Hi everyone,

Bought into Armada this weekend. Just came off a self-imposed "30 day buy-ban" and decided to treat myself as a reward. A friend and I tried X-Wing last year, but the game felt to "snappy" and I thought, how awesome would it be if we had something similar but for capital ships? I didn't have to look very far since Armada had been out now for a while. I picked up a core set, and one Assault Frigate, one Gladiator, one set of extra dice, and the two squadron expansions.

I've yet to play a game, and what I'd like to know is what are some things you wish you knew before you started? Anything especially to look out for, common mistakes/habits to not fall into? I plan to start with the learning tutorial - it does seem the movement and firing takes some getting used to.

Very excited!

Get the updated FAQ from this site. The rules are actually very clear but unfortunately old X-Wing players sometimes fall into the trap of thinking mechanics like using crit results work the same as in X-Wing, forget what you know!

For me, its take stock of how big the board is, How fast things like Ships move (Relatively Slow!), and the (relatively!) short Range that things actually HAPPEN at, especially when taken into consideration how big the Board ends up being (for a regular game at 300pts).

Also, the single biggest change from Real Game vs Learning Game.

In the Learning Game (180pts), as presented, you CHANGE WHO IS FIRST PERSON EVERY TURN.

In the REAL GAME. You *DO NOT*. * DO NOT *. * DO NOT *.

First Player Remains First Player, with the Advantages Gained for being first player, which is -OFT- offset by the Second Player getting the Bigger Bonus on Objectives.

Drasnighta said it all !

You'll get great mileage out of trying out the different movements out of game and checking the range ruler for shots. I remember my first game was very awkward due to poor maneuvering and it reminded me with a smile of my teenage years with them ladies.

Also : do the initiation scenario without upgrades. No need to burden you with additional rules until you haven't gotten the mechanics right. Forget about moving + shooting, plan several turns ahead.

In the first game it's also good to try out different commands to see how they affect the game. It's also good to try tokens and see how they work too.

There is NOTHING you need to know before your first game. Open the box set, read the Learn to Play book, play a few basic games, get a feel for the flow of the game. Then maybe start off with 180-point lists, or go for 300-point lists, whatever sounds like the most fun.

Play the game, make the mistakes, post the questions, debate, discuss, and the only thing you really, REALLY need to remember is to have fun. If there's anything you need to know later on, the Rules Reference Guide and the current FAQ is your first port of call. If you need more help, there is a Rules sub-forum.

Good luck and fly casual!

There is NOTHING you need to know before your first game.

Strongly disagree. At least you NEED to know when your second game is planned

You'll only need to know that AFTER the first game, not before.

EDIT: Also, the second game might be right there after the first game.

Read up on critical effects! You only ever trigger ONE critical effect, regardless of how many you rolled. BUT each critical face ALSO adds one damage to the damage total.

Kinda latching on to what Steve said, but make sure you know how the defense tokens work as well. It might sound a little patronizing, but I was using them wrong for maybe 2-3 games just from not being careful about the wording for order (IE, Brace+Evade on 2 damage doesn't halve, then remove the damage. Evade removes 1 die result and Brace halves the total damage that's left. That and you can only use one of each defense per attack made against you).

If you read the rule book (not just the learning book, but the 'golden rule book' like Drasnighta said) carefully, you really should be okay. If not, you've got the forum here for ya' and a whole section dedicated to rule conundrums and the like, and a lot of helpful folk. Oh, and welcome aboard mate.

The guys here are generally helpful so ask questions and get help as needed.

I would recommend as a fleet builder FAB's Fleet Generator

It is my go to choice.

Watch my videos. I know sounds like I am promoting but you can see a lot of rules and questions that they will answer for you and make playing easier.

When reading the Learn to Play and doing the tutorial, DON'T alternate initiative like it says. Also go ahead into the Expanded rules and learn the LOS and obstruction rules. There is literally no reason to learn bad habits in your first game, just to learn something different later.

There's a reason they include those command dial/token reference cards. Use them!

Bought your first Core Set huh?

MIND THE ANTENNA.

Can I just advise that you skip the learn to play scenario and find an alternate tutorial?

Really, the tutorial in the booklet is pants. The rules are all funky, the factions are out of whack and it gives a poor impression of actual gameplay. I played this scenario three times (one of which was doubling the ships/squadrons) and didn't much enjoy it.

When I set up a proper game (which is clumsily described in the book) I was far more satisfied.

Learn the difference between "in arc" and "line of sight".

I would be happy to bare our rookie mistakes in the hopes they don't catch another victim. We played our first game during a bachelor party back in July, (Saturday morning while we were sobering up) and I can tell you some of the big mistakes we made. We had the Core set + Glad + AFMKII, each person controlled one ship, no upgrades, no objectives. I also realize these were major errors, but these were the rules we failed to interpet correctly/missed in the rulebook while we were playing the initial scenario.

1) Ships can start a any speed they have on their card. We spent the first three turns just getting up to speed from a zero start and only had two turns in which people were in range.

2) When you place the movement ruler, the ship must end its move on the same side of the ruler, no jumping left to right side. We had ships jumping everywhere.

3) Crits on dice from ships to ships also count as hits. Crits on die from fighters to ships do not. This dropped our damage output so that no ships ended up dying, just got battered.

4) Ships shoot then move. We realized this after one turn of shooting and it made the initial approaches much more cautious as everyone tried to stay ridiculously far from each other.

Its easy to fly off the board if you aren't paying attention.

My buddy in I in our first 5-6 games where we were trying to come to grips with movement flew off a total of something like 3 victorys, a nebulon, and a CR90.

just have fun and try not to take anything too seriously, the good times will follow. and maybe give the IFF podcast a listen

Agree with LCapArcana totally, the game is a blast and even butchering the rules as we did, everyone had a great time. Lot's of "pew-pew-pew" noises before dice rolling and non-stop quoting of "You cant repel firepower of this magnitude!"

For me, its take stock of how big the board is, How fast things like Ships move (Relatively Slow!), and the (relatively!) short Range that things actually HAPPEN at, especially when taken into consideration how big the Board ends up being (for a regular game at 300pts).

Also, the single biggest change from Real Game vs Learning Game.

In the Learning Game (180pts), as presented, you CHANGE WHO IS FIRST PERSON EVERY TURN.

In the REAL GAME. You *DO NOT*. * DO NOT *. * DO NOT *.

First Player Remains First Player, with the Advantages Gained for being first player, which is -OFT- offset by the Second Player getting the Bigger Bonus on Objectives.

When reading the Learn to Play and doing the tutorial, DON'T alternate initiative like it says. Also go ahead into the Expanded rules and learn the LOS and obstruction rules. There is literally no reason to learn bad habits in your first game, just to learn something different later.

Where in the learn to play tutorial does it say anything about alternating initiative? The only time I've ever seen anything about alternating initiative is when you forgo the round limit and fight to the death.

I would be happy to bare our rookie mistakes in the hopes they don't catch another victim. We played our first game during a bachelor party back in July, (Saturday morning while we were sobering up) and I can tell you some of the big mistakes we made. We had the Core set + Glad + AFMKII, each person controlled one ship, no upgrades, no objectives. I also realize these were major errors, but these were the rules we failed to interpet correctly/missed in the rulebook while we were playing the initial scenario.

1) Ships can start a any speed they have on their card. We spent the first three turns just getting up to speed from a zero start and only had two turns in which people were in range.

I've been playing this wrong. I got the impression from the learn to play book that ships always start out at speed 2. I was going go correct you on this but found out you were right. Thanks for the post.

That core set games are much more fun when played at 200 points,with objectives chosen as part of the list from the start. That the learn to play rules and scenario are awful and act greatly to the detriment of the game. Everyone playing the game needs to have actually read the frakking rule reference book once or there's going to be a lot of stored up misunderstandings by the 4th or 5th game. That smart people are waiting till wave 2 to buy in so they can skip to playing the full game with ISD's,blackjack and hookers.

If you think your ship may encounter a space wall/map border - ABORT MISSION!!! It is not your friend.

Space boundaries in the actual universe do not, I repeat DO NOT work like Starfox 64.

Hi everyone, thank you all so much for the wonderful responses.

My friend and I had a blast playing the game. We managed to get three in, one using the learning scenario, and slowly added more stuff in like upgrade cards objective cards/obstacles, built our way up to a 300 point game. The games were a ton of fun even though we were constantly checking the rules and rules reference for things. A few questions did come up that we couldn't find answers to, I will search the forums and also wanted to post them here:

1. Can a ship execute a maneuver backwards? I.e., go in reverse with it's current speed, along the maneuver tool? I said no, that wouldn't make sense. You can't have forward momentum of X, and just decide to reverse course; my friend brought up the point what if you decreased speed to 0 - full stop, and then wanted to go in reverse?

2. When your command dial reveals Squadron, and a player has squadrons in range, the squadrons can move & attack if the player chooses to resolve, however do you activate and resolve their actions immediately after the command dial is placed or do those squadrons wait for the squadron phase but now can perform both actions?

3. If a ship maneuvers off the play area, it gets destroyed - does your opponent collect the points from the destroyed ship if it's destroyed in this way?

4. Finally, the 3'x6' play area - does the 6' include the space for cards and tokens, etc? It felt like the first two rounds were just getting up to speed to engage or attempt objectives.

Thanks again everyone for such a fantastic welcome to this community.

~e1