So, having recently gotten Star Wars: Armada, my son got hooked on it about as much as me, so we've been playing a few games over the past two weeks.
Today, we played our first 400 points game. I played Rebels: an mc75 ordnance cruiser, an mc30 scout frigate, a cr90a, a CR90b and the four x wings from the base game. He played Imperials with an ISD1 and carrier upgrades, an Interdictor with the two upgrades that could slow down nearby vessels and that created that speed-zero-zone when placing ships and lots of squadrons.
This was our initial setup. I navigated the cr90s quickly over to the the two mcs, the isd got stuck in the asteroids and the two mcs destroyed the Interdictor in turns three and four.
Here's the deal though... After that happened, I quickly glanced at his cards, figured I had a comfortable lead over him and simply left. Turns four and five were essentially just me stepping on the gas and getting away from his isd.
The whole game felt just so... I dunno, boring? Anticlimatic? It was one turn ramp up, one and a half turns of space battle and finally three and a half turns escaping and no fighting.
Is that really how the game turns out? Are we missing something? Forgetting something?
We had an objective in play that gave additional points to critical hits that were scored. Which, in turn, meant that withdrawing the ships would also keep those points from being scored. Using other objectives might turn out better though, we'll have to pick better ones next time, I guess.
I do like the 6 round limit on general. It helps avoid an endgame where it's clear who won but you still have to keep playing.
I see! Well, I hope your future games turn out more interesting. And if not, honestly, no harm in tinkering with a boardgame until it's fun, if the base ruleset isn't.