Hey naked,

I thought I would share my experience with you. I started with two core sets and had never player armada. Then I bought a crap tone of ships with little to know though on what and where I was going. In retrospect I think the key is to hook up with local players that have a wide variety of ships for you to try out. Play several times to figure out your play style, if you haven't already from your previous fleet game experience. Getting to know the game through proxy cards and using the experience and expense of other players will go a long way for you to make your dollars, or pounds, go a long way.

For me I am a bull in a china shop so buying multiples of the ISDs and MC80s was the way for me to start, this was expensive. Then again, I am not playing for the competition I am playing for the fun of playing. In fact I lose more often than I win, but I have a blast every time. The game itself from a marketing aspect is just like X wing In The fact that cards are sometimes specific to particular expansions and your fleet grows as you make purchases for the cards you need.

Just my two cents. Have a great time and welcome to the community. May the dark side flow through you, crush your enemies and hear the Lamentations of their woman.

I'm actually ok with there being no new-player builds. I like that it's open enough to do whatever for a few games and figure things out (rather than go "hey guys, I brought three T65s with Proton Torpedoes!" and then get plowed into the ground, like I've seen happen so many new X-wing players).

Its all on player skill. Learn to love the Navigate command over Concentrate Fire.

Lastly, any silly opening things to avoid in first games? Common mistakes or timing issues to watch out for?

Concentrate fire looks nice but its a trap until you are more experienced.

Out of the 50+ I have taught the game to, every single one was concentrate fire heavy on their commands.

Second thing. . . actually the most important. . . THIS IS NOT X-WING! Once again, THIS. IS. NOT. X-WING! This is vital for you. You are a competitive X-Wing player so you will compare this to X-Wing. DONT! FOR THE LOVE OF THE LIVING STARS PLEASE DONT!

Armada is less fast paced and far more about strategy. There are less shenanigans and the game is FAR FAR FAR less about your build than it is about your play skill.

Watch some videos on rules. Handily, my first link in my Siggy will lead you to mine which I will be updating soonish.

That is the reason why it is called concentrate fire, becauses it relies on timely use to work well, as spike damage is important in this game. Navigate and the other commands actually help the ship maximise the timely use of concentrate fires on the right turns.

Lastly, any silly opening things to avoid in first games? Common mistakes or timing issues to watch out for?

Concentrate fire looks nice but its a trap until you are more experienced.

Out of the 50+ I have taught the game to, every single one was concentrate fire heavy on their commands.

Second thing. . . actually the most important. . . THIS IS NOT X-WING! Once again, THIS. IS. NOT. X-WING! This is vital for you. You are a competitive X-Wing player so you will compare this to X-Wing. DONT! FOR THE LOVE OF THE LIVING STARS PLEASE DONT!

Armada is less fast paced and far more about strategy. There are less shenanigans and the game is FAR FAR FAR less about your build than it is about your play skill.

Watch some videos on rules. Handily, my first link in my Siggy will lead you to mine which I will be updating soonish.

That is the reason why it is called concentrate fire, becauses it relies on timely use to work well, as spike damage is important in this game. Navigate and the other commands actually help the ship maximise the timely use of concentrate fires on the right turns.

True and False. You dont need spike damage to win or to do the most in the game from what I have found. It does work on some level but the issue people will find is that consistency becomes hard to procure. So for me and a few other players I think, Navigate is far more important because it is the best offensive and Defensive command you can possibly use 4 out of 5 times.

I am all for the Nav command as king when running imps.

But come on guys, is there anything sweeter than flipping over a dial on turn 3 you set on turn 1 and it's the concentrate fire dial your opponent DID NOT WANT TO SEE at that exact moment and they look at you like "how the hell did you know?"

Anyhow. Welcome to Armada sir! I for one am well chuffed to see so many threads lately RE people picking up the game!

I am all for the Nav command as king when running imps.

But come on guys, is there anything sweeter than flipping over a dial on turn 3 you set on turn 1 and it's the concentrate fire dial your opponent DID NOT WANT TO SEE at that exact moment and they look at you like "how the hell did you know?"

Anyhow. Welcome to Armada sir! I for one am well chuffed to see so many threads lately RE people picking up the game!

I'm actually ok with there being no new-player builds. I like that it's open enough to do whatever for a few games and figure things out (rather than go "hey guys, I brought three T65s with Proton Torpedoes!" and then get plowed into the ground, like I've seen happen so many new X-wing players).

While there aren't any ships that are obsolete, it is certainly possible to knee cap yourself in list building and objective selection.

I'm actually ok with there being no new-player builds. I like that it's open enough to do whatever for a few games and figure things out (rather than go "hey guys, I brought three T65s with Proton Torpedoes!" and then get plowed into the ground, like I've seen happen so many new X-wing players).

I mean, the sort of player who's going to show up with triple torpedo X-Wings in, uh, X-Wing is the sort of player who will show up with a bunch of corvettes loaded to the gills in Armada. And then discover that xi7 makes their advanced projectors worthless. With, I don't know, garm as their admiral.

While there aren't any ships that are obsolete, it is certainly possible to knee cap yourself in list building and objective selection.

Watch your builds.

If I had to do it all again I would only buy 1 of each imp/rebel squad pack and focus on rogues and villains packs... they are all the same cost, but rogues and villains comes with valuable ships for both sides that you will want multiples of... I'm thinking of yt2400s and firesprays, as well as the Intel ships... but maybe things are changing a bit, you may want more bees now a days, but maybe not

I'm just starting out too. My first purchases were a core set, a gladiator and a Home One.

The two expansions I chose were mainly due to finding them on Amazon at a great price. No idea if they're any good to start with or really the impact of any of the upgrades in these sets, but it's something else to play with.

Buy from bookdepository.com but not directly. Go to amazon.com then search armada and under "more buying choices" "new" you'll find the bookdepository.us offer which tends to be super cheap. Right now the ISD is $32 + shipping which for me (Croatia) was $7.

Although it says .us it's the same company on Guernsey or whatever island in the Channel and the minis are shipped from the UK so no customs or VAT.

My advice would be to start off buying a max of only 1 of each SKU at first, until you really get a feel for the game, and decide which ships you like and what types of games you want to play. I have 6 CR90's, but it's unlikely now that I'll ever field a list with more than 2, since the days of Rieekan Zombie ram-spam are over (at least for me)

So, I did something silly and just went ahead and bought the ISD, Gladiator, MC80 (Home One, not Liberty - that's confusing...), and AFII. After playing a couple of test games, I figured I needed some variety, as neither the Imperial squadrons, nor the Rebel corvette were lighting my fire, but I could see the potential.

Question from the games; can I break a squadron engagement if a ship lands pretty much in the middle of it. Example: opponent flies the VSD into the engaged squadrons. I get to choose where the displaced squadrons are replaced, so I move mine to the rear of the ship, and his to the front. Does this automatically break engagement on those ships?

You can place those squadrons in base to base contact with the ship that overlapped the squadrons. This includes the dials.

As long as the closes points of the squadron is obstructed or outside of Distance 1 you are not engaged. In case of the first, you can still attack each other but lose a die for all attacks including any Counter attacks.

Get a Rogues and Villains pack. The Jump master and HWK have Intel which will add variety to your engagements.

Should get a raider too. That way you can have Ordinance Experts.

You can use a fleet builder (I use warlords) to get stats of ships you want to experiment with, then play on VASSAL to try them out. There is a Facebook page to find someone to play. While VASSAL is a great way to try stuff out, to me it's not as good as moving models on a table top, so don't let that throw you.

As far as squadron packs goes, each has two stands each of different fighters. It can be two standard squads, or one and an ace squad. If you want to go heavy with a particular type of squad you'll need to buy two or three packs. For example I bought two packs in order to fly four B-wings.

Nobody will be able to tell you what you need to play until you find your own fleet building and play style. I tend to play large ship carrier fleets, others go for small ship, high bid, high activation fleets. Wave 3 and 4 have changed the face of the the gave a lot and it will change again with wave 5 and The Corellian Conflict. Bottom line is that you need to keep trying stuff and find what works for you.