Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

As far as I can tell from the pictures, the capital ship bases are the same size as 2 of the small X-Wing bases put end-to-end (or a large base cut in half). That would make the rebel ships somewhere around the size of the HWK-290, and the Victory Class Star Destroyer about that of a Firespray.

That would make a Mon Cal or a ISD a bit shorter than the X-Wing Rebel Transport, but wider, if they keep the star destroyer's scale constant for the bigger ships?

For me, scale is important since modelling is about emulating reality, and one part of that is seeing first-hand how the models compare size-wise. I never buy scale models which are not in scale with those I already have (1:72 or 1:48 for aircraft, 1:600 or 700 for ships). And when it comes to gaming, even in fictional universe there are usually certain rules, assumptions and guidelines to which I expect everything to confirm, so the universe is internally consistent. I don't like the idea that smaller vessels like that Corvette are simply 'written up' so they fit to the preconceived notion what a game like this should be. It's like having a WW2 naval game and put a cruiser and gunboat against a battleship. "Yeah, we had to scale the gunboat up a bit so it wouldn't look as silly. Also, cruiser is about 2 times more powerful compared to real world so it has a fighting chance against the BB."

Personally, SW miniature games don't attract me, because the universe is simply very uninteresting from a modelling perspective. Everything is white, sometimes with a bit of red, or blue if we're lucky. Truly outrageous items might be grey or even black! Makes a great visual for movies, not so much for modelling. So I probably wouldn't buy this even if it was for scale.

But that said, I'm really interested about the rules. I've been toying with the idea of a game where a single larger ship fights a bunch of smaller vessels, with all the subsystems and armament modelled, and the captain tries to keep the ship up & running, whilst opposing player tries to swarm it. This seems bit like a step to that direction.

There are also Tie Interceptors on the box art, plus the talk of how important squadrons are to the game in the article, it's probably safe to assume we will be getting a variety of squadrons. How they will be sold I don't really know. Perhaps the most likely option is as extras within the larger ship's expansions packs?

Wayland Games already have it up for preorder 30th January 2015 release £79.99 MSRP but 20% off if you preorder before August 26th so £63.99

http://www.waylandgames.co.uk/fantasy-flight-games/star-wars-armada/star-wars-armada/prod_29076.html

Unfortunately shipping outside the UK is courier only which is £16 so i'll wait and buy it locally (plus Im reluctant to give a web store a pre order that far in advance been burned before)

Release date 30-01-2015 though.

also worth noting that the Wayland pre-order above comes with a mystery

Exclusive Pre-Order Special Offer
You will also receive an exclusive special offer of fantastic value for future Star Wars: Armada releases. We'll include it with your Star Wars: Armada Core Set Box when it ships.

(nope I've no idea what it is, but if you're in the UK and planning to get it anyway this may be an added incentive)

Well, I don't trust them enough to hold my money for half a year. The times I've used them they're anything but swift and really crappy with their stock levels. This were non-GW items by the by.

For the uninitiated what is the physical size of the X Wing and STWARmada models in Earth inches or cm?

Some interesting points are being brought up about scale. For me, I have 1/700 scale ships like Backfire and I use 1/600 scale aircraft models with them. This is partly because there are more 1/600 scale models on the market than 1/700 and it has the advantage that the planes are a bit bigger and more recogniseable. I rationalise it by considering that from my "God's eye view" the planes are closer to me and therefore look larger.

OT: Lack of standardization in ship model scales is really annoying. 1:700 is relatively common, some use 1:720. They're close enough, but 1:600 is not. 1:350 and 1:450 are then too big and too expensive.
Thank God for Trumpeter which has a decent 1:700 selection.

There are a few other kit producers out there which might help in scale. For example, there's the Odyssey Slipways ones, which do a range of 1/10000 and 1/50000 models.

http://www.starshipmodeler.biz/shop/index.cfm/category/206/odyssey-slipways---star-wars.cfm

Their blockade runners look a little smaller, and might help with the scaling slightly.


If you can get hold of one, there's the old AMT Star Destroyer kit,


There was also the .jpg productions Victory class star destroyer:


The SithPlanet SSD kit is about as close as you'll get to being able to get something that large on the battlefield, although you'd probably have to treat it as background terrain/ a static model at 38" long.

 Yonan wrote:

Davor wrote:
Said it once, will say it again. Something is wrong when grown men have to talk to other grown men about a play thing that is not long enough. .

Something is wrong when someone is so insistent that their way is the only way and other peoples concerns are unjustified imo.

You know it goes the other way around as well right? How many times do people who say scales doesn't matter and we are told we are wrong all the time? But that wasn't my intent.

I am only kidding. I wasn't serious at all. I guess I forgot the smiley face. I wasn't meaning the person who likes scale is wrong, that it was funny a grown man complaining about size.

I would like for us to move on from the "whether scale matters or not" discussion.

Posts like Ketara's above are really helpful for those who are interested in a way to field a larger ship (even a SSD!) that is (close to) in-scale.

Posts about other games and how they make impossible-to-fit-scales work is also helpful.

Basically, if it's a useful post about scale, it's worth making, but the "whether or not it matters" point has really been done to death by now. Let's move on, please

-------

For myself, I would love a way to put down a massive Super Star Destroyer... but the one above looks like it's about $400 which is a bit pricey

http://www.modelermagic.com/?p=29873

I think I'll stick to the smaller class star destroyers for starters

If I was going to drop >$400 on the Executor...it'd be this one.

Still excited

Hmm, I hope people consider this a "useful" post about scale.

I personally am put off by the sliding scales and would prefer an exact scale game (more like X-wing). The old WOTC game had no proper scaling and it was a bad thing.

That said (and here is what I hope is the useful part) I could stand a "class" based scaling. Basically ships are devided into classes and each class is consistant within it's self.

So the Corvette might be Escort class and any other ship of similar power and dimensions use the same scale (say 1:600 just to have a number.) The the Nebulon-B would be a light warship class and have a scale of 1:700. Star Destroyers would be heavy warship and be 1:800 scale. IF it were something like that, I could probably support it.

Anyhow, I think the game looks good and I look forward to getting the rules.
Thanks,
Duncan

These sorts of boxed sets always seem to lack enough ships/models to get me to pull the trigger. All the chitlets and cards look cool, but I'd want at least twice as many models to call it a deal.

Well, you can buy two boxes?

How has GW not gotten around to suing Star Wars for stealing their shoulder pad insignia



I think I'll stick with x-wing and leave the big boats to everyone else. of course I'll be sucked in after wave 3 of this and will "have to" catch up just like with x-wing.

Has anyone read anything about play mechanics yet, and specifically how damage works?

I'm hoping for more of crew decks being on fire, deflectors or weapons disabled, sensors disabled etc. Rather than 'hit 8 damage posts then pop!', of the X-Wing type.

@Ketara - those blockade runners are awesome, thanks for posting them!

Backfire wrote:
Well, you can buy two boxes?

No thanks - I'd prefer for the set to come with a satisfactory number of models. Sort of feels like the opposite of a deal if I have to buy it twice.

I kind of like the contents, ship-wise. More would be better, but this gives me enough for several games of the size I am most likely to play. Having said that, I think (like X-Wing) having the inevitable expansions will add to my enjoyment by offering options to even smaller games.

Relative scale matters much more, but playability comes first.

So I'm quite happy with this setup. A CR90 is smaller than a Neb-B is smaller than a VSD is smaller than an ISD. That's great, it's real scale.

As opposed to Attack Wing, where tiny ships are larger than huge ships, and the Enterprise is unplayably tiny. That's bad.

 Vertrucio wrote:
So long as relative scale stays consistent in Armada, it'll be fine.

The problem with Attack Wing was that things weren't even in relative scale, stuff was just random sizes.

While I understand people want things to be in scale, these aren't highly detailed scale models. They're gaming pieces first and foremost.

Right, but the point is that many of us would like to try to re-enact battles from one of our favorite sci-fi franchises, scale is a bit of a hang-up in that regard, esp. considering their relative capabilities, especially once some of the larger ships start getting involved, ex- an ISD (Imperial I) class carries several times more turbolasers and TIE fighters than a Victory does in addition to a much more sizable secondary armament, the Imperial II class practically doubles the Imperial I's armament and fighter compliment (at the expense of its secondary armament), unless they seriously fudge the game stats or something its going to leave a lot of people wondering why their ISD which is only slightly larger than their Victory class can completely annihilate any of the ships in the starting box in only a couple turns.

Hell, the CR90 isn't really even a warship, it wouldn't even have the firepower to stand a chance against a Nebulon-B let alone even the smallest and oldest Star Destroyers, and the Nebulon-B is meant for light escort duty of convoys, whereas the Victory class was originally a main-line warship that was later outclassed by newer larger designs. I could see 3-4 Nebulon Bs putting up a fight against a Victory class ( a Nebulon B in Imperial service could carry as many TIE fighters as a Victory could, but had about a quarter the number of turbolasers).

In actuality, I'm wondering how well the gameplay will work out, fleet battles in Star Wars are pretty slow/lengthy affairs, I think the best term would be a 'slog', most starships could give and take pretty significant beatings before being destroyed, I'm not sure how well that will translate to the tabletop.

 Toburk wrote:
As far as I can tell from the pictures, the capital ship bases are the same size as 2 of the small X-Wing bases put end-to-end (or a large base cut in half). That would make the rebel ships somewhere around the size of the HWK-290, and the Victory Class Star Destroyer about that of a Firespray.

That would make a Mon Cal or a ISD a bit shorter than the X-Wing Rebel Transport, but wider, if they keep the star destroyer's scale constant for the bigger ships?

I think you're delusional. Assuming those dice are the same size as the ones we have now, both the CR90 and Nebulon B are the length of an A-Wing, which puts the victory at slightly larger than the length of a HWK-290 (although considerably more bulky). Realize that the box shown is the same size as the X-wing starter box, the minis aren't that large.

 Thokt wrote:
These sorts of boxed sets always seem to lack enough ships/models to get me to pull the trigger. All the chitlets and cards look cool, but I'd want at least twice as many models to call it a deal.

Preach it, brother. I always feel like they don't realize that the minis are the draw. All the chits, cards and tokens in the world won't compare with another half-dozen ships. Kids won't spend hours playing with chits. The ships are where the value is.

The cards and stuff are the game rules.

I will only make one negative comment:
"blockade runner" barely fit in the belly of a star destroyer, scale wayyyyy off.

Positive:
I agree that squadrons could be that bit bigger, relative size would be the head of a pin.

If they are careful not going completely berserk in scale like Star Trek I think I may be throwing my money at them.

Darn that Tie-fighter PC game from decades ago, I am mentally damaged when it comes to Star Wars.

Any thoughts of painting methods for those itty bitty fighters?

Once again, thats a Victory class Star Destroyer, the blockade runner isn't *supposed* to fit in its belly.

chaos0xomega wrote:
Assuming those dice are the same size as the ones we have now, both the CR90 and Nebulon B are the length of an A-Wing, which puts the victory at slightly larger than the length of a HWK-290 (although considerably more bulky). Realize that the box shown is the same size as the X-wing starter box, the minis aren't that large.

Hmmm...you seem to be right, the ships do not look very big. On a plus side, it makes it easier to fit larger ships like ISD, on a minus side, the set starts to look bit steeply priced, with just three actual ships for $100.

Yeah, and thats why I'm finding a lot of issue with it, even including the 10 squadrons (actually that would be incorrect terminology, as it seems that they are in fact representative of flights, although why they only have 3 fighters per flight and not 4 is a bit beyond me. A VSD for example carried 24 Tie Fighters in 2 Squadrons, each having three flights of 4 fighters, which would correspond perfectly with the 6 stands of *four* fighters) it doesn't seem like a lot of value, esp. for the Rebels. The VSD is at least a substantial chunk of plastic and a (lighter) warship, the Nebulon-B and the CR90 are lighter patrol/picket/escort ships at best and considerably smaller/without the cool factor of the VSD. If it was $50 it would be a great value, but at $100 it seems like a pretty substantial investment and like a pretty heavy tax is being paid for a lot of gaming aids and tokens, etc.

I'm also curious about scalability, assuming rebel fighters are as effective on tabletop as they are in the (former?) canon, it seems to me that a Rebel player could show up with a disproportionately large number of fighters and absolutely roll an Imperial player.

chaos0xomega wrote:
... but at $100 it seems like a pretty substantial investment and like a pretty heavy tax is being paid for a lot of gaming aids and tokens, etc. .

It's a starter set for a game that uses a lot of cards and tokens. So including a lot of cards and tokens in the starter set seems somewhat unavoidable.