Signup deadline: Sunday, 27th February. Sing up HERE.
This is the place where we explore the what-ifs and could-have-beens of Armada. The place where we play with new versions of old ships and squadrons - and introduce completely new ones such as the Separatist Lucrehulk and Sith Infiltrator, the Republic Stealth Ship and Naboo N-1.
It's also where you'll find existing upgrades - with a twist - alongside entirely new cards. Even the objectives have been tweaked to make more of them useful to a variety of fleet archetypes (without shifting the advantage too strongly towards the 2nd player). Last, but not least, we're even experimenting with a few rules changes...
Important external links
Fantasy League RRG: Download the pdf here (latest version is 1.02)
VASSAL: Module download (latest version is 4.7.0fl)
TTS: Currently only implemented in the Development version which you can get here. You also need the custom database for the Fantasy League.
Card collection: All cards are available as a pdf here.
Where?
It's primarily a digital event on VASSAL and TTS (with support from @Valadian) but if you want you can easily print all the cards you need from KDYards and play on the tabletop!
Why?
Why not?
The changes are big enough that everything will feel fresh and uncertain, but not so big as to make it another game entirely. It's also an unique opportunity: AFAIK no one has ever attempted to host a world-spanning custom event for Armada.
Virtual plastic spaceships will go pew pew, mistakes will be made, dice will happen. It's going to be fun - don't miss out!
Phases and What to Make of Them
The Fantasy League isn't just ONE event. Every few months, a new Phase is initiated. Each phase adds new stuff to the game. In fact, phases are pretty much like new waves.
In Phase 1, only Empire/Rebel factions are playable, and the selection of ships, squadrons, and upgrades is limited.
In Phase 2, Republic/Separatist are added, and the first large base ships appear.
In Phase 3 there will be rogues & villains for all four factions - and more.
Phase 4+ is still on the drawing board.
Each Phase is a separate league event; scores are reset to zero. So even if you didn't win Phase 1 there is no reason why you couldn't be the Phase 2 champion!
What's new?
Let me give you some examples of what to expect:
Rules: The rules are largely the same, with a few big changes and a bunch of minor ones. If you want to know more about the various rules changes, check out the Rules Reference Guide, the YouTube videos below, or chat with me on Discord (links below).
Here is an example of a big change (highlighted in red): You can spend readied (green) defense tokens targeted by accuracy icons. But if you do, you have to discard that token.
Objectives: We're using the objectives that you're used to. But they have been tweaked with the aim of making more of them playable with the right fleet. Second player is pretty strong ATM so the tweaks aren't necessarily buffs; some objectives got nerfed.
Fleet Ambush is a good example: It's almost the same, but there is a restriction of deploying squadrons and the first player has to pass his first activation round 1. There is also a bit about deploying overlapping obstacles; that's because the rules now forbid this for all ships, not just Huge ships.
Ships: The ships in the first phase are tweaked versions of existing ships. Later new ships - both variations of existing ones and completely news ships - will be added.
This Vic is no joke: It can turn reasonably well, has goodish flak, a black die in the front, a salvo token, and an amazing upgrade bar. For a mere 79 points. Still a speed 2 ship that can easily turn into a point piñata.
Squadrons: Existing squadrons get tweaks and points changes, and new uniques are added. We'll eventually see new squadron types, including some multi-faction squads. Hondo and Gauntlets for all four factions. V-wings, N-1s, Eta2s, and LATT/i gunships for the republic. U-wings. More TIE variants. Dooku, Maul, and Ventress. It's quite the list.
This is Thane. He's dangerous and cheap. And he has colorful dice and a squadron evade. S-foils is a new keyword for B-wings and X-wings that let them get +1 speed if they remove a die.
Upgrades: We got some old upgrades that have been modded and a few entirely new cards. The cost of some cards has changed.
Ion Missiles are new, same with the Audacious Arquitens title. Lando is the same old, but with an additional effect.
More info
YouTube video of me talking about the Fantasy League format:
Another YouTube video, this one gives an overview of Phase 1 content:
Event format
The Fantasy League is a... league event 😅
Rounds: There is only 1 "round" which lasts for the duration of the phase. Each player can play and register any number of games during this round, but you don't sore points equally for all of them (see below).
Opponents: Players are expected to arrange their own games; there are no TO-controlled pairings.
That said, you're encouraged to play a variety of opponents, not just your IRL buddy over and over. A few games against the same guy is OK (not going to set a hard cap) especially if you use different lists, but if you play vs 1 or 2 people only you're doing something wrong.
Lists: You can use the same list for every game, iterations of the same list, or wildly different lists. It's up to you.
Scoring: Scoring works a little differently. We use the standard MoV/TP table.
The following restrictions apply:
You have to play a minimum of 4 games.
If you play 6 games, only your best 4 games will count towards your score.
Example: You go 9-2, 8-3, 4-7, 2-9, 10-1, 6-5. The 4-7 and 2-9 are ignored for scoring purposes, so your score is 10+9+8+6=33.
For each game beyond 6 you play, you score 1 additional tournament point, regardless of your score. If you play more than 6 games, only the 6 first games count towards scoring. So you can't play 20 games and cherry pick the best 4.
Continuing the above example, if you played 10 games, you have 33+4=37 TPs.
Schedule
Signup deadline: Sunday, 27th February.
The event starts Monday, 28th February.
The event ends Sunday, 24th April.
Phase 2 will begin shortly after phase 1 ends. It adds CW factions and large ships to the game. Phase 3 will start this summer. Details to follow.
AAR: You only have to include your list; the rest of the questions are optional but do please make the effort as the feedback will directly impact future Fantasy League phases.
VASSAL info
To play in the Fantasy League, run this module version and you'll see the new cards. When you want a standard game, just run the standard version.
You can use Shrimpbot to generate setup vlogs. Get the text export of your fleet, paste it into a text editor and remove any custom cards (new upgrades and squadrons).
Use !vassal to generate a vlog, load the vlog as normal, then add the custom pieces by dragging them from the Pieces menu. It's not 100% but still saves time and effort.
TTS info
First you have to load the module (currently only the Development version has support for custom databases). Then you need to additively load the Fantasy League database.
If you've correctly used additive load on the Fantasy League database the fleet spawner will spawn all custom cards without issue!
The only thing that isn't fully implemented is scoring: the crippled rule isn't in effect and non-VP token scoring isn't implemented. So you'll have to manually calculate scores.
It's time to find out who is the ultimate Vassal Armada 3-round Swiss Champion of 2022!
We did the same thing last year, and with over 30 players it turned out to be a great event. The only difference this year is that the CW factions are fully revealed and integrated into he game.
Lists are invisible to other players until the event starts. Do NOT include your objectives unless you want everyone to see them.
Format
For this 1-day event, there is a single Swiss group across all time zones!
Standard 400-points
3 round Swiss
Each Swiss round runs for 2h 15min and then ends IMMEDIATELY.
You CANNOT start a new round if the timer has passed the 2h mark.
The current round is NOT played to completion when the time is called. Finish the current activation (ship or squadron), then hard stop and tally the score.
Report the result to the TO in the appropriate tourney channel or as a PM (Green Knight#5600) on Discord so pairings for the next round can be done in a timely fashion.
Schedule
Signup deadline: Sunday, 20th March.
Fleet submission deadline: 30 mins before the tournament starts, 10:00 am EST/14:00 GMT
The event takes place Sunday, 20th March.
Start round 1: 10:30 am EST/14:30 GMT
"Lunch" break: 1:00 pm EST/17:00 GMT
Start round 2: 1:30 pm EST/17:30 GMT
Start round 3: 4:00 pm EST/20:00 GMT
Times adjusted for daylight savings (from the 13th in the US but not until the 27th in Europe).
Every effort has been made to ensure that people from all across the globe can play. West Coast players have to get up real early. CET players have to stay up a bit late. These are the best times I could find 😅
Module version 4.6.1 "VWC2022 - The women and the children too" is available!
Download (takes a day or so to update): http://www.vassalengine.org/wiki/Module:Star_Wars:_Armada
Checksum: dee4d371
OVERVIEW
VASSAL World Cup 2021 OFFICIAL VERSION.
CLICKABLE action buttons.
FULLY hotkeyed maneuver tool.
Assorted bugfixes.
VASSAL version update.
COMPATIBILITY
Armada 4.6.0 was built using Vassal 3.6.3. ALWAYS update to the most recent versions of both the module and VASSAL!
Do NOT use VASSAL 3.6.0-3.6.2 due to CRITICAL movement bug!!!
CRITICAL BUGFIXES
Fixed the mega-annoying bug that prevented auto-zoom on pices using mouse-over.
OTHER BUGFIXES
Fixed Shu Mai round 5 token spawn (for real this time). The problem wasn't Shu Mai, but the actual r4 token.
MAJOR NEW FEATURES
ACTION BUTTONS: New on-ship base buttons. Currently implemented: place/notch man tool, range/distance. More to come.
INTERACTIVE MAN TOOL: New left-click functionality added to the maneuver tool (the old ways still work). Push the green/red fields to add yaw to that joint. Super simple!
FULLY HOTKEYED MAN TOOL: Click any segment on the man tool, and you can use CTRL+UP/DOWN ARROW to move from segment to segment. Combined with CTRL+LEFT/RIGHT ARROW it's possible to dramatically speed up man tool use. I recommend unchecking "Use arrow keys to scroll" under File --> Preferences --> General or you might run into trouble!
Updated the help section with new links, rules, and more.
OTHER NEW FEATURES
Munitions/Parts Resupply now spawn 5 tokens in one go.
CW officers can now spawn appropriate tokens from the card.
CW commanders can now spawn appropriate tokens & dials from the card.
Sabine Wren can now spawn prox mines.
Taskmaster Grint can now spawn command tokens.
Recusant can now hold 4 command tokens (Nova Defiant title).
Nova Defiant (title) can quick-spawn a Command 4 stack.
EWS and Swivels now spawn chaff and focus tokens respectively. Why would you not just use the ship-based menu for this? I don't know. But it was requested so there you are.
NEW VASSAL FEATURES
For God's sake uncheck "Center on opponent's move" under File --> Preferences --> General or you WILL GO MAD!
To load your fleet, use "Load continuation" under Tools and NOT "Load game or log" under File.
Adjust "Mouse drag threshold" under File --> Preferences --> General down to "2" or something to enable fine manipulation.
Mute in-game sounds by unchecking under File --> Preferences --> Sounds.
ALT+Click will "flash" red rings around that point. To draw your opponent's attention to something.
SHRIMPBOT SETUP SCRIPT
As of writing the bot is still at 4.4.0 so you'll have to manually replace the ship models (the other components are fine) with new copies from the pieces menu. Ard plans to update the bot soon (TM).
TO-DO (in order)
+/- buttons for shields, hull and speed.
Fix hull/speed box layout on some ships.
Buttons for squads.
Obstacle outlines.
Make shield dials toggleable (easier to resolve obstacle overlap corner cases).
Add CW victory tokens.
Add alternate color schemes for all remining Republic Pelta and Seppie ships.
Update some alt color schemes for GCW factions.
Add better quality card images as they become available.
NEW VASSAL FEATURES
For God's sake uncheck "Center on opponent's move" under File --> Preferences --> General or you WILL GO MAD!
To load your fleet, use "Load continuation" under Tools and NOT "Load game or log" under File.
Adjust "Mouse drag threshold" under File --> Preferences --> General down to "2" or something to enable fine manipulation.
Mute in-game sounds by unchecking under File --> Preferences --> Sounds.
ALT+Click will "flash" red rings around that point. To draw your opponent's attention to something.
SHRIMPBOT SETUP SCRIPT
As of writing the bot is still at 4.4.0 so you'll have to manually replace the ship models (the other components are fine) with new copies from the pieces menu. Ard plans to update the bot soon (TM).
TO-DO (in order)
+/- buttons for shields, hull and speed.
Fix hull/speed box layout on some ships.
Buttons for squads.
Obstacle outlines.
Make shield dials toggleable (easier to resolve obstacle overlap corner cases).
Add CW victory tokens.
Add alternate color schemes for all remining Republic Pelta and Seppie ships.
Update some alt color schemes for GCW factions.
Add better quality card images as they become available.
Armada 4.5.0 was built using Vassal 3.5.8. It should be compatible with module versions 4.0.0+ and Vassal 3.5.0+ but ALWAYS update to the most recent versions of both!
CRITICAL BUGFIXES
Republic Pelta now has LoS dots. Duh!
OTHER BUGFIXES
Fixed Shu Mai round token spawn.
Fixed Ketsu squad card spawning off-table.
Fixed Kraken/TF bug in quick spawn menu.
Ahsoka squad card now spawns Ahsoka squadron (instead of generic Delta).
Ahsoka's name is now Ahsoka on the squadron (instead of Ashoka).
Republic Pelta titles no longer appear in the Rebel Title dropdown (or vice versa).
MAJOR NEW FEATURES
Clone Wars micro-sized ship cards were replaced by old-style tarot cards by @petersaber.
OTHER NEW FEATURES
Vassal automatically makes you a better player and connects you with fun opponents.
- All 4 factions have access to non-flotilla Fleet Support slots (Arq for Imps, Neb for Rebs).
- All 4 factions have a large-base ship with a Fleet Command option.
- Rebel Pelta has no fleet command slot (but the PH title adds it). Rebels also have better access to FC from other cards (Phoenix Nest & Liberator).
- Expect to see players experiment with SSDs. They are cheaper and can bring a defensive retro.
- Expect to see SHs, maybe even non-Agate ones. The SH1 can run ET, the SH2 can have Def retro.
- The Onager has been points-nerfed. That hurts the Onager (duh) but also opens some possibilities for slower ships. I hope.
- Rebels can bring Quasars if they take the Phoenix Nest title.
The astute observer can't fail to notice CW factions haven't been touched much. That's deliberate. They have less stuff, it's not yet played to death, and overall what they do have is pretty decent. If you want to play with more nimble Clams, Asajj Ventress, or LAAT/i squadrons, head over to the Fantasy Series!
Builder support
You can use any builder you want as long as you comply with the custom format.
Read more here. Contribute to the prize pool here.
Points for this tournament:
Entry: 1
Completion: 1
Top 8: 1
Runner-up: 1
Winner: 2
Special challenges: 1 point each (2 max)
A New Hope (Rebel challenge):Only play with the Republic faction & use each commander only once (one must be Leia). Post-Endor cards banned, including the SH, E-wings, and Agate (ask if you're uncertain).
Going Commando (Unaligned challenge): Running only squadless fleets across all 6 games.
Heart of the Swarm (Separatist challenge): Only play with the Separatist faction & use each commander only once.
Objectively the Best (Unaligned challenge): Only use each objective card once across all 6 fleets.
Republic Reinforcements (Republic challenge): Only play with the Republic faction & use each commander only once.
There Can Be Only One (Unaligned challenge): Only use each unique card once across all 6 fleets.
The Empire Strikes Back (Empire challenge): Only play with the Empire faction & use each commander only once (one must be Vader). Post-Endor cards banned, including the Onager, Romodi, and Sloane (ask if you're uncertain).
The current score (player score + list score) is as follows:
Roald is in the lead, followed closely by Spike. Lots of EURO sector players in the top but this is MADNESS and scores change fast and change big. Anything is possible!
Round 1 (of 4) of the Midsummer Madness tournament is over. Don't know what MM is? Read all about it here.
The current score (player score + list score) is as follows:
Paul is in the lead with a 10 - 1 in his game and a list that bagged a 7-4. Followed by realveers and medalofairness whose lists have done really well but who haven't played that convincingly themselves 😅 Next followers three players who have gotten 9-10 points but whose lists haven't done THAT well.
I'm excited to see the results for round 2 (deadline 11th or 14th with extension). Remember that players are paired in 2 groups playing Swiss, but lists are in a common round-robin pool (no playing the same list twice or with or against your own list).
Midsummer Madness is now accepting fleet submissions!
Midsummer Madness format: You submit a list, but you NEVER play it. Instead you're randomly assigned someone else's list each round. Scoring is the total of your own points and the points your fleet has scored. Can you make 80 TP!?
4 rounds Swiss. 1 week per round.
The deadline is Wednesday, 23rd June.
Start round 1 is Thursday, 24th June... aka MIDSUMMER.
Be there or you don't count as a mad 'mada player!
Short version: build your fleet a certain way and gain access to perks (they are quite potent). For every battle you fight, another perk is unlocked. Catch: you don't know what the future perks are until they are unlocked!
Type: Swiss
Rounds: 4
Time zones: 2 (EURO and NA - if there are enough players)
List building restrictions: Uses standard FFG/AMG fleet building but with an extra set of restrictions.
Errata: Hondo is unaligned (for funises), Moralo is Separatist (nerf).
(both Warlords and Vassal have been updated with the full set of cards. Some of the images are a bit grainy but I've already gotten some better scans so will be replaced shortly)
It's time to get the VASSAL OP H1 2021 event "Team mini-league" rolling.
Team leaders must submit fleets by Sunday, 18th April using this form.
If you don't have a team yet, try posting your name using this form and also join our Discord channel.
Warlords clone
You can build your fleets any way you like but to help you along I've created a Warlords clone that has all the errata, costing changes, and upgrade slot tweaks.
You need to create a new user to save your fleets as I didn't copy user data.
Most things should be coded in but there are a few oddities you'll have to manually check, like the Flagship limitation of Flag Bridge and the Star Destroyer limitation of SPHA-T to name a couple.
Custom Vassal module version
For the team league, we'll use a special version of module 4.4.0 called 4.4.0vop
4.4.0vop replaces standard 1.5 cards with their errataed versions and adds 3 new titles and 2 new squadrons. You can have it installed alongside 4.0.0 so there should be no problems at all.
I haven't moved around existing stuff, so if the Republic wants to manually get Hondo in Slave I, he'll have to look under Empire --> Squads --> Firespray. Jango/Bo-Katan/Phoenix Nest are in a separate custom tab at the end.
Shrimpbot is compatible with the special module, except for the 5 new cards. You need to remove those before generating the setup file. For everything else, Shrimpbot will generate a setup file that when run will give you errataed (if any) cards. Pretty neat!
Lessons learned during this event will be applied to later custom events. So what you do here in terms of fleet building and battles will have a real effect on what comes.
Full wave 10 release. Some images are of poor quality and will be replaced later on.
COMPATIBILITY
Armada 4.4.0 was built using Vassal 3.5.5. It should be compatible with module versions 4.0.0+ and Vassal 3.5.0+ but ALWAYS update to the most recent versions of both!
CRITICAL BUGFIXES
Onager has an additional range overlay that shows the exact ranges for the special arc.
OTHER BUGFIXES
Fixed some nomenclature errors.
MAJOR NEW FEATURES
Added remaining w10 cards.
Added quick-spawn functionality to all w10 cards.
Sounds can now be muted in-module (Preferences --> Sounds).
OTHER NEW FEATURES
Shu Mai can spawn round tokens.
Munitions/Parts Resupply can spawn respective command tokens.
Volume of "SET" sound slightly decreased.
Setup ("L") token added. It can rotate. Gink wanted it - I've forgotten why...
TO-DO
Add better quality card images as they become available.
IDEA BANK
Look at "locking pieces" functionality (to make accidentally nudging stuff not a thing).
Make shield dials toggleable (easier to resolve obstacle overlap corner cases).
Here's a little sneak peek of the tournament rules and perk tree for the upcoming Vassal tournament for Q2 2021, "Unconventional Warfare."
Round 1 has the first two perks active. You won't know exactly what the advanced perks are until after each round when they are revealed, but the rules document should give some hints. "Favors this or that."
It's inspired by AMG's Ministravaganza in March 2021.
As you can see there are 4 perk trees instead of 2, 2 for squad-centric and 2 for ship-centric. Squads are further divided between "normal" and irregular. Ships between light and fast and flexible, and larger and moving in formation.
There will be 4 rounds of Swiss. It will not be a live event this time but there will be a 2 hour 30 mins time limit in effect. The live event proved we don't need more time than that. Dragging your feet doesn't help one bit so get fast, scrub 😅 On a more serious note, if one or both players are inexperienced they can have 30 mins extra (3 hours total).
The event is scheduled to run in May. Exact dates TBA.
The 1-day Swiss event has ended. From a TO perspective, it went very well indeed. And it looked like players were having fun as well. That's the most important bit. We want them hooked on the digital plastic crack so they come back for the next one 😆
I'm happy to say that the majority of games were played to completion within the allotted 2h 15 min. IRL there are games that will not make it through round 6. Not bad, not bad at all. Gives me hope that we can play more "fast" Armada in the future. These 3-round Swiss events are a bit exhausting but they are double and they are fun. I'll run more.
I'm also going to set a time cap on all my tournaments from now - there will be no more 4 hour + games on my watch. It's not going to be 2h 15 min. Maybe 2.5 hours or even 3. Haven't decided quite yet. the point is you don't play better when you overthink and overmeasure. You have to make some judgment calls and try to play the way you would IRL.
But enough about the future. Let's have some key statistics for the tournament:
Winner: unskilledfirstofficer, 27 pts, Empire
Runner-up: pheaver, 25 pts, Seppies
Both went undefeated during the Swiss. Both leveraged second player and their objectives to good effect. UFO had a lot of scoring from his Abandoned Mining Facility and heaver was wrecking face using long-range Kraken-powered Volatile Deposits. UFO also has this in his list - one to watch out for?
The winning list is hardly a standard one. Ozzel and a Dictor? But nuOzzel is really flexible, freeing you from having to navigate much. Combined with Chimaera with TEA! you can pull off from great maneuvers with only a single nav token to feed the fleet command.
Heaver is still addicted to Munis 😅 But heæs managed to diversify a little bit and put in a bare-bones Recusant and a Hardcell. His ships are all very lean. Gives me a kind of X-wing vibe - the more ships on the table the better. Not sure how well his Hyenas performed?
Here is the full ladder. Poor rasp took one for the team since there was an odd number of players.
VASSAL 1-DAY SWISS EVENT Q1 2021 - LADDER (29)
Player
Rank
W/L
TPs
MOV/SOS
unskilledfirstofficer
1
3/0
27
836/6.33
Pheaver
2
3/0
25
650/5.56
Jamesmorgan
3
2/1
21
430/4.89
SpeKre
4
2/1
20
611/5.33
Benk3i
5
2/1
20
359/5.56
BiggsIRL
6
1/2
20
302/5.00
Shyvalry
7
2/1
19
329/6.22
Roald Hansen (Roald/lilrys#8187)
8
2/1
19
315/5.89
Aresius
9
2/1
19
165/5.67
Slendy_Games
10
3/0
19
141/4.89
Veleno111
11
2/1
18
365/6.00
Callum
12
2/1
18
146/6.44
Mrks.
13
2/1
17
334/6.33
ginkapo
14
1/2
17
191/5.56
Gerrit
15
2/1
17
178/5.33
187-Leon
16
2/1
17
131/5.00
paindemic
17
1/2
16
90/5.00
TigerKonigs
18
1/2
15
149/5.11
Jolliegreengiant
19
1/2
15
22/4.67
BackSeatAdmiral
20
1/2
14
42/5.78
CaribbeanNinja
21
0/3
14
0/5.11
Ardaedhel
22
1/2
13
34/5.56
Doktor
23
1/2
12
48/5.44
Karneck
24
1/2
12
31/5.00
Maturin
25
1/2
11
16/5.89
EbonHawk
26
1/2
10
79/5.11
mmusterer
27
0/3
9
0/6.00
Craig Fleming
28
0/3
8
0/5.33
rasproteus
29
0/0
0
0/0.00
Factions:
Massive overrepresentation by rebels (Starhawks and Agate very popular) and seppies (roll all the red dice). The winner was Empire, however, same with 3rd place. Seppies on 2nd and 4th. Top rebel on 5th place. Then more imps and seppies. Highest scoring Republic on 9th.
Empire - 4
Rebel - 10 (rasp had a rebel list)
Republic - 3
Seppies - 12
Assault:
MW overrepresented of course. Ion Storm had a presence given all the seppie fleets. AG made a showing. Surprised to see Marked for Destruction. And where did Surprise Attack go?
Most Wanted - 41%
Advanced Gunnery - 17%
Marked For Destruction - 13%
Ion Storm - 10%
Defense:
The only surprise for me here is Hyperspace Assault. Didn't expect to see multiple fleets with that one. Retro. From what I could see, HA didn't perform too well.
Asteroid Tactics: 20%
Contested Outpost: 17%
AMF: 14%
HA: 14%
Rift Ambush: 14%
Navigation:
Good to see Doomed Station show up. I think it's a fairly solid objective that is underplayed. Volatile Deposits is linked to the numerous red-die-chucking seppie fleets.
