Heard from a friend that some of the local Armada players are buying for Imperial lists rather than Rebel ones. While, as an Imperial Navy fan, it pleases me... it also means we have quite a few people preparing to be warlords in the near future...

er...

I suppose this shouldn't be too surprising? Armada is really just Star Wars: Star Destroyer, after all. The Empire is characterized by their magistic and imposing capital ships, and everyone wants to drive them. But I was curious... are most players out there going to be Empire players, or is there a balance with rebel players?

After all, the power of a thing can be measured by the strength of its enemies.

IMO, I don't think I or others will be excited for the rebels until Wave 2 hits. Right now the Rebellion has to count on two light ships and a medium. The first two are highly situational in their use and the last is really the only ship that can unexpectedly go toe-to-toe with both Imperial craft out now.

Meanwhile with wave 2, the Rebels get a decent flagship that can circle-strafe with good protection, and a decent medium cruiser that hits harder than the Nebulon and without the liability of fragile side arcs.

I'm tempted to start collecting rebels before Empire now, just to put the challenge to my fellow Imperial players, but I was curious to see if there were any Rebel-only players out there, and what their motivations were.

If the Empire keeps oppressing the galaxy with the use of force. more and more people will join the Rebellion and bring freedom to the galaxy

wave 2 will help

I started imperial too. But I think I'm definitely going to get a goldfish.

I want to play some casual level games with my friends and just having imp stuff isn't doing it.

I play both. But like the Empire Star Destroyers aesthetically far (FAR!) better.

I guess many people do.

Might change with Wave 2 but for now...

I am more an Empire player (the dark side and all), but I think I prefer the gaming style of Rebels in Armada.

I prefer the rebels, though that's probably because i love the look of the nebulon-b

In my community, I also though most players would support the Empire (as I do). But in the last tournament, the rebels had the majority. But they still go beat more often than not.

I feel that what we are seeing is a testament to the feeling of the player base that the game is nicely balanced. There is (or at least not yet) no one build that breaks the game wide open so players are going with what they like from a visual standpoint. While the Imperial-class is a Wave 2 ship the Empire did get a "classic wedge" Star Destroyer out of the gate. On the Rebel side, the CR90 is a bit more iconic, but is a very light unit and thus hard (i.e. expensive) to base a fleet around. Speaking for myself, the Mon Cal's are the "proper" Rebel Fleet - they have been ever since RotJ and will be again come Wave 2.

TLDR; with no "I win" builds folks seem to prefer the looks of the Star Destroyers over the un-filmed space whale.

When the rebels fly star destroyers well talk.

I switched to playing rebeles because of the amount of empire players.

local tournament had 6 Pubs and 4 Imps.

I think it's because right now Imperials are more fun, more focused, and easier to make a quality build for.

The rebels aren't worse. But their fighters are tougher to use(and slightly worse) while thwir other ships have to play very smart to exploit the imperial ships weakness(lack of range and or awful rear arcs. In a setting that is as mentally tiring as an 8 hour tournament that's just devastating. Not that the rebels won't make the imperials think just as hard. But Imperials are a more comfortable pair of shoes right now.

Once everything is all broken in they'll be the same pair of shoes.

Only playing Rebels because of my main opponent choosing Imps.

this perception that ships like the mon cal or AFmkii are needed to tackle star destroyers are, imo, just symptoms of jumping the gun

the neb is an incredibly difficult to fly ship (dem sides), but with the X17 lasers (and salvation mixed in ) it's more than capable of concentrating devastating fire right through a victory

with MM, corvettes retain cheapness for dice while becoming far more irritatingly durable

the potential, imo, is right there, so more play-testing is needed before we can make any substantive claims. The strength of the rebel ships (apart from the whale) are not immediately obvious whereas the imposing as hell Victory's is. We just need more time to develop and expose strategies, as well as come to a better understanding of the game in general through practice.

Also the wave 2 shrimp frigate as a few glaring flaws to counter-act having a much higher damage ceiling while not having "dem sides"

1. ass squadron support

2. holy short ranged black dice, batman!

basically, it's a completely different vessel with a completely different role than the neb or corv.

Right now it's important to remember that Imperial ships all have glaring weaknesses and a hard time being mobile enough to protect them.

B-Wings can murder a Victory Class.

Blockade runners can literally run circles around them.

Gladiators have no range and will miss out on a lot of shots because of it.

Neither current imperial ship can defend their rear. So long as the rebels play smart they have the mobility to avoic a lot of imperial firepower.

On the other hand, the assault frigate has a hard time turning too, but once it hits a star destroyers flank if it sticka to navigate commands it wins the circle battle hands down with those stellar side arcs and superior speed.

On the other hand, the imperials punish rebels hard. Getting into close range of a gladiator can be murder for a rebel ship. Ending up in the Front Arc of a Victory is worse.

I am actually surprised, in my area I thought we were going to have a lot of Imperial players but it looks pretty balanced as of now.

Of course it is still too early to say but for now I am glad it is not too unbalanced here.

I went for rebels because of the aesthetics of the Nebulon B and my tactical preference for small manoeuvrable forces. Which is a good thing, pretty much everyone here has gone for Imperials...

Right now in my area we have one more Empire than rebel, so would say mostly balanced.

Like some of the others stated, many in my area want to play Imperial only. So due to that, and wanting to see more variety, I went Rebel, even though I got into this game to fly triangles and that's what I wanted to fly.

I will be buying Imperial later this summer, but yeah, for now, Rebels.

I prefer the variety of small and midsized ships the rebels have and have coming to the Imperial fleet makeup. The Neb-B is my favorite Star Wars warship model seen in the movies or cartoons so far an the MC30 is my favorite warship introduced in Empire at War.

Perhaps it's just a reflection of the reality. The Empire always outnumbered the Rebels. Really Armada is depicting a relatively rare scenario where a Rebel force actually goes toe-to-toe with an Imperial force. The objectives help "justify" the Rebel presence better to some extent.

But anyway, yes, the Rebels are the virtuous force. Ergo they are fewer. Thus more people are Imperial players. Because Rebel players are virtuous people. And therefore fewer....

Perhaps it's just a reflection of the reality. The Empire always outnumbered the Rebels. Really Armada is depicting a relatively rare scenario where a Rebel force actually goes toe-to-toe with an Imperial force. The objectives help "justify" the Rebel presence better to some extent.

But anyway, yes, the Rebels are the virtuous force. Ergo they are fewer. Thus more people are Imperial players. Because Rebel players are virtuous people. And therefore fewer....

YT's everywhere :/

Perhaps it's just a reflection of the reality. The Empire always outnumbered the Rebels. Really Armada is depicting a relatively rare scenario where a Rebel force actually goes toe-to-toe with an Imperial force. The objectives help "justify" the Rebel presence better to some extent.

But anyway, yes, the Rebels are the virtuous force. Ergo they are fewer. Thus more people are Imperial players. Because Rebel players are virtuous people. And therefore fewer....

Go play X-wing sometime...

YT's everywhere :/

That is unfortunately true. I'm lucky my group only wants to play small ships.

... Besides, maybe they're smugglers pretending to be Rebels.

I am an Imperial player (X-Wing and Armada). However, as my main opponent is also a die hard Imp, I have chosen to field/buy Rebels.
For me, the joy of the game is more important. And compared to 40k this is game is super cheap! So having 2 full fleets is not a big deal for me.

I also play Rebels in our X-Wing league, simply because most of the players are Imperial.

It will also give me a really good grasp of Rebel tactics and when I get to field my Imperial Fleet, I will be much better prepared.

Perhaps it's just a reflection of the reality. The Empire always outnumbered the Rebels. Really Armada is depicting a relatively rare scenario where a Rebel force actually goes toe-to-toe with an Imperial force. The objectives help "justify" the Rebel presence better to some extent.

But anyway, yes, the Rebels are the virtuous force. Ergo they are fewer. Thus more people are Imperial players. Because Rebel players are virtuous people. And therefore fewer....

Go play X-wing sometime...

YT's everywhere :/

which is part of the reason why we're playing Armada