In the intergalactic battles of Star Wars™: Armada, you’ve used fleets of massive capital ships and nimble squadrons of starfighters to lay waste to your opponents and win the space battles of the Galactic Civil War. But now, you’ll have the opportunity to expand your fleet battles to new heights—in anticipation of the upcoming Super Star Destroyer Expansion Pack, the Star Wars: Armada development team has put together a new set of rules to support larger battles than ever, including multiplayer games of up to eight players!

Today, developer Brooks Flugaur-Leavitt joins us to introduce the Sector Fleet rules (pdf, 3.4 MB) and how they can bring thrilling new formats to your games of Star Wars: Armada!

Brooks Flugaur-Leavitt on the Sector Fleet Rules for Star Wars: Armada

The Star Wars: Armada development team is excited to release Sector Fleet, a new set of optional rules if you want to play games at larger fleet point totals! Here, you’ll also find the rules for multiplayer games involving as many as eight players, organized into two teams each led by a Grand Admiral.

These Sector Fleet rules are an evolution of those used for large team battles at some Star Wars: Armada events in the past, as well as in The Corellian Conflict campaign expansion, but the concept took on additional importance with the development of the Super Star Destroyer, our biggest and most impressive ship yet. The most powerful variants, the Executor I and Executor II-class Star Dreadnoughts, were designed to portray the Super Star Destroyer as the thematic centerpiece of a massive battle. The capabilities of these Star Dreadnoughts already exceeded the limits of standard fleets, and of course, you’d want to field additional warships alongside them, so some framework for larger battles was needed.

In writing the Sector Fleet rules, keeping them compatible with the existing systems of Star Wars: Armada was one of my foremost considerations. The objective system that gives players control over the conditions of their battle, adds a lot of nuance to Star Wars: Armada, and it’s one of the game's greatest strengths. As such, all standard objectives can be included in Sector Fleet games, and the same 3' x 6' play area is used. Although the size of fleets is not unlimited, our largest games of Sector Fleet have featured an Imperial fleet of several Imperial-class Star Destroyers led by an Executor-class Star Dreadnought and accompanied by an escort of smaller ships and squadrons, all matched against a Rebel force of equal size!

Additional rules for two-player games have been kept to a minimum, covering only altered setup areas and fleet-building restrictions to keep game lengths manageable. Although there are few new rules, increased point limits is the defining feature of two-player Sector Fleet gameplay, and will give plenty of cause to re-examine older cards and tactics. Your larger fleets will interact with existing abilities and objectives in new ways, such as in the brutal head-on confrontation created by the reduced setup area of Blockade Run!

The bulk of the Sector Fleet rules is devoted to multiplayer games with as many as four players per team. Veterans of The Corellian Conflict will recognize many elements drawn from the All-Out Offensive scenario, but the adaptation of those rules for standard objectives and the expansion of the Grand Admiral role offer new opportunities for gameplay.

Teamwork between allied players will be key to victory, while the new rules for Grand Admirals resolve high-level gameplay decisions quickly and keep multiplayer games from bogging down in strategy debate. The role of Grand Admiral has been expanded, with one player on each team assigned responsibility for the order in which teammates activate and the resolution of any team-wide effects. Players still control their own ships and squadrons, of course, but this new dynamic adds even greater depth to team games as each individual fleet's situation is balanced against the team's priorities.

We hope you're excited to play even larger games of Star Wars: Armada with your favorite fleets, and we look forward to seeing the epic battles you fight!

Brooks Flugaur-Leavitt is the youngest developer in the miniature games department and started with FFG as a playtester before working in the warehouse for several years. Since becoming a developer in 2017, they have worked on Star Wars: Armada, X-Wing™, and Runewars Miniatures Game. In their spare time, they are an avid miniatures enthusiast, historical wargamer, and medieval re-enactor.