I've seen posts here and there as to how puny the Rebel Fleet was and how silly the stand up fights of Armada are in reference to the canon lore. And while I ultimately agree that this is not a conflict of equals and that Armada type battles would be far from routine, the FFG current canon does hold it up better than one my think and certainly the films do too.

Exhibit A: the XWing and Tie Fighter game series. They've been clearly brought in well after the Disney take over. We have Tie Defenders and Marik Steele in through our newest released expansion. That's one of two (maybe three) of the protagonists from the series. So at least for Armada the games are canon and dozens of those battles fit the Armada set up extremely well

Exhibit B: Thrawn. As per Rebels he's in. The Thrawn era conflicts would see (and did) smaller capital ship battles all over the place and a more robust Alliance (NR) Navy to respond to Imperial warlords. So this time period alone (which is also when the EWings came about, which again we just got) justifies Armada well.

Exhibit C: Battle of Endor when watched carefully.

The rebels brought around 10 Mon Cal cruisers, at least 3 frigates, a half dozen corvettes and a dozen or more gallofrees. A much bigger force than I thought. It looks like (I paused a lot) at worst just 2 to 1 odds against the rebels (if you ignore the Executor and Death Star). Horrible odds, but better than I would have said off hand. Combine this with

Exhibit D: Rogue One. The Rebels fight a very armada like battle with ships we didn't know about and clone war assets that are now valid post Disney.

Clearly an Armada battle is not the stretch some portray it to be and is fairly true in universe to canon happenings.

I'm not going to argue pure numbers on the Battle of Endor, just assuming your 2-1 ratio is correct, but that's 2-1 of pure ship numbers, with the entire Imperial fleet made up of ISD's and an SSD, versus maybe half or less of the Rebel fleet made up of Mon Cal Cruisers, which would give us more of a 4-1 fight if you ignore the SSD. Don't forget, Admiral Akbar's initial reaction, before knowing the Death Star was even operational, was to retreat in the face of these odds. We can further assume, that this was the bulk of the Rebel fleet, while still assuming the Imperail fleet was just a portion of their entire fleet. My point being, that the Rebel fleet, just like in FFG's Rebellion, is vastly outnumbered by the Imperial fleet.

But, what still makes Armada "realistic" even given these facts, which can be illustrated once again by Rebellion, is that the Empire is so spread out trying to prevent or intercept Rebel activities, that the Rebels can have a fair fight of it in these small skirmishes by dictating when and where the fights will occur.

Even if you outnumber the Rebel fleet by 10-1 or more, you have to cover ten times as much territory, meaning the Rebels can get a 1-1 match by massing their fleet where least expected. Heck, that's the whole point of Thrawn's success in the Zahn trilogy, the Rebels are now the ones on the defensive, trying to protect many different places at once, without a clue where Thrawn will strike next, and that lets the Admiral determine the battle.

Man, Star Wars space battles are so cool.

Rogue One set the bar pretty high in that regard, too, for the newer stuff. Here's hoping the other films can keep up with that (except the Han Solo one - please don't shoehorn in an epic space battle).

Agreed to both of the above. And yes, clearly the Imperial prescense at Endor is vastly more powerful than the Rebels... But the Rebels had quite a few surviving ships and at least an SSD, an ISD, and a Death Star went down... so good show rebellion

Also, the call to retreat was after the Death Star fired. Ackbar was willing to buy time and duke it out until then. That being said, I completely echo your point on local superiority being able to be held by the insurgent force.

I'm just hoping we get Chimera (as an Imp Star 1 model), a hammerhead, an MC75, and maybe an imperial quasar soon.

Just food for thought, according to multiple calculations (I tried to do the calculations once, but, it required math so I gave up, so if someone else wants to check the numbers...) I've read on this forum, the imperial garrison at scarif rogue one was outnumbered (even once Darth Vader hyperspaced in.)

That's the thing about guerilla warfare, you pick and choose your battles. That's why Hoth didn't end well for the rebels, that battle wasn't of their choosing.

I will be honest I don't really consider anything that the FFG crew does with these games from top to bottom to really be canon.

I will be honest I don't really consider anything that the FFG crew does with these games from top to bottom to really be canon.

They're not, dash rendar isn't cannon (currently) yet they released him. Same with tons of other pilots (and ships!)

To reenforce Gadetron's point Jan Ors is from Dark Forces - which Rogue One has entirely rewritten the events of and yet she appears in almost every rebel fleet with a fighter ball I come across