@Crabbok

Don't lie, I just watched that video of you playing with star wars Legion fiqures for 10 minutes and that seemed like the best time ever.

Why do you gotta cheat on Armada like that?

X-wing up till like wave 5 was the best game for me for a long time. As it changed lead developers hands I found it to be poorly developed. But I would still hold up it's core mechanics as some of the best ever constructed. While I hate the marketing direction that Magic: the Gathering goes in, knowing that living games are a more consumer friendly anyway, I'd say it is also a superbly crafted game. But if I had to say what the 'best' game on the market is today? I'd bizarrely say Settlers of Catan. User friendly, simple components, easy to learn, nearly infinitely variable, plays differently each time, strong social element, competition ready out of the box. Has a flaw where the writing shows up on the wall most times about two thirds through the game, but it's offset by a number of times where you can still 'beat the winner' with a bit of skill and luck. One of these days is really like to write a book on game design, I'm just not sure I'm qualified to do it.

Armada is the best right now in my opinion though the god awful release schedule (lack of a release schedule) of expansions really has done damage to the community. I also think legion is going to steal most of the x-wing/armada/imperial Assault thunder. That game just looks sooooo amazing. I’m going all in on it personally . I sold all of my x wing stuff to pay for paints/terrain/core and wave 1. I hope to merge armada with legion.

Armada is the only table top game that has interested me enough to bother learning to play, I'm sure there are other good games out there if I cared to look but until we start suffering from a large power creep this will have to remain my one true love. I was drawn to it by both the game mechanics and the star wars theme in about equal measure and so far the only complaints I have are playing space being an issue though I don't think I could get enough plastic spaceships on the table at the popular 200 point mark.

Legion however will be tempting after seeing campaign ideas to pair it with armada but until the campaign is finished and we have seen if there is going to be any power creep in the later expansions it will have to wait.

Favorite tabletop game? Settlers of Catan. You can teach anyone to play and it's a good balance of fun and competitive.

Armada is definitely better than X Wing for me.

My and my friends do play quite a bit of Zombicide Black Plague as well. It's ok, but some of the expansions kind of make it easy mode.

3 hours ago, Shanturin said:

If we're talking Star Wars board and tabletop games, then, well, Armada loses to Rebellion in my eyes. Rebellion beats Armada due to being cheaper, more accessible to "casuals" and having more cinematic feel Also, I can play it with my girlfriend, who has a curious grudge against playing Armada for some reason

Good point. Rebellion is amazing. VERY very good game, great thematics, great fun factor... and it beats Armada in the fact that every game tells a story. You will be talking about your game of Rebellion for the next few days.

BUT - the miniatures are a bit lacking. Armada beats Rebellion in terms of physical beauty, and for me, that leans itself to the setup appeal as well. Moving your forces in on that first turn is enhanced by the beauty of a looking STar Destroyer over smaller ships... But still Rebellion is certainly great!

2 hours ago, Undeadguy said:

For miniature games, I expect Legion to be better because it feels familiar to Armada but doesn't suffer from activation issues, and winning by destroying your enemy.

Legion has a very similar deal with activation issues. An 11 activation list going up against a 6 activation list is going to have alot of the same issues that Armada will have. Legion introduces a system of issueing commands to also deal with this, but there are mechanic loopholes that allow you to ignore the pitfalls of that system. Basically they'll be very similar.

1 hour ago, Karneck said:

@Crabbok

Don't lie, I just watched that video of you playing with star wars Legion fiqures for 10 minutes and that seemed like the best time ever.

Why do you gotta cheat on Armada like that?

Ha ha I love Legion - but I won't know if it has that exact same "feel" and "Super Awesomeness" until I have all the miniatures on my tabletop. And play it a ton... for a long time. I know the feel when proxying IA stuff... but it's going to be different once I've got the FULL setup.

3 hours ago, Shanturin said:

[...] Also, I can play it with my girlfriend, who has a curious grudge against playing Armada for some reason

[...]

You know, that is your girlfriend's fault, not Armada's

And for those of you who think that playing a game Armada takes too much time, let us meet on the grounds of Twilight Imperium. Then you will not only discover true length, but recognize that it comes with true depth

Definitely my favorite game at the moment!

Keeping a watchful eye on Legion too though...

17 minutes ago, Crabbok said:

Legion has a very similar deal with activation issues. An 11 activation list going up against a 6 activation list is going to have alot of the same issues that Armada will have. Legion introduces a system of issueing commands to also deal with this, but there are mechanic loopholes that allow you to ignore the pitfalls of that system. Basically they'll be very similar.

Yes and no. I like the randomness of pulling activations because it reduces the last/first stuff. And the bidding cards means both players can be first player.

I'm not sure how the numbers game will work. 11 activations is a lot, but it's unreliable because you get a lot of extra tokens in the bag. So you might need to activate a certain thing first, but your 6 corps tokens slow you down. Of course activation padding will be a thing, because you can delay your 6 corps until the last one who is in a nice position, but I think that is mitigated by suppression and the long attack ranges. AT-ST has a full 2 feet of range on a 3x6, so the chances of last/first happening to you with no reaction is slim to none.

Oh, Star Fleet Battles wins easily. Especially sticking with it's Basic Set. Big things in its favor:

• Star Trek vs Star Wars - while the stories/characters/ships/etc of Star Wars is more fun , the setting can get a bit oppressive after a while. I mean, the good guys never win - not really, anyway. You might blow up one Death Star, but there's another one coming. Or wipe out one Empire, but now you've just got a corrupt government and another Empire coming in the wings. etc. Always grim and dark. Star Trek as a universe definitely has a much happier 'default' state.
• Impulse system for movement and combat. Avoids the silliness of Armada where ships can jump from outside-your-weapons-arc on one side, straight through your highest concentration of guns, and end up on the other side, without ever getting a shot on them, somehow. (Heck, WW2 tank battle games have had this problem solved since the 1960s with at least 'reaction' or 'opportunity' fire, but somehow Armada still doesn't). And let's not even talk about the limitations of IGO-UGO movement.
• More granular damage system. Ships in Armada, barring an unlucky crit, maintain full combat effectiveness...until they suddenly don't, because they have exploded. That feels...weird. As ships take damage, they should get slower, harder to manage, put out less effective weapons fire (thus damage), etc.

5 minutes ago, Undeadguy said:

Yes and no. I like the randomness of pulling activations because it reduces the last/first stuff. And the bidding cards means both players can be first player.

I'm not sure how the numbers game will work. 11 activations is a lot, but it's unreliable because you get a lot of extra tokens in the bag. So you might need to activate a certain thing first, but your 6 corps tokens slow you down. Of course activation padding will be a thing, because you can delay your 6 corps until the last one who is in a nice position, but I think that is mitigated by suppression and the long attack ranges. AT-ST has a full 2 feet of range on a 3x6, so the chances of last/first happening to you with no reaction is slim to none.

Don't want to take this too far off topic - but I'll just say this -

I've got Luke, 2 Airspeeders, and 6 Troopers. I use Luke to issue orders to both Speeders and himself - leaving ALL troopers in the bag. I now have complete control and can activate anything I want. Even if those troopers are scattered across the battlefield. Maxing troopers helps you really ignore the command structure of the game. (or at least partially do that. You MAY end up with a straggler in there but that's the general idea).

4 minutes ago, xanderf said:

Oh, Star Fleet Battles wins easily. Especially sticking with it's Basic Set. Big things in its favor:

• Star Trek vs Star Wars - while the stories/characters/ships/etc of Star Wars is more fun , the setting can get a bit oppressive after a while. I mean, the good guys never win - not really, anyway. You might blow up one Death Star, but there's another one coming. Or wipe out one Empire, but now you've just got a corrupt government and another Empire coming in the wings. etc. Always grim and dark. Star Trek as a universe definitely has a much happier 'default' state.
• Impulse system for movement and combat. Avoids the silliness of Armada where ships can jump from outside-your-weapons-arc on one side, straight through your highest concentration of guns, and end up on the other side, without ever getting a shot on them, somehow. (Heck, WW2 tank battle games have had this problem solved since the 1960s with at least 'reaction fire', but somehow Armada still doesn't). And let's not even talk about the limitations of IGO-UGO movement.
• More granular damage system. Ships in Armada, barring an unlucky crit, maintain full combat effectiveness...until they suddenly don't, because they have exploded. That feels...weird. As ships take damage, they should get slower, harder to manage, put out less effective weapons fire (thus damage), etc.

There is a lot in Star Fleet Battles I very much enjoy. It's been a measuring stick that I use to compare to other games as far as tactical depth... but I cannot stand the pacing and heavy rules. If I could find a middle-ground between the tactical richness of SFB and the ease-of-play of Armada, I'd play that in a heartbeat.

40 minutes ago, FoaS said:

There is a lot in Star Fleet Battles I very much enjoy. It's been a measuring stick that I use to compare to other games as far as tactical depth... but I cannot stand the pacing and heavy rules. If I could find a middle-ground between the tactical richness of SFB and the ease-of-play of Armada, I'd play that in a heartbeat.

One reason I mention 'Basic Set' - at that level, the selection of ships and ruleset is straightforward enough it doesn't get too crazy. We also had a couple of custom card decks to simplify things - a 32-card deck for the impulses, so you can just quickly flip through it and see what speeds move at each impulse (and below that a reminder of the rough impulse procedure, with notes on things that happen only on specific impulses). And then a 36-card deck for the damage chart (since you roll 2d6 for damage, that's 36 possible results - IE., only a single '2' or '12' card, but six copies of the '7' card) - we printed this one twice for 72 total cards to get a more random distribution, but end up preferring this to the dice, anyway...it makes it impossible to 'roll four 12 results in a row'!

Perhaps you do think this, but it would be nice to avoid rah rah we're the best cheerleader pep rallies for false cheer. There's lots of horrible things about this game. There's lots of good things about this game. The best is false. Reality is Grey.

30 minutes ago, FrightfulCommand said:

Perhaps you do think this, but it would be nice to avoid rah rah we're the best cheerleader pep rallies for false cheer. There's lots of horrible things about this game. There's lots of good things about this game. The best is false. Reality is Grey.

Have you perchance even read most of the responses in this thread? A circlejerk it most certainly is not

Armada is, hands down, my favorite game. Even with the flaws of the game, I can't get enough. X-Wing was once that way for me, but not for the last year. I've played two games of Legion so far, and though I enjoyed the game, I don't think it is likely to usurp Armada for the top spot in my heart.

3 hours ago, xanderf said:

Oh, Star Fleet Battles wins easily. Especially sticking with it's Basic Set. Big things in its favor:

• Star Trek vs Star Wars - while the stories/characters/ships/etc of Star Wars is more fun , the setting can get a bit oppressive after a while. I mean, the good guys never win - not really, anyway. You might blow up one Death Star, but there's another one coming. Or wipe out one Empire, but now you've just got a corrupt government and another Empire coming in the wings. etc. Always grim and dark. Star Trek as a universe definitely has a much happier 'default' state.
• Impulse system for movement and combat. Avoids the silliness of Armada where ships can jump from outside-your-weapons-arc on one side, straight through your highest concentration of guns, and end up on the other side, without ever getting a shot on them, somehow. (Heck, WW2 tank battle games have had this problem solved since the 1960s with at least 'reaction' or 'opportunity' fire, but somehow Armada still doesn't). And let's not even talk about the limitations of IGO-UGO movement.
• More granular damage system. Ships in Armada, barring an unlucky crit, maintain full combat effectiveness...until they suddenly don't, because they have exploded. That feels...weird. As ships take damage, they should get slower, harder to manage, put out less effective weapons fire (thus damage), etc.

I have to second this. I've been playing SFB for nearly 30 years and still love the heck out of this game.

Played just this weekend with 7 people in a public game at an FLGS, half of which are just getting into it. So much fun!

I haven't been playing Armada for too long, but it might turn out to be better than X-Wing. We'll just have to see...

Really the only complaints I hear about Armada is learning curve and time, I sometimes get complaints about price of entry, but that's really it. To me time is not a huge issue and I was willing to learn the game to me learning a difficult game is fulfilling to me, but perhaps I'm odd. It really is my favorite game.

Without a doubt Armada is my favorite game. That said I think it has 3 downsides which have already been mentioned.

1. Individual Game time, in a casual game 2 hours is optimistic, it can be 3-4 hours. Tournament's are 2:15 per round. I have a few friends that are hesitant to play for that reason alone.

2. Sporadic and infrequent release schedule. As far as this one goes I can go both ways. For one it helps the wallet and it may contribute to how balanced the game is (how many games can you say at this point in it's life cycle every ship can still be played competitively?) On the downside there are huge lulls in interest, this doesn't help with the schizophrenic gamer that always sees the new shinny thing on the shelf and moves on.

3. It's a little more complex then say X-Wing. While true it only took me a couple games to be comfortable with the basic mechanics, some of the more complex stuff just came with time.

I'll add one other minor drawback is FLGS support. Armada takes up a lot of space and many stores just don't want to give that space up for tournament's. This hurts the visibility of the game to more casual gamers. I don't play in stores often but when I do I know we will get the "Oh cr*p what is that!" From more than one passer by.

As for Legion, I'm in but the unpainted mini's will keep some people away. How many for how long is the question.

10 hours ago, Crabbok said:

Looking at the game that are out there... I've got to wonder if is any better game than Armada?

Has anyone who has seriously played Armada, plus other games, honestly said that Armada was not the best?

And if so.... why are you lying?

I am totally with you on this.

Played x wing for over a year (and still do). But I am sick of all the new OP uber meta lists after every wave. To much auto damage and less skill based game.

Armada on the other hand I love it. Even if it takes 2 hours its so worth it and so much fun.

I love both X-Wing and Armada to bits, but X-Wing edges it out for me just slightly. This isn't even due to the game itself, more like paraphernelia:

-Shorter games means more opportunity for spontaneous games after work

- both games are quick to set up, but X-Wing requires less space

- X-Wing is easier to pick up with new players

- less interaction/ timing based rules means less mistakes made on average

But yeah, Armada's awesome. Both games scratch a very specific itch I have quite regularly, and these are the only reasons I play one more than the other.

Only real life is better than Armada. (Okay, not always ...)

Imperial assault campaign with 5 people

1 hour ago, D503 said:

Imperial assault campaign with 5 people

... If i knew 4-5 other IA players with compatible schedules...