Carrier Armada?

[Nerroth]

Hi.


I was talking about this on the legacy BBS, but I wondered if any of the forum regulars here had any thoughts on the idea.


Now that there is a range of fighter minis for various Alpha Octant empires, I was thinking about whether it might be feasible to either modify pre-existing Starmada rules, or create whole-cloth ones, to represents these units (either individually or in squadrons) in Klingon Armada.

If such rules turned out to be feasible in terms of game design, perhaps KA might be a way to give carriers and fighters a fast-play option that even Federation Commander (outside of Borders of Madness) might find more cumbersome to operate?

Indeed, if it was relatively easy to factor in fighter-based seeking weapons to an Armada handbook, that might leave the door open for players to buy drone and plasma miniatures for use with the appropriate attack craft...



So, would a 'Carrier Armada' sound interesting, if it could be made to work smoothly enough?


(Also, if it was viable, might it be best to put such rules in with, say, a future battleship module, or would it work better as a stand-alone?)

[mj12games]

The short answer to your question is:

Yes, this would work quite well, and should allow for fast-playing carrier battles.

[Nerroth]

Sounds promising.


With that in mind, would any of the regulars here find such an idea to be of interest?

[Steve Cole]

You write it up, Daniel, and I'll print it.

[Nerroth]

It's hard to get more hopeful a sign than that!


(Daniel, if I may ask, does Starmada usually treat fighters as individual units, or abstracted into squadrons?)

[mj12games]

(Daniel, if I may ask, does Starmada usually treat fighters as individual units, or abstracted into squadrons?)

In the basic, unmodified Starmada game, fighters operate in "flights" of 6. Options provided allow for players to custom-build flights containing between 4 and 8 individual fighters.

However, the decision to place the lower limit at 4 is purely arbitrary -- there is no reason you couldn't treat each fighter as a separate unit. But that would get a bit tiresome, IMHO...

[Maxtype]

I would also be interested in Carrier Armada!

[Nerroth]

(Daniel, if I may ask, does Starmada usually treat fighters as individual units, or abstracted into squadrons?)

In the basic, unmodified Starmada game, fighters operate in "flights" of 6. Options provided allow for players to custom-build flights containing between 4 and 8 individual fighters.

However, the decision to place the lower limit at 4 is purely arbitrary -- there is no reason you couldn't treat each fighter as a separate unit. But that would get a bit tiresome, IMHO...

I see.


Well, if there are no individual craft, perhaps each miniature could be abstracted to count for as many (or as few) actual on-table fighters as necessary?

(I think of an example seen in Classic BattleTech and BattleForce. Each mini of a given unit counts as a single unit in CBT, but as a formation of units in BF.)


Although, I will say that in this setting, you generally would have a kind of cap in terms of how many fighters and carriers would be on the table - and only the Hydrans (in the Alpha Octant, at least) would use casual fighters as a matter of course.

So, if it can be scaled down to allow for individual fighter units, that would probably be alright, in terms of on-table use.

[Rich Stokes]

As an old Full Thrust player, I was right at home seeing fighter flights.

Can't wait to see more ships, however they get published.

[terryoc]

I'm thinking that fighters as flights would be more in line with the Starmada design philosophy, and as such should be adopted. KA is not about recreating SFB, it's about "how would SFU ships look in Starmada?" In Starmada, fighters come in flights. SFU ships generally have squadrons of 12 or half-squadrons of 6 fighters. So a six-fighter flight would fit in nicely. Hydrans could be an exception, but IIRC all Hydran ships have fighters in multiples of 3, so giving them a larger number of weaker squadrons should work.

And besides, the main customers for KA are players who want something Trek but don't want the detail of SFB (or even FC).

This is just my personal opinion, of course. However, from what I've seen of Starmada, it's a kick-b*** game system and if you try it on its own merits without preconceptions, you'll find that you like it as it is.

[Nerroth]

Usually, Starmada books are based on FC modules - so the squadron and fleet boxes seen in FC are usable with the Starmada modules.

However, as we know, there is not much of a place for carriers and fighters in vanilla FC.


So, after looking at these two examples, I was thinking that if we ever do get a 'Carrier Armada' module, maybe the ships and fighters included could be tailored to fit these boxes instead?

[Steve Cole]

If Daniel will do it, i will print it. If Daniel needs something (copy of product) to do it with, i'll send it.