We attempted a Star Wars: Armada game as part of our bi-weekly TableTop group (Huber Tabletop), which met with mixed success. Since there was a lot of interest, I had decided to up the typical fleet size from 400 pts to 800 pts, so that we could easily handle multiple players per side. What I didn’t account for unfortunately is that most of the players were novice commanders, so rules had to be explained, and with double the fleet size, it brings double the setup time (which is already lengthy for Armada). My son and I arrived an hour early, and were still setting up the Empire fleet when everyone else showed up. 90 or so minutes later, and we were finally able to start.
Unfortunately, our session was only scheduled until 7 PM, and with explaining rules, demonstrating how to move ships, and generally teaching the game to 5 of the 6 players, after 3 hours we had only barely finished 2 turns of the game. We counted up the points, and it was actually a rather close game, despite the destruction early on of several Rebel ships.
The good news is everyone had a lot of time, and I think a few of them might be better prepared to play again in the future – assuming we keep the fleets to a more manageable size.
