Hello community !

Someone tested the new environment cards in 200-pts games ?

How did you chose the card ?

Did you enjoy ?

Thanks !

Have played a few of them so far. Asteroid Storm. Clouzon. Comet Tail. We just shuffle them up and choose one at random. They've been an interesting and entertaining way of spicing up the standard game. And make multi-player Epic games *really* different. I, at least, approve.

edit: Played Minefield last night, which set-up resulted in a nearly unbroken line of obstacles and mines across the center of the board, nearly edge to edge. Nobody, but NOBODY, hit any of the obstacles - and only one node of the Cluster Mine for a stunning zero damage. It was interesting insofar as it altered the flight plans a little, but there was so little active interaction with the effects of the Card.

Actually, now that I think on it, none of the games played with any of the Environment Cards so far have really had any effect beyond making ships fly juuuuuust a little bit more cautiously. Which feels slightly disappointing.

I still wholly approve.

I have a thought of how to use them, but I haven't used them yet:

3 random cards: second player removes one of the three, and first player chooses the one that will be used during the game. Can't wait to test that

Our group of 6 played multiple games with the Comet Tail one. We enjoyed it. It was not intrusive but did certainly alter standard game play. I am not as interested in the ordinance based scenarios.

About that pack: I just prepared a bag with all the cards, the upgrades and the tokens needed for environmental play. It pretty nicely fits into the bag that come with the Xi-Class Shuttle

Since the pandemic is still present, I do not see when I will be able to use them in a near future, but they will be ready for use, and it's a small bag to bring, and we can play with everything. Can't wait to see if it's easy to set up and go with a regular enviromental game

I've played with several scenarios. The most oppressive I've played is the bombardment one. Player two is at a significant disadvantage.

Played minefield with a quadjumper on my side, and boy could I abuse it. I tractored a ship into a proximity mine, another into two of the cluster mines, and my opponent flew a ship into the other proximity mine on purpose so I couldn't tractor his pocket ace into it.

On 1/24/2020 at 8:42 AM, Silver_leader said:

I have a thought of how to use them, but I haven't used them yet:

3 random cards: second player removes one of the three, and first player chooses the one that will be used during the game. Can't wait to test that

I like this, keeps both players in the decision process but doesn't make it completely random.

They do something similar in Armada for objectives, don't they? (it's been awhile since I've read those rules)

47 minutes ago, Silver_leader said:

About that pack: I just prepared a bag with all the cards, the upgrades and the tokens needed for environmental play. It pretty nicely fits into the bag that come with the Xi-Class Shuttle

Since the pandemic is still present, I do not see when I will be able to use them in a near future, but they will be ready for use, and it's a small bag to bring, and we can play with everything. Can't wait to see if it's easy to set up and go with a regular enviromental game

That's actually a brilliant idea. I've been hesitant to put the cards in a bag since I've started bring only a single list at any given game night, but since I recently acquired another player's collection, I bet I have enough mine and obstacle tokens to do this now. Thanks for braining for me!

1 hour ago, Kleeg005 said:

That's actually a brilliant idea. I've been hesitant to put the cards in a bag since I've started bring only a single list at any given game night, but since I recently acquired another player's collection, I bet I have enough mine and obstacle tokens to do this now. Thanks for braining for me!

I got 2 cards that I only have 1 copy of each (ion bombs and cluster). But I did a copy and I pasted them on another card that I have a lot (seasoned navigator ? ) , and put them in sleeves with the others. No difference for the Munitions Cache card.

As for the templates, I played in 1.0, so I got a s**tload of templates to use . the only work that's left is to make a way to make the difference between thos templates and those used with the played squads. I'll work on that

18 hours ago, CaptainJaguarShark said:

I like this, keeps both players in the decision process but doesn't make it completely random.

They do something similar in Armada for objectives, don't they? (it's been awhile since I've read those rules)

Technically the above system is more like legion in a way. Where we get a set and choose eliminations. Armada would be we each bring three(one would probably be better for X-wing atm with how few there are too even pick from) environments, whoever wins the bid for first has to pick(or be stuck with the one) from the opponents set of environments.

Basically, you can get the bid and get initiative advantage, but then we play on the battlefield of my choosing as a balancer.

To get that completely correct we'd probably have to tweak the system just a little since an environment cards didn't necessarily offset the bidded advantage.

On 10/24/2020 at 8:13 AM, ForceSensitive said:

To get that completely correct we'd probably have to tweak the system just a little since an environment cards didn't necessarily offset the bidded advantage.

I think we still have to make the bid worth the investment. So having the second player removing one of the choices of the environments gives the first player a more limited choice of impact on the game.

A question popped in my head during the weekend: what is happenening with the choice of obstacles ? I would personnally say that the one who chooses the battlefield (so the first player) would also choose which obstacles to bring on the field. It would bring some more teeth to the first player's chioce.

14 hours ago, Silver_leader said:

I think we still have to make the bid worth the investment. So having the second player removing one of the choices of the environments gives the first player a more limited choice of impact on the game.

A question popped in my head during the weekend: what is happenening with the choice of obstacles ? I would personnally say that the one who chooses the battlefield (so the first player) would also choose which obstacles to bring on the field. It would bring some more teeth to the first player's chioce.

The bid is still well worth the investment. Let's not forget how crazy some bids get over the years desperate for that first-second choice. I think your trying to put too much power into that function. Even with a tacked on environment card system, the bid winner gets even more power already because they could look at the opponents squad and assume what environments they may want, then choose to not let them get that choice. That's how some Armada games go where a player bids and is trying to go first for most games, but upon seeing the opponents list thinks it would be better against it to pull the opponent into their own objectives instead. It's an incredibly powerful choice they get to make there.

So I think ideally you should just get it to be each player makes an equal number of decisions in the game setup phase. Whoever wins bid, gets the powerful choice of moving or shooting first. The other player gets the powerful choice of choosing where they fight. They take turns where necessary for obstacle placement.