Armada 2.0 musings

Given the slow release schedule of Armada (if you can even call it a schedule ;-) I've had plenty of time to ponder the what-ifs of Armada 2.0... the most important being: Will it ever happen? And if it does, what would it be like?

Never really did figure it out, but I had a lot of fun looking at the rules and the pieces that make up the game. I LOVE game design, and nothing better than tweaking systems to suit my tastes, so it's rewarding in and of itself.

Last fall X-wing 2.0 launched. I bought into it, seeing as how the Armada scene was pretty glacial locally. And it turns out its great fun! I mean, the dice are fickle as fuck: The green defense dice are even more fickle than the fickle red attack dice, and when combined.... you do the math. This combo can ruin the best of games. Defense tokens are a FAR SUPERIOR game mechanic!

Anyway. Not here to talk about X-wing, as much as how X-wing 2.0 made me think about a 2nd ed Armada again. Only this time I didn't really spend much time thinking about how it MIGHT be implemented, but how I would have done it.

And so my incredibly silly and pretentious Armada 1.5 project was born. It basically takes Armada 1.0, then tries to change it to be BETTER, but still the SAME. Much like X-wing tried to do when it went from one edition to the next.

It started out with a few small tweaks, but one small change here begs 10 changes elsewhere, and suddenly its just a hot mess. So I went back to start, rewrote/updated the Rules Reference, and THEN started making changes to ships, squadrons and other cards. That worked a LOT better, and suddenly I had a pretty good game on my hands. Better than the original. Or at least I think it is :-D

I won't bore you with all the details, but let's look at some examples:

I present: The much-maligned VSD!

First and foremost it gets an extra yaw at the 1st joint at speed 2. It's still slow, which is "in character" for the VSD, but not it doesn't scream out for Jerjerrod. Jerry is still good with the VSD, but he's not infinitely better than the other commanders.

It remains Medium sized, but is beefed up with 1 more hull and 1 more front shield. And a contain token. Still no defensive retro, but again, that's "in character" for the VSD. It will still be vulnerable to angry Bees and massed fire from multiple sources (easy, since it's big and slow), but with good play and the correct upgrades it can be made pretty tanky.

For firepower it gains a 2nd black die out the side. Many ships have gained some extra battery dice, but there has also been a rules change regarding double arcing, so it balances out. The VSD now has an extra black flak dice. And yeah, it's not alone: More ships than before have 2 anti-squad battery.

Looking at upgrades it's gained a 2nd offensive retro slot. So squad 4 + boosted comms is indeed possible if you're willing to pay for it. And maybe even more important: The 2nd officer slot, which all the big ships get. Now this opens up a TON of options.

All this and still 73 points? Well, other ships have gained things too, and the VSD-I was really bottom of the bucket to begin with. So 73 is about right. But at the end of the day: Take it with a pinch of salt. I haven't extensively playtested everything!

Over to the VSD-II. Same ship, only with blues instead of blacks. For 12 points more it's the most expensive "good" version from the original game. Sooo not worth the points, not even with DCaps and Heavy Ions. But THIS version is pretty good.

It has the same core updates as the VSD-II, except for the following: It gets a blue battery die, and another blue AS die! Twin officers, but a defensive retro instead of the 2nd offensive. So it's a slightly worse carrier, but A MUCH better gunship. And the organic def retro frees it from reliance on Miss Tua.

The 12 point diff is probably still too big, but I'm not diving into the minutiae of points balancing at this point.

Over to the VSDs more modern big brother: Everyone's favorite angry space triangle, the Imperial Star Destroyer. As an old SW RPG nerd, the black dice never sat well with me. In my head (and West End source books) it was just a faster, badder VSD-II. And so here it is, GK's ISD-I!

It's basically the ISD-II, with one more blue out the sides, one extra hull and front shield, and extra officer and offensive slots. It's a better carrier than the VSD-I and a better gunship than the VSD-II, but the cost is much higher too (maybe it should be even higher).

So that means the ISD-II is also lore-tweaked, giving it a Cymoon-like layout to the guns (with some differences, esp in the sides). It also sports a red-blue AS armament as befits a ship with almost exclusively heavy guns. Twin turbos combine with ions for a Liberty-like punch, at the cost of then 2nd offensive slot the ISD-I gets. Double officer of course!

Just to showcase the double officer thing: Pryce and Strat Adviser. They have no size restrictions, but eat BOTH officer slots. Still powerful, but do you want to give up 2 other premium officers for this?

When you look at Pryce, please note there is a rule in effect preventing a true last-first. If you go last on your Pryce turn, at least one other ship (yours or opponent's) must activate before you can go again.

This dude is still kind of cheap in points. But the opportunity cost is... significant. But hey, you can stick him on your VSD-I and get two activations, so maybe that's the best use for him?

I'll probably do more of these down the line. Maybe even post the Rules Reference. Just don't take it too seriously. It's just for fun :-)