If X-wing and Armada are different enough to coexist, then lessons learned developing X-wing are not something that will likely translate to Armada.

FFG has made more then a few LCGs at this point, and because they are all sufficiently different they all suffer thier unique growing pains. Some are more balanced initially then others, but often previously lessons learned are not applicable.

The one area you can expect improvement on is rule templating. The general timing structure and way abilities are worded to clearly portray thier function is something that has improved.

But here is what is a relative certainty. Elements of Armada first wave will be overly ubiquitous (your Biggs/Howlrunner), some concepts will just fail to gain traction (ordinence), and others will be underwhelming to the point of requiring some from of rebalance ng to remove them from the land of misfit toys (Tie Advanced).

Not to call you out on this, but I think you're using worst case numbers

Please, call me out if I'm wrong! It's like telling me I have food in my teeth: I'd rather know so I can fix it.

And you're right, considering cheaper prices is important. I didn't think it would make much difference, your math is much more impressive!

As I posted before, its poor logic to compare the prices of the core sets for Armada and X-Wing just because we are getting much more in Armada that justifies the higher price like:

1 medium and 2 small ships vs 3 small ships in X-Wing

This is the bulk in my opinion as the ships are larger than X-Wing ships, and the bases are larger. In particular the Victory class is expected to be similar in size to a "large" ship in X-wing. What would we pay for the core set in X-Wing if it came bundled with the Millenium falcon? Also the ships appear to be painted to a higher detail level, including engine glow - which was never modelled for X-Wing even on the large and huge epic size ships.

We also have:

3 sets of attack dice and defense tokens vs 1 set of attack and 1 set of defense dice in X-Wing

Ship bases have inbuild shield counters vs cardboard tokens in X-Wing

Speed dial vs manuver dial - so essentially the same here

Plastic manuver tool vs carboard templates (marginally more expensive to design and make)

Command dials x 6 (none in X-Wing)

Command tokens (none in X-Wing, but it does have focus, evade and target lock tokens, so lets call it even)

Asteroids and space station vs asteroids in X-Wing

Larger tarot size ship cards vs regular size pilot cards in X-Wing.

Objective system cards (12) vs nothing like this in X-Wing.

Both games have a damage deck

Both games have upgrade cards of some sort, though I suspect Armada has more.

I think that looking at the quality and parts the Armada core set is easily worth the extra $50, and thats if you buy it at full RRP, rather than reduced as it will likley become over time as more stock is produced. As we saw in the German unboxing video, the Armada box set is closer in size to the massive Imperial Assault box than the X-Wing core set and I think once some gamers see it "in person" and realise how big it is, their attitude towards the price difference might change.

Or like I also suggested earlier - there will be some who will just become bitter about how much they have spent on X-Wing (especially if they have only started recently) and will continue to look for any excuse to bag it - and price is a convenient one to grab at, but as someone who has been playing for a couple of years now I am really keen to move on to Armada as I feel X-Wing is struggling to keep expanding further.

As I posted before, its poor logic to compare the prices of the core sets for Armada and X-Wing just because we are getting much more in Armada that justifies the higher price

I don't want to imply that Armada isn't worth the price. I just mean that, if you go into the store, and X-Wing is on the shelf for forty bucks, and Armada is there for a hundred, a lot of people are going to go for the forty dollar one, regardless of the quality of the game or minis.

Then, the reason I made this post is I worry that, compounding that issue, is that a lot of people already have a lot of Money invested in X-Wing.

I dunno, If I saw a smaller box with just an X-wing and two TIE fighters, vs a huge box with a Star Destroyer, corvette and frigate, regardless of the price I know which one I would be more interested in!

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.

It would be interesting to run some regression analyses on gaming systems point costs. We just need to find a half dozen grad students with some spare time

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.

It's almost like they were trying to create a game which emulated fighter combat from a George Lucas film...

OP: No way they can coexist, Armada is the anti-X-Wing.

If you were to try to put Armada and X-Wing in physical proximity, the constituent pieces would annihilate one another in a shower of hard radiation / energized particles. Very good for a quick suntan, not so good for the survival of life on this planet.

Sure it can. Toss out the squadron v. squadron rules for Armada, and play it out as a game of X-Wing. Then use Imperial Assault to play out boarding actions.

I have already seen a lot of saying they aren't going to buy scum because they would rather save their money for armada.

Armada will absolutely split the X-Wing community more than it will bring in new players. I think the purpose of Armada was to go after the Warhammer players that dislike the precision of movement that is required in X-Wing but are unhappy with WH's shoddy and bloated game rules. The problem is that I think a very large portion of X-Wings player base is made up of current and ex Warhammer players that are going to prefer Armada's scale and pacing over X-Wing. I think Armada is also going to pull away a lot of X-Wings more casual players, the people that complain about 100 point games and want to play Epic and Secenario Missions.

I remember when I was in a community that only had about 8-10 X-Wing players, when Star Trek Attackwing was released, everyone but a few of us jumped over to that game because "it's Star Trek man!". Ugh. Larger X-Wing communities with 20+ players can afford to lose a few people to Armada, but the smaller communities like the one I was in, already fragmented by similar games like Star Trek AW and now D&D AW, are go to suffer when Armada releases.

I have already seen a lot of saying they aren't going to buy scum because they would rather save their money for armada.

Armada will absolutely split the X-Wing community more than it will bring in new players. I think the purpose of Armada was to go after the Warhammer players that dislike the precision of movement that is required in X-Wing but are unhappy with WH's shoddy and bloated game rules. The problem is that I think a very large portion of X-Wings player base is made up of current and ex Warhammer players that are going to prefer Armada's scale and pacing over X-Wing. I think Armada is also going to pull away a lot of X-Wings more casual players, the people that complain about 100 point games and want to play Epic and Secenario Missions.

I remember when I was in a community that only had about 8-10 X-Wing players, when Star Trek Attackwing was released, everyone but a few of us jumped over to that game because "it's Star Trek man!". Ugh. Larger X-Wing communities with 20+ players can afford to lose a few people to Armada, but the smaller communities like the one I was in, already fragmented by similar games like Star Trek AW and now D&D AW, are go to suffer when Armada releases.

Okay. What -- if anything -- can we do about it?

With a small group, perhaps you can get everyone to play both. Will the split be due to a lack of time? Or limited budget? If the split is based upon time, you might resolve the conflict with alternating play. If it's based on money, the problem will be harder to fix. Unless you have a fairly even split of which game your group members are interested in.

First off,

Tvboy , have you seen our local Armada Facebook group , yet?

I have already seen a lot of saying they aren't going to buy scum because they would rather save their money for armada.

Armada will absolutely split the X-Wing community more than it will bring in new players. ..

Okay. What -- if anything -- can we do about it?

With a small group, perhaps you can get everyone to play both. Will the split be due to a lack of time? Or limited budget? If the split is based upon time, you might resolve the conflict with alternating play. If it's based on money, the problem will be harder to fix. Unless you have a fairly even split of which game your group members are interested in.

Returning to the OP, It's a good question. In many ways, I think the burden of proof/theory is on those who would argue that it won't split the community. I think that schemes such as what withershadow mentioned on the previous page are conceptually interesting, but probably entirely impractical.

I think the only way to not have the community split is to have both games (and Imperial Assault) be part of an overarching campaign that makes the games narratively relevant to one another.

Also, putting on my amateur sociology glasses, I would say that it begs the question of how much of a community you have in the first place. Are we talking about otherwise unconnected people who's only coordination is to show up at certain times at the FLGS? Or, are we talking about a group of people who's interactions are multifaceted and somehow organized, even if that organization is spontaneous?

My efforts with HNN and UXGC are an attempt to move the local gaming group(s) from an ad hoc gaming society, to an interacting community, in which both X-Wing and Armada are relevant to an overarching game - even if that game is fairly simple and doesn't necessarily impact the X-Wing and Armada games that are played, other than giving them narrative (ie. fictitious) stakes to play for.

I think certainly you will see a downswing in X Wing games for a while.. but I dont think its anything to be too concerned about. My major issue with X wing is that the waves have been coming too big and fast. I think they recognise this too. There just isnt a lot of starfighters for either Rebels or Empire to bring out anymore and their forway into larger ships has not been a good one.

I have already seen a lot of saying they aren't going to buy scum because they would rather save their money for armada.

Armada will absolutely split the X-Wing community more than it will bring in new players. I think the purpose of Armada was to go after the Warhammer players that dislike the precision of movement that is required in X-Wing but are unhappy with WH's shoddy and bloated game rules. The problem is that I think a very large portion of X-Wings player base is made up of current and ex Warhammer players that are going to prefer Armada's scale and pacing over X-Wing. I think Armada is also going to pull away a lot of X-Wings more casual players, the people that complain about 100 point games and want to play Epic and Secenario Missions.

I remember when I was in a community that only had about 8-10 X-Wing players, when Star Trek Attackwing was released, everyone but a few of us jumped over to that game because "it's Star Trek man!". Ugh. Larger X-Wing communities with 20+ players can afford to lose a few people to Armada, but the smaller communities like the one I was in, already fragmented by similar games like Star Trek AW and now D&D AW, are go to suffer when Armada releases.

Okay. What -- if anything -- can we do about it?

With a small group, perhaps you can get everyone to play both. Will the split be due to a lack of time? Or limited budget? If the split is based upon time, you might resolve the conflict with alternating play. If it's based on money, the problem will be harder to fix. Unless you have a fairly even split of which game your group members are interested in.

If the intent is to target WFB players, how is money an issue? $200 gets you everything for both factions, and duplicates of the core capital ships. The latest WFB release, the Bloodthirster, is $116 by itself. WFB players will find this game to be peanuts as far as cost is concerned.

I have already seen a lot of saying they aren't going to buy scum because they would rather save their money for armada.

Armada will absolutely split the X-Wing community more than it will bring in new players. I think the purpose of Armada was to go after the Warhammer players that dislike the precision of movement that is required in X-Wing but are unhappy with WH's shoddy and bloated game rules. The problem is that I think a very large portion of X-Wings player base is made up of current and ex Warhammer players that are going to prefer Armada's scale and pacing over X-Wing. I think Armada is also going to pull away a lot of X-Wings more casual players, the people that complain about 100 point games and want to play Epic and Secenario Missions.

I remember when I was in a community that only had about 8-10 X-Wing players, when Star Trek Attackwing was released, everyone but a few of us jumped over to that game because "it's Star Trek man!". Ugh. Larger X-Wing communities with 20+ players can afford to lose a few people to Armada, but the smaller communities like the one I was in, already fragmented by similar games like Star Trek AW and now D&D AW, are go to suffer when Armada releases.

Scary how accurately that described me lol

I actually hope they come up with a pirate faction for Armada eventually.

I have already seen a lot of saying they aren't going to buy scum because they would rather save their money for armada.

Armada will absolutely split the X-Wing community more than it will bring in new players.

Okay. What -- if anything -- can we do about it?

With a small group, perhaps you can get everyone to play both. Will the split be due to a lack of time? Or limited budget? If the split is based upon time, you might resolve the conflict with alternating play. If it's based on money, the problem will be harder to fix. Unless you have a fairly even split of which game your group members are interested in.

You will need to have a lot of communication, participation and cooperation from your group about how to properly manage which games get played when and by who. Like you said the biggest problem isn't going to be that there's not enough time to play both games, it's that there will be some people that don't have the money or the interest to play both.

If you only have 1 night of gaming a week, and you have to alternate to only play each game every other week, the people that only play 1 or the other are going to be hurt by that. If you try to do both on two separate nights, some people aren't going to be able to make both nights because of life conflicts and will show up to one but not the other, potentially leaving one gaming group without enough players.

When Star Trek Attackwing came out, there were 8 X-Wing players in our area, 4 that had started before me and were friends, and myself and 3 friends that I brought in from MTG. We played at a small LGS that only had table space on Monday nights when it rented out a large conference room next door. I was not socially plugged into the original group of 4, although I had been trying to run tournaments and get X-Wing more popular at another LGS that I worked at that mainly focused on MTG and Yugioh. When Star Trek dropped, the original 4 jumped into that and stopped bringing their X-Wing stuff and would only play X-Wing if there was a tournament, 2 of my friends became unable to play on Mondays due to their jobs and were busy on weekends with MTG tournaments, so me and my friend were the only ones still interested and if either one of us couldn't make it on Monday night, there was nobody to play with unless someone from out of town or a new player happened to be there at the same time. That got old after a few weeks so we kind of just gave up and went back to MTG.

I think if I was more socially plugged into the original X-Wing players that jumped over to Star Trek and if we had had a facebook group and had better communication channels we might have been able to keep X-Wing going. But even with that if your group is very small, <10 people, and your venues for play are limited, it will be a challenge and will require everyone participating and keeping everyone else posted on what's going and who's playing what and when and where.

I am very lucky now to be in an area with many players with an active facebook group, so even if some people decide to play Imperial Assault or maybe Armada, chances are there's going to be someone to play on Monday night, and there's always a way to know for sure by posting on the facebook group.

Okay. What -- if anything -- can we do about it?

With a small group, perhaps you can get everyone to play both. Will the split be due to a lack of time? Or limited budget? If the split is based upon time, you might resolve the conflict with alternating play. If it's based on money, the problem will be harder to fix. Unless you have a fairly even split of which game your group members are interested in.

The expectation that 40k players interested in Star Wars are already playing X-wing is likely not fully sound.

X-wing is miniature gaming lite in many ways. The ruleset is far more basic, the options available when building a list are more basic, and the play structure (dogfight) is also basic.

Armada seems to provide an experience closer to what a 40k player would expect from a miniatures game, just hopefully without GW pitfalls.

I never really got into X Wing. I love the DnD Attack Wing, for the whole DnD aspect. But, I am not really a committed player. I was a committed Battle Fleet Gothic Player. I was a committed Star Fleet Battles player. I love the Epic Space Battle Games. My entire game plan for 2015 when it comes to miniatures is play the Eff out of Armada. It just looks like the kind of game I gravitate towards.

Okay. What -- if anything -- can we do about it?

With a small group, perhaps you can get everyone to play both. Will the split be due to a lack of time? Or limited budget? If the split is based upon time, you might resolve the conflict with alternating play. If it's based on money, the problem will be harder to fix. Unless you have a fairly even split of which game your group members are interested in.

If the intent is to target WFB players, how is money an issue? $200 gets you everything for both factions, and duplicates of the core capital ships. The latest WFB release, the Bloodthirster, is $116 by itself. WFB players will find this game to be peanuts as far as cost is concerned.

I think you were confusing two separate points we were making, Kahlain was saying that money would be an issue for X-Wing players that don't want to get into Armada, which would make it difficult to have an alternating game night since Armada night would cut into X-Wing night and hurt the X-Wing players that don't play Armada.

I was saying that FFG is targeting Warhammer players (which includes Warhammer 40k), but Warhammer players that are interested in the Star Wars IP are most likely already playing X-Wing, so FFG is just further splitting the community instead of actually bringing in new gamers from competing game systems.

Your assumption is that a 40k Player that likes star wars would be interested in a dog fighting game. Not necessarily true. They might only be interested in more objective based complex strategy games, like Armada. Plus all the Battlefleet Gothic players don't have anything to play now, and Armada is the closest replacement they're getting thus far.

As a 40k player I "like" x-wing (because it's Star Wars) but also because it is fun and dynamic, BUT, I think I will "love" Armada, so much more so that I am not buying into any of the scum and villany ships in order to fund all the core and wave one Armada sets (incl multiples of some)

I think Armada will kill x-wing Epic, which has not taken off and now there is the Raider. However the real problem will not buy spending power but time to play. I think most of the player played-wing once a week, and now Armada has to compete for time.

The big thing for me at this point with gaming of any sort is time to play and people to play with and their time to play. While money does figure into it as there is a budget, I find myself asking first if I'll have time and oppurtunity to play before I ask if I can afford the game.

Honestly most gamers don't do that. My LGS does two Used Board Game Auctions are year. There is always a suprising number of unopened/unused games.