Matt asks: "What is the most underrated or under appreciated upgrade in the game?"
This is a good and actually pretty tough question. There are a lot of diamonds in the rough in Armada. Here are some upgrades I find to be under-appreciated:
- Home One - Such a great title and fantastic way to generate accuracies.
- Ion Cannon Batteries - Just started using these recently and have been really impressed with the amount of damage they put out.
- Nav Teams - I am always happy when I have these. They are overshadowed by Engine Techs, but Nav Teams really enable much tighter turns which can be more important than extra speed.
- Ruthless Strategists - Extra damage that ignores defense tokens/escort is always welcome.
Atomikbour from France asks: "In which case do start à game with your fleet's ships close together and in which case do you prefer to have ships not grouped?"
Another great question! Whether I start my ships together or apart I usually have a plan to have them fighting in the same general area on turns 3 and 4. Keeping your ships together from the start is the easiest approach and probably the most common. I deploy them spread out when I want my opponent to have to commit to a plan that I can counter.
Patrick asks: "How do I fly the Arquitens?"
I am still figuring that one out. Right now though I am playing it as a flanker. I just seem to frequently use the wrong flank. It deosn't have overwhelming firepower on its own. It does have excellent range and I try to put it in position to target the same ship as my big hitters. It works best for em in a fire support role.
Mon Mothma asks: "Some Bothan spies are telling me the Empire has left the Kuat ship yards lightly defended. Should the Rebellion attack?"
As Ackbar likes to say..."IT'S A TRAP!"
Marcus on Twitter asks: "Which is better, more upgrades or more ships?"
Stalin famously said during WWII that "quantity has a quality all its own". I think that holds true in Armada. I always try to keep to a low upgrade budget in Armada. More ships is often a better choice. I think this can hold true with squadrons as well, more generics can frequently trump a bunch of aces. Make sure you have the ships to do the job, then use the upgrades to help them do it.
Reece asks: "What is kiting? I've seen you mention it several times on your Armada blog, but I can't figure it out"
This comes from video gaming. It is generally the practice of attacking something and forcing the target to chase you to counter attack. Works well with mobile broadside ships. Picture your ship as the kite and they are the one chasing after it. I generally use it to refer to having a broadside ship flanking the enemy at long range.
Thanks for all the great questions. When I get more I will put together another mailbag.
So in other 'battlefield' tabletop wargames, there are common strategies (full forward, refused flank, etc) and military tactics (hit and run, tarpitting, expendable redirection, etc). I've heard of some tactics like MSU (multiple corellian corvettes racing around and outmaneuvering bigger, more cumbersome ships, etc). Any other fleet strategies or ship/squadron tactics out there?
ReplyDeleteI've been trying to cover those in my videos. Which reminds me that I need to make a new one!
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ReplyDeleteThanks for an informative and interesting blog. I'm new to Armada and has only played a couple of games with a friend of mine but we both like it a lot so far. However, we found ourselves to be looking in the rules booklet more than actually playing, we are especially puzzled by attacking and how to approach critical damage in different situations. Another thing we stumbled upon was if a ship is to be removed if it is outside of the play area during its movement but ends the movement inside the play area? Thanks.:-)
The final position is all that matters.
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