Hey all,

This is honestly my most important question. I love this game because of the miniatures and how they look. I've painted mine and they're gorgeous. But I rarely have the time and energy to play. While I'm trying to work up some sort of campaign or whatever, its gonna take a while.

What do you do to get more story and glory time out of your pretty fleets? What do you do that makes them feel alive and special?

I really wish I could just play some RPG style with my ships lol.

I hear you on this.

I, of course, have HNN to help give me a reason to build a narrative to my after-action reports.

My crew and I are also finishing up our 2nd CC, with big custom-made plans for our third. In addition to setting it in the Calamari sector with a new map and planet resource distributions, and using @Tvboy 's Imperial Assault integration rules, we also want some incentive for having the players add some narrative elements to their after-action reports.

28 minutes ago, Blail Blerg said:

Hey all,

This is honestly my most important question. I love this game because of the miniatures and how they look. I've painted mine and they're gorgeous. But I rarely have the time and energy to play. While I'm trying to work up some sort of campaign or whatever, its gonna take a while.

What do you do to get more story and glory time out of your pretty fleets? What do you do that makes them feel alive and special?

I really wish I could just play some RPG style with my ships lol.

Every one of my ships are named, beyond the title (I consider titles ‘upgrade packages’).

i then essentially log every non tournament game, and write a few words in an Admirals log of such about the fleet performance, all from the admirals perspective.

It means I basically do RPG myself in the system.

its mostly a shame I am the only one to do it here... I am sure @Mikael Hasselstein And I would have done epic stories if we were in the same geographic neighbourhood.

A problem, for many of us, is that narrative yearns to be shared, but audiences are frequently not very responsive. I'll confess that, as an audience, I have also not always responded as much as I should have - given my interest in getting people to engage more with narrative than they tend to do. Of course, that's only natural as an audience is generally less engaged with the material than the author is, and narrative-building also requires as much skill as enthusiasm.

The same (requiring skill) is also true for organizing collaborative (as opposed to unilateral) narrative-building - something that I've still not quita cracked.

But, hopefully, soon.

All of my ships have names like Dras' do. My ships also belong to separate task forces or special units within my overall fleet. 1 of each of my Rebel ships is painted in the same theme as my main Imperial task-force, the Ironbreakers, representing captured ships I call the Broken. They pretty much only come out for parade duty and the occasional training exercise. I've got a mercenary group, the Tiger's Claws, with a Neb-B a Gozanti and 1 of each squadron from both factions. A Rebel privateer group that I haven't settled on a name for yet with an Action Transport, Mobquet, Combat Hammerhead, and a couple of republic cruisers.

Well I guess there's nothing saying you can't do that. Starfinder (rpg) has mechanics for starships you may wish to look into that as an option to scratch that itch.

I'm in command of Blood Squadron, Hirschau Sector. Fleet Admiral Wolf Deralisk, at your service (I have the uniform too!). All my ships are named, and the name is on the base, and everything is painted in the squadron scheme. When I build a list for anything, I name the detachment appropriately. And I tend to post updates and bat reps in character.

all this helps bring it all to life.

Question: so what happens when one of your name ships gets destroyed? I kinda have names I use for individual ships, but I don't actually put the name on the base or develop a history for the ship, because they just don't last that long on the table.

3 minutes ago, SnowWulf said:

Question: so what happens when one of your name ships gets destroyed? I kinda have names I use for individual ships, but I don't actually put the name on the base or develop a history for the ship, because they just don't last that long on the table.

Destroyed is relative.

I consider it more crippled, or combat-ineffective.

5 minutes ago, Drasnighta said:

Destroyed is relative.

I consider it more crippled, or combat-ineffective.

Yup. Wedge can punch out of ANYTHING haha.

It would be cool to develop an on-line campaign system allowing players to RP some things via reports and such. Something akin to Empire at War only instead of players controlling the whole Empire or Rebellion, players would be in command of individual fleets, squadrons or strike teams(Armada, Xwing, Imperial Assault/Legion). Something GW used to do was run these massive campaigns for 40K. It'd be cool if FFG did something similar. I'm sure it'd boost sales.

Well, I can tell you about a RPG campaign I ran that was part "Age of Rebellion" part "Armada" that the players enjoyed quite a bit.

It was pretty easy over all.

1.) First of all I came up with the over all plan for the group. "Infiltrate secret Imperial production facility, steal plans". I also added bonuses like, "destroy data, cripple production, steal prototypes".

2.) I pregenerated their characters off short conversations with each player based on what they wanted.


Zoidbar: GR8-B8: Thorne:

3.) Used an online map builder to generate a space station full of rooms.



4.) Filled those rooms with people items and interactions, then located the mission objectives and bonuses.

5.) Added the Armada aspect. (using the "teamplay" rules from the RRG) the players had to either engage or escape 2 interdictor class ships (run by the gm) using a couple of gladiators. (I threw them a curve and had 2 imperial class ships show up mid battle and then when they looked trapped had a couple of MC80s hyperspace in to finish off the ISDs or let them escape).


They loved it. The players successfully snuck through the entire base crippling systems and stealing data left and right. Even gave the station CO a good scare for his job with a successful bluff check and a rebuke about the security quoting the phrase "what if rabals". After the game the players then got to design custom titles for a small-medium ship of their choice from the rebel side (to be approved by the gm).


[I'm not too sure if this really answers your question, but mixing RPG and Armada can be a real good time, and it adds a neat element to the game.]

52 minutes ago, SnowWulf said:

Question: so what happens when one of your name ships gets destroyed? I kinda have names I use for individual ships, but I don't actually put the name on the base or develop a history for the ship, because they just don't last that long on the table.

They get salvaged and lovingly repaired at the main shipyard.

I have been developing a narrative for my fleet, which will eventually be represented in ship repaints. A New Republic fleet is under the command of Grand Admiral Cassius Farrin, the only Grand Admiral who openly defected to the New Republic. Post-Zsinj campaign, Cassius brought his holdings over to the New Republic. He commands from the Liberty Star Cruiser "Steel Liberator." Under his command are two other high-ranking officers; Commodore Willem Brandt of the Star Destroyer "Emerald Heart," and Admiral Adien Tyrellis of the Liberty Star Cruiser "Mon Callandra." Supporting cast includes Rogue Squadron, Han, Lando, and Luke.

I've always wanted to tailor the old school rules of Mordheim to Armada.

Essentially everyone starts out with generics and then as you gain experience and battle scars the character of each model really begins to shine through... I will always have fond memories of my Bretonian Knight D'Locquax who was a frenzied monster with 6 attacks... and toughness 1.

But allowing your fighters to get upgrades and "down grades" from each and every battle would be awesome. I biggest beef with the last campaign was the total and complete lack of love for generics. You went with named and unique characters if you wanted to use any of the campaign rules of being a veteran of combat. Didn't sit well with me.

1 hour ago, SnowWulf said:

Question: so what happens when one of your name ships gets destroyed? I kinda have names I use for individual ships, but I don't actually put the name on the base or develop a history for the ship, because they just don't last that long on the table.

1 hour ago, Drasnighta said:

Destroyed is relative.

I consider it more crippled, or combat-ineffective.

Scarred not destroyed.

Repair them spending beer points.

3 hours ago, Darth Lupine said:

I'm in command of Blood Squadron, Hirschau Sector. Fleet Admiral Wolf Deralisk, at your service (I have the uniform too!). All my ships are named, and the name is on the base, and everything is painted in the squadron scheme. When I build a list for anything, I name the detachment appropriately. And I tend to post updates and bat reps in character.

all this helps bring it all to life.

I've always wanted to name my ships for all to see, like in Vassal. How have you affixed the ship name to the base, pray tell good sir?

54 minutes ago, Maturin said:

I've always wanted to name my ships for all to see, like in Vassal. How have you affixed the ship name to the base, pray tell good sir?

I paint my bases black. The name is painted then in white along both sides of the front of the base.

Like so. @Maturin

My Imperial fleet is based in the Minos Cluster. It consists of the VSD Chariot , the GSD Argus , the Wolf and Recluse, a pair of Raider class corvettes used for customs patrols, a resupply flotilla, and an Arquitens class cruiser Observer.

It seems like we’re thonking the same things. Does someone want to brew up a collaborative narrative creation system? Meaning not a story but a way to share stories?

Heck like say ironbreakers is putting out a call for a detachment to fight rebel forces over dantooine. Something that engages other people directly. Allows for combined story telling collaboratively as opposed to being constrained by the time of an enthusiast DM

1 hour ago, Blail Blerg said:

It seems like we’re thonking the same things. Does someone want to brew up a collaborative narrative creation system? Meaning not a story but a way to share stories?

Heck like say ironbreakers is putting out a call for a detachment to fight rebel forces over dantooine. Something that engages other people directly. Allows for combined story telling collaboratively as opposed to being constrained by the time of an enthusiast DM

I don't know what Ironbreakers is, so you might want to explain more of what you mean by collaborative narrative creation system. If you wanted to share stories, you could simply write them and post them here on the forum. But I'm pretty sure that's not what you mean, because it wouldn't be collaborative unless you co-authored them with someone. I also assume that Armada would be involved somehow.

Isn't CC essentially just that, though? It provides narrative stakes around a series of linked games.

5 minutes ago, Mikael Hasselstein said:

I don't know what Ironbreakers is, so you might want to explain more of what you mean by collaborative narrative creation system. If you wanted to share stories, you could simply write them and post them here on the forum. But I'm pretty sure that's not what you mean, because it wouldn't be collaborative unless you co-authored them with someone. I also assume that Armada would be involved somehow.

Isn't CC essentially just that, though? It provides narrative stakes around a series of linked games.

@Mikael Hasselstein Re: Ironbreakers, see @Megatronrex post above.

8 minutes ago, Mikael Hasselstein said:

I don't know what Ironbreakers is, so you might want to explain more of what you mean by collaborative narrative creation system. If you wanted to share stories, you could simply write them and post them here on the forum. But I'm pretty sure that's not what you mean, because it wouldn't be collaborative unless you co-authored them with someone. I also assume that Armada would be involved somehow.

Isn't CC essentially just that, though? It provides narrative stakes around a series of linked games.

That's what I call my main Imperial task force.

1 hour ago, Blail Blerg said:

It seems like we’re thonking the same things. Does someone want to brew up a collaborative narrative creation system? Meaning not a story but a way to share stories?

Heck like say ironbreakers is putting out a call for a detachment to fight rebel forces over dantooine. Something that engages other people directly. Allows for combined story telling collaboratively as opposed to being constrained by the time of an enthusiast DM

Do you mean like making a series of narrative scenarios? That was the intention behind mine when I started dividing them into the task forces unfortunately it didn't get much further along then a few pages of brainstorming in a spiral notebook. I definitely want to get back to it after regionals finish up. I still have to paint some more pink ships to go in my next task force the Panty Raiders. And then I'm planning on eventually doing a Sith Fleet but I've only got an unpainted Harrower for that one so far.