Wave 3 introduced the fleet support mechanic on 2 small based ships. Will Wave 4 up the ante by giving larger based ships that icon? I could see a medium Interdictor with 2 fleet support, and a Grav wells that require 2 fleet support icons. Or a rebel bulk cruiser with 2 fleet support, and a carrier deck upgrade that requires 2 fleet support icons. It would give these ships a lot of versatility at the cost of firepower and defense.
What do you all think; Yay or Nay.
My guess supported by no evidence is that Wave 4 will be The Force Awakens and Rogue One ships and squadrons.
Edited by ZigwardStardustMC80 Liberty...or we riot.
My guess supported by no evidence is that Wave 4 will be The Force Awakens and Rogue One ships and squadrons.
Could be both you know. It's entirely possible that we could see an Interdictor in Rogue One!
(Please please please give us an Interdictor in Rogue One!)
Also, Really want Wave 4 to be 2 things: Lots of ships (more than 2 omg) and Soon (lets see it by the end of the year).
My guess supported by no evidence is that Wave 4 will be The Force Awakens and Rogue One ships and squadrons.
Could be both you know. It's entirely possible that we could see an Interdictor in Rogue One!
(Please please please give us an Interdictor in Rogue One!)
Also, Really want Wave 4 to be 2 things: Lots of ships (more than 2 omg) and Soon (lets see it by the end of the year).
From what I heard they may be going to a 2 ship/squadron release schedule due to manufacturing issues in China. This is really based on what a buddy told me about the manufacturing scene in China. They went from have 15+ to only a handful of factories that can produce these types of detailed models and all the gaming companies use them.
Edited by OverdawgI'd love to see more medium base ships. I think the game needs to expand there. I wouldn't be surprised if they can get a Rogue One tie in as well.
But I don't expect a 2ND release this year. Maybe an announcement, but definitely not another wave being released in 2016.
I would be fine with that model. It's responsible business.
I really have to wonder if the manufacturing limits are a real thing or not. Reason being, they keep announcing lots of multi-miniature waves for their other games. X-Wing has a multitude of ship variety, yet they keep cranking out 4+ ship waves plus extra packs or ships. Heck, they have 4 ships in the pipeline right now that aren't even part of a wave! X-Wing is making ships like there is no tomorrow, and that game doesn't even NEED them! (opinion). I LOVE X-Wing, but at the end of the day, if I'm gonna play X-Wing I've got about a MILLION different list ideas in my head because every faction has like 12 + ships already, and most of those ships have more than 4 pilots.
Even Imperial Assault, which is much newer, keeps announcing waves with LOTS of miniatures. Just the other day they announced 3 more in addition to the full wave that's already announced! This is a good thing too! But the game has a lot of diversity right now and you can build MANY different lists!
Armada has by far the LEAST diversity, with the fewest models and least options for build diversity. I would think if ANY game needed to slow down it's production it would be X-Wing switching to a "Small Wave" schedule while Armada uses the factory resources to play catchup.
Give me just 1 year of production for Armada... 2 Waves of 4 ships each. THEN we can slow it back down. Just my opinion.
I'd love to see more medium base ships. I think the game needs to expand there. I wouldn't be surprised if they can get a Rogue One tie in as well.
But I don't expect a 2ND release this year. Maybe an announcement, but definitely not another wave being released in 2016.
It's still early in the year and the flotillas have already been at the printer for several weeks. AND we've already got missing SKUs, so there absolutely might be more ships released before December, even if they aren't officially "wave 4", they COULD be a separate release or "aces" style pack.
But I do think that since the Asmodee merger, they might be looking at shortening the time between "announcement" and "Hitting the shelves". Wave 2 was one of the worst examples of this, they kept us waiting for something like 8 months IIRC? That could be the reason why. I'd be willing to bet they are probably already working on Wave 5, and plan to announce stuff once it's MUCH closer to print.
Crabbok, I think you are off base here. To walk through this from a business standpoint:
So what does that give us?
What behavior should we expect from FFG if that is true?
That's exactly what we are seeing. I expect what might be going on is FFG also moving to diversify their production streams for pre-paints and/or making some cost-benefit decisions about moving to unpainted or single color primer for Armada.
Edited by ReinholtI would be crushed if Armada no longer supported pre-painted ships.
I would be crushed if Armada no longer supported pre-painted ships.
Seriously. That was the lynchpin that got me to play. I don't want to invest my time/money into painting, and I don't want to play a miniature game with unpainted units.
Crabbok, I think you are off base here. To walk through this from a business standpoint:
- X-Wing is FFG's best seller. In the case of limited capacity, X-Wing can (and should) be prioritized by the company ahead of Armada.
- Imperial Assault is not pre-painted. I am 100% certain the bottleneck is not the production of miniatures which are unpainted. There are plenty of places that can produce things in size without pre-painting, not just in China.
- There is actually an ongoing series of economic retrenchments in China. I deal with global macro issues as part of my work, and I will tell you right now that the numbers are not painting the whole picture (I will leave out my long rant about why), and that China is bleeding capacity.
So what does that give us?
- Large capacity for unpainted miniatures and cardboard production globally.
- Very tight production (at current prices) for pre-painted miniatures.
What behavior should we expect from FFG if that is true?
- Priority for X-Wing as their best seller.
- Slow but steady drip feeds for the other pre-paint games.
- Increased production of non pre-paints because that diversifies revenue and is not where the bottleneck is.
That's exactly what we are seeing. I expect what might be going on is FFG also moving to diversify their production streams for pre-paints and/or making some cost-benefit decisions about moving to unpainted or single color primer for Armada.
Interesting analysis.
So I'll give you the benefit of the doubt with regards to the painting process, and remove Imperial Assault from the equation. (Besides, I LOVE painting my own Imperial Assault characters and wouldn't have it any other way!)
Still, X-Wing is using up more capacity than it NEEDS to (opinion). The game is absolutely saturated with product. And that's awesome! But I honestly believe that it would NOT hurt FFG or X-Wing if they went towards a small-wave release schedule. It might even HELP. Since The Force Awakens, a lot of NEW people have gotten in to X-Wing. The big problem I see is that with so many new things coming out, people with fixed budgets can't get around to playing "Catch up" with the older stuff. Sure they can buy the new "Heroes of the resistance" pack and pick up a Millennium Falcon that way, but they are still going to need every expansion for some of the older pilots and upgrades, etc. Slowing down to only 1 ship per faction, (in X-Wing's case, 3) would give newer players a break and allow them to buy the older wave ships they still need. This would also free-up printing space for Armada.
Surely X-Wing is doing better than Armada right now, but is the massive production of X-Wing product a result of higher X-Wing sales? Or are higher X-Wing sales a result of massive production? Or maybe they are due to another factor - higher player base could mean more of the "buddy" system, where people encourage their friends to buy-in. It might be that X-Wing looks more attractive on the table due to the higher volume of ship variety.
One thing I know for sure, is that a lot of people in my area have stopped buying Armada products for 2 main reasons:
My conjecture here, is that if they saturate the market with new Armada products, we would see Armada climb drastically in terms of sales, success, and local gameplay. I think it would be worth it to scale back X-Wing production in order to make this happen, even if just for a little while.
=)
I would be crushed if Armada no longer supported pre-painted ships.
I'd probably stop buying in if it wasn't pre painted. I don't mind hitting fighters with sharpies, but I'm not a painter. And I definitely wouldn't enjoy it (or could justify the price) without them being painted.
Petty? A little.
I doubt we'll see unpainted ships. They've set a precedent, and X-wing miniatures are all pre-painted. It's clearly what they've decided works for these games.
I also do think we'll see Wave 4 this year. Having put out a small Wave 3, which has got us excited but isn't likely to keep us satisfied for very long, I think they'd struggle to maintain interest if they left it an entire year. If there is a bottleneck (and I fully trust Reinholt's judgement), then it's likely that they'll release smaller waves more regularly to maintain a steady stream. For X-wing miniatures, it started at about a wave every six months, and then has slightly increased in regularity since then.
Will it include Fleet support? My guess (and hope) is that they release a new medium ship for each side, plus a new small ship / flotilla with fleet support. So a slightly bigger wave, but still not massive. I do think we might see a tie-in for Rogue One. It makes a bit more sense than Force Awakens (especially now that that has been and gone), since it'll be set during the Galactic Civil War (the period that our models are from, and we already know features ISDs).
Exactly what we'll see specifically is anyone's guess, but there are whole threads devoted to that, so I won't bother speculating here...
I would be crushed if Armada no longer supported pre-painted ships.
I'd probably stop buying in if it wasn't pre painted. I don't mind hitting fighters with sharpies, but I'm not a painter. And I definitely wouldn't enjoy it (or could justify the price) without them being painted.
Petty? A little.
Don't think it's petty. I love Armada because you can play it out of the box. I want to have a go repainting at some point, but for now I like the fact that I can turn up at a tournament and, whilst other people's may look more exciting than mine, at least my models don't look terrible.
But I seriously don't think that's going to happen.
My take: not enough tiny Asian hands to paint your star destroyers.
I would happily pay a discounted price for unpainted/primered ships, but getting entirely away from the prepainted ships would be a bone head move, that would cost them customers.
MC80 Liberty...or we riot.
This
Eh. Wave 4 could be Whatever.
I won't know what I'm really missing, gameplay wise, until I've played the heck out of Wave 3.
In no hurry.
I just want more triangles.
It'll be two fighter packs; released to a chorus of "Armada is dying!", "FFG doesn't care!", and "I quit!" posts.
It'll be two fighter packs; released to a chorus of "Armada is dying!", "FFG doesn't care!", and "I quit!" posts.
Followed by a long list of threads about how stoked we all are about this new wave, and how it's really going to change the meta. 
If wave 4 is 2 fighter packs I'm probably going to go punch a baby.
K-wings could be Fun.