In brief, Imperial Crusade: Armada is sort of like a cross between Federation Commander and Battlegrounds:Fantasy Warfare but with mechanics and features unique to the game (and plays much faster than FC)
Plastic ship cards are moved around the table in place of miniatures and the ship statistics are kept right on the cards which makes it nice. You can see the damage, abilities and weapons available right there without having to go over to your opponent's side of the table and look at his array of ship charts like in other games like Federation Commander or Battletech.
Dry erase markers are used to mark boxes to allocate power to weapons, use sensors for Targeting or to Jam it, or to influence initiative.
Waves of Imperial fighter tokens give a real feeling of being overwhelmed though they drop quickly under sustained fire of the Star Republic's Hydra Lasers.
It doesn't get very deep or complex but that's a good thing in this case as it plays fast and furious which was the designer's intent.
I've played a few games with only 3-4 ships that took from 5-15 minutes and a few games with 15 ships that took 30min to an hour. Give an extra half hour for rules explanation as always, but it's pretty easy to grasp.
Sleeve the cards and then you write directly on them with erasable marker and use a q-tip to wipe off restored boxes. It works great!
Some players use blue-tack and play the game on their wall which is really really cool - I'd recommend laminating the cards first if you decide to play that way.
There's a kickstarter up until 5-9-12 for the next expansion called Imperial Crusade: Freedom and I'm sure then that's over the files will be available here as well.
http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/139696320/imperial-crusade-freedom-another-unique-space-comb?ref=live
If you decide to buy this (for $2 it's a fantastic deal) be sure to also get the Imperial Crusade:Armada Missions. I haven't played them yet but it's FREE
The backstory is interesting, I'd really like to see it expanded upon though as I LOVE theme.
Pros: Fast playing even with many ships, all info is right on the cards, FEELS like a space battle should feel.
Cons: Needs a lot of table space (not a problem for me just pointing it out)
If anyone has played the Roleplaying game based on this universe please leave a review as I'm interested in trying that out too
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