After seeing and being very intrigued by many YouTube videos about Armada, I finally decided to dive in and give it a go. Got a core set, an ISD, Home One, and the first wave fighter squadrons for each side. My son is very excited for me to learn the system so I can show him and we can have a proper game. He really wants to have the big ships slug it out with the squadrons, so I figured I'd ask for some tips. My son is almost 10, if that helps. We're just looking to have some fun and not get too complicated if you catch my drift.

Anyway, any ideas are welcome - thanks!

Howdy and welcome to the game.
There are a couple topics out there with suggestions and I've taught the game to a couple people so hopefully I can provide some good advice.

Is there a local gaming group near you that has someone or someones who play who can teach you the core concepts?

My suggestion:

Play a "learning" game without the ISD or Home One.
Play this game with the ships in a "stock" configuration(E.g. no upgrades, commanders, etc...) and the squadrons as standard (E.g. no Aces).
The concept is for you and your son to learn HOW THE SHIPS AND SQUADRONS OPERATE GENERALLY. I can not emphasize this enough as if you kit the ships or run aces it can get very confusing very quickly for a beginner.

The core set of the VSD and TIEs versus the Neb B, CR90, and X Wings isn't the best.
It will work to teach you the concepts/how things work.

Then you can mix it up a little bit in the second game, start adding some aces and upgrade cards on the ships, etc...

Beware, this game can be very addicting very fast

Let me know if you have any questions or you can shoot me a message.

Enjoy!

@Snipafist and @geek19 have an excellent blog for beginners: Cannot Get Your Ship Out that may be of use to explain some concepts and give rundowns of how ships work.

Shadoq is right, don't try to take the game with all the stuff for your first game.

Go progressively, start with the Core set, without missions and admirals. This game is not the real thing but it will show you (and for your kid) all the game mechanics.

After that, you can go with all the ships and squadrons (build your own list) and a mission but without upgrades. For helping you doing this, you can use fleetbuilder like Star Wars Armada Warlords or Fab's fleet generator.

2-3 games after this, when you feel that you understand well the rules and the keywords, go with all what you have and enjoy the best game I ever played

Honestly, I'd phase everything in so your kid can really get the purpose of each element.

Base game from the core box, just the big ships, no additional anything. This teaches turn order, commands, flying, ranges, and combat.

Then bring in the upgrades and admirals. This introduces how to modify the ships, and allows someone to easily understand the upgrades and modifications based on real experience. "Oh yeah, If I had that upgrade, it might have made a difference to the Neb B when I made that attack."

Then bring in the fighters. 3 shorter games to teach the basics all from the core box. Sure, the matches are poorly balanced and will likely result in some very uncontested victories, but that's ok. You are doing this to learn the game, but also learn to spot those weaknesses.

Then start introducing content piece by piece, no more than a wave at a time. Go easy with Wave 1 and 2 though as there is a lot of content and it's all still new. "I add a Victory to my team, but you get the Assault Frigate." Play two or three games as you adjust your lists around these new elements. "I get the Gladiator, but you get a 2nd Neb B and a 2nd CR90." Again, 2 or 3 games to adjust your lists. "We both get new fighters!" This introduces 1 new element and 1 small set of upgrade cards at a time allowing easier integration to the existing knowledge base. Once you get to Waves 3 through 6 you can introduce a new wave all at once as they are smaller waves. But make sure you give each wave several rounds of play to really try things out and learn the new local meta that is developing. Wave 3 for instance could see you throwing 2 sets of flotillas and your kid thinking they are a waste, but then learning how valuable activations are and adding one while you figure out 2 might be too much.

This slow drip feed of content will keep things interesting for much longer without being overwhelming and will make sure everything gets considered instead of great things getting lost in the shuffle due to a lack of understanding or simply being overlooked.

Thanks all for the input, much appreciated. We'll definitely be doing the crawl-walk-run method as suggested, so we can work our way up. Will probably give us some time to add some more ships too (promised the missus I wouldn't get too crazy like with Imperial Assault). Will definitely post up some battle reports once we get going.

3 hours ago, tafattel said:

Thanks all for the input, much appreciated. We'll definitely be doing the crawl-walk-run method as suggested, so we can work our way up. Will probably give us some time to add some more ships too ( promised the missus I wouldn't get too crazy like with Imperial Assault). Will definitely post up some battle reports once we get going.

Good luck to you on that sir. This game's made me a full blown Prack-head.