Well yes, play your first couple games with no upgrades and no unique squadrons. Build your list with your opponent and try to make two balanced lists. After the first game, switch sides without changing the list. Even odds you'll have a pretty good grasp of the rules after that and will have an intuitive understanding of both upgrades' utility and ships stats.

And btw, that was rude. And just said armada was on the streamlined side. Not sure why my simple statement that I too played 40k prompted ire.

I showed my 22 year old son the game when Wave 2 hit. I just dived in with everything and tried to teach him. Failed. He didn't get it and was overwhelmed.

I really wanted to have him in our Corellian Conflict Campaign, and so I tried it again many months later with Wave 5.

This time I played a few games with absolutely no upgrades. Just ships and non-unique squads. He got it right away and was excited. He actually did very well. After the second game he was ready. He wanted to dive in because he understood the mechanics. The upgrade cards just tweak the understood rules of the game (of course they do it A LOT).

Now he has built his CC fleet and we are both excited (even though he is rebel scum)

This post nails it. Play without upgrades and the flow of the game is apparent.

I played my first game a few weeks ago, and intentionally left out upgrade cards. The mechanics of Command, shoot, move, repeat, then squadrons are really so straight forward after playing the game without the upgrades, that it's actually pretty simplistic upon reflection.

Well yes, play your first couple games with no upgrades and no unique squadrons. Build your list with your opponent and try to make two balanced lists. After the first game, switch sides without changing the list. Even odds you'll have a pretty good grasp of the rules after that and will have an intuitive understanding of both upgrades' utility and ships stats.

And btw, that was rude. And just said armada was on the streamlined side. Not sure why my simple statement that I too played 40k prompted ire.

It wasn't directed at you. I didn't quote you. But half this thread is a bunch of people saying "Yes 40k is harder to play than Armada. Armada has fairly simple rules compared to these other games." and doesn't really answer what the OP asked.

I think the problem with upgrades is that the designers intentionally add more and more layers that synergise with pre-existing cards.

Which is great from a design point of view, you're creating a handful of new cards which make old cards work in different ways to diversify the options available to players.

But from a gamers point of view, it can become too much. When each ship has three or more things to do each turn, adding more and more steps into each thing (reveal dial, spend or convert, move, shoot, etc) it becomes quite intricate yet doesn't really add to the playing experience. I need to wait while my opponent issues a squadron command that has three or four qualifiers, resolves the squadrons attacks with another three or four special rules and keywords in play, then commences an attack that requires the interlinked use of four different upgrades, while I put my own defensive synergies into play, then moves his ship utilising yet more special rules!

It gets to the point where to make an attack I gather dice, then use a special rule to add some dice, remove others, and swap yet more. Then I roll those dice, then add dice, then remove dice, then change dice, then re-roll dice, then I get some crits which mean this happens AND that happens, then some of my upgrades affect your defensive tokens, then you cancel some of my dice, re-roll some and finally, after applying god knows how many upgrades, we see how much damage is done. I dunno, it all just feels a bit top heavy. Like we're constantly taking the long way around.

Coming from 40K and Fantasy, lol at the thought that there's too many rules.

It's almost like you forgot about USRs before unique codex/army special rules

It gets to the point where to make an attack I gather dice, then use a special rule to add some dice, remove others, and swap yet more. Then I roll those dice, then add dice, then remove dice, then change dice, then re-roll dice, then I get some crits which mean this happens AND that happens, then some of my upgrades affect your defensive tokens, then you cancel some of my dice, re-roll some and finally, after applying god knows how many upgrades, we see how much damage is done. I dunno, it all just feels a bit top heavy. Like we're constantly taking the long way around.

Agreed. Anything more than roll, rerolls, apply crits, use defense tokens gets really silly and ruins the flow of the game.

The problem isn't so much the complexity of games nowadays - they are getting much simpler - its the 'crush the n00b' mentality of computer games finding its way across to the tabletop that prevents newer players from entering.

Back when I used to play 40k at the shop the owner would send new players over to me for me to train softly, as I am a teacher and kinda do it on instinct. Any of the other players would have ground them into the dust and then laughed at them.

When I tried to play a couple of games of X-wing a few years ago that was my experience - people lined up to 'crush the n00b' for various reasons. That's why I chose to play Armada, because there were only 3 players at the shop and they were laughing while they played.

It is more complicated than X-wing but X-wing really only had one unit type, ship. Sure I guess you could split them into small base and large base but they all move attack and have actions the same way. Large ships do not use a different movement template than small ships. (huge ships do but that is for epic)

Now in Armada there are two unit types. Squadrons and ships and they all move and attack and interact with each other in very different ways. That right there adds an additional layer of rules much like how huge ships have that additional layer in epic. It does make things a lot more complicated especially when you compare it to a simpler game design.

I think one of the things that needlessly complicates Armada is the way they measure ranges. You have range distances, speed distances, and firing ranges, and it means you need two or three movement tools on the table at any given time. If they had just bitten the bullet and used centimetres or inches and a generic tapemeasure, I think that straight away would have made the game 'lighter' and also allowed for more variation because you can give ships any speed, not just one of the four available, and similarly with ranges you're not limited to one of the three ranges available.

Imo te problem isnt the additions. its the core rules being **** complciated.

attack is 9 step

rules are really obscurely worded. resolve versus spend

squadrons have so many keywords and so many abilities and end up in a giant ball.

turn based activation

and finally, objectives. while i like them, they are just really dense bundles of exacting text.

Distances, Movement, and Ranges were indeed the only thing we found annoying at first, but even then that feels less like "too complicated", and more like "completely unlike anything else we've ever done" (though it's closer to Pirates of the Spanish Main​ than many things).

Maybe it's because I play a crapload of board games and learn new rules all the time, but I really don't see Armada as "complex" in any noteworthy fashion. Movement, Speed, and Commands can be tricky. Competitive-level strategy and listbuilding is still beyond me. But the only criteria I've needed from people who wanted to play was "Do you have quite a bit of time, and a lot of patience? Because this is going to take a while​."

Our first few games were played incredibly​ poorly, with a very poor grasp of some of the specifics of the rules, and they were a blast regardless.

Hell, I'm still awful at planning my movement and Nav commands. My fleets function like accidental bumper-cards half of the time.

Imo te problem isnt the additions. its the core rules being **** complciated.

attack is 9 step

rules are really obscurely worded. resolve versus spend

squadrons have so many keywords and so many abilities and end up in a giant ball.

turn based activation

and finally, objectives. while i like them, they are just really dense bundles of exacting text.

Agreed, but they've deliberately broken attacks into 9 steps so that they can create upgrade cards which apply different effects at each of the nine steps.

I mean, I get that some people love that layer of complexity, but I'm seriously considering adopting the Corellian Conflict starter rules as standard: One upgrade per ship, admiral excepted.

Imo te problem isnt the additions. its the core rules being **** complciated.

attack is 9 step

rules are really obscurely worded. resolve versus spend

squadrons have so many keywords and so many abilities and end up in a giant ball.

turn based activation

and finally, objectives. while i like them, they are just really dense bundles of exacting text.

Agreed, but they've deliberately broken attacks into 9 steps so that they can create upgrade cards which apply different effects at each of the nine steps.

I mean, I get that some people love that layer of complexity, but I'm seriously considering adopting the Corellian Conflict starter rules as standard: One upgrade per ship, admiral excepted.

I'd love to see this become a tournament standard (I know it won't, but still).

It gets to the point where to make an attack I gather dice, then use a special rule to add some dice, remove others, and swap yet more. Then I roll those dice, then add dice, then remove dice, then change dice, then re-roll dice, then I get some crits which mean this happens AND that happens, then some of my upgrades affect your defensive tokens, then you cancel some of my dice, re-roll some and finally, after applying god knows how many upgrades, we see how much damage is done. I dunno, it all just feels a bit top heavy. Like we're constantly taking the long way around.

Agreed. Anything more than roll, rerolls, apply crits, use defense tokens gets really silly and ruins the flow of the game.

Well, I think this is the difference between tons of heavy upgrades to ships, and not that many. I haven't found my games to be far different from the latter, and I'm learning the game myself while teaching a 63 year old opponent. We just usually cap things at 2-3 upgrades per ship, so we have more ships that are less complicated on the table.

I think the upgrade tracking can get finicky but is offset by the big risk in piling upgrades into one ship. Especially when the cost of those upgrades post wave 5 might be the cost of a flotilla which buys an extra activation.

we cap it at 2 upgrades per ship. One title/person, one gear.

I've never had too much of an issue with the number of special rules, but I do agree with people who say the rules can be bloody complicated at times. Whilst I didn't have too many issues coming from a netrunner background (oh good god. Paid ability windows and cascading effects... the FAQing that was needed), FFG does have a habit of making unpleasant lists of timing windows. It's survivable, but they really need to get better at both explaining it, and putting in timing charts.

To the point raised about the game becoming more unfriendly towards new players.

I think people who play and like Armada will be of particular type of gamer anyway. Casual gamers or lovers of tight, quick playing-time games simply won't have the desire or staying power for Armada, whereas miniature gamers and lovers of complex special ability games who have afternoons to kill will probably take to Armada like a duck to water, regardless of the number of upgrades.

I don't play tournaments or competitively so when I play I'm very much in the "for fun" camp and the increase in options is just that - it enriches the game and gives it even greater longevity. Yes, the game gets more complex, and yes we DO forget to use our special abilities more often than I would like to (Screed and Targeting Scramblers I'm looking at you!), but when it's for fun it doesn't really matter. Plus there's BEER, and there's definitely a correlation with how many beers we've had and how often we forget our upgrade abilities...

I used to play WH40K.

So, no I don't think that there are too many special rules.

I can see the potential difficulty for new players coming in though.

I used to play WH40K.

So, no I don't think that there are too many special rules.

I can see the potential difficulty for new players coming in though.

Same here.

40k has more rules per faction than Armada does as a whole. And the way their rules are written are so interweaved you HAVE to know all of them. Not a game went by in the 7 years i played that i didnt ref the rules atleast once a game. Ranging from a situation i had no idea how it worked to "what was that thing's attack value...?"

I play Battletech too. Armada is ****ing tame compared.

All the yes!

I've long since sidelined 40k. Got tired of GW and all the FOTM Codex nonsense.

Coincidentally, we just played Battletech last night (merc campaign I'm running). It took about six hours for a two lance on two lance engagement. It's mechanics do not lend themselves to short games unless one is playing Alpha Strike. Fun though, but RNG can be a harsh mistress. My roommate lost two mechs to ammo explosions, one being his Hunchback that had one shot a Dragon in the face. He was displeased. Mechs aren't cheap to replace. At least one of the pilots survived.

Think my combined 40k rulebooks that are current is like 14" tall when stacked on each other. Granted some books sparsely get used, i.e. Ghazzy's WAAAAGH!, but theyre still current rules lol.

FFG business model doesn't lend itself well to new players getting into the game once the game has reached a certain level of market maturity.

There are many posts so far that correctly point out that Armada is pretty tame in the special rules department compared to many of its more popular tabletop peers. But those same peers have a different business model than FFGs system of special rules through expansion cards.

To apply FFGs business model to other games would be quite silly and most likely not go over well with players. Can you imagion playing Flames of War and needing to purchase an Hungarian infantry platoon in order to have access to the Quality of Quantity special rule for your Russian list you're building?

Yet this very thing exists in Armada... I really want Flight Controllers for my rebel aces build but I need to buy the VSD expansion in order to access the card.

This type of business model isn't really a big deal when a game is brand new with only 2 or 3 waves but it quickly compounds to the point where it keeps players from buying the game.

As I've said personally, I wont get into X wing. Not because I dont want to but simply I dont have to money to be purchasing 9 waves of expansions (and sometimes multiples) to have access to the various upgrades I would use in different builds.

Back to my main point, FFG has a fine line to tread when it comes to all of the special rule cards because when the game reaches wave 10 they need to take special care it doesnt become an unnecassary barrier to entry for new players.

*Edit - English isn't one of my strengths

Meh Armada is still quite easy to understand and, more importantly, accepting of simple fleets

After all, how complex are TLRCs really? Or Vader arkittens? Or bomber command center bombers?

Stick to simple if you wish or if youre new, the game can more than accomidate that playstyle

Which is part of why it is awesome

FFG business model doesn't lend itself well to new players getting into the game once the game has reached a certain level of market maturity.

There are many posts so far that correctly point out that Armada is pretty tame in the special rules department compared to many of its more popular tabletop peers. But those same peers have a different business model than FFGs system of special rules through expansion cards.

To apply FFGs business model to other games would be quite silly and most likely not go over well with players. Can you imagion playing Flames of War and needing to purchase an Hungarian infantry platoon in order to have access to the Quality of Quantity special rule for your Russian list you're building?

Yet this very thing exists in Armada... I really want Flight Controllers for my rebel aces build but I need to buy the VSD expansion in order to access the card.

This type of business model isn't really a big deal when a game is brand new with only 2 or 3 waves but it quickly compounds to the point where it keeps players from buying the game.

As I've said personally, I wont get into X wing. Not because I dont want to but simply I dont have to money to be purchasing 9 waves of expansions (and sometimes multiples) to have access to the various upgrades I would use in different builds.

Back to my main point, FFG has a fine line to tread when it comes to all of the special rule cards because when the game reaches wave 10 they need to take special care it doesnt become an unnecassary barrier to entry for new players.

*Edit - English isn't one of my strengths

Miniatures gaming is an expensive hobby, and Armada is frankly way on the cheaper end of the spectrum. Buying everything for both factions plus a core set is still about the same as getting a decent size collection for one faction in another game. Getting access to certain upgrades is a pain I agree, but you can definitely build competitive lists using the stuff that comes in the box or look to eBay if really don't want to buy certain expansions.

I've found my group warming up to all the Upgrades with the Corellian Campaign. Flying a minimalist fleet and then adding upgrades a couple at a time is allowing us to experiment with different upgrade combos while keeping it manageable.

My personal difficulty is with the level of what I think is referred to as "bookkeeping" you have to do in a game. I enjoyed Heroclix when it debuted but when they added the cards with special rules on them the things one had to keep track of to make good decisions in the game became too high. Chess and Go while complex do not require a great deal of "bookkeeping." It is all in front of you on the board. The way the queen works doesn't change if she moves next to some other piece. There is the complexity of the rules and there is the "bookkeeping" the game requires of you.