Does it bother nobody else that the CR90, in Armada, attacks best to the FRONT, second-best to either side, and can still attack to the rear?

Vs the CR90 in X-Wing, that attacks best to the SIDES, second-best to the front, and cannot attack at all to the rear?

WHY U NO CONSISTENCY, FFG?!

Sweet!! So much for getting any real work done today - it's into the Wiki I go!

Well, getting Garm Bel Iblis in this expansion bodes well for those of us who are hoping to see Thrawn down the line.

Different game, different system to balance.

So, after a small bit of playing around:

Assault Frigate A

- Garm Bel Iblis

- Paragon

- Enhanced Armament

- Raymus Antilles

Nebulon B Escort

- Yavaris

- Adar Tallon

Luke Skywalker

Wedge Antilles

Should be able to thump something to death easy enough, right?

I found another upgrade card, the Salvation title:

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/ffg_content/star-wars-armada/news/wave1/salvation.png

The Salvation makes one heck of a glass cannon from the baseline!

The number of anti-fighter dice on the CR90A has an inconsistency. It is one die in one picture and two dice in the other. I believe that the one die version is the accurate one.

So, we've gone from an article every 3 weeks to an article every 2 weeks. I imagine that is a hint that the release date is swiftly approaching.

Sweet!! So much for getting any real work done today - it's into the Wiki I go!

Ugh, there's too much, and I don't have the time to spare right now. I'll have to enter more into the Wiki later on, though if one of you guys wanted to have a go at it, I'd certainly not object.

Does it bother nobody else that the CR90, in Armada, attacks best to the FRONT, second-best to either side, and can still attack to the rear?

Vs the CR90 in X-Wing, that attacks best to the SIDES, second-best to the front, and cannot attack at all to the rear?

WHY U NO CONSISTENCY, FFG?!

The Armada stats seem to be based on the old WEG RPG stats (3 twin turbos in the front arc, 1 to each side and the rear) while the X-Wing stats are closer to those in the FFG RPG (two twin medium turbos in turrets covering all arcs and two light turbos to each side) though none of them match up perfectly.

Does it bother nobody else that the CR90, in Armada, attacks best to the FRONT, second-best to either side, and can still attack to the rear?

Vs the CR90 in X-Wing, that attacks best to the SIDES, second-best to the front, and cannot attack at all to the rear?

WHY U NO CONSISTENCY, FFG?!

First scene in ANH, Taintaive IV is being chased by Star Destroyer, and is firing back at it from it dorsal turret

I'm probably just unobservant but this may be new. The shield dials on the base of the ships have little numbers printed on the grey plastic bit showing what number is next in either direction. I'd always assumed just the disc showing the shield value moves, where as I guess this would mean that the disk and grey plastic bit move as a solid piece.

*edit*: just checked the Star Destroyers article and I am just unobservant. Nothing to see here, move along!

I'm probably just unobservant but this may be new. The shield dials on the base of the ships have little numbers printed on the grey plastic bit showing what number is next in either direction. I'd always assumed just the disc showing the shield value moves, where as I guess this would mean that the disk and grey plastic bit move as a solid piece.

*edit*: just checked the Star Destroyers article and I am just unobservant. Nothing to see here, move along!

I think it looks more like just the disk moves, but it also doesnt make sense because it looks like the CR90 and the Nebulon have the same base - which makes sense for the CR90 as it has 2 for all its front and side values, (and we have 1 and 3 printed on the sides), but the Nebulon has a front sheild value of 3, which doesnt make any sense with the whole 1 and 3 part, even though the ship image is showing 2 sheilds. Then again it could all just be a CGI mockup where someone has re-used the Corvette base and forgotton to change it and that it will actually look different on the final model.

Also: In our next preview, we’ll take a look at the fighters and pilots in the Rebel and Imperial Fighter Squadron Expansion Packs.

Should be interesting, but I do hope we get more on the general gamplay and objectives

I think the shield disks are generic and are the same for all ships. That allows you to reflect upgraded shields and stuff above the bas shield value

So with the imperials, the b variant is the stronger more expensive version, but the Rebel B variants are the cheaper less capable versions. Interesting.

Leading Shots is an awesome upgrade for a Victory II. If you whiff on a roll, remove one blue die and try again.

With the exception of the Paragon special ability, there is not a single black die in the entire Wave 1 Rebel fleet. By contrast, 3 out of 4 Imperial ships feature lots of black dice. The imps want to grapple, and the rebs want to kite.

I like the strong definition of roles on the Rebel side:
CR90A - Long range hit-and-run/kiter
CR90B - Cheap support ship
Neb-B Escort - Anti-fighter/Light carrier
Neb-B Support - Baseline shooter
AF MkII A - Omni-directional fortress
AF MkII B - Heavy Battle Carrier

Agreed the rebels have stronger role definition among their ships, while the imps are more generalists. But that is kinda what I would expect for a swarm vs the lucky few style of game that it looks as tho we will have to start off with.

Wow who ever wrote this article is gonna be playing Rebels judging by how excited the Article comes across. I also find it a bit off putting that from the gate the rebels have got something to negate any kinda Imperial chance of hurting them. On top of out numbering Imperials by probably a 2 to 1 ratio and the tons of special abilities is gonna make every fleet a beast. I just hope the Imperials have more than just straight firepower and they failed to mention it or this game is gonna be Rebel Armada pretty quick. I also find it disheartening that the rebels have good anti-fighter defense on most of their ships but that's more because the TIE bomber attack idea just got kinda squished at the moment.

On the upside I'm glad to see most of the rebel ships are glass cannons so even if you bring a 2 to 1 ratio of ships their not gonna have the number advantage for too long. I also feel though that having more than 1 Gladiator is gonna be a boon when the Corvette hordes attack. Throw out the GSD along with a strong fighter screen mixed with a bomber or 2. Should slow down the rush and give you time to blast the little buggers.

Good Article over all though

Also: In our next preview, we’ll take a look at the fighters and pilots in the Rebel and Imperial Fighter Squadron Expansion Packs.

Should be interesting, but I do hope we get more on the general gamplay and objectives

I think thats why they bumped up the Reb Caps to now instead of next week (or even next next week), cause they want to go through fighters, then objectives, then other stuff.

Wow who ever wrote this article is gonna be playing Rebels judging by how excited the Article comes across. I also find it a bit off putting that from the gate the rebels have got something to negate any kinda Imperial chance of hurting them. On top of out numbering Imperials by probably a 2 to 1 ratio and the tons of special abilities is gonna make every fleet a beast. I just hope the Imperials have more than just straight firepower and they failed to mention it or this game is gonna be Rebel Armada pretty quick. I also find it disheartening that the rebels have good anti-fighter defense on most of their ships but that's more because the TIE bomber attack idea just got kinda squished at the moment.

On the upside I'm glad to see most of the rebel ships are glass cannons so even if you bring a 2 to 1 ratio of ships their not gonna have the number advantage for too long. I also feel though that having more than 1 Gladiator is gonna be a boon when the Corvette hordes attack. Throw out the GSD along with a strong fighter screen mixed with a bomber or 2. Should slow down the rush and give you time to blast the little buggers.

Good Article over all though

Actually TIE Bombers have 5 (just double checked, it isn't quite 6) Hull Points. So they can take a way or two of anti-squad fire in stride. They also have speed 4 (compared to speed 2 for B-Wing, idk about Y-Wing. X-Wing is actually only speed 3, so TIE/sa > X-wing in terms of speed), so they aren't going to be spending much time in the grey area where they cannot fire, but the enemy caps can. TIE/sa can actually move completely from outside Blue Range (all Anti-squadron dice so far) to overlapping an enemy capital ship. Plus Major Rhymer allows bombers to fire from Range 3 (it says Medium-close I believe, which is the same).

TIE bombers are not to be taken lightly. They excel at what they are designed to do (and absolutely suck at squad-to-squad combat).

Wow who ever wrote this article is gonna be playing Rebels judging by how excited the Article comes across. I also find it a bit off putting that from the gate the rebels have got something to negate any kinda Imperial chance of hurting them. On top of out numbering Imperials by probably a 2 to 1 ratio and the tons of special abilities is gonna make every fleet a beast. I just hope the Imperials have more than just straight firepower and they failed to mention it or this game is gonna be Rebel Armada pretty quick. I also find it disheartening that the rebels have good anti-fighter defense on most of their ships but that's more because the TIE bomber attack idea just got kinda squished at the moment.

On the upside I'm glad to see most of the rebel ships are glass cannons so even if you bring a 2 to 1 ratio of ships their not gonna have the number advantage for too long. I also feel though that having more than 1 Gladiator is gonna be a boon when the Corvette hordes attack. Throw out the GSD along with a strong fighter screen mixed with a bomber or 2. Should slow down the rush and give you time to blast the little buggers.

Good Article over all though

Actually TIE Bombers have 5 (just double checked, it isn't quite 6) Hull Points. So they can take a way or two of anti-squad fire in stride. They also have speed 4 (compared to speed 2 for B-Wing, idk about Y-Wing. X-Wing is actually only speed 3, so TIE/sa > X-wing in terms of speed), so they aren't going to be spending much time in the grey area where they cannot fire, but the enemy caps can. TIE/sa can actually move completely from outside Blue Range (all Anti-squadron dice so far) to overlapping an enemy capital ship. Plus Major Rhymer allows bombers to fire from Range 3 (it says Medium-close I believe, which is the same).

TIE bombers are not to be taken lightly. They excel at what they are designed to do (and absolutely suck at squad-to-squad combat).

Very good points and thank you for pointing out some things I miss in my excitement. But knowing this crazy crowd I think they've just handed the Rebels some great anti-bomber goodies and they would be crazy not to use them.

Even though I played this game at GenCon, I just can't wrap my head around fleet building until I see the rulebook. I mean I understand how it works obviously, I'm just the type of guy that wants to know all the rules. It will help when I have the cards in front of me too. Can't mentally sort the information overload.

Adar Tallon is tricky. Yes, he lets you use one of your squadrons twice in a turn, but he costs (10 pts) almost as much as a whole squadron (13 pts for an X-Wing). If you are just using Adar to double-up your regular X-Wings, he is not worth the points. However, if you are fielding some awesome elite pilots like Luke, it can be a huge boon to use them twice in a turn. Imagine Luke with Adar and the Yavaris. Luke could potentially attack thrice in a single turn, each attack ignoring shields!

I think it's clever that they built in some synergy for the Tantive IV, Leia, and Raymus Antilles. If you load all three cards onto a CR90B, it will cost 52 points (about the price of a naked Neb B Support). That ship will be great for shepherding one of your big ol' AF MkII's or a lumbering Mon Cal. Each turn, you may choose an action and give that action dial and the corresponding token to another capital ship. Suddenly, a Command rating of 3 or 4 isn't a handicap at all.

Jaina's Light is a great little utility ability that you can easily toss on a ship if you have 2 points left over.