Has anyone tried playing with the idea that the fist player simply chooses a random face down objective instead of making the informed decision with all infomation in mind? Would this put first player at to much of a disadvantage? It would get more of the objectives used as there are obvious choices that would be bad for the first players fleet, but isn't that kind of the point? Just wondering what others thoughts are.

Random draw two objectives. Second players chooses.

I would say bad idea. I run a lot of MC80a/c fleets. This would mean that any time I’m 2nd player, my opponent has a 1/3 chance of getting completely screwed by pulling advanced Gunnery.

No.

7 hours ago, Church14 said:

I would say bad idea. I run a lot of MC80a/c fleets. This would mean that any time I’m 2nd player, my opponent has a 1/3 chance of getting completely screwed by pulling advanced Gunnery.

No.

You misunderstand him. Random objective from the deck and not your three cards.

Having first player is generally a BIG advantage. One of the balancing factors is the ability to gain an advantage with objectives. Objectives favour second player - but choosing objectives that favour your fleet is also part of the balancing act.

Totally random objectives would only increase the first player advantage even more, as well as making building your fleet even harder...

8 hours ago, Ginkapo said:

You misunderstand him. Random objective from the deck and not your three cards.

Let me clarify then. My thought was normal build and selection of objectives. Lowest initiative chooses 1st or 2nd player. 1st player then random draws from the 3 objectives the 2nd player brought.

To continue on this vein but possibly combine some thoughts; 1st player looks at the 3 objectives, selects one to be discarded, 2nd player chooses from the remaining 2.

I realize we have a fine system, just thought it could help mix up the objectives we see. Plus a little more randomness might be interesting.

20 hours ago, zingerwhip said:

Let me clarify then. My thought was normal build and selection of objectives. Lowest initiative chooses 1st or 2nd player. 1st player then random draws from the 3 objectives the 2nd player brought.

To continue on this vein but possibly combine some thoughts; 1st player looks at the 3 objectives, selects one to be discarded, 2nd player chooses from the remaining 2.

I realize we have a fine system, just thought it could help mix up the objectives we see. Plus a little more randomness might be interesting.

Ok. So I had it right.

Having 1st player discard one and then 2nd player chooses one is also bad. 2nd player then gets too much control over objectives.

If I was inclined to make a change to force variety, I’d force players to bring 6 objective cards. 2 of each, and allow 1st to choose from those.

That, or force players to bring a unique set of objectives for each round of a tournament. So you can only have Most Wanted for one round.

I think that there is no need (and no realistic probability) to change the rules for tournaments. But you can do things a bit different in casual gaming if you like so. I thought of two alternatives:

1) I thought of a kind of campaign, that resembled a sort of escalation league. One thought for that would have been, that you first announce the objective for the next battle. After that both sides build there fleet knowing what they would play (but not knowing who would be first player). If you do that in a sort of campaign or league you shouldn't be allowed to pick an objective card twice before all other cards have been played.

2) We tried out to play with the Legion system of objectives. Every legion Battle Card can be translated into Armada rules/cards quite easily. We dealt the cards random and then followed the Legion rules to negate the card most to the left or pass.

Deployment cards are just the same. (Distance 2 in Legion is the same as 1 Range Ruler in Armada. / If playing Break Through double the distances from players edges to give Victory and Pelta a chance.)

Condition cards as follows.

• Clear Conditions -- nothing happens (easy to adapt)
• Hostile Environment -- same rules as Navigational Hazards but no VPs
• Limited Visibility -- same rules as Solar Corona
• Minefield -- set up as normal, place 5 mines alternating, second player first. Then follow rules for
• Rapid Reinforcement -- use the rules for the All Out Offensive from CC.

Objective cards as follows.

• Breakthrough -- Like Blockade Run: the side that gets more Fleet Points to the other side wins.
• Intercept the transmissions -- Three ojective tokens, 1 in the middle, the other two halfway to the far side of the board. End of 2., 4. und 6. round a player with more ships in short or medium range to 1 marker gets 1 VP.
• Key Positions -- Three objective tokens. Place Space Station to the middle. Place 1 objective marker at it. Every player chooses 1 obstacle and places an objective marker at it. At the end of round 6 the player with more Command Value at short to medium range of such an obstacle wins 1 VP.
• Recover the Supplies -- Three objective tokens. Place 1 objective token at the middle of the board. Place 4 tokens alternating beyond distance 3 to each other objective token. Follow the rules for "Capture the VIP" for pick up. Every token at a ship is worth 1 VP.
• Repair/Sabotage the Moisture Vaporators -- In Armada: Repair/Sabotage the Space Stations! Each player places 2 stations beyond range 5 of Deployment Zone and each other. Each station gets 2 damage tokens. At close range a ship can spend a dial (or 1 attack?) to repair/deal a damage card (to a max of 4). Every damage token repaired or dealt at the end of round 6 is 1 VP.

Best thing is not to play with a first player and second player. Like in Legion you should altnernate first player. To do so, you can just alternate each round. Or you play cards from 1-6. Lower cards go first. After a 1-5 card is played it is discarded. You could combine each card with a commander effect, like Admiral Ackbar is 1-pip card and gives you this round +2 red dice if you only attack from broad sides. Or Palpatine is 2-pip card and lets you choose 1 defense token. If a token of this sort is used for defence this round it must be discarded.