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I'm in wait and see mode.

I'm concerned about 2 things.

1) Deceptively steep buy in. Kind of like x-wing, it's obfuscated the level of buy in you're getting yourself into when you pick up that starter set and additional xwing and tie. Except Armada's initial set is way more expensive. So i'm waiting to see what the buy slippery slope looks like. Because even two starters is 200 ish bucks for a game that...

2) ... will be competing with SEVERAL other games that have an estimated playtime of a couple to several hours. Not sure i need another one, and another one that has a significant investment curve to it.


So definitely wait and see mode. While capital ships look cool as hell, and i'd love to play games with start destroyers, i'm not sold yet.

 Haight wrote:
I'm in wait and see mode.

I'm concerned about 2 things.

1) Deceptively steep buy in. Kind of like x-wing, it's obfuscated the level of buy in you're getting yourself into when you pick up that starter set and additional xwing and tie. Except Armada's initial set is way more expensive. So i'm waiting to see what the buy slippery slope looks like. Because even two starters is 200 ish bucks for a game that...

2) ... will be competing with SEVERAL other games that have an estimated playtime of a couple to several hours. Not sure i need another one, and another one that has a significant investment curve to it.


So definitely wait and see mode. While capital ships look cool as hell, and i'd love to play games with start destroyers, i'm not sold yet.

If you know what army you want to start I would try and find out if anyone else near you is getting the starter set as well.

See if they will be willing to trade some of their ships for some of yours so you have more of the same factions ships.

But yeah if you are planning to collect both armies it will be a bit expensive.

Well went through youtube and it seems solid. I'm thinking a starter set or two, and depending on upgrades in expansion packs a couple of those as well. Don't want to be missing out on the critical PtLesque upgrade in the single ships.

 Yak9UT wrote:

 Haight wrote:
I'm in wait and see mode.

I'm concerned about 2 things.

1) Deceptively steep buy in. Kind of like x-wing, it's obfuscated the level of buy in you're getting yourself into when you pick up that starter set and additional xwing and tie. Except Armada's initial set is way more expensive. So i'm waiting to see what the buy slippery slope looks like. Because even two starters is 200 ish bucks for a game that...

2) ... will be competing with SEVERAL other games that have an estimated playtime of a couple to several hours. Not sure i need another one, and another one that has a significant investment curve to it.


So definitely wait and see mode. While capital ships look cool as hell, and i'd love to play games with start destroyers, i'm not sold yet.

If you know what army you want to start I would try and find out if anyone else near you is getting the starter set as well.

See if they will be willing to trade some of their ships for some of yours so you have more of the same factions ships.

But yeah if you are planning to collect both armies it will be a bit expensive.

For xwing and armada for me, 85% of the time i'll be playing my son, who is 7, so effectively i have to buy and support staying relatively SotA for both factions. I might be able to get my best friend and his son to play, but they still haven't taken the plunge on xwing yet after a handful of extremely fun demos.

You're spot on though. If i had a rebel playing friend i'd do this to reduce buy in significantly. For me, its less the initial money, but more about the fact that a 2 hour game competes with WHFB and some other long time span games i play. I need more games that can wrap up in an hour or so, so i'm not sure if this is right for me.

For one thing, there is no need to buy absolutely everything for the game. From what I see, the two variants you get with every ship pack actually offer a larger variation than the four ships you get with every X-Wing pack. There, all you have is different times in the turn you can fire and move, and a special rule. Even the upgrade option differences only matter if you plan to add even more points to the ship.

The two ship cards in each Armada expansion actually have mechanical differences in firepower and the like. That is a nuance that I really like, even though I am a huge fan of X-Wing.

I will be having more of an expense than some of you as I have to buy both sides if my wife and I want to play, and even my buddy as he wants to stick with X-Wing, but i still see myself having fun with the base game, a fighter pack for each side, and a larger ship for each side.


The big thing that needs to be addressed is that the Imperials get ships that are smaller than the Victory and Gladiator so they have options that are less static. That way, you can always have a large ship and two smaller ones, rather than constantly having to be stuck with two large ships. That's the best thing about the Rebel side, is that you have far more gameplay options. A Rebel player can always choose to have a large ship supported by smaller ones, a couple large ships, or just a bunch of small ones by themselves.

I have to admit probably one of the first things I'd consider doing is repainting at least a Nebulon-B expansion ship to be "Imperial" to give me that option. Hell, other than the Rebel-only fighters, you could repaint an entire starter to be Imperial, and just ignore the rebel-centric names on the cards!!


Also, as it's been said before, the online market has a steep discount rate. You can preorder Armada from Miniature Market for less than seventy dollars, which makes getting additional ships much more palatable. I can get the following preordered for 150 dollars. Two starters are cheaper, but this selection is basically the same thing has more replayability and additional Fighter variants plus a different Star Destroyer than just having to have two Victories all the time. Plus, the cheaper Gladiator means you could even have smaller games than the starter forces, if you want quick games:

Starter
Gladiator
Corvette
Nebulon-B
Imperial Fighters
Rebel Fighters

Yeah, I preorders everything from miniature market (i.e. one of every ship package and the starter) for right at $200. That's not bad for 2 full tournament armies. I'll probably garb another gladiator because I think I might want to do 1 victory and 2 gladiators but that's above and beyond the starting forces that are tournament level.

It's a cheaper way to get 2 tournament armies than any other miniature game I've come across (though Mali faux might be close). X-wing is also slightly cheaper but not much if at all depending on the cards you want.

Plus I'll bet it will be just as easy to get cards online as with X-Wing, if you are just playing with friends. Half of my X-wing upgrade cards are from the Wikia and resized to be proper. I can already field Scum and Villainy Y's and Z-95's using repainted existing models.

I'm curious to see how many fighters are required. You can squeeze in 4 Gladiators in a standard list with a little fighter support, or 1 VSD and 3 Gladiators. But then you might be vulnerable to B-Wings. And I imagine the Rebels can swarm significantly well.

I have to say that after playing the demo at Gen-con, I really like how fighters work in Armada more than any other fleet game I have played, even with the limited rules they were showcasing. Fighter squadrons as collections of one-hit tokens that usually have to be in base contact to do anything are so boring.

Usually the fighter phase of space fleet games is either complicated, or barely a footnote where they are just fancy ordnance, where in Armada each stand is like activating any other ship, which is really cool. Having the capability of upgrading stands to be aces is even cooler.