Outer Rim Game Review

Our gaming group was lucky to find a copy of Fantasy Flight's newest Star Wars game Outer Rim at our FLGS last week.  The much hyped game has you play as one of the better known Bounty Hunters or smugglers in Star Wars lore as they gain fame and fortune by completing jobs and moving cargo.
 
Characters start the game with one of two basic ships, and either a job to complete or some cargo to deliver.  Each player turn has three sections to it.  In the first section, they can move to a new location, heal,  or gain some credits at their current location.  Then players can turn in any bounties or cargo, buy items from the shop area or trade items with other players at their location.  The shop area contains gear that enhance players, crew that help out, and jobs and cargo for players to complete and sell.  Then players can do an encounter at their location, either meeting with contacts, doing a job encounter, or a location encounter.

The full board

The encounters are somewhat similar to the way FFG did their Fallout game, with cards giving tests to pass based on character attributes.  Tests use two dice, with a critical needing to be rolled to pass. If your character has a tested attribute (Strength, Tactics, Knowledge etc etc) its easier to pass with either a hit or a critical.  Combat works in a similar fashion, with each player rolling dice equal to their combat strength against their opponents dice.  There were only 6 dice included, but we pretty quickly had attributes up to 7 or 8 in value, so FFG probably should ship a few more with the game.

Your player tableau, Bossk in a HWK-290

The game overall is enjoyable.  You jet around and pull heists, find bounties to capture and upgrade your gear.  It takes a little time to get your machine rolling (especially with bounties, since you need to investigate characters first).  Player interaction is a little low, but you can make trades and ask for promises and credits from anywhere on the board.  I was able to extract a favor from another player in return for not stopping them from buying a ship on my turn, which was a fun way of politicing.  Attacking other players is possible, but its limited so its an area that's not really explored in the game.  If you've enjoyed most of FFG's other offerings, this game fits in nicely for a fun time with plenty of memories.

The only aspect that felt not very pivotal was the different faction patrols.  There are encounters with them, and having your reputation up with factions makes it easier to move around.  But overall since the patrols don't do a lot of movement and at neutral reputation just stop your movement they play a very minor role.  If there was more to their movement or more patrols going I think it would make that aspect a bit better.

Keyforge Deck Analyis: Keekhling, the Crony of the Depths

Finally getting a chance after the holidays to get back into a normal gaming schedule.Which has meant lately quite a bit more Keyforge.  I've still been laying a lot of The Terror that Purifies Togetherness, and it still continues to perform wonderfully.  But, I've added a few other decks, and this is one of them.

Keekhling, the Crony of the Depths
This is a creature heavy deck, featuring 20 creature cards, 11 actions, 3 artifacts and 2 upgrades.  This deck has a similar synergy between the Mars and Sanctum houses with Commander Remiel and Ulyq Megamouth helping to use creatures form other houses.  You could chain them together to be able to get 4 Aember on a turn when all four are out.  Mantle of the Zealot also lets you do some house cheating, getting a chance to trigger Stampede on an untamed turn to really fire things off. There is also a little ability to archive some cars with Mars, to try to help set up some bigger plays or protect a wounded creature to return later with Zyzzix the Many and Vezyma Thinkdrone.  

Overall though this deck does not play very well. The large number of creatures is a bit of an illusion since 15 of them have power 3 or less with little or no armor. It makes it very susceptible to board wipe effects. It also lacks any wipe effects of its own, besides  Qyxxlyx Plague Master which is limited to humans. It also hits a large chunk of your own creatures and kills most outright. Ammonia Clouds is similar that you'll end up removing most of your own pieces. It also lacks any real aember control for your opponent. No steals outside of stampede and only a couple captures. 

I have yet to win a game with this deck. It might work well against a deck that features less board presence so it's small creatures can't just get bullied or wiped.  There's a little ability to jump Aember from Untamed, but its just too little I think for this deck to be consistently a winner. 

Game Review: Unearth!

Our game group is rolling again now that the holidays are finished, and we started off the year with a gem of a game from Brotherwise Games, Unearth  Its difficult to classify the type of game, because it contains a little bit of everything in it.  Working placement, dice rolling, set collection and hand building.  The theme of the game though is clear.  You're in charge of a team of delvers, as they excavate ruins to help build your civilization.

Game play is fairly straight forward.  Each turn, you will be able to play one of your special Delver cards (examined more a bit later) and then pick a Ruins to excavate and roll one die on it.  Each Ruins card has a score that needs to be matched or exceeded before the winner can claim the ruin, and the player with the highest die on the RUins gets to claim it.  Other players who have a die on the card when it gets scored get to draw a Delver card for each die they have on the card.

This might sound like having the high roll is all that matters, but its not.  Each Ruins also starts out with a number of stones tokens on them, which a player can claim if they a 1, 2, or a 3.  These stones can then be arranged to build monuments, which either offer some special ability (like being able to draw delver cards even if you don't have a die at a finished Ruins) or victory points. Players will need 6 stones to complete a monument, with some having specific requirements (like 4 Red stones).  You build off your hex of stones as well, so placement of stones together can help you finish more monuments,

The Delver cards give you extra abilities during your turn.  Some will let you re-roll die on a card, while others let you roll extra die or increase a die face.  These cards really do add variety to the game, and allow the players some real strategic spots to be able to possibly win a Ruins they were trailing on or steal some stones they need to finish a particular monument.

The game gets scored via set collection.  The more ruins of the same color you're able to collect, the better the pont value for that set.  There are some bonuses for getting one ruins of each color as well.

Ruins with dice and our monument choices

Overall this game was a huge hit with our group.  Its deep enough that you will be challenged to find optimal plays and to track whats going on, but not so complex as to cause a lot of analysis paralysis.  Our turns went quickly and noone felt like they had to sit and think too hard, since most of it came down to planning to finish a Ruins or shooting to roll low to get a key stone.  The different monuments and overall mechanics of the dice rolling also lend to each game being pretty fresh, since its unlikely you'll get certain combinations time and time again. The Delver cards really help to insure players can be on an even footing as well, so the game does not snowball as I've seen too many set collecting games do.  And the hex stones for the monuments add in a bit of spatial reasoning to the game, so there really is something for everyone.  A definite good purchase if you can find it.

Gloomhaven Journals: The Raiders Camp

Another weekend another shot at a scenario.  This weekend saw us come the closest to losing a mission we had been at.  It came down to the Mindtheif and my Cragheart finishing off the last few enemies with me having one turn more if we failed with a short rest to get it.



Spring, Time of the Flower, Year of the Courtesan
 We decided it was time to make good on our new patronesses promise of pay if we removed some Inox raiders from the nearby woods.  We should have known something was up from this though when she didn't alert the guards to a potential raider camp a few days from the city, but the first job had come through and she seemed earnest enough.  We made our way to the Inox camp without any real issues.  It was near dark, and so we decided after a brief reconnaissance to perform a surprise strike when the sun went down.  The beginning of the battle went smoothly, and we devastated their perimeter guards and any warriors that made their way out of the huts.  We quickly moved to the main lodge, hoping to kill the leadership and cripple this group.  There though we found to our horror women and children.  This was not a Raider camp, but just a small community of Inox in the woods.  Immediately we withdrew, trying to escape without killing any more members, but having to to save our lives.   We hastily made our way back to town and confronted the woman in red.  She tossed us a payment, and said they were raiders, it didn't matter that there were families there.  I cannot fathom what exactly this woman wants, but I dont think I can bring myself to work with her again. 

We were contacted by a member of the city guard as we left her estate, who let us know they were investigating her and that we could be of some help.  We took her card but have not yet decided if we will assist the guard or not.  While I dislike this woman, so far she has not done anything wrong.

Gloomhaven Journals: The underwater cave

We did another scenario in Gloomhaven this weekend.  This time we did get a rule wrong, because we didn't check the requirements at the top of the mission closely enough.  We needed to have another item before doing this one, but we had already set up and played the first round by the time we realized it.  SO we just went with it, and figured we just need to be more careful next time.  This mission wasn't overly exciting but was a nice test of making sure we are getting better at card management.  We did complete this quest, but only just barely.  Thanks to a miscommunication of what our Spellweaver was doing on their turn, I ended up getting knocked out and the party almost ran out of cards.  But thanks to some lucky card pulls we pulled it out in the end.

Gloomhaven Journals: First Scenarios

My group has finally gotten a chance to get ourselves a Gloomhaven campaign going, and I'd like to keep a bit of a narrative journal of what is going on and follow along with our characters.  We have the Mindthief, Spellweaver, Tinkerer and Cragheart (the Cragheart being played by myself).  We did a pretty good job with the rules, besides initially accidentally setting some of the monsters to a difficulty that was a bit too high. 

I'll be putting these entries beyond the jump in each post to help avoid spoilers.  Also, this first one is going to be pretty long since we did two scenarios.  Hope you all enjoy!

The SSD Arrives

Armada finally got an announcement.  Basically a year after teasing something big coming, we finally got the first look on Wednesday night's In Flight Report.  On Friday we got the article giving us the first few details we have about the ship.  Not much is spoiled, besides the lowest costed standard play version.

With what we have so far, I am just not on the hype train yet.  The ship is powerful, boasting an elite suite of upgrades, hull and basic values.  The power to gin a token for each command and a pair of fleet commands gives it wide versatility.  And with a conservative build out you could pair it with an ISD to protect its weak flanks.  The issue this ship presents is the difficulty in flying it and the gameplay that forces.  The side arcs are wide, but you're going to have to keep ships in front to score any kills.  Double arcing is going to be almost impossible with the need to nav to just get a click.  Much like the Victory, if it gets pointed the wrong way its over. This is going to force approaching fleets to go much slower, to try and force that wrong movement. 

Also tamping down expectations is the thought this is the only release coming for possibly a year.  A $200 model as the only release for a year is just not exciting.  As more info comes out I'll probably get more excited.  But  right now its just a miss.

Star Wars Armada: New Campaign Ideas

In the lull of information from FFG, the Armada community has started an attempt to create a homebrew new campaign.  So the first mission is to brew up some new titles and objectives.  These are fairly rough draft, but I think a lot of them could be fun or at least provide some different gameplay scenarios.  hey can probably use some balancing and

Red Objective: Relentless Assault
Set up: After deployment, place one objective token on each ship. 
In Game: After performing an attack, a player may spend their objective token.  If they do, they may perform another attack from a hull zone with half the dice rounded down. 
Scoring: Unspent Objective Tokens are worth 20 points at the end of the game

Yellow Objective: Hazardous Nebula
Set Up: After Deployment is complete, the second player may place 1 Dust Field Obstacle in the set up area.
In Game: Ships may not move shields from one hull zone to another

Blue Objective: Asteroid Drift
Set Up: Replace debris fields with asteroid obstacles. 
In Game: After even odd numbered rounds, the second player may move 1 obstacle to within distance 2, or 2 obstacles to within distance 1 of their current location.  After even numbered rounds, 1st player may move 1 obstacle to within distance 2 of its current position.  After a player overlaps an obstacle, their opponent gains one victory token
Scoring: Victory tokens are worth 15 points each.

Base Defense: Hardened Veterans
Set Up: After setup, the defending player places an objective token on each if their ships.
In Game: After being dealt a face up damage card, you may remove one objective token from that ship.  If that face up card is a crew effect, discard it.  Otherwise turn it face down.

Special Attack:  Search for survivors
Set Up: Replace the Asteroid Obstacles with Debris Fields.  After set up, place an objective token on each obstacle, starting with the first player. 
In Game: While at Distance one of an obstacle when you spend a command dial, if you count a higher command value, claim one victory token and remove the objective token.  If possible, place that objective token on another obstacle without a token.  At the end of the 2nd and 4th rounds, place objective tokens on each obstacle without one.
Scoring: Each player gains 10 resources for each victory token they have.  The winning side also gains 50 resources




Victory Star Destroyer: Firewind: 6 Points
After you perform a maneuver, you may suffer one damage to perform a speed 1 maneuver.

Gladiator Star Destroyer: Serpent : 5 Points
Increase your Squadron value by 1

Nebulon B: Shadow Raptor: 10 Points
After Deploying Fleets, you may re-deploy Shadow Raptor and up to Four Squadrons to within a distance of 3 of their current locations.

AF Mk 2: Redeemer: 4 Points
While performing an attack against squadrons, you may count critical results as hit results.

Armada possible 2.0 fixes?

So, following the huge let down of the HYperspace report, I've basically just stayed away from Armada.  The fact the FFG has continued to keep under wraps "something big", has further hlped spur my lack of interest lately.  However, a recent thread on the Forums speculating about changes people would like to see in a Armada 2.0 got me thinking as to what my wish list would be. 

I honestly don't think there are any ships that need drastic overhauls, barring the Vic 1.  Which, I think could be fixed by releasing a similar App like they have with XWing 2.0 to give a quick point redo for it.  It seems like if it was more aggressively priced like a Quasar there is at least an argument to bring it as a battle carrier.  The AFMk2 A could also use a point reduction, so there is at least some choice between it and the B variant for general usage.  The Assault Pelta could likely use a Weapons team, maybe at the expense of the support team slot.  These though are some minor tweaks, because I dont think the Ships in Armada are in a bad spot really.  Most are well balanced and can see at least some play.  I also think the flotilla changes cleaned up the big issue with activation spam that was starting to drive the game towards a very bland spot.

There are several  ideas in the thread that I found intriguing, the ones about changing some of the squadron commands were the best.  Allowing ships to activate up to their native squad -1 every turn without command would be a way to boost some of the battle carriers that need some help.  It however I think really diminishes the value of Thrawn, and then of the Quasar and Pelta, ships that really want to be just pushing squads all day.  Changing the squadron play during the squad phase I think would be interesting.  The suggestion had been allow move and shoot during squad phase, but just at half speed.  It would still allow full speed move and shoot during a command activation.  This idea has traction really, because if FFG then allowed Rogues to still move at full speed in squadron phase their value moves up again. 

The biggest change I would like to see besides getting the app to do quick card re-costing, would be a re-balance with fighters.  The biggest issues I have with the current fighter framework are just how much more cost efficient they are against Capital ships, how pervasive full Ace lists are, and how there is a pretty stark dichotomy between min and max squad builds.  As to the first point, fighters occupy a special niche when engaging capital ships.  They perform the same ping style damage MSU lists enjoy, but can typically cause more damage over an activation than MSU lists can thanks to the multitude of re-roll options they have and the ability to hit more vulnerable arcs consistently.  This, along with small based ships high vulnerability to ping damage has helped push MSU out of most competitive areas.  One quick fix I see is making ships able to fight off fighters a bit more effectively. By making crits count as damage, I think we now would see some real hesitation to simply take max fighter builds and throw them at large based ships with no real second thought.  Its also a bit more thematic, when you see squads being removed and largely aces escaping the fight in the end. 

This solution though might exacerbate my second issue, Max Ace lists though.  World's and many other tournaments have been largely dominated by max Ace lists on both sides, with Rieekan and Sloane fueling both.  I hate hard limits placed on list building, but it might be time to experiment with restricting lists to 4 unique squadrons to help the imbalance as they did with flotillas.  The final piece to the puzzle is to somehow re-strengthen the middle fighter group capability.  I think the Ace restriction actually strengthens the case for taking the four aces and a couple of generics to sit at around 80-100 points, because the overall composition is now much more level to max builds that fill out with generics.   Likely, either of these changes I do think helps out the game by large margins to reduce the overall time with squads and helping to re-balance from pure ace lists since they face more danger from flak and become less efficient, or from just not being so prominent.

Overall Armada doesnt need a huge re-boot to contineu its success, just some small tweaks to help move the game along and increase the efficiency of several lists.

Fantasy Flight Games Hyper Space Report: Wild Speculation

SO Fantasy Flight Games has been tempting us with a big news report for all of their Star Wars properties before they kick off the World's events for those games.  The announcement two weeks beforehand has left a lot of time for what they're going actually be delivering for the games, and whether or not its going to be the "Something Big" they've been promising Armada players since GenCon last year. 

I've got a few guesses as to what FFG has up their sleeve for Armada, Legion and Imperial Assault.  I haven't played X-Wing in anything more than a dust off game with friends or anything more from Destiny than the original starter boxes, so I don't really have any pulse on the direction of those games.

Legion

I think after the deluge of info FFG has had for Legion this will be a small announcement for available products.  Likely the next Imperial Commander and their SPecial Forces, as well as with the announcement today of the organized play layout a rules reference update.  I'm going to guess the next commander will either be is going to be either Wulf Yularen, Cassius Tagge, or one of FFG's created properties like Kayn Somos.  Most of the best canon battles had nameless leaders and it focused on space battles.  Ground commanders are thin.  I also think they will wait a bit for Thrawn, since he is likely going to be a buffing commander like Veers.  The Scout Troopers are going to be the unit that gets revealed, since the FFG staff have all but actually spoiled it.

Armada

Armada is due for another wave announcement.  A lot of folks think it wil be an SSD, kicking off epic play for the game.  I am not so certain.  X-Wing epic play really has not generated much interest an the scale doesn't fit for Armada.  We already have 3x6 field.  Epic play requiring something like 6x6 or 6x12 would be impossible to find.  I think instead, its going to be something a little different.  I think we're getting a second campaign, one centered on the Death Star.  The time frame will begin around Rogue One and end with The battle of Yavin. I think it will incorporate more small scale and 500 point battles as both sides try to raid resources and the like. It will come with U-Wings and a few different ship variants for core and wave 1 ships.  With the changes to Gallant Haven and the continued low turnout for VSDs, some new variants could really energize these ships.

I have an outside guess that FFG will also raise the standard game point limit to 450 points. Some people think that will slow games down. I actually think it speeds it up, if you keep fighters capped. Squadrons take time in this game. Extra ships means more guns on targets and things go down faster.

Imperial Assault

I think the biggest announcement is coming for IA.  Theyll start with working through the latest Lothal announcement since we didnt get anything for skirmish spoiled yet.  Then a few new campaigns for the Heroes of the Alliance will be announced. The app has had several updates in the past couple months, including adding support for all hero packs. Then I believe the big news will drop: a new updated version 2.0. It will not include new map tiles, but instead will have several updated deployment cards for older units like regular storm troopers and Boba Fett. With Jabbas Realm shifting the power curve super high, these old units have been relegated to strictly campaign play.

All Properties
For all of their table top properties I think something big is brewing. They've started experimenting with Legion some of the different organized play campaigns. I think FFG could bring all their games together for something similar.  A massive galactic conquest. Maybe it runs for 2 months and stores act as planets. Different games score points for control of the store, or they fit a larger narrative.

This is all wild speculation of course. But it's fun to think of the future for these games I really love to play and obsess a bit about. 

FFG changes the game: The new Armada FAQ is released

At Adepticon, several folks had to talked to some of the Armada's current design team, and it had gotten out that an FAQ was forthcoming.  With less than a month until Worlds, it was starting to look like we either would get a very minor clarification document or nothing at all.  Instead, in a move that was fairly surprising, they hit several troublesome game elements with a severe Nerf Bat with this latest release.

Flotillas: Two per fleet for Tournament play, and they don't count as ships for being considered"tabled"

Flotillas have basically been an issue since it was announced they were being released.  The game designer's originally saw them as a way to add some utility to fleets and help bring large ships back into the conversation.  But the nature of activation order and deployments they began to become the centerpiece of fleets.  The fact that they added the most point efficient squadron activations didnt hurt either.  A variety of archetypes evolved to become mostly flotillas, like Fish Farm, 1+X, GHY+3. It didnt look good in battle reports or to people who would stop by a game to see half the ships just trailing away from the battle to activate a couple of squadrons. The hard cap I think might have been a little heavy handed, but the game needed to change something about the creeping activation problem and flotillas spam.

It should be noted this change is only for tournaments, so any future campaigns and around the table sort of games can still employ them to the max.  That is a very smart move by FFG.

Relay: The Shuttle must be within activation range to pass along its orders

Relay had always rubbed me the wrong way thematically.  A ship across the board somehow getting to activate squads didn't fit.  It also has lead to a lot of strategies attempting to stay out of engagement.  Changing it so the carrier has to be in range will likely help bring back Boosted Comms as an option, and might help bring a boost to the Centicore title. 

Three widely used Titles get changes

Avenger, Gallant Haven and Yavaris all got changed to limit how effective they are.  Avenger becoming exhaust is a great change, so that no one ship can simply evaporate another on a single activation.  The changes to Gallant Haven and Yavaris effectively end the Rieekan Aces/ GHY+3 archetype that has really been the only one ti survive multiple seasons in this game.  Gallant Haven becomes a minimum of one damage, helping to make sure squads cannot just weather any storm thrown at them before bombing an enemy ship.  It is an interesting affect that we might see more single die flak ships firing, since they'll still be able to ping for damage.  Yavaris with FCT had basically been far too overpowered, and this drops it back into line I think with its intended power level.

Biggs Darklighter cannot pass damage to a Rieekan Zombie Escort

A minor but welcome change.  This tactic basically forced you to just not shoot at any Jan/Biggs ball because the payoff was zero.

Non Nerf Clarifications:

This FAQ was rich with some necessary updates to the game as well.  The Chimera title allows you to recycle a command you had previously discarded, which makes it much more valuable to be able to start the game with maybe Shields to the Max and then come back to it late in the game.  Lots of interactions with how Raddus and ships off the board during the game not being able to receive tokens or other conditions until they enter the game.  It also was clarified that if a Raddus ship that normally cannot activate first is the only ship someone can activate (by some other card effect like Governor Pryce) it can be the first to activate.  Luke Skywalker doesn't proc with Nora, so he cant bypass sheilds then sunder them, and Aspiration can get shields back via outside means (like Projection Experts) even if the zones it beefed up are still full.  Thrawn gets a slight bump in that his dial can now create tokens, instead of just being used to generate a command.

Overall thoughts:

This is quite possibly the biggest game change FAQ we've seen.  Capping flotillas means a whole section of fleets arent possible to run any longer.  A lot of people have felt that the hard cap could mean we are going to get more Flotilla options very soon, because they will be more combat oriented ones.  I dont think I agree.  I think the hard cap would typically mean that any combat capable flotilla now (especially in conjuction wth the Relay nerf) completely replaces the ships we currently have.  FFG is unlikely to do that I think, since there is already a bit of salt over folks having 5 or more of them that they cannot use competitively now.  The loss of the Flotillas though is the gain of the Hammerheads, which were just a tinch to expensive to justify inclusion.  Look for packs of them to potentially go with a Raddus fleet, or possibly to pair with MC30s in a Mon Mothma storm.  

With the titles changes there should be an opening in the meta for the Pelta to at least have a shot at returning now for the rebels.  Cheaper than the AF, and allowing B Wings now to get a speedier activation (via All Fighters Follow Me!) might mean the difference between them getting an attack or not. 

I do think these changes will see a bit more return of Rogue fighters, since both sides lose several carriers and the range to activate fighters becomes a bit limited.  Limiting flotillas to the tournament restriction does hint at least that we may be getting a new campaign this year. 

Star Wars Armada: A sideboard?

This week FFG introduced an interesting new variant to their GoT LCG: The Rookery.  It basically allows players to swap out some cards in their deck after seeing their opponents deck to optimize the match up a bit.  Sideboards are pretty common in a lot of games, letting people build for some edge case matchups that their decks/ lists aren't as suited to handle.  This development got me thinking about how Armada can have a lot of similar interactions in that some lists just suffer badly in matchups.  Running minimal fighters will typically get you pulverized against heavy bomber/Ace lists and running Electronic Counter Measures against a that list brings less utility than Early Warning System would.  At the last Store Championship I attended, I had put Reinforced Blast Doors on expecting a bomber heavy showing with the recent release of the Quasar.  Not a single fighter wing was there, leaving my list in a lurch.   A sideboard would have let me get ECMs on to battle the brawler lists I faced. 

Typically a very tough call

If Armada allowed a sideboard there are a few options for how it could look.  In GoT the player's deck is at least 60 cards, which means the sideboard makes up 20% potentially.  In Magic the Gathering, the Sideboard is at 25%.  That level of change is a bit drastic, changing the complete look of a list by removing whole ships or squadron complements.  A lighter touch would be better here, allowing just a few key changes.  20 points is 5% of the list, and could allow for some key upgrades to come in to make matchups a bit more competitive.  There would still need to be the 400 point cap, so it wouldn't allow a player to circumvent that to get extra points.  There would also likely need to be a one for one swap on cards to keep players from showing a super high bid and then just adding 20 points to their list.  I would also restrict it to Non-Title upgrades, mostly for thematic reasons, that some refits go on but the ships themselves dont change.  

Both players would see the current fleet lists, then secretly pick upgrades to swap.  Then there would be a check for initiative and the game would be played regularly.  A sideboard would add an extra layer of tactical decision making, and would help keep down some matchups that result in just negative play experiences. It would likely dramatically change the game though. Part of list building is deciding how to handle certain threats and what trade offs to make for that. But as the pool of ships and upgrades becomes larger a sideboard makes more sense to potentially allow ships that might have little value in certain matchups to at least be playable. 

Imperial Assault Battle Report: An Attempt on the Emperor's life

It has been months since I've gotten a chance to play some skirmish for IA.  Other games and FFG's silence has made folks uneasy here, and the community wasn't strong to begin with.  But our FLGS is hosting a tournament at the end of the month, and I knew I wanted to go.  So I put together a list that wasn't one of the Palp-Vader lists that's been fairly dominant. 

Palp's Bodyguards (15/15/40)
=======================
[8] Emperor Palpatine
[7] Elite Jet Trooper
[7] Elite Jet Trooper
[5] Riot Trooper
[1] Zillo Technique
[2] Imperial Officer
[10] Elite Sentry Droid
-------------------
[3] Grenadier
[2] Call the Vanguard

[2] Comm Disruption
[2] Overrun
[2] Squad Swarm

[1] Shared Experience
[1] Tough Luck

[1] Brace for Impact
[1] Concentrated Fire
[0] Urgency
[0] Take Initiative
[0] Rally
[0] Planning
[0] Element of Surprise
[0] Disorient

I had originally had the ATDP instead of the eSentries to provide firepower and synergy with the jets for the vehicle trait.  However, sveral folks on the forums convnced me the eSentries were the way to go with their decent range, trooper synergy, and that several cards with the Droid trait also work with vehicles.  I'm running a Comms Disruption instead of Negation because a friend of mine is going to try out the tournament as well, and so he is borrowing Negation. 

My opponent this weekend took an IG88/Onar/2xeWeequays list that focused on hunter cards and just pure damage output. We decided to play hte Mos Eisley Back Allyes mission A

I took the red deployment zone and had initiative first.  The first round proceeded slowly, as I moved up the Riots and a set of Jets down my long hallway to control that crate, the second set to near the center doorway on my side (leaving it closed), and the Sentrys and Palp to the other crate.   He moved Onar up to control the center two crates, and moved IG to take a long shot at one of the Sentries, doing 3 damage.  The Weequays hid behind the door, and the other set moved up and opened their door closest to my long hallway.  I had Call the vanguard and Take Initiative in my opening car draw, so I had wanted to see where he moved to before deciding on over committing.  ALso knowing that door in the middle would open end of round made it for appealing to wait there to go get a call the vanguard, then Take Initative to possibly kill Onar. I tried that, but then he negated my Take Initiative.  I still I thought had to call the vanguard, to try and pile on damage on Onar.  I had also drawn Shared Experience, so I knew one of the Jets would get a good shot during their activation on him.  Call the Vanguard did a few damage, and then Onar rushed one of the troopers and shot him, dealing 5 total damage.  That left Onar exposed though, and I took full advantage with the Jets to kill Onar at that moment and moved them back a bit to force the Weequays out.  IG88 then moved up and took a shot at the Sentry again, doing another 4 damage thanks to Brace for Impact on my part.  He played a little cautiously with IG and pulled him back to behind cover.  My Sentries then went, the wounded one hiding behind Palpatine, and the healthy one taking a long range potshot at the middle Weequays and doing a single damage.  His Far Weequays activated, shooting at my Jet and then Hiding to get the -2 accuracy.

Checking line of sight

My Jets fired back doing a damage to one and missing on the other while keeping their distance.  His last set of Weequays moved up and fired on the Sentry droid, ending up with 7 damage and forcing me to discard Overrun for Zillo.  Palpatine moved up to force lightning, and I was unable to get a shot off with my Sentry.  I should have shifted it a little more into the hallway to start with, so I could get full effect of the Emperor ability.  My Riots then moved up and got into the face of the Weequays on that far side. 

The next round my opponent took the initiative, and popped up with one Weequay to kill the very wounded Sentry droid.  The other one then put 4 damage onto Palpatine. He was able to use shoot the messenger to discard Planning, Comm Disruption and Concentrate Fire.  I also made the mistake of forgetting to re-draw Shared Experience, which is a great Zillo effect card here if I don't want to spend the movement.  Palpatine was forced to go next, used tempt to kill the one Weequay and then zapped the other one before retreating.  IG 88 moved up and killed the other Sentry (again forgetting to draw Shared Experience) and then moved back to a safe distance from my remaining Jets over there.  Those Jets then did move up and finish the remaining Pirate and move into position to go after IG the next turn. The other Weequays attacked the Riot troopers, killing one of them.  With little else to do, the Riots went and did a little damage, followed by his Gideon missing a shot.  My Jets killed one Weequay, and then jumped over the other one to kill 3P0. 

ENtering the final round, I had drawn Squad Swarm and had initiative.  This let me use both Jets to jump in and kill IG, ending the match.  It was a good thing as well, since he had just draw Blaze of Glory and had Assassinate in hand still.It ended at 40-24, and was a good match. 

Overall I like this list.  It has a few quirks that I need to practice with, and I think Next time I would swap the postiion of my Jets and Snetries to hopefully get more usage out of Palpatine. 

Star Wars Armada: Fixing the Station Assault Objective

A couple weeks back Party Potato of the FFG forums posted a topic detailing the popularity of different objectives.  He had garnered the data from the Armada Warlords builder, so it is of course a bit unofficial.  However, there is some good firm data as well as plenty of anecdotal evidence that some of the new objectives FFG introduced with the Correlian Conflict have been duds.

One that needs some real tweaking is Station Assault.  I've written before about this objective, and its still ne of my favorites to try and get to work.  The issue is that far too often the first player will wipe out a station quickly and end up completely negating the second player's advantage.  And many times end up being able to pop both quickly and actually garner and 80 point lead over the second player.  This is likely going to be true moving forward with Cymoon ISDs being able to pretty reliably put out 7+ damage at long range.Squadron wings could always do damage, but now a Sloane list could potentially remove a station in one activation.

So how can we update the objective to bring it more into line with the better Assault objectives, like Most Wanted and Advanced Gunnery?  The most obvious choice is to remove the points scored for the first player. The first player basically starts in an 80 point hole, but can pull a bit more even by removing at least one station.  A second straightforward option is to use at least one armed station card instead.  3 extra hull is nothing to sneer at, and the station being able to trade back a few blows would allow the second player to take advantage of the choice a bit more.  To balance, the stations might need to fire at the start of the round, like how Planetary Ion Cannon works.

The objective could also be changed to allow the stations to be deployed closer together and other obstacles.  Being able to keep them closer to some other obstacles could obstruct more shots and help to force enemy ships to maneuver more to get into a good firing position or open themselves to more fire from the second player.

Perhaps a balance of the first two suggestions would be the best to bring this objective forward.  Maybe drop the points to 30 points a station, and make one armed.  That would at least make it playable going forward with the other Assault objectives.

Armada Casual Play Battle Report: Gladly Decimating VS Leia's Hammerheads

After a far too long hiatus, we finally were able to work in a weekend to get a nice casual game of Armada in.  Since it showed up in X-Wing, I've loved the look of the Decimator.  In Armada when it showed up I was very excited to get a fighter that would be great at burning down generics and also pressure ships.  All too often Imperial fighters are so specialized that you're forced to go down just one route.  The Decimator solves this, although in a very expensive package.  I've put the report after the jump, since this article is going to be long.

Armada Profundity Preview

Fantasy Flight Games gave us a spoiler preview of the Profundity expansion that's coming in wave 7.  It didn't give us all of the details, but it provided some excellent pieces to think about going forward.

The spoiler gave us both versions of the MC-75, the Armored and Ordnance versions.  For 104 and 100 points, we get a ship that has 4-3-3-3 Shields and 9 hull.  That is the best the Rebels currently have to offer, in a package that provides a lot of dice.  The side Arcs have 3 Reds in either version, and either Blue or Black.  The Front Arc is 3 Blue or Black and the rest the other depending on the type.  This is a good set up.  Both ships have a full suite of upgrades, with offensive and defensive slots, as well as weapons teams.  The ordnance version is especially intriguing due to it being the first double ordnance slot ship.  That could mean Rapid Reload and APTs, or the newly spoiled Wide Area Barrage for really punishing ships hanging around your target.  Its also going to possibly be a real killer for Gallant Haven Builds, which rely on keeping the fighter screen close by and having Jan Ors protect the escorts.  The ships maneuverability is on par for a large base ship, so it shouldn't have an trouble at Speed 3 of being able to run down fleeing ships.  The ships true downside does come in the shear number of upgrades it looks to cry out for, as well as the defense token suite.  The tokens match the Interdictor, which means a single accuracy can really lock down your tokens. 

I'm very excited for this ship. I primarily play Imperials, but I've been trying to make a Sato build really work.  This ship will fit right in with Sato I feel, since it can do both long range crits and in close range just chuck a huge number of black dice. Its also going to be very tough with a couple of other Mon Cal ships with the new Mon Cal title. 

Also spoiled was Jyn Erso, a boarding team that introduces a new mechanic: The Raid Token.  Raid Tokens will stop a ship from being able to execute a command that matches the token, so if you're a carrier you're unlikely to be able to be commanding squadrons any longer.  This also is likely to be the new action that we've seen on images of the Mandalorian fighters that are coming in the Chimera pack.

This is a very exciting wave I think that we're about to get.  Hopefully it comes sooner rather than later.

New Armada FAQ thoughts

FFG surprised the Armada crowd yesterday with a quick release of a new FAQ PDF with some new goodies for us.  I'll break it down into major and minor updates.

Major Updates

• Raddus Bomb: In a nice preemptive move, FFG cleared up the questions surrounding the upcoming General Raddus and Profundity upgrades.  The gist of the Raddus bomb had been if you could deploy all your ships into Hyperspace Assault and then pop them all in using the new upgrades to really surprise an enemy and limit your losses significantly.  The answer is no, you must have at least a ship on the table.  Things can still work though if you have just a single GR75 hanging around and then pop everyone else out.
• Thrawn Preemption: Another preemptive update for Wave 7, FFG rules that you won't be able to use Thrawn's dial plus a matching dial from your command stack.  So no 10 squad activation from an Expanded Hangar Bay Quasar.
• Commanders Work if not Deployed: This had been a question before, and FFG has cleared it up.  Commanders and upgrades work outside the game, as long as they aren't missing their timing window.  So an Interdictor with Grav Well Projector wouldn't work in hyperspace since its missing its window.
• Sloane Defense Token Clarification: There had been some question as to whether or not Sloane still allowed a player to spend the defense token she targets with the accuracy result.  The answer is no, you cannot. 

Minor Updates

• Targeting Beacons Nerf: I have only played this objective once, and I'm unlikely to ever play it again now.  The ruling made it so you could only resolve one token on an attack, making it not even worthwhile to stack the tokens nearby to get multiple re-rolls.
• Armed Station: The Armed Station cannot obstruct itself, so it can actually shoot ships and fighters that are overlapping it.
• Leia Tokens: In a not surprise move FFG also reiterated that you cannot spend a physical token in addition to using Leia's token while resolving a command.
• Jendon Attacks: In what isn't a surprise, FFG ruled the extra attack a fighter can get from Col. Jendon does not receive any boosts from Flight Controllers or future upgrades.  
• Admiral Screed: In what could become a major rule change with the right upgrades, Screed was ruled to be able to use his ability during any activation.  Currently the only case of this would be if you used Quad Laser Turrets.  But it does open up the space for a potential Overwatch type effect.
• RLB and token: Rapid Launch bays can only set up as many squads as you can activate, so using a token lets you do 1, not your whole squad value
• Luke Skywalker: Someone must have tried some dumb shenanigans, since this ruling really wasn't needed.  If a crit effect like Shield Failure occurs, Luke's ability in RAW could mean you wouldn't take any damage.   
• Flechette Torpedos: This question stemmed from a dumb argument months ago.  Flechette Torpedos toggle you activation status, but they do not just end your activation (another Quad Laser Turrets issue). 
• CC Commaders: Geneal Dodonna received a slight nerf to his ability in the all out offensive, where you need to pick one opponent to use his ability against. Admiral Konstatine got a slight boost though in that both players can use his ability.  

This was a good FAQ I think.  Its a good sign FFG was out front on several upcoming wave questions, and that they cleared a backlog of questions. 

Star Wars Armada: Governor Pryce thoughts

With football season winding down, my focus has started to move back towards my gaming group and actually getting to enjoy some of the games (Do not fear, NBA and NCAA Rankings are forthcoming shortly).

IN Armada, we've finally started to see a slow drip of news, this week with the coming form of Governor Pryce.  The wookiepedia article linked gives a basic overview of her character form the Rebels TV show, noting how determined she is to get revenge at some points and how well she plays the polticial game.  This I think fits her ability quite well:

She forces a medium or large ship to activate last in a pre-named round.  This is a truly huge possibility for making sure your BT Avenger gets to first last its target, or that your Quasar gets in a late alpha strike against your opponents fighters or a careless flotilla. She is also good for either pushing back the engagement by forcing your opponent's typical first last ships to wait an extra turn on their attack run or risk getting stuck in a double arc.  Your opponents will have to play around that moment in the game.  This could be very good for contested outpost or salvage run where you can grab an extra turn of objectives by threatening a specific area.

I think a few Victory builds might want her, where she might help battle carrier Vic 1s make an alpha strike and wait for that opposing ship to jump into close range.  A pumped up Vic 2 might also want her for a bit of a surprise on turn 2 if your opponent plays an aggressive list or to help deter them from rushing an objective.  But I do think the ISD is going to be the one that really wants her.

The ISD platform also helps to make up for the drawback Pryce presents for a player, namely that your opponent knows in which round that ship must activate last.  This means they know they can set up an attack run from Demolisher or Admonition and get away without you necessarily getting a shot. Luckily an ISD is a tough nut to crack, so that helps.  I also believe it is going to be key to pair your ISD with some escort ships that can take advantage of ships trying to jump in til near the end.  Victories can punish ships trying to skirt around and out-wait the ISDs activation.  The Interdictor can bring in a targeting scrambler and keep the ISD up, especially if you are first player.  It also might help to bring back some of the Rogue units the empire has, specifically the Decimator.  Any ship getting close enough might be eating a few three blue dice attacks. 

I think Pryce is going to be one of the high skill use cards.  Her exact usage is going to take the right combination of objectives and builds to make work.  I'm excited though to test her out a bit, and see what she can do to help battle the activation advantage.

Armada Store Championship Report

It had been awhile since any store nearby myself had decided to run any events for Armada.  But the Village Geek up in McPherson was holding a store championship, so a friend of mine and I drove up.  I had been prepping by playing around with a pretty standard build out these days, featuring and ISD2 and a tooled up Victory 2.

Motti's angry triangles  (398/400)
============================
Imperial II-class Star Destroyer (120 + 25)
+ Gunnery Team (7)
+ Reinforced Blast Doors (5)
+ Leading Shots (4)
+ XI7 Turbolasers (6)
+ Relentless (3)
Victory II-class Star Destroyer (85 + 50)
+ Admiral Motti (24)
+ Minister Tua (2)
+ Gunnery Team (7)
+ Disposable Capacitors (3)
+ Leading Shots (4)
+ Quad Battery Turrets (5)
+ Reinforced Blast Doors (5)
Raider I-class Corvette (44 + 7)
+ Ordnance Experts (4)
+ External Racks (3)
Gozanti-class Cruisers (23 + 2)
+ Comms Net (2)
 

Ciena Ree (17)
Valen Rudor (13)
Saber Squadron (12)
 

Most Wanted
Contested Outpost
Solar Corona

I decided to go with the Reinforced Blast Doors because I had thought there would be a lot of heavy carrier wings.  RBD does a bit better against fighters due to ECM having almost no chance to come into play for most attacks.   It also I think does better against some black dice destroyer builds due to the fact that they typically will be lacking a lot of accuracy generation (as H9s seem to have died down following the Lifeboat flotilla rule change). This would end up being pretty critical though, and making me think I need the ECM still on Vics.  I did think Cienna and Valen provided a good speed bump thanks to Valens ability not to get shot, and Cienna's obstruction, both along with scatters.

There were 5 total players at the store this weekend, which meant someone was getting the bye each round.  I was paired with a guy named Josh for the first round, who was running a similar list to mine but a second Gozanti instead of the Raider, and a few more squads.  He chose first player, and picked my COntested Outpost.  I deployed towards one corner, with Josh deplying similarly with his ISD further towards the middle.  He played his ISD aggressively forward, jumping on my Raider and destroying it early.  My counter fire was lackluster thanks to his ECMs keeping his braces going.  His dice were hot as well, as I think almsot all of his shots that he pulled with Leading shots cranked up the damage to 6 or more.  Josh had said his original list had an extra TIE, but he dropped it to get leading shots on both ships.  I made a mistake at this point, and slowed down my ISD to avoid a double arc shot from his ISD, and sheild my Vic a bit.  What I needed to do was speed up actually, and try to reposition my ISD after the beating it had started to take.  This would have allowed me to kill his Victory and second Gozanti, while keeping the station from scoring points.  Needless to say, the rest of the game continued with him wearing down my ISD and Vic and myself not getting to punch back hard enough.  Josh ended up with a 10-1, and I was sent to the bottom of the pile.

The second round saw me play my friend Rob with whom I had driven up with.  Rob and I had traded games back and forth the previous few weeks as we tweaked our lists and got ready for the tourney.  He was running a dual Glad, dual Raider list with a Gozanti and a variety of squadrons.  He tooled his Demo up a bit differently than I would have, choosing External Racks over APTs, and leaving one of his Raiders without OE to be able to get in Tempest and Gamma squadrons.  I had also convinced him he needed to fit in Maarek Steele to pair with Col. Jendon, which I was unhappy to now be facing.  I chose to be first player, and we played Rob's Planetary Ion Cannons.  I deployed all of my ships tightly, with his Demo and Raiders flanked out to my left, and Insidious to my far right.  I ended up sending my ISD to prevent Insidious from flanking me, and after a previous week where I was unable to get my ISD around quickly enough to counter Demo I decided I would just chase down his flanker.  A few key moments came when I removed Maarek Steele early in turn two, and then Rob jumped Demo up a bit early.  This allowed me to put the hurt on it, and then activate first the next turn and roll the exact amount of damage needed to pull him off.  This though allowed Insidious to escape, and left my Vic hurting a bit.  I then failed to get my Victory out of harms way by just barely clipping my Gozanti, which allowed the Raider with External Racks to strip shields and put on some real damage.  Rob ended up getting my Vic, but not until I had taken out another Raider and used some flak to clear most of his squads.  I ended up with a win by just 39 points, so I sat at just 7 tournament points.

I had a bye the last round due to my low score, but I got to watch both of the other games.  The other lists that were there were Jacob running a triple ISD 1 list, and Donovan who had an MC80 Liberty with an AFMk2 and a bunch of squadrons.  Rob ended up crushing down Donovan's fleet, while Josh made several pretty bad mistakes to take a 5-6 loss.  This meant Josh was still able to walk away as the champ, with Rob following in second, Jacob in third, myself in 4th and Donovan in 5th.  Everyone walked away with the range ruler and a host of other prizes.

Overall it was a really good day of Armada.  Everyone was friendly and looking to chat about the game.  I think despite the low turnout, the game is in a good place in terms of folks being excited about playing and getting better.  The store up in McPherson is also a first rate shop, with a friendly staff and a good clean atmosphere.

My takeaway was a need to be a bit more aggressive with my ISD.  I tend to run my ships a bit too closely together, which in both of my games made sure that I had tough positioning challenges.  I was happy with my Vic's performance, reinforcing my idea that the Vic 1 is dead as a ship but that Quad Batteries and Disposable Capacitors are making the Vic 2 an excellent fire support ship.  An earlier version of this list had Moff J as my Admiral, and I'm wonding if I should go back to him.  I missed the extra flexibility of those two clicks several times. 

FFG's bad Armada FAQ model

FFG produces great games.  I was never a miniature gamer until a colleague at work got me into X-Wing. It was soon after that that Armada took my interest away.  I love the tactical choices the game presents, and the wonderfully intuitive system makes the game easy to pick up and go. However, like most FFG games Armada has a lot of complexity in how different upgrades and abilities interact.  The FAQ model they follow should be good enough in theory.  It allows the designers to weigh in on and explain several interactions that are tricky, and it codifies them for all tournament purposes.

The issue arises though, that the folks at FFG don't publish an FAQ very often.  Or at least, not in a suitable timetable.  Let's take the prior wave, where we had Rapid Launch Bays sitting in limbo.  The card was poorly worded, so there was a great debate as to whether or not squadrons that were launched were activated, or if they were actually forced to sit idly by.  It took nearly 6 months for this question to get answered.  This update was followed by a small quick update to errata several cards.  However,it failed to give any answers for two new interactions in this set.  The Marshal for GenCon posted a now infamous thread about how he was going to rule how Admiral Sloane's ability interacted with squadrons, and how Task Force Antilles would stop damage.  Once you got past the initial reaction of lists being somewhat neutered. the real outcry about these rulings stemmed from the fact that it was not an official FFG ruling.  The Marshall had come to this conclusion by talking to play testers and other folks who concluded that they should work this way.  This process produces poor outcomes for a pair of reasons.  The first, is the possibility for nefarious action.  Marshalls and TOs making rulings on cards  by interpretation leaves the opportunity for them to do so in a way that could favor certain players.  As the prize support for Armada grows in value (ie $200 plus dollars for tournament dice), the risk of this happening grows as well.  Secondly, it creates a wildly different play environment at possibly every tournament.  A TO at this tournament supports RAI, while the one at the shop down the street supports RAW.  It creates a position where players cannot build effective lists, and the game will suffer for it.  Why go to a tournament not knowing if your list will be legal and effective?

FFG should amend their FAQ process in a couple of ways to help ease this pressure.  The first way would be to have a full spoiler preview a month and a half or more before the release.  This would give the player base more than enough time to concoct questions and issues with the upgrades known.  The next would be to shift the timing of FAQs.  FFG typically has two release a year, at which point a small update to the FAQ should happen that has an explanation of how each upgrade works.  ROughly halfway between these releases should be another FAQ update that serves as a general update and can make proper modifications to the last wave.  This type of schedule would allow lots of opportunity to tweak rulings and would keep the player base happier.