Like many here I'm sure I've been keeping a close eye on Legion. One of the most elegant things imho about Legion is the command system. For those who don't know how it works: essentially your commander has a set of command cards that list a priority & a number of certain units. At the start of a turn both players play one of their command cards. The player which played the command card with the highest priority activates first, and gets to activate the number of units indicated by the command card. Then the other player activates the units indicated by his command card. After that the remaining units get activated one by one.

I'm not super familiar with the exact command cards in Legion, but generally the higher the priority, the fewer units you get to activate. So its a constant evaluation of going first but only activating one or a couple of units, or having lower priority but activating more units back to back. And since you won't know what command card your opponent plays, you may still go last even with a high priority card, or go first with a low priority card.

For Armada such a system would imho be a great addition as it adds another layer of strategy (do I use a high priority card that only activates my flagship but probably first so it can evade the Demolisher double-tap, or a low priority card that allows me to activate 3 small ships back to back but probably lets my opponent go first) and it 'fixes' a pet peeve of mine, that having first player + more activations than your opponent is extremely powerful as it allows you to go last-first with impunity. With the command card system you are not guaranteed to go first every turn as first player, or going last every turn as second player.

So I thought I'd start this topic to discuss the pros and cons of this system and how it could be implemented for Armada.

You have the system wrong.

You're correct that playing cards determines initiative and there is a vague correlation between number of units commanded and initiative value, but the units not specifically commanded drop their tokens into a bag. You can activate your specifically-commanded units or you can draw a random token from the bag and activate one of those units. The thing is the tokens in the bag don't correspond to a specific unit, but to a specific class of unit, so if I have (let's say) Vader, an AT-ST, and 6 units of Stormtroopers, I can use a card to command 2 units and choose Vader and the AT-ST. I then drop 6 identical Stormtrooper "corps" command tokens into a bag and when I randomly draw from it - surprise - it lets me activate a corps unit, meaning in that circumstance I can still always activate whatever I want to when I want to.

With Bail and Pryce in the game, last+firsting isn't nearly as easy or as common anymore. It's a wave 6 problem for the most part.

It doesn't quite work the way you describe. Whoever has higher priority will activate first, but they also get less units with "orders assigned" to them. Consider in Armada that when it is our turn to activate, we can activate any ship we want. In Legion, you can activate a unit that has been "assigned an order" or pull one (semi) randomly from a pile.

Edit: Beaten like an MSU in Wave 7.

7 minutes ago, Snipafist said:

You have the system wrong.

You're correct that playing cards determines initiative and there is a vague correlation between number of units commanded and initiative value, but the units not specifically commanded drop their tokens into a bag. You can activate your specifically-commanded units or you can draw a random token from the bag and activate one of those units. The thing is the tokens in the bag don't correspond to a specific unit, but to a specific class of unit, so if I have (let's say) Vader, an AT-ST, and 6 units of Stormtroopers, I can use a card to command 2 units and choose Vader and the AT-ST. I then drop 6 identical Stormtrooper "corps" command tokens into a bag and when I randomly draw from it - surprise - it lets me activate a corps unit, meaning in that circumstance I can still always activate whatever I want to when I want to.

With Bail and Pryce in the game, last+firsting isn't nearly as easy or as common anymore. It's a wave 6 problem for the most part.

Right, so its a bit more convoluted than I described but the general gist is the same. As I wrote it would be a nice system to adapt to Armada. Obvious things would have to change as we generally have less ships than a Legion match has units.

I'am only a casual player and did a store championship only once. So I don't know too much about how much a problem flotilla spam really is. For me it's not.

But I do know something about systems. There are more central parts of a system (building the core) and more peripheral parts. You can change the peripheral parts without changing the character of a system. Every new wave does that. And there are a lot of people paid for thinking about which changes can be made without bringing the system in imbalance and lots of people trying out if their assumptions are right. That's a quite difficult task.

And in Armada they way it determines initiative and activation of ships isn't peripheral, it's part of the core. If you would change the core, it wouldn't be a resemling system any more. Maybe it would be a better system, but it wouldn't be Armada any more that we know now.

I find Legion very interesting and would love to play it sometimes. But I also like Armada the way it is. I don't want the core of the system changed. I don't want Armada to be Legion.

3 minutes ago, Triangular said:

I find Legion very interesting and would love to play it sometimes. But I also like Armada the way it is. I don't want the core of the system changed. I don't want Armada to be Legion.

That's fine, this topic is about discussing essentially house rules or 'what if'. I'm not employed by FFG so its not as if what we discuss here will have any bearing on the official rules.

2 minutes ago, Lord Tareq said:

That's fine, this topic is about discussing essentially house rules or 'what if'. I'm not employed by FFG so its not as if what we discuss here will have any bearing on the official rules.

Okay! Then just let's discuss what is the difference between initiative and activation between "Armada"-style and "Legion"-style.

Armada-initiative and activation is a system without luck. It's all planning. How big is you point-gap. Do you want to be first player or do you want your opponent to play your objectives? Do you want to first-last?

Legion-initiative and activation is a system with luck involved. The conditions for the game are random, but you can involve a bit. For initiative you have to bid every round and you throw a dice when you had a tie. For activation there is luck involved but you can minimize it.

For me the difference is between control (Armada) and randomizing (Legion). Randomizing can be fun, but also very frustrating, when someone is only winning, because of lucky initiative bidding (maybe three ties and always winning through initiatve die) or luck with getting the right tokens to activate.

The question is if you like a playstyle more like chess or like Settlers of Catan.

I don't expect a system like Legion would bring so much impact against flotilla spam. Because you have tokens for unit types, not for units itself, a list with 1 heavy hitter and X flotillas would benefit very much from this kind of activation padding. In Legion their exist 5 types of units and you have to field at least three of them, when I remember right. You would have to twist the rules in the same direction, I suppose.

I like that the systems are so different and Legion is so much more chaotic. Naval combat, which Armada aims to replicate, is a deliberate and slow affair. Ground combat is fast and furious madness. War is chaos. Whoever can handle that chaos the best wins.

Legion's command system CAN be identical to Armada's depending on your list though. If you run, say, Vader, 6 Stormtroopers, and one other unit, you can assign orders to Vader and the other unit, while leaving all Stormtroopers "in the pile", and you'll still be able to activate anyone you want, whenever you want. The two systems are more similar than it might seem in that regard.

The command cards however, have some special differences especially when it comes to commander abilities.

4 hours ago, Snipafist said:

You have the system wrong.

You're correct that playing cards determines initiative and there is a vague correlation between number of units commanded and initiative value, but the units not specifically commanded drop their tokens into a bag. You can activate your specifically-commanded units or you can draw a random token from the bag and activate one of those units. The thing is the tokens in the bag don't correspond to a specific unit, but to a specific class of unit, so if I have (let's say) Vader, an AT-ST, and 6 units of Stormtroopers, I can use a card to command 2 units and choose Vader and the AT-ST. I then drop 6 identical Stormtrooper "corps" command tokens into a bag and when I randomly draw from it - surprise - it lets me activate a corps unit, meaning in that circumstance I can still always activate whatever I want to when I want to.

With Bail and Pryce in the game, last+firsting isn't nearly as easy or as common anymore. It's a wave 6 problem for the most part.

It's a good thing you can only guarantee orders to all units for 4 rounds. And 2 of those orders are 3 pips which means you give up priority in most cases.

More importantly, this only pertains to the game as is. Once more units are added and people take a greater variety, gaming the activation system will be quite hard.

I like both games, but Legion is mechanically much better on the activation front.

On 3/28/2018 at 4:07 AM, Triangular said:

Okay! Then just let's discuss what is the difference between initiative and activation between "Armada"-style and "Legion"-style.

Armada-initiative and activation is a system without luck. It's all planning. How big is you point-gap. Do you want to be first player or do you want your opponent to play your objectives? Do you want to first-last?

Legion-initiative and activation is a system with luck involved. The conditions for the game are random, but you can involve a bit. For initiative you have to bid every round and you throw a dice when you had a tie. For activation there is luck involved but you can minimize it.

For me the difference is between control (Armada) and randomizing (Legion). Randomizing can be fun, but also very frustrating, when someone is only winning, because of lucky initiative bidding (maybe three ties and always winning through initiatve die) or luck with getting the right tokens to activate.

The question is if you like a playstyle more like chess or like Settlers of Catan.

I don't expect a system like Legion would bring so much impact against flotilla spam. Because you have tokens for unit types, not for units itself, a list with 1 heavy hitter and X flotillas would benefit very much from this kind of activation padding. In Legion their exist 5 types of units and you have to field at least three of them, when I remember right. You would have to twist the rules in the same direction, I suppose.

Excellent assessment and I think you hit the nail right on the head!

For some reason or another, the prevailing sentiment amongst a decent chunk of armada players has been:

A: our gaming system is broken

B: another game's system (runewars yesterday, Legion's today) would somehow be a panacea to A.

And I think what you have illustrated here is that A is a false premise, and that B is hopelessly deluded.

Thanks for the post!

I was thinking a bit on this (giving armada the legion order system) as well. For me the advantages would be

- break the sheer formulaic power of building for last-first

- give commanders unique order cards which would be cool

Disadvantages

- would have a big impact on the game balance and may not result in a 'better' situation

- brings more luck into the equation - no matter how well you play you could be screwed by the wrong combo of command cards. When armada can be lost in a single activation this would be big.

I've played a very small number of demo Legion games. All I'm willing to say at this point is that Legion needs to strictly control the initiative/activation system from the outset or we will see MSU activating spam become a defining element of that game.

If you want a SERIOUS run at trying this for Armada, your first bit is going to try to equate the activation categories.

In Legion, you are starting the game with a minimum of 4 units in 2 Categories. One Commander chit and 3 Corps chits. This is deliberate to the amount of orders on the cards.

off the bat, we already lack a consistency in Armada - as Legion forces are st a minimum 4 activations.

So if you want to directly transfer, you have to set effectively a “corps” category and what that is - mandating 3+ of them in a fleet...

commander st least has a equivalent - flagship.

its At this point that I getvstuck... are corps Command 1 ships? Are they Flotillas, are they non flotilla command 1 ships?

Which means in the end, you are doing one of these:

1) Forcing 3+ flotilla fleets.

2) Forcing 3+ small ship fleets, and thus, reducing dual larges and such.

3) Having a base game much higher than 400pts to accommodate.

4) Reworking the Legion command system to factor in base order cards that have reduced orders... and then wondering how to moderate, say, reducing all order amounts on cards by 1 but still balancing standing orders...

I mean, you could go without doing a thing, but you are still kind of saying “two activations just don’t work, totally wasted.”

I would say, that the Legion Activation method is half hearted. It would have been consequent to give the units individual numbers (or other individual ID) instead of unit IDs. So it would have been no better to have six trooper units, than 1 ATST, 1 Speeder Bikes and 2 Troopers. (Is it really that much easier to command troopers without supporting and heavy units?)

I read three Legion battle reports. All stated, that winning (or loosing) came out of the winning (or loosing) the activation, when Luke and Vader were engaged in melee. It was always a tie (because!) and the tie-breaker die decided over the outcome of the match.

Even though all three reports liked Legion very much, I don't think this part of that game is a model to improve Armada (which is IMHO a wonderful game already).

56 minutes ago, Triangular said:

I would say, that the Legion Activation method is half hearted. It would have been consequent to give the units individual numbers (or other individual ID) instead of unit IDs. So it would have been no better to have six trooper units, than 1 ATST, 1 Speeder Bikes and 2 Troopers. (Is it really that much easier to command troopers without supporting and heavy units?)

I read three Legion battle reports. All stated, that winning (or loosing) came out of the winning (or loosing) the activation, when Luke and Vader were engaged in melee. It was always a tie (because!) and the tie-breaker die decided over the outcome of the match.

Even though all three reports liked Legion very much, I don't think this part of that game is a model to improve Armada (which is IMHO a wonderful game already).

That would make your non commanded units almost completely random. Which might be better, but at what point are you fighting the game mechanics more than you are your opponent?

Dont forget there is a range for commanding units.

2 hours ago, Triangular said:

I read three Legion battle reports. All stated, that winning (or loosing) came out of the winning (or loosing) the activation, when Luke and Vader were engaged in melee. It was always a tie (because!) and the tie-breaker die decided over the outcome of the match.

I would say that is probably due to inexperience with the system. In practice, when you have experienced players, wargame matches are almost never decided by luck because you generally try to avoid a situation where a single bad roll can decide the outcome of your game. I.e. when you engage your opponent's strongest melee unit knowing you will only win if you get priority while you know your opponent still has to play its highest priority card, you are willingly letting fate/luck decide your game. When I first started playing Warhammer luck played a major part as I'd gladly allow 1 of my units to face 1 enemy unit of roughly even strength. Later when I played at tournaments etc. I almost never allowed 'even' 1 on 1 combats. I'd hold or even retreat with units, and only commit to fights where I had a 2-1 or even 3-1 advantage. Luck played only a peripheral role.

Anyhow I agree taking Legion's system and flat out copy/paste it won't work for Armada. However at its core I still think the command card aspect is a good system that could work really well with Armada, but requires some serious adaptations to compensate for the potentially very low number of units, unrestricted fleet composition & unforeseen balance aspects.