Summer Star Wars Games

During the summer I spend a lot of effort keeping my son busy (i.e., off his tablet in Roblox land), much to the detriment of my own writing and game design projects. Amid our usual goals and diversions – more frequent walks in the park, a short vacation, the admonitions to read actual books, weekly day trips – we’ve been attempting to game more often. Not as much as I’d like, of course, but I’ll take one or two after-lunch gaming sessions a week if I can get them. He’s getting to the age where he can comprehend the rules without me having to streamline them into a kid-friendly format; but his interest in various historical periods or media properties primarily drive his engagement in related games. This influenced our choice of games. It also encouraged me to take a brief respite from designing my current roleplaying game project (The Mage-Blight Hills) to revisit some basic skirmish rules I set aside a while ago.

As an end-of-school/start-of-summer treat I bought the Republic and Separatist starter sets for Star Wars: Armada (at a nice price thanks to a sale at Noble Knight Games). It was a good incentive to clear off the wargaming table and start some summertime gaming. (My “bad dad” joke is that Star Wars: Armada takes up a lot of “space”....) We’ve already played a few engagements and added some large ships to the mix, trying different combinations of upgrade cards and various tactics. My son shares my love for most things Star Wars, but favors the prequel Clone Wars era over my preference for the “classic” Rebellion era. Hence my purchase of new starships in spite of our decent collection of craft from the original trilogy.

A recent trip to a local game store brought Star Wars: Shatterpoint to his attention; he easily spotted the huge box among the Star Wars game shelves and couldn’t miss the large demo set-up in one corner displaying all the cool bits within. I’m sure the high-production-value contents warrant the $165 price tag (though for that amount pre-painted minis would have been nice); but it’s not something I’m buying. I have only so much patience for games with new, complex mechanics and numerous fiddly bits like upgrade cards and tokens.

Still, my son likes his Clone Wars stuff and enjoys gaming in that era. Every time we’re in a collectibles store he looks for clone trooper figures to add to his collection. We bought Clone Wars Risk years ago; while I am not a fan of Risk on its own, iterations like this one implement engaging new rules elements inspired by the media, and I enjoyed it more than I expected. I’d previously bought and painted for him a squad of clone troopers and battle droids from the Star Wars: Legion minis line (apart from the different rules and the need to release yet another expensive game line, I don’t understand the need for another similar miniatures game like Shatterpoint). We’d played with them using some skirmish minis rules I’d drafted during the pandemic, a modification of my Skirmish Kids rules under development, and he enjoyed the experience. I’ve been thinking about these rules recently, possibly driven by his interest in Shatterpoint and my yearning for a set of more basic skirmish rules.

I designed the game two years ago seeking an easy set of rules (like Panzer Kids) to involve young players in skirmish wargaming. (I’m not thrilled with the Skirmish Kids title, though I can’t seem to think of a better alternative.) On re-reading my draft I was mostly satisfied with the rules presentation but remembered a few issues I wanted to redesign. Rather than offer movement and range measurements for both 25-28mm and 54mm figures, I should just list those for the smaller scale with a sidebar note to double them for larger toys (even though I prefer 54mm figures like those from Armies in Plastic). I want to rework how close combat functions: rather than have one round of combat determine who wins and who dies, allow it to embroil both combatants for a round or two...before determining its deadly results. Given skirmish gaming’s emphasis on small units, every soldier should count; the 1d6 resolution system I was using didn’t allow much leeway for modifiers like cover, quality of training, armor, or special abilities. Thinking along these lines I realized I should modify the process for taking hits. Originally players removed from the game a target hit with a ranged attack or one losing a close combat contest. As I mentioned above, I’m looking at drawing out close combat so it is a little more involved than a single contest (yet remains costly; the loser still dies). But with ranged attacks I’m having second thoughts. The advantage to taking out targets comes in denying them further action that turn (if hit before they’re activated). Rather than eliminate them, they go down, lose any action they haven’t taken that turn, and then stand a 50% chance of getting back up at the beginning of the next turn. Kind of a saving roll against death to keep a few more combatants on the field, making the game a bit longer, and keeping things a little more interesting.

Once I implement some of these revisions – and modify any related rules – I’ll test them out with a version customized for Star Wars: Clone Wars action, much as I tested the original rules with an engaged audience. While my son might enjoy trying the historical rules out with some World War II Japanese soldiers and US Marines I painted for him years ago, he won’t hesitate to set up his clone troopers and battle droids on a tabletop strewn with my plentiful Star Wars themed terrain.

Star Wars: Armada Addendum

I don’t see myself reviewing games as much as featuring them...and even then I don’t do it too often. Since I mentioned Star Wars: Armada above I wanted to provide a few personal insights into it, not all of which conform to my general philosophy of remaining positive on the internet.

Overall it’s an engaging game for Star Wars fans. It does a good job simulating capital ship combat and fighter escort action. Armada shares some similarities with the X-wing miniatures game: the pre-painted models look fantastic; players use templates and ship bases to measure movement; proprietary dice offer interesting combat results; damage cards keep track of hull point hits and critical damage effects; and players can use a host of upgrade cards to alter and enhance rules to their advantage. The core sets come with everything needed to play (in separate faction starter sets: see below), including two small and one medium ship, four fighter squadrons, command and speed dials, measuring tool, obstacle markers, cards for ship stats, upgrades, and damage, and the seemingly innumerable host of tokens one expects with these sorts of games. Played on my homemade sparkly-fabric starfield mat the pre-painted fleets look most impressive.

The game, however, raises some concerns for me. The price is steep but justifiable for the original classic-era set (around $120 MSRP), which includes two Rebel ships and one Imperial ship; but to field a Republic and Separatist fleet players need both pricey boxes ($110 MSRP each) rather than one starter set with ships from both factions. (I realize this isn’t an issue when each player purchases just one fleet of their preferred faction, though it makes the game unplayable without that particular friend’s toys.) The boxes for supplemental ships seem huge compared to the components. This provides some challenges for storage for those who collect the game as well as brick-and-mortar hobby shops seeking to stock and display the game line. With a little forethought a good engineer could have reduced that packaging to half size while still fitting all the components and offering a good view of the starship model. The smaller ships use X-wing style pegs to mount on the bases: not all of them fit well and many break easily with the slightest bump (and that’s a pain to fix with glue alone). Like X-wing the mass of upgrade cards can easily overwhelm younger players or newcomers. Heck, even I overlook half my upgrades in the heat of battle.

My nit-picking criticisms emerged after playing the game a few times (aside from the price issues, which a timely sale helped mitigate). Overall it’s an enjoyable game that makes the most of the Clone Wars backstory, characters, ships, and equipment. Although I don’t know much about the period beyond a few personalities who appear as starship commanders (Count Dooku, Bail Organa, Obi-Wan Kenobi) my son revels in fielding people and equipment familiar from his adoration of the Clone Wars cartoons and his immersion in the prequels.