Hi all,

I'm a long time player of X-Wing and while I've invested heavily in that game I'm looking to expand my horizons a little.

I'm about to pick up an Armada Core Set, ISD expansion and a Home One expansion just because I love those two ships and they seem like they'd counter balance one another on the table at first.

As as a newbie what would you recommend for my next essential purchases moving by forward? I'd like to strike a balance between both factions since I'll be the only one around here that owns it, would be good to have options on both sides.

Im looking forward to hearing your feedback and joining this new community. I hope to get as much enjoyment from it as I am from X-Wing.

Cheers!

In general, I'd recommend the Armada 101/Welcome links @geek19 and I have on our blog. It gives you some basic pointers about early game stuff. Poke around at your leisure, there's no real rush.

Don't neglect to play several starter games before going deeper just to get the basic mechanics down. The gameplay gets much more lethal outside of the simple starter box games but understanding the basics of maneuver, attacking, how squadrons operate, and assigning and resolving commands will allow you to more deftly transition to larger games.

@Snipafist Thanks! I'll check it out the links this evening.

Start small and work your way out. Since you've got the battlewagons for either side, I'd eye some squadrons, with an eventual goal of 2 or 3 of Fighters I, 1, 2 maximum of R&V unless you've got a **** good reason, and 1, maybe 2 of Fighters II (note I said eventual goal, not first round of purchases). After that, wander around some. I am in the same boat, but I find that most ships I own see play. Flotillas are solid picks, as are any of the other Wave 1 and 2 ships. Snagging one each of what you don't already have from the Core Set is wise, then expanding based on taste. I think that an additional Raider , CR90, and MC30 (OI @Ardaedhel ) never hurt anyone on your side of the table. The Interdictor and Liberty are both eventually's, unless the Rebel in you insists on his own Star Destroyer or you're diving into Corellian Conflict, which is another eventually for its aces. If you find yourself in a squadron heavy Rebel mindset, the Pelta is a great escort carrier, and the Arquitens Light Cruiser is a useful change of pace for the Imperials.

6 minutes ago, GiledPallaeon said:

Start small and work your way out. Since you've got the battlewagons for either side, I'd eye some squadrons, with an eventual goal of 2 or 3 of Fighters I, 1, 2 maximum of R&V unless you've got a **** good reason, and 1, maybe 2 of Fighters II (note I said eventual goal, not first round of purchases). After that, wander around some. I am in the same boat, but I find that most ships I own see play. Flotillas are solid picks, as are any of the other Wave 1 and 2 ships. Snagging one each of what you don't already have from the Core Set is wise, then expanding based on taste. I think that an additional Raider , CR90, and MC30 (OI @Ardaedhel ) never hurt anyone on your side of the table. The Interdictor and Liberty are both eventually's, unless the Rebel in you insists on his own Star Destroyer or you're diving into Corellian Conflict, which is another eventually for its aces. If you find yourself in a squadron heavy Rebel mindset, the Pelta is a great escort carrier, and the Arquitens Light Cruiser is a useful change of pace for the Imperials.

Solid advice. Thanks! I imagine Armada works similarly to X-Wing in that certain purchases will bet you cards you can't find in other packs? For example if I bought a Corellian Corvette expansion would I get something I didn't already have in the Core Set?

5 minutes ago, SentinelJP said:

Solid advice. Thanks! I imagine Armada works similarly to X-Wing in that certain purchases will bet you cards you can't find in other packs? For example if I bought a Corellian Corvette expansion would I get something I didn't already have in the Core Set?

Correct, specifically Rebel commander and bane of black dice ships everywhere Mon Mothma (and Leading Shots, a great Ion Cannon for an ISD). About 50% of the reason I'd recommend another Victory (on top of the Core Set's) is Admiral Motti, as well as Flight Controllers and Intel Officer. Being thorough won't hurt you in the slightest over time; the trick is identifying what's worth having multiples of. Unless you've got something ridiculous in mind, the ISD is the only Large multiples kind of work on, and even there it's more sketchy than it used to be. The only Small not worth at least a second, IMO, is the Pelta , just because it's so niche, but I'm sure someone has found a successful list with a pair of the things. Singles of the Mediums (with the aforementioned extra Vic ) is probably good until you're ready to just surrender your gaming budget and run something ridiculous like @Drasnighta 's notorious Nose-Punch (double Interdictor hilarity) nonsense.

If you're looking for what cards come with what, I'd recommend the Armada Wiki . That can be helpful. eBay is also useful for buying individual upgrade cards if you don't want to buy a(nother) ship of whatever type, but the rare upgrades can get to be quite expensive.

I still recommend, get the 1st squadron pack for each side, and 1 set of flotillas for each side.

If you play a lot, you'll need more than this. But these along with your big ships will get you started on your way.

I recommend this :

Sure it fits in your budget what I am not sure if it will fit in your phone.

Hey SentinelJP! I play both X-wing and Armada as well and I enjoy both. One thing I can say for Armada is that each wave generally added a new layer to both the rules and selection.

My advice as always is to start with the waves in order of release. It will provide a pretty solid idea in how the game progressed. However if you start with the 2 big ships first, I suggest adding to your squadrons before adding more ships. Grab an Imperial #1 and Rebel #1 squadron pack next. If you really want to see some variation also get a Rogues and Villains pack. For your introduction to the game this should keep you busy for awhile.

If you change your starting point a little as I suggest, forget the big ships in your first purchase. They are going to seem very over powered vs the core set only vessels. I would suggest a different approach of getting an Assault Frigate MkII and a Gladiator Star Destroyer expansion along with the first 2 fighter packs. This is both the release order of the products, and will provide a more balanced initial expansion for your game. I think the cost will be near the same as the 2 large ships as well as providing more options for your start.

11 hours ago, Snipafist said:

If you're looking for what cards come with what, I'd recommend the Armada Wiki . That can be helpful. eBay is also useful for buying individual upgrade cards if you don't want to buy a(nother) ship of whatever type, but the rare upgrades can get to be quite expensive.

One big difference between armada and xwing is that armada is far less card dependent, even the best cards can be worked around with build variation. The only must have cards are the admirals and you can pick these up for penny's as most of us end up owning 2-5 of each leader. My advice with armada is don't buy expansion sets for the cards as you can either pick them up cheap on eBay or work around them.

As for purchases

after the core, ISD and home one I would suggest ( this is for fun games with you getting two matching sides)

1) imp small base ship, this will equal out the sides re number of ships, it does not matter so much which one as all three are great ships you will want.( personally I would go with the gladiator as I love it)

2) Imp fighter pack, number 2 is good as it gives you 4 great fighters and 4 larger figher types. Get the imp pack first because the X wings in the core are great General purpose fighters where as the ties are very limited.

3) rogues and villains packs, gets you 4 large fighters for each faction.

4) rebel fighter pack, go for pack one this time as it's got great fighters.

5) one of each floatilla

you now have a core fleet of 4 ships and a great range of fighters for each side......

I'd suggest playing a few games with no upgrades before investing into more stuff. Understand the basic game mechanics like moving, setting up arcs and planning your commands. Once that is second nature, look at your fleet and what you want to make better. For example, playing Imps you may realize you want a ship to kill squads. Get a Raider. If you want something to charge in and kill stuff, get a Gladiator. If you want a support carrier, get a Gozanti.

Best of all, you can play test these ships. Just Google the ship and check the card to see it's stats. Practice with it's maneuver chart and dice pools. I find that's the easiest way for me to determine how many of a ship I want. You can always get more. Just don't go crazy and get 3-4 of a single ship, since you probably won't use all of them all the time. Only in a niche fleet, which I'd advise you don't play until your skill and experience builds up.

You can also use the multiple fleet builders. Fabs Fleet Generator and Warlords are both good and easy to use. Fabs is nice since you can put in what you own and it filters your upgrades. So if you have 1 ISD, it generates 1 of each upgrade so you can't equip them to more than 1 ship. Warlords has the best text exporter I've seen, so you can easily share your fleets with others.

Good to hear yet another X-Winger delving into Armada. It's soooo different, sooooo deep in thought and planning. The bridge is not a place to be reactionary as open space single-seater white-knuckle fighter jocks have to be; but a place to scheme and plan and set the trap for their fleet. It's so very fun....I'm still digesting all the minutia and tactics.

Think of me as a newbie, listen to these experts; they're dead on smart about their advice. I'll just say, get what you like, there is so much flexibility in the details to make 'em compete. I'm just here to welcome you, Admiral.

The two large ships you are eyeing are both good choices, I would definitely grab one of each Flotilla, one of each Fighter I pack, Rogues and Villains, and then I think you'd be roughly set for a good while. Play a bit, decide what playstyles you (and your parasitic friends ) enjoy and then look for ships that fill those needs.

Man now I miss those kooky kitchen table games where you don't have all the ships and everything is suboptimal and ISD and MC80 duking it out against each other.

With respect to cards, I think the mc30c amd arquitens win in terms of having a huge number of very desirable upgrades. Both of these ships are also pretty darn useful themselves!

While some might disagree, I do think Armada is a game where you can get nearly anything to work in friendly games: for example, I still very much enjoy running 3 ISD lists, which may not get me top 4 after 3 rounds of swiss, but won't get me tabled every game either!

If I were to prioritize stuff in terms of "efficacy", it would probably go like this for both factions:

squad pack I for both

mc30c/arquitens

flotillas for both

ISD/home one and or more cr90's

correllian conflict

gladiator/neb-b expansion (pretty much just for Yavaris title: I'm sure there are like 9,000 floating around that your local gaming group would be willing to donate to you, however. You can pickup alt-art xi7's as well if youre on a budget: you dont really need multiple neb-b's unless youre crazy: i have 5 but rarely use more than 1)

squad pack 2 for both

By that point you'll probably know better what directions you want to go in. I think you can pass on an extra victory, interdictor, AFmkII, pelta, liberty, raider and not be too much worse off: the interdictor has fighter coordination team and flight commander, which makes Rebel bomber builds really sing, but the ship itself is kind of "meh." Interdictors are great during campaign play though!

Wow! I logged back in today to find so many friendly players giving me awesome advice! Thank you to one and all. There's a lot here to digest and I'm so excited to be in the early stages of something new like Armada. X-Wing is great, but understandably a very different beast so I'm looking forward to learning all the little nuances of Armada.

In addition to the stuff I've bought above a friend has also offered to sell me his Core Set, Gladiator, Assault Frigate and Rogues and Villians sets that he has. From what I've read here this should all set me up pretty well to begin with. Just need to add the Rebel and Imperial fighter squadrons and then take it slow from there.

I'm glad to hear this game isn't as card dependent as X-Wing, the number of ships I've purchased for that game compared to the number I actually use is ridiculous! But I still love them all!

Just want to say thanks to you all for welcoming this fledgling Admiral into your ranks. What an awesome and supportive community you are!

Great start; finding a used deal always helps getting into a new game; I just found a core on craiglist for $20 for a friend of mine that just started playing with his wife.