaller board size that is more hope then anything but maybe a smaller deployment area would be nice but I know that wont happen either

More obstacles and obstacle choice would be great for the game. Comments were made about the two many would make it harder for big ships I don't believe it to be so the board is huge and they can be placed very close together to make them irrelevant for a lot of games and I have skirted my MC80 around the with ease having 2 more on the table wont make it harder to fly them the obstacles are not that big and the new dust fields don't do damage so if you worried bring them and a station. I have found there is not a lot of tactical decision making with only 6 obstacles in play. mostly because your opponent has such a large deployment zone the best you can do is try and block 1 side with the 3 rock when you don't have the choice to place them all. and if you get stuck with placing the station it gets real hard to place obstacles in a way to disrupt your opponent. mostly I see them a funny joke that you get to set up a battlefield that wont do anything for you. having 8 obstacles will help a lot with this and only deepen the tactics that can be used in the game

16 hours ago, Truthiness said:

No to all of it.

100% agree. This all seems utterly unfounded.

Not fanboying and saying there arent flaws, but this is just too much.

On point #2, It's a frustrating issue that is entirely caused by having too few rounds that prevents players from playing until all the losses have been tabulated.

And that's caused by point #3: The board is too large and the game is too long to play through. The problem is that this is caused also in part by the fact that Armada is using X-Wing mats. The truth is, Armada needs a 4x4 mat to give space to maneuver but without letting models completely escape the engagement zones.

Now, experienced players are used to playing quickly and that's fine. But I'm a little concerned that certain interactions (especially squadron actions) seem to take a longer time than they should. This was exemplified at Worlds when two similar squadron fleets clashed and nearly went to time in less than 6 turns between two highly experienced players.

1 hour ago, X Wing Nut said:

I have found there is not a lot of tactical decision making with only 6 obstacles in play. mostly because your opponent has such a large deployment zone the best you can do is try and block 1 side with the 3 rock when you don't have the choice to place them all.

No seriously.

Git gud.

Steel squadron and cant get your ship out both have articles on this I believe.

But I advocate this one

https://archiveofossus.wordpress.com/2017/04/22/parkdaddy-engagement-area-development/

There is SO MUCH you can do with three obstacles.

13 minutes ago, thecactusman17 said:

On point #2, It's a frustrating issue that is entirely caused by having too few rounds that prevents players from playing until all the losses have been tabulated.

And that's caused by point #3: The board is too large and the game is too long to play through. The problem is that this is caused also in part by the fact that Armada is using X-Wing mats. The truth is, Armada needs a 4x4 mat to give space to maneuver but without letting models completely escape the engagement zones.

Now, experienced players are used to playing quickly and that's fine. But I'm a little concerned that certain interactions (especially squadron actions) seem to take a longer time than they should. This was exemplified at Worlds when two similar squadron fleets clashed and nearly went to time in less than 6 turns between two highly experienced players.

the lack of rounds really is the biggest problem 3 is not enough but a I don't think stores would run 4 rounds with the current format

I never thought about a 4x4 board that could solve a lot of problems but it could mean that round 4 is when the funs starts as oppose to round 2-3. if we did a 4x4 I would like the deployment zone to be the same just a foot behind of free space maybe not sure but I would like to here more about it