My only complaint is based on all the complaining.

Armada looks to be a great game that will offer something completely different from X-Wing. People who want tactical naval battles will play more Armada, people who want dogfights will play X-Wing, many will play both (including me).

We have a third faction starting with 7 ships (4 old, 3 new), that given the combination chosen will certainly offer a completely different playing experience (both with and against) than Rebels and Imperials alone. Being in a new faction, starting from scratch, these ships pilots and faction exclusive upgrades are not constrained by any existing faction exclusives (such as howlrunner). There is so much open design space. Also, making these new ships part of a new faction helps keep the identity of Rebels and Imps. Less mirror matches and less opponents asking if I want to play Imps or Rebs is a good thing imo. I have never purchased a Rebel ship (and never plan to), but I will be picking up all these great Fringe ships.

Imo Epic is incredibly boring anyways and I could care less if it is supported or not.

On that last point, I can understand disagreement as that is highly subjective. But on the first two I cannot for the life of me understand the complaints at all.

I want people to be happy and not complain pointlessly about getting new stuff.

But unless I want to play S&V I am not getting new stuff. I guess what I am getting at is the the complaints here are valid, though you don't have to agree with them.

But even if you do not plan to purchase it yourself, it still creates a new and potentially exciting environment, as you now have an entirely new enemy with entirely new tricks to face.

My complaint is that I have nothing to complain about. Seriously, could this game be any more perfect? Could I possibly be any more excited? No.

This game is sucking the negativity out of my life and overloading my happiness like a HWK-290 with Recon Spec and Moldy Crow title taking focus every turn. #notbutthurt #thanksFFG

My only complaint is based on all the complaining.

Armada looks to be a great game that will offer something completely different from X-Wing. People who want tactical naval battles will play more Armada, people who want dogfights will play X-Wing, many will play both (including me).

We have a third faction starting with 7 ships (4 old, 3 new), that given the combination chosen will certainly offer a completely different playing experience (both with and against) than Rebels and Imperials alone. Being in a new faction, starting from scratch, these ships pilots and faction exclusive upgrades are not constrained by any existing faction exclusives (such as howlrunner). There is so much open design space. Also, making these new ships part of a new faction helps keep the identity of Rebels and Imps. Less mirror matches and less opponents asking if I want to play Imps or Rebs is a good thing imo. I have never purchased a Rebel ship (and never plan to), but I will be picking up all these great Fringe ships.

Imo Epic is incredibly boring anyways and I could care less if it is supported or not.

On that last point, I can understand disagreement as that is highly subjective. But on the first two I cannot for the life of me understand the complaints at all.

For the first: Taking resources away from X-Wing to work on Armada is a distinct (and likely) possibility. As for the player base, there is a lot of potential overlap between X-Wing players and Armada players. This can lead to issues where your friends/local game store run(s) some Armada games instead of X-Wing games depriving you of your preferred game.

As to the Second: Whether a new faction is good for the game or not is also highly subjective. For some people it removes fun from a game they enjoy. It also directly shifts work away from the existing factions.

Note: I do not necessarily agree with these complaints, but they are valid.

I want people to be happy and not complain pointlessly about getting new stuff.

But unless I want to play S&V I am not getting new stuff. I guess what I am getting at is the the complaints here are valid, though you don't have to agree with them.

But even if you do not plan to purchase it yourself, it still creates a new and potentially exciting environment, as you now have an entirely new enemy with entirely new tricks to face.

And maybe I don't want that. Maybe the idea of the faction removes enjoyment out of the game for whatever reason.

I would also point out I personally don't have issues with the new faction, though I have no interest in playing it.

Congratulations.

We now have a "SKY IS FALLING LOLZ!" thread for the entire game system. This now trumps every other SIF thread ever.

Seriously, the collective heads need to be given a collective shake.

1) GenCon isn't over yet. FFG tends to likes big surprises.

2) Apparently Armada is going to split the X-Wing players in half, as is Wave 6/S&V announcements, as is no ImpEpic ship... so somehow FFG is going to split X-Wing in half, three different ways? Mathwingers, do your stuff.

3) Armada isn't directly competing with X-Wing. It's FFG competing against other game companies that do capital ship combat systems. It's called market share, and it's a part of running a profitable business. It's what you want if you own, say, a game company and you like releasing games.
4) Wings of Glory, Star Trek: Attack Wing and the upcoming D&D: Attack Wing *are* all competing with X-Wing. Some people dig WWI planes. Some dig the Federation. Some dig Dragons. Some, like us, dig X-Wings. I don't see the OMG THE SKY EET IZ FALLING every time WizKids or WotC announce something.

My only complaint is based on all the complaining.

Armada looks to be a great game that will offer something completely different from X-Wing. People who want tactical naval battles will play more Armada, people who want dogfights will play X-Wing, many will play both (including me).

We have a third faction starting with 7 ships (4 old, 3 new), that given the combination chosen will certainly offer a completely different playing experience (both with and against) than Rebels and Imperials alone. Being in a new faction, starting from scratch, these ships pilots and faction exclusive upgrades are not constrained by any existing faction exclusives (such as howlrunner). There is so much open design space. Also, making these new ships part of a new faction helps keep the identity of Rebels and Imps. Less mirror matches and less opponents asking if I want to play Imps or Rebs is a good thing imo. I have never purchased a Rebel ship (and never plan to), but I will be picking up all these great Fringe ships.

Imo Epic is incredibly boring anyways and I could care less if it is supported or not.

On that last point, I can understand disagreement as that is highly subjective. But on the first two I cannot for the life of me understand the complaints at all.

For the first: Taking resources away from X-Wing to work on Armada is a distinct (and likely) possibility. As for the player base, there is a lot of potential overlap between X-Wing players and Armada players. This can lead to issues where your friends/local game store run(s) some Armada games instead of X-Wing games depriving you of your preferred game.

As to the Second: Whether a new faction is good for the game or not is also highly subjective. For some people it removes fun from a game they enjoy. It also directly shifts work away from the existing factions.

Note: I do not necessarily agree with these complaints, but they are valid.

I want people to be happy and not complain pointlessly about getting new stuff.

But unless I want to play S&V I am not getting new stuff. I guess what I am getting at is the the complaints here are valid, though you don't have to agree with them.

But even if you do not plan to purchase it yourself, it still creates a new and potentially exciting environment, as you now have an entirely new enemy with entirely new tricks to face.

And maybe I don't want that. Maybe the idea of the faction removes enjoyment out of the game for whatever reason.

I would also point out I personally don't have issues with the new faction, though I have no interest in playing it.

I don't think Armada will take resources away from X-Wing. FFG runs soooo many other games (RPGs, LCGs, Board Games) and this has never been an issue for their existing products.

As to the rest. Maybe my opinion is based on my years and years of minis experience. Everything I have played, from Battle Tech, to Warhammer, Infinity, to Malifaux I have approached in relatively the same way. I but what I want to play, and don't buy what I have no interest in playing. Yet I look forward to every release and update whether or not it is something I will buy because it is a new experience and (hopefully) a new challenge to overcome. Further, because I play so many games, and because my LGS runs different events almost every single day, I always have something to play. If I have my heart set on a certain game, I let my friends know and we go down to the store to play regardless of the event (they have alot of table space). I have thus far treated X-Wing the same way. I suppose others here simply have a much different view on how minis games should be as well as far different experiences of how they are.

I don't think Armada will take resources away from X-Wing. FFG runs soooo many other games (RPGs, LCGs, Board Games) and this has never been an issue for their existing products.

As to the rest. Maybe my opinion is based on my years and years of minis experience. Everything I have played, from Battle Tech, to Warhammer, Infinity, to Malifaux I have approached in relatively the same way. I but what I want to play, and don't buy what I have no interest in playing. Yet I look forward to every release and update whether or not it is something I will buy because it is a new experience and (hopefully) a new challenge to overcome. Further, because I play so many games, and because my LGS runs different events almost every single day, I always have something to play. If I have my heart set on a certain game, I let my friends know and we go down to the store to play regardless of the event (they have alot of table space). I have thus far treated X-Wing the same way. I suppose others here simply have a much different view on how minis games should be as well as far different experiences of how they are.

In the Team Covenant demo for Armada the main designer of Armada had worked on X-Wing before Armada, so there is some shifting of internal resources. It might not mean a strict loss for X-Wing but there is some movement at least.

I too have played miniature games for a long time in the same way (buying/playing what I wanted) but not everyone works that way. I just wanted to help you see how some people could complain about the announcments because it either gives them no further enjoyment or in some cases removes enjoyment. It can also be frustrating if you are hoping to see something and it does not get announced yet. I imagine if the announcements had been huge ships and a new reb/imp wave 6 the people who really wanted a 3rd faction would be making threads like this.

Look at the pie chart in the In-flight Report. FFG is not going to take anything away from X-wing. Now, designers may shift around, but that is hardly taking away resources. We know that they actually do this from time to time in the LCGs.

I'd like to complain that the electrical system in my car is acting wonky again.

All I wanted was a fix for the TIE Advanced...

Still, all this new stuff is excellent.

I am a bit disappointed that no huge Imp ship was announced. Still, I don't think the fact they didn't announce one means there won't be one. Really, it's a no brainer to make one; Epic play is meant to be about huge ships, the Imperials are known for their huge ships, the Imperials currently don't have one while the Rebels have 2...it seems pretty obvious that one will be made. If you want further proof, look at some of the upgrades for the other huge ships. Many of them say 'huge ship only' whereas others say 'huge ship only, rebel only'. That distinction makes it pretty clear that rebels won't be the only ones with huge ships. Also, the turbolaser upgrade is pretty obviously designed to be used against other huge ships, since it's almost not worth taking to shoot at anything currently released.

I think it's just a question of not wanting to overload fans with too much at once. A new faction (which for the record I am SUPER excited about) is a bigger announcement, so they wanted to do that at Gencon. That plus Armada, Ground Assault, Wave 5 etc makes for a whole load of Star Wars related content. They probably want to keep some stuff back to announce during the rest of the year. I think it's very possible that a huge Imp ship will be announced in the next few months, with a release date similar to the Rebel huge ships.

Yes, I genuinely thought they were going to release an Epic Imperial ship... The space they left on the shelf was pretty big, seemed the logical conclusion over a third faction since it was an 'empty slot' in the current stuff. The rumor/dream mill is pretty often correct or a good predictor. Do you honestly think they don't look at their own boards and others to see what people are saying?

If ffg are remotely like GW they wont listen to their boards, they will have paid *designers* to make their decisions and the only board they will listen to will be the board of directors.

It may sound harsh and unbelievable but most companies know where they are going a long way in advance with releases. They dont read forums and go 'oh dave thinks we should do a star destroyer, great idea... get pete in plastics on it now!'

When i was at GW releases were being planned and playtested years in advance, I went for my studio interviews in late 99. I saw TAU being playtested then and especially kroot squads... when did TAU come out...late 2001. No one had a hint they were being made (depsite and easter egg in an eldar article) until about summer 2001 IIRC. To be *playtesting* them in 99 meant they had had rules written for at least most the year and you can be the concept sketches were in a while before that.

I dont like this either but the fact is while you might keep an ear to 'popular opinion' a lot of companies know that 99 per cent of online feedback they get is from negative people slagging them off or thinking they could do better than the designers and staff who were interviewed (and trust me you go through a fair few interviews and have to write a lot of stuff to get GW to look at you, or at least did back then). If you design stuff by committee you get weak results.

I dont *want* FFG to be like GW (i left for a reason) but GW always felt that they 'knew what there customers wanted' because 'we are our customers'... and to a point its true, the designers were writing for a game they played themselves.

I'm not having a go,i'm just saying dont attach too much significance to what is said on forums and what gets produced.

When i worked for workshop in marketing and events I occasionally looked at forums to see which factions were popular when creating games or campaigns for warhammer world but to be honest.... sales figures told me ten times more than any forum

I figure a new epic ship is not as news-worthy as a whole new faction. I fully expect a news update announcing Imperial Epic sometime in the near future.

Stay tuned!