So, having recently gotten Star Wars: Armada, my son got hooked on it about as much as me, so we’ve been playing a few games over the past two weeks.
Today, we played our first 400 points game. I played Rebels: an mc75 ordnance cruiser, an mc30 scout frigate, a cr90a, a CR90b and the four x wings from the base game. He played Imperials with an ISD1 and carrier upgrades, an Interdictor with the two upgrades that could slow down nearby vessels and that created that speed-zero-zone when placing ships and lots of squadrons.
This was our initial setup. I navigated the cr90s quickly over to the the two mcs, the isd got stuck in the asteroids and the two mcs destroyed the Interdictor in turns three and four.
Here’s the deal though… After that happened, I quickly glanced at his cards, figured I had a comfortable lead over him and simply left. Turns four and five were essentially just me stepping on the gas and getting away from his isd.
The whole game felt just so… I dunno, boring? Anticlimatic? It was one turn ramp up, one and a half turns of space battle and finally three and a half turns escaping and no fighting.
Is that really how the game turns out? Are we missing something? Forgetting something?
I’m not too familiar with Armada so bear with me here but doesn’t that game have any scenarios or missions? Something beyond facing each other and exchanging shots?
If it has (and I’m pretty sure it does) I highly recommend taking a look at those.
Yeah, it does have objectives. The one that got picked was very battle-centric though… And even if it hadn’t been, the objectives are usually not worth enough to offset a 130-points-lead (as vessel point values are usually counted towards victory points).
Like @Pea666@feddit.nl , I’m unfamiliar with the boardgame but from what i see and read in the rulebook, it seems very fun.
I am a bit confused about game-ending scenarios because I did read that a set of cards determines the objective (for each player?), to increase the replayability. But it also states that you can win either by destroying the entire fleet or by having the highest score (hostile ships destroyed) after six rounds with no victor. If it is the case, that you have objectives but you can also win by having more points after six rounds, I’d just get rid of the “win after sox rounds with highest points” clause. If there are no set objectives, I would sit down with your son and come up with interesting and fun objectives that, upon completion, declare the winner instead of this “technically you can win by killing one ship and running away for five more turns”, because that does sound like a boring base rule.
We had an objective in play that gave additional points to critical hits that were scored. Which, in turn, meant that withdrawing the ships would also keep those points from being scored. Using other objectives might turn out better though, we’ll have to pick better ones next time, I guess.
I do like the 6 round limit on general. It helps avoid an endgame where it’s clear who won but you still have to keep playing.
I see! Well, I hope your future games turn out more interesting. And if not, honestly, no harm in tinkering with a boardgame until it’s fun, if the base ruleset isn’t.