When I introduced Armada to a friend, one of the things he was bummed about was when I destroyed his ISD and... We simply removed it from the play area. No big explosion, no consequences to the ships around it. So in our casual games we implemented an alternate rule that, after a bit of testing, I feel comfortable sharing.

ARMADA: SHIP DEBRIS VARIANT

When a ship is destroyed, remove the miniature from its base and place the speed dial of that ship on top and reduce its speed by 1. If the ship did actívate during this round before its destruction, place a victory token on it as well. Do not remove any objective tokens assigned to this ship.

Any ship with no miniature in it is considered a destroyed ship . Destroyed ships have different hull values depending on their size class:

• SMALL: 1 Hull
• MEDIUM: 3 Hull
• BIG: 5 Hull
• HUGE: 10 Hull

Players may perform attacks against a destroyed ship following the rules of standard attacks against ships. A destroyed ship cannot suffer any critical effects. If a ship overlaps a destroyed ship, follow the standard overlapping rules for that ship (including the flotilla rules). When a destroyed ship suffers any amount of damage, place that same number of facedown damage cards on its base.

A destroyed ship is not friendly to anyone.

Final blast: When a destroyed ship has a number of damage cards equal to its hull value, roll a single red die. Then:

• If the die shows any number of HIT icons, each ship and squadron at distance 1 of the destroyed ship suffer that same amount of damage. Squadrons may spend defense tokens to prevent this damage, but ships cannot do so.
• If the die shows a CRIT icon, every ship at distance 1 of the destroyed ship suffers 1 damage. If the damage is done to the hull, the ship receives a faceup damage card. A ship may spend a CONTAIN defense token to change that faceup damage card to facedown.
• If the die shows an ACCURACY icon, every ship and squadron at distance 1 of the destroyed ship MUST spend one of its defense tokens, if possible.
• ALL OF THESE EFFECTS may be ignored if an affected ship or squadron spends an EVASION or SCATTER defense token.

Then remove the destroyed ship from the play area.

Moving danger: Before the start of the squadron phase, each destroyed ship will perform a straigth maneuver with a speed equal to the one shown on its speed dial. If the ship overlaps any ship, squadron or obstacle, follow the standard rules with the following exceptions:

• If the destroyed ship overlaps a station it will not recover damage. Instead, it will suffer 1 damage.
• If the destroyed ship is supposed to suffer a faceup damage card after an overlap, the card will be facedown instead.
• If the destroyed ship overlaps a ship or obstacle, reduce its speed by 1.

After performing this maneuver, roll a red die and follow the rules stated on Final Blast, without removing the ship from the play area in the end. Then, assign a facedown damage card to this destroyed ship. If this damage card causes the complete destruction of the destroyed ship, you must resolve Final Blast once again, this time removing the ship in the end.

After this, if the destroyed ship is still in play, place a victory token on it. After all destroyed ships have been moved and final-blasted, remove all victory tokens assigned to them and move on to the squadron phase.

Objective Tokens: A destroyed ship with an objective token (like the VIP objective token) will still have the token assigned but the token will not be considered for scoring purposes. Objective tokens assigned to destroyed ships are considered on the game area and can therefore be affected by squadron abilities (like strategic) of special objective rules (like Capture the VIP).

These rules add an additional layer of strategy to the game, although I will admit they also make it a bit more cumbersome. Feel free to give it a try and let me know how you liked it!

To me this seems to be a nice rule for casual play. Especially if you play larger battles with higher numbers of ships.

Thanks for sharing.

How does this work with overkill? ie a ship with 1 hull left suffers 3 damage cards.

Or you could say that when a ship is destroyed remove all damage cards equal to its starting hull value. Any excess are left on the wreck. When the wreck has received half or more damage cards of its hull value then the ship will follow the FINAL BLAST rule

13 minutes ago, slasher956 said:

How does this work with overkill? ie a ship with 1 hull left suffers 3 damage cards.

Or you could say that when a ship is destroyed remove all damage cards equal to its starting hull value. Any excess are left on the wreck. When the wreck has received half or more damage cards of its hull value then the ship will follow the FINAL BLAST rule

I like this. You can obliterate most small ships, and maybe a heavily damaged medium. We'll test it out.

However, regarding destroyed ship hull points, at first we did have different hull values for the wreckage depending on the original ship's, but we found it tedious to do math, so we kept a few fixed hull values depending on ship size.

Quite a nice idea. I really like the thought that some debris is left behind after a ship is destroyed.

I personally think it‘s quite a complex rule - to keep it simple I‘d rather remove the ship from play and (if a second Core Set is available) place another debris field...

2 hours ago, M0N0LITH said:

Quite a nice idea. I really like the thought that some debris is left behind after a ship is destroyed.

I personally think it‘s quite a complex rule - to keep it simple I‘d rather remove the ship from play and (if a second Core Set is available) place another debris field...

I’ve had the chance to play a space game where destroyed ships continued at the last speed/heading they were going before destruction. It’s a fun mechanic as long as the field isn’t too dense

On 5/2/2019 at 12:14 PM, BillHimclaw said:

When I introduced Armada to a friend, one of the things he was bummed about was when I destroyed his ISD and... We simply removed it from the play area. No big explosion, no consequences to the ships around it. So in our casual games we implemented an alternate rule that, after a bit of testing, I feel comfortable sharing.

You can always add firecrackers to the ships, and "explode" them when they are destroyed. But this will become a really expensive game 😉 .

But i like the idea with ship debris.

I'd be more down with ships leaving a debris-field token than having the model stay in play or anything of the sort. Cool thought though

2 hours ago, Alzer said:

I'd be more down with ships leaving a debris-field token than having the model stay in play or anything of the sort. Cool thought though

Only if it was 1 debris field for small ships, 2 for medium, 3 for large & 4 for huge.

I do like the OP's system though, as it also adds the possibility for capturing and repairing enemy ships (or disassembled them for resources) between campaign rounds for the victor. Maybe even capturing officers, admirals, weapons and support teams. Would be fun to add prisoner exchanges to the campaign as well.

Does the destroyed ship have defense tokens?

3 hours ago, Bertie Wooster said:

Does the destroyed ship have defense tokens?

No. No defense tokens or shields. Only Hull.

4 hours ago, cynanbloodbane said:

Only if it was 1 debris field for small ships, 2 for medium, 3 for large & 4 for huge.

I do like the OP's system though, as it also adds the possibility for capturing and repairing enemy ships (or disassembled them for resources) between campaign rounds for the victor. Maybe even capturing officers, admirals, weapons and support teams. Would be fun to add prisoner exchanges to the campaign as well.

We didn't work out anything for campaigns. If you manage to create a ruleset for them let me know! I'd love to test something like that.

On 5/3/2019 at 8:43 PM, Alzer said:

I'd be more down with ships leaving a debris-field token than having the model stay in play or anything of the sort. Cool thought though

How about leaving the cardboard ship token where the ship died? Mark the base of the dead ship at the top or bottom(the difference of the cardboard and the plastic is minute at the top and bottom, aside from the shield dial frames) and then remove the base. Take out the cardboard ship token and place it back at the marker in the same spot.

Cardboard ship token of dead ships work like debris fields when overlapped

If the dead ship was overlapping an obstacle, remove that obstacle

9 hours ago, Muelmuel said:

How about leaving the cardboard ship token where the ship died? Mark the base of the dead ship at the top or bottom(the difference of the cardboard and the plastic is minute at the top and bottom, aside from the shield dial frames) and then remove the base. Take out the cardboard ship token and place it back at the marker in the same spot.

Cardboard ship token of dead ships work like debris fields when overlapped

If the dead ship was overlapping an obstacle, remove that obstacle

This was our first thought. Works nice, but we loved the idea that the massive star destroyer charging at you that was just destroyed... Is still charging at you, now a lumbering mass of molten metal and deadly explosions.

It is overcomplicating things, tbh, but boy is it fun. A simpler variant is to ignore these rules for small ships and flotillas, and/or lowering the hull values of derelict ships to ensure they won't be staying too long.

8 hours ago, BillHimclaw said:

This was our first thought. Works nice, but we loved the idea that the massive star destroyer charging at you that was just destroyed... Is still charging at you, now a lumbering mass of molten metal and deadly explosions.

It is overcomplicating things, tbh, but boy is it fun. A simpler variant is to ignore these rules for small ships and flotillas, and/or lowering the hull values of derelict ships to ensure they won't be staying too long.

Actually, I would love to take it a few steps further for campaign play.

0 to -X hull (Negative Hull Value), ship is Disabled.

X=

Small ship, command 1=1

Small ship, command 2=2

Medium ship =3

Large ship =5

Huge ship =10

A Disabled ship may only execute a Engineering command. Plus the OP's rule.

1 engineering point, launch an escape pod containing an Admiral, Officer, Weapons team, or Support team, to a friendly ship distance 1-3 it cannot be equiped.

2 engineering points, scuttle ship. You may inflict damage to yourself equal to half your engineering value.

3 emergency repairs. You may remove 1 face down damage card. If this results in damage equal to less than your hull value, you are removed from play, and considered scared for the next battle.

Any Disabled ship left on the field after the end of the game becomes the property of the winner. It is considered scared for the next battle. Or may be exchanged for half its resource point value. If the ship changes ownership, any unique upgrades equiped to the ship must be exchanged for resource points. Unique upgrades exchanged in this way are not permanently removed from future battles, but may not be repurchased until after the next battle.

If a ship exceeds it's Negative Hull Value, it is considered Destroyed. Replace it with a number of debris field markers, placed fully under its base before it is removed.

Any ship or Squadron within distance 1 of a ship as it is destroyed is attached by a number of blue dice, 1 for Small, 2 for Medium, 3 for Large, and 4 for Huge.

Any unique upgrades equiped to the ship are permanently removed from future battles.

There, now that is how you do needlessly complex, and that doesn't even include my rules for escape pods and ejected pilots when a unit is destroyed.

18 hours ago, cynanbloodbane said:

Actually, I would love to take it a few steps further for campaign play.

0 to -X hull (Negative Hull Value), ship is Disabled.

X=

Small ship, command 1=1

Small ship, command 2=2

Medium ship =3

Large ship =5

Huge ship =10

A Disabled ship may only execute a Engineering command. Plus the OP's rule.

1 engineering point, launch an escape pod containing an Admiral, Officer, Weapons team, or Support team, to a friendly ship distance 1-3 it cannot be equiped.

2 engineering points, scuttle ship. You may inflict damage to yourself equal to half your engineering value.

3 emergency repairs. You may remove 1 face down damage card. If this results in damage equal to less than your hull value, you are removed from play, and considered scared for the next battle.

Any Disabled ship left on the field after the end of the game becomes the property of the winner. It is considered scared for the next battle. Or may be exchanged for half its resource point value. If the ship changes ownership, any unique upgrades equiped to the ship must be exchanged for resource points. Unique upgrades exchanged in this way are not permanently removed from future battles, but may not be repurchased until after the next battle.

If a ship exceeds it's Negative Hull Value, it is considered Destroyed. Replace it with a number of debris field markers, placed fully under its base before it is removed.

Any ship or Squadron within distance 1 of a ship as it is destroyed is attached by a number of blue dice, 1 for Small, 2 for Medium, 3 for Large, and 4 for Huge.

Any unique upgrades equiped to the ship are permanently removed from future battles.

There, now that is how you do needlessly complex, and that doesn't even include my rules for escape pods and ejected pilots when a unit is destroyed.

Yes. This is good. I like the command=Hull for small ships. And to overthink this a bit more...

Once a ship becomes a Destroyed ship, discard its assigned command dials. You must assign new command dials equal to the ship's command value, but you will not assign additional dials on the following rounds.

A Destroyed ship cannot be assigned command tokens. If it gains a token, it must be immediately discarded.

When a destroyed ship reveals a command, instead of resolving the standard effects it will resolve the following effects:

CONCENTRATE FIRE (parting shot): Choose one of your hull zones. You may perform an attack from that hull zone, ignoring any critical hit or accuracy icons on your dice. You can't modify this attack roll.

ENGINEERING (emergency repairs/self destruction): Remove or add facedown damage cards to this Destroyed ship up to half your engineering value, rounded up

OR remove any non-modification, non-crew, upgrade cards up to your engineering value. The winning player may claim those cards after the battle. If the winning player is your opponent, he must discard all titles among your saved cards.

SQUADRONS (escape pods): Remove as many commander, officer weapon team and/or support team cards from this ship up to your Squadron value. These cards will not be destroyed along with the ship. The commander may be reassigned to a ship at distance 1-3.

MANEUVER (emergency hyperjump): Roll up to 6 blue dice. You suffer as much damage as the hit and crit icons shown. After that, if the Destroyed ship is not obliterated by the damage AND if you obtained at least one accuracy icon, the ship jumps to hyperspace and retreats from the battle. The ship is scarred for next battle, unless repaired.

After the battle, discard all upgrade cards assigned to destroyed ships. The winner may do one of the following actions with each of the Destroyed ships remaining on the field:

SCRAP: The team gains half that ship's point value in resources.

RECLAIM: Paying half the ship's point cost allows to use it in battle. If the ship was an enemy, it will return to battle scarred.

This would require a couple tweaks to the repair/scarring system, but...