We don't know a lot about Armada. Especially the balancing is always tricky for tabletops. But there are some arguments in favour of Armada:

1. It will be the newer game. FFG won't make the mistakes it made with X-Wing. No Biggs, no Howlrunner, no broken ordnance, no broken huge ships. Hopefully no need for clumsy rebalancing, as they did for A-Wing, Interceptor and Advanced.

2. The scale is more appropriate for tabletop. X-Wings are just too fast and, especially the huge ships, too big for the table. This exacerbates a perennial problem of the tabletop: the edge of the world, which incites to crude tactics. Remember the camping fortress in the corner of the table?

3. Superior model of movement. The maneuvering tool and the mechanism to emulate some kind of vector movement are much more plausible than the X-Wings, which move as absurdly as in Wing Commander or a George Lucas movie.

4. More planning, less gimmicks. No Han shoots first and you're dead. No got no idea where you would be going, but I got a higher pilot skill, boost, barrel roll, navigator, stay-on-target and will get you anyway.

Rumar I completely agree with all of your points! Well spoken sir!

We don't know a lot about Armada. Especially the balancing is always tricky for tabletops. But there are some arguments in favour of Armada:

1. It will be the newer game. FFG won't make the mistakes it made with X-Wing. No Biggs, no Howlrunner, no broken ordnance, no broken huge ships. Hopefully no need for clumsy rebalancing, as they did for A-Wing, Interceptor and Advanced.

I never played much X-Wing and am really unfamiliar with the meta. What are you referring to, here?

We don't know a lot about Armada. Especially the balancing is always tricky for tabletops. But there are some arguments in favour of Armada:

1. It will be the newer game. FFG won't make the mistakes it made with X-Wing. No Biggs, no Howlrunner, no broken ordnance, no broken huge ships. Hopefully no need for clumsy rebalancing, as they did for A-Wing, Interceptor and Advanced.

I never played much X-Wing and am really unfamiliar with the meta. What are you referring to, here?

Biggs - forces players to shoot him rather than an ally at range 1, this saw him become the core of many early rebel lists.

Howlrunner - grants an attack dice reroll to allies at range 1, started off the "tie swarm" tactics of howlrunner and 6 low level tie ships that dominated competitive play for quite a long time.

broken ordanance - well some like assault missiles that grant an automatic hit on any ship within range one of the target can be seen as over powered, but also a delberate move to try and bring TIE swarms back under control.

Broken huge ships - talking the huge transport and CR90 corvette here, just plain underpowered and under defended - typically if the opposing player focuses all their firepower on them they die in 2 turns.

With re-balancing, it turned out that the A-Wing and TIE Advanced just really didnt cut it against the other ships and upgrades they created, so noone used them. So FFG released new updates in the form of Rebel Aces and the new upcoming Imperial Raider huge ship to create unique upgrade cards just for these ships that lower the point cost or provide new exclusive abilities in an attempt to revive their popularity (and sell more of them). A pretty nasty sales move to lock the TIE Advanced ones (which are very powerful) in a USD$100 expansion. (at least you get a few of each card though).

We also see the same with Scum and Villany and the Y-Wing, with its upgrade card being one that might see more Y-Wings back in rebel lists.

I think "broken ordnance" is more a reference to the fact that, a very small number of choices aside, it's basically worthless for the cost.

Thankfully there's nothing really comparable in Armada that i've seen so far.

I also disagree about the "nasty sales move". There was no other logical place to put the TIE Advanced cards at this time. If there was another wave of Aces sure, but thats not the case as yet. They couldn't go in a random different ship really, and there are a ton of issues about releasing a new Advanced blister. So honestly...there's nowhere else to put them.

What MaverickNZ says about X-Wing is somewhat contested, but fairly common opinion. I don't disagree with it so much as I would agree that these are statements about what X-Wing was - especially about Biggs and Howlrunner. Both of these have been eclipsed by other pilots/cards.

I think where he and I might slightly differ is on how that meta dominance is a problem and/or fixable. I'd hazard to say that we'll see similar dynamics in Armada. Part of that will be structural in the sense that certain combinations will be stronger than others. Part of that will be constructed, in that people will believe that certain fleets will be stronger, and others will look to build fleets that specifically exploit the weaknesses of the strong fleets.

I think it's unavoidable that the Armada meta will be a complex adaptive system in the a similar (if not the same) way that the X-Wing meta is. I would also think that FFG would be foolish to depart too far from the X-Wing formula. X-Wing is a tremendously popular game, and the imbalances that Mav points to also propel people to buy more and more things to keep up with the meta.

Sure, it's a vacu-suck on our wallets - but that's kind of the point of it all, isn't it?

I think "broken ordnance" is more a reference to the fact that, a very small number of choices aside, it's basically worthless for the cost.

Thankfully there's nothing really comparable in Armada that i've seen so far.

I also disagree about the "nasty sales move". There was no other logical place to put the TIE Advanced cards at this time. If there was another wave of Aces sure, but thats not the case as yet. They couldn't go in a random different ship really, and there are a ton of issues about releasing a new Advanced blister. So honestly...there's nowhere else to put them.

There are two angles in my opinion on this - one is that it should have been blatantly obvious from their play testing that the A-Wing and TIE Advanced were over costed or under powered, and yet they still released them, and secondly, given that noone plays the advanced at present, then sure they could wait for the next aces expansion (unless there isnt going to be one.. dun dun dun...).

What MaverickNZ says about X-Wing is somewhat contested, but fairly common opinion. I don't disagree with it so much as I would agree that these are statements about what X-Wing was - especially about Biggs and Howlrunner. Both of these have been eclipsed by other pilots/cards.

I think where he and I might slightly differ is on how that meta dominance is a problem and/or fixable. I'd hazard to say that we'll see similar dynamics in Armada. Part of that will be structural in the sense that certain combinations will be stronger than others. Part of that will be constructed, in that people will believe that certain fleets will be stronger, and others will look to build fleets that specifically exploit the weaknesses of the strong fleets.

I think it's unavoidable that the Armada meta will be a complex adaptive system in the a similar (if not the same) way that the X-Wing meta is. I would also think that FFG would be foolish to depart too far from the X-Wing formula. X-Wing is a tremendously popular game, and the imbalances that Mav points to also propel people to buy more and more things to keep up with the meta.

Sure, its a vacu-suck on our wallets - but that's kind of the point of it all, isn't it?

I dont disagree that there will be some balance changes every time new ships come out, and indeed there should be to keep it interesting, but with X-Wing and the A-Wing/TIE Advanced in particular, there was never a clear role for those ships for the points they cost, it just wasn't a competitive option - just like the HWK also. With Armada where there will hopefully be far greater flexibility around this is with the objective system. It meanst that ships who's greatest strength is manuvering, or supporting other ships can actually play a key role in winning, because the game is no longer about who can blow up all their opponents quickest (though tabling is still an option). This in my mind is the key thing that will ensure Armarda won't fall into the power-creep trap the way X-Wing is struggling not to, because as long as ships are costed well, they could still have a place in a list due to the players needs to be flexible. Sometimes the ships that give you the most flexibility arent the ones that have the best stats.

This is a really interesting discussion, and I'd love to hear more about how X-Wing has changed over time.

I think FFG has been good about learning and improving their games, at least in my experience with their LCGs. I hope that means Armada is really solid, and any real imbalances will be ironed out quickly.

The thing is, I wonder how easy it will be for FFG to cost things correctly. I think the higher points costs will help, because the point is a more granular quantum, but I think it's quite hard for them to get the prices right in the limited playtesting that they could have done before the game's release.

Sure, I imagine they played the hell out of the game before release - and I think that they may have learned a few tricks from X-Wing - but I think it's harder to get the prices right than you imagine.

Also, the more expansions are released the more combinations become possible. That's the reason for X-Wing's power creep.

I think FFG is admirable, and I think they actually try to prevent too much power creep (as opposed to power stride in order to sell more new stuff the way that some companies have done). Hopefully they'll have learned some lessons, but I wonder how much lesson-learning can really be done.

We don't know a lot about Armada. Especially the balancing is always tricky for tabletops. But there are some arguments in favour of Armada:

1. It will be the newer game. FFG won't make the mistakes it made with X-Wing. No Biggs, no Howlrunner, no broken ordnance, no broken huge ships. Hopefully no need for clumsy rebalancing, as they did for A-Wing, Interceptor and Advanced.

Sort of...except that in Armada all X-wings now are Biggs, and all TIEs are now Howlrunner due to escort and swarm.

I think FFG is admirable, and I think they actually try to prevent too much power creep (as opposed to power stride in order to sell more new stuff the way that some companies have done). Hopefully they'll have learned some lessons, but I wonder how much lesson-learning can really be done.

No, I think this is exactly right. I really doubt the game will be perfectly balanced on release, but I imagine it will take the same course as other games: Start off with one side fairly stronger than the other, and then continue into an undulating meta that goes back and forth between sides and strategies.

I think FFG is admirable, and I think they actually try to prevent too much power creep (as opposed to power stride in order to sell more new stuff the way that some companies have done). Hopefully they'll have learned some lessons, but I wonder how much lesson-learning can really be done.

No, I think this is exactly right. I really doubt the game will be perfectly balanced on release, but I imagine it will take the same course as other games: Start off with one side fairly stronger than the other, and then continue into an undulating meta that goes back and forth between sides and strategies.

I haven't been in X-Wing long enough to really know much about the early years. Right now, rebels do seem to have an advantage. In the logged tournaments in the List Juggler , the Empire only gets 44% of the lists, and this is reduced to 40% when only counting the elimination rounds of tournaments.

Now, I kind of like this because in-game I can be the oppressor whereas in the meta I'm the underdog. That somehow works for me.

And I would kind of prefer it if it was similar in Armada. Though, perhaps they want to bring balance to the forces by having the Empire outshine the rebels in Armada. Who knows.

A lot of really good & deep analysis here.

Being a shallow dude, let me offer this high altitude observation: from everything I have read and everyone I have spoken to, X-Wing will likely be FFG's gateway space-combat game. I suggest this because there appears to be a prevailing perception that Armada is "pricey."

A lot of really good & deep analysis here.

Being a shallow dude, let me offer this high altitude observation: from everything I have read and everyone I have spoken to, X-Wing will likely be FFG's gateway space-combat game. I suggest this because there appears to be a prevailing perception that Armada is "pricey."

Again that depends on your perspective - coming from board games or as a first table top game, sure, it can seem expensive, but if you have played any other table top games *coughwarhammercough* then Armada is cheap in comparison.

I also disagree that Armada is earth shatteringly more expensive then X-Wing, which is what the "talk" is grumbling about, because if it was only a small amount more then most gamers wouldnt be bothered.

Yes the core set is more expensive, at $100USD vs $40USD for X-Wing, but that does include multiple sets of dice, command tokens and fighters, rather than just 3 ships like the X-Wing starter.

But lets look past that at the expansions.

In X-Wing, expansions are normally $15USD for a small expansion and $30 for a large expansion.

Lists usually have 1-3 large ships (upto $90) or upto 7 small ships ($75 in the case of a TIE swarm ignoring the 2 that already come with the core set). So an X-Wing player would normally buy multiples of each expansion, particularly for the upgrade cards since they often have multiple numbers of other ships they want those cards for. I.e. I have 3 TIE Bombers just for all the ordinance cards, but rarely would use more than 2 in a list.

Armada has small ships at the $20USD mark and medium ships at the $40 mark. (with Gladiator inbetween at $30), so they are only $5-$10 more expensive.

Where Armada is different though is that with the medium ships, it appears hard to get more than two into a list and remain effective with the remaining points. This means as a player, I am far less likely to buy multiples of a particular ship, because each ship is on its own usually a larger component of a list. I certainly don't see myself buying 5 additional corvettes like I bought an additional 5 TIE Fighters because it doesnt appear to be a great strategy to build a list around.

So in my view, yes the core is more expensive, but its far more in terms of what you get, so its valid.

Yes each expansion is more expensive but as a long term player I invisage buying less overall then I did for X-wing. So I think it will come out even in the end.

EDIT: What I "think" most X-Wing gamers are actually unhappy about when they say its "too expensive" is realising just how much money they have sunk into X-Wing which they see might now be replaced by a "better" game and they are looking for any excuse to push it down before it comes out.

Very true, i have spent more money than i care to count on warhammer. Armada should turn out cheaper. With warhammer you spend $30-$50 on a box of ten guys, and when you need hjndreds of models....

The Iowa class is a great example

70 year old hull, but was upgraded several times to make it viable in modern warfare. When finally taken off the active reserve list in ~2009, they had tomahawk tomahawk cruise missiles, CWIS, helicopters, radar guided gunnery, point defence missiles, and it's 16" guns could outrage and outshoot anything else on the water, or anything on land within 38 nautical miles

Good comparison to the ISD, it's systems would be upgraded over the years, but it's still a very powerful and versatile platform

The Iowa class is a great example

70 year old hull, but was upgraded several times to make it viable in modern warfare. When finally taken off the active reserve list in ~2009, they had tomahawk tomahawk cruise missiles, CWIS, helicopters, radar guided gunnery, point defence missiles, and it's 16" guns could outrage and outshoot anything else on the water, or anything on land within 38 nautical miles

Good comparison to the ISD, it's systems would be upgraded over the years, but it's still a very powerful and versatile platform

Um... I think this post may have been intended for a different thread. Am I wrong?

lol I think so too...

The Iowa class is a great example

70 year old hull, but was upgraded several times to make it viable in modern warfare. When finally taken off the active reserve list in ~2009, they had tomahawk tomahawk cruise missiles, CWIS, helicopters, radar guided gunnery, point defence missiles, and it's 16" guns could outrage and outshoot anything else on the water, or anything on land within 38 nautical miles

Good comparison to the ISD, it's systems would be upgraded over the years, but it's still a very powerful and versatile platform

Haha.

Yeah, I think our friend had meant to post that over here in the Star Wars Episode VII - coming to FFG thread !

Woops my bad. Its a sad state of affairs when you have the armada forum open on both your phone and tablet and forget which one your posting too

Hurry up and release the game already!!!

Haha.

Worry not, my friend.

I think Armada has us all in a spin!

EDIT: What I "think" most X-Wing gamers are actually unhappy about when they say its "too expensive" is realising just how much money they have sunk into X-Wing which they see might now be replaced by a "better" game and they are looking for any excuse to push it down before it comes out.

I 100% agree with you on this -- and on your analysis of overall cost to really enjoy X-wing.

In other words, I believe that the "Armada is pricey" perception is demonstrably false. Still, it does seem to be the ruling perception -- and we all know how hard irrational perceptions can be to deal with Fight them head on just never seems to go anywhere constructive.

So far, I have found a great many people willing to try Armada -- if they can get access to the rules. Which is why I bought 1 of everything, with a spare Core set.

I intend to use my collection to evaluate the game. If it is a good as I suspect it will be, I will launch my personal campaign for Galactic domination, recruiting 1 new Armada gamer at a time!

When they ask how much the game costs, I plan to tell them where to get the core set at the best price... Pause for effect... And say, "or you could just down-load the rules and buy a few ships that you like..." Knowing full well that those ships are poised at the event horizon of a Black Hole of Armada-y coolness!

In other words, I believe that the "Armada is pricey" perception is demonstrably false.

Is that the case, though? Back when Wave 1 came out, it would have been $100 to buy a core set and one of each ship. With Armada coming out, it's $100 just for the core set, and another $190 for one of each first wave ship/fighters. (This math is off the top of my head from memory, sorry if it's wrong.)

As of Armada coming out, a new player looking to get into either game would probably spend about the same amount either way, and still not have everything from X-Wing. But a few years from now, after a few waves of ships, I'm sure the price to buy-in to armada will be much significantly higher than it is now, and will probably go up a lot faster than X-Wing.

Though, don't get me wrong! I'm with you on trying to spread the good word of Armada!

In other words, I believe that the "Armada is pricey" perception is demonstrably false.

Is that the case, though? Back when Wave 1 came out, it would have been $100 to buy a core set and one of each ship. With Armada coming out, it's $100 just for the core set, and another $190 for one of each first wave ship/fighters. (This math is off the top of my head from memory, sorry if it's wrong.)

As of Armada coming out, a new player looking to get into either game would probably spend about the same amount either way, and still not have everything from X-Wing. But a few years from now, after a few waves of ships, I'm sure the price to buy-in to armada will be much significantly higher than it is now, and will probably go up a lot faster than X-Wing.

Though, don't get me wrong! I'm with you on trying to spread the good word of Armada!

Not to call you out on this, but I think you're using worst case numbers I got literally two of everything for $300 except the ships in the core, of which I still bought one of each expansion (one in expansion plus two in cores, didn't need 4 of each ), by looking for the best store to buy from. Applying that same shopping to X-Wing, I get each model for about $10-12.50. Here's where the math evens out. When was the last time anyone here who was serious about the game bought one of each ship for X-wing? Not saying it doesn't happen, I'm content with what I've got right now, but if a new ship came out that worked well with my current fleet, I would need 2-4 of them, not one. At that point I'm spending $20-40 per "ship", so at least as much as I would spend with Armada. Same thing happens with the medium to epic ships, and those cost $20-60 each.

I honestly feel like the costs for each game are pretty comparable, so here's as fair a compression as I can come up with. Much of my pricing comes from Miniature Market if you want to check my math, and of course you are always welcome to disagree with me. Also please remember that this is comparing current pricing, and my experience was that it was much harder to find discounts on X-Wing when it first came out than it is now to find discounts on Armada, thanks in large part to the popularity of X-Wing.

X-Wing Core+Wave 1 Costs (realistic)

Core set-$30; Normally $40, hard to find discounts on.

Tie fighter+Tie advance-$60 (6x$10); You'll need either 6 tie fighters or a mix of fighters and advance to be playable as the popular "swarm", so this one gets expensive.

X-Wing-$20 (2x$10); After all who has less than 2-3 X-Wings? (especially when you can choose between all of two ships... Wait, Armada Imperials anyone?)

Y-Wing-$20 (2x$10); This is what I would have bought for the cards and versatility

Total real world cost to play both sides: $130 ($30+10x$10)

2 Core strategy: $130 (2x$30+7x$10) Here you would need one less X-Wing and two less Tie Fighters, and could play with a friend more easily

Armada Core+Wave 1 Costs (realistic)

Core set-$50; Thank you Amazon! Still easy to find for $60-65 if you you want this to be easy to duplicate later

1ea Fighters-$30 (2x$15);

VSD+MkII-$55 (2x$27.50);

Gladiator-$20;

CR90+NebulonB-$30 (2x$15);

One of each strategy: $185. This gets you a more than 300 point list per side.

Two Core strategy: $177.50 (took off the three individual ships in the Core) WHAT?!? It's still cheaper to buy two Cores?!?!? Um, yes, actually... Still more than 300 points per side.

If you want to use current prices for Cores, Walmart still lists it at $60, so prices go up to $195 and $197.50 respectively.

So for Core sets plus wave 1, Armada starts out $50 more expensive (not $150, be real here please). Anyone can of course go more overboard if they want (or pay full price...just why would you do that?), but $50 is a small difference, one that I feel gets potentially even smaller as we get more waves because again, who here bought only one of each ship in the x-wing waves?

The thing is, I wonder how easy it will be for FFG to cost things correctly. I think the higher points costs will help, because the point is a more granular quantum, but I think it's quite hard for them to get the prices right in the limited playtesting that they could have done before the game's release.

Sure, I imagine they played the hell out of the game before release - and I think that they may have learned a few tricks from X-Wing - but I think it's harder to get the prices right than you imagine.

Also, the more expansions are released the more combinations become possible. That's the reason for X-Wing's power creep.

I think FFG is admirable, and I think they actually try to prevent too much power creep (as opposed to power stride in order to sell more new stuff the way that some companies have done). Hopefully they'll have learned some lessons, but I wonder how much lesson-learning can really be done.

Costing is really hard to do. I tried my hand at coming up with points systems for other tabletops. It is relatively straightforward to balance offensive and defensive capabilities. But how do you compare the combat effectiveness of firepower in comparison to maneuverability, for example? Only playtesting can give a feeling for that. FFG did not a bad job on X-Wing. But with X-Wing under their belt, I hope they will do even better for Armada. A lot will depend on the objectives, I am holding my breath here.