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I believe it has been officially stated that the fighters will not be painted.

There are four ways to "pre-paint" a plastic model:
1. Multi-colour injection moulding as seen in the better Gundam kits.
2. On sprue masked spraying as seen in the large scale Revell Star Wars kits.
3. After assembly spraying/drybrushing as seen in X-Wing.
4. After assembly brush painting for detail.

The fighters are so small, they would have to be done using method 4 exclusively, which naturally is the most expensive.

However when you see the fighter models, they can easily by touched up by the player using a wash and a few dabs of colour to make their detail stand out, and will look really good en masse.

So I think it is a good compromise on cost and value.

The game is shaping up like medium size WW2 battles involving carriers, planes and some battleships or cruisers.

rtb01 wrote:
Based on the fact the starter is pre painted dont you think the fighters will be painted, they're just showing what they've done?...

Nope, says right in FFGs announcement:

Meanwhile, even though the squadrons in Armada aren't pre-painted like the capital ships, they are presented in colors intended to complement their fleets.

I played the demo at the FFG booth today, and I really liked what I saw.

-There is no initiative, you just activate one cap ship after the other, starting with Rebs. Fighters get activated after that, though one of the orders you can give a cap ship is to activate all fighters in a certain range at the same time as the cap ship so they go early, and different ships activate different numbers of squadrons.

-Cap ships get to fire up to twice (from 2 different facings), and then move. Range stick works pretty cool, and demonstrates inertia adequately.

-No defense dice, all caps (and ace fighters like Luke and Howlrunner) get special tokens to represent defensive systems, like "ignore all damage from one attack", halve damage from an attack", "evade", "redirect power from shields", etc. There is a simple mechanic where if you use tokens in consecutive turns without letting them rest, you "burn out" the system and it can no longer be used. Special attack results can stop a player from using defense tokens during that attack.

-Squadrons have a super short "engaged" range, but actually move quite far and have special rules per-squadron, like attacking TIE's get to reroll a die is they are attacking a target with another TIE already engaged with it. On top of that, Howlrunner gives other squadrons an extra die to roll, too.

I am definitely getting it.

Oh, and Howlrunner's a woman according to the squadron card. Did not know that!

Did they mention any balancing mechanics that kick in if say, the rebels are taking giant swarms of smaller cap ships (as will probably be the norm?)

I mean, the Imperial player could have what, 2 VSDs and 1 Gladiator SD while the rebels have 6+ corvettes. After the imperial player has taken his turn with 3 of his cap ships, the rebels could have 3 more uncontested moves.

 AegisGrimm wrote:

Spoiler:

I played the demo at the FFG booth today, and I really liked what I saw.

-There is no initiative, you just activate one cap ship after the other, starting with Rebs. Fighters get activated after that, though one of the orders you can give a cap ship is to activate all fighters in a certain range at the same time as the cap ship so they go early, and different ships activate different numbers of squadrons.

-Cap ships get to fire up to twice (from 2 different facings), and then move. Range stick works pretty cool, and demonstrates inertia adequately.

-No defense dice, all caps (and ace fighters like Luke and Howlrunner) get special tokens to represent defensive systems, like "ignore all damage from one attack", halve damage from an attack", "evade", "redirect power from shields", etc. There is a simple mechanic where if you use tokens in consecutive turns without letting them rest, you "burn out" the system and it can no longer be used. Special attack results can stop a player from using defense tokens during that attack.

-Squadrons have a super short "engaged" range, but actually move quite far and have special rules per-squadron, like attacking TIE's get to reroll a die is they are attacking a target with another TIE already engaged with it. On top of that, Howlrunner gives other squadrons an extra die to roll, too.

I am definitely getting it.

Oh, and Howlrunner's a woman according to the squadron card. Did not know that!

That all sounds really good!

One of the big things is I saw is that the Victories can really, really pound the crap out of the smaller Reb ships, especially at close range.

I'm sure there are deeper mechanics they didn't go into for the demo.

I know one of the special orders any cap ship can do is repair damage, at least.

 Vertrucio wrote:
Did they mention any balancing mechanics that kick in if say, the rebels are taking giant swarms of smaller cap ships (as will probably be the norm?)

I mean, the Imperial player could have what, 2 VSDs and 1 Gladiator SD while the rebels have 6+ corvettes. After the imperial player has taken his turn with 3 of his cap ships, the rebels could have 3 more uncontested moves.

That is a balancing mechanic in itself. The Imperial ships are a lot more powerful, but slow to react, so the Imperial player must manoeuvre carefully to avoid the Rebels slipping a couple of ships in to an unprotected position from which they can deliver a severe attack.

 Vertrucio wrote:


Bob, get, the F*** over it.

It's a starter box. Starter boxes won't be entirely balanced because it's just too small a number of ships. It's like expecting a starter box in any other game you play to be completely balanced.

Second, it's 2 smaller ships, backed up by the best space superiority fighter. Just look at the demo and see how much better the basic X-Wings are to the TIE fighter squads.

Third, it's a god damned space fantasy, and if you want to talk authenticity, there's plenty of instances where they show a small number of fighters blowing up star destroyers left and right.

Alright. I've had some time to get over the sticker shock. However, it still offends me as much when FFG price gouges their customers as when GW does it. They are practically taunting us, "We can slap the Star Wars brand on a box, double the price, and you'll just lap it up like the salivating dogs that you are." I'm tired of being cynically priced out of games by manufacturers I've supported for years.

Besides, I'm not the only one whom you should be haranguing. Other would-have-been customers have problems because the scale has issues, the mechanics don't represent what we saw in the movies (although it might work for the jettisoned EU novels), the "armada" aspect is three ships and some fighters, the fighters aren't painted, and now the prices are just shocking. Maybe the next let down will be the one you have a problem with. Keep in mind that I was positive and 'defending' the product at first, too.

Yeah, I will probably stop paying attention to this product forever now. If they had simply posted the prices immediately, I might never have developed any interest at all and never would have posted in the first place. Kind of a dick move springing them on us like that.

Lastly, fine, you've made your post known. So go buy and play other games instead of incessant, childish whining over what amounts to toys. I mean, you keep coming back to this thread to bring the talk back to your incessant whining, then there's better things to be done with your life.

Heck, FFG and Star Wars doesn't need any defending from a nobody like me. You don't like what they're doing with it? Start your own multimillion dollar gaming company, outbid them for the license next time it's up for grabs, and do it the way you want to.

I'm guessing you've never had a problem with any company that has treated its customers in any questionable manner? Good for you.

If you think my behavior is childish, how do you explain your last sentence?

Back on topic, the box price most likely will be £75 in the UK, which is on a par with other FFG boxed games like Rune Wars and Twilight Imperium III.

You probably get less stuff in the box than in TW III, but it looks like the stuff is "better" in the sense of being complex plastic components, mostly pre-painted, and of course it is Star Wars.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
... which is on a par with ... Twilight Imperium III.

Yeah, but each TWI III game takes a month to play. And the box is enormous.

It takes a month to set up, the first time you play it.

Something worth mentioning from other places that have reviewed the gencon demos

All the games were being run with 2 starter sets, and a least some of those running the demos said that the game was less fun with only a single set so people my need to think of picking up a couple of starters (or equivalent extras)

 Kilkrazy wrote:
Back on topic, the box price most likely will be £75 in the UK, which is on a par with other FFG boxed games like Rune Wars and Twilight Imperium III.

You probably get less stuff in the box than in TW III, but it looks like the stuff is "better" in the sense of being complex plastic components, mostly pre-painted, and of course it is Star Wars.

Firestorm Games have the pre-order at £63.75, and Wayland have it at £63.99, although it's a little far out for me to place an order yet.

£63.50 is a pretty good price. I might ask for a pre-order for xmas.

Price wise after using MM for a discount I'm looking around a little over $200 for the first wave that'll give me 300+pts per side. That includes the following:

-Starter
-Gladiator
-Assault Frigate
-Imperial Fighter Booster
-Rebel Fighter Booster
-Expansion Victory (assuming $40)
-Expansion Blockade Runner (assuming $30)
-Expansion Frigate (assuming $30)

That's well over 300pts per side and might be slightly cheaper (maybe the blockade runner is only $20) that the above. $200 for 2 full tournament armies isn't unreasonable to me.

Will I be more selective than I would have been had the price been about $10-$15 less on the captial ships? Yep. I won't, as someone put it, recreate the Battle of Endor but I will get enough stuff to play the game as it's what I wanted. And the small numbers aspect works with Capital ships in a way it doesn't feel right to me with fighters in X-wing.

It's been years since I read the books, but what was that lost fleet Han found in the books that had him and Chewie in? If I remember correctly they were big, bad capitol ships.

Could they be an option or have they already been thought of?

Do you mean the Katana fleet? The one that had dreadnoughts that didn't use droids but was fully automated?

Sounds like the one. They all jumped on the maiden voyage or something and disappeared?

Yup that's it. It got lost because it was fully automated so one ship could control all the fleet (this and a few crazed crew members). It was the turning point for starships to use multiple droids instead of big computers.

 Hulksmash wrote:
Price wise after using MM for a discount I'm looking around a little over $200 for the first wave that'll give me 300+pts per side. That includes the following:

-Starter
-Gladiator
-Assault Frigate
-Imperial Fighter Booster
-Rebel Fighter Booster
-Expansion Victory (assuming $40)
-Expansion Blockade Runner (assuming $30)
-Expansion Frigate (assuming $30)

That's well over 300pts per side and might be slightly cheaper (maybe the blockade runner is only $20) that the above. $200 for 2 full tournament armies isn't unreasonable to me.

Will I be more selective than I would have been had the price been about $10-$15 less on the captial ships? Yep. I won't, as someone put it, recreate the Battle of Endor but I will get enough stuff to play the game as it's what I wanted. And the small numbers aspect works with Capital ships in a way it doesn't feel right to me with fighters in X-wing.

I reckon you need at most from three up to 10 ships per side, plus fighters. Any more than that and the table will be too crowded to make manoeuvring important. Ten might be overdoing it a bit actually. The Imperial ships seem to be worth about two Rebel ships each, though presumably that is somewhat compensated by the heavier Rebel fighters.

If you could get together with a couple of friends you could hire a community centre hall and do a larger game on the floor.

 Kilkrazy wrote:
If you could get together with a couple of friends you could hire a community centre hall and do a larger game on the floor.

With minis this small? That's just asking for things to get crunched.

Yes, it was the Katana Fleet, aka the 'Dark Force'.

 H.B.M.C. wrote:

 Kilkrazy wrote:
If you could get together with a couple of friends you could hire a community centre hall and do a larger game on the floor.

With minis this small? That's just asking for things to get crunched.

I've done it several times to play battles like Jutland, using 1/3000 scale ship models that are no more than 2.5 inches long and 1/2 inch tall, painted dark grey.

You have to be careful not to invite clumsy people to play.

 Hulksmash wrote:
Price wise after using MM for a discount I'm looking around a little over $200 for the first wave that'll give me 300+pts per side. That includes the following:

-Starter
-Gladiator
-Assault Frigate
-Imperial Fighter Booster
-Rebel Fighter Booster
-Expansion Victory (assuming $40)
-Expansion Blockade Runner (assuming $30)
-Expansion Frigate (assuming $30)

Assuming your pricing on the expansion ships is correct, you should just buy a second starter box.

I think the Frigate is $40, not $30... but it also does not come in the starter box.

Frigate was the Nebulon B not the Assault Frigate, my bad

As for not buying another starter if the pricing is accurate that's because of the unique cards that will come with the expansions. It's partially why I'm hoping I'm high on the Neb and Corvette. I'd be much happier at 15 for the corvet and 20 for the Neb. My above was worse case scenario.

I'd like to know if the expansion packs will have more of the movement rulers in them. That design seems to be aimed at stopping the secondary market from creating the slew of lasercut plastic range rulers. Also double sided chits will probably be more difficult for the laser utters as well.

 Kilkrazy wrote:

There are four ways to "pre-paint" a plastic model:

3. After assembly spraying/drybrushing as seen in X-Wing.

At the In-Flight report, the CEO guy said that they paint the individual components, assemble, and then do shading/washes. The wash is the hard part and where the majority of their scrap comes from. They want the look to be just-so, he said. Overly washed minis get gak-canned.

 Theophony wrote:
I'd like to know if the expansion packs will have more of the movement rulers in them. That design seems to be aimed at stopping the secondary market from creating the slew of lasercut plastic range rulers. Also double sided chits will probably be more difficult for the laser utters as well.

I think FFG is probably very happy that third party suppliers are making upgrade quality materials for X-Wing.

The clicky ruler for Armada looks to me like a solution for handling drift and momentum without using a complex set of rules and measurements, which would be contrary to the design philosophy of these games. I'm sure that clicky ruler not only took some doing to design, but also bumps up the COGS of those units as you have to have a bunch of specially-designed plastic connectors instead of just a chipboard punch out.

FFG likes to fill their products with lots of 'things,' and to me Armada looks like a 'things' designer's wet dream. Stacking order disks, fighter bases with those sliding activation tabs, the clicky ruler...somebody at FFG is happy, but not because those things are harder for third party companies to manufacture.

What X-Wing player didn't buy a FFG product because they could get a fly set of neon plastic maneuver templates from Litko? Not many I should think.

My pictures from GenCon.