It's been a while since I posted anything from the Ambler Gamers. Sporadic meetings and my own laziness have all but killed this blog. But last night we met up for a game of Star Wars Armada. It was my first dip-of-the-toe in this game. I was familiar with SW: X-Wing. Despite some superficial similarities, Armada turned out to be nothing like X-Wing. While in many ways it was more complex, we all agreed that it felt just like a SW space battle, with lumbering capital ships and swarms of light ships and fighters trying to score an advantage. Scott provided the miniatures, and Joe provided the expansive playing space.
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| I'll say this right off the bat: Armada is the most visually impressive sci-fi space combat game I have yet played in. |
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| Big ships hovering above the table...I wonder if anyone has made a stop-motion film of one of their games? |
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| Here's my command: the bad boy Star Destroyers in the center of the Imperial fleet. They pack quite a punch to the front and can take a crap-ton of abuse, but I quickly learned that they have vulnerabilities, too. |
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| We imperials had a hella lotta TIE fighters. Fun in swarms, but they are just as fragile as in the movies. |
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| Both sides seemed to have the same idea: peel off ships in the center to get a local advantage. We randomized initiative instead of using the standard rule. It produced some nail-biting moments as commanders pushed their ships into the sights of the enemy. |
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| My biggest Star Destroyer caught Joe's frog-like non-canonical vessel. The command system was fun in that we had to think hard about our priorities in combat. Launching a fighter strike at the right time can be devastating. |
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| Mark and Jeremy sparred with smaller vessels to my right.Mark quickly gained an edge with a devastating strike against Jeremy's cruiser. I tried to get Jeremy support, but my lumbering ship was too slow. |
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| Yes. Yes we are seriously going into an asteroid field. Never tell us the odds. |
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| A shot towards the end of the game. We called it around 9:00. The rebels had lost some significant tonnage, but they had taken a heavy toll on the Imperials. Both of my Star Destroyers were in bad shape, and a serious salvo could have taken out either. Had we played to the conclusion, I'm not sure there would be many survivors... |
