Just getting into Armada. I've grown tired of XWM and the 100/6 format; very few players around me want to try other formats, so I've moved into a new game. So far, I love Armada.

However, I have a question about cards that allow you to discard command dials.

Why would you want to do this? Specifically, there's an upgrade that lets you discard ALL your dials. Why would you want to do that? Is it because you've royally messed up and need to "redo" your command dial stack?

Thanks in advance!

6 minutes ago, Scopes said:

Just getting into Armada. I've grown tired of XWM and the 100/6 format; very few players around me want to try new things, so I've moved into a new game. So far, I love Armada.

However, I have a question about cards that allow you to discard command dials.

Why would you want to do this? Specifically, there's an upgrade that lets you discard ALL your dials. Why would you want to do that? Is it because you've royally messed up and need to "redo" your command dial stack?

Thanks in advance!

That's one reason.

The Rebels also have a card that lets them change all of your dials, and its a great way to recover from that.

One turn (out of the 6) can often make-or-break a ship with its command. So its important to have the command you need now rather than later...... and there are ways of denying that to the enemy...

At a bare minimum, Skilled First Officer makes a command-2 ship command-1 for two turns. Sometimes you can do better.

Turn N. You see at the top of the round that it has the wrong command queued up. Put the right one on the bottom of the stack. When it is this ships turn to activate, you throw out the top dial, and reveal the dial you placed this turn.

Turn N+1. You have zero dials face down, and therefore place two dials for this ship. One for this turn, and one for next turn. So, on both turns N and N+1 you got to choose the command you are using this round.

In some situations, you can get a bit more flexibility as well. Make your best guess about which commands you will need, but alternate them. Now, on each turn, you have the option of delaying your command choice all the way until you reveal the dial. So on Turn N you get to choose one of two key commands at this particular ship's turn to activate, and still also choose the command fresh at the top of turn N+1.

11 hours ago, jbrandmeyer said:

At a bare minimum, Skilled First Officer makes a command-2 ship command-1 for two turns. Sometimes you can do better.

Turn N. You see at the top of the round that it has the wrong command queued up. Put the right one on the bottom of the stack. When it is this ships turn to activate, you throw out the top dial, and reveal the dial you placed this turn.

Turn N+1. You have zero dials face down, and therefore place two dials for this ship. One for this turn, and one for next turn. So, on both turns N and N+1 you got to choose the command you are using this round.

In some situations, you can get a bit more flexibility as well. Make your best guess about which commands you will need, but alternate them. Now, on each turn, you have the option of delaying your command choice all the way until you reveal the dial. So on Turn N you get to choose one of two key commands at this particular ship's turn to activate, and still also choose the command fresh at the top of turn N+1.

To make sure I understand:

The command I add to the bottom is the one I reveal after I discard the top one?

Turn n+1: That's really neat...Armada is a more strategic and tactical game than I realized.

Thanks for your help.

12 hours ago, Drasnighta said:

That's one reason.

The Rebels also have a card that lets them change all of your dials, and its a great way to recover from that.

One turn (out of the 6) can often make-or-break a ship with its command. So its important to have the command you need now rather than later...... and there are ways of denying that to the enemy...

Thanks! I will keep this in mind. I get the core set this weekend and cannot wait to try this game. I'm doing Campaign Against Cancer for XWM this weekend as well, so I may have to wait a bit to try out Armada, but I am really excited about trying something new.

4 hours ago, Scopes said:

The command I add to the bottom is the one I reveal after I discard the top one?

On a Command-2 ship, yes exactly. If you have any software engineering background, the "command stack" is a misnomer. It is actually more like a "command queue", with the write end being the physical bottom of the stack of dials, and the read end is the physical top of the stack of dials. SFO pops off the read end of the queue. Officer Leia Organa allows you to replace the element on the read end of the command queue, and so on.

At the end of the Command Phase, every ship's command queue should be completely filled to that ship's command value.

12 minutes ago, jbrandmeyer said:

On a Command-2 ship, yes exactly. If you have any software engineering background, the "command stack" is a misnomer. It is actually more like a "command queue", with the write end being the physical bottom of the stack of dials, and the read end is the physical top of the stack of dials. SFO pops off the read end of the queue. Officer Leia Organa allows you to replace the element on the read end of the command queue, and so on.

At the end of the Command Phase, every ship's command queue should be completely filled to that ship's command value.

Ha ha! I teach computer science, and I was referring to it myself (in my head) as a queue rather than a stack!