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Good evening all. Came across some SW Armada Rebels in a really good trade. Unfortunately, trying to get any help with rules and list building from the local community is frustrating. So, I turn to you fellow Dakkaites.

I am looking at making a 400pt fleet. I have the following (With all cards/ tokens/ counters.):

2 × MC80's;
1 x Assault Frigate;
4 x MC30's;
a lot of fighters and;
the Scum side of the Scum & Villainy expansion.

Great ! What now ? I have a digital copy of the rules, but find it difficult to read rules off a laptop screen. It would be super to get some beginner advise on rules, fleet building and other tips.

I thank you in advance for the help.

First, there are many free reader apps that you can get to paginate the document, making reading it easier.

Second, you have almost none of the content of the core set... so you'd still benefit greatly from buying it.

What kind of fleets do you prefer? Oh, and from my limited experience, read and understand the objectives fully. This is where the meat of the game is. Death matches are a bit meh. Fun at first, but with the limited number of ships, (again, limited observational data) people tend to favour the same combos and use/learn that playstyle.

I am aware of both .

Forgot I had Calibre, so translation from PDF to epub is now under way. There is plenty I require from the Armada core, but financial wise, I have other things that require me to burn $100.00ish + dollars. I would love to be able to get a damaged card set and a maneuver template though. I know through Meeplemart the maneuver template is pretty cheap. No idea where to aquire a damage deck. Suggestions?

As for fleet type, I actually expected to be playing with the Glorious Imperial Navy, but alas, I have been named traitor and command a rag tag fleet of rebels and mercenaries .

I assume each fleet does one thing better than the other. Rebels seem, just by a quick read online, to be close with and fire broadside based fleet.

Wave 3 should change that, with a more head-on capital ship being released.

That being said, I know most people will mention the gladiator, the raider and all that, but the Rebel ships feel really squishy. My friend got one good turn of shooting into one of my Victories and I felt like I was piloting a wreck after that. A wreck which still shot him up real hard, but shields go fast.

So, hence my imprecation to read and understand the objectives. It's sad that they are TLR inducing pieces of card, but you'll win even if you can't put up a straight fight.

 Mathieu Raymond wrote:
Wave 3 should change that, with a more head-on capital ship being released.

That being said, I know most people will mention the gladiator, the raider and all that, but the Rebel ships feel really squishy. My friend got one good turn of shooting into one of my Victories and I felt like I was piloting a wreck after that. A wreck which still shot him up real hard, but shields go fast.

So, hence my imprecation to read and understand the objectives. It's sad that they are TLR inducing pieces of card, but you'll win even if you can't put up a straight fight.

Good to know. I have some objective reading to do.

Any other tips Fleet Commanders?

 combat engineer wrote:

the Scum side of the Scum & Villainy expansion.

?

Isn't that from X-Wing, not Armada? And isn't everything in that expansion 'the Scum side'?

Rogues and Villians. And there are, I think, four Rebel ships for it.

The set has 8 ships, four Rebels in Dash, Han, the Scurgg and another one, while you get the Firespray, JM5K, Hound and Aggressor for the Empire.

Looked at them today. Along with the obscene amount of X-wing bases that the old owner included.

You do get an unhealthy amount after a while. I find them a bit everywhere nowadays.

Ebay often has the non model bits from the starter box pretty cheap.

 dracpanzer wrote:
Ebay often has the non model bits from the starter box pretty cheap.

Good to know ! Thanks. Checking now.


Automatically Appended Next Post:
Hmmm, seems like the objective cards also come along with the starter. Or I need to look over all of the cards again. Not much I can find on ebay.ca for starter set extras. Mostly gamers looking to part with Armada lots.

Anyone have any suggestions other than ebay?

Mat

So, the original owner offered me a good deal on the return of his Alliance fleet. So, I have rolled the cash into an Imperial fleet. Inbound fleet is:

1 × Starter set
1 × ISD expansion
1 × VSD expansion
1 × GSD expansion and
1 × Imperial starfighter set.

So, just a matter of waiting. Then start list building. Any recommendations for Imperial fleets? Must haves?

Mat

Been a little bit since I've played now, but last I did, Gladiator was worth getting 2-3 copies. If you're wanting to run a "carrier" group with a strong squadron presence, you'll need another set of Starfighters; Imperials need 2:1 to 3:1 odds to expect to win against rebel starfighters.

Also, you don't seem to have the Raider listed. It's a decent anti-squadron ship and corvette hunter, but a bit of a specialist.

As for good pricing, I generally buy from Miniature Market.


Also, there's two waves about to be released with several Imp ships in them; Interdictor cruiser, gozanti carriers/freighters, and more squadron ships - Lambda, Decimator, TIE Phantoms and TIE Defenders (plus a few more). Personally, I'm highly interested in the Decimator (it should be a squadron killer beast) and the Interdictor/Immobilizer (curious to see what its gravity well projectors will do to Rebel ships)

MM kills Canadians with shipping. Meeplemart is probably the easiest source, but I'd recommend an FLGS.

Amazon, good discount.

Well get ready to spend even more! This is a link to wave 5 stuff.

https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2016/8/5/criminals-and-commanders/

 combat engineer wrote:
Amazon, good discount.

If you look at the same SKUs on Amazon and Meeplemart, the latter is generally cheaper. Not by much, and you ahve to factor in shipping, but, eh.

Pay Prime, as we get a lot of from them.

Can't wait for the Interdictor.

Ah I see. I don't think I'd ever purchase enough from Amazon to ever justify Prime. But yeah, if you do, then why not, eh?

You guys think a good purchase for a beginner would be the Starter, a Gladiator and a Nebulon-B, because they match well in points? The extra squadrons would be slated for part of the next purchase, obviously. I just want something slightly less static than the starter alone, bit don't want to go whole hog right away.

I'm solid on the Gladiator for the Imps as it's a good ship and that way the Victory isn't lonely, but was thinking otherwise a Corvette for the Rebs fly as a pair and fill the balance of the points with squadrons/upgrades, or an MC30 Destroyer.

This latest Gencon's previews finally got me to choose Armada as my fleet-scale game, even though technically it fields less ships than normal fleet-scale games.

Not from personal experience (yet...), but from posts on this thread and from fellow local Armada players, the Gladiator seems to be a good ship for its points.

On a related note to AegisGrimm and the OP - I'm thinking of picking up Armada - though I'm not wanting to quite spend a fortune on one of everything, so I have some n00b questions:

Is there a difference between the Star Destroyer available as a standalone and the one in the core/starter box?

Is buying 2 core sets a reasonable way to start off, as it is with X-Wing?

Is that the Falcon inside the Rogues and Villains pack? I'm presuming that it's tiny.

Um... basically, I'd like to set up a cool looking Imperial fleet, and rebels that match them, since i see it as being a social game at home for me rather than a tournament or LGS-PUG thing. So I need advice on what to buy.

You might want to look here, it shows what comes in each box.

http://starwars-armada.wikia.com/wiki/Star_Wars:_Armada_Wiki

The core set ships and standalone ships have different upgrade cards included. In a casual game, you could just print out copies, but if you want the official cards for everyone you need both versions.

The Falcon is there, but tiny. It's on the same size base as one of the fighter squadrons.

http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/starwars-armada/images/3/38/ArmadaGamePlayLayout.png/revision/latest?cb=20141128181227

http://vignette1.wikia.nocookie.net/starwars-armada/images/7/79/Pic2478683.png/revision/latest?cb=20150415222802

combat engineer wrote:Not from personal experience (yet...), but from posts on this thread and from fellow local Armada players, the Gladiator seems to be a good ship for its points.

I've only played a few games, but I'd much rather run Gladiators than Victories - they get into the combat faster and with a pair of two, kill things a lot faster. (The Victory is worth its points and is tough, but the Gladiators are mean, in-your-face brawlers)

AegisGrimm wrote:You guys think a good purchase for a beginner would be the Starter, a Gladiator and a Nebulon-B, because they match well in points? The extra squadrons would be slated for part of the next purchase, obviously. I just want something slightly less static than the starter alone, bit don't want to go whole hog right away.

I'm solid on the Gladiator for the Imps as it's a good ship and that way the Victory isn't lonely, but was thinking otherwise a Corvette for the Rebs fly as a pair and fill the balance of the points with squadrons/upgrades, or an MC30 Destroyer.

This latest Gencon's previews finally got me to choose Armada as my fleet-scale game, even though technically it fields less ships than normal fleet-scale games.

Gladiator is solid. Corvette dies like a bitch, unless you keep it out of the fight as a support ship (I think Dodonna's Pride is the best title) - to me, it's wasted points to not be able to throw it into the mix.

Azazelx wrote:On a related note to AegisGrimm and the OP - I'm thinking of picking up Armada - though I'm not wanting to quite spend a fortune on one of everything, so I have some n00b questions:

Is there a difference between the Star Destroyer available as a standalone and the one in the core/starter box?

Is buying 2 core sets a reasonable way to start off, as it is with X-Wing?

Is that the Falcon inside the Rogues and Villains pack? I'm presuming that it's tiny.

Um... basically, I'd like to set up a cool looking Imperial fleet, and rebels that match them, since i see it as being a social game at home for me rather than a tournament or LGS-PUG thing. So I need advice on what to buy.

There boxed Victory comes with additional upgrades and titles not in the boxed set. I can't think of a "required" card in the stand-alone, but it does add variety. The larger, Imperial Star Destroyer is worth its weight in gold - if you want to make someone cry, put that in your fleet. FFG has done a good job in making it that "bigger is really better"; I've seen many games where the more expensive item really isn't as good as multiple cheaper items. But, my God, Star Destroyers just rock. It was 3-4 games of Armada before my brother finally cracked through the Victory's shields; he still hasn't found a solution for the Imperial, other than to stay out of range).

I wouldn't buy two core sets, but I would suggest picking one side and collecting only that side - until there is a larger variety of ships in the game. Imperial seems to be about bringing the pain with big, heavy ships. Rebels seem to lack the same punch, but are more maneuverable. If you want to fly a "carrier" group (lots of fighter squadrons), I suggest going Rebels - they have the better squadrons. If you're playing Rebels, you need to get a hold of the bigger ships as fast as possible - the Nebulon-B (+ Corvette) is no match even for a Victory (you can still win vs. Imps with the base game through objectives or killing squadrons, but not by trying to outgun the Victory).

Yeah, you get a generic YT-1300 card and Han Solo in the Rogues and Villians; it's treated as a ship squadron. It's about the size of a nickel. It's a bit annoying that the set comes with both Imp and Rebel ships, would have been better if they had the two sides seperate (maybe 2 copies of each ship?).

It would be super to get some beginner advise on rules, fleet building and other tips

Broad things I've learned:

a) Doing damage is easy. Doing enough damage to matter past defence tokens is hard. Anything you can do to pin down defence tokens is generally worth it - X17 Turbolasers (you can only redirect a single hit), for example, make redirect almost useless, which is awesome against big imperial ships which rely on it. If you're trying to work over an Imperial star destroyer, X-17s are the way forwards. A nasty combination is X-17 turbolasers and Intel Officer - the redirect tokens are near useless, and if he spends brace he discards it.

b) Both fleets can play a couple of different games:

Rebels can make a manoeuvrable swarm (lots of small ships - hit and run) - with only six turns, the Empire can't turn and chase you down so if you can stomp one big ship then run like hell, that's a viable plan. It also works well for 'go capture objectives' missions with lots of counters. It works with Mon Mothma (making dodge better) or, randomly, with Ackbar (because one extra red die on every corvette or frigate is a LOT of extra dice).

By comparison, they can do a 'big gun' broadside fleet with MC80s and assault frigates.



Both sides can do nasty fighter packs - for Rebels the Yavaris Nebulon-B and Adar Tallon, whilst Major Rhymer is nice for antiship work for the Empire.




Quick rules:
You will want three ships at minimum. You can make a two-ship fleet with big guys, but the flexibility of that third ship - or attacking after the other side have lost their tokens - is priceless.

You will want some fighter defence. Even if it's just a handful of TIE fighters or one dedicated flak raider - they don't have to win, but if you can bog down a fighter attack killing 20-30 points of TIEs for 2-3 turns, then it's lost its 'shot' at your big ships.

I would say get your stuff at Miniature Market for a 25% discount but now for some reason on their new releases they only do 15%.

Say hello to the Asmodee screwjob, that's why. They didn't like the discounts online sellers were giving, and threatened them. They caved.

 Tagony wrote:
I would say get your stuff at Miniature Market for a 25% discount but now for some reason on their new releases they only do 15%.

The problem with anything besides Amazon.ca or Meeplemart is the currency exchange. Our CDN dollar is at the low end of suck right now.