Star Wars: Armada

Star Wars: Armada is the new fleet scale strategy game developed by Fantasy Flight Games with a similar rules system to X-Wing but on an entirely separate scale which prevents any form of crossover.

Where X-Wing focuses on dogfighting between individual starfighters, Armada is more about larger scale battles between capital ships and squadrons of fighters.

Compared to other tabletop strategy games, Armada has a relatively low entry cost and upkeep requirement. While players can go "BIG" with the hobby, there is very little need to do so, and games can be played between only one or two capital ships and a few squadrons of fighters, all of which come pre-painted with only minor assembly required. Not only that but the range of models is not exactly staggering; so even for those collectors who need to buy everything in the range, will have everything they need relatively quickly.

Gameplay

At a glance, anyone who has played Star Wars: Empires at War on the PC will immediately feel familiar with the gameplay. Your fleet is built up of a mix of capital ships and squadrons of fighters to an agreed value of points. Upgrade cards are available for you to customise your capital ships, and variant squadrons are available to allow your to field unique fighter squadrons.

Your fleet requires at least one Capital Ship, nominated as your flagship and must be equipped with a character to be its commander and you cannot spend more than a third of your points cost on squadrons. This means you cannot re-enact a battle where nothing but starfighters take on star destroyers, which might disappoint someone trying to forge a narrative. But from a mechanical perspective it makes sense since starfighter do not have the same range of actions as capital ships and can only move OR shoot unless specifically commanded otherwise by a capital ship, so it would be a really one-sided game.

Rules Summary

The player with the lower points value is always considered to be taking the initiative, anyone who has played tabletop wargames probably knows that getting exact points balance between players is uncommon unless you have a large selection of low value units/upgrades to make up the difference. So the player taking the initiative gets to choose the mission and gets to go first.

The game then goes through a series of phases where both players take turns making actions before moving to the next phase, starting with the first player. But if either player runs out of things to do, the other player just then completes all of his moves.

• Command Phase - both players issue orders to their capital ships in secret, which when turned over an be activated immediately or saved as a token until a later turn. Though a ship cannot save an order that they already have waiting, and cannot accumulate more unused order tokens than its command value. But you can use a token even when it is the same order that you've just performed (essentially performing it twice), giving you more bonuses.
  • Navigate - You ship gets to turn more sharlpy when it comes to make its move and can also adjust its speed. If you saved this order til later you only adjust your speed. This becomes a somewhat essential order because your capital ships have to move at whatever their speed is set at unless you can adjust it.
  • Squadron - You can activate some nearby starfighter squadrons and immediately get them to move and attack, in contravention of the normal rules for starfighters, making this one of your most effective orders to use especially if your starship has a good squadron control value. If you saved this order for later you only activate a single squadron.
  • Repair - You ship gets to redistribute its shields around itself, or recover shields. If your ship has a high engineering value you can also repair hull damage. If you save the order token you give yourself more engineering points and can therefore fix more in a given turn, or fix yourself while your ship does something else.
  • Concentrate Fire - You get to add dice to one of your attacks, making you more deadly. If you saved the token you can then reroll an attack dice instead.
• Ship Phase - Your ships get to make an attack from two of your firing arcs, the range and attack strength is dictated by the attack dice and a target gets to react if it has any defensive options which are dictated by the ship's/squadron's profile, like ignoring/reducing the damage or rerolling it. When firing against squadrons, your ship does not use it main guns but instead uses its AA value that is the same across all arcs, but still counts as firing from a particular arc. Just like with the Star Wars Roleplaying Game the system comes with its own dice which tell you the result. You either
  1. Miss
  2. Hit and score a point of damage, reducing the target's shield, or it's hull if it has no shield on that arc.
  3. Accuracy - The attacker gets to negate one of the defender's defensive options.
  4. Critical Hit - Unless specifically stated, only Capital Ships can cause critical hits on Capital Ships, otherwise it's just one more hull point of damage. Critical hits are damage effects drawn at random that cause persistent penalties on the target unless they can get rid of it through a repair order.
  • After the attacks have been resolved, only then do you move the ship and you have to move it at whatever speed it has been set at, unless you adjusted the speed with an order. When you make the move, your ship profile also tells you when you can take turns and at what angles.
• Squadron Phase - Now you get to activate any squadrons that were not already activated by your starship orders, they can only move OR attack, and no matter what attack dice your squadrons have available to them they can only ever make attacks at close range. But squadrons can move in any direction at any speed up to their maximum, so they have the advantage of mobility over a capital ship. If enemy squadrons ever move into close range with each other they become engaged which essentially means they are trapped in a dogfight and can only make attacks on each other and cannot move away. Like capital ships, squadrons have two separate attack profiles depending if they are attacking other squadrons or against capital ships, but are generally not going to be that great against a capital ship unless they are bombers or such like.
• Status Phase - Basically a clean-up stage, you reset your capital ship's defensive options if you were forced to expend them, and you de-activate the squadrons in play so you can keep track of what has been used or not.

Factions

Right now there are only two factions, Rebels and Imperials, though like in X-Wing there could be room for the addition of third party factions, although admittedly that becomes less likely when you consider the scale of the wargame, being large ships rather than small ones. Though they could squeeze in the Zann Consortium if it came to it. But right now we only have two to work with.

Rebellion

Rebel ships are quicker and more maneuverable than those of the Empire, but in a straight up fight will lose one-on-one fights against Empire capital ships, so are supported by higher quality starfighter squadrons.

Capital Ships

• CR90 Corvette B - Your cheapest capital ship, and actually has a hull value lower than the X-Wings, but at least it has two shields on every facing except the rear and can evade fire which is good a longer ranges, as well as having an engineering score of two to fix itself if the worst should happen. It quite literally is your poorest capital ship, with only a command and squadron value of one so you can't accumulate order tokens or use it as a command ship for activating allied squadrons, furthermore it only has weapon ranges out to medium (blue) so it really has to depend upon its maneuverability to get into vulnerable enemy defensive arcs, especially since it's ability to evade only really gets worse the closer you get to the enemy.
• CR90 Corvette A - A straight upgrade to the B Corvette, for only five points. The only difference though is that it has red dice in its firing arcs, giving it a range out to maximum which therefore allow it to trade blows at distance with other capital ships and maintain its evasive edge.
• Nebulon B Support Refit - Your first taste of real capital ship, it is slower than the Corvettes of course, but it has comparable firepower out to longer ranges. But it has poorer side shielding traded against superior shields to the front and rear, so keeping it in optimal positions becomes critical. From a command perspective it is superior to the Corvettes too, capable of accumulating two order tokens and doing more with an engineer order.
• Nebulon B Escort Frigate - Another straight upgrade to the Support frigate. For a mere six points you get an increase to your AA fire, making it better against TIE fighters as well as a one point increase to your squadron value, meaning it works better alongside your allied starfighter squadrons. This frigate is essentially a lynchpin for your forces and is highly recommended.

Squadrons

• X-Wing Squadron - Your "basic" squadron, it actually a very good multi-purpose fighter. It has five hull points meaning they can take a pounding, and it can give a pounding too, with four blue dice against enemy TIEs; and despite having only a single red dice against enemy capital ships, because X-Wings have the "Bomber" rule they do extra damage on crit rolls and are allowed to resolve critical effects rather than simply being damaging. They also have the "Escort" rule which means if they get engaged alongside any other friendly squadrons, the enemy is forced to attack them first, keeping your high value B-Wings protected.
  • Luke Skywalker - your first unique character squadron. Much better than regular X-Wings for a couple of reasons. First they cane use defensive tactics to brace against incoming hits, allowing you to reduce incoming damage by half, unless your opponent can roll "accuracy" to remove it. He also ignores shields on enemy capital ships, applying his damage directly to the hull. That is all countered by one thing though, his capital attack dice are black rather than the normal red for X-Wings, meaning his squadron cannot roll "accurate" himself, but makes sure that when he rolls crit, he rolls bigger by adding an extra point of damage on top of the "bomber" rule that X-Wings normally have.
  • Wedge Antilles - Much like Luke, Wedge gets the same defensive tactics, and rolls black against capital ships. However his real bonus is against enemy squadrons making him a much better dogfighter rather than ship-hunter. He adds two blue dice (six total) against enemy squadrons that have already been activated so it pays to have Wedge wait until later in the turn and attack exposed units of opportunity, being virtually guaranteed to destroy weak-ass TIE fighters in one go.
• B-Wing Squadron - Straight up bombers rolling blue & black against capital ships, they just as resilient as X-Wings but are half the speed of TIE fighters and aren't as good in dogfights, so don't leave them unsupported else they can get picked off.
• Y-Wing Squadron - Faster and more resilient than B-Wings and like them are also bombers, but with poorer attack rolls against both fighters and capital ships. They are also "Heavy" fighters, which is a bit of a penalty, because your opponent's squadrons can disengage from you or attack targets outside of the engagement at his leisure. But you didn't want Y-Wings getting stuck into TIE fighter squadrons unless you really have no other choice.
  • Dutch Vander - Special Y-Wings that are better at dealing with enemy squadrons rather than Capital Ships, they have one extra attack dice in a dogfight engagement and if they attack an "un-activated" squadron they cause it to become activated, rendering it useless to your opponent for that turn. If it was already activated they do one extra point of damage instead. Dutch is a good trolling tool and like the other special characters can brace against impact and reduce incoming damage.

Imperials

Imperials are characterised by big, heavy, slow and expensive capital ships accompanied by cheap squadrons of virtually expendable TIE fighters.

Capital Ships

• Victory II Class Star Destroyer - What you get right out of the core box. Has hull, command, squadron and engineering points out of the wazoo so it makes a good centerpiece for your forces, as well as having 3 Shields on the front and side arcs. The problems with it are obvious though, it steers like a cow and plods along like it just doesn't care, so if it gets out-maneuvered it could be in trouble as it's shielding on the rear is only one point strong. It also suffers from a range imbalance with its weapons, having blacks mixed with reds, meaning it is fantastic at short range, but poorer at medium>long ranges, comparable to the Rebels Nebulon B frigates at those distances. It's also not that fantastic at dealing with enemy squadrons, having only a single blue dice, but that's why you've got TIEs.
• Victory I Class Star Destroyer - the upgraded version improves the firepower considerably, replacing those black dice with blues, giving the Victory I an impressive presence out to the medium range.