So, I made a similar one of these topics over in the X-Wing Forum , where I tracked down original sources and some notable appearances of ships in the game, and was asked by a couple of people across communities to do something similar for Armada. Now, full disclosure, I don't play Armada (no offense to the game, I'm just not made of unlimited time and money) so I don't know if you guys have the issue where people wonder "where the **** did this ship come from!?" like we occasionally do over in X-Wing. But people seemed to like the information and I kind of like doing the legwork, so here we are.
Full explanation in the original X-Wing thread, but the short version is I'll go wave by wave, identifying a ship and it's original appearance, and any major notable appearance it's had subsequent. For ships appearing on screen in the OT, I just give the original film name and date - and maybe some recent mentions. If it appeared first in the EU/Legends, I'll source it too, talk about any big appearances, and if it's been canonized recently. I can only offer rough numbers for video game sales and no real numbers on book sales - just dates. I utilize SteamSpy numbers to generalize, so recall when I say that that steam's only been around since 2003 and there are other platforms games are sold on. As with that previous topic, possible minor technical spoilers for Rebels and Rogue One as I mention what ships appear when.
Wave I: (In which we start of surprisingly nuanced)
- The Assault Frigate Mark II comes from Star Wars: Empire At War and it's Expansion, released in 2006. The combined edition of the game "Gold Edition" has nearly 1.5 million copies owned on Steam.
- The CR-90 Corvette appears first on screen in the opening scene of Star Wars (1977), and appears again in the battle in Return of the Jedi (1983). The design has appeared in many new canon materials, such as many episodes of Rebels and in Rogue One .
- The Gladiator -class Star Destroyer first shows up in the TV cartoon series Star Wars: Droids , original run 1985. It also supposedly appeared in The Force Unleashed II , though I don't recall seeing it.
- The Nebulon-B Frigate first appears in Empire Strikes Back (1980) and is seen again in Return of the Jedi (1983). Recently, it's appeared in Rogue One , and will appear in Rebels Season 3.
- The Victory -class Star Destroyer first appears in the novel Han Solo's Revenge , published in 1979, which makes it older than several movie ships. As with lots of those early EU ships, it's been pretty consistently mentioned and used in books and games since then. The name is canon again also, appearing in the novel Tarkin (2014).
- The first run of both Imperial and Rebel fighter squadrons contain fighters appearing in the original trilogy movies. To avoid excessively repeating myself, check out the X-Wing topic for data on the X-, Y-, A- and B-Wings and the TIE Fighter, Bomber, Interceptor and Advanced. (Short version: They're used a lot)
Wave II: (aka "Oh, you guys have those too?")
- For big ships the Home One -type MC80 cruiser appears in the big battle in Return of the Jedi (1983). As they are the major cruiser for the Rebel Alliance/New Republic, they have a fairly consistent appearance in additional materials.
- The Imperial -class Star Destroyer is also from the opening shot of Star Wars (1977) and appears again, prominently, across the trilogy. Much like the TIE Fighter, the ISD is an iconic design which is fairly ubiquitous in subsequent canon materials.
- Raider -class Corvettes are an interesting subject - they were created by FFG in association with LFL to have a ship of the appropriate scale for their "Epic" ships in X-Wing Minis, and only appears in FFG products.
- The MC30c Frigate was based on concept art from ROTJ, but didn't appear until Dark Forces II released on PC in 1997 - currently about 1 million Steam copies. It also appeared in the Empire At War Expansion: Forces Of Corruption (detailed above).
- For "Rogues", details on the YT-1300/Millenium Falcon, HWK-290 and YT-2400 can also be found in X-Wing's topic - though all three ships are also currently 'canon' through various means. Instead I'll focus on the Scurrg H-6 Bomber, aka The Havoc , which first appears in Star Wars: Starfighter , released on PC in 2001. Starfighter is available on Steam and PlayStation Network, with just under 800k owners on Steam. The H-6 design also appears in Jedi Starfighter and one of the Galaxies MMO expansions.
- For "Villains", again, you want some deep-dive details on the Firespray, YV-666, JumpMaster and the Aggressor, check my X-Wing topic. The short version is that Slave I first appears in Empire Strikes Back (1980) but isn't really shown in action until Attack of the Clones in 2002. The other Bounty Hunter ships originate from the short story collection Tales of the Bounty Hunters (1996).
Wave III:
- The Assault Carrier is actually the Gozanti -class cruiser, which first appeared on screen in The Phantom Menace (1999) and again in Attack , and several episodes of TCW. The imperial version shows up very commonly in Rebels .
- Rebel Transports are the GR-75 Transport, first appearing in Empire Strikes Back (1980), then later in Return . It was also put in the SE of ANH in '97. The ship has appeared in Rogue One , and in Rebels (Where it and it's A-Wing escorts were eaten alive by some TIE Interceptors).
Wave IV: (Injecting some gravity)
- The Liberty is simply a different configuration of the MC80 Cruiser, which appeared in Return of the Jedi as outlined above.
- The Interdictor -class Cruiser aka the Immobilizer 418 first appears in Legends in the Thrawn Trilogy , which started publishing in 1991, though it was conceived in a West End Games RPG supplement earlier. Like the Victory , it is a very consistently used in the old EU. However, the model for Armada also bears similarities to an otherwise unnamed experimental Interdictor cruiser, which appears in the second Season of Rebels . The Immobilizer-style is also canon via Tarkin .
Wave V: (The "let's grab two canons and shake 'em up together" Wave)
- We start off this mishmash of a wave with the Imperial Light Cruiser, a variant on the Arquitens -class Cruiser which first appeared in The Clone Wars which began airing in 2008 (and is considered canon, in case you forgot). The Imperial Variant specifically appears in Rebels, which began airing in 2014 - and according to Disney gets between 1 and 2 million viewers (averaged by me) per episode.
- The Pelta -class Frigate also first appears in The Clone Wars , and was briefly featured as Phoenix Home in the season opening for Rebels Season 2 in another case of reused assets (after which it was promptly destroyed).
- Imperial Squadrons II features the VT-49 Decimator, Lambda -class Shuttle, TIE Phantom and TIE Defender, none of which are from the same source. Details, again, can be gotten from the X-Wing topic, but the Lambda is notable for appearing on film in Return of the Jedi (1983) and was added back into the special edition of ESB in '97. It also appears a couple times in Rogue One . Canonically Defenders have appeared in Star Wars: Battlefront and will appear in Rebels Season 3.
- Rebel Squadrons II has an unusual split between two new canon originating ships (The VCX-100 and the Lancer -class, both of which appear in Rebels ) and two EU originating ones, the Z-95 and E-Wing. Z-95s are from Han Solo At Stars' End published first in 1979, and proceeding Han Solo's Revenge mentioned above. The E-Wing first appears in the Dark Empire comics series, debuting in 1991. Like many other small/squadron ships, I did more in-depth analysis in the X-Wing topic. It's not my fault FFG reuses so many ships LFL approves.
So there, a fairly well researched guide to where all those ships come from - I hope the Armada folks find it informative and interesting. Dates and appearances source either to Wikipedia or the Star Wars wiki, and like I said game numbers gathered from Steam Spy.
