Just now, GhostofNobodyInParticular said:

This exactly, though Endor had 26 ISDs. . .

I'm just going to imagine that. Ah, glorious.

So 6 or 7 would be good. I'd say I'm fighting approximately 1/4 of the battle. Could even play four games and combine the results. Two games with 7 ISDs, and two with 6 ISDs.

Just now, Tommy Blunderbuss said:

I'm just going to imagine that. Ah, glorious.

So 6 or 7 would be good. I'd say I'm fighting approximately 1/4 of the battle. Could even play four games and combine the results. Two games with 7 ISDs, and two with 6 ISDs.

I'm out of likes, else I'd like this and your previous comment.

@cynanbloodbane has, I believe (it was he, was it not?), made it his goal to physically play out, at one time, the entire Endor Space Battle, though perhaps only the Imperial Side. I offered to provide some of the necessary components for both sides. Join us, in this great quest to achieve Truly EPIC Play!

1 minute ago, GhostofNobodyInParticular said:

@cynanbloodbane has, I believe (it was he, was it not?), made it his goal to physically play out, at one time, the entire Endor Space Battle, though perhaps only the Imperial Side. I offered to provide some of the necessary components for both sides. Join us, in this great quest to achieve Truly EPIC Play!

Oh wow!

That would be awesome. Will need some energy drinks and a good local takeaway because I suspect such a momentous game of Armada would take an entire weekend with no sleep.

19 minutes ago, GhostofNobodyInParticular said:

You're missing Tycho. And Corran Horn.

They were loaned out for A & E wing new weapons testing

14 minutes ago, Tommy Blunderbuss said:

Oh wow!

That would be awesome. Will need some energy drinks and a good local takeaway because I suspect such a momentous game of Armada would take an entire weekend with no sleep.

Likely more. However I don't really think much will come of it, first, because we live on opposite sides of the globe, second, because 27* ISDs will cost roughly $1350 alone, without the myriad Fighter Packs we'll need to supply 108 TIE/F stands, 54 TIE/I stands, 54 TIE/B stands. Then, we'd need a Tector and the Pride of Tarlandia, which can both be replaced by 2 more ISDs (for now. . . ), adding another $100 in cost, then we need SWM:20 (SSD ), and another 12 fighter stands, and then we need to customize the Death Star II, with its 'thousands of TIEs'. . . . and that's just the Empire. For the Rebels, we'd need AT LEAST 3 Braha'toks, 8 CR-90s, 5 Nebs, 16 GR-75s, 2 HMC80s, 4 LMC80s, and an assortment of Fighters.

It would, however, be truly EPIC scale to play that one out. . . Vassal anybody?

*Yes, 27. Misremembered.

3 minutes ago, Muelmuel said:

They were loaned out for A & E wing new weapons testing

Then it depends on the Era in which you are playing. E-Wings were developed by the New Republic, years after Endor, and Corran joined just after it (1 or so years after, IIRC). So up until the battle of Endor, Tycho was still in it, and just after and for 5 or so more years, Corran was in it as well.

The problem isn't the points limit byt the scale. The ship bases are tio big IMO.

So yes it feels more like a skirmish game than big fleet battles. I compare this game to firestorm armada and this game feels small in comparison

1 minute ago, jocke01 said:

The problem isn't the points limit byt the scale. The ship bases are tio big IMO.

So yes it feels more like a skirmish game than big fleet battles. I compare this game to firestorm armada and this game feels small in comparison

Halo: Fleet Battles also has that effect, as the ships are more in-scale and overall smaller, so you could fit 50 or so a side on the table in 1 battle. However, due to the mechanics of the game, you could also lose 3 at a time, so things go more quickly too.

9 minutes ago, GhostofNobodyInParticular said:

Meh, you could field them, it just thematically wouldn't make sense. Nor would it if it was 3 per base, as that would be 9, not 12. At the very least, you'd need 4 per base. Besides, Tycho's part of Rogue Squadron, but is placed in an A-Wing in-game, and Corran Horn also belongs there, and is in an E-Wing. So. . .

It does mean that 134 points of Imperial squads, which can be made up of 16 TIE squads, becomes 192 squads, or 48 more than an SSD fields. Furthermore, if an ISD can technically deploy 6 squads (4 TIE/F, 1 TIE/I, 1 TIE/B), then why does it only push 4 stands, or 12 fighters (using your view), and thus be short 5 entire squads? It all comes down to subjectivity, I feel. The game has been balanced such that Rogue Squadron has been broken into 5 bases and 3 fighter types, ships can't push their full canon complement of fighters, etc. Therefore, how much is represented by the base is up for debate, as FFG couldn't care less (from what I gather).

Using the 12 fighters a stand theory, I'd say we could indeed get a decent Armada. After all, the word only means a fleet of warships, so 2 ISDs, 2 Gozantis, and the rest of the legal points in TIEs gets you an Armada. The game that really got gypped in it's name is Legion, as a Legion is roughly 10,000 soldiers in Star Wars (according to Legends). . .

I assume, however, that you mean 'a large and imposing fleet' by the word Armada. As for that, I think we can achieve that as well. If 1 ISD was enough to keep a system in line, and the Rebellion engaged 1 ISD-II with 2 stolen ISD-Is in order to be safe, the fleet of 3 ISD-Is that can be fielded in Armada, with, say, Ozzel and 6 TIE squads is a decently imposing Aramda - that's what most ISD groups consisted of, 3 ISDs and support. Sure, we can't field quite the whole force, being short 2 TIE/F, 2 TIE/I, and 2 TIE/B, (56 points), but still, 3 ISDs are imposing.

Thank you for reminding me that Tycho was part of Rogue Squadron (and according to my obsessive Rebel Friend) in an A-Wing in Return of the Jedi as Rogue Two.

Lets see 134/8 = 16.75 rounded down becomes 16 TIE Fighter bases (flights as I call them) or four fighter squadrons. As for why an ISD can only push four stands is the same reason that several TRC-90's can threaten an ISD, game balance. As everything that I know about the Star Wars universe (admittedly much less than lots) is that the Rebel Corvette/Blockade Runner what ever you want to call it is not a real threat to an ISD even in numbers, but for game balance it would not be fun to require the Rebels to field 100 ships to one.

I guess the meaning of the word Armada depends on the dictionary that you use, when I did a google search I came up with the Cambridge Dictionary and it has "a large group of armed ships that fight wars at sea" with the listed synonyms being "The Navy". So if we drop the at sea part as currently there are no warships in space, we are still left with a large group of armed ships that fight wars, I do not see two ships (the Gozantis do not fight wars any more than a US Navy Supply ship does, it is a support vessel) as a large group, and even if we include the Gozantis we are still looking at four (six if we count each ship, not the bases) still not what I would call a large group. And no place close to the entire Navy (now this is not used by all nations, but it is my understanding that most do).

So if we go with three ISD's and each can hold six fighter squadrons and eight shuttle (actually more but we do not have the others yet), we can not even get close to having the three ISD's, 18 Fighter Squadrons (my understanding is that the break down is 3/2/1 Fighter/Interceptor/Bomber, but I have also seen some say it is 4/1/1), 24 lambda Shuttles, and a commander. If my math is correct in a standard 400 point game filling each ship fully before moving on to the next we can get ISD-1 #1 (110pts, 110pts total), four TIE Fighter Squadrons (32pts, 142pts total), one TIE Interceptor Squadron (11pts, 153pts total), one TIE Bomber Squadron (9pts, 162pts total), eight Lambda Shuttles (120pts, 282pts total), Admiral Ozzel (20pts, 302pts) leaving us with 98pts for upgrades but not enough for another ship, and leaving us short two ISD, eight TIE Fighter Squadrons, two TIE Interceptor Squadrons, two TIE Bomber Squadrons, and sixteen Lambda Shuttle short of your fleet or about 2/3 of the fleet. Now if we do this a different way and just buy the ships first and use leftover points for everything else how does that work? ISD-1 #1 (110pts, 110pts total), ISD-1 #2 (110pts, 220pts total), ISD-1 #3 (110pts, 330pts total) Admiral Ozzel (20pts, 350pts total), leaving us 50pts for fighters so we can get six TIE Fighter Squadrons and have 2 points for upgrades. But this leaves us short six TIE Fighter Squadrons, three TIE Interceptor Squadrons, three TIE Bomber Squadrons, and twenty four Lambda Shuttles. So neither of those are what I would call an armada, the first does not have enough ships, the second if you are being very generous has enough ships, but is almost totally lacking in any support that is needed to make it a functional ship squadron (or dare I say Armada).

Now we can hijack this thread but nothing productive will come of it, as I do not think that there is anything that you can say that will change my mind, and I am guessing that it is the same for you. I was just saying that I do not think that this game feels like to me and why I feel that way, not saying that if you feel different you are wrong.

And just for fun some other definitions I looked up after the Cambridge one, and game does not feel like it fits any of them any better to me.

Oxford Dictionary - "A fleet of warships."
Collins Dictionary - "An armada is a large group of warships."
Longman Dictionary - "a large group of things, especially ships or boats"
Wikipedia - "Armada is the Spanish and Portuguese word for naval fleet, which also adopted into Malay and Indonesian for the same meaning..." it goes on to talk about it also having meaning to be armed.

7 hours ago, Noosh said:

Ok here me out I like the game, but....

Dose it feel like the 400 point standard game feel like Patrol fleet going at it and not Armadas going at it?

It is just the points? Do more points make it feel like it's a big time engagement? Or dose the game get bogged down when you double or triple the fleet size?

I wouldnt think a Patrol Fleet, but it did always feel like Star Wars: Squadron, rather than Armada, but I guess it is a slightly lame name.

3 hours ago, Green Knight said:

That number is so lame. It always was.

Not your fault oc, but duh.

Anyway. Move along.

Yes, 25,000 was so dumb. Where! Yes, allegedly Star Wars has 1000 sectors, so it is only 25 per sector (a fleet like the Endor one), but where were these 1000 sectors? There seem to be about 50 planets that anyone cares about in the whole Empire.

2 hours ago, dominosfleet said:

25,000 SD's spread over a galaxy. it's not like it's next door to the nearest star. even with star war's crazy speeds i don't see more than 3 or 4 ISD's defending a world.

If taken literally the speeds of Star Wars ships, and the sheer number should mean that hundreds of Star Destroyers should be able to be to get to any point of the galaxy in a matter of minutes. The Rebellion would not work in this setting. "Lock S-Foils in attack position, we're going in for the attack." "****, 200 Star Destroyers just entered the system. Bug-out, bug-out" This is why I ignore the official numbers and how hyperspace works, as they make no sense.

A Imperial law enforcing fleet usually consisted of a single ISD with its squadrons and usually 2-3 smaller ships. You can easily fit that into 400 points.

The Rebels rarely battled anything stronger than that. If they did they either fled or it was a major battle. But we have CC and casula games for that.

Funnily enough played my first big (800) point game last night, and if im honest it felt far more "Armada-ie" and, most importantly, fun than a 400 pointer.

We had 2 Admirals aside, with the Imps having 3 ISDs, 4 Arqs, an Interdictor and a Gozanti (which whizzed through the inferno surviving untounched!) vs my Lib, 2 MC30s, cr90b, Pelta, Neb and 3 transports with 8 assorted squads.

The whole game from set up to finish took 3 and half hours (whilst I'm not the best player, i pride myself on highly efficient set up and play! ). Perhaps most tellingly, non-Armada players who would normally walk on by stopped to look at the spectacle of a proper fleet clash. They were loving it, saying it looked like "proper" star wars rather than a few rebels ships hounding an ISD and its escorts. Maybe if someone is looking to galvanise/ bring Armada to new community an 800+ game is the way to draw people in?

Im now angling for a 900 pointer in two weeks. Once you go big those 400 points just feels so tiny!

6 hours ago, GammonLord said:

Funnily enough played my first big (800) point game last night, and if im honest it felt far more "Armada-ie" and, most importantly, fun than a 400 pointer.

We had 2 Admirals aside, with the Imps having 3 ISDs, 4 Arqs, an Interdictor and a Gozanti (which whizzed through the inferno surviving untounched!) vs my Lib, 2 MC30s, cr90b, Pelta, Neb and 3 transports with 8 assorted squads.

The whole game from set up to finish took 3 and half hours (whilst I'm not the best player, i pride myself on highly efficient set up and play! ). Perhaps most tellingly, non-Armada players who would normally walk on by stopped to look at the spectacle of a proper fleet clash. They were loving it, saying it looked like "proper" star wars rather than a few rebels ships hounding an ISD and its escorts. Maybe if someone is looking to galvanise/ bring Armada to new community an 800+ game is the way to draw people in?

Im now angling for a 900 pointer in two weeks. Once you go big those 400 points just feels so tiny!

Just wait. It gets better the higher you go. I played a 3000 point game once. It was epic. @Visovics and I are planning a 3000 point a side Vassal battle.

1 hour ago, Norell said:

A Imperial law enforcing fleet usually consisted of a single ISD with its squadrons and usually 2-3 smaller ships. You can easily fit that into 400 points.

The Rebels rarely battled anything stronger than that. If they did they either fled or it was a major battle. But we have CC and casula games for that.

No I get that and honestly I know the rebs are fighting a gorilla war. That's why it feels kinda small to me, because the engagements that are fought should be big. Ie the rebs have to fight so their bringing it all, the imps are forcing their hand so there is already a sizeable task force.

Mostly I think this is just my outlook though on the situation.

1 hour ago, GhostofNobodyInParticular said:

Just wait. I gets better the higher you go. I played a 3000 point game once. It was epic. @Visovics and I are planning a 3000 point a side Vassal battle.

3000?! Bloody ****! That is insanely awesome! You have any pics? It must have been quite a sight. Was it a demo game or a casual home game? And how long did it take?

2 minutes ago, GammonLord said:

3000?! Bloody ****! That is insanely awesome! You have any pics? It must have been quite a sight. Was it a demo game or a casual home game? And how long did it take?

No, no pics. Unfortunately. It took about 3-4 hours, I think. A casual game, for that is all we can play (no stores near us).

Here are the lists:

Imps

Rebs

Not quite 3000. 2610 points. Now, we can field way more. Hopefully soon, we'll do it again.

5 hours ago, CDAT said:

And we are playing a game called Armada where we are not even close to fielding an armada, so you have no point. Also if that is the standard then you can never field Luke, Wedge, and Rogue at the same time, as Luke and Wedge are part of Rogue, so I still think you have nothing to stand on, but one more reason that to me they feel like flights.

I was actually just discussing this last night, I suopose our numbers are a bit better than legion (3000-6000 troops) and fielding, 30

Definitely fleet patrol.

I've seen estimates that the Star Wars galaxy has upwards of 50 million worlds.

So with 25,000 Star Destroyers, that's 1 star destroyer for every 2000 worlds.

Seeing that the Empire is still doing suppression/oppression operations across the galaxy, it's no wonder there aren't huge numbers of ISDs that pop up wherever you want them.

Couple this with the fact that the Rebels tend to engage only where they have a fighting chance (or no choice) - a 400 point force seems very reasonable for the typical battle.

6 hours ago, GhostofNobodyInParticular said:

This exactly, though Endor had 26 ISDs. . .

My count was 37 plus the SSD

Just now, Darth Sanguis said:

My count was 37 plus the SSD

That's telling. The Emperor himself, the most powerful man in the galaxy, could only put together 37 ISDs and an SSD for a situation he had foreseen ahead of time?

ISDs must be hard to get.

Just now, Democratus said:

That's telling. The Emperor himself, the most powerful man in the galaxy, could only put together 37 ISDs and an SSD for a situation he had foreseen ahead of time?

ISDs must be hard to get.

well, that's the thing about seeing the future in the SW universe. It's always in motion. Palpatine became focused on one possible outcome and failed to understand or believe the possibility of the rebellion winning, especially with such a small star fleet.

12 hours ago, Noosh said:

Ok here me out I like the game, but....

Dose it feel like the 400 point standard game feel like Patrol fleet going at it and not Armadas going at it?

It is just the points? Do more points make it feel like it's a big time engagement? Or dose the game get bogged down when you double or triple the fleet size?

You're not wrong, but this game already takes FOREVER so an actual armada of Armada would take longer than anyone has the attention span for.

If you accept that CR-90s and Nebulon Bs in Armada have been scaled up - both in size and firepower - and so effectively represent what would be multiples on screen, you can encapsulate Scarif into a 400 point Armada game pretty much perfectly.

... Assuming we get the Profundity sooner or later.

our only real reference for space battles is battle for endor which is an all or nothing gambit from both sides.

If you delve into the EU expecially some of Zahns books you find that most system security forces contained an ISD and some support craft. I just finished Forces of One and Thrawn's unknown region fleet was an ISD and some flotillas. with fighters obviously. Sure Vader's Death Squadron has a SSD and 4 ISDs but Vader doesn't fight fair and is the anomaly.

Would 500pts be better absolutely.

also this is just an issue with miniature wargaming in general. Outside guildball and other sports games most games aren't a true recreation of the story. 40k which can have 50-60 models a side is generally considered a skirish game for its fluff. Its not a true skirmish game but when you field 50-60 models while the fluff mentions the battle had 10,000 guardsmen and 1000 space marines against millions of tyranids, there is no way to capture that in a fair competitive way.

Big games are fun, make a 12x3 get 1000pts per side with 2-3 admirals and go nuts. have each admiral effect about 1/3 of the ships and have a 3v3 player game. easy to do late during the later hours of a con.

9 minutes ago, svelok said:

If you accept that CR-90s and Nebulon Bs in Armada have been scaled up - both in size and firepower - and so effectively represent what would be multiples on screen, you can encapsulate Scarif into a 400 point Armada game pretty much perfectly.

... Assuming we get the Profundity sooner or later.

Till V money shows up.

nebs and cr90s should have been on the flotilla stands and smaller. I understand why they weren't and aren't but still.