Star Wars: Armada

Saturday I received a second round bye in a Star Trek Attack Wing event which gave me some time to chat with the guy who was running demos for Armada at the game store. After chatting I failed my resistance roll and began unwrapping and punching while the second round of the tourney was happening.

There's a lot to like and feels a bit like X Wing but with more. I've only had a chance to read but the rules seem pretty efficient and not overly complex, after the first read I feel I can teach fairly well and only have to reference some of the finer points. The points from the demo guy that sold me was that it feels like a capital ship game unlike Star Trek which are capital ships that feel like fighters. That it is a strategic game where planning a few turns ahead is a must because of the command system and that these things move like a bus on four flat tires. The game lasts six turns and if I measured correct (and without extra yaw due to command tokens) it takes six turns to turn the imperial ship 180.

Now, the part that caused me to raise an eyebrow are the objectives. Each player brings three to the table (one of each of the three types). Whoever used the fewest fleet points to build their fleet gets to pick one of the three objectives their opponent selected. The other five are put back into the box. What I have come to really love and enjoy in Star Trek is picking a mission, determining sides and then picking out a fleet to achieve your goals and then putting it to the test. Here you don't get that satisfaction.

Then the objectives themselves are pretty bland and none too inspiring. I understand that these needed to be tuned and polished with the anticipation of tournament and organized play. That they needed to be balanced which is why you build your fleet first then get your scenario. They just sounds so uninspiring, reads so sterile - To be honest, I think here FFG could have done well to add flavor text.

Just about everything about the system just feels gamey like the reverse bidding with your fleet build and picking from the objectives your opponent picked. One mission for example you're trying to move your ship as close as possible to objective points on the map and the closest scores the point...EXCEPT if you're on the objective your opponent scores the point...Penalized for getting too close?

I suppose there's no reason why in casual play you couldn't pick the objective first and then fleet build. So there is that.

VonTush wrote: One mission for example you're trying to move your ship as close as possible to objective points on the map and the closest scores the point...EXCEPT if you're on the objective your opponent scores the point...Penalized for getting too close?

That sounds real dumb.

The rest of the game looks rock solid, but the objective cards is just goofy. Designed with too much focus on tourney play I feel...But of course take everything with a grain of salt since I'm sure in practice it works just fine. It's not something that excites me about the game though.

Wow that objective system really sounds lame.

Now I'll say that the example I gave was one of the more extreme case which was just odd when I saw it.

There are a few neat ones, like one where one side puts some models off to the side and then puts down objective tokens on the board. Beginning with Turn 2, they can either drop the models held off the board out of hyperspace and deploy them or move the objective token and deploy later. But most of what I skimmed were pretty generic like one where you're looking to destroy your opponents flagship because it's worth more points.

But putting together your fleet and then figuring out what your objective is just feels backwards (because it is). This is the first time I've ever seen that.

I've played a few minis games where you randomly determined the scenario after building your list. This seems a bit like that with some strategy contained in objective selection building.

To me, this seems like a design where a lot of R&D was done for a very targeted niche of players but the target is really kind of... perplexing.

Actually 40k works that way. You bring a list to a tournament, and the mission type is randomly decided later. This makes people bring all-comers list, at least when it comes to the objective. Your list should be able to do various objectives.

Depending on the portrayed situations, it's not always backwards. After all sometimes you have to tackle what's ahead with whatever you have.

I watched Vasel's review and the game looks cool. It looks a lot like a different version of X-Wing. The movement tool seems sweet, the sector shields is a nice idea, and the way it handles bookkeeping seems smooth. As a game it looks awesome. As a $100 product it looks like a mess. $100 for a STARTER set. Not a base set, a starter set. You only get 1 or 2 ships (plus some number of fighter squadrons) depending on the side you want to play, and you don't even get enough dice in the box to account for the ships in the box where you don't have to roll some twice to make a single attack.

I'm not interested in this game because of the cost of the ships, but it looks like a REALLY fun system and I'd be totally into playing it, but that starter box looks jive.

Yeah, 100 dollars for the almost exact equivalent of the x-wing starter (that was like 2 ties and an x-wing, right?) in terms of completeness is rough. Only thing that looks annoying to me is the constant picking things up and putting things down in the same place and the defense chit thing.

My friend pre-ordered this and brought it over and it feels like you get your money's worth: three capital ships (1 Imperial, 2 Rebel) and 10 squadrons of fighters (6 TIE, 4 X-Wing). However, I agree that it still feels like an incomplete experience.

Yet, my biggest hangup seeing the game, but not playing it, is that it feels 100% more fiddly than X-Wing. You have that weird distance ruler that has notches in the hinges. When you move you compare your current speed to your ship's card and can move the various joints a certain number of clicks depending on that speed. That goofy ruler alone is currently saving me ~$70 on a game I'd likely never play.

The problem with the movement guide is what? You have to click it? I don't get it.

Hex Sinister wrote: The problem with the movement guide is what? You have to click it? I don't get it.

I think I understand. After couple of years playing miniatures, I'm sick of ruler. Now, a ruler that can bend, thick, fiddly, and break-prone?

While it's disappointing that $100 MSRP is the buy-in for an incomplete experience, I don't see FFG making much off this starter.

The VSD is comparable to a large X-Wing Ship, so say $20 from MM/CSI. Might be a bit smaller but it's bigger than an X-Wing small ship for sure.

The CR90 and Neb B are each comparable to a $10 X-Wing Ship.

The 10 fighters are comparable to maybe 2.5 X-Wing small ships, so lets say $25.

So that's $65 of the price thus far, using MM/CSI's discounted prices. That's about the price of the core set from the same retailers.

Now, throw in the more expensive maneuver tool than X-Wing's cardboard, plastic dials as opposed to just cardboard, more chits than X-Wing's starter and things start to add up.

M

Sevej wrote:

Hex Sinister wrote: The problem with the movement guide is what? You have to click it? I don't get it.

I think I understand. After couple of years playing miniatures, I'm sick of ruler. Now, a ruler that can bend, thick, fiddly, and break-prone?

That and the latter segments will be in the way when moving short distances. You'll have to lay down the whole thing and try to make sure you're not disturbing any other ships in the play area while not getting in your own way.