Yeah, as much as i love armada i get more xwing urges than armada because i can get 2-3 games on wednesday gatherings but i literally only get 1 armada game a week. The timeframe is long enough where you cant do a second game before the store closes

Tbh if i wasnt a sucker for carrier/mothership type vessels i probably wouldnt even care for Armada. But i love the idea of commanding big ships supported by smaller ships. Slightly off topic but thats why in an indie title on Steam called Avorion i got super giddy when i found out they got hangar bays in that game lol. (its a spaceship builder sandbox type game, that actually has a REALLY good build mechanic to it unlike space engineers....)

The only edge i'd give Armada over Xwing is tactically, what your list is trying to do generally cant be cancelled out by your opponent. Resisted, yes, but not flatout negated. Xwing ive had several games where the first round of combat just happened to give me that one goddamn crit to ruin my list, or ungodly bad luck on crit draws did significantly more damage than the dice should have done and i lost a ship early. Armada doesnt have that, the crits are mean but they rarely shut you down and because of the way crits work you cant have cascading crits (in xwing, hit 3crits = 3faceups and 1 facedown, in Armada, first card is faceup then 3 more facedown unless you have a specific and rather unliked card to let you cause 2 to be faceup). Actually i hope xwing kinda takes a pointer from Armada in giving us alternate crit effects - as in, instead of dealing faceup cards we cause other issues and they take a facedown card. Not sure how they could do that though given xwing can have multiple crits in one attack.

Difference in tactics is like i mentioned earlier: xwing can be flown by the seat of your pants, armada cannot. If your strat fumbled either of your own accord or something got in the way at a bad time, you are in deep...DEEP trouble. You basically bring a ship/squadron to do one thing with a possible backup thing you dont fully build for but have access to, because odds are it wont get to do more than one thing anyway.

I may be wrong, but I don't think - when people say "Armada is the better game " - that they are saying 'Armada is more fun '.

Rather, that it's just better as a 'game'. Balance is much tighter, the rules are worded EXTREMELY (to the point of bizareness) precisely, and as noted basically everything released for the game is tournament-viable. It also wins the "better game" argument in that swings of the dice are a TINY part of a battle's result, compared to 'who came in to the match with a better plan'.

That's really what decides the difference the most - whether 'the better player' always wins . In X-Wing, certainly, it's usually true. In Armada, it's always true.

I'm not sure I'd say the comparison of Chess vs Checkers is apt, per se...maybe more 'Chess vs Poker '. I think that works best as a comparison. Is Chess the 'better game' of the two? I don't think many would argue that statement. Which is 'more fun '? Now THAT gets into entirely subjective areas, and I think that's where Armada and X-Wing sit compared to each other...

3 hours ago, Ken at Sunrise said:

I still believe what I said.

I would agree that Armada typically takes longer. I should have put a line through that one. Sorry. Poor support, I suppose support can be viewed through a variety of interests so I'll not address that here. Nevertheless I was addressing a couple of other of your points.

You mentioned imbalance. Just looking in this forum there is a constant call for nerfs and buffs. The intent is to either bring something back to the meta or weaken other things such that something will come back to the meta; all of these are calls for 'balance'. Many have said that the game hasn't been balanced since it came out with the original X-Wing vrs TIE Fighter.

You continued and said "longer as complexity creep creeps into the game". That has been the very description of X-Wing for well over a year now. There are posts here and on other boards of X-Wing complexity fatigue. Over 20 pages of FAQ with rules as long or longer. Referring to the rules, upgrade card, then FAQ, then FAQ for any other card it might influence in the game, the the page long timing chart just to attack, etc.

Next you said "game also can totally be lost in list building phase". Again this is and has been true of X-Wing since it came out. But, IMHO, it has gotten much worse. Now with these interactions fewer people can easily see and build top notch squads. It isn't about skill at this point, it is about delving into the complexity of interactions, knowing the FAQ and cards, the meta and net lists. This is very much a deck building game, but with miniatures and squads which regardless of playing skill can easily be won or lost before the first turn. This is true even when the chosen ships are balanced point wise.

Finally I was also addressing your comment "Armada desperately needs a relook at its base concepts and rules". People have been asking for a few years now as to when FFG will clean up the rules? Perhaps come out with X-Wing 2.0. This grows ever more as more waves are released and an ever larger FAQ with it.

I have not doubt that you were talking about Armada and meant no disrespect. But so many of your points have also been directed at X-Wing as well and I felt your post was ironically humorous. One does not have to look very far in this forum to see the exact same very similar comments about X-Wing. If one took your paragraph, [removed just a couple of comments about length of play] and replaced X-Wing with Armada many would think it just another post about X-Wing.

Instead of thinking of my response as a push to strengthen your own position, perhaps you can look at the qualifying reasons for why the things I've said are more prominent in Armada.

Arguments consist of you reiterating your point. Conversation comes from understanding key differences, addressing counterpoints, not ignoring them.

How would you qualify the differences of what you said, vs the what I said? Also note, I talked about statistics of tournament data, not forum posting, which is simply fueled by whatever people thing.

I'll remind you its been 100 days since the previous wave came out with cards that literally have text that doesn't work. Its probably been about 150 days (nearly half a year) since the previous FAQ. Cards. Literally. Don't. Have. A. Functional. Wording. see. Rapid Launch Bays.

2 hours ago, xanderf said:

I may be wrong, but I don't think - when people say "Armada is the better game " - that they are saying 'Armada is more fun '.

Rather, that it's just better as a 'game'. Balance is much tighter, the rules are worded EXTREMELY (to the point of bizareness) precisely, and as noted basically everything released for the game is tournament-viable. It also wins the "better game" argument in that swings of the dice are a TINY part of a battle's result, compared to 'who came in to the match with a better plan'.

That's really what decides the difference the most - whether 'the better player' always wins . In X-Wing, certainly, it's usually true. In Armada, it's always true.

I'm not sure I'd say the comparison of Chess vs Checkers is apt, per se...maybe more 'Chess vs Poker '. I think that works best as a comparison. Is Chess the 'better game' of the two? I don't think many would argue that statement. Which is 'more fun '? Now THAT gets into entirely subjective areas, and I think that's where Armada and X-Wing sit compared to each other...

No, better game means more diversity, better balance perception, tighter rules. Does not inherently imply more fun.

2 hours ago, Mep said:

This. Armada IS the better game but faster and easier usually wins out. K.I.S.S. works almost all of the time.

Well does complexity count for better gameplay? If you want complication look no further than GMT and their many military themes Hex games. Now I don't think Armada is a bad game, I think it is a very good game (honestly I would like to see a Star trek version of Armada). But I don't think it is better than X-wing. Armada is different yes, different doesn't mean refined, it is enough to be its own game and rightfully so. However it has more simplification than X-wing's abstraction.

Which is a general characteristics when adopting game mechanics to fit a theme. It was made for video games and deals mostly with health points but he generalizes the type of mechanical adaptations into three categories based on complexity from simplest to most complex.

• Abstraction
• Simplification
• Simulation

Many game mechanics made to represent a them can be categorized in these types. X-wing has more abstraction with shields being a simple token to keep count where Armada is more of a simplification with hull zones. I don't think any of them could be considered simulation. But Armada has some abstraction too, just look at the attack dice. On Armada player on the forum described it to me Not all black dice are ordnance but all ordnance is black dice.

15 hours ago, Blail Blerg said:

Instead of thinking of my response as a push to strengthen your own position, perhaps you can look at the qualifying reasons for why the things I've said are more prominent in Armada.

You miss my point entirely. I never disagreed with your comments on Armada, I don't play it often enough to debate them one way or the other. Neither did I say which of your comments were, or where not, more prominent in Armada.

15 hours ago, Blail Blerg said:

Arguments consist of you reiterating your point. Conversation comes from understanding key differences, addressing counterpoints, not ignoring them.

I truly am sorry if you took my comments as simply reiterating my points. My second post was only to better clarify intent of my post. I don't believe I ignored your counter points. I do feel that we are discussing different things; as I was not commenting on your view of Armada in the least. Perhaps a little less of your passive aggressive and you might have understood.

Let me simplify. I was only saying that much of what you said, about Armada, many have said about X-Wing as well.

No disrespect intended.

For my money the most succinct way to explain the difference between Armada and X-wing is that in Armada you shoot then move while in X-wing you move then shoot.

Yep, Armada is the armed panda of Star Wars games: eats, shoots, and leaves.

I haven't tried Armada yet as I prefer the scale of the X-wing ships. However, that may change when Armada inevitably releases the Profundity with a Scarif campaign. I already intend to buy a model of the Profundity simply because I think it looks cool. That's how my X-wing infatuation started - I liked the CR-90 model and bought a core set to justify the CR-90 purchase. Fifty plus ships later...

Thanks for the blog post and the discussion. I came across this thread while looking for some healthy objective discussion about the similarities and differences between the two games. I recently decided to buy into one of these two games and wasn't sure which one was for me. Ultimately I decided to get back into X-Wing (I traded away all my stuff two years ago).

I decided that I prefer the quicker more reactive style of X-Wing, as well as the X-wing models. The Epic/Cinematic play is also something that I just can't say no to. Ultimately, I think the thing that helped me make up my mind was this question posed by Lyraeus on a different thread:

" The overriding question is 'Do I want to be a pilot or a commander of a vessel?'"

Thinking about it that way, there is no doubt I was craving starfighters and dog fights. That's what really ignites the boyish excitement in me....the same way it's been since first seeing Star Wars

On 26/03/2017 at 3:25 PM, Darth Meanie said:

For me, X-Wing is more Star Warsy. Huge fleet battles are cool, but Star Wars is about starfighters .

My analogy would be WWII in the Pacific. Sure, the battleships and destroyers were a part of it, but the theater was dictated by carrier power , and hence the little airplanes that made carrier power a thing.

Armada is about carrier power. Believe me while there are some capital ship only hold outs it's usually unwise as fighters can easily taken them down... just like in your analogy.

I find Armada as a whole to be a different game, drawing upon X-Wing and improving in many ways but also losing its fast pace. I consider Armada a three course meal compared to X-Wings fast food. My sweet spot is somewhere in between so I often play Armada with less points and X-Wing with more points than the standard. Regarding cost while Armada is more costly I find the value on par with X-Wing.

On 29/03/2017 at 7:50 AM, Hawkstrike said:

Yep, Armada is the armed panda of Star Wars games: eats, shoots, and leaves.

That's a guy, not a panda.