I introduced 4 new players to Armada yesterday. Two players each on the Imperial / Rebel teams and I was the host and rules Yoda. I had everything pre-assembled, fleets put together, and only needed to roll out the FFG playmats. The first question I got was, "Does that thing get to fire?" when they saw the Death Star background. Classic.

I didn't have a specific plan for teaching the game to these guys so I handed out the ships first (all Rebel ships fresh from my first attempt at a wash earlier in the day) and they were instantly hooked. Went through the ship cards next and topics just naturally flowed from that point based on their questions. After an 'around-the-table' read of everyone's upgrade cards the game started. We played the optional rules where the winner is the last one with a ship left and unlimited turns. Imperials destroyed 2 Neb-B and 2 CR90 vs. no Victory losses. Rebels were too cautious and didn't engage together and kept flying the X-Wings like they were escorting a ship when they easily could have been attacking. Looked great on the table but not very effective.

At the end of the game both VSDs have their noses pointed towards the center of the table and the final Neb-B gets in the middle. Love those 8 dice forward arc rolls to finish it! When the game was over I would never have guessed 5 hours went by.

They all had a great time and asked when we're running the next game. We talked about Wave 1 so next game is in mid/late May and we'll start with one hour to build your own fleet. This is what Armada is all about for us - a great game that friends can gather around!

I have played with two friends and hope to have as much fun as you and your friends clearly did.

Any concern over the lengthy play time, or is mostly due to learning? For conventions, I would want a game that finishes in 3-4 hours tops. My solo play-through of a base set battle took me about 1.5 hours but that was because I REALLY learned the rules before playing. Did it on two successive nights with similar time.

Any concern over the lengthy play time, or is mostly due to learning? For conventions, I would want a game that finishes in 3-4 hours tops. My solo play-through of a base set battle took me about 1.5 hours but that was because I REALLY learned the rules before playing. Did it on two successive nights with similar time.

By actually not playing I was able to step back and observe what was going on.

1) It was their first game so a lot of learning and questions.

2) Squadron movement takes a long time. A total of 12 squadrons on the board and decision making of where they should go took time.

3) Rounds sped up considerably as the game went on since they were familiar with commands, defense tokens by then.

I'm still planning on some large 600-1000pt games but that may take a full day to get through depending on how powerful the next waves of ships are.

We played maybe one or two 180 point games and have since moved on to 400 points. Takes us about two hours each game to get through. So much fun!

Were you playing a deathmatch? or did you end at 6 rounds? Both the standard game and tournament rules end after 6 rounds.

Were you playing a deathmatch? or did you end at 6 rounds? Both the standard game and tournament rules end after 6 rounds.

He sayd they played deatmatch with unlimited rounds.

Were you playing a deathmatch? or did you end at 6 rounds? Both the standard game and tournament rules end after 6 rounds.

Deathmatch / unlimited per the optional rules.

The last guy with a Neb-B left vs. 2 VSDs could have ended the game after a massive attack from one of the VSDs but braced and cut it in half so he limped away with one hull point and kept fighting until the other one threw another massive attack and it was finally over.

So Cool! Can't wait for Wave 1!

The key question is how many rounds did the game go?