Initially I put this into a response on the speculative 2.0 thread, but the more I think about it the more I think it warrants its own space.

So, two common areas of Armada that players often point to as spaces with room for improvement: (1) Squadron Play is Fiddily and (2) The Game Takes a Long Time


I think a way to positively address both of those is to eliminate the opportunity for pre-measuring anything and everything except for ship movement tools.

The worst sort of drudgery is when two squad-heavy lists square off and both players are painstakingly meticulous with them. We all want players who are careful and precise, of course, as sloppiness leads to ruined game states. But I don't think we want players who spend 1-2 minutes on each squadron's move as they pre-measure to two or three possible destinations, then pre-measure from each of those to all the relevant range-related things (engagements, flak fire, support abilities, friendly ship command range, etc.), then finally commit to one location and spend time sliding and nudging their squadron as they check all those ranges more precisely. But you cannot fault a player for doing this, as millimeters matter, especially in the squadron game since so many things are range-relevant from the squadron's location.

Frankly, the best way to speed this up would be to just deny the opportunity for the ultra-anal analysis paralysis. If Armada got rid of its default "premeasure anything, anytime, except maneuvers" the game would speed up exponentially. If you could only measure ranges from a ship when it is activating and is about to declare something range-relevant (like attacks or resolve a squadron command or check for Toryn after rolling blue dice, etc.) that would cut out so many minutes of time spent checking that stuff at all points of the game and before and after each decision opportunity. If the only thing you could measure when you picked up and moved a squad was (1) whether or not engagement prevents it from moving AND then (2) the distance it was moving (to make sure it moved within it's legal range), I mean Lord Have Mercy we'd probably cut almost an hour from the playtime of squadron-heavy games between two meticulous and thorough players. There would also be a much higher element for "skill" (or, at least, experience) to play a role, as players would have to judge a lot of the distances as they were committing their squadron to its new spot. Come up just 1mm short of being able to attack that enemy squadron because you were too conservatively trying to avoid a counterattack from the other enemy squadron behind it? Well, tough cookies. Then there would be a lot more risk/reward decision to make in placing a squadron with how aggressive you wanted to be in an optimized spot balanced against how conservatively you wanted to be with making sure you were satisfying certain range considerations. But that seems drastically preferable to me over watching my opponent spend 3 Minutes checking to see if there's any possible spot he can slide his squadron that would give him Engagement on Squad X and Y, avoid Engagement with Squads A, B, and C, be at Range 1 of Friendly Squads I and III, be in command range of Friendly Ship Alpha and be just out of flak range of Enemy Ship S while being only in a single flak arc of Enemy Ship T. <-- This crap right here needs to go if the speed and enjoyability of squad-heavy Armada games is ever going to improve, ESPECIALLY SO before we start putting 600pts of collective squadrons onto the board... lol.

Ugh, even just thinking of all this fiddly minutia measuring of squadrons as I type it all out and remember the worst of my slowest tournament opponents I just want to throw my collection up on the Swap and Sell. In my opinion, the only real fix to the Armada Squadron Fiddiliness (which is a huge part of it's time length problem often times) is to radically speed it up, and the way to do that is to eliminate the free-pass to measuring that the game allows for and force players to make eyeball judgments as they commit their pieces to the board (which is something X-Wing 2.0 has moved toward, since now if you misjudge ranges/locations and fail an action you lose your action entirely, rather than being able to just try something else like in 1.0). This is better than just lowering the squadron cap, I think, because it doesn't invalidate anyone's collection, still allows for thematic squadron-heavy builds, and would speed and tighten the game up in other non-squadron areas as well.

Another entirely radical idea that popped into my head would be to redefine Squadron Engagement.

If Squadrons were only Engaged with enemy squadrons they were touching, and could only attack squadrons and ships that they were touching, so many measurements would be eliminated,and you wouldn't have to make tricky "is it in or out of Range 1" calls. Engaged and Attacking Opportunities become discreet: you are touching or you aren't. It would make squadron combat more like a hand-to-hand melee, which maybe isn't so crazy. And it would mean one Tycho or Shara couldn't just pop in and engage like six enemy squadrons, it would have to commit to one or maybe two specific squads to engage.

It would limit the threat-range of each squad, but would also mean the slow Mexican Stand-Off of Squadron engagement wouldn't be so pronounced. As it stands now, if your squadron flies over and attacks an enemy squadron cluster, a lot of those squadrons around it might be able to shoot back at you unless you get that perfect "just millimeters in / just millimeters out" set up where you are only engaging the target. This way, all those neighboring squadrons could only hit back if they could get moves to get into contact of your base.

It would also make focus fire more difficult, since only so many squadrons could touch the base of their target. Intel would become less uber-powerful and essential than it is now, and players could use the board and their pieces more to deny engagement opportunities. If I keep my Prized Squad A nestled between a bunch of screens of my other squadrons, those squadrons would have to be engaged and killed first (though, my Prized Squad also wouldn't be able to engage anything until it left that screen).


Abilities like Escort would have to be reworked, as would Snipe probably (maybe make Snipe that you can engage squadrons at Range 1... and make it expensive). Escort could possibly be something like Biggs is currently where you can suffer the damage of friendly squadrons at Range 1, maybe something like "When a friendly squadron at Range 1 suffers one or more damage, you may suffer 2 damage to reduce the damage suffered by that friendly ship by 1." So Escorts can protect more valuable/vulnerable targets, but at a tax, so you couldn't just spread damage out across a sea of Escorts without any penalty.


I dunno, just another thought.

1-2 minutes per squad? No wonder I don’t understand why people complain about the squad game. I play matches with Rieekan Aceholes and spend maybe 30s on the entire activation of a squadron.

I despise just saying “get good,” but if a player is that slow with squadrons then they need to. Maybe I should say “get experience” or “cope with your action paralysis.”

Personally, it’s always the small ships that seem to take forever when I play games. Players obsess over all 15 possible maneuver combinations for their speed 3 GR75 and make me resign myself to watching my phone’s clock as the specter of death creeps ever so closer. Second. By. Second.

48 minutes ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

If you could only measure ranges from a ship when it is activating and is about to declare something range-relevant (like attacks or resolve a squadron command or check for Toryn after rolling blue dice, etc.) that would cut out so many minutes of time spent checking that stuff at all points of the game and before and after each decision opportunity.

I like the idea of trimming but I feel that being too restrictive can ultimately hurt players. Specifically large ship players. I know from experience that checking ranges as they occur (and confirming them with the opponent) is particularly valuable to ships that have heavy investment into ship to ship attacks. I can't even tell you how many opportunities I've missed because I checked range as a ship moved into range or after I moved into range without confirming it with the opponent, and a small ship moved or a squadron moved and somehow the game state was altered by a little bump, and all the sudden my 150+ point ISD II kitted to attack with GTs at blue range out the front no longer has 2 shots. Eliminating those checks altogether is just skipping steps in the process.

What if a hard cap was added?

" Each activation both players may check ranges of any ship 3 times? "

38 minutes ago, Church14 said:

Personally, it’s always the small ships that seem to take forever when I play games. Players obsess over all 15 possible maneuver combinations for their speed 3 GR75 and make me resign myself to watching my phone’s clock as the specter of death creeps ever so closer. Second. By. Second.

Yes, this is a very similar problem. On the one had, I see the appeal of something like "set your tool to a legal move on your edge of the table, THEN commit to it, take the tool to your ship, plug it in, and execute the move." Takes it more to like X-Wing where you dial in a move (even without knowing how the rest of the board state will be changing before your ship finally moves), which I'm not sure is a good or bad thing.

I'm probably a bit biased because my last two big tourney experiences each had multiple opponents that had something ranging from Analysis Paralysis to Precision Indecision to Meticulousness Fickleness. They were nice, good players certainly playing without any ill intent or any desire to "game" the clock by stalling, but uggggghhh. Those sorts of games feel more like I'm part of a team taking survey data measurements for the city manager's office and less like I'm a geek spending my rare me-time vacation time playing a fun game. And I say this as someone who adores Chess and Blood Bowl, which are certainly slow, complex, meticulous games in their own ways. But they both benefit by having discreet spaces on the board for pieces to exist in, and sidestep the mind-numbing endless measuring and range-checking that has come to define, in my experience, competitive Armada.

But you know, I'm fulling willing to admit that maybe it's NOT YOU, IT'S ME, ARMADA. Maybe my own subjective gaming preferences have evolved in a way such that the slow fiddiliness of Armada, squadron play especially, is just not the sort of gaming experience that brings me the sort of joy it once did anymore. Maybe Armada hasn't gotten slower and fiddlier, maybe I've just gotten less patient. And that's okay too.

oh my god, the last time I played in a Vassal tournament (it's been a long time), my opponent was in an earlier time zone so it was after midnight for me and this guy spent minutes fiddling with the maneuver tool every activation. I was falling asleep waiting for this very pleasant guy who was still being a jerk.

1 minute ago, OgRib said:

oh my god, the last time I played in a Vassal tournament (it's been a long time), my opponent was in an earlier time zone so it was after midnight for me and this guy spent minutes fiddling with the maneuver tool every activation. I was falling asleep waiting for this very pleasant guy who was still being a jerk.

This is part of the reason I can't play Vassal. There's no sound, there's no interaction, there's no plastic models to look at, just me staring at my screen until I get bored and open a new Reddit tab.

I taught the game to a friend of mine as Base Contact except for special rules. And we basically used the Middle Earth Strategy Battle Game rules for engagement. Each squadron has a 'threat' range of range 1, but if they are engaged, they cant threaten. I did explain we were doing that to save time, and it was way more enjoyable.

6 minutes ago, JauntyChapeau said:

This is part of the reason I can't play Vassal. There's no sound, there's no interaction, there's no plastic models to look at, just me staring at my screen until I get bored and open a new Reddit tab.

Counterpoint: There's also no smell in Vassal.

We've all been to that gamestore or convention...

I am often guilty of slow play with squadrons, but I don't think eliminating premeasuring would be great for the game, or even speed it up. If that was the case, I'd probably be spending more time staring at the board and getting frustrated.

Changing how squadrons move, or are engaged, would probably be the best fix. I don't know what the best fix would be, since I've never tested any other. Requiring squadrons to touch bases sounds promising (you're not the first player to suggest it either).

Chess clocks.

I personally feel like reevaluating how squadrons are implemented would do more for the game than eliminating premeasuring. Eliminating premeasuring you'd still have people trying to estimate by the stars like 16th century sailors.

One idea I had a while ago is squads can be placed anywhere within range 2 of whatever ship they are assigned to until they are engaged. That way it's less finicky.

Actually, I like the idea of removing pre measuring.

Mostly to limit the neverending squad measuring, but it would also serve as a soft nerf to squad play, as more mistakes will be made, and general more careful approaches to engagement between squads, as well as with ships.

Skill will play a greater role and gameplay would better represent the undetermined nature of space combat, where admirals cannot know in advance the position of each and every moving part.

11 minutes ago, Rimsen said:

Chess clocks.

I've had this thought several times. One of the games played at a local store (Warmachine?) uses the clocks. Give each player an hour on the clock with agreed-upon pauses for rule discussions. If your clock runs out, you lose. If you can't get through six turns of Armada in that time frame, you need to learn to play your fleets faster.

The rule should be changed to NO pre-measuring, period.

Saves countless amounts of time and rules issues. Before committing to a move/attack, keep all tools outside of the cubic box the mat makes, from the mat to infinitely tall.

The one-tool rule is just stupid. It ends up taking precious time from play and just forces the player to make multiple slow measurements. Even at the biggest events I just let my opponent use any and all tools they want, just to keep the game moving.

1 hour ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

But you know, I'm fulling willing to admit that maybe it's NOT YOU, IT'S ME, ARMADA. Maybe my own subjective gaming preferences have evolved in a way such that the slow fiddiliness of Armada, squadron play especially, is just not the sort of gaming experience that brings me the sort of joy it once did anymore. Maybe Armada hasn't gotten slower and fiddlier, maybe I've just gotten less patient. And that's okay too.

I am 100% here with Armada right now. If they don't do anything about squadrons, I think I'm going to sell off my collection and bow out.

It's sad though, because Armada has BY FAR my favorite capital ship system. I've played both BFG and Firestorm Armada a fair bit, and neither comes close to my enjoyment of capital ships in Armada. In fact, BFG re-made using the Armada system (impossible since the FFG/GW split) would instantly become my favorite game.

Edit: FWIW, I think the squadrons touching idea has the most merit. However, we would need a new way to track activation. The slider would be come a MASSIVE pain if we want to touching.

Hmm, I haven't really ever had a problem with squadron slow play, although I play extremely aggressive and therefor most games I play in are quick by armada standards (I either win or lose by Turn 4 usually)

I dislike the idea of eliminating premeasure because that would water down the tactical elements of the game IMO.

There is a better solution to both of the problems - play squadronless!

Just now, PT106 said:

There is a better solution to both of the problems - play squadronless!

I'm on board! If only we could convince everyone of this...

28 minutes ago, JauntyChapeau said:

I've had this thought several times. One of the games played at a local store (Warmachine?) uses the clocks. Give each player an hour on the clock with agreed-upon pauses for rule discussions. If your clock runs out, you lose. If you can't get through six turns of Armada in that time frame, you need to learn to play your fleets faster.

It would need to be a very specific form of Chess clock, though - not the typical back-and-forth. For example, during planning phase, the time should run down for both players. But once a player commits it stops running for them and keeps for the other player. Regular gameplay swaps back and forth per activation, as usual, but then when in planning - set to run for both players.

Not sure I've seen one that does that.

1 minute ago, IronNerd said:

I'm on board! If only we could convince everyone of this...

Its enough for one of the two players to be squadronless as all the multiple pre measurements and precise movements that take a lot of time almost always are about squadron-to-squadron interactions.

5 minutes ago, PT106 said:

Its enough for one of the two players to be squadronless as all the multiple pre measurements and precise movements that take a lot of time almost always are about squadron-to-squadron interactions.

This is true. However, no squadron fleet vs. full squadron fleet battles often end up pretty one-sided...

2 minutes ago, IronNerd said:

This is true. However, no squadron fleet vs. full squadron fleet battles often end up pretty one-sided...

You'll be surprised As long as no squadron fleet has a plan to deal with squadrons - it's all for grabs.

32 minutes ago, xanderf said:

It would need to be a very specific form of Chess clock, though - not the typical back-and-forth. For example, during planning phase, the time should run down for both players. But once a player commits it stops running for them and keeps for the other player. Regular gameplay swaps back and forth per activation, as usual, but then when in planning - set to run for both players.

Not sure I've seen one that does that.

Have you played RoboRally (there are other games too), that starts a timer on a player only when he is the last one working? In Armada, the command phases could be untimed, but when you finish your commands, you start the other guys clock. Obviously, each players' clock runs on his activations.

This is a house rule I could implement while teaching the noobs to speed up through their learning games when they are tempted to paralyze. I don't know if I'd house rule it as a game over, but just to show them how much time is being used.

I think the best possible thing I can do is live read this post. I'll be red.

2 hours ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

Initially I put this into a response on the speculative 2.0 thread, but the more I think about it the more I think it warrants its own space.

Probably not, but let's see.

So, two common areas of Armada that players often point to as spaces with room for improvement: (1) Squadron Play is Fiddily and (2) The Game Takes a Long Time

I play almost exclusively squadrons and find both of these to be untrue with sufficient experience and practice. And I mean, not like 10,000 hours, I mean, like playing in a 3-4 tournaments in a reasonable enough time frame that your skill with the game doesn't totally degrade in between them. So that's like 9-15 games ish before you should be able to crank out games in under 2 hours even playing max squads vs max squads. Analysis paralysis is the primary culprit of games taking too long, which has nothing to do with squadron play and has everything to do with the person playing.

I think a way to positively address both of those is to eliminate the opportunity for pre-measuring anything and everything except for ship movement tools.

So your way of addressing a non-existent problem is to make the real problem worse? Awesome.

The worst sort of drudgery is when two squad-heavy lists square off and both players are painstakingly meticulous with them. We all want players who are careful and precise, of course, as sloppiness leads to ruined game states. But I don't think we want players who spend 1-2 minutes on each squadron's move as they pre-measure to two or three possible destinations, then pre-measure from each of those to all the relevant range-related things (engagements, flak fire, support abilities, friendly ship command range, etc.), then finally commit to one location and spend time sliding and nudging their squadron as they check all those ranges more precisely. But you cannot fault a player for doing this, as millimeters matter, especially in the squadron game since so many things are range-relevant from the squadron's location.

This can be true, but many many players in their inexperience measure things that don't need to be measured. If you have NO CLUE what you are going to do when it becomes your turn, of course you are going to have to measure every potentiality. But if you know where you are going, what you are doing, and what your plan is then the things you have to measure become funneled.

Frankly, the best way to speed this up would be to just deny the opportunity for the ultra-anal analysis paralysis. So we agree it's not squads. Ok, back on board. If Armada got rid of its default "premeasure anything, anytime, except maneuvers" the game would speed up exponentially. Ok, there's a logical leap I can't follow you on, so I'm back off. If you could only measure ranges from a ship when it is activating and is about to declare something range-relevant (like attacks or resolve a squadron command or check for Toryn after rolling blue dice, etc.) that would cut out so many minutes of time spent checking that stuff at all points of the game and before and after each decision opportunity. Or, instead of using their measuring stick would they sit there and wave their hands in the air, make visual markers like "If Jendon lands beyond this star on the playmat he is in range of Morna" which adds complexity. If the only thing you could measure when you picked up and moved a squad was (1) whether or not engagement prevents it from moving AND then (2) the distance it was moving (to make sure it moved within it's legal range), I mean Lord Have Mercy we'd probably cut almost an hour from the playtime of squadron-heavy games between two meticulous and thorough players. You can finish games regularly against an analysis paralysis opponent in 90 minutes? I mean, if 2.5 hours is the max time and most squad games (world finals aside) finish under that time limit, and you feel we can cut out an HOUR then 90 minutes is an average armada game? I mean, don't get me wrong, I play 90 minute games all the time, with max squads on both sides, but I'm not playing against someone with analysis paralysis. There would also be a much higher element for "skill" (or, at least, experience) to play a role, as players would have to judge a lot of the distances as they were committing their squadron to its new spot. By skill you mean a genetically determined predisposition toward being able to judge abstract spatial distances? Come up just 1mm short of being able to attack that enemy squadron because you were too conservatively trying to avoid a counterattack from the other enemy squadron behind it? Well, tough cookies. Sounds fun. Then there would be a lot more risk/reward decision to make in placing a squadron with how aggressive you wanted to be in an optimized spot balanced against how conservatively you wanted to be with making sure you were satisfying certain range considerations. But that seems drastically preferable to me over watching my opponent spend 3 Minutes checking to see if there's any possible spot he can slide his squadron that would give him Engagement on Squad X and Y, avoid Engagement with Squads A, B, and C, be at Range 1 of Friendly Squads I and III, be in command range of Friendly Ship Alpha and be just out of flak range of Enemy Ship S while being only in a single flak arc of Enemy Ship T. <-- This crap right here needs to go if the speed and enjoyability* personal preference touted as fact, pro move of squad-heavy Armada games is ever going to improve, ESPECIALLY SO before we start putting 600pts of collective squadrons onto the board... lol. I've played... hmm... probably 15 sector fleet sized games under the largest point format WITHOUT the lowered squad cap and not had a significant increase in time over playing squadless. How many max squads, or non max squads for that matter, large format games have you played in order to make this statement? Or is it, like opinions in this thread, purely hypothetical based on your lack of experience in the squadron game.

Ugh, even just thinking of all this fiddly minutia measuring of squadrons as I type it all out and remember the worst of my slowest tournament opponents Who, if they were slow because of analysis paralysis as you have ALREADY STATED would still play just as slow squadless. I just want to throw my collection up on the Swap and Sell. I mean, that's the strongest solution to the problem I've seen so far in the thread. In my opinion, the only real fix to the Armada Squadron Fiddiliness (which is a huge part of it's time length problem often times Reiterating your opinion as fact again, in case we missed it the first 3 times is always classy.) is to radically speed it up, and the way to do that is to eliminate the free-pass to measuring that the game allows for and force players to make eyeball judgments as they commit their pieces to the board (which is something X-Wing 2.0 has moved toward, since now if you misjudge ranges/locations and fail an action you lose your action entirely, rather than being able to just try something else like in 1.0). This is better than just lowering the squadron cap, I think, because it doesn't invalidate anyone's collection, still allows for thematic squadron-heavy builds, and would speed and tighten the game up in other non-squadron areas as well. Ok, that was fun. Here's my advice - You can't fix your opponent. Armada is a deep game. There are a million decisions to make, and a million ways to mess up. This means that analysis paralysis is fairly common. What you promote is making it HARDER for those who already are struggling with analysis paralysis to make their decision. You think someone prone to suffering over the tiniest minutae is going suddenly be all, "it's k bro's, lets just throw this dude here!" because he can't pre-measure? No. Just no. People ALWAYS find a way to measure. There are hundreds of work arounds, as is ALREADY EVIDENCED by the current attempts at speeding up play by limiting measuring to 1 tool. This was intended to prevent people from playing so fiddily, as you say, and it is a very common opinion amongst those who I know for a fact have played hundreds of games of Armada and whose opinions I trust that this rule in fact probably does more to slow down the game than speed it up, because it means that those people who need to play precisely now have to use common work arounds to make sure they get the effect. Those work arounds take time, and usually result in lots of re-measuring, instead of just sticking 3-4 distance 1 tools on the board and quickly moving into the places they want to be at without having to turn it into an ordeal. Note - NOT getting the effect is not an option. There is no universe where a fleet that requires precision to play just "let's it roll" because it's ability to be precise is hindered. It's just not going to happen.

So I guess what I am saying is that I disagree with pretty much everything you have said. From the root cause of the problem you identify, all the way through to your proposed solution. There's just nothing here I see as valuable or effective at achieving the result you desire. If you want to hurry up the physical action of measuring in the squad game then you should allow squad players to do just the opposite that you suggest and permit 5 distance one tools on the board so they can get into the position they desire quickly, and move on.

The solution to analysis paralysis is much more difficult, because the only way to fix that is to play more Armada. Play with opponents who are kind and understanding when things go slow, but are also willing to after the game buy their opponent a beer and say, "Ok mate, that game took an hour too long, what is going through your mind when you are making a decision?" and help them move from a place of having no F$*#ing clue what to do to a place where they have a plan, execute the plan, and can move confidently. That's gittin' gud bud, and eventually that's what fixes analysis paralysis, nothing else.