I'm new to Armada (also play X-wing) and I just picked up my own core set along with a 2nd movement tool and dice pack. I am wanting to primarily play Imperials but will likely get a few other Rebel bits just to make for interesting small introductory games. Since we're now looking at Wave 6, a lot of the guides for beginners seam a bit long-in-the-tooth.

What do you consider are must-haves? Anything that would be a "skip the ship, buy the card"?

Do you consider the Rouges and Villains squadron pack a must have?

Is the Corellian Campaign a must get? It looks interesting but I am wondering what sort of priority purchase it should be; get it soon, or wait until I've bulked out my fleet to the 400pt mark?

Armada fortunately doesn't have much in the way of expansions you buy just for the cards. The only ones I can really think of would be the Victory SD and Neb B but only because they.

What sort of list interests you? Do you want a large flagship with its support fleet? A mix of small ships zipping around delivering justice to those who oppose order? Would a large wing of squadrons be your preference? What models do you like aesthetically? Do you want to play competitively? Would you prefer long-range turbo laser barrages, or short-range torpedo volleys?

A set of rogues and villains is definitely nice to have, but I wouldn't prioritize it unless you wish to run fighter-heavy. Honestly, I'd say the same for Correlian Conflict. The objectives and alternate unique squadrons are great, but I would round put your ships first unless you find something vital to your planning.

If you want to play in tournaments you will want a set of CC. It is fortunate that it also acts as a perfect gateway for 4-6 people of equal skill (ie, absolute newbies) to get a slew of games in against people of similar skill level while learning the mechanics.

If you have someone around you willing to let you borrow ships, ask to borrow before you buy. You may love the idea of playing with a ship, and then get it board and find it doesn't suit you. This is how I am with MC80 home ones. Some people make them sing, i make them fly off the board.

Don't worry as much about upgrades until you get rolling and find two or three ships that fit your groove. If you are able to pick up a spare leading shots, xi7 turbolaser, or turbolaser reroute alt art off ebay for super cheap do it, because they are universally useful. Same does not apply to the enhanced armament alt art.

One tip as far as upgrades go: Stay away from all the offensive upgrades except boosted coms if you buy no squadron pack 2 for relay, expanded hangers on a ship that already has 3 or more squad value and you arent running flotillas, and rapid launch bays if you want you use a bunch of speed 2 squadrons (mostly Bwings). Other than those 3 situations, the offense slot is the weakest overall, and 99 times out of 100 that slot will be empty for me because you simply don't need anything it can offer for the points required. Points are going to feel tight. Dont waste any here.

Last tip, after you play a game, posy your thoughts, pics if possible, on yhe bat rep section and ask for critical feedback. Before you play, ask if anyone can critique your list, and tell them the situation the fleet is for- casual game with buddies, CC, competitive learning game, or tournament.

Best of luck to you in Armada!

1 hour ago, Alzer said:

Armada fortunately doesn't have much in the way of expansions you buy just for the cards. The only ones I can really think of would be the Victory SD and Neb B but only because they.

That is honestly good to hear.

I really like pretty much all of the Imperial models. The only one I am not to keen on is the Raider, possibly because it's a FFG creation solely for the game, but I do hear it is a great anti-snub fighter platform.

I love the ISD and my initial idea was to just try to have 2 ISDs with squadrons but as I have learned the game I see that is not the best idea... The Interdictor has been a personal favorite ever since I read the Timothy Zahn books. I'm also a fan of the Light Cruiser and see the usefulness of the Gozantis. I'd rather have an ISD but I don't have any issues with the Victory class. I am not to keen on the Gladiator, the Demolisher seams to good to ignore.

My general thoughts are I'd like to use my own squadrons to shut down the Rebel fighters/bombers and then pummel their ships into scrap with massed Imperial firepower.

Drasnighta is a good one to ask about Interdictors. They are definitely finesse ships, but some people can get a lot of mileage out of them. It was the least represented ship (in my totally unofficial snooping of all the tables) at worlds, so maybe you are the one to find the way to make them sing!

As far as ISDs and fighters go, I just used a fleet that accomplishes exactly what you are looking for. It might not be a fit for you, but who knows maybe it gives you a start. Good news is the buy list for it is pretty short! Fleet is in the link.

The Light Cruiser and Gozantis are definitely something you should pick up. I would say you could build a solid fleet with those, an ISD, and squadrons.

For squads, one of each Imperial fighter pack will set you up well for a good while.

What to get?

Go into the game store and pick out MC30 and Gladiator.

After that make this unholy abomination -

Gladiator (Demolisher title)

Engine tech

Ordnance expert

Advance proton torpedo

Get x2 of the Imperial Fighter Pack 2 a d field the TIE D together with Jendon or generic Lambda...

Than watch on as the world burns.

15 hours ago, cruiser2710 said:

...make this unholy abomination -

Gladiator (Demolisher title)

Engine tech

Ordnance expert

Advance proton torpedo

Get x2 of the Imperial Fighter Pack 2 a d field the TIE D together with Jendon or generic Lambda...

Well that looks interesting... it gives me an idea to build my collection towards. I'm not keen on having to buy an MC30 though, but Ordinance Experts comes with the Raider and I could pick up the Assault Proton Torpedoes card separate.

What Admiral would you recommend with this? Screed seams natural with the Demolisher and guarantees a crit but seams perhaps redundant with Ordinance Experts? I guess it would depend on what the rest of the fleet looks like. What do you think pairs nicely with this?

There's some local tournaments coming up in a little over a month. I was originally thinking of going with an ISD and two Arquitens for a more newb manageable fleet.

Screed is a good choice to keep in mind because he doesn't JUST affect the Demolisher/Gladiator.
Every ship in your fleet can take advantage of it.

You could run something like this:
-ISD(with Screed)
-Glad 1(Demolisher)
-Glad 2(Insidious or Vanilla Glad)
-Gozantis
-Fighter Screen

Also, Ordnance Experts helps but doesn't GUARANTEE that crit. Screed GUARANTEES that crit.
My dice rolling can go from hot to very cold quickly so running Screed with Demo gives some peace of mind.

I dont run glad 1s without intel officer any more because of their utter ineffectiveness against flotillas. The get blocked and bombed too easily now.

Glad 2s with Jonus tagging along are the standard for me now if I run gladiators.

Take Tarkin for squad tokens in a gladiator/arquitens MSU, vader to skip ordnance expert and leading shots (if you are taking 4 ships or more you would normally put rerolls on like ord experts or leading shots his points start to become effective).

I may be a contrarian here, but I don't consider Gladiator as a must-have ship for imperials as it all depends on your play style. I would try to put my thoughts on what to get as well as pros and cons

1. ISD. This is the reason you're playing Imperials, right?

2. Arquttens: A solid long range shooter by itself and it will give you access to Jerjerrod, Tua, Reinforced Blast doors (and ISDs and VSDs love these cards) and Dual Turbolaser Turrets (which are good if you can't get any XI7s or TRC)

3. Gozanti: If you're fielding ISD, it is very likely that you'll find it being useful.

This should be enough to field ISD-VSD-Arq-Gz fleet with some fighters and it may work good enough to begin with.

From here you can go different routes:

1. Squadrons: I would start with one Imperial squadrons and one Imperial squadrons 2 pack as together they give enough to field different combinations of squadron cover (Including 2 Defender + 2 Interceptor for min squadron cover and a mix of bombers, phantoms, defenders and decimators for a bombing fleet). I would play some games just with these before picking up corellian aces and/or Rogues.

2. GSD pack: Allows you to go Demolisher route and gives you engine techs. I'm personally skeptical about it (especially as everyone knows how to play against Demolisher and you'll need a lot of cards from other packs (Intel officer, Ordnance Experts, Assault Proton Torpedoes) to field a fully kitted Demo), but it may be worth doing, especially if you discover that you like mobile fleets with a lot of ships (MSUs)

3. VSD pack: That will give you access to Motti, Intel officer and Flight Controllers. Also ISD-VSD-VSD-Gozanti-(optional)Gozanti fleet with Jerjerrod or Motti and squadrons is pretty solid in my mind and a good substitution to a 2ISD fleet.

4. Raider pack: People are heavily split on its usability and it is definitely not an easy ship to fly, however, it is a good antisquadron ship and (in my opinion) a very good companion to ISD as it can punch a way above its weight, can hunt flotillas and is cheap enough to be sent on suicide missions. The pack can also get you Ordnance Experts (that you will need) and SW7 (they you may need in some builds)

I would skip the Interdictor for now and pick it up once you'll have more games under your belt and discover your play style.

Feel free to ask more questions and good luck in you Imperial endeavours! ;-)

My play style in anything I tend to play is rather Aggressive! Not mindlessly so, but I am not cautious either. I prefer to focus on only a few aspects or abilities rather than something that is a complicated bag full of tricks that all have to be pulled off just right for things to succeed. That way I can plan a simple strategy when building the fleet, so I don't have to overwhelm myself with tactical difficulties in making it happen.

Generally when looking at how I want to build my Imperial fleet I look at 2 things: Firepower and Maneuverability (aka: how to get the Firepower where I want it).

That said, I am not a fan of the Victory SD as I don't think it has the right balance of Firepower vs Maneuverability for my tactics. I do love the look and idea of the Interdictor, and while I see how I could make it work that seams to take an awful lot of effort (cards, special rules, etc..) and I think there's better things to focus my efforts on. I like the ISD and my intentions I am thinking it would pair well with 2 Arquitens or a Gladiator, add Gozanti and Squadrons as needed.

I do have some more questions:

My ideas of Imperial builds tend to rely on a small number of large ships, meaning I know I will be outnumbered. My concern is this means an opponent with many ships has many slots to bring very tricky stuff for messing with my command dials, tokens, etc, etc... How do you defend against that?

I see a lot of people complaining about the large numbers of Squadrons and Flotillas, ramming and generally getting in the way to block movement. I was under the impression that you actually picked up the ship from the table and then placed it along the maneuver tool (as opposed to say X-wing where it is assumed to slide along the maneuver template). In that manner, you could move past/through other vessels. This made sense to me as space is 3 Dimensional after all. Going with that assumption, I though that rams, movement blocking, overlapping, etc... was factored based on what the final position of the ship should be. Am I wrong on this?

If you destroy all your opponents ships, you win, right? So why do people bring lists with so much fragile stuff? I mean if my opponent scatters to the 4 corners in hopes of something surviving the game, that means he can't concentrate his attacks against my ships and I am free to zoom around swatting what I want. ISDs, Arquitens and Gladiators are not slow ships and we're stuck in a 3'x6' area. You may not get the big score win against them, but it seams they are guaranteeing that they won't get that vs anyone else either. What am I missing?

I play exclusively empire and have at least two, if not five of every expansion(except CC, only need one). I have the advantage of my friend plays exclusively rebel and we keep all the cards together, so upgrade cards and where they come from are a little fuzzy for me. I can tell you which ships I think are most needed though.

ISD- auto include, everyone needs one at least.

GSD- also is a must have, not for every fleet but certainly often. You can get away with only owning one, I rarely run two.

VSD- you already have one from the core but there are a few cards in the expansion. for starters I wouldn't worry about getting another for awhile.

IntSD- if your playing CC or like specialized fleets these are really fun. Not necessary though.

Raider- I really like these little things. If you pick one up, pick up a pelta as well because you will want flechettes. Also very good at being speed bumps for mc80s and killing lifeboats. Owning two is nice.

Arquiten- Arkitten...arkwytwyn...arggg... BUY THREE!

Or at least one.

Gozanti- very good for pushing squads and padding activations, as well as many other things. One is good, two is better.

squad packs:

1st imperial squads- 2 at least and more if you really like tie swarms. (Sloane!)

2nd imperial squads- 1 for sure. The shuttle and decimators are worth it alone.

R&V- 1 for sure. The aces are really cool and firesprays are nice but we don't all need 5 packs to spam fireballs anymore(it's not wave 2 anymore...) and intel squads are great.

CC- you should definitely get it for the squads, I also like the campaign. Also you'll need to buy another squad 1 pack for the models.

1. If your opponent is messing with your dials, bring skilled first officer. Also helpful for higher command ships to make them more flexible. Especially on command 2 ships making them essentially command 1 for a turn.

2. You are correct. Small ships have very little issue hopping over ships to make clear landings, unless of course they are ramming on purpose in which case they are equally difficult to avoid. Large ships on the other hand typically are slower and longer and much harder to avoid being blocked. This us where the range comes from.

3. Yes, but it is not nearly as simple as it sounds. Against a skilled opponent unless they make a critical error the liklihood of killing all their ships is exceedingly low. Some of those "fragile" ships are deceptively hard to kill in certain situations such as with titles like Demolisher or Admonition. They also typically bring huge damage potential to the fight. If you compare the turn to turn damage output of 3 cr90A with turbolaser rerouts versus a decked out ISD the points will be roughly the same, as will the hull, but the ISD couldn't hold a candle to the damage. Mc30 and Gladiators use black dice for the potential hit/crit with the most reliable rerolls in the game and nastiest crit effect- Assault Proton Torpedoes.

Very rarely do these ships scatter to the corners. It is much more common to see them circle your speed 3 ships because they are speed 4, keeping you at long range, or making a forked attack with 3-4 ships in a single arc so you physically cannot deal with all of them, and the return fire they deal after your activation is withering.

Flotillas will often scatter to the corners, but that is because they are usually directing bombers via relay and by the time you reach them they have inflicted heavy losses.

I think my biggest suggestion would be to get some games in and test your plans out and see how things go. It will take a few games (i think i lost my first.... 10? Haha) before you start to figure it out, but if you keep asking good questions you will figure it out way before that.

Read through the first couple pages of the fleets subforum and look specifically at what the suggestions people are giving are. Put a full 400 point fleet together and see what people think.

RHYMERBALL min

Rhymer (fighter pack 1)

Tempest squadron ( Corellia campagin)

Dengar (not as useful with snipe)[rogues and villains pack]

Fighters, bombers, interceptors to taste (by this i mean other of all the various squadrons based on your specific list)

Since I am just starting into the game I am faced with the problem of Imperial Squadrons 1 being perpetually out-of-stock. I'm patient and will wait, but for now I have to do without. My collection is growing but games have been limited to small ( < 200 points ) "skirmish" type battles on 3x3s. That's because I am having to split my collection so friends can play/demo the game, but otherwise I haven't had time to get to the LGS for larger games vs established players.

Looking at a more competitive 400 point force and playing off the idea suggested above by Crusier2710 I came up with this:

Admiral Screed (26pts)

Gladiator 1 Star Destroyer (83pts)

• Demolisher
• Ordnance Experts
• Engine Techs
• Assault Proton Torpedoes

Imperial II Star Destroyer (159pts)

• Avenger
• Support Officer
• Gunnery Team
• Reinforced Blast Doors
• Overload Pulse
• Quad Turbolaser Cannons

Squadrons (128pts)

• Colonel Jendon
• 4x Tie Defender Squadrons
• 2x Decimator Squadrons

Total: 396pts

I figured Screed would work well with Assault Proton Torpedoes and Overload Pulse. An earlier version of this list had Howlrunner and 4 TIEs but that seamed like way too many squadrons to effectively control with only two ships, so I swapped them out for the rogue Decimators.

So, two activations is difficult to run in the modern meta. That's not to say success can't be found, but it will be extremely difficult to come by. Bear that in mind as you play through testing. Adding Gozantis to push the squadrons can do a lot for the fleet in ways that may not be obvious until they're on the table. While you're learning Support Officer is solid, but don't be afraid to drop him to force yourself to learn to plan commands well. I would recommend against QTC; you don't have a way to consistently proc the card's effect, and it's redundant with Avenger. You want to be shooting at targets with exhausted tokens, and when that's the case Avenger will make QTC worthless. The squadron ball looks mean as hell, just be careful learning to play it since the Decimators are a lot slower than the zippy Defenders.

If you play an ISD and Demolisher in the same list the ISD will need to be stripped down to next to naked (which is ok, it works fine still) in order to fit at least 2 more ships in. A raider with APT or Flechettes and a Gozanti with Coms net are are small point ships that can add big return to the fleet when added.

For Jendon, if you aren't bringing aces you get more benefit out of the generic lamba (strategic) than you do doubling an attack. If you cut your screen down to Col Jendon, Vader, Maarek, 3 defenders you would be in business and between that and stripping the ISD down a bit (Gunnery Teams and Leading Shots is enough) would free up the points needed for the other ships.

First off, thanks to everyone who's stuck around this thread to help me out!

I've realized that I want pretty much nearly every Imperial ship, sometimes two of each. As much as I want to, I am not going to run out and buy a massive armload of Imperial ships all at once. So, part of the challenge of forming my collection is trying to prioritize what I should buy first. Due to this analysis paralysis, my Rebel collection has progressed quicker as there were only a handful of Rebel ships that I knew I wanted. However, this does give me a nice bank of some upgrade cards to pull from that are otherwise not available if I just went with all Imperials, but I am digressing...

The Victory (VSD) is probably one of my least favorite ships (I still like her, just there's other shiny! I'd rather get first) but looking at all the cards she comes with, I know I'll eventually get one to supplant the Core set VSD. Toying with other lists, especially the new and tempting Quasar carrier, I came up with an idea. This would bump up the Victory to being basically my next purchase if this looks good...

Commander: Moff Tarkin

Victory II Star Destroyer (115pts)

• Corrupter
• Damage Control Officer
• Gunnery Team
• Expanded Hanger Bay
• Overload Pulse

Victory II Star Destroyer (118pts)

• Warlord
• Damage Control Officer
• Gunnery Team
• Expanded Hanger Bay
• Overload Pulse

Squadrons (128pts)

• 8x Tie Defender Squadrons

Total: 399 pts

I love Tie Defenders and am so glad to see they are effective in Armada, I could never get a list to work with them in X-wing. So, while this seams like a crazy amount, it also makes me cackle with glee. I know this could be optimized with some better cards, but the idea is that I'm working with a collection that still doesn't have access to most of them. I figured Tarkin will let me still be able to command the Victory's effectively while also doing bomber strikes. While not the biggest, baddest ships out there, the VSDs are still respectfully powerful so it's not like I have two weak carriers who have to rely only on their Squadrons.

I felt that the another advantage of this fleet is as a new player, there's not a lot of different effects and things going on to have to remember. My capital ships are nearly identical, so I can quickly grasp what my own forces are capable of how to handle them (know thy self) and pay more attention to my opponent's disposition (know thy enemy).

So, did I have an epiphany or a stroke?

A couple of things that stand out to me at first glance:

Your victory titles are doing nothing for you - you have no way to force accuracies to consistently trigger Warlord, and Corrupter can't make defenders go any faster (speed 5 is a are limit).

Expanded hangar bay is similarly redundant - Tarkin can provide squadron tokens and you only need to activate 8 squadrons at most.

For less points than either of those victories you can take an ISD I + Ordnance Experts (114 total) and get more HP, more speed and maneuverability, more dice, pretty much more everything.

On 5/24/2017 at 7:27 PM, Dameon13 said:

First off, thanks to everyone who's stuck around this thread to help me out!

I've realized that I want pretty much nearly every Imperial ship, sometimes two of each. As much as I want to, I am not going to run out and buy a massive armload of Imperial ships all at once. So, part of the challenge of forming my collection is trying to prioritize what I should buy first. Due to this analysis paralysis, my Rebel collection has progressed quicker as there were only a handful of Rebel ships that I knew I wanted. However, this does give me a nice bank of some upgrade cards to pull from that are otherwise not available if I just went with all Imperials, but I am digressing...

The Victory (VSD) is probably one of my least favorite ships (I still like her, just there's other shiny! I'd rather get first) but looking at all the cards she comes with, I know I'll eventually get one to supplant the Core set VSD. Toying with other lists, especially the new and tempting Quasar carrier, I came up with an idea. This would bump up the Victory to being basically my next purchase if this looks good...

Commander: Moff Tarkin

Victory II Star Destroyer (115pts)

• Corrupter
• Damage Control Officer
• Gunnery Team
• Expanded Hanger Bay
• Overload Pulse

Victory II Star Destroyer (118pts)

• Warlord
• Damage Control Officer
• Gunnery Team
• Expanded Hanger Bay
• Overload Pulse

Squadrons (128pts)

• 8x Tie Defender Squadrons

Total: 399 pts

I love Tie Defenders and am so glad to see they are effective in Armada, I could never get a list to work with them in X-wing. So, while this seams like a crazy amount, it also makes me cackle with glee. I know this could be optimized with some better cards, but the idea is that I'm working with a collection that still doesn't have access to most of them. I figured Tarkin will let me still be able to command the Victory's effectively while also doing bomber strikes. While not the biggest, baddest ships out there, the VSDs are still respectfully powerful so it's not like I have two weak carriers who have to rely only on their Squadrons.

I felt that the another advantage of this fleet is as a new player, there's not a lot of different effects and things going on to have to remember. My capital ships are nearly identical, so I can quickly grasp what my own forces are capable of how to handle them (know thy self) and pay more attention to my opponent's disposition (know thy enemy).

So, did I have an epiphany or a stroke?

Not enough activations

You will need more than 2 activations to be successful and even more so when running VSDs'. Your opponent will just stall his heavy hitters with less critical ships for that turn.

Additionally VSD2 are just too expensive and once loaded up, an ISD1 is much better even naked. Go VSD1 and keep them lean. VSD1 + DTT for instance.

If you want to run 2 VSDs' try 2 VSD1 (DTT+ Veteran Gunners), 1 ARQ (Needa+TRC), 1 Gozanti (Comms net), 1 Raider (Ord experts+ flechettes) 6 tie fighters call led by Moff Jerry who is awesome for both VSD and ARQ movement.

There is so many options but I would get an ISD and at least 1 Arq before I purchased a second VSD.

So I guess the main point I want to make is have fun with whatever you fly but to ensure you have fun and at least some success you are going to need more than 2 activations these days unless you have a very kind opponent that does really stupid things.