Just to throw my 1.79 cents in. You DO let the cherry win. If they are deadset against winning, you frame it as you are helping them. They are about to make a bad move, you pause the game and explain what is about to happen, (your escort is about to step into the front arc of my Imp Star II, bad idea), that kind of thing. You don't play stupid, but, don't play hard with every trick you have. And EXPLAIN every decision you make and why. That said, if the dice are not letting them win, play it off as luck, (pure and simple), and commiserate with them, (wow, look at all those blanks you rolled, holy carp).

Secondly, you run it vanilla. I taught a friend the game and we started off playing two games using the set up from the book. Using the core miniatures only and no upgrades.

Switch sides. Let them play as the rebels AND Imps. Some people only enjoy playing one side or the other, (my daughter plays most of my games and is ALWAYS Rebs. She refuses to play the "bad guys"). Well, she did play the Germans in Wings of War, but, that is because she found a "neat looking smarties plane".

Then, after you have them hooked, THEN bring in the toys, explaining each one. Help them build a list, give them some of yours, show them where to find some lists, show them some list builders, etc. The builders are a great tool because it lets them fiddle.

Lastly, once you teach someone a game, you may be their mentor for life. Be ready for that part.

Edited for the fact I am idiot and forgot to add that I know a lot of this stuff has already been said, just concurring and such

I feel that is weird, if he is an old wargamer. 40k has power weapons and crap which breaks the rules, nearly all wargames have something like what he is complaining about to some degree.

40K didn't really get into the Special Rule nonsense until 3rd edition. So it's still a "new" thing. Most historical games, with the noted exception of Flames of War, don't do it. Even then, however, the special rules for games like FoW or 40K are actually trying to simulate a special power or ability the unit would logically have. The upgrade cards in X-Wing/Armada are just random game effects attached to a random game character or weapon. No one could have possibly predicted Dodonna's or Mon Mothma's special ability before they saw the cards. There's no relation between those character on screen and the powers that they have in-game.

That being said, I can understand the marketing aspect of making a game that's structured like X-Wing and Armada. Not only does it encourage players to buy models just for the cards, but it also allows the players to engage with the game without actually playing it. Players can spend countless ours picking and choosing upgrades and army lists, downloading examples, learning exploits, and plotting counters moves, all without ever even actually playing the game.

I feel that is weird, if he is an old wargamer. 40k has power weapons and crap which breaks the rules, nearly all wargames have something like what he is complaining about to some degree.

the special rules for games like FoW or 40K are actually trying to simulate a special power or ability the unit would logically have. The upgrade cards in X-Wing/Armada are just random game effects attached to a random game character or weapon. No one could have possibly predicted Dodonna's or Mon Mothma's special ability before they saw the cards. There's no relation between those character on screen and the powers that they have in-game.

I think that was the major issue with them, add in to the fact that a combination of this in Dodonna and Dodonna's Pride lost him the match which tilts things negatively.

That said, everything you are all saying is right. He isn't the first person I have taught the game, more like the umpteenth, and in all those prior games I used naked or very very sparse ships and most importantly I think in hindsight I didn't use ace squadrons.

I want to let you all know I appreciate the conversation so far, even as it touches on everything from the nature of upgrades to how we treat new members of the community and all in all has been a really good read for me.

X-wing is still very much about dogfighting. They've tried to re-emphasise that in the latest wave by focusing on ships with tricks to their arcs, rewarding flying and positioning with increased damage or utility. There's very little of the deckbuilding aspect to X-wing. It may seem that way with certain common builds requiring 6 or 7 upgrade cards (I'm looking at you, torp-scouts), but it's vastly more common to see just a couple of upgrades per ship. I see far more on Armada builds, to be honest.

I disagree entirely. This is anecdotal of course but my games over the last month are just getting blasted by turrets that flip all their dice to hits and critical hits via upgrades. Things that should be a disadvantage being requirements for doing awesome things.

Played against four of the toilet seat/u-boat ships in a list. No upgrades on them. Dude bumped them altogether and they sat stationary in a line for many turns. I only lasted as long as I did through a very hot run of evade dice for one ship. Three ships not going anywhere during a dogfight?

Played the last two weeks against "Super-Dash." So Dash, Outrider, PTL, Ezra, Mangler Cannon, and Fire-control (I think, get a target lock after an attack.) Granted I've been silly and brought X-wings to a game of X-wing miniatures but I assure you there wasn't a whole lot of dogfight there. I was "out-teched" far more than I was outflown.

You DO let the cherry win.

Pretty sure you are supposed to pop the cherry. Sounds like you're doing it wrong.

I feel that is weird, if he is an old wargamer. 40k has power weapons and crap which breaks the rules, nearly all wargames have something like what he is complaining about to some degree.

40K didn't really get into the Special Rule nonsense until 3rd edition. So it's still a "new" thing. Most historical games, with the noted exception of Flames of War, don't do it. Even then, however, the special rules for games like FoW or 40K are actually trying to simulate a special power or ability the unit would logically have. The upgrade cards in X-Wing/Armada are just random game effects attached to a random game character or weapon. No one could have possibly predicted Dodonna's or Mon Mothma's special ability before they saw the cards. There's no relation between those character on screen and the powers that they have in-game.

That being said, I can understand the marketing aspect of making a game that's structured like X-Wing and Armada. Not only does it encourage players to buy models just for the cards, but it also allows the players to engage with the game without actually playing it. Players can spend countless ours picking and choosing upgrades and army lists, downloading examples, learning exploits, and plotting counters moves, all without ever even actually playing the game.

Sure, but 3rd edition dropped 18 years ago. Hardly new. But your point about historical mini games is well taken. I can sympathize somewhat, but still think that at the very least Armada is transparent in that you get to see the cards before you start the game.

Lastly, once you teach someone a game, you may be their mentor for life. Be ready for that part.

So true.

-snip, and true from my perspective-

Sure, but 3rd edition dropped 18 years ago. Hardly new. But your point about historical mini games is well taken. I can sympathize somewhat, but still think that at the very least Armada is transparent in that you get to see the cards before you start the game.

If you take the time to actually go scout their cards. For a closed-list gamer like myself, I can't help but feel like I'm really cheating by doing that, so I don't do it (tournament or not). I doubt I'm the only one with that hang up.

Also, thanks for making me feel old, I still remember transitioning from 2nd to 3rd edition

"If you take the time to actually go scout their cards. For a closed-list gamer like myself, I can't help but feel like I'm really cheating by doing that, so I don't do it (tournament or not). I doubt I'm the only one with that hang up."

I tell my list to my opponent before deploying and if they don't do the same I will go and look myself. With the exception of objectives, everything is out and open so I don't see why you would feel like cheating by seeing what their fleet does. I haven't had any problems with it yet.

"If you take the time to actually go scout their cards. For a closed-list gamer like myself, I can't help but feel like I'm really cheating by doing that, so I don't do it (tournament or not). I doubt I'm the only one with that hang up."

I tell my list to my opponent before deploying and if they don't do the same I will go and look myself. With the exception of objectives, everything is out and open so I don't see why you would feel like cheating by seeing what their fleet does. I haven't had any problems with it yet.

Meh, you build your list proper, I'll build mine, we'll fight, and the Emperor will decide who is worthy. Yeah, I know the rules, but its two decades of experience that says the contrary.

"If you take the time to actually go scout their cards. For a closed-list gamer like myself, I can't help but feel like I'm really cheating by doing that, so I don't do it (tournament or not). I doubt I'm the only one with that hang up."

I tell my list to my opponent before deploying and if they don't do the same I will go and look myself. With the exception of objectives, everything is out and open so I don't see why you would feel like cheating by seeing what their fleet does. I haven't had any problems with it yet.

Meh, you build your list proper, I'll build mine, we'll fight, and the Emperor will decide who is worthy. Yeah, I know the rules, but its two decades of experience that says the contrary.

So you really just deploy your ships without knowing what is on the opposite side? Like dropping your flotilla with commander opposite of Demo? I only care about what ship is what for deploying so I can prioritize my targeting and develop my flight paths for my ships.

Yep. And I got second in regionals and seem to do fine despite it. I only care about learning how my fleet is supposed to fight together, thus worrying about my own techniques rather than worrying what my opponent has up their sleeve.

Yep. And I got second in regionals and seem to do fine despite it. I only care about learning how my fleet is supposed to fight together, thus worrying about my own techniques rather than worrying what my opponent has up their sleeve.

That's amazing. You are clearly a cut above the rest of us.

Or I've got good draws as I've placed pretty good in the past 4 tournaments I've been in (that's sort of when I stopped caring about my opponents list building and just playing and practicing). Then again, a lot of ships are fairly easy to size up based on how an opponent broadcasts their deployment: GSD deployed to one side, or behind a formation? It's likely Demo, probably with engine tech, maybe wulf, OE, APT is likely. If there's a Nebulon B with fast squadrons nearby, it's likely Yavaris, if it's got B wings or heavy bombers, it's likely got FC2T, CR90's I assume by default are TRC, SW7's I found that my locals keep behind larger ships to grab some cover, etc.

The big surprises are usually things like ISD's, highly versatile and multi-platform effective ships. I've been caught by Avenger a few times and punished for it, but that's kind of enjoyable in that it's something unexpected and not always apparent. Again, the number of people I've caught off guard by a H6's commanded from Corvettes is worth it as that's not supposed to be a 'thing'

I guess I place a lot more emphasis on knowing and really working ones own list rather than listbuilding. It sure turned my game around (went from last place in store championship where I was subbing out my instinctive ship choices for the 'net list', to a 5th place and 2nd place finish at regionals, and winning several tournaments. All based on lists that aren't considered 'top dog'.) The game is still new, the permutations are many but the archetypes are often similar enough to be identifiable at a glance. As Han said, "Never tell me the odds."

Vykes: "Oh, was that your flagship I just blew up? I hadn't noticed. My next arc will now fire upon the ISD. Avenger you say? Whatever."

. As Han said, "Never tell me the odds."

You see, that's what I'm kinda talking about with my post...

I compltely agree with wha tyou've said.

BUT, it appears that the persul alluded to in the OP just wants his Odds spelled out, and for those odds to not change.

Right on Ninja, you missed the monocle polishing and mustache twirling that I resort to. Full marks for that, but a two point deduction for those oversights, eh wot? Ship type and flagships are pretty apparent, token and base ship tokens, but I don't migrate over to the other side of the table to scan their upgrades. It feels weird, invasive, and as I said, 20 years of other wargames said 'you keep that stuff to yourself and then spring the trap' so it carried forward as a habit. It's a failure of experiences. It's the kind that blinds, the kind that binds, and it sounds like Broba's alluded to individual may have a case of that as well.

'Tis true Drassy; I don't want to assume when it comes to what people expect but it could very well be the case. What strikes me as a bit wonky is that this didn't come up in passing when he chose Demo, given that he was experienced enough with wargames to spot the most blatant system-disrupting upgrade and take it, then complain about another. That makes me uncomfortable.

X-wing is still very much about dogfighting. They've tried to re-emphasise that in the latest wave by focusing on ships with tricks to their arcs, rewarding flying and positioning with increased damage or utility. There's very little of the deckbuilding aspect to X-wing. It may seem that way with certain common builds requiring 6 or 7 upgrade cards (I'm looking at you, torp-scouts), but it's vastly more common to see just a couple of upgrades per ship. I see far more on Armada builds, to be honest.

I disagree entirely. This is anecdotal of course but my games over the last month are just getting blasted by turrets that flip all their dice to hits and critical hits via upgrades. Things that should be a disadvantage being requirements for doing awesome things.

Played against four of the toilet seat/u-boat ships in a list. No upgrades on them. Dude bumped them altogether and they sat stationary in a line for many turns. I only lasted as long as I did through a very hot run of evade dice for one ship. Three ships not going anywhere during a dogfight?

Played the last two weeks against "Super-Dash." So Dash, Outrider, PTL, Ezra, Mangler Cannon, and Fire-control (I think, get a target lock after an attack.) Granted I've been silly and brought X-wings to a game of X-wing miniatures but I assure you there wasn't a whole lot of dogfight there. I was "out-teched" far more than I was outflown.

To the first, turrets happen, but turret carriers are squishy, that's the trade off. Autothrusters and an evade token, you're pretty much solid for whatever they can throw. In fact, TLT's weakness is range one, so getting in there takes skill.

4 Contracted Scouts is unusual, but it's also just 8 unmodified dice over the course of an attack, assuming they're all in range. That's not very much damage output unless they're rolling hot and you're drawing blanks. It's also very easy to turn that player's tactic against them. Make one strafing pass on a single target, taking them to half hull, then turn around and wait for them on the other side of the board until the end of the game. Sure, it's boring as hell, but they're employing a cheesy tactic that is generally frowned upon and avoided. You're just using it against them to force them out of their hiding spot. With half points on a single ship in the bag, they now have to engage you or simply lose the game by staying put (and again, 2 unmodified attack dice don't do a huge amount of damage, and 2 unmodified defence dice are even less useful).

That last one isn't a Super Dash, either. The only similarity is PTL and Outrider, and he can't actually take Fire Control System (so if he had this, you've been conned). Super Dash is PTL, Outrider, HLC, Kanan, Engine Upgrade, and in that configuration he can be a pain to deal with, but not at all impossible. In fact, he's somewhat fallen in and out of favour as new counters are found. He's incredibly flighty, but he's not that hard to actually hit if you can predict his movement.

tl;dr - all of your above issues come down to flying and choices more than cards.

Also, pro tip: Don't bring X-wings unless they're called Biggs. They're not all that good...

So last weekend I played a game against a good friend who has a long history of playing tabletop miniature games and is also a huge Star Wars fan, who I figured to be a shoe-in for Armada.

However, the way the game shook out has bugging me for days, and I wanted to see how you all would address his complaint. TL;DR is that he thought the Dials, maneuver tool, and rules of the game were laid out brilliantly, but was SUPER frustrated that every card text (Especially Dodonna's Pride and Tycho, in this instance) revolved around breaking these rules, "ruining" what would otherwise be an awesome game. If you don't care to read any more you could essentially join the conversation knowing only that.

If you have nothing else to do while waiting for an article, and care to help me a little more in depth, read on:

My opponent is a good wargamer, so I know better than to play easy on him. We play out the first turn positioning, then the firing happens, we trade ship kills early as Salvation bites the dust and I pepper the ISD. So far he is having a great time. He mentions how the command stack is excellent in making large ships feel large and small ones feel nimble, and how much he likes the movement tool. He even thinks the range finding and spotting is good and is really enjoying the game. Start of turn 3, however, my Dodonna's Pride double arc's his raider and rolls a crit in each roll. With Dodonna I fish up 2 structurals, so his raider is toast. He is a little irked. A few turns later when D. Pride sweeps in and does it AGAIN (only without structurals) on his ISD, crippling it and allowing me to take it off the board, his aggravation grows. In all, I think the only round I DIDN'T get at least one damage card from D.Pride was the first when there was no shooting. He was definitely the MVP of the game.

Later, in the squad phase, I moved Tycho out of his engagement to tie up a bomber that would otherwise have destroyed my transport. Again, he understood that Tycho, arbitrarily because of the text on his card, was allowed to move out of engagement. But he was now noticibly upset.

When we were finished he was incredibly frustrated and said that he was tired of companies that, "Won't simply develop a straight-forward war game, but the feel need to add these bull**** 'heroes' doing rule bending and game breaking stuff that just couldn't happen." He persisted that cards like the aforementioned absolutely destroyed this game, and that if Armada would just oblige by it's own rules it would be a much better game.

This complaint hit me totally sideways as it was a complaint I had not yet heard, so I really didn't have a good response. I tried to explain that normally titles like D.Pride are not as effective and that I had a hot rolling streak, but he was adamant that it made no sense for them to dismantle their own really well laid out rules in such a way. How could a ship die with full shields?

Additionally, this was not a case of a game going one-sided and the loser being full of salt either. Despite the hot streak of D.Pride, he still managed to take out Salvation, Jainas (TRC), and Mon Karren, so it ended up being a close game even though I did beat him.

I know my friend well, and I still feel like he would really get involved in Armada if he gave it another chance and I could convince him that the card texts were not in opposition to the rules, but how how the game is balanced so those "arbitrary rule breaks" don't break the actual game itself. I just haven't figured out how I would go about approaching the subject.

How would you address this one?

Why not try a 600 point game without the cards or better yet your flag ship has one upgrade. Try the game without most of the extras. Sounds like he is a true gamer wanting a lot of ships etc. May be kinda boring on the gimmicks side , but basic ships and squadrons will allow both of you to really use tactics and maneuver rather than relying on gimmicks and cards. I play 800-1000 point games with just the basic ships and squadrons, and a single upgrade to the flagship. I tend more to the "realistic" side of the game. Unique squadrons and ships are just that unique, but use the ships in their basic forms and a lot of them , brings out the real tactics in the game.Just a thought , and suggestion for both of your enjoyment.

Shane

The point of every upgrade or other card: they break/tweak/whatever the core rules to some extent.

You pay extra points to break rules. Some cards are super-price efficient others don't. While this could be fun and also an easy way to include special abilities, balancing and finding the right price is difficult.

But I can understand the frustration of the OP.

Every card that breaks the rules subtracts 'simulation' aspects and adds 'gamey' aspects to the game. While I thing the biggest gamey asset in the game is the space station. Ramming a space station gives you hull points back? So, I knew from the start that this game is not going to be a simulation and all upcoming cards could be gamey like that.

I can see where he's coming from, and I think it comes from (a) expectations, and (b) learning curve.

If he only gets the basic rules laid out to him and doesn't know to expect any exceptions, then yeah, they're gonna blindside him. And this isn't on you, as the guy helping him learn the game, because the learning curve is steep as hell; so you couldn't be expected to sit down and go over every upgrade and every option and every hero, when you were just explaining the basics to him prior to gameplay.

It might just not be a game for him, is all. If he's coming at it from a more traditional/historical wargaming perspective, instead of a fantastic (40k, Warmachine, etc), he might just never "click" to the game. And that's not saying anything's wrong with him or anything is wrong with the game, it just might not be a good fit.

Wouldn't it get exceedingly boring and stale rather quickly if there were no upgrades or abilities in game, just a bunch of vanilla ships???

I dunno, chess is doing pretty well, right?

If my very first exposure to this game involved me playing somebody fielding Demo and Rhymer, I'd never play this game again.

When I teach people to play armada I give them demolisher and Rhymer. They usually think the game is awesome.

There was indeed a time in X-wing when upgrades were really bad and generic ships were supreme.

But it was pure math, not piloting skill that won the game. Just take your howlrunner swarms and be done with it because everything else sucked.

I played with no upgrades forever. It was wonderful, actually... Rather straight forward. That might be the solution.

So you really just deploy your ships without knowing what is on the opposite side? Like dropping your flotilla with commander opposite of Demo?

Opposite of Demo is one of the safest places you can put your command flotilla.