Full disclosure. I'm a fanboy of Armada and will happily play the game as it is designed for a long time. <insert a lengthy gush about variety of list archetypes and opportunities for innovative tactics here>

In talking with some guys at/after our Fargo Regional I noticed one gripe (that leaks into another gripe) that would be fixable with a very minor tweak.

Issue: The last/first move with no opportunity for a reaction with from the other player.
Effects:
1. Thematically - a Demo/Admo suddenly having double the speed of everything on the board is awkward.
2. Flotillas - flotilla padding is a welcome option to me, but is more mandatory due to last/first strikes.
3. List building - some interesting tactics seem off limits due to their vulnerability to last/first strikes.
4. 1st player - significant activation (2+) advantage deserves a reward for obtaining the upper hand.
Proposal:
The same ship may never be activated back-to-back, however, the other player's ships counts as an action.
Therefore player 1 can activate the same one of his ships back-to-back as long as his opponent activated one in between.
Examples of play:

Edit: ....post got interrupted and accidentally posted before finishing and the conversation took off fine. I'm not going to spell out the examples.

18 minutes ago, deDios said:

3. List building - some interesting tactics seem off limits due to their vulnerability to last/first strikes

Removing first/lasting would hurt some tactics too, keep in mind.

You could also avoid this situation if you changed the mechanics thusly:

1) All ships move (alternating players, starting with 1st)

2) All ships shoot (alternating players, starting with 1st)

It would be a very different game, though.

The "no single ship can activate twice in a row" is a very clever solution. It squarely kicks Demo, MC30 shenanigans and BTAvenger right in the chops... which I'm ok with.

Although a side effect of such a change would be just exacerbating the activation count meta. Now you need more activations to make sure you activate Demo second to last... not just last.

Well, according to some leaks, we will get officers providing a pass option, one allowing the ship It is attached to to be first no matter what, and one for the other faction to be last ship in the turn in w7. Take this with salt. But these will cure your problem.

22 minutes ago, Coldhands said:

Well, according to some leaks, we will get officers providing a pass option, one allowing the ship It is attached to to be first no matter what, and one for the other faction to be last ship in the turn in w7. Take this with salt. But these will cure your problem.

Both of those cards make the problem worse. Great, now we have AvengerBT with a card that says it always can activate first. If Imps get the “always last” option, then now AvengerBT doesn’t need to activation pad. It just auto-outwaits it’s opponent.

God I hope those rumors are wrong.

Now, a straight “exhaust to pass activation” officer would be different. I would be alright with that if it is expensive or limited in some way

1 hour ago, deDios said:

The same ship may never be activated back-to-back.

I could see this making activation padding worse... now instead of +1 activation they need +2 or +3 so they can out wait the big ship then move in with their last/first ship and finish the round with a activation pad, meaning they still get the 1st/last advantage, but may also have deployment advantage....

I really don't wanna see a BTA with 5 gozantis, but a rule like this could easily instigate that kind of nonsense.

Best way to avoid 1st last? bid for 1st.

Just now, Darth Sanguis said:

I could see this making activation padding worse... now instead of +1 activation they need +2 or +3 so they can out wait the big ship then move in with their last/first ship and finish the round with a activation pad, meaning they still get the 1st/last advantage, but may also have deployment advantage....

I really don't wanna see a BTA with 5 gozantis, but a rule like this could easily instigate that kind of nonsense.

Best way to avoid 1st last? bid for 1st.

You don’t see BTVenger and 5 Goz already?

i do.

Just now, Drasnighta said:

You don’t see BTVenger and 5 Goz already?

i do.

Canada is a strange place friend. I have not seen anything of the like here.

46 minutes ago, Church14 said:

Both of those cards make the problem worse. Great, now we have AvengerBT with a card that says it always can activate first. If Imps get the “always last” option, then now AvengerBT doesn’t need to activation pad. It just auto-outwaits it’s opponent.

God I hope those rumors are wrong.

Now, a straight “exhaust to pass activation” officer would be different. I would be alright with that if it is expensive or limited in some way

Why would It make worse? If its a problem, you take one of them as safeguard, so you ruin it for your opponent. First activation would be on one side, no matter what, last on the other. I see problems if the same officer is present Both armies: It has to have some sort of 'if this card is present in Both Fleet, treat Both cards text box as if They were blank'.

So, theyll be present in most of the fleets When released, and slowly fade out When They become wasted Points.

1 hour ago, PartyPotato said:

The "no single ship can activate twice in a row" is a very clever solution. It squarely kicks Demo, MC30 shenanigans and BTAvenger right in the chops... which I'm ok with.

I'm not okay with this.

55 minutes ago, Church14 said:

Now, a straight “exhaust to pass activation” officer would be different. I would be alright with that if it is expensive or limited in some way

You mean discard to pass? An officer that allowed a pass every turn of the game seems ridiculous. I could see it being once, but seriously? Exhaust? Here comes the pass card/ms-1 ion cannon meta.

4 minutes ago, BrobaFett said:

You mean discard to pass? An officer that allowed a pass every turn of the game seems ridiculous. I could see it being once, but seriously? Exhaust? Here comes the pass card/ms-1 ion cannon meta.

We DO need to see more MS-1s out in the wild.

6 minutes ago, BrobaFett said:

Exhaust? Here comes the pass card/ms-1 ion cannon meta.

That card could seriously use some love. There just aren't enough good Exhaust upgrades around.

So if the "pass officer" and/or "activate first/last" cards are Exhausts... well, color me a fan.

EDIT: Ninja'd by Dras. OF COURSE.

Give the out activated player a number of pass token equal to the difference between the 2 fleets. Update the number of pass tokens as the game goes on, immediately after a ship is lost such that at any point in the game both sides have an equal number of activations. This fixes the Last/First issue, but does not devalue the advantage of having first player since you still get to be first on the draw. I think this change could remove most if not all the issues people have with Armada because all the hot button issues all basically revolve around some powerful combo and the ability to activate first.

My solution would be a major change to the game, but the proposed "can't double activate a ship," fix would be a simpler solution that could get played around with a +2 activation advantage, but is much more difficult to maintain. A First/Last fleet needs to be a minimum of 6 ships instead of 5 in order to usually get the edge. Between the cost of the additional ship and the bid needed to keep first it will in theory weaken the fleet using this, not invalidating the tactic but making it more costly to employ.

May be a good middle ground solution. though in my mind the pass token solution if more air tight so long as people are willing to adapt to a change that big.

11 minutes ago, BrobaFett said:

You mean discard to pass? An officer that allowed a pass every turn of the game seems ridiculous. I could see it being once, but seriously? Exhaust? Here comes the pass card/ms-1 ion cannon meta.

Fair. I’m okay with it as a discard. Truthfully, I really only need it on one critical turn.

13 minutes ago, Space_Cowboy17 said:

Give the out activated player a number of pass token equal to the difference between the 2 fleets. Update the number of pass tokens as the game goes on, immediately after a ship is lost such that at any point in the game both sides have an equal number of activations. This fixes the Last/First issue, but does not devalue the advantage of having first player since you still get to be first on the draw. I think this change could remove most if not all the issues people have with Armada because all the hot button issues all basically revolve around some powerful combo and the ability to activate first.

My solution would be a major change to the game, but the proposed "can't double activate a ship," fix would be a simpler solution that could get played around with a +2 activation advantage, but is much more difficult to maintain. A First/Last fleet needs to be a minimum of 6 ships instead of 5 in order to usually get the edge. Between the cost of the additional ship and the bid needed to keep first it will in theory weaken the fleet using this, not invalidating the tactic but making it more costly to employ.

May be a good middle ground solution. though in my mind the pass token solution if more air tight so long as people are willing to adapt to a change that big.

No. I shouldn't get to pass 5 times with my 2 ISD fleet versus your 7 ship MSU. That overvalues large ships AND why do we need equal activations for everyone and every list? An ISD and a gozanti do different things with different activations, so they shouldn't be equal and you shouldn't get multiple pass tokens because you showed up with less.

6 minutes ago, geek19 said:

No. I shouldn't get to pass 5 times with my 2 ISD fleet versus your 7 ship MSU. That overvalues large ships AND why do we need equal activations for everyone and every list? An ISD and a gozanti do different things with different activations, so they shouldn't be equal and you shouldn't get multiple pass tokens because you showed up with less.

This is my thought. I don't like the pass mechanic, I don't like last first, but given the choice of the two I think I would take last first over pass. Currently we are already seeing a TON of large ships. I don't think at this moment in time they need to be given further advantage over small bases. Not to say that won't change.

9 minutes ago, geek19 said:

No. I shouldn't get to pass 5 times with my 2 ISD fleet versus your 7 ship MSU. That overvalues large ships AND why do we need equal activations for everyone and every list? An ISD and a gozanti do different things with different activations, so they shouldn't be equal and you shouldn't get multiple pass tokens because you showed up with less.

And this is why I seriously doubt we're getting the option to pass or go first. It would fundamentally change fleetbuilding and therefore the game at large, even as one time discards. The source has made mistakes before. Just ask DiabloAzul.

48 minutes ago, BrobaFett said:

You mean discard to pass? An officer that allowed a pass every turn of the game seems ridiculous. I could see it being once, but seriously? Exhaust? Here comes the pass card/ms-1 ion cannon meta.

We'd sure see a lot more Interdictors aorund....

4 minutes ago, The Jabbawookie said:

And this is why I seriously doubt we're getting the option to pass or go first. It would fundamentally change fleetbuilding and therefore the game at large, even as one time discards. The source has made mistakes before. Just ask DiabloAzul.

Ha, so true.

But in this case all points to the source being well-informed. And they just gave a vague description of the effect, without entering into cost or use restrictions. FFG may very well have found a fair way to limit (ab)use.

I didn't realize this was posted (I got interrupted by students), and I come back here to a discussion already underway. I'm glad it didn't initiate a firefight or any 'game is broken' comments which was my (unfounded) fear.

I was hoping to hear, in one place, some of the alternative solutions - and I hadn't heard about the Wave 7 'pass officer' or 'activation officer' rumors so thanks for that. I'm not sure how I feel about them yet either, but I'm glad they are experimenting with options to make this still a valid strategy without being as ubiquitous. FYI - I often fly a last-first Liberty-Admonition list and am looking for a good reason to kick the habit.

@Drasnighta @Darth Sanguis @PartyPotato I'm actually hoping to force BTAvengers that feel they NEED 6 activations to require 7 activations to get the same security. I'm pulling an Alfred Nobel and trying to make activation warfare so expensive that it becomes more incentivised to play the balanced list and yet still allow the extreme to be plausible by specialists - which is the beauty of the game balance in Armada IMHO.

@svelok I'm hoping for a solution that still allows a pseudo last/first, but gives the opponent some possible response. I still want to be able to park an Admo in between 2 targets and force the opponent to chose which one they move first.

Ultimately, I'm not stuck on this idea - but with all the discussion I've heard on the topic, I wanted to see if this solution was as elegant as it sounded on first blush. In the end, I'll keep this as my top shelf game as it is.

I appreciate the thoughtful responses to a hypothetical topic.

14 minutes ago, deDios said:

I'm pulling an Alfred Nobel

Call me Oppenheimer, but that's a vain hope.

This thread is starting to sound more and more like, "I hate this particular build that beats me consistently and want only it to be stopped."

If first/last is a problem (which I believe it is), the solution is in the "first" part. The cure, then, is in the objectives. I hope we see a campaign (and an objective card expansion pack for those that don't want to purchase the campaign box) that has completely new objectives for the game. Strengthen second player and you will see a decrease in first/last issues. It will still be strong, but it won't be overly strong compared to second player.