Just finished my first game of Armada and I have to say it was hands down best tabletop miniature game played. I have played WH 40k, WH fan, Heroes Quest, Warmachine, Crimson Skies. (prop something else i cant remember)

It is such a great improvement over X-wing, not having defense dice works well. Watching the escort frigate battering ram two turns in a row, then take a full power range 1 shot from an VSD was beautiful. Seeing a tie swarm destory an x-wing swarm was joy.

I cant get over how much fun this was, super excited my wave 1 ships are in the mail and wave 2 cant get here fast enough. X-wing might get sold to buy more Armada stuff.

SO Good.

pretty much how I feel. I would not say its the best game ever, but for me personally, based on my preferences, its everything I want.

Welcome to the Naval academy

I love the scale. Having played Firestorm Armada, Battle Fleet Gothic, 40K, Malifaux, etc I can say with a vast amount of confidence that this game is amazing!

Yes.

I agree that with attack-defense dice in X-wing, you can get some pretty wild outcomes. Armada mitigates the randomness by removing defense dice and allowing freedom of movement. I have one issue, however. This came up in core-set battles and i've yet to play a Wave I battle. Using Tarkin, it's very easy for an Imperial player to drop speed to 0 on turn 1 and basically 'park' along the back of the map. moving forward only when the enemy is in effective range to use defense tokens. This can really make it difficult to flank a Star Destroyer, particularly if they park in the back-corner of a map. I found it a cheesy tactic, but also very effective against rebels.

I've heard tales of 2 VSD builds that are parked in an L-Shape at the back corner, thereby effectively covering all approaches with the front arc of a star destroyer. Rules wise, nothing prevents this. I just find it cheesy, and it took away from what was once an amazing game experience. We'll see if this parking tactic/fortressing catches on.

Glad you enjoyed it! So can we expect some Armada Wave 4 Prediction thread(s) from you now?

Vyrago...if a ship is at speed Zero it cannot use the defense tokens. A VSD trying that is dead meat.

Vyrago...if a ship is at speed Zero it cannot use the defense tokens. A VSD trying that is dead meat.

I know that. But the tactic is to sit as long as possible at the back, forcing the enemy to waste its movement and turns getting to you. Then, once they are in range you creep forward so you can use your tokens again. This leave very little room to get behind a VSD. Depending how fast the opponent races into the fight, there can often only be 2-3 turns left. The VSD can engage fighters or a weak ship to score a quick kill before the game ends and take the win.

Depending on the objective being played, that leaves the rebel player free to roam around the battlefield picking up precious victory points.

pretty much

can't wait for the first wave of local tournies, it's going to be crazy

and no fat turrets or fickle dice will ruin the experience

For a tabletop sci-fi game, Armada is pretty close to the top if not the top. Right now, it's competing with Infinity, but that's more of a skirmish game. On the historical side, Saga by Gripping Beast is absolutely fantastic.

Depending on the objective being played, that leaves the rebel player free to roam around the battlefield picking up precious victory points.

Yeah it seems that people tend to forget that killing the other guys ship isn't the only way to win the game. With a mission like Intel sweep or Contested Station you can win the game without ever firing a single shot in theory.

So if someone plays someone who tries to camp like that, just make sure to underbid them for init and take command cards like...

Advanced Gunnery - because it gives the 2nd player even more dice than the first and would really punish someone with no defense tokens.

Contested Outpost - sit on the outpost and rack up free VP's

Intel Sweep - Gather up all the objective tokens and score a easy 75 points.

I've heard tales of 2 VSD builds that are parked in an L-Shape at the back corner, thereby effectively covering all approaches with the front arc of a star destroyer. Rules wise, nothing prevents this. I just find it cheesy, and it took away from what was once an amazing game experience. We'll see if this parking tactic/fortressing catches on.

When playing with the full rules and Wave 1 (which you'd need for two Victories) the setup area is only the center 4'x3' of the full 6'x3' play area. In other words, you can't actually set-up in the corner of the play area, and trying to replicate that formation inside the setup area leaves a full foot of table for the opponent to swing around behind you and avoid both fore firing arcs altogether!

Imagine an Assault Frigate mk2 with Paragon, and Enhanced Arms with an Advanced Gunnery objective firing a broadside at a speed 0 VSD. Throws 5 dice the first attack, and 7 the second with 2 of them being black using a concentrate fire command.

VSD can't brace or redirect the damage...

I've heard tales of 2 VSD builds that are parked in an L-Shape at the back corner, thereby effectively covering all approaches with the front arc of a star destroyer. Rules wise, nothing prevents this. I just find it cheesy, and it took away from what was once an amazing game experience. We'll see if this parking tactic/fortressing catches on.

I have one issue, however. This came up in core-set battles and i've yet to play a Wave I battle. Using Tarkin, it's very easy for an Imperial player to drop speed to 0 on turn 1 and basically 'park' along the back of the map. moving forward only when the enemy is in effective range to use defense tokens. This can really make it difficult to flank a Star Destroyer, particularly if they park in the back-corner of a map. I found it a cheesy tactic, but also very effective against rebels.

Objectives change that. defer player one and have them choose one of your objectives like Intel sweep or contested outpost (and precision strike if you have bombers), and Turtling isn't a viable strategy anymore

as for being on topic. I have loved this game since I saw the first announcement, playing it has only made me enjoy it more. It isn't perfect. But I love being able to play a fun, relatively simple miniatures game. I like Star wars, i like having painted Mini's, and the scale is just right

Not difficult to counter. Get the rebel ships to split up, go hard to the sides and run down to the far edge out of range of the VSDs. Each rebel ship comes at it from the sides. Then VSD has to choose whether to sit at speed 0 and take no-defense hits on the sides, or start moving forward and expose it's rear.

If an opposing player decides to rush straight down the middle to a pair of parked VSDs, they deserve to die.

Just finished my first game of Armada and I have to say it was hands down best tabletop miniature game played. I have played WH 40k, WH fan, Heroes Quest, Warmachine, Crimson Skies. (prop something else i cant remember)

Play Infinity then come back and make that statement.

I agree that with attack-defense dice in X-wing, you can get some pretty wild outcomes. Armada mitigates the randomness by removing defense dice and allowing freedom of movement. I have one issue, however. This came up in core-set battles and i've yet to play a Wave I battle. Using Tarkin, it's very easy for an Imperial player to drop speed to 0 on turn 1 and basically 'park' along the back of the map. moving forward only when the enemy is in effective range to use defense tokens. This can really make it difficult to flank a Star Destroyer, particularly if they park in the back-corner of a map. I found it a cheesy tactic, but also very effective against rebels.

I've heard tales of 2 VSD builds that are parked in an L-Shape at the back corner, thereby effectively covering all approaches with the front arc of a star destroyer. Rules wise, nothing prevents this. I just find it cheesy, and it took away from what was once an amazing game experience. We'll see if this parking tactic/fortressing catches on.

A good counter is to also park (or turn and break) and wait for the VSD to come. after that first game of 3min you would even have time to play another possibly without parking.

No realy if someone wants to hug the table edge then the table gets extended. The table edge is a compromise that noone fighting space battles realy wants to be reminded off. So in situations like this i think its mutual beneficial to agree ahead of the game to not trow dice at each other or tilt the table once someone is loosing.

Yeah I'd have to agree, the more I play the more I notice how well designed it is.

It actually manages to be fast! Player by player activation means there's always something exciting going on and the custom dice are borderline genius with how they shift probabilities based on how many are in the pool and what's firing.

(I have a games design degree)

Its hands down the best miniatures game I've played.

I agree that with attack-defense dice in X-wing, you can get some pretty wild outcomes. Armada mitigates the randomness by removing defense dice and allowing freedom of movement. I have one issue, however. This came up in core-set battles and i've yet to play a Wave I battle. Using Tarkin, it's very easy for an Imperial player to drop speed to 0 on turn 1 and basically 'park' along the back of the map. moving forward only when the enemy is in effective range to use defense tokens. This can really make it difficult to flank a Star Destroyer, particularly if they park in the back-corner of a map. I found it a cheesy tactic, but also very effective against rebels.

I've heard tales of 2 VSD builds that are parked in an L-Shape at the back corner, thereby effectively covering all approaches with the front arc of a star destroyer. Rules wise, nothing prevents this. I just find it cheesy, and it took away from what was once an amazing game experience. We'll see if this parking tactic/fortressing catches on.

It's definitely very polished mechanically and modern, I feel starfighter combat is a little too abstract and somewhat lacking in tactical nuance however.

That said I think Battlefleet Gothic is still a superior Naval space game due to it's sheer difficulty ( guessing ranges, ship movement ) and X-Wing is still more competitive/tense due to the suspense from hidden movement dials

Not to say Capital ship placement doesn't have its nuances in Armada but the six turn limit and the limited/predictable dial effects make it far less exciting than X-Wing.

I prefer Dropzone Commander for that title.

Armada is a close second.

Love Armada, to me it is a great fleet game. It reflects the movies with huge ships going at each other. But the threat of snub fighter is nothing you can ignore.

Xwing is an outstanding snub fighter game. To me attack and defense dice reflect the fog of war. Nothing is a sure thing.

Somebody mentioned infinity, that's a fine tactical skirmish game.

Dropzone would have been good with a defence mechanic.

Infinity is one of the best skirmish games but suffers from byzantine RPG-like complexity and massive delays in rules updates.

Armada is simple enough to learn in one game but still has some tactical depth, which is good. Overall I don't feel it has the strategic depth of X-wing yet but the game is still quite young.

Dropzone would have been good with a defence mechanic.

You have obviously never fought Shaltari.