A Call to Arms: Noble Armada Examined
July 21, 2011 by beerogre
Andy and Darrell kick off another episode of In the Spotlight. If your a member of backstage then you'll have see us working on the space board that features in this video. The guys discuss A Call to Arms: Noble Armada and give you the lowdown on what's good whats great... and just how they think they can break the game.
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All I can say is, I looked at this game and got quite curious about buying some, and you two wonderful cheese finding guys have made me want to buy a couple of starter sets and get playing it. Thanks guys!
Maybe a review of Malifaux?
The Fading Suns universe is a fantastic RPG setting reminiscent of Dune, 40k, and standard fantasy. perhaps one of the best turn based strategy games to ever grace a computer came from this setting. Emperor of the Fading Suns which takes place in the history of the Fading Suns universe where all the noble Houses battle it out to become emperor. Noble Armada was to be there second video game but never made it past demo stage as far as I can tell. The original rule set for the table top miniature games was an entirely different animal from what… Read more »
lol..similar to 40k?? dont you mean 40k is rip off/similar to most scifi?. Dune and Starship Troopers always loom over anything sci fi…and dont forget Asimov
Fading Suns is indeed an interesting sci fi take, wasnt even aware it influenced this game
Looks interesting but im a bit of a full thrust fan (from gzg) but i had my head turned by Firestorm Armarda(not bought in yet) so ill keep half an eye on this one to
Thanks for your coverage of this game I would really like to see you guys do a battle report. As for other games I would like you guys to do Firestorm Armada.
nice spot light guys. I personaly would love to get your thoughts on Firestorm Armada, from spartan games.
carrier plus 8 fighters is 230pts and fighters cannot enter battle without carriers.
what you have to know about fighters is that their weapons are weak, this means they cant actually hurt a ship unless someone has taken its shields down 1st and they also get -1 to the attack table meaning no crits and bulkheads on 1-2.
bombers can hurt ships but cost twice as much and have to reload between shots.
gatling lasers can also shoot down fighters ignoring the dodge, so if you surround a ship with gatling lasers it will shoot some fighters down.
@katadder – I planned to take 9 carriers and 60 fighters… I also plan to make them cluster around my carriers, using that rule… the name escapes me at the moment. The carriers concentrate fire on one enemy ship to take the shields down (and maybe damage it), one the shields are down the rest of the carriers concetrate fire on another ship to remove shields… at the end of may turn (when the fighters activate) I active 60 of the things, each with a 3 dice attack & 4+ dodge save to attack the ships with their shields down…… Read more »
see thats where you are playing wrong. the fighters move at the end of the movement phase, not activate at the end of the turn. and thats a 2070pt fleet against which using my hawkwood for example I will have 1 battleship, 1 cruiser, 5 destroyers, 1 frigate and a scout. they can actually shoot your carriers without even being in your fighters movement range. lets play the numbers using my broadside and turrets that i get for a turn before you have even launched all your fighters (as you start with 4 launched and launch 2 per turn). from… Read more »
@beerogre your 9 carriers if li-halan have 36 AD in one broadside so thats not bad though but mostly against hull 5 ships so with accurate 18 hits. really expecting alot from your fighters.
especially as their guns are weak so get -1 on the attack roll meaning cannot crit (and most big ships die to multiple crits) and roll more bulkheads than other ships. assuming all 60 managed to attack a battleship at once and didnt die to any gatling lasers thats 40 damage average. hurt but not even crippled or lowered in fighting effectiveness due to no crits.
look out for the new expansion later this year for more difference between the fleets as they start to get more variety as well as adding more fleets to the game
Nevermind that… get me the Star Trek version!
agreed, its coming. just have to make sure it stays trekkie 😀
Yeah, fighters are a viable option, but there are many others as well. The problem with the fighter swarm would be you’d need to knock down the target ship’s shields, as stated by katadder. And this might work for a round or two, but the opposing player will be destroying your carriers during that time. With a group of hull 5 destroyers opposing your hull 4 carrier ship the destroyers will eat the carriers for lunch. That, IMO, is the cheese with the game. Destroyers.. point for point there really is no other better ship for damage output and sustainability.… Read more »
decados destroyers being one of the best IMO. recently won a tourney and used a decados destroyer fleet wiping out dreads, cruisers etc
Definitely agree with markdawg and wolflord about wanting a Firestorm Armada video. I think the ships look much nicer than these ones and would like to see what the rules are like.
To be honest I think a brief into to the game tactics then a demo would be better than an all out cheesefest though, that can come as the second video :).
firestorm armada is a very good game also, not sure which is better out the 2 but as I have a longer standing with call to arms in all forms I tend to side with that. plus it is cheaper.
FA ships are really nice though and I have 2 fleets for it.
Seeing as how Adam and Darell are wrong about the cheese they found maybe the should do a correction. Katadder is a Noble armada play tester for mongoose so I would take what he says over 2 guys that just skimmed the book. BoW grossly miss characterized this game with this video and unless people read katadder comments they would never know that BoW is flat out wrong. Don’t get me wrong I have said things on air that I have been flat out wrong.I even did so on last weeks show. I just hope you guys make a correction… Read more »
A Call to Arms is a great game system… however it certainly suffers from the problem many games do… which is spam players (i.e. Darrell and I)
No sensible player will field 60+ fighters (even if they are 10pts each compared to a 300pt ship!)… we proxied ours using plastic tiddlywinks… mine were pink! :D.
What we are highlighting is that the game is fun and deep. Now that we have shown the extreme (or absurd) level at which the game can be played, everyone else is free to play it properly.
“What we are highlighting is that the game is fun and deep. Now that we have shown the extreme (or absurd) level at which the game can be played, everyone else is free to play it properly.” And that seems to be the reasoning behind some Games Workshop games as well. “What do you mean a dual-lash army is cheesy? What kind of players would abuse the rules like that?” Sadly, too many players would… You might argue that players should play the game properly and according to fluff. And I’d agree. But as long as spam-lists are allowed in… Read more »
@warworksdk as pointed out in various posts the spam-lists mentioned by the reviewers dont actually work.
CTA is a very good game system and easy to play with most lists being balanced well (especially as for now everyone has access to pretty similar ship types)
It’s Andy by the way… but I’ll not hold that against anyone. 😉 I don’t think we mischaracterised the game… once again… we pushed the rules to their limit. When a model is 10pts and can damage a 400pt model… I think I want lots of 10pt models. I would also like to thank Bow for covering this game as I would have never known about it without the wonderful service BoW provides. There’s no need for flattery, we do this because we love gaming and we want to see the industry thrive. I love the RPGs from Mongoose publishing… Read more »
a 10pt model cannot damage a 400pt one though. not unless something else has lowered the 400pt models shields 1st and carriers really will die horribly so dont rely on them for more than one turn (especially if you take 9 loaded with fighters thats 2070pts which will not last long at all).
you didnt push the rules to their limit, you played them wrong by the sound of it, so no problems there 😉
Let me calculate again…
@katadder – might I ask by the way… is there a rule that states fighters must be deployed from a carrier?
Or that that their number is dependant upon the number of carriers or ships that can deploy fighters?
Can you give me the page of the rulebook that’s on?
I’m not being snide… it’s neither Darrel nor I could find it… so we just assumed you had to have ships that can carry fighters in order to field them.
Page 88 under fleet lists it does say that fighters can only be taken if on board carriers so correct assumption.
for your fighter fleet to work it will take 2 turns to launch them all (4 launched per carrier to start and 2 per end phase after that) so you will not have the full lot launched until end of turn 2.
Andy I Disagree if you read what katadder has posted here you guys seem to be wrong about fighters. You did go on and on in the video about fighters and how you broke the game to be fair.
I just want you guys to have more coverage of this game please do a demo game for us you made that board you might as well.
wouldnt take just my word as a playtester 😉
but try it yourselves, may work against each other to start but when you face an experienced player you will have to change ideas and wonder what to do with the other 8 carriers you have brought.
i do like look of noble armarda but does seem inbalanced
It’s not imbalanced if you play it properly and go for sensible ships… but 60+ fighters is mad… but fun!
its not too imbalanced as most fleets currently have similar ships and as discussed earlier the 60 fighter fleet wouldnt have a chance against a real fleet.
Personally I wouldn’t touch this with a barge pole…
Due to:
Starship Troopers
B5
Battlefield Evo
mongoose had there chance I’m not going to invest in a system that could just die with no warning, now I’m sure its pretty much the same as B5 but firestorm has the edge in my eyes.
noble armada is not a time limited license like B5 and SST and ACTA is their biggest seller so will not flop like BFevo.
the same applies to Starflleet ACTA when that comes out. its not time limited.
you name 2 licenses that expired and had nothing to do with mongoose and one where they had QC problems on the prepaints in china so out of their hands.
firestorm is a good game but I prefer the CTA rules system (although i do play both).
the systems I mention are the only ones of note, I’m not even going to start on Judge Dredd skirmish system, yet again another wasted oppertunity,
I used to be a real “fanboy” of the mongoose brand but after repeated delays with models and some of the strangest business decisions that I’ve seen, I’m looking to see what happens in 18 months…..
@evans970 i believe they are working on the dread skirmish system atm and the rules are free.
Hmmm… I had an eye on this, but now I think I’ll pass. Sounds like a cheese-fest…
Anyway… What I thought was really lacking from this video was a comparison with other similar games: mainly Battlefleet Gothic and Firestorm Armada.
Way too much attention on fighters and marauders – not enough attention on the game itself and how it compares to similar games…
@warworksdk as easy to play as BFG (original B5 ACTA game had alot of ideas from that).
good systems compared to firestorm armada. ships are cheaper but not as nice admittedly (although some real nice ones).
its not a cheese fest, unfortunately the guys reviewing it dont actually know the rules properly yet so make it seem like a cheesefest but what they say doesnt actually work.
Whether the game can be played the cheesy way or not, you will always have to agree with your opponent what is allowed in a game. I you play an opponent that mostly comes to the table with 60 fighters and their carriers, I would have to pass on playing the game after 1 try. Having to fight 60 fighters might be fun once, but twice or more, i don’t really think so. He won’t find to many players to fight against. Think that with mutual agreement you could come up with some sort of scenario rule that limits the… Read more »
apart from if he brings 60 fighters you will win, read other comments dont just listen to what these guys say as they dont actually know the game
I read the other comments, will order the game soon, that way I can find out for myself.
Just a question about the shipmodels. What is theirs size in inches or cm ?
The largest Decados ship the dreadnought comes in at 4 inches even. Most ships are smaller.
http://i197.photobucket.com/albums/aa21/uttaus/GEDC0266.jpg
decados dreadnought next to a ruler.
meant to just put the link not the image sorry
Glad you liked the game – we’ve had great fun with it, for much the same reason; it’s simple and fun to play around with different concepts. Thanks for the review. Comments – fighters/burn-out weapons seems like a nice plan, but be warned that the dreadnought will get its guns off (because you have to shoot with a laser squadron first), and a dreadnought’s broadside + turret mounts can easily pulverise a couple of carriers a turn. Add in the gatling lasers – which fighters can’t dodge – firing defensively and I think you’ll take more of a bloody nose… Read more »
vuldrok are not immune to burn out weapons. they just dont lose their armour to them.