Do you guys think Armada would benefit from allowing players to bring a side deck in order to swap out upgrades? As things currently are, the fleet you bring to an event is the fleet you fly for the entire event. But optimizing your fleet for one role could be a total pooint sink vs other fleet types. Flight controllers, QLT, Kallus might very well help you against Sloane. Rieekan aces. But those upgrades don't help you very much against Motti ISD's or Ackbar gunline lists. This may possibly create a generalist fleet archetype phenomenon forming. If you have to account for various threats this may pressure players all into similar builds where they try to make sure they aren't exposed to any one thing, resulting in lists losing their unique identities. How can this be avoided?

Hypothetically: Would game health benefit if players had the option to substitute models? Or should such an option be limited to only upgrades? When would it be ideal to to allow admirals to make their adjustments? Are they only allowed to see what plastic their opponent is bringing and have to make their adjustments before seeing what upgrades are equipped to maintain some level of guess work? Or does each player get to thoroughly look through an opponents list before making changes?

As a counter argument such a function could eliminate the "element of surprise" that comes with list building. As I know a fair portion of the player base feeels. Fleet design/optimization is part of the "strategy" of the game. Adding a side deck would could be detrimental to this aspect of the game. I once won a tournament right after Sloane was released. I didn't own many fighters outside of what came in the Core set, so given my limited resources, I elected to run counter to the meta. I ran a squadronless fleet and bum rushed the carriers winning the event. Something as unexpected as this might not have been possible if my opponents could have seen what was coming, and swapped out their anti-squadron upgrades for ship focused upgrades.

Let's get some creative hypothetical discussion flowing. Share your thoughts. Pros and Cons of side decks for armada.

When do you decide?

What knowledge do you have of the enemy?

Who verifies accountabilities and when?

Eh... I'm worried it would get meta decky and be unhealthy for the balance of the game. It'd let you skew heavier in your initial list, and use your sideboard to make another skew

I've certainly considered it. I think the question comes down to really how much it would benefit the game. I know in some cases it

I've played other miniature games that had the option and it pretty much always ended up just being filled with power-characters, though in competitive Warmachine (last I played) you bring two lists and decide when the game starts.

I feel like one of the main issues is that there is the potential for an immediate effect on the points of your list, and that there are not many upgrades that both have equal points value AND are functional on the same vessels, and the same goes for Squadrons.

I'm not inherently opposed to the idea but when it comes to designing a practical method for implementing something like it, it just kind of... falls apart.

The closest you get to a system I don't feel is outright unworkable is a two-lists system where say you bring a fleet with the first 300 points all the same but the remaining 100 points can be different and that's what differentiates fleet A from fleet B. That could mean different upgrades and/or ships and/or squadrons and/or flagship. You'd see what two variant fleets your opponent could bring then you choose your A or B secretly and you both reveal simultaneously.

It's a less extreme method than Warmachine where you'd usually bring 2-3 completely different lists and then played pick-a-list roulette where the game could sometimes be won and lost entirely based on the head game of the list choice, but Warmachine was(/is?) a super busted game when it came to matchups and balance so that could happen. But it resulted in some weird scenarios. Let's say for example I am bringing lists A, B, and C and you have lists 1, 2, and 3. Your faction is tough on me overall and so I brought a list that counters most of your faction just for such an occasion, which is list C. You are aware of this problem and have counter-counter list 3, but list 3 isn't that great against lists A and B. Do I choose C knowing I might walk into getting smashed by 3? Do you choose 3 knowing if I stick with A or B you're going to have problems? It sucks. It really does. But anyways...

I feel like my earlier-mentioned system would be interesting but would still present problems similar to the Warmachine example. Say I bring two lists primarily differentiated by if they are expecting to face squads. List variant A has no anti-squadron defenses (planning on going up against other big heavy or MSU fleets) and list variant B does. If your lists 1 and 2 are heavy and light squadrons, respectively, we're back in a similarly weird situation where if we don't mind-game just right, it can cause a problem for whoever guessed wrong (although the extent of the screwage is diminished). It would also do weird things to bids, given if one of your variants simply had a bigger bid than the other, you could default to that when you see the other two enemy fleets don't have enough bid to beat it but they could outbid your other fleet.

Of course the alternative is "what about replaceable upgrades or a sideboard system?" and I'm not really keen on those because you get issues of when they get used with what knowledge state and are you honestly bringing upgrades you don't care about just to maybe flip them into something of the same cost? I don't think most people would.

11 minutes ago, Alzer said:

...you bring two lists and decide when the game starts.

I think this could lead to some really good and fun matches.

Each player brings 2 fleets, and their opponent gets 5 minutes to evaluate them. At the end of the 5 minutes, the player can pick which fleet they want to fly based on the 2 they brought. Neither player gets to know which fleet their opponent is taking, so there's still plenty of doubt.

This would also lead to extremely long tournaments (like 5 rounds swiss is not enough?) because all that process of reviewing and selecting fleets/sideboards before a game takes time.

I would think a side deck would really be great and make the game even better.
There are so many cards that are to specific. And it would give a bit more flexilibity to some lists.
It would even fill the gap between squadron and non squadron lists. Non squadron lists could just take a few anti squadron sideboard cards. While squadron lists would take in another ship for an activation, if they want (yes, most likely only a flotilla).

Just a side deck of 25 points. You can have anything you want in this side deck. Each player present the orignal list to the opponent, and after this they can decide if or what they want to exchange as long as the fleet is 400 or less points in the end. The bid is the point cost of the fleet that is played, and yes, this means someone can just remove some cards to get a bigger bid.

Ehhhh.....no.

I much prefer the bring 2 lists aspect, as I think people having to decide what to switch will take a lot of time.

Bring 2 lists, show your opponent both, have 5 minuets to decide which then reveal. The biggest issue here is that you'd have to take time to take out whichever fleet you're going to use.

But it could be a good way to reduce horrible match-ups. You do run into the issue where you are picking based on two lists and they could have opposite archetypes, but there's then at least a chance you won't face something you're totally not prepared for.

My issue with a sideboard of cards is it will be very hard to ensure that people aren't making mistakes in where they put upgrades, as unlike a submitted fleet list, the TO can't double check them (and you'll be doing it quickly, so it will be easier to make mistakes). Also, that unless the fleet totals have to stay the same, it will be hard to deal with people dropping upgrades to win bid wars.

4 hours ago, Tokra said:

I would think a side deck would really be great and make the game even better.
There are so many cards that are to specific. And it would give a bit more flexilibity to some lists.
It would even fill the gap between squadron and non squadron lists. Non squadron lists could just take a few anti squadron sideboard cards. While squadron lists would take in another ship for an activation, if they want (yes, most likely only a flotilla).

Just a side deck of 25 points. You can have anything you want in this side deck. Each player present the orignal list to the opponent, and after this they can decide if or what they want to exchange as long as the fleet is 400 or less points in the end. The bid is the point cost of the fleet that is played, and yes, this means someone can just remove some cards to get a bigger bid.

That's like a Five Card Stud Poker game? You and your opponent know 375 pts. of the fleet and 25 points come in as a reaction and surprise ...?

That's really an interesting idea! I like that!

While I am very interested in swapping out upgrades, or even exchanging entire units, in a campaign setting, I think this would slow the setup process to the point of being unworkable in a tournament setting. Maybe it could work for a small local tournament, but even that puts a lot of extra work on the TO's plate. Each list exchange will need to be verified by the TO. the more lists, the longer it will take.

As close as I think we could get to a sideboard in Armada as is stands are flip-able upgrade cards tagged as unique (or as modifications at the very least). Basically a double-sided upgrade with an "After deployment you may flip this upgrade" and abilities on opposite ends of the spectrum (i.e. one side is anti-fighter, the other anti-ship).

Thematically it runs into a few issues since anti-ship / anti-squad upgrades tend to fall in different slots. So maybe make them like the boarding team cards that take up two slots.

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Long story short: Maybe we can get something similar, but I don't think a true sideboard would work in a practical manner. I'm also totally okay with that.

Side deck would be a bad idea.

Allowing a skew list to unskew if a hard counter shows up is why you shouldn't be using it in the first place.