I was nearly positive that when they teased about an announcement it would be a campaign box of some sort, and well I'm excited. I have had my problems with The Corellian Conflict, but it sounds like they are trying to address the issues with this new campaign namely: Snowballing if the teams are unbalanced, and most games just feeling like another game of Armada at least to me and don't feel like it tells a story.
With "eleven new campaign objective cards" I am hopping each game will be a little bit different then a standard game, and maybe feel a little more story driven then Corellian Conflict was. The statement "Play a series of narrative scenarios through 3 acts." and that this was also developed in tandem with FFG's RPG department gives me hope.
Probably one of the most exciting statements for me is "brand-new mechanics for building your own unique commander. Rather than having a commander upgrade card attached to your flagship, you will name your own commander, adding them to your roster sheet, and choosing an ability like Repair Expert or Independent Raider to specialize your commander at the start of the campaign. Then, over the course of your battles, you can spend experience to keep developing that ability until your commander is a true master of their field." Its basically character creation, I am not sure how robust the system will be but with the RPG team helping to develop this I have high hopes, all of this makes me excited to play an Armada Campaign again.
Okay so outside of the campaign what does this give us, well quite a lot actually lets look at this what is coming in the box for standard play games.
We are getting twelve new standard objective cards, sure this may not sound like anything to wright home about, but its give us 50% more objectives to choose from. With new objectives new play styles and builds become viable as there is more synergy in the lists. I was actually supersized at how much the objectives from CC changed up the the game, made the game a little more interesting. A few of the objectives have been spoiled and we will probably look at them another day, but for the few that we have seen I got some Ideas running around in my head.
We also get to "improve your forces with 28 available upgrade cards" from what I can tell most ships come with 14 upgrade cards, so this is the equivalent of two ships worth of upgrades, I am not sure what all is in the box, but we got Sabine Wren, who adds a whole new concept to this game the idea of doping proximity mines.
I am hoping that other cards will let ships drop mines that would be a game changer in area denial and could really shake things up build wise.
We also have Iden Versio who is really going to up the durability raiders have especially against fighters; Instigator with her on board will be a bit of an annoyance for fighters.
We can see a few more things that are coming in the box in this spread:
in the bottom right spread see a new title for a Victory, this could mean we are getting titles for several other underutilized ships as well, and I know I will try to make the Victory title work its got gorgeous artwork so it has to work.
We can also see that there is an upgrade card that is not unique, I can't make out what it is I think its "something hanger bays" it has me a bit worried like how many of these should I order, to make sure I got all I need, but also has me hopeful for that generic proximity mines card.
We also have this "this campaign expansion also presents you with eight unique squadron cards to help lead your fleet if you have the Rogues and Villains Expansion Pack in your collection." So we are getting more aces for the YT-2400, YT-1300, HWK-290, and the Scurrg for rebels, and the Firespray, Aggressor, YV-666, and Jumpmaster Just a few aces can really shake up the fighter game and with 8 incoming well it might get turned on its head. We know two of them Lando and IG-88B. I was really hoping for stuff from fighter packs II, but I have a feeling it is in the works, so I can wait, but lets look at the two we know about:
Okay so IG-88 I guess has made like 4 replicas of himself to help him escape some factory, but IG-88B is apparently the one in Empire Strikes back, but my Star Wars knowledge is pretty vague on the subject of IG-88 so if that is wrong I am sorry. anyway he is really good, but you have to set him up and keep him alive so your opponent is going to see the insanity coming and will be able to respond. IG-88B reminds me of a old movie my dad made me watch when I was a kid.
We also got Lando, and let me just say I love the design of this card (props Nathan). Its just so Lando, he gets around that scatter token, he can also be quite tanky as well; he is a solid one man show. Its to bad Lando does not get his braces back in someway, but clever and wise use of his tokens I think will make him a very solid squadron.
We also get "new obstacles to challenge your piloting skills and create an immersive gameplay experience as you maneuver through treacherous areas of space, filled with Exogorths, Purrgil, and Gravity Rifts!" So these things really play into the objectives, but all that means is more variety in the game for us, I'm quite excited to see more obstacles with different effects even when just adding in dust fields with some objectives just make the game seam a little different and a little more fresh.
Maybe someday we will look more closely at what we have coming in this box set, but we know so little right now, but I do feel that this box will probably have about as much impact on the game as a normal wave we are getting just as many upgrades as a two ship wave plus some more squadrons, and to top it off we have more objectives to help diversify fleet building, sure we are not getting new ships to push around, I would love to have some, but I think we will start seeing more ships that are uncommonly seen on the table, and more diversity in builds when this box set drops, and I think that is what most people want in a customizable miniature game, more options and this gives us just that. Have a wonderful week everyone!
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