My girlfriend had to work on Saturday so I decided I was going to give myself a 400 point game of Armada. I haven't yet played Armada with any of the upgrades or named pilots, so this was going to be a learning experience.

I spent something close to an hour building two lists on Fabs, and then maybe another hour digging out all the relevant components and cards and placing them on the table.

I thought X-wing was bad for card bloat, but Armada seemed to eat table space like crazy! I had already switched to printouts from http://xwing-builder.co.uk/ (with card descriptions) to save space and time, but I don't see an equivalent for Armada. Fabs lets you make print outs, but not with the card descriptions (which is useful for a noob).

Can anyone give some advice on this? Is there any clever way to arrange each ship and its numerous upgrades? I was thinking of crafting some kind of display.

Its generally not to bad but if you want to organize better on the cheap check out http://www.sirwillibald.com/I use his micro hangars and gear boxes which make set up a breeze as all the tokens, dials etc are stored with the ships you are using. I havent tried the command deck yet but that sounds like it would be exactly what you are looking for.

That's interesting. See, I store all my ships on shelves with the cardboard bases on so there's no setup time there. All other components are sorted out and stored in separate baggies in the Armada box.

Cards are sorted by type and stored as a big lump together, which is really unwieldy. All command and speed dials are stored in a small plastic box together. And it STILL takes ages to get it all together and, worse, it results in huge clutter on the table.

swaft tool is more handy imo.

yeah, theres' too much stuff in FFG games. You gotta be seriously inclined to play the game.

swaft tool is more handy imo.

yeah, theres' too much stuff in FFG games. You gotta be seriously inclined to play the game.

Just tried it. Works nicely, though there is no option for a printable format with the card descriptions on.

Check my storage video on my Armada Tactics News link in my signature. I show you how I organize things.

As for upgrade heavy. It is usually better to use more ships and squadrons than upgrades but it depends on what you own I guess.

Most of the tables I've played on have 6" on the long edge, so there's plenty of space during the game. On occasions where there isn't as much extra space I'll just stack up all the appropriate tokens and widgets on the ship card, with an upgrade fan off to the side.

Once you have several games under your belt its not as important to reference the upgrade cards all the time as they sink into your memory.

You can keep the table clean by blowing up opponent's ships.

It's the strategy I use.

My kitchen table is just barely big enough to hold the playing field and a couple of cards (since it's rounded on the short ends). I found that a TV tray table or a card table works well for holding onto each person's items. Plus it lets the game space feel more natural.

My kitchen table is just barely big enough to hold the playing field and a couple of cards (since it's rounded on the short ends). I found that a TV tray table or a card table works well for holding onto each person's items. Plus it lets the game space feel more natural.

I think my dining table is 3x6 too, so arranging the extra bits on a tray nearby is a good should. Invariably I have ships flying over cards with the way I organise it now.

Bring down your points limit to 300 or below. Construct your fleets beforehand and bring only ships and squads you'd use. Microhangars are particularly good for fast setup and teardown.

If you're already familiar with your ship stats, stack your tokens, speed dials and upgrade cards on their appropriate ships. If table space is still tight, stack any saved command tokens on top of your ships' bases or command dials.

idk man

after playing 40k (I was young; don't judge me) and Warmachine, Armada is just so easy to manage in comparison

what I do is build lists, then use the provided little plastic bags to section off the upgrade cards that I use for the lists I am currently running. The rest of the cards get their own baggie.

then, the ship/squadron cards get their own baggies according to their size; with build relevant cards going up to the front of the stack

I find a standard 4'x6' game table has ample room for the items required on either side. If your space is too small as you describe, the TV tray is awesome. I generally keep all the tokens and other items in a hardware store screw organizer. More then enough room to hold all the games accessories and keep them well organized.

idk man

after playing 40k (I was young; don't judge me) and Warmachine, Armada is just so easy to manage in comparison

Thank you! I agree, I'd rather keep track of some Armada cards rather than 40k's requirement of a million rule books, dice, miniatures, pieces of terrain, and using a huge board. Warmachine also has cards, stats, and templates to keep track of, but to all the metal models and terrain is such a pain to keep standing upright and I like how armada keeps track of health without having to mark down in damage boxes which get smeared. I'm thankful for Armada.

...even Monopoly takes up more room with all the money and cards!

Or you can spend $75 and build a table top to put over your table. Can't beat that 6' strip of 6". Just saying... There's a post in the forums.

And it gets easier the more you play.

If you got a decent smartphone you can download battlescribe and make lists on there and only take up the space of your phone! or a Tablet.

I use BattleScribe. I enjoy it immensely

Check my storage video on my Armada Tactics News link in my signature. I show you how I organize things.

As for upgrade heavy. It is usually better to use more ships and squadrons than upgrades but it depends on what you own I guess.

I would emphatically disagree here and flat out say: you're wrong if my mood wasn't agreeable

idk man

after playing 40k (I was young; don't judge me) and Warmachine, Armada is just so easy to manage in comparison

what I do is build lists, then use the provided little plastic bags to section off the upgrade cards that I use for the lists I am currently running. The rest of the cards get their own baggie.

then, the ship/squadron cards get their own baggies according to their size; with build relevant cards going up to the front of the stack

I noticed this. Armada is nothing. And a lot of people complain about tournament length...I'm a Warhammer guy so I find all these views strange, at best.

Check my storage video on my Armada Tactics News link in my signature. I show you how I organize things.

As for upgrade heavy. It is usually better to use more ships and squadrons than upgrades but it depends on what you own I guess.

I would emphatically disagree here and flat out say: you're wrong if my mood wasn't agreeable

idk man

after playing 40k (I was young; don't judge me) and Warmachine, Armada is just so easy to manage in comparison

what I do is build lists, then use the provided little plastic bags to section off the upgrade cards that I use for the lists I am currently running. The rest of the cards get their own baggie.

then, the ship/squadron cards get their own baggies according to their size; with build relevant cards going up to the front of the stack

I noticed this. Armada is nothing. And a lot of people complain about tournament length...I'm a Warhammer guy so I find all these views strange, at best.

Loot at it this way. If I take 5 CR90 A's and give them all Enhanced Armaments, is that better than taking an extra CR90?

I think he is saying that 6 base CR90As are better then 5 with EA. I am not sure I agree when that example is taken into account but it does seem that more winning lists follow that philosophy.

Check my storage video on my Armada Tactics News link in my signature. I show you how I organize things.

As for upgrade heavy. It is usually better to use more ships and squadrons than upgrades but it depends on what you own I guess.

I would emphatically disagree here and flat out say: you're wrong if my mood wasn't agreeable

idk man

after playing 40k (I was young; don't judge me) and Warmachine, Armada is just so easy to manage in comparison

what I do is build lists, then use the provided little plastic bags to section off the upgrade cards that I use for the lists I am currently running. The rest of the cards get their own baggie.

then, the ship/squadron cards get their own baggies according to their size; with build relevant cards going up to the front of the stack

I noticed this. Armada is nothing. And a lot of people complain about tournament length...I'm a Warhammer guy so I find all these views strange, at best.

I feel confused. Do you agree with me or not?

Loot at it this way. If I take 5 CR90 A's and give them all Enhanced Armaments, is that better than taking an extra CR90?

depends entirely on the ship, really

CR-90s are very efficient and should be more efficient if you use more rather than upgrade them out the bum (there are exceptions regarding force multipliers such as Raymus and OLP, ofc), but less efficient ships (such as the fattie) really benefit from going upgrade heavy, though that depends on your definition of "upgrade heavy."

CR-90s and Nebs I have found to be optimal basically naked (slap Yarvaris on one and go to town), same with most squadrons (naked here meaning "generic," again not counting force multipliers like the illutrious rhymer), unless you have specific plans in mind (such as Soontir with advance, cheri with mauler, Raymus with Salvation/Tantive/OLP, Adar on one ship and Yavaris on another etc.)

VSDs I found are also very convincing with "minimal," upgrades (Hangars + Flight Controllers on one, just Dominator on the other is so far my favorite pairing); their slowness makes it difficult to justify loading too many points onto them imo since they can be rendered useless far more easily than any other ship.

GSDs can run either way. I've seen 2 run stupidly effectively with just ACM (followed by skreed on a VSD - 2) and everyone knows about Demolisher (title + ACM at the bare minimum, generally also with Tech and an officer) which is an upgrade laden monster

And then there's fatties, which I personally never let onto the table without at least 3-4 upgrades (intel, enhanced armaments, title, and ECM on haven because haven draws fire like gasoline) but they're the only ship I like running so laden.

so, basically, I've found there's no real metric. Everything in this game is so versatile and balanced that there are many different ways to run effective ships/squadrons with any % of points spent on raw ships/squadrons or upgrades.

i.t.o this thread (and how things get organized) though, the upgrade cards are a really simplistic matter. Even my fleet of upgrade laden fatties only use 8 of the little cards when you include General D, so organizing them is really a non-issue.

I put all the upgrades for my 3 current lists in the same baggie:

General D - Intel - EA - Paragon - Intel - EA - ECM - Haven -|- Motti - Hangars - Flight Controllers - Dominator -|- Raymus - Salvation - Yavaris

all I gotta remember is to get General D from the front when I want to run my 3 nebs

I love running fatties with just enhanced armaments and maybe ECM's. They work well that way.

My last battle report on AFN shows this

I vehemently disagree with you (friendly-y though, if I ever sound mean i don't mean it )

Of course when you postulate examples like that it doesn't get to the actual point.

Essentially, it's this:

Upgrades increase a ships effectiveness value. Their base value is their point cost. This value can be seen to be effected by other game factors like activations. This is to say: two of one ship is more valuable than each ship alone.

Now, my overall point is that certain mods increase the effectiveness of ships by large amounts (all of this is broad, no real measure per se).

As I said months ago in a post: two Gladiators are worth 112 points. Since you have two they are more effective, let's say 50% per ship, so 168 value for spending 112 points. Now look at a standard "Demolisher" worth 88 points...let's say the upgrades and what it can do make it twice as valuable as its cost: 176 value for 88 points.

Essentially you get more value for less points, and this is a good thing since a large investment can be made exponentially better by a fraction of the initial cost.

Now, again, these are all random numbers that don't reflect reality well. It's to illustrate the concept: I'd rather take an 88 point demolisher than two glads for 112 points. Simple as that.

As for your CR90+EA case: you'd have to look at it individualy and judge each case...Prob better to have another corvette than an extra red on all your side arcs. Then if you look at AFMKIIs, those are almost always better when upgraded...this goes to proportion of cost. Is Naked Chirpy as good a buy as 4-5 naked TIEs? Think In those aspects.

Sure you get more value for less points but then let's look at the aspect of survival. Those 112 points for 2 ships comes with 2 ships worth of shields, defense tokens, hull, and firepower.

88 points gives you extra damage but it does not give you the capacity to take extra damage.

Less ships mean it is easier to be tabled

the above assessment of value does not hold true in all cases

assuming the simplistic definition of "value" or efficiency (points per dice/durability), upgrades like EA will add more dice, but at disproportionate value than what you could get out of having more ships

for example, 4 EA CR-90As are roughly equivalent to 5 CR-90As. The 4 have more compact firepower (getting 4 red dice over another CR-90a's 2 reds and a blue, or 3 reds and 2 blues maximum) but are also missing out on an entire CR-90a's worth of durability. The moment of lose 1 CR-90, you lose a lot more firepower than you would if you had 5 crappy Cr-90s.

this point is exacerbated by Armada's defense token mechanic, which get weaker when defending against multiple attacks (against a few, you can spend tokens and then refresh them the next round; continuously reusing them); naturally favoring greater numbers of ships (attack vetors) than fewer.

the more upgrades you load onto something, the more easily (generally) you will lose those points than you would equivalent points spread across two lesser ships.This makes upgrades naturally favor more durable, less efficient ships. This fact is counterbalanced by upgrades either a.) not affecting basic dice efficiency (for example, Raymus with every command aside from CF, or Expanded Hangars) b.) acting as a force multiplier (greatly increasing the efficiency of everything else, such as howlie and flight controller)

In the case of the GSD (which is still monstrously powerful even with just ACM), the demolisher is a unique case in that it skrews efficiency (10 points) but just jumpstarts the durability of the ship by making it many times more flexible. This flexibility, in turns, lets it maneuver like a bat out of hell and results in (if assuming good play) a far more durable ship that is far easier to leverage against the enemy even when laden with upgrades.

the anti-example would be the VSD-1 with EA against 2 CR-90As

it's a simplistic example, though, because Armada is so wonderfully complex that straight efficiency doesn't matter nearly as much here as it does in X-wing.

In the ultimate question of "more ships or more upgrades?" the answer is "the game supports either playstyle equally well."

It just remains that more fragile, cheap ships such as the CR-90a are (generally, exceptions abound in this wonderful game) less effective upgrade carriers than larger, more expensive; less efficient ships (which have less incentive to be spammed; more incentive to be upgraded)