Vassal WC 2021, Swiss game vs Angry Ewok

 

Round 2 didn't go so well... played poorly and was unwilling to disengage when I should have.

10-1 to the Ewoks! Pretty sure the Emperor's finest legion felt the same way after Endor :-D

Vassal WC 2021, Swiss r2 possible opponents analysis

 

Swiss r1 completed. Pairings not up yet.

Taking a look at the 7 lists I MIGHT face (the 8s and the 7s).

A great deal of diversity in factions, commanders, and composition.

VASSAL Armada module version 4.3.0 is available

Module version 4.3.0 "Spinning is a good trick" is available! 

Download: http://www.vassalengine.org/wiki/Module:Star_Wars:_Armada

Direct download link: https://1drv.ms/u/s!AmLOw84tw_3YhPpvBrn4AHYHVwId1w?e=odzJyp

Checksum: 1b711eb4

OVERVIEW

Adds new ships and spoiled cards from wave 10. First build using Vassal 3.5.0.

COMPATIBILITY

Armada 4.3.0 was built using Vassal 3.5.0. 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

None

OTHER BUGFIXES

Fixed a bug where players would be unable to exhaust defense token 3 if defense token 4 was already exhausted AND defense token 4 was a Salvo token.

MAJOR NEW FEATURES

Pelta (republic version), Venator, Providence, and Recusant added.

Added 6 spoiled upgrade cards (Tarkin, Luminara, Grievous, Barriss, Shu Mai, and Invisible Hand).

(Warlords builder has support)

OTHER NEW FEATURES

Sounds can be turned off under Preferences --> Sounds.

Mouse Drag Threshold can be set lower (I use "2") to allow fine manipulation of pieces.

Center On Opponent's Moves can be turned off - or tweaked to trigger only when you're looking at a completely different part of the table.

RRG can be accessed from the Help menu.

Spawn Fleet Commands directly from the Chimaera title card.

Spawn Round tokens from Garm & Tagge (and Bail & Pryce).

TO-DO

Explore new features added in Vassal 3.5.

Vassal WC 2021, Swiss game vs Alex

 

My 1st Swiss game vs Alex's Agate SH2 & squad ball

Cracking that Starhawk is never easy. But I got it!

Ended with an 8-3 MoV 200 win for me.

Changes for Armada going forward

The age of Armada 1.5 is upon us and it's a bright and glorious time indeed! 

If you have followed my "Armada 1.5" article series I've looked at every card in the game and made a running commentary of what I think of that card in the new meta - and what I would like for FFG/AMG to take a look at going forward. 

Here I've taken these scattered thoughts and structured them somewhat.

The basic idea comes from X-wing 2.0's system for updating points and upgrade slots every six months or so. FFG recognized that a game as complex as X-wing (or Armada for that matter) could never be perfectly balanced across years of releases. What's fine in wave 1 can be underpowered or overcosted (or vice versa) a few waves later, for example. They knew from experience that fixing imbalances purely through new releases both took too long and didn't always work (5 years and 8 waves and Demo is still being tweaked, for example).

If you're familiar with X-wing 2.0 you know what I'm talking about. If not I can explain it very quickly:

• Ships that are too popular might go up in price.
• More commonly ships that are underused go down in price. 
• Which upgrade slots ships have can also be tweaked (this happens more rarely). 
• Upgrade cards receive the same treatment and in some cases have variable costing implemented, are made unique, or subjected to other restrictions.
• As a last resort, FFG will turn to rules changes and/or errata. That's nothing special, I hear you say. True, but this happens quickly, sometimes before a particular archetype becomes problematic (Tripsilos - Tripple Upsilon shuttles is one archetype that died that way).

The updates aren't always 100% successful. As soon as one archetype is gently nerfed (or hammered into the ground) new ones will arise to take their place. But overall it's a system that works very well indeed. At its best, it creates much-needed rebalancing. Even at its "worst," it keeps the meta fresh.

I have long been a proponent of a similar approach for Armada. I had hoped we'd get something to go along with 1.5 but we didn't. Maybe AMG will? Or not. I don't know. Doesn't stop me from thinking about it 😅

Btw: I'm fine with the default cost being printed on the card. X-wing doesn't but for non-competitive purposes, it's nice to have a printed cost. 

Rebellion in the Rim pt. 1 (The fleets)

A couple of weeks ago we finished the Corellian Conflict All-out assault which I thought was grand. I really like big battles! 

But several other players wanted something smaller, less complex. While I'd rather play with big boy fleets, I can see their point. Armada is pretty a complex game and for less experienced players it can feel a little overwhelming.

Now we're back with another campaign and this time we're trying Rebellion in the Rim. Five out of six players are the same and people are sticking to their factions. What loyalty 😅 The Empire team has gained a new player.

My RitR experience is limited. I tried it very briefly on Vassal - without reading the campaign rules - when it came out. I made the mistake of going with an ISD for my fleet. It wasn't that it was bad. It was strong. But it was boring. A single shooty ship and 2 flots...bah. And too few squadrons. So I suggested we stick to smalls and mediums and we did.

Regarding aces: Since the game caps at 250, you can only ever have two unique squads with defense tokens. I think that suits the RitR concept perfectly!

Special rules: We didn't want to change too much without having played the campaign but agreed to the following:

• No round 1 base assaults.
• Commanders can have up to 6 tiers of abilities. Should they get beyond that stage, they could trade in 1 XP for a 5 point increase to their fleet cap. No idea how that'll work out. We'll see.
• If you gain multiple conditions or have a condition when you gain another, the opposing player picks what condition you keep. So no flying around with Low Fuel to protect yourself from other conditions!

Wave 10 is coming to VASSAL

 

I've created the ship models and firing arcs for the 4 new wave 10 ships and added them to the module along with all required functionality. All images are pulled from the net - not actual pics yet. Also added the 6 spoiled upgrades.

Rebel Pelta - with Republic-colored arc lines. Will be replaced.

Too shiny?

Too dark. Needs lightening.

It's a pretty awesome image. Looks so good even at Vassal resolutions!

Armada Warlords updated (w10 spoilers)

Warlords update: 

• Added spoiled w10 ship cards.
• A few (Venator-II) are just placeholder mashups - they are clearly marked as such.
• Added spoiled w10 upgrades.

http://armadawarlords.hivelabs.solutions/

Goodbye FFG, you'll not be missed

Several people have told me that it's not FFG's fault, it's Asmodee that's the big bad wolf. I'm sure that's correct to some extent but I find it hard to believe that FFG as a firm has absolutely no influence on anything beyond game design and playtesting. I'd also like to note that things were just as bad when FFG was an independent company. FFG or Asmodee. I don't know. I don't care. bad is bad. That's my point.

I was really looking forward to playing with the Clone Wars factions. So I preordered from my usual supplier. Two of each starter, 3 of each squad pack. A couple of card packs. Then I patiently waited, knowing that FFG never makes its own Armada deadlines. Like never ever in a million years.

Unsurprisingly, there was no wave 9 in Scandinavia before the holidays. I didn't even blink. Nor did I complain (much). Just a little bit of lamentation but overall a good feeling. With the pandemic and everything, a few more weeks (or months) wouldn't matter. Soon we will reveal ourselves to the Jedi, soon we will have revenge. 

We're now writing February. My supplier has finally gotten wave 9 from Enigma (the Scandinavian distributor). Good times! Well, not really. You see, he got only SOME of the products he ordered. Squad packs are in particularly short supply. I've heard similar stories from other places so it's not a unique occurrence.

Wave 9 (and 10) is the biggest, most important release for Armada since the Core and Wave 2. Not only are you late, FFG. You can't even be bothered to make enough product to meet demands. Wave 9 has barely reached my part of the world and already it's out of stock in most places. The image up top is from a major UK online retailer. Awaiting reprint. Bawhahaha. We all know that's going to take a long time. Never enough production capacity to begin with and with wave 10 supposedly coming soon...a Norwegian online retailer is estimating restock of Republic Squadrons in September. It's a guesstimate but still telling.

TL;DR. I put in my preorder. Stuff got delayed. I watched as online retailers ran out of product. Then my own supplier was short-handed. I'm sitting here with a SINGLE REPUBLIC SQUADS pack I got from my brother in Edinburgh. 😆😆😆😆😆😆

Well, thanks a bunch, FFG. I don't know what your problem is. Do you hate your customers and don't want their money? Or are you simply too incompetent to run a business? Small wonder your miniatures lines were handed to AMG. Whatever happens, it can't get any worse. Even if Armada was terminated it would be less of a disappointment than this.

I'll just go back to playing CC and RitR campaigns with my friends...

To Contain, or not to Contain?

 

I come with 4 Contain and a built-in Damage Control Officer

Let's talk about the Contain defense token.

In its natural state, it stops the default crit effect. In other words, you take a facedown damage card instead of a faceup. 

That's not all bad. A facedown is better than a faceup, right!?

Sure. Maarek doing 4 facedown instead of 2 faceup and 2 facedown is scant mercy. Chances are you're soon dying anyway but it's better than nothing.

Compared to the other defense token it's not all that impressive, is it? 

Brace is definitely better - it reduces damage. By a little or a lot. Evade sure got better and is now a pretty good defense token. Salvo lets you SHOOT BACK at whoever attacked you. How strong is that!? Even redirect is better. At least as long as you have shields. Scatter is so OP it's not even worth comparing.

You could add DCO, I hear you say. Sure you can. Maybe you'll stop a HIE from triggering - if it wasn't acced the one time you needed it. Five points for that. No thanks. I'd rather spend my officer and the same 5 to make my redirects soak damage...

I wish they had added an alternate use for the Contain in 1.5.

Outright canceling a die with a CRIT icon would probably be too strong. How about Contain being able to either stop the default crit or reduce total damage by 1 instead if there were no crits in the attack pool?

Just an idea I had. I'm sure a good brainstorming session could have come up with similar ideas. Not too powerful. Just enough to make contain suck less.