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 Kriswall wrote:

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
I'm less interested than I should be after the treatment of the EU. Yeah not all of it is good and well thought out (Yuuzhan Vong come to mind. *shudders* Blech) but I still love a lot of it.
They make a Revan or Nihilus or Bane figure they'll have me on board for sure and I'll buy those.

It does seem strange they didn't make everything prepainted though.

It's only strange if you're not familiar with table top war games. It's significantly more strange to see a table top war game come with prepainted minis.

For Star Wars, prepainted would've made more sense. With other mini games (or even board games with minis, like FT: Zero and Zombicide), you never really needed those painted.

To sum up, the hurdles for this game as I see them. This is purely an opinion piece.

1) Limited scope for different factions. Much of the old EU is gone. Some is coming back of course (Thrawn, Nogghri for instance)

2) FFG's typical release schedule. Few, far between. Compared to their competitors in the market they're entering here, they risk being left behind there. Though in fairness, there's a massive assumption on my behalf that a larger gap between releases will be of detriment. It may not be.

3) FFG's supply chain. That's the main 'threat' to Legion's success. X-Wing really suffered from thIs in the early days. Sure, you can get the cards and counter elsewhere, but if you can't get the models? Given it often takes months for stuff to be restocked, that's a serious hurdle they need to overcome. But, for all I know they have got that licked for this game. Time will tell.

I don't recognize Nogghri off the top of my head, but it's nice to know that Thrawn is back.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:


3) FFG's supply chain. That's the main 'threat' to Legion's success. X-Wing really suffered from thIs in the early days. Sure, you can get the cards and counter elsewhere, but if you can't get the models? Given it often takes months for stuff to be restocked, that's a serious hurdle they need to overcome. But, for all I know they have got that licked for this game. Time will tell.

It was nice if it was only on the early days. My FLGS owner would be real happy if that was the case. Either that, or Portugal just gets the short end of the stick when it comes to FFG resupplies. (I don't play X-wing, but I frequently talk with him, and he mentioned how sometimes it's really, really hard to get any product at all)

UK seems to have that issue as well. Or at least had.

I got out of X-Wing over a year ago, so can't really say my info is up to date.

 Mad Doc Grotsnik wrote:
To sum up, the hurdles for this game as I see them. This is purely an opinion piece.

1) Limited scope for different factions. Much of the old EU is gone. Some is coming back of course (Thrawn, Nogghri for instance)

2) FFG's typical release schedule. Few, far between. Compared to their competitors in the market they're entering here, they risk being left behind there. Though in fairness, there's a massive assumption on my behalf that a larger gap between releases will be of detriment. It may not be.

3) FFG's supply chain. That's the main 'threat' to Legion's success. X-Wing really suffered from thIs in the early days. Sure, you can get the cards and counter elsewhere, but if you can't get the models? Given it often takes months for stuff to be restocked, that's a serious hurdle they need to overcome. But, for all I know they have got that licked for this game. Time will tell.

1... Armada works very well with 2 factions. X-Wing works very well with 3 factions (technically, it has 5, but 2 are compatible with 2 of the core 3). Not every table top game needs 40+ factions like 40k. I would argue that 40k has way too many factions which causes some core balance issues. I'd also be shocked if we don't see a 3rd faction covering "Scum & Villainy".

2... As has been mentioned before, for any given faction, FFG has a MUCH quicker release schedule than a company like Games Workshop. I play predominantly Imperials for Armada. I know I'm going to get a couple of releases per year. For 40k, I play predominantly Necrons. Will I see a new model kit for Necrons in 2017? 2018? The time between same faction releases with Games Workshop is horrible for most of their factions. FFG has a much better release schedule when you factor in that they aren't supporting 40+ factions.

3... This is a potential issue, but not an uncommon one for new product releases. Even Magic the Gathering had shortages when it was first released in the early 90's. Between generally having access to multiple FLGS's, online retailers, FFG's own webstore and other sites like eBay, it's fairly rare nowadays to not be able to buy an FFG product somewhere. At least in the US. Then again, FFG is a US company. I would imagine its harder to get product in general in other countries.

Then by all means try to purchase a K-Wing at the stock price right now. Sure, you'll find some anecdotally, but not in great numbers.

I'm a yuge fanboy, but even I have to grant that stuff being manufactured in the UK and sent out from there makes its way to retailers a lot faster than having to negociate a production slot with a Chinese factory, then having that stock sit on a boat for 2 months and then spread out from the US. I don't know how many people have given up on buying said K-Wing at this point, they just hope it'll get nerfed in the meantime.

That could be the biggest hurdle to any of their games' continued success.

Not all stuff manufactured in the UK is fast to arrive. Frostgrave takes months to restock, as do many Renedra-made minis and accessories. I don't know if Mantic is hard to restock or if local stores just still refuse to order more in.

Slayer-Fan123 wrote:
I don't recognize Nogghri off the top of my head, but it's nice to know that Thrawn is back.

Thrawn's personal bodyguards from the original EU trilogy.

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
Then by all means try to purchase a K-Wing at the stock price right now. Sure, you'll find some anecdotally, but not in great numbers.
.

Depends on were you are
My LGS has at least 5 of them laying around
but there is also not a huge tournament scene here

 Kriswall wrote:

1... Armada works very well with 2 factions. X-Wing works very well with 3 factions (technically, it has 5, but 2 are compatible with 2 of the core 3). Not every table top game needs 40+ factions like 40k. I would argue that 40k has way too many factions which causes some core balance issues. I'd also be shocked if we don't see a 3rd faction covering "Scum & Villainy".

Sorry, but I'm really going to have to disagree with you on that one. Armada has a severe issue with factions as everyone wants to be The Empire. When I saw tournaments being held in my area I had only seen two rebel players at the occasional time. in about 8-12 player tournament everyone wants to be Empire because no one can resist a good Star Destroyer. There was overly lots of mirror matches. I don't even think Scum will even mix things up, they didn't in IA and I would see no different in Armada. If they did Clone Wars that would give them so much more to work with.

That's not actually an issue unless you're saying there's imbalance between Rebel and Empire?

If players are simply choosing what they like, that only a problem for hardcore fluff bunnies who can't divorce playing a game based on an IP and the IP's stories themselves, and it isn't like a healthy percentage of 40K matches aren't fundamentally mirror matches of different flavours of power armour as well.

The difference is that 40k (and most other wargames settings) are designed to make battles between any two factions (including the same faction) thematically appropriate.
In Star Wars, by contrast, having Star Destroyers on both sides simply isn't something that's ever shown, unless you're a reasonably hardcore fan who's dug into the EU (and into the bits of the EU that are out of print, to boot). It's narratively unsatisfying. If I'm not playing a game that looks and feels like Star Wars, then there's no appeal.

X-Wing at least has the fallback that the game is fun; Armada, IMO, is too clunky and slow (and like Legion, falls very far short of the scope implied by the title ) to be fun as an abstract game.

"Training Exercise"

Done.

Tournaments aren't the place to be worrying about narrative anyway.

 The Warp Forge wrote:
Armada has a severe issue with factions as everyone wants to be The Empire. When I saw tournaments being held in my area I had only seen two rebel players at the occasional time. in about 8-12 player tournament everyone wants to be Empire because no one can resist a good Star Destroyer

And 40k has so many factions with a lot of possibilities and on tournaments you always meet the same list from the same faction

On a 12 player tournament having 10 of them with Girlyman, is not better than the X-Wing/Armada issue

So what is played on tournaments has nothing to do with how many factions are available

 Azreal13 wrote:
"Training Exercise"

Done.

Tournaments aren't the place to be worrying about narrative anyway.

Which is why I don't go to them. The problem still arises, that everyone I know wants to play the Empire. If I'm reduced to "it's a training exercise... again" to explain the game, then the game has lost my interest, unfortunately. "My commander has rebelled against the Empire" is marginally better, but doesn't really fit into the Star Wars we all know, and when it's Darth Vader on one side vs Wilhuff Tarkin on the other, doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

If you like the game, fair play to you, and I hope it does well enough to hang around. It doesn't appeal to me, though.

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
Then by all means try to purchase a K-Wing at the stock price right now. Sure, you'll find some anecdotally, but not in great numbers.

I'm a yuge fanboy, but even I have to grant that stuff being manufactured in the UK and sent out from there makes its way to retailers a lot faster than having to negociate a production slot with a Chinese factory, then having that stock sit on a boat for 2 months and then spread out from the US. I don't know how many people have given up on buying said K-Wing at this point, they just hope it'll get nerfed in the meantime.

That could be the biggest hurdle to any of their games' continued success.

Anecdotally, the two shops I visit regularly have them in stock right now. I was unaware that there was a shortage. Then again, I don't play much X-Wing. It's possible that my shops sell more FFG than other shops and are getting a higher allocation of restocks. I frequently hear of retailers complaining that they can't get stock when the reality is that their distributor is simply prioritizing available product to their other accounts who buy more X-Wing stuff (or whatever product line). The result is that Store A is perpetually out of stock while Store B always has product on the shelf. The distributor perpetuates this.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 AndrewGPaul wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
"Training Exercise"

Done.

Tournaments aren't the place to be worrying about narrative anyway.

Which is why I don't go to them. The problem still arises, that everyone I know wants to play the Empire. If I'm reduced to "it's a training exercise... again" to explain the game, then the game has lost my interest, unfortunately. "My commander has rebelled against the Empire" is marginally better, but doesn't really fit into the Star Wars we all know, and when it's Darth Vader on one side vs Wilhuff Tarkin on the other, doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

If you like the game, fair play to you, and I hope it does well enough to hang around. It doesn't appeal to me, though.

Sounds like your area is simply an anomaly. If you go to any sort of major event, you tend to see a mix of Imperial and Rebel fleets. It's rarely going to be 50/50, but it's also rarely going to be 90/10. If your area is consistently 90/10, you have a local player issue, not a game issue. Same thing happens with 40k when everyone wants to play Space Marines. In my area, 80% of the 40k guys play Imperial, 10% play Chaos and 10% play Xenos. I play Xenos. The overwhelming majority of my games are versus Imperials. It gets boring, but it doesn't mean 40k has a faction issue. It means I need to play with different people if I want variety.

Having said that, Armada simply isn't a narrative game. You get a mission objective card, but that's it. If you need a narrative, you'll need to provide it and not expect your opponent to necessarily be interested. If one faction consistently is chosen over the other across most major events, then you have a balance issue... not a narrative issue. I think Legion will also not be a narrative game. Just like Armada, we'll have mission objective cards. That's your narrative. Go stand by those crates. End of narrative. Try not to die. You're a Stormtrooper and those other Stormtroopers are shooting at you? Presumably, their leader (who looks suspiciously like Vader but can't be Vader as Vader is right next to you) probably told them to go stand by the same crates.

I don't think Legion will appeal to 40k players who avoid competitive play and spend most of their time coming up with names and detailed histories for each of their Space Marines. I think it'll appeal to the competitive 40k crowd who have no problem with Dark Angels and Space Wolves in the same army (they actively hate each other in the fluff at this point) if it gives them an extra sliver of a chance to win.

 AndrewGPaul wrote:

 Azreal13 wrote:
"Training Exercise"

Done.

Tournaments aren't the place to be worrying about narrative anyway.

Which is why I don't go to them. The problem still arises, that everyone I know wants to play the Empire. If I'm reduced to "it's a training exercise... again" to explain the game, then the game has lost my interest, unfortunately. "My commander has rebelled against the Empire" is marginally better, but doesn't really fit into the Star Wars we all know, and when it's Darth Vader on one side vs Wilhuff Tarkin on the other, doesn't stand up to scrutiny.

If you like the game, fair play to you, and I hope it does well enough to hang around. It doesn't appeal to me, though.

Nope, not a fan of Armada, or, more precisely, I didn't get enough out of a demo game to warrant the fairly substantial investment it seems to need to unlock its full potential.

My point is that criticizing a game for mirror matches when we're discussing it in the context of 40K which also, by dint of there being so many Marine players, also generates a lot of mirror matches, and probably a lot of cookie cutter lists in tourney play as well, when it's a result of player choice rather than faction imbalance isn't all that strong an argument.

I'm looking forward to taking this miniature and giving it guns. If a new game system made that "feel right" like 40k, and makes it usuable (which 40K doesn't really with the decline of Counts as), I would switch. Otherwise, not happening unless someone else gets really into it and there are lots of fun games to be had. Then I'll play just about anything.

 kestral wrote:
For me the reason a star wars game will never replace 40K is the modeling. 40k's genius was the way it encouraged people's imagination to take flight during the early days by being both very open and very derivative. Invent your own IG regiment? Awesome, I'll get right on it, there are a zillion possibilities and lots of models you could incorporate. These here are my Chinese IG led by this Sun Zhu general figure I gave a chainsword and these are my banners with calligraphy.... . Invent your own stormtrooper company.... ...err, Ok. These are my special stormtroopers with nightfighting gear. No where near as interesting. Limited scope for creativity. Unless you can make your own obscure or wholly invented alien army I don't see much that I'd like to do. GW is foolish to try to shut down scratchbuilding and counts as - the game itself is not all that great.

I think you greatly overestimate how much the general game playing population cares about this.

What % of the player base makes up their own SM chapter? How many of those do more than a new paint scheme? Most players pick a faction, buy the game, build the models, and play with little or no thought to any custom anything.

 Kriswall wrote:


Anecdotally, the two shops I visit regularly have them in stock right now. I was unaware that there was a shortage. Then again, I don't play much X-Wing. It's possible that my shops sell more FFG than other shops and are getting a higher allocation of restocks. I frequently hear of retailers complaining that they can't get stock when the reality is that their distributor is simply prioritizing available product to their other accounts who buy more X-Wing stuff (or whatever product line). The result is that Store A is perpetually out of stock while Store B always has product on the shelf. The distributor perpetuates this.

They have been almost impossible to find in the whole province, even MeepleMart has been sold out since at least june. Whenever Paul Heaver kicked it up a notch with a Miranda+Sabine build. I had to sell one of my own in order to fulfill a commission paintjob. So it's not just one distributor, FFG is out of them too. Your shops must have had them for a while. And that can break a game that is in its infancy.

 Azreal13 wrote:
That's not actually an issue unless you're saying there's imbalance between Rebel and Empire?

If players are simply choosing what they like, that only a problem for hardcore fluff bunnies who can't divorce playing a game based on an IP and the IP's stories themselves, and it isn't like a healthy percentage of 40K matches aren't fundamentally mirror matches of different flavors of power armour as well.

Technically yes and no.

I agree its appears just to be player choice that Imperial appears to be taken overwhelmingly but at the same time with 40k whilst we do get different flavors of PA, the rules are different to give us a variety of different playstyles with said PA. Imperial you can only do Vader, Thrawn and Tarkin so many times before you see it as exactly mirror matches. One of the main criticisms I saw in 40k on this very forum was that in 6/7th ed. tournament players would travel from one side of the USA all the way to the other side, picked up Tau-Dar and all they did was fight the exact same list upgrades and all and they found that really boring. This is not a matter of narrative that other people have stated but more about replay ability and repetition. One of the great thing about wargames is that most people may have a core and then wiggle room to play around and ,make their list unique. FFG does not appear to do this on the competitive level due to how many exact mirror matches there are in Armada. You can only play so many times before you are either waiting for new stuff or just get bored, just like how competitive 40k players were back in the age of Tau-Dar.

No ones begrudged about people playing with what they like if that means that the playerbase overwhelmingly play Empire, however adding in say The Clone Wars I personally feel would give the game the much needed variety that people would want, not to forge narratives but to give a variety of models and dynamics that could make every game even more interesting, Empire Vs. CIS I can see already as a popular choice as well as Republic Vs. Scum, heck if we even delve into the TV series we could even get Mandalorians such as The Deathwatch taking on the Rebels, Pre Visla Vs. Chewbacca, Cad bane Vs. Boba Fett, etc. Captain Rex up against Darth Vader would make little narrative sense but tactics and replay ability-wise this would add so much more dynamism to make a tournament enjoyable to so many and avoid a potential pitfall of repetition the game could fall into.

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:

 Kriswall wrote:


Anecdotally, the two shops I visit regularly have them in stock right now. I was unaware that there was a shortage. Then again, I don't play much X-Wing. It's possible that my shops sell more FFG than other shops and are getting a higher allocation of restocks. I frequently hear of retailers complaining that they can't get stock when the reality is that their distributor is simply prioritizing available product to their other accounts who buy more X-Wing stuff (or whatever product line). The result is that Store A is perpetually out of stock while Store B always has product on the shelf. The distributor perpetuates this.

They have been almost impossible to find in the whole province, even MeepleMart has been sold out since at least june. Whenever Paul Heaver kicked it up a notch with a Miranda+Sabine build. I had to sell one of my own in order to fulfill a commission paintjob. So it's not just one distributor, FFG is out of them too. Your shops must have had them for a while. And that can break a game that is in its infancy.

I'll take your word for it. No idea who Paul Heaver is. Sounds like a player did well with a particular build and then all the net listers broke FFG's supply chain temporarily for a ship that previously have low demand. My heart goes out to those poor, poor net listers.

It's a good ship, made better by the recent addition of more bombs in the game. It's super hard to handle, though. I had to practice for almost two months before I could reliably get my bombs off where I wanted them.

 Kriswall wrote:

I'll take your word for it. No idea who Paul Heaver is. Sounds like a player did well with a particular build and then all the net listers broke FFG's supply chain temporarily for a ship that previously have low demand. My heart goes out to those poor, poor net listers.

This is a real problem though. The big differentiator for the FFG Star Wars games is that they provide a solid competitive scene where GW have always been weak. A competitive scene doesn't work nearly as well when players can't get the models they want.

 Scott-S6 wrote:

 Kriswall wrote:

I'll take your word for it. No idea who Paul Heaver is. Sounds like a player did well with a particular build and then all the net listers broke FFG's supply chain temporarily for a ship that previously have low demand. My heart goes out to those poor, poor net listers.

This is a real problem though. The big differentiator for the FFG Star Wars games is that they provide a solid competitive scene where GW have always been weak. A competitive scene doesn't work nearly as well when players can't get the models they want.

Have there been other issues, or is this the only real/recent example? I don't tend to hear people complain about not being able to get X-Wing or Armada product for an event. Every store I go to looks to have a full X-Wing/Armada section.

I would argue that, regardless of occasional product shortages, a competitive scene with consistent, official rules in all venues is superior to a competitive scene where each event requires a 'tournament pack' detailing the local house rules to be used and where table/terrain layout can be wildly inconsistent. You can't walk into Joe's Shmoe's House of Games and play a 'standard game' of 40k that would be more or less identical to the game you'd play anywhere else. You CAN walk into any gaming store and play a standard, as expected game of X-Wing or Armada. Legion will be like X-Wing and Armada in this respect.

 Kriswall wrote:

 Scott-S6 wrote:

 Kriswall wrote:

I'll take your word for it. No idea who Paul Heaver is. Sounds like a player did well with a particular build and then all the net listers broke FFG's supply chain temporarily for a ship that previously have low demand. My heart goes out to those poor, poor net listers.

This is a real problem though. The big differentiator for the FFG Star Wars games is that they provide a solid competitive scene where GW have always been weak. A competitive scene doesn't work nearly as well when players can't get the models they want.

Have there been other issues, or is this the only real/recent example? I don't tend to hear people complain about not being able to get X-Wing or Armada product for an event. Every store I go to looks to have a full X-Wing/Armada section.

I would argue that, regardless of occasional product shortages, a competitive scene with consistent, official rules in all venues is superior to a competitive scene where each event requires a 'tournament pack' detailing the local house rules to be used and where table/terrain layout can be wildly inconsistent. You can't walk into Joe's Shmoe's House of Games and play a 'standard game' of 40k that would be more or less identical to the game you'd play anywhere else. You CAN walk into any gaming store and play a standard, as expected game of X-Wing or Armada. Legion will be like X-Wing and Armada in this respect.

Yes, it's happened a bunch of times and you then end paying a good bit over retail to get them, if you can get them at all.

The X Wing stock issues are being slightly misrepresented.

Essentially, back in the day, the game grew exponentially in a very short time, meaning FFG simply didn't have the capacity to meet demand. They very quickly started expanding that capacity, but for a while they simply couldn't make enough models to fulfill initial demand. This probably reached a head with the Falcon, which was wave 4 or 5? I saw one listed in eBay for something like 4x RRP, and it sold too.

As time has gone by, demand has normalized and the increased production has come online, and it has been very unusual for the same situation to occur, but because global re stocks come in waves, you do occasionally get a spike in demand between waves of a given model, meaning availability dries up for a while.

But the issues that plagued the game in its early days are much mitigated.

This isn't something any company is immune to, as anyone who plays Tau will remember with the update that featured the Riptide.

 Azreal13 wrote:
The X Wing stock issues are being slightly misrepresented.

Essentially, back in the day, the game grew exponentially in a very short time, meaning FFG simply didn't have the capacity to meet demand. They very quickly started expanding that capacity, but for a while they simply couldn't make enough models to fulfill initial demand. This probably reached a head with the Falcon, which was wave 4 or 5? I saw one listed in eBay for something like 4x RRP, and it sold too.

As time has gone by, demand has normalized and the increased production has come online, and it has been very unusual for the same situation to occur, but because global re stocks come in waves, you do occasionally get a spike in demand between waves of a given model, meaning availability dries up for a while.

But the issues that plagued the game in its early days are much mitigated.

This isn't something any company is immune to, as anyone who plays Tau will remember with the update that featured the Riptide.

Gotcha... so this is largely a non-issue. FFG is just as susceptible as any other company to surprise spikes in demand.

Arguably they're worse off from them. And that's due to them getting stuff made in China.

If something GW sells out, I know I can typically get my hands on it in a week or three.

FFG? You're talking months in some cases.