You pick an arc to shoot from, then pick a target to shoot in that arc.* After that attack is resolved, you pick a second arc to shoot from, a target in that arc (which can be the same target as the first attack ...), and resolve your second attack.
If Akbar's in play, then the only two arcs to pick are port and starboard; if he's not, you can pick any two.
* It works a little differently against squadrons, but we'll ignore them for now.
Ok gotcha. So can't use Akbar then and can shoot at the Raider and ISD. Let's do that for maximum overall damage to the Imperials. There is a sick part of me that wants to do Akbar and focus all fire on the ISD though.
Turbolasers and ion cannons rip through space, hitting both the Insubordinant and the Impertinent. With some careful maneuvering, the worst of the blasts pass by the Insubordinant; the Impertinent is not so lucky, however, and is nearly shredded. Lights are going off all over the Imperial warship as power to key sections is lost.
Attack 1 against the RDR is long range, so 1R (uh, oops; I thought you had a better attack here; sorry?).
Result is 2H; the RDR spends an Evade token to cancel 1 die, so result is 0 damage.
Attack 2 against the ISD is short range, so 3R3B; the Impertinent has activated, so another die of any color is added, so +1B as normal. Final result is 3R4B.
Result is 3A2H. Once accuracy result is used to prevent the ISD from using Brace; the others have nothing useful to prevent, and so are turned into points of damage, so 4 damage gets through. Impertinent drops to (Hull: 8->4) 4 Hull remaining.
@Betsuni - you can move speed 1, and turn up to 2 clicks to either side. Which way do you want to go?
The Defiance swings through space, and Green Squadron scrambles out of its path.
The Insubordinant has maneuvered itself into the path of the Defiance, and fires its ion cannons at maximum range!
Defiance moves ahead at speed 1 (1) and uses the Navigation dial to add an extra click; hard to port.
RDR Insubordinant activates with a Concentrate Fire dial, and it elects to spend it this round. It attacks from its forward arc, and chooses the Defiance as its target. Defiance is at medium range, so the attack is 2B. The CF dial adds +1B, so final attack is 3B.
Result is 1H2C.
3 damage and a potential crit coming in. How do you want to spend your defense tokens, @Betsuni?
The ion cannon shots smash home, and the bow shields on the Defiance glimmer and fade as they struggle, successfully in the end, to dissipate the Raider's attack.
The TIE Bombers of Gamma Squadron, strafe the Defiance, as they line up for a more-opportune torpedo shot.
Luke Skywalker and his Rogues attempt to blow out the engines of the ISD, freezing it in space, but their attacks fail to penetrate the area's heavy armor.
Anti-ship attack at range 1, so 1K.
Result is 1H, and I assume that @Betsuni will just shield it away.
Luke Skywalker attacks the ISD, anti-ship at range 1, so 1K:
Miss.
Green and Red Squadrons don't have valid targets, so where would you like them to end up, @Betsuni ? (Doesn't matter much.)
Uh, well, nothing actually blew up. So the score is 0 to 0. Unlike X-Wing, there's no half-points for mostly-destroyed ships, which is ... huh. :shrug:
However, in the case of a tie for points scored, the win goes to the 2nd player, with a margin of victory of 0 points!
So, congratulations, @Betsuni, on your narrow win! In reality, the ISD is a smoking wreck and I like the odds of your fighters and mostly-full-Shields-and-HP Defiance against the Raider, so the game isn't nearly as close as the final score indicates. Thanks for playing along, @Fuselage, and I hope the audience at home enjoyed the game.
AARish? I'm not that hip so don't know what that means. But if you want feedback I would say to have the instructions sent to you via PMs or emails. Not sure how much fun it is to see the puppeteer while watching the show. Or have them hidden behind spoilers like you did?
I loved the descriptions you wrote of the actual battles and movement. Made it seem more like I was reading a story and watching it come to life with the graphics. The graphics also help bring the event to life.
Overall it was really fun to play and I liked the format. It allowed me to play the game without having to dedicate a certain time to play it. I'd do it again in a heartbeat. But I need to play more of this game to familiarize myself with it. Like I didn't know I shouldn't have spent so much time lining up my ships to tactically take advantage of Akbar's ability. That spent way too much time just lumbering about?
Watching it and having zero familiarity with the system, it seemed very difficult to get your ships in a position where they could properly fire? Also, maybe it was just the dice but that ISD was taking a beating I wouldn't expect a MonCal capable of giving.
Plus the fighters seemed superfluous?
Dunno, definitely a game I want to try sometime, but definitely don't understand it compared to X-wing.
Your posts and range indicators and narrative were great though.
ArcSyn on
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ChaosHatHop, hop, hop, HA!Trick of the lightRegistered Userregular
I actually think this format is a very enjoyable way to play/observe the game. One of my problems with Armada is how long and thinky it can be and that can lead to long stretches where you're waiting on your opponent. PBP, you can just walk away and do other crap for a few hours. Further, this makes the game less long seeming since you're just doing it in quick little chunks.
This game also reminded me of some stuff I don't like about the game, like how turn order and stuff is so important. The isd has nothing to shoot, moves in closer, and then the rebels can blast it and run away. Like it just felt frustrating to watch as a bystander and I know how that can feel as a player. It's been quite some time since I've played but I kind of don't remember what you're supposed to do to counter that. Maybe a pincer move set up? Or I guess this is where all the game objectives are supposed to come in, you're not really supposed to just go all out murder.
If you're going to run it again, I would be interested.
So it's always attack then move? That does seem terrible for the first player.
I think it's more annoying for imps. Rebels want to be dancing away throwing fistfuls of red dice and dancing away kind of perpendicular since their damaging sides are the long, wide side arcs. They're basically just kiting.
Imperials want to charge in and and blast away. They also have fewer, more expensive ships. This has led to issues where my opponent would activate a couple cheap corvettes out on the periphery while I use my two large ships, and then my opponent still has a few activations to use on me with impunity.
Could I play more tiny ships as an imperial? Sure. Is that why I wanted to play them? Not at all. I'd rather shove two pizza shaped ships of doom at a poorly outfitted band of terrorists and save the empire. I bet there are ways around this but my biggest problem with Armada is that the game takes so fucking long that it's hard to get multiple plays in to learn and iterate. Also, you can make an error in set up and spend two hours being fucked because well I guess I should have angled my set up like this instead of that.
So, here are some of my thoughts. They're a bit rambly. Apologies?*
The core book recommends something like 180 points for a “build a fleet with the core box” total. I figured by going with a couple extra - 200 - we could get a little more diversity going. It turns out that 200 is kind of an awkward total - too many points to want to just run stock ships (and, kinda, where’s the fun in that?) but not enough to really lean in on a fleet composition (e.g., long-range dodging Rebels). You end up with a kind of half-implemented concept, which ... isn’t ... great. It’s not bad, necessarily; it’s just not great. This was compounded by using the fleet Commanders; they are, universally, pretty expensive, leaving even fewer points for ships, upgrades, and squadrons.
I also figured 200 points was enough to run the game on the full-size map. It definitely wasn’t, as is evidenced by the game being halfway done before anyone took a shot. This was made worse by the fact that I tried to speed up the deployment phase by having everyone just spawn their fleets where they wanted all at once. By doing so, there was no way for, e.g., @Fuselage to just stick his Star Destroyer off Defiance’s bow, benefiting from his higher activation count.
I elected to go without Objectives for the first match - they can make things more complicated, and picking objectives that mesh with your fleet is something I haven’t even really played with at all. Not playing with them probably also contributed to the “keep away” portion of the game, as there was nothing really preventing it. I think this was probably an okay decision, as far as complexity goes, but I’m really on the fence about it as far as the next game goes.
Giving orders! So, my initial hope was that people would largely give their orders in-thread. This was for twothree four reasons. First, everyone's still pretty new at this (myself included), so it would be an easy way to see why people were taking the actions they were taking and the decision trees they were traversing. Second, I knew we were going to have a bunch of people following along, and having the observers be able to see everything was important to me. Items taken to PMs are, obviously, opaque to anyone else. Third, Armada is not really a game of secret information. The only thing that's really hidden in-game is your command stack. Basically everything else is common knowledge - you can even fiddle with the movement tool and plot out all of your potential movement options and measure pretty much anything at any time, if you want; they just happen in sight of the other player. Fourth, I was trying to abstract away from the fiddliness a bit, and get all of the players to issue more generic, in-character-ish commands to their forces. That way, you could tell me what you want your ship to do, I'd have the ships do it to the best of their abilities, and I wouldn't need to check in two or three times per move to "get it right."
In the end, both players really, really wanted to send their orders in via PM, as evidenced by the fact that they kept doing it even when I said not to. And the check-ins for various moves ended up not being too terribly onerous, so concern over that part went away - mostly. I still believe in the first two reasons, though. I'd be interested to hear from any followers what their thoughts are on them.
As far as speeding things up, I think the back-and-forth nature of Armada attacks is one of the things that slows the game. You roll, you modify your roll, then I modify it, then you decide what defense tokens I can't use, then I use defense tokens ... In-person, this can go pretty quickly. Online, it means it takes hours to days to resolve a single ship's attack - and they can get multiple attacks per round, should they be fighting squadrons especially. So one thing would be to just assume that the guy running the game would spend special abilities / dice / defense tokens to their best of their ability, and then just declare attacks up-front. Not sure if it's worth giving up the level of fine control we had in this match, though.
I've got a couple of thoughts on how the actual tactical play ... uh ... played out, but I'm not sure my advice or comments are worth all that much. Happy to share if people are interested, though!
All in all, had a blast running it, and would be totally down to run it again - probably after the holidays.
Posts
You pick an arc to shoot from, then pick a target to shoot in that arc.* After that attack is resolved, you pick a second arc to shoot from, a target in that arc (which can be the same target as the first attack ...), and resolve your second attack.
If Akbar's in play, then the only two arcs to pick are port and starboard; if he's not, you can pick any two.
* It works a little differently against squadrons, but we'll ignore them for now.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Steam: betsuni7
Turbolasers and ion cannons rip through space, hitting both the Insubordinant and the Impertinent. With some careful maneuvering, the worst of the blasts pass by the Insubordinant; the Impertinent is not so lucky, however, and is nearly shredded. Lights are going off all over the Imperial warship as power to key sections is lost.
Result is 2H; the RDR spends an Evade token to cancel 1 die, so result is 0 damage.
Attack 2 against the ISD is short range, so 3R3B; the Impertinent has activated, so another die of any color is added, so +1B as normal. Final result is 3R4B.
Result is 3A2H. Once accuracy result is used to prevent the ISD from using Brace; the others have nothing useful to prevent, and so are turned into points of damage, so 4 damage gets through. Impertinent drops to (Hull: 8->4) 4 Hull remaining.
@Betsuni - you can move speed 1, and turn up to 2 clicks to either side. Which way do you want to go?
Hard a'port:
... or hard a'starboard:
... or something in-between?
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Drat, if I knew that the shots to the RDR sucked I would have gone with Akbar on the ISD only. Oh well.
Steam: betsuni7
I can take it away and add 2 red dice. Pretty easy to do.
Change is to spend the red Accuracy to cancel brace, adding a net 2 points of damage; hull 8->2.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Steam: betsuni7
The Insubordinant has maneuvered itself into the path of the Defiance, and fires its ion cannons at maximum range!
RDR Insubordinant activates with a Concentrate Fire dial, and it elects to spend it this round. It attacks from its forward arc, and chooses the Defiance as its target. Defiance is at medium range, so the attack is 2B. The CF dial adds +1B, so final attack is 3B.
Result is 1H2C.
3 damage and a potential crit coming in. How do you want to spend your defense tokens, @Betsuni?
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Steam: betsuni7
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Steam: betsuni7
Luke Skywalker and his Rogues attempt to blow out the engines of the ISD, freezing it in space, but their attacks fail to penetrate the area's heavy armor.
Result is 1H, and I assume that @Betsuni will just shield it away.
Luke Skywalker attacks the ISD, anti-ship at range 1, so 1K:
Miss.
Green and Red Squadrons don't have valid targets, so where would you like them to end up, @Betsuni ? (Doesn't matter much.)
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Steam: betsuni7
Okay! Scoring!
Uh, well, nothing actually blew up. So the score is 0 to 0. Unlike X-Wing, there's no half-points for mostly-destroyed ships, which is ... huh. :shrug:
However, in the case of a tie for points scored, the win goes to the 2nd player, with a margin of victory of 0 points!
So, congratulations, @Betsuni, on your narrow win!
So, I'd love to hear some AARish thoughts from everyone who played, or observed. I've got my own, but I'll hold of on posting them for a bit.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
I loved the descriptions you wrote of the actual battles and movement. Made it seem more like I was reading a story and watching it come to life with the graphics. The graphics also help bring the event to life.
Overall it was really fun to play and I liked the format. It allowed me to play the game without having to dedicate a certain time to play it. I'd do it again in a heartbeat. But I need to play more of this game to familiarize myself with it. Like I didn't know I shouldn't have spent so much time lining up my ships to tactically take advantage of Akbar's ability. That spent way too much time just lumbering about?
Steam: betsuni7
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
You kids and your acronyms.
Steam: betsuni7
Plus the fighters seemed superfluous?
Dunno, definitely a game I want to try sometime, but definitely don't understand it compared to X-wing.
Your posts and range indicators and narrative were great though.
This game also reminded me of some stuff I don't like about the game, like how turn order and stuff is so important. The isd has nothing to shoot, moves in closer, and then the rebels can blast it and run away. Like it just felt frustrating to watch as a bystander and I know how that can feel as a player. It's been quite some time since I've played but I kind of don't remember what you're supposed to do to counter that. Maybe a pincer move set up? Or I guess this is where all the game objectives are supposed to come in, you're not really supposed to just go all out murder.
If you're going to run it again, I would be interested.
I think it's more annoying for imps. Rebels want to be dancing away throwing fistfuls of red dice and dancing away kind of perpendicular since their damaging sides are the long, wide side arcs. They're basically just kiting.
Imperials want to charge in and and blast away. They also have fewer, more expensive ships. This has led to issues where my opponent would activate a couple cheap corvettes out on the periphery while I use my two large ships, and then my opponent still has a few activations to use on me with impunity.
Could I play more tiny ships as an imperial? Sure. Is that why I wanted to play them? Not at all. I'd rather shove two pizza shaped ships of doom at a poorly outfitted band of terrorists and save the empire. I bet there are ways around this but my biggest problem with Armada is that the game takes so fucking long that it's hard to get multiple plays in to learn and iterate. Also, you can make an error in set up and spend two hours being fucked because well I guess I should have angled my set up like this instead of that.
The core book recommends something like 180 points for a “build a fleet with the core box” total. I figured by going with a couple extra - 200 - we could get a little more diversity going. It turns out that 200 is kind of an awkward total - too many points to want to just run stock ships (and, kinda, where’s the fun in that?) but not enough to really lean in on a fleet composition (e.g., long-range dodging Rebels). You end up with a kind of half-implemented concept, which ... isn’t ... great. It’s not bad, necessarily; it’s just not great. This was compounded by using the fleet Commanders; they are, universally, pretty expensive, leaving even fewer points for ships, upgrades, and squadrons.
I also figured 200 points was enough to run the game on the full-size map. It definitely wasn’t, as is evidenced by the game being halfway done before anyone took a shot. This was made worse by the fact that I tried to speed up the deployment phase by having everyone just spawn their fleets where they wanted all at once. By doing so, there was no way for, e.g., @Fuselage to just stick his Star Destroyer off Defiance’s bow, benefiting from his higher activation count.
I elected to go without Objectives for the first match - they can make things more complicated, and picking objectives that mesh with your fleet is something I haven’t even really played with at all. Not playing with them probably also contributed to the “keep away” portion of the game, as there was nothing really preventing it. I think this was probably an okay decision, as far as complexity goes, but I’m really on the fence about it as far as the next game goes.
Giving orders! So, my initial hope was that people would largely give their orders in-thread. This was for two three four reasons. First, everyone's still pretty new at this (myself included), so it would be an easy way to see why people were taking the actions they were taking and the decision trees they were traversing. Second, I knew we were going to have a bunch of people following along, and having the observers be able to see everything was important to me. Items taken to PMs are, obviously, opaque to anyone else. Third, Armada is not really a game of secret information. The only thing that's really hidden in-game is your command stack. Basically everything else is common knowledge - you can even fiddle with the movement tool and plot out all of your potential movement options and measure pretty much anything at any time, if you want; they just happen in sight of the other player. Fourth, I was trying to abstract away from the fiddliness a bit, and get all of the players to issue more generic, in-character-ish commands to their forces. That way, you could tell me what you want your ship to do, I'd have the ships do it to the best of their abilities, and I wouldn't need to check in two or three times per move to "get it right."
In the end, both players really, really wanted to send their orders in via PM, as evidenced by the fact that they kept doing it even when I said not to.
As far as speeding things up, I think the back-and-forth nature of Armada attacks is one of the things that slows the game. You roll, you modify your roll, then I modify it, then you decide what defense tokens I can't use, then I use defense tokens ... In-person, this can go pretty quickly. Online, it means it takes hours to days to resolve a single ship's attack - and they can get multiple attacks per round, should they be fighting squadrons especially. So one thing would be to just assume that the guy running the game would spend special abilities / dice / defense tokens to their best of their ability, and then just declare attacks up-front. Not sure if it's worth giving up the level of fine control we had in this match, though.
I've got a couple of thoughts on how the actual tactical play ... uh ... played out, but I'm not sure my advice or comments are worth all that much.
All in all, had a blast running it, and would be totally down to run it again - probably after the holidays.
*
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]