Built a couple 500pt lists and didn't use all my ships, let alone with cards and such. 300pts seems so SMALL. 400pts (Wave 2 standard I've heard) is small seeming. 500pts is barely doable. 750pts would field most of my ships with decent upgrades. And I haven't bought a LOT, mind you.

Anyone else looking at 300pts and thinking you'll never get to use half your collection... already?

you went too far into the model buying craze already, didn't you ?

I bought a Core set. Traded my Rebels to my brother for his Imperials. That gave me two Vics and 12 TIE squadrons. Bought 1 Vic expansion for the cards, 2 gladiators, and a single Imperial Squadron (kinda need another). That's not TOO far...

Lists shouldn't be using all your ships. You have lots of ships so each list is different and interesting in its own way.

When Wave 2 is released, FFG says each round of a standard 400 point tournament will be 150 minutes — that's two and a half hours per round . You can expect a seven and a half hour tournament experience (Heaven help you if you have more than 33 players, 'cause then it's a twelve and a half hour event). That's bordering on the insane. At 750 points? I have other things I need to do with my weekends besides having a sleepover at the hobby shop...

give your friend 300 points when doing a game and do a 2v2 600 points per side match

When Wave 2 is released, FFG says each round of a standard 400 point tournament will be 150 minutes — that's two and a half hours per round . You can expect a seven and a half hour tournament experience (Heaven help you if you have more than 33 players, 'cause then it's a twelve and a half hour event). That's bordering on the insane. At 750 points? I have other things I need to do with my weekends besides having a sleepover at the hobby shop...

To much 40k. Twelve hour event seems normal to me.

Well, perhaps it's just because we've been practicing with only the Core sets, but a 350pt game takes us about an hour. I think Wave 1 at 300pts should be doable in the same hour.

300 is a struggle. For imperials, even a core set, a gladiator and a fighter set easily goes over 300 without taking many upgrades....

The official point limits seem very restrictive, I think we will move to 400 or perhaps 500 as standard. I can't speak for all systems but as a player of games for 30 years I don't understand the shock at the length of games. Three to four hours is normal for our GW centric group.

Unlike X-Wing, I think bigger games in Armada are easily playable in a reasonable time. Reasonable being very subjective of course, but for me, 2-3 hours is easy. Tuesday my Rebel opponent and I are going to try a 500pt battle (our first Wave 1), and I suspect he'll be space dust within two hours.

We may try some smaller lists though, just to get more games in. Right now we're deliberately going through the Objectives one at a time to play them all so we know how they work.

The thing about a 300pt list is that you can only do one thing well, so you have to pick it carefully.

we've been averaging 1-2 hours between all the clumsy squadron finagling

300 points is just below where I can cram all the cool things I want, but I like the limit for forcing players to make significant choices in fleet composition

I do think 300 points is plenty of room for flexibility, though. It won;t be if you only run gladiators or something, but there's enough room for double fatties (very nicely rounded, and round ships), lots of nebs (not well rounded at all! but flexible), double victories (can be specialized, one for insane squadron support and one for just being a badass) + room for squaddies

I agree on the fleet composition choices. However, "Armada" doesn't mean "two-small-ship-mini-task-force" to my mind. I want a fleet to look like a fleet.

I agree on the fleet composition choices. However, "Armada" doesn't mean "two-small-ship-mini-task-force" to my mind. I want a fleet to look like a fleet.

you're going to need...3000 points?

The point limit needs to be low enough to force hard choices otherwise there isn't much of a reason to settle for anything but the best. List building should require trade-offs and compromise insteas of just getting everything you want.

A 3 hour game makes it hard to show up at the FLGS and get some pickup games in. If everyone is already playing when you show up or if you are the odd man out you might not end up getting a game in at all. X-Wing hits a sweet spot for a lot of people because it is is reasonable to get in 2 or 3 matches in a night, I think that's part of the reason for it's popularity at my FLGS. If the standard Armada game completes in less than two hours it should enjoy the same sort of popularity.

If you want a 5 hour game that lets you put 1000 points on the table, nothing is stopping you. People play huge games of X-Wing all the time. However, the standard match format that gets used for tournaments and most league and pickup games should be one where a single game doesn't fill an entire evening and require $400 of models for each player.

Thought I'd follow up with some humbling results of a 500-pt Wave 1 game.

Wave 1 slows down play quite a bit. There's just SO much more going on than before. More ship choices, more squadron choices, more upgrade cards and more interactions between all of the above.

We played a 4-turn game (called it at the end of Turn 4 since it was obvious the Rebels could only narrow the victory margin, not draw or win). That game took us about 5 hours. Granted it was our first Wave 1 game, so we weren't that familiar with the new stuff. Still, Armada got a LOT more complicated with Wave 1 releasing and I now have to agree that a 300pt game is a much better size.

Yes, we'll still play 400, 500, or more (because we're crazy), but I think a "default" game of 300pts makes a lot of sense now, even if most of the toys have to stay in the box (*insert mock emo tear here*).