As a lot of you know already, I've been working on an immersive Armada/Legion campaign, similar to what EaW was but for table top. I'm about 80% done with the rough draft for the rules for Armada, and I'm looking to get more ideas from the community into the game. Over the next few weeks, I'll be creating threads like this to see what you guys think or want to see in the rules.

Right now I want some ideas for generic commanders. I'm looking for 10 points with a rather bland effect. The commander would be leading a force of 150-300 points.

Here is some additional info.

Task Force - Below 150 points. No commander. No large ships.
Fleet - 150-300 points. Generic commander. No large ships.
Armada - 300+ points. Unique commander
No maximum point limit

You can manage multiple "fleets" at the same time. You may split or merge them so long as they are on the same planet.

Commanders must be placed on the largest ship available.

Please do not be offended if I do not include your idea in the final product. I'm looking for the most popular and easily implemented ideas and concepts. You are always welcome to change or add the rule set to fit your group.

My other content relating to the campaign:

Command Token

1. When a friendly ship activates, you may exhaust this card to put a command token on that ship.
2. At the start of the ship phase, you may exhaust this card to put a command token on a friendly ship.
3. At the start of the ship phase, you may discard this card. When a friendly ship activates, you may gain command token matching the command dial.
4. After Deployment, set 1 command token for each command aside. When a friendly ship activates, it may gain/take 1 command token set aside.

Command Dial

1. When a friendly ship activates, you may discard this card to change the top dial to another command. Gain a command token matching the command and place it on a friendly ship.

Squadron

1. When a friendly squadron is activated with a Squadron Command, you may exhaust this card to allow the squadron +1 speed.
2. At the start of the squadron phase, you may exhaust this card to give a friendly squadron Rogue.

Attack

1. At the start of the ship phase, you may exhaust this card to place an objective token on an enemy ship. While a friendly ship is attacking the ship with an objective token, it may reroll 1 die.
2. While a friendly ship is attacking a ship or squadron that has already activated, you may exhaust this card to add 1 die to the attack pool.

Defense Tokens

1. At the start of the ship phase, you may discard this card to give a friendly ship a defense token it has discarded.
2. You may exhaust this card to Ready a defense token on a friendly ship.

Maneuver

1. When a friendly ship resolves a Maneuver Command, you may exhaust this card to give +1 yaw to any joint.

Exhaust this commander to re roll one attack dice

Exhaust this commander to un-exhaust one defense token

Exhaust this commander to have any of your ships gain a command token

One Squadron may have +1 to it's movement value up to a maximum of 5.

You asked for bland

I like the symmetry of 4 variants, one for each command:

Exhaust this card to assign a [command type of this variant] token to a ship. This token does not count towards it's command token limit. A ship cannot have more receive more than one command token at a time with this method.

(That last sentence is redundant, since you can only have one command token of a given type, but still).

If attacking a ship or squadron that has already activated, any one ship in your fleet may add a die of a color already in its attack pool to one attack.

15 hours ago, FoaS said:

I like the symmetry of 4 variants, one for each command:

Exhaust this card to assign a [command type of this variant] token to a ship. This token does not count towards it's command token limit. A ship cannot have more receive more than one command token at a time with this method.

(That last sentence is redundant, since you can only have one command token of a given type, but still).

I would like to see your idea but maybe affect dials more than grant tokens. My reasoning is that there are already officers who do this (tokens), so wouldn't a commanders be able to do more(dials).

11 minutes ago, Noosh said:

I would like to see your idea but maybe affect dials more than grant tokens. My reasoning is that there are already officers who do this (tokens), so wouldn't a commanders be able to do more(dials).

Well we also have officers that change dials to the specified command on the card.

20 minutes ago, Undeadguy said:

Well we also have officers that change dials to the specified command on the card.

True. What about a combo? Like dial to squadron & grant engineering token?

9 minutes ago, Noosh said:

True. What about a combo? Like dial to squadron & grant engineering token?

Something like this:

Before a friendly ship reveals a command dial, you may exhaust this card to change the top dial to another command, and you may put a command token on that ship.

Pretty powerful effect, but should be mitigated by the lack of large ships and small fleets. At best you are changing a dial on a medium ship every round. Could be frustrating when you Repair on an Interdictor for 8 round after round. Might limit the effect to 2 or 3 rounds and tracking it with some tokens.

Also what about a commander that grant rouge to a squdron or something like that so you've got a little fir the fighters.

I was just thinking that in such small battles fighters could play a larger more autonomous role and a commander could help reflect that.

Or a commander that kinda designates a high priority Target and everything that attacks it gets to reroll 1 dice.

8 minutes ago, Noosh said:

Or a commander that kinda designates a high priority Target and everything that attacks it gets to reroll 1 dice.

That feels like it should be a Fleet Command upgrade, actually - I like it.

50 minutes ago, Noosh said:

Or a commander that kinda designates a high priority Target and everything that attacks it gets to reroll 1 dice.

Something like?

At the start of each round choose 1 ship and place an objective marker on it. When a friendly ship (or squadron?) is attacking the objective ship it may reroll 1 die. At the end of the round remove the objective marker.

I like it but may be too powerful for 10pts. if it includes squadron attacks. Or maybe you should pick the objective ship at the start of the first round and it can't change.

Just now, Megatronrex said:

Something like?

At the start of each round choose 1 ship and place an objective marker on it. When a friendly ship (or squadron?) is attacking the objective ship it may reroll 1 die. At the end of the round remove the objective marker.

I like it but may be too powerful for 10pts. if it includes squadron attacks. Or maybe you should pick the objective ship at the start of the first round and it can't change.

Yeah no idea. It would need to be play tested, in the framework.

This is a tough idea. @Undeadguy basically figuring out fleetwide affects for officer prices. What is too good in that role for that price. The problem is that most if the effects could be done cheaper by an officer upgrade, and at those smaller fleet sizes it would be easier to just take them on the few ships you have. So a commander by it's very nature must produce more bang for buck it's buck than an officer otherwise it's just a tax, with no greater benefits. A 10ish point vanilla commander needs to have a little bang above a similar pointed officer.

15 minutes ago, Noosh said:

This is a tough idea. @Undeadguy basically figuring out fleetwide affects for officer prices. What is too good in that role for that price. The problem is that most if the effects could be done cheaper by an officer upgrade, and at those smaller fleet sizes it would be easier to just take them on the few ships you have. So a commander by it's very nature must produce more bang for buck it's buck than an officer otherwise it's just a tax, with no greater benefits. A 10ish point vanilla commander needs to have a little bang above a similar pointed officer.

How about just taking an officer upgrade and make it fleetwide.

27 minutes ago, Jabby said:

How about just taking an officer upgrade and make it fleetwide.

That would also have to be carefully balanced. Can you imagine SFO? 1 point for all ships to discard their top dial once? This assumes, of course, that the generic officer can't be discarded, unlike the normal counterpart.

28 minutes ago, GhostofNobodyInParticular said:

That would also have to be carefully balanced. Can you imagine SFO? 1 point for all ships to discard their top dial once? This assumes, of course, that the generic officer can't be discarded, unlike the normal counterpart.

But you know,bump up the cost

11 hours ago, Noosh said:

This is a tough idea. @Undeadguy basically figuring out fleetwide affects for officer prices. What is too good in that role for that price. The problem is that most if the effects could be done cheaper by an officer upgrade, and at those smaller fleet sizes it would be easier to just take them on the few ships you have. So a commander by it's very nature must produce more bang for buck it's buck than an officer otherwise it's just a tax, with no greater benefits. A 10ish point vanilla commander needs to have a little bang above a similar pointed officer.

Yea it's pretty hard concept to think of. Lucky for you guys, you don't have to buy a generic commander. Once you reach 151+ points, you just pick one from the pool.

At 150 points, I'd think most people would have 2 or 3 ships, and 4 ships at 300 points. Since the average is around 5 at 400 points, it means creating a commander for a few ships so that effect can have a huge impact. Picking up a free command token is huge when you have 2 ships in play, compared to having 5 ships plus squads.

This won't be like CC. You'll be able to rapidly change your fleet as you lose ships or find out what your opponents fleets are.

During the commander phase place one token of your choice on this card (commander) when a ship activates it may use this token. Normal dial token rules apply.

Maybe something in the lines of discarding the card to cancel one attack against a friendly ship...

btw

What are you intending to name the cards if you are?

Edit:

another idea:

when attacking, a friendly ship may suffer any number of damage to reroll the same number of die.

or is this to op

Not sure on the names yet.