Hi all,
FFG doesn't entertain us with news, so lets entertain ourselves. If you have an idea or anything you'd love to see in Armada, share it with us. No **** throwing please, constructive criticism only. Keep it civil, fellow admirals (not you, rebel scums).

Here are few from me:
1. A dice should be re-rolled once. Maybe limit effect stacking as well, like Toryn+BBC, or LS+a weapons team re-roll. Bombers deal those 3-4 damages too consistently. I'm okay with them dealing damage and the squad game, but look at the results...bombers, bombers everywhere. They need to be a threat otherwise you'd ignore them, but a small tuning down is needed.
2. Squadron phase. I think move or shoot is a bit dumb. Imagine yourself as a fighter pilot. If you get no orders, you won't fly into the middle of a battle and see what happens and not shooting at all. I think I'd engage the closest threat and shoot at it(its me, you might be acting other way). A, lets rename the command to Coordinate squadrons. B, no changes if activated by a ship, but: if activated in the squad phase the squadron has to fly towards the closest enemy squadron if its possible to get into engagement and shoot at that target. So, if you were lazy to command them, there is a random element in the game, also, your opponent can exploit this with its squadrons position, luring into trap, etc. If you cannot get into range 1, fly towards the enemy squadron, stopping at the edge of the closest friendly ships command zone. Squadrons with bomber keyword would have to fly towards the closest enemy ship and shoot it if possible.
Also, to avoid being alpha-ed out without a chance to react: your unactivated squadron may elect to shoot back if shot at by an enemy squadron, even if it was destroyed by the attack. Phantoms could be changed from cloak to ambush: enemy squadron you attacked may not shoot at you with return fire.
For these changes, rogues should receive a small compensation. They'd be unchanged in squadron phase, but should receive a buff if activated by a ship(like extra speed, extra die, re-roll, anything balanced). The change to rogues could happen in any FAQ by the way to bring them back to the table, apart from YT-2400-s, you barely see any of them on regular basis.
3. New maneuver. I think ships should be able to spin. These would be speed 0 moves, but for some reasons speed 0 is punished hard. Also I think its a bit toooo unrealistic to execute it at high speeds, so: if you have a maneuver dial and the ships speed is 1, you can chose to spin instead of moving normally. Using two triangles from the core set, its not that hard to achieve: you put one of them to the back just like when you remove it from the play area for whatever reason. Then you put the other one to the first ones side which is paralel with the ships side. Step 3: move the ships same side front corner to the second triangle turning it 90 degree. I think this would be a nice tactical move enriching the game.
4. Concentrate fire is the worst command(for medium-large ships). I'd make the commands a bit more meaningful and a hard decision. Squadron and maneuver command is already strong, repair lags bit behind in usefulness.
-Repair shouldn't reach unkillable levels, but maybe a small flat bonus when you reveal a repair dial. Lets say, 1 shield or being able to flip a critical damage facedown.
-Concentrate fire: Rename to Coordinate weapons. Current adding an extra die is sometimes just a waste of dial, and you don't feel like you achieved anything with the extra die. I'd suggest adding 3 effects you can choose from when doing this command:
-effect 1: Concentrate fire: after rolling the attack pool, you may change one of your dice to another dice with the same colour with any face. This way your shot becomes meaningful. Yes, critical damage farming would end with this, but you still need to time this command, and you can only have 1 command dial a turn(except for Thrawn). Token unchanged.
-effect 2: Hold fire: your ship receives a hold fire token, and skips attack phase. Any time after an enemy ship moves, you may remove the hold fire token, and execute an attack phase for the ship. I'd introduce this for the pure reason, that a ship to ship combat is not done with a single salvo from one ship(normally) destroying the other one with that not being able to shoot even once. If you imagine two ISD-s wanting to shoot each other, getting closer and closer, those ships open fire simoultanously. You'll be shot at first, there is no change in that, but you won't waste a complete turn not shooting. I hope you understand the idea.
-effect 3. split fire: sometimes you want to shoot a ship at long range, but that is just half of your guns. What do the other gunners do? Well, if they are told to, they'll shoot a different target. OR, the enemy is about to go down, all you need is a small spit. What does your ISD do? ALL GUNS SHOOT THAT SHIP, THAT ONE HULL MUST GO!. Of course a 'good commander' would use its ship resources wisely(if he is busy commanding the guns). So, yeah the idea is as long as the hull zone you selected to fire has 'unused' dices, you may pick an enemy ship and shoot it. Collect all the dices the arc has, then you may select any number from the pool, and attack with them. Continue until you have no dice left from the pool. Obviously current restrictions stay, shooting a ship once per hull zone.
5. Flagship. It feels like a punishment(maybe its just me) to be the flagship. Command upgrades are fun, but not really utilised. Let the flagship have a command upgrade slot by default. (even the cymoon or pelta)

Yeah, so these are mine, not saying they are perfect or anything like that, they just reflect my opinion. They can be tuned, played with. The only goal is to make the game even better.

Well mostly stuff in Armada that I thought was lacking. Mostly in the squadron department but a little in the ship department as well.

• Streamlined game-play. Maybe adding an initiative to commanders so the meta doesn't boil down to an activation bid. I think one of the reason X-wing is faster because you know what ship is going to move next. Maybe do something of an Admiral Captain thing where Admiral is your fleet and captain is the officer and they have an initiative ratting. Ships without an Officer upgrade is a default 1.
• Random turn limits. I don't think Armada will ever be as fast as a game of X-wing but would like to see instead of a standard locked 6 turns maybe a roll off to see if it goes into the 7th, 8th and always ends on the 9th turn. That way you will still be planing dials for command 3 ships even on turn 4.
• 5 or 6 command token/dials, try to figure out another command or two because 4 is too predictable.
• Better Hyperspace mechanical representation. For Squadrons like A-wings, and TIE Advanced or large Rouge squadrons they can have a trait that allows them to deploy away from a mother ship. Generic X-wings and TIE-Fighters can go without since X-wing could simply not have an astromech installed and TIE-Fighters don't have hyperdrives.
• All Squadrons get a defense token. You can just put 8 slots on a squadron card to hold tokens 1-8 and the squadron bases already have a place for numbers. Not having any reactions to an attack, even if it is more to chance than action (such as rolling dice) I find is rather frustrating.
• Better Accuracy mechanic. It is good but to be honest I would rather be exhausting defense tokens instead of preventing one from being spent. I think that also contributes to longer games. You want to knock down defenses not preserve them.

Well those are some of my thoughts on the matter.

Steel Command has a good article that takes a look at this.

http://www.steelstrategy.com/2018/06/imagining-armada-20.html

My biggest change would be the move that X-Wing 2.0 made: Cards without points, which includes the App to apply the points as well as update any changes to these. Updated on schedule every quarter or so; wouldn't want everything to change right before Worlds or anything.

@Coldhands, I like the idea of different effects for Concentrate Fire. But if the Hold Fire effect ever becomes a thing, I think I am going to start running Vader Triple Cymoons (Thanks to @ovinomanc3r!)

I would like to see squads activating in the squadron phase have the ability to move half their distance (rounded down) and can still shoot, maybe treat as obstructed to keep it less powerful. It might underpower rogues pretty badly, but would make for more intense, fluid squad play.

31 minutes ago, Admiral Calkins said:

Steel Command has a good article that takes a look at this.

http://www.steelstrategy.com/2018/06/imagining-armada-20.html

My biggest change would be the move that X-Wing 2.0 made: Cards without points, which includes the App to apply the points as well as update any changes to these. Updated on schedule every quarter or so; wouldn't want everything to change right before Worlds or anything.

@Coldhands, I like the idea of different effects for Concentrate Fire. But if the Hold Fire effect ever becomes a thing, I think I am going to start running Vader Triple Cymoons (Thanks to @ovinomanc3r!)

Im fully with you on that app thingie. And, who would mind having triple cymoons around? More type of fleets makes the game healthier, I think. But it would be a lot harder for me to settle with a fleet for a tourney(contemplated on my euros list for 2 months )

Points moving to a digital format and removing from cards would be welcoming. We wouldn't see such harsh nerfs to GH, Avenger, if they cost what they are worth. Overvcosts would come down too - Leia, Tarkin, to name a few.

1) All ships include a base effect equivalent to Rapid Launch Bays. Add a new squadron ability "Hyperdrive". Only squadrons equipped with Hyperdrive can be deployed separately during the deployment phase, while all other squadrons must be equipped to a ship. Squadrons with Hyperdrive can deploy anywhere in that player's deployment zone (not range limited to a ship).

2) Eliminate the Rogue ability and eliminate squadron activations during the Ship phase (except for special abilities like the Millennium Falcon). All squadrons activate during the Squadron phase, and can both move and attack instead of one or the other.

3) The effect of the ship Squadron command is replaced with "You may deploy or equip any number of squadrons up to your squadron value at range 1". A squadron token allows deployment or the equipping of a single squadron. Equipping a squadron means docking a nearby squadron into the ship, thus removing it from the game board for later deployment. Deploying is like how you'd use Rapid Launch Bays. You use a squadron command or token after the ship has moved.

4) All ships have a base effect similar to Counter but using their anti-squadron armament, taking dice range into consideration for squadrons that can attack ships at longer range. Any friendly squadrons within range 1 of a friendly ship attacked by a squadron also trigger the ship's counter-like ability against the attacking squadron, but again takes dice range into consideration measuring from the ship to the attacking squadron.

5) Rules change where a ship activated last in the previous turn cannot activate first in the next turn unless there are no other valid ships for that player to activate (eliminate first/last).

6) The effect of the Concentrate Fire command is replaced with "You may fire out of the same hull zone twice in this round, at the same target hull zone". A Concentrate Fire token allows firing from the same hull zone twice, but they must be different targets.

7) Gunnery Teams is changed to an exhaust card that allows the reroll of up to 2 blank dice.

8) A ship designated as the Flagship reduces its total number of command dials by 1 to a minimum of 1

9) Increase to 500 points

10) Limit squadrons to 1/4 of the total points instead of 1/3

11) Limit the total number of small base ships in your fleet to a maximum of 1/2 of the fleet, rounded up (a 3 ship build can have 2 small ships, a 6 ship build can have 3 small ships, etc)

11 hours ago, Marinealver said:

Well mostly stuff in Armada that I thought was lacking. Mostly in the squadron department but a little in the ship department as well.

• Streamlined game-play. Maybe adding an initiative to commanders so the meta doesn't boil down to an activation bid. I think one of the reason X-wing is faster because you know what ship is going to move next. Maybe do something of an Admiral Captain thing where Admiral is your fleet and captain is the officer and they have an initiative ratting. Ships without an Officer upgrade is a default 1.

I am strongly against this. A non-decision based initiative system would take so much depth out of Armada. In X-Wing this is not a big problem, because maneuvering offers there much more room for decisions. In Armada we need another source of decisions in order to have a game that does not play itself. If initiative is changed (and the current system allthough it has a lot of depth lacks any thematic justification) I would prefer a system like in Runewars where the command (maybe in combination with current speed) determines initiative).

One change I really love to see is that squad activition via ships does not demand a command (this is an idea of @Green Knight) . I'd love to see the big ships, the VSD and the af2 as carriers. But in an age where specialized purpose of ships is cheap (quasar/Yavaris ) and/or necessary, the aspect of universal squad activation that was strong during earlier waves of the game has been lost.

4 hours ago, Darth Veggie said:

I am strongly against this. A non-decision based initiative system would take so much depth out of Armada. In X-Wing this is not a big problem, because maneuvering offers there much more room for decisions. In Armada we need another source of decisions in order to have a game that does not play itself. If initiative is changed (and the current system allthough it has a lot of depth lacks any thematic justification) I would prefer a system like in Runewars where the command (maybe in combination with current speed) determines initiative).

...

Well the depth in Armada might be adding time to make those 3 hour rounds even with a 6th turn limit. Now I remember a buzzword being thrown around during the announcement and release of Armada called refined as to refer to a comparison to X-wings mechanic and I am sorry but refinement is no where in armada's gameplay when it comes to X-wing.

Now sure there could be a better system, such as determining activation order in the planning phase instead of the activation. But take a look at X-wing's activation. This ship moves, then this and then this. It is fast and fluid. Now of course massive ships should be lumbering but it should take 4-5 minuets to move a ship. Having to chose which ship moves first in the activation tacks on a ton of time.

Now a different system such as speed + command could work much better. An ISD at speed 3 will have 6 initiative, a CR-90 at speed 4 can have 5. That could be a thing used to determine movement order instead of having players take a couple minuets to figure out which ship they want to move first. Also adds more momentum to the ships as faster ships take some force to put on the brakes and slower ships have to step on it to get that ship moving.

Either way, I am jsut trying to think of ways to speed up a game of armada. I have identified activations as a point of constraint putting delays in the game. If you have other ideas to improve the flow o the game and speed up the turns then let me know.

I don't like the numberless card implementation of X-Wing 2.0.

Call me old fashioned but I would like to play this game when the app is no longer supported on future devices.

Yes I'm aware we have plenty of cards with points already however that wouldn't apply to ships released after "2.0" is released.

I think a good compromise is a companion app where the points can change quarterly as suggested above but there is still a point cost printed on the card for the sake of longevity.

1 hour ago, Forresto said:

I don't like the numberless card implementation of X-Wing 2.0.

Call me old fashioned but I would like to play this game when the app is no longer supported on future devices.

Yes I'm aware we have plenty of cards with points already however that wouldn't apply to ships released after "2.0" is released.

I think a good compromise is a companion app where the points can change quarterly as suggested above but there is still a point cost printed on the card for the sake of longevity.

Honestly never considered this as an issue before, so thanks for bringing it up. Armada will likely continue with its dedicated community, and even expand with 3rd party support, after it has run its natural course with FFG. It may be important not to link it to such digital tools that would require updates and additional support to continue to expand the game post-FFG.

What I really don’t understand is a neverending wish to change something that is not broken? We all choose Armada for what it is now, with all those mechanics that might look cumbersome but working perfectly for this game.

Why so much people think that when we turn Armada into X-Wing clone it’ll become better? It has a much better chance to stuck in between two different mechanics which result that old fans will leave this game because “it’s not the Armada we know and love”, while those wanting for change will also be disappointed as Armada “still not like X-Wing”. And that means a dead Armada, which I think is the outcome we all are trying to avoid.

I belive there are things that could be improved ( from my point of view new group titles is a step in right direction) but Armada do not need any core mechanic changes right now, just small twiks here and there.

20 hours ago, Coldhands said:

snip

1. What is the point of having more slots that have cards of reroll help then? This would basically annihilate the current balance among upgrade cards.

2. Squadrons currently hit well beyond their point cost. 60 points of B-Wings can easily annihilate an ISD and the ISD can't really threaten them at all (not counting fighter screens and whatnots of course here, just the basics). Boosting them even more would mean you need 134 points of squads. Period. Otherwise you lose. On the other hand, if you limit their movement by adding a "random" phase it would mean that you can't have anything else than a squadron command on your dials if you want then to do any work. Plus if you add the random element that makes the squads even dumber as you think they are now and way to easy to trap without constant squadron commands. The Alpha-counter idea I like.

3. You effectively wish to give a 180 degree arc to the ISD's front. Or an unavoidable side arc of H1's side arc. Tell me how would any MSU list be viable against whales if they can't dodge the dangerous arc of the enemy ship? And people complaining before that ISD's "can turn on a dime" with JJ... Big ships would never go faster than speed 1 because they would be so crazily maneuverable on that speed that anything faster would be just stupid.

4. A ship is only unkillable if you build everything around that. But then if your opponent tries to kill that ship instead of other components of your fleet it's his error in judgement not a flaw of the game.

I agree that concentrate fire should be more meaningful, but your solutions are just too drastic. CF would mean that every CF dial is effectively Screed for every ship. Cirt effect cards would basically mean guaranteed crit damage for your enemy. HF would effectively turn every ship into Demolisher and worse. With Avenger you could hold fire and wait till your other ships and sqads turn those defense tokens into red... SF would give Gunnery Teams for everyone. Ackbar pickles would loooove that.

5. I actually like the basic idea to make flagships special, but not by taking the abilities of other ships away. If any ship could have a fleet command slot, why would anyone ever pick the Pelta for example?

I don't think Armada needs a 2.0, people are just getting crazy becaue they feel X-Wing gets too much treatment from FFG (*** does but it always did). X-Wing is horribly unbalanced since wave 2 or 3. Armada is currently beautifully balanced with a vast selection of viable fleets and useful upgrade cards. Every ship has its place in one fleet or another while in X-Wing lots of expansions only worthy to have for the cards but the ships never see any table time.

Finding a way to mitigate the first-last activation game, either by letting bids be determined by activations rather than points, or by having a baked-in way by letting second player pass a la IA. The reason Flotillas were broken were because of the arms race for activations. Limiting them to 2 of and tabling doesn't count really does help and open things up more, but I believe this goes further to address that issue.

25 minutes ago, Norell said:

1. What is the point of having more slots that have cards of reroll help then? This would basically annihilate the current balance among upgrade cards.

In my experience, ships usually go with 1 re-roll option. B-s and Scurrgs utilise both Toryn and BCC, and that is a bit too much, too consistent compared to other 'options'. TRC was nerfed because it made CR90A too consistent.

2. Squadrons currently hit well beyond their point cost. 60 points of B-Wings can easily annihilate an ISD and the ISD can't really threaten them at all (not counting fighter screens and whatnots of course here, just the basics). Boosting them even more would mean you need 134 points of squads. Period. Otherwise you lose. On the other hand, if you limit their movement by adding a "random" phase it would mean that you can't have anything else than a squadron command on your dials if you want then to do any work. Plus if you add the random element that makes the squads even dumber as you think they are now and way to easy to trap without constant squadron commands. The Alpha-counter idea I like.
Yes, the idea is to make all commands valuable, to make it hard and meaningful decision. By the way, with my suggestion you don't have to command them, don't have to spam that command unless you have a specific task.

3. You effectively wish to give a 180 degree arc to the ISD's front. Or an unavoidable side arc of H1's side arc. Tell me how would any MSU list be viable against whales if they can't dodge the dangerous arc of the enemy ship? And people complaining before that ISD's "can turn on a dime" with JJ... Big ships would never go faster than speed 1 because they would be so crazily maneuverable on that speed that anything faster would be just stupid.
Tell me how viable msu lists are at the moment? Only TRC90 lists were viable till w7, but imp ships already could do 90* turns at speed 2. I think it doesn't make it unavoidable, but obviously needs testing. I think a corvette can dodge isd-vsd front arcs any day, have a maneuver dial ready, that was always the key what worked for me.

4. A ship is only unkillable if you build everything around that. But then if your opponent tries to kill that ship instead of other components of your fleet it's his error in judgement not a flaw of the game.

I agree that concentrate fire should be more meaningful, but your solutions are just too drastic. CF would mean that every CF dial is effectively Screed for every ship. Cirt effect cards would basically mean guaranteed crit damage for your enemy. HF would effectively turn every ship into Demolisher and worse. With Avenger you could hold fire and wait till your other ships and sqads turn those defense tokens into red... SF would give Gunnery Teams for everyone. Ackbar pickles would loooove that.
Indeed they are drastic, but you have 1 dial only per turn, can't do everything... Crit dmg isnt guaranteed by the way, evade, lando, targeting scrablers, brunson(I might missed one or two other options) takes that crit away. Demolisher is still one of the strongest title in-game. With the changes, there should be a reduction in points for the title, and it would still be 'better' than hold fire, as it happens earlier. Avenger is already strong, if you build around it its a killing machine already. My option boosts ships quite equally. Split fire is far from GT, youre not shooting the whole armament twice but split the one shot into smaller ones, for one arc.

5. I actually like the basic idea to make flagships special, but not by taking the abilities of other ships away. If any ship could have a fleet command slot, why would anyone ever pick the Pelta for example?

Assault peltas are barely used anyway, command ones would be still okay-ish carriers as they are now. It was just an idea to make them a bit more special, and its just opening up options.

I don't think Armada needs a 2.0, people are just getting crazy becaue they feel X-Wing gets too much treatment from FFG (*** does but it always did). X-Wing is horribly unbalanced since wave 2 or 3. Armada is currently beautifully balanced with a vast selection of viable fleets and useful upgrade cards. Every ship has its place in one fleet or another while in X-Wing lots of expansions only worthy to have for the cards but the ships never see any table time.
You're absolutely right about X-wing, but as time passes, every game needs some rework. Look at warhammers for example:) Both hit 8th editions.

If I could change ONE thing:

Ships would get a 'default' squadron ability, like they do gunnery and movement.

For example, command Squadron -1 squadrons without a token/dial.

That should have been in the game from the start. They worked so hard for so many waves to make squadrons easier to control.

I could see a version where you have to set your ship order at deployment and then a 5th command that messes with that order.

2 hours ago, maxster said:

What I really don’t understand is a neverending wish to change something that is not broken? We all choose Armada for what it is now, with all those mechanics that might look cumbersome but working perfectly for this game.

Why so much people think that when we turn Armada into X-Wing clone it’ll become better? It has a much better chance to stuck in between two different mechanics which result that old fans will leave this game because “it’s not the Armada we know and love”, while those wanting for change will also be disappointed as Armada “still not like X-Wing”. And that means a dead Armada, which I think is the outcome we all are trying to avoid.

I belive there are things that could be improved ( from my point of view new group titles is a step in right direction) but Armada do not need any core mechanic changes right now, just small twiks here and there.

With this mentality we would be driving Ford T-models still

45 minutes ago, Green Knight said:

If I could change ONE thing:

Ships would get a 'default' squadron ability, like they do gunnery and movement.

For example, command Squadron -1 squadrons without a token/dial.

That should have been in the game from the start. They worked so hard for so many waves to make squadrons easier to control.

That's an intriguing thought. If I'm understanding you correct, you're staying a VSD would command 2 squadrons naturally without a command (natural value minus one?). I'm not sure the command would be worthwhile in that case. One more squadron to command hardly seems worth giving up a Nav, Repair, or Con Fire.

How about this: ships utilize their natural value as you propose. That might require a re-balance of squadron values, but that's easy enough. You then remove flight controllers from the game and make the squadron command do THAT. Perhaps a token allows one squadron to re-roll an attack die.

2 minutes ago, Truthiness said:

That's an intriguing thought. If I'm understanding you correct, you're staying a VSD would command 2 squadrons naturally without a command (natural value minus one?). I'm not sure the command would be worthwhile in that case. One more squadron to command hardly seems worth giving up a Nav, Repair, or Con Fire.

How about this: ships utilize their natural value as you propose. That might require a re-balance of squadron values, but that's easy enough. You then remove flight controllers from the game and make the squadron command do THAT. Perhaps a token allows one squadron to re-roll an attack die.

It would obviously require some rebalancing of other elements.

But yes, the VSD could then command 2 squads without a command token/dial.

This was a thing that bugged me early on (wave core to 1). The disjunction between ships and squadrons.

I did play around with some house rules at one point. You could there only use either a token or a dial, and the token was basically a dial and a dial a token+dial.

So a VSD could:

No command: 2 squads

Token: 3 squads

Dial: 4 squads.

This worked well enough. But we're deep into house rule land now.

Relatedly there was also a default repair effect.

13 minutes ago, Green Knight said:

It would obviously require some rebalancing of other elements.

But yes, the VSD could then command 2 squads without a command token/dial.

This was a thing that bugged me early on (wave core to 1). The disjunction between ships and squadrons.

I did play around with some house rules at one point. You could there only use either a token or a dial, and the token was basically a dial and a dial a token+dial.

So a VSD could:

No command: 2 squads

Token: 3 squads

Dial: 4 squads.

This worked well enough. But we're deep into house rule land now.

Relatedly there was also a default repair effect.

Another option would be to limit speed of squads that are not activated by a command.

I’d love some sort of mechanic which prevented people making annoying demands that key parts of the game should be changed.

19 minutes ago, Dr alex said:

I’d love some sort of mechanic which prevented people making annoying demands that key parts of the game should be changed.

Well, seeing as Armada 1.0 isn't exactly thriving, 2.0 speculation is just for lolz.

58 minutes ago, Dr alex said:

I’d love some sort of mechanic which prevented people making annoying demands that key parts of the game should be changed.

But those annoying demands are a key part of the game! ?

59 minutes ago, Dr alex said:

I’d love some sort of mechanic which prevented people making annoying demands that key parts of the game should be changed.

Or a mechanism preventing people to post passive-aggressive bull. No one demanded anything, it was a brainstorming before you came here.