Starting this week off with writeups from my 2 games this weekend:
Round 1: http://cannotgetyourshipout.blogspot.com/2017/06/store-championships-round-1-fight.html
Round 2: http://cannotgetyourshipout.blogspot.com/2017/06/store-championships-round-2-ackbar.html
I wish we had the full 3 rounds, but many of our locals had last-minute scheduling problems so we needed to make it a more bite-sized format to make it more enticing for a wider range of players. Chicagoland Armada in general is growing but most venues outside of Fair Game are still pretty casual. Nothing wrong at all with that, mind you (we love you, casual players), but casual players have very limited interest in a 9 hour 3 round event. I know Games Plus had three rounds but they shortened the play time to 1.5 hour rounds, which... I can't say I would recommend that course of action, myself.
Regardless, I had a good time. I was needed as a TO more than expected, but it was largely due to laser-line disputes about what was in arc or not in close circumstances.
One thing I've been wondering, as a latecomer to the game that missed this particular phase of gameplay:
How would running a tournament at 300 points instead of 400 affect the time spent playing, as well as the resources needed to play, and the game balance?
I mean, it occurs to me mostly because I'm already fighting perception that Armada is an expensive game and I'm TRYING to wean my local stores off of Warmachine and Warhammer 40k (and X-Wing is a no-go because of baggage attached to it at an utter collapse of the game a year ago and a real jerk player who pushed way too hard for competitive play), and it seems as though 300 points is still reasonably balanced, and encourages players to go less for the 'heavily loaded' ships. Some of 300pts' problem with activations may have been actually fixed by flotillas, without allowing the players to fully abuse them as they do in 400pt games.
8 minutes ago, iamfanboy said:One thing I've been wondering, as a latecomer to the game that missed this particular phase of gameplay:
How would running a tournament at 300 points instead of 400 affect the time spent playing, as well as the resources needed to play, and the game balance?
I mean, it occurs to me mostly because I'm already fighting perception that Armada is an expensive game and I'm TRYING to wean my local stores off of Warmachine and Warhammer 40k (and X-Wing is a no-go because of baggage attached to it at an utter collapse of the game a year ago and a real jerk player who pushed way too hard for competitive play), and it seems as though 300 points is still reasonably balanced, and encourages players to go less for the 'heavily loaded' ships. Some of 300pts' problem with activations may have been actually fixed by flotillas, without allowing the players to fully abuse them as they do in 400pt games.
I played 300 back in the day at wave 1. The rounds went faster but that was also the time when the Gen Con special was the main stay and flotillas didn't exist, so balance THEN was horrid. Now though, I haven't played a 300 in about a year.
If you want people to get into the game, though, I'd think getting some of the bigger ships on the table might be how you do it. Don't run the "winning" lists for a while, run stuff that's going to spark interest from people who pass by.
Weirdly, if you want people interested, go bigger. Play 500 points and squeeze in two ISDs or an Interdictor versus an MC80 and a slew of Rebel ships or something like that.
Well, mostly talking about getting people interested in their own collections, rather than using mine - which, I'm not going to lie, isn't very extensive either. Don't even have an ISD, and I'm not sure if I will seeing as how most of the people up here are more interested in angry triangles than random mishmash. That means moving more in the direction of Rebels...
3 minutes ago, iamfanboy said:Well, mostly talking about getting people interested in their own collections, rather than using mine - which, I'm not going to lie, isn't very extensive either. Don't even have an ISD, and I'm not sure if I will seeing as how most of the people up here are more interested in angry triangles than random mishmash. That means moving more in the direction of Rebels...
Join us @iamfanboy , and together we can rule this galaxy as father and son. Or Rebel and other Rebel, whatever.
The 500 point games are ones we do every now and then, let's you play with all sorts of crazy ideas and lists. 3 ISDs is actually kinda viable there, provided you throw in like 2 gozantis and some TIEs and it's just super fun. Or do a Dodonna with all the smalls you can grab, it's super fun
53 minutes ago, iamfanboy said:One thing I've been wondering, as a latecomer to the game that missed this particular phase of gameplay:
How would running a tournament at 300 points instead of 400 affect the time spent playing, as well as the resources needed to play, and the game balance?
I mean, it occurs to me mostly because I'm already fighting perception that Armada is an expensive game and I'm TRYING to wean my local stores off of Warmachine and Warhammer 40k (and X-Wing is a no-go because of baggage attached to it at an utter collapse of the game a year ago and a real jerk player who pushed way too hard for competitive play), and it seems as though 300 points is still reasonably balanced, and encourages players to go less for the 'heavily loaded' ships. Some of 300pts' problem with activations may have been actually fixed by flotillas, without allowing the players to fully abuse them as they do in 400pt games.
I think if you're trying to build up your gaming group, 300 as an entry point is fine. I wouldn't stay there long, myself, but as a training wheels stage it's definitely doable.
35 minutes ago, Snipafist said:I think if you're trying to build up your gaming group, 300 as an entry point is fine. I wouldn't stay there long, myself, but as a training wheels stage it's definitely doable.
Oh yeah, that's a valid point. I had read it initially as "him having trouble getting people to play" because activation shenanigans or what have you, but i hadnt considered "entry cost" and all, my bad. Yeah, 300 can work then.
@Snipafist , why did you choose to go second against an MC80 Ackbar Death Pickle list? I've generally found the only way to take out death pickles is to use activation advantage, dump a ton of Demolisher damage in and make the getaway into a weak arc, and rinse and repeat the next turn with another burst damage ship.
2 minutes ago, IronCondor said:@Snipafist , why did you choose to go second against an MC80 Ackbar Death Pickle list? I've generally found the only way to take out death pickles is to use activation advantage, dump a ton of Demolisher damage in and make the getaway into a weak arc, and rinse and repeat the next turn with another burst damage ship.
I talked about it in the post, but basically because he wasn't choosing Advanced Gunnery. And without Strategic of his own, I didn't need to engage him at all and could just go along grabbing tokens and scoring points. Because he hated my objectives so much and didn't want to have to fight uphill against them, he decided to go first and have me eat his objectives.
8 hours ago, IronCondor said:@Snipafist , why did you choose to go second against an MC80 Ackbar Death Pickle list? I've generally found the only way to take out death pickles is to use activation advantage, dump a ton of Demolisher damage in and make the getaway into a weak arc, and rinse and repeat the next turn with another burst damage ship.
In the past I've always gone first but I know that John has learned his lesson from those drubbings and his objectives are harsh. With two sources of Strategic in his fleet and two objective token objectives (Intel Sweep, which is unwinnable for me, and Fire Lanes, which is tough) and the final objective being unpalatable (Advanced Gunnery) I wanted to try my luck with going second. In a "serious business" tournament I wouldn't risk it and would have stuck with first, but store championships are silly fun so I figured I'd try it and see. Would've been better to try something like that in a casual game, but I didn't get the opportunity. I do know how to use this kind of fleet against doom pickles, don't worry
. It wasn't helped by John's crazy dice rolling against Demolisher, but dice happen in a dice game.
The fleet's weakness against Strategic-aided defensive second player objectives is something I've been ruminating on for a little while. Fleets that can afford to farm points as second player while playing defensively (like John's) have little impetus to rush engagement (as they'll otherwise win with a 7-4 or 8-3 split or perhaps higher if you totally flub it against Fire Lanes), which allows them to expose themselves to much less danger against Ozzel's fleet as they can get decent points from sources that aren't your ships. It also puts pressure on the Ozzel fleet to rush in there to stop the objective-token farming, which turns a tempo-control fleet into a rush fleet (and those get slapped down in many cases as they frequently overreach). In short, it's a rough matchup if your opponent knows what he's doing. I've been considering getting a Lambda in there to offer some options of my own against those types of fleets and make being first player less disadvantageous against enemy Strategic fleets. We'll see.
Defensive Retrofits!
http://cannotgetyourshipout.blogspot.com/2017/06/the-best-defensive-retrofits.html
Our newest entry, Reinforced Blast Doors lets you discard 3 face down damage cards at the start of the Ship Phase (ie when you're assigning dials).
--tsk-- After your earlier comment on Timing, too
Command Phase is when you assign Dials.
Ship phase is After you assign, when you Activate. So the Start of the Ship phase is After you have assigned command dials, but before You (OR YOUR OPPONENT) Chooses a Ship to Activate.
Start of the Ship Phase is also when Han would activate, and Tarkin places his tokens, too... So there are actually quite a few things it can conflict with.
Which means Han if first player, can Shoot First, before Blast Doors kick in!
10 minutes ago, Drasnighta said:
--tsk-- After your earlier comment on Timing, too
Command Phase is when you assign Dials.
Ship phase is After you assign, when you Activate. So the Start of the Ship phase is After you have assigned command dials, but before You (OR YOUR OPPONENT) Chooses a Ship to Activate.
Start of the Ship Phase is also when Han would activate, and Tarkin places his tokens, too... So there are actually quite a few things it can conflict with.
Which means Han if first player, can Shoot First, before Blast Doors kick in!
Dang it, and i had just read everything this morning too. Fixed the timing/phrasing on it
Just now, geek19 said:Dang it, and i had just read everything this morning too. Fixed the timing/phrasing on it
I've used Han to drop an Arquitens who was relying on Blast Doors... It was *Magical*... One of the few times I was actually first player to pull it off!
10 minutes ago, Drasnighta said:
I've used Han to drop an Arquitens who was relying on Blast Doors... It was *Magical*... One of the few times I was actually first player to pull it off!
I so badly need to try this. My one issue is that without Bomber, Han's dice are at the mercy of what you roll entirely. Then again, if there ever was a time to say "Never tell me the odds" its when you're throwing Han Solo into the mix to shoot up an enemy ship. I think you then follow it up with Kiss my Wookiee, but..... that's raaaaather unsportsmanlike, of course.
2 hours ago, Snipafist said:
Nice article! Sums up what I think about most of the upgrades...
There's something I ain't sure with RLB, namely this sentence:
Are you sure that they can move if another ship activates them? I thought that for the entire round they would not be able to move and only the round after they could (say, I drop them on round 2, only on round 3 can they move via activations)
If you're right, that would mean I played this pretty poorly during last weekend's store championship...
10 minutes ago, Sybreed said:Nice article! Sums up what I think about most of the upgrades...
There's something I ain't sure with RLB, namely this sentence:
- If you choose to drop off squadrons but not activate them during that squadron command, subsequent squadron commands from other ships work on them just fine - they can move and attack.
Are you sure that they can move if another ship activates them? I thought that for the entire round they would not be able to move and only the round after they could (say, I drop them on round 2, only on round 3 can they move via activations)
If you're right, that would mean I played this pretty poorly during last weekend's store championship...
We're pretty sure, because that's how it was Clarified by Mr. Gernes. Twice.
17 minutes ago, Drasnighta said:We're pretty sure, because that's how it was Clarified by Mr. Gernes. Twice.
well dang... had I known...
Generic Officer Friends!
http://cannotgetyourshipout.blogspot.com/2017/06/generic-officer-friends.html
One small thing I've noticed with the last two posts: when I try to click on the top banner to get back to the listing of all the posts, it just reloads the same page it's on.
Oh, and Skilled First Officer section has a typo in the second-to-last sentence: You meant to put "doesn't work on command 1 ships" but put a 2 in there instead.
But as always, a good read.
Liasons with Admiral Leia and larger ships....
4 hours ago, Ginkapo said:Liasons with Admiral Leia and larger ships....
Potentially? I don't want to say anything about Leia until I actually get to play her. My other issue with that idea is that Leia's already so many points that I worry about putting her with Large ships.
6 minutes ago, geek19 said:Potentially? I don't want to say anything about Leia until I actually get to play her. My other issue with that idea is that Leia's already so many points that I worry about putting her with Large ships.
Which ships do you put Raymus on?
