The first preview for wave 1 ships is up. Can't wait for more details for each ship. The text on some of the cards are visible enough to be read but most are obscured. Let the card speculation begin.

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=5190#cr90

Man i was totally wrong about the Assault Frigate. Looks like a total command ship. That Gallant Heaven title looks super strong. No limit per turn? Oof.

Are the fighters now painted?

I think they have a kind of "Base coat" painted on. Still up to you to put details on.

FFG likes to add shadows to their photos to show a little more depth to the figures. my guess is there is absolutely no paint on the fighters, and the effect you are seeing in the picture is just a filter of some sort.

Price point of Wave 1 is like $300 MSRP.

Future waves could easily be over $100.

With all the crossover of fans and these starting prices, I wonder if Armada is going to have a hard time taking off.

Its still cheaper to build a fleet compared to most other wargames out there. I've spent 300 dollars on 4 different factions worth of Firestorm: Armada and i don't have near enough vessels to field a midsized fleet with any faction.

I do like that the fighter packs seem like pretty efficient purchases. While I haven't actually seen fleet building to know for sure yet, I would be surprised if most of the time you're running more than 8 fighters (or I guess 10 since you'll have an additional 2 from the Core set).

But yeah, probably still too expensive for me, especially when I don't find the capital ships as cool and iconic.

Core set has 10 squads. Not sure if it's 5 and 5 or 4 Xs and 6 Ties, but there's 10 total.

I believe its 4 and 6 to keep the points evenish, as the corvette+nebulon at least equals the victory.

Did anyone notice the different terminology being used here? One the Gladiator fan, you can read the Engine Tech card. It says to "exhaust" the card to execute a speed-1 maneuver. I would have thought they might have used "discard".

And on the Gallant Haven card it seems range 1 is referred to as "distance 1".

I guess it seems minor, but I wondering how easily it might translate into other languages. Considering a large chunk of their target market are likely to be X-wing gamers also, I would have expected similar terms.

Well you flip over the tokens to exhaust them, so they're not using too dissimilar terms.

Major Rhymers ability text reads:

"Friendly squadrons at distance 1 can attack enemy ships at close-combat using all dice in their battery armament"

Does this make sense? Sounds like Jonus...

They have a card for the Victory II class, Warlord, which was the flagship of Lord Rodin Hlian Verpalion, Imperial Advisor to the cloaking device project by Santhe/Sienar Technologies. [Mission to Lianna, 1992, WEG40052]

The Warlord was also assigned to Grand Admiral Thrawn's task force when His Imperial Majesty Palpatine instructed Mitth'raw'nuruodo to pacify and expand the borders of The Empire into the Unknown Regions.

Gotta say, I do like that the fighter packs are all the fighters of a faction, was worried for a while you'd have to buy separate A-Wings, B-Wings etc, the overall cost might be greater, but price per squadron will surely go down, and it should be the capital ships that really matter for those who wish to expand.

And I may have to get another Victory, the Victory-class Star Destroyer has always been my favourite, ever since booting up X-Wing all those years ago.

With the number of cards im seeing with the Victory expansion that have that accuracy symbol on them, im looking more favorably at the Mk II than the Mk I. I guess it depends on how good that assault missiles upgrade card is.

In regards of the fighters the way it seems I don't think you would really need more than two of each at max and that is more if you just want to focus on a select type of fighter rather than using a mix. And I can't wait to see some of the upgrade cards spoiled they already said that the corvette comes with Mon Mothma so maybe we might see Thrawn in with the Victory, provided they didn't show all of the cards.

Looks like the VSD expansion comes with Ion Cannons too. I wonder how they'll work in this game. Hopefully it doesn't just hamper ship movement but disrupts systems as well.

I feel Thrawn will be an ISD card. Yes, he did captain a Victory in the games, but i think a greater portion of the Xwing player base probably know Thrawn from the Zahn books, and he was on the Chimera for most of that.

It says the Gladiator can move between attacks. Nice!

That should be a very powerful ability. Time will tell if the upgrade card is limited to the Gladiator or available to other ships as well.

It says the Gladiator can move between attacks. Nice!

That should be a very powerful ability. Time will tell if the upgrade card is limited to the Gladiator or available to other ships as well.

I wonder if any of the Rebel ships will get that card? IMO its an ability that would fit well with a guerrilla fleet's tactics..

The kid in me -

When I saw the "Preview of Star Wars Armada Wave 1" thread, I pretty much cheered like the Rebels when they heard "the first transport is away" in The Empire Strikes Back.

----

The Loyal Imperial in me -

When I saw the "Preview of Star Wars Armada Wave 1" thread, I pretty much cheered like the Imperials did when they saw the Liberty with all officers and hands on deck atomized by fully operational Death Star II in the failed and misinformed Rebel propaganda Holo Vid Return of the Jedi.

And I can't wait to see some of the upgrade cards spoiled they already said that the corvette comes with Mon Mothma so maybe we might see Thrawn in with the Victory, provided they didn't show all of the cards.

On looking at the preview it looks like we will get Director Isard in the Victory expansion along with the Victory II's the Warlord and maybe the Corrupter.

With the Gladiator expansion we get Admiral Screed and the named ships the Demolisher and the Insidious [the only Insidious I am aware of was from the Dark Empire comic books, which was a name given to a Rendil Star Drive's Lictor Class Mandalorian Dungeon ship, a class of ships that were introduced at the height of the Jedi Purge in an attempt to safely transport Jedi Knights and other dangerous prisoners].

This has just pushed me over the edge and made me pre-order :-)

And I can't wait to see some of the upgrade cards spoiled they already said that the corvette comes with Mon Mothma so maybe we might see Thrawn in with the Victory, provided they didn't show all of the cards.

On looking at the preview it looks like we will get Director Isard in the Victory expansion along with the Victory II's the Warlord and maybe the Corrupter.

With the Gladiator expansion we get Admiral Screed and the named ships the Demolisher and the Insidious [the only Insidious I am aware of was from the Dark Empire comic books, which was a name given to a Rendil Star Drive's Lictor Class Mandalorian Dungeon ship, a class of ships that were introduced at the height of the Jedi Purge in an attempt to safely transport Jedi Knights and other dangerous prisoners].

Why in the name of all that was ever sane would they make Isard a commander in Armada? Other then the fact she was allowed to use Palpy's get-away ship as her pet prison and the fact she might have captained it for its flight from Coruscant before handing command to someone else is there any proof she has any training or experience in commanding a warship in combat much less a fleet in battle?

Why not include Zsinj, who earned his title Warlord by his actions commanding a Victory, Convarion, who was captain of the Corrupter, or even Pellaeon who commanded Victory class ships during his time in the Crimson Command in her place?

Isard was an interesting villain but a naval officer she was not so why make her one for Armada?