Custom RitR Rule: Modify Fleet

By ArmadaMatt, in Star Wars: Armada

Hey everyone,

I'm in the process of teaching a new group of players in preparation for starting a Rebellion in the Rim campaign. Because they are new, I want to add a house rule that allows them to replace ships in their fleets without (hopefully) breaking the balance or spirit of the campaign. My reason is I don't want them to feel locked into an entire campaign if they discover they don't like a ship or two in their fleet as they figure out how the different ships work.

With that said, what do you think of this rule? I kind of melded the regular Refit and Expand Fleets , Retire the Fleet , and Command Ship Upgrade rules all together.

It will be part of the Refit and Expand Fleets step, after Add or Remove Forces .

Modify Fleet
After the end of a pivotal battle, each team can replace some of the forces in one player's fleet with a new outfit of ships, as described below.

  1. The team spends one resource token and one repair yard token.
  2. Then one of this team's players may choose to remove a number of their ships, squadrons, and upgrade cards from their fleet. That player must retain at least one ship in their fleet.
  3. That player may then purchase any number of ships. The ships can have a total fleet point value that is up to the value of the ships that player removed plus half of the total fleet point value of any squadrons and/or upgrade cards that were removed, rounded up. Unspent fleet points are lost.

  • The total value of fleet points for ships in a player's fleet cannot exceed 200 points.
  • Any title upgrade cards equipped to ships removed this way must be removed, also. Title upgrade cards removed this way are included in the value of removed upgrade cards.
  • Any unique upgrades that are removed this way are eliminated and cannot be added to a fleet again by any player during the campaign.
  • Upgrade cards that player has not removed can be equipped to the added ships, if able.
2 hours ago, ArmadaMatt said:

Hey everyone,

I'm in the process of teaching a new group of players in preparation for starting a Rebellion in the Rim campaign. Because they are new, I want to add a house rule that allows them to replace ships in their fleets without (hopefully) breaking the balance or spirit of the campaign. My reason is I don't want them to feel locked into an entire campaign if they discover they don't like a ship or two in their fleet as they figure out how the different ships work.

With that said, what do you think of this rule? I kind of melded the regular Refit and Expand Fleets , Retire the Fleet , and Command Ship Upgrade rules all together.

It will be part of the Refit and Expand Fleets step, after Add or Remove Forces .

Modify Fleet
After the end of a pivotal battle, each team can replace some of the forces in one player's fleet with a new outfit of ships, as described below.

  1. The team spends one resource token and one repair yard token.
  2. Then one of this team's players may choose to remove a number of their ships, squadrons, and upgrade cards from their fleet. That player must retain at least one ship in their fleet.
  3. That player may then purchase any number of ships. The ships can have a total fleet point value that is up to the value of the ships that player removed plus half of the total fleet point value of any squadrons and/or upgrade cards that were removed, rounded up. Unspent fleet points are lost.

  • The total value of fleet points for ships in a player's fleet cannot exceed 200 points.
  • Any title upgrade cards equipped to ships removed this way must be removed, also. Title upgrade cards removed this way are included in the value of removed upgrade cards.
  • Any unique upgrades that are removed this way are eliminated and cannot be added to a fleet again by any player during the campaign.
  • Upgrade cards that player has not removed can be equipped to the added ships, if able.

I didn't play the campaign enough to really know how easy/hard is to get some stuff so I would remove the requirement of spending resources and repair. And probably I would also remove the limit of players that may do this.

This way you prevent being stuck for not getting enough strategic effects (at the end they're learning the game AND the campaign stuff as well so mistakes will be made) or because you must take turn to fix your fleet.

After pivoting battles is ok as that way you force them to REALLY try those ships. The limit of 200 points on ships will keep balance.

About unique stuff rules I'm not sure. It's a fair "punishment" but the idea is to learn so not sure why make pay them pay that kind of thing. What if I would like to try Howl but Bob scrapped her so she is gone for good?

With just two times during the whole campaign when they may do this and given they're noobs I don't see them abusing the rule. If you have mixed players then just nominate the noobs that will take advantage of this, everyone else must follow the original rules.

I would not bother. We have 3 new people in ours and they are picking the game up just fine. We helped them build their fleets, and we are helping them with out to play them.

If they really don't like the fleet they can disband it and build a new one, anyway. We are half way through act 2 and the biggest fleet is 225. So it is not like a new 200 point fleet is so far behind it cannot win. You could even give them an Ally token to even the odds.

Unless this is the only time you are ever going to play RitR then just play it out and let them learn. The next one they will have a better idea. This campaign plays out so fast compared to Corellian, even if it does go to the very end. It is so easy for one side to get up by 5 and have the next pivotal battle end the whole thing. You could come up with all these crazy house rules just to have it end sooner then later anyway.

Play it out I say.

My friend @Narcaustic and I are doing a long term RitR game. We each are running 6 fleets, with max points increasing 25 pts after each pivotal battle.

We are using a house rule for changing ships before a pivotal battle.

1 resource=remove X ships or squads and replace with 2 small ships.

1 resource+repair yard=remove X ships or squads and replace with 1 medium ship.

2 resource+repair yard=remove X ships or squads and replace with 1 large ship.

3 resource+repair yard=remove X ships or squads and replace with 1 huge ship.

The increase for huge and large is because with so many fleets, we are getting a lot more resources and bases.

Thanks everyone for the feedback! I'll probably just run all these thoughts by our group to see what they feel comfortable with.