46 minutes ago, Hobojojo said:

I can't stress enough my desire for a Bellator-Class Star Dreadnought for epic play over an Executor Super Star Destroyer.

Once you start looking at $150+ for a model (as either of these would be), you really need something iconic or you are just dooming your product to the dustbin. And the Executor is. And the Bellator is not.

53 minutes ago, xanderf said:

Once you start looking at $150+ for a model (as either of these would be), you really need something iconic or you are just dooming your product to the dustbin. And the Executor is. And the Bellator is not.

Perhaps, but we are talking about ships in a game where a Victory-Class Star Destroyer is used in the starter kit. A Legend ship with Canon references which don't even have scematics of that ship. Starters themselves collect dust because of their prices at $100+, but do sell because it is not only needed to start playing the game, but also provide a collection. Players come to know what it is and it is accepted.

Unless the MSRP is ludicrous and if it was an "epic" ship announced for Armada, I'd bet that it doesn't matter what it is, and we'd all be happy. I just stress my preference of the Bellator-Class is all.

27 minutes ago, Hobojojo said:

Perhaps, but we are talking about ships in a game where a Victory-Class Star Destroyer is used in the starter kit. A Legend ship with Canon references which don't even have scematics of that ship. Starters themselves collect dust because of their prices at $100+, but do sell because it is not only needed to start playing the game, but also provide a collection. Players come to know what it is and it is accepted.

Unless the MSRP is ludicrous and if it was an "epic" ship announced for Armada, I'd bet that it doesn't matter what it is, and we'd all be happy. I just stress my preference of the Bellator-Class is all.

Why not have both?

Where is the cute little Asian girl when you need her?

I’m highly confident the SSD will come with multiple upgrades that will be very desireable to players. I’m also betting we see Vader take yet another form out of this expansion, now moving to the Officer slot.

I’d love to see vader as an officer, allowing you to discard him to discard your admiral and replace him with another (perhaps of the same cost or lower for balance). Thematic and tactically amazing at the same time.

Wasn't "something big" just... Thrawn?

30 minutes ago, Polda said:

Wasn't "something big" just... Thrawn?

nope.... & ... oh just nope...

it was asked at GAMA & FFG said the something big is still to come

8 hours ago, xanderf said:

Once you start looking at $150+ for a model (as either of these would be), you really need something iconic or you are just dooming your product to the dustbin. And the Executor is. And the Bellator is not.

I’m all for the Dark Empire Eclipse. That ship is so cool.

1 hour ago, Lord Tareq said:

I’d love to see vader as an officer, allowing you to discard him to discard your admiral and replace him with another (perhaps of the same cost or lower for balance). Thematic and tactically amazing at the same time.

I was thinking having Vader be able to discard Ozzel and Vader midway through the game and replace him with Piett, with the cost of Vader + Ozzel = Piett. Piett gets some type of firepower/AS ability.

I'd love to see a foray into the prequels with the Republic and CIS becoming new factions. Potentially a new starter with a Venator for the republic and some smaller ship for the CIS. It could then be expanded out into the Malevolence (experimental retrofit slots?) for a massive ship that's not too far outside the current scale.

If the Executor was introduced into the game I'd buy it purely as a cheap, detailed and lage model.

21 hours ago, GrandAdmiralCrunch said:

Not everyone has that much disposable income.

I think most of us want to see this game grow and expand. We want more players. Over $100 will do the opposite of that. People will see that price tag and nope the $£&@ Out.

I would be hard pressed to lay down $150-$200 dollars, and would feel pretty peeved if it gave other players an advantage; real or perceived.

Why does more ships = game growing and more players? Do't we have enough ships now? Adding more just means new players have to spend more to have one of everything, as opposed to an SSD epic scale that is a nice piece for those who want it but unnecessary to enjoy the game at the normal scale. Or, if you really want new players, scrap the super expensive core set and sell a dice + ruler + rulebook pack with a printed summary of all the game ships/components, and then let people buy just the ships they want, not spend half their money on their second choice faction. And/or come up with a new campaign that's a bit more suited to community building rather than CC which is a glorified framework for a series of mostly isolated 1v1 games.

#mytwocents

PS: I had to wikipedia hashtag and copy/paste to get a hashtag because I can't find it on my keyboard.

I'd love to see a foray into the prequels with the Republic and CIS becoming new factions. Potentially a new starter with a Venator for the republic and some smaller ship for the CIS. It could then be expanded out into the Malevolence (experimental retrofit slots?) for a massive ship that's not too far outside the current scale.

If the Executor was introduced into the game I'd buy it purely as a cheap, detailed and lage model.

Not a fan of the prequels at all...but I'm amazed they haven't done this yet. The market must be there. Even I would get a droid control ship...and I think most of the PT is eye cancer.

15 minutes ago, Bakura83 said:

Why does more ships = game growing and more players? Do't we have enough ships now? Adding more just means new players have to spend more to have one of everything, as opposed to an SSD epic scale that is a nice piece for those who want it but unnecessary to enjoy the game at the normal scale. Or, if you really want new players, scrap the super expensive core set and sell a dice + ruler + rulebook pack with a printed summary of all the game ships/components, and then let people buy just the ships they want, not spend half their money on their second choice faction. And/or come up with a new campaign that's a bit more suited to community building rather than CC which is a glorified framework for a series of mostly isolated 1v1 games.

#mytwocents

PS: I had to wikipedia hashtag and copy/paste to get a hashtag because I can't find it on my keyboard.

I didn’t say anything about adding more ships to grow the base. I said a super expensive ship would create a new gateway that new players wouldn’t want to enter.

Im all for faction specific starter sets that would allow new users to jump in at a fraction of the cost of the current core. I have stated this many times in wishlist threads.

A 3’, $300 SSD expansion would be useless and pointless. You wouldn’t be able to use it in game without it either being immobile or flying off the board within 3 turns, And the price would create a divide between those with deep pockets and those without. FFG is known for releasing unique cards with each expansion; this would put the poorer players at a disadvantage likely causing them to leave.

At that size it would be better off as a $30+ play-mat with upgrade cards.

A 18”, $100 SSD expansion would Be manageable both on the table, and on the pocketbook.

19 minutes ago, Bakura83 said:

Why does more ships = game growing and more players?

This is a very good question. I look at XWM and can't help but think that part of their problem is also part of their success. They are currently 2 years into a run away power creep. FFG is perpetuating it by releasing more and more totally irrelevant ships (wookie gunship that sees 5 seconds of screen time on the Rebels cartoon anyone?). This is forcing folks to continuously buy new content, but is shelving the old content (and iconic ships are rarely seen on the table). It also means that XWM is getting poorly designed EU ships (K wing, TIE Punisher, Mist Hunter...) instead of the beautiful Ralph McQuarrie inspired core ships.

This problem could be even worse in Armada. There aren't anywhere near as many capital ships in the official canon or even in the EU, so you end up scrapping even further down the barrel. This doesn't sounds like a good idea to me... it takes ISDs and MC80s off the board and replaces them with something obscure from some comic that's ugly, less iconic, and of course more powerful.

But here's the problem - how do you continue to sell the game (and FFG make a profit) without new ships? The first thought would be that they can continue to do Chimaera type expansions, enhancing previous ships that have been released and really creating a refined game. But there are several issues with that type of release. First, for the people that already have as many ISDs as they want, they are now being told to buy another one. This is obnoxious (though can anyone really have too many ISDs =P) and can not only lead to customers not buying the new product, but if a trend is established, could reduce sales of current releases in the expectation of future releases (it happened in X Wing where folks were buying 4 B wings just to have the rebels aces pack released, giving them a 5th/6th (because you needed 2 sets to maximize the rest of your ships) unnecessary B Wing, leading to people not buying the full amount in future releases... or at least according to the forum at that time). There will also be plenty of people who just skip the expansion since to them its basically a card-only expansion at $50, and if you're not playing in a tourney - who cares?

Personally, I really like the much slower release schedule helps Armada. Since it is a slower paced game, the meta doesn't get stale as quickly, not to mention that it seems like overall it's a very well balanced game, leading to a longer period in time before the hard core players are itching for new content. Furthermore, it allows new players to buy into the game, both slowly (experiencing one style of play at a time), and for a reduced cost. Armada costs $850 if you buy one of everything. XWM costs $1705 to buy one of everything (though with that said, there's so much more you can skip out on in XWM these days... but those are all the ships you *want* to be playing when you buy into the game). There are 26 products compared to 61. And very few things require numerous copies of unless you're buying for a specific list, and rarely do you need more than a second purchase (I could easily justify 2 flotillas, and perhaps 2 purchases of the hammerhead, raider, and CR-90... anything else would be a stretch unless you wanted a specific list).

So, circling back to the question - why do more ships = game growing and more players? If they don't continue to release new ships and just recycle the old ships, sales will go down, profits will go down, game will fade out. But too many ships = power creep and hard to get into game, momentary spike in sales as current players chase top lists, but long term insustainability, game will fade out.

Here is a fundamental assumption being made:

“If they don't continue to release new ships and just recycle the old ships, sales will go down, profits will go down, game will fade out. “

only if the focus is on the existing player base.

a growing additive player base doesn’t need new ships, it needs new players buying the existing ships.

A game becomes an additive base by being “a good solid game”, one that is fundamentally complete... shifts, changes and additions can either be not ship related (campaign) or be introduced at a much slower rate.

Which I think is where the marketing for Armada is going, quite accidentally rather than by design.

46 minutes ago, GrandAdmiralCrunch said:

I didn’t say anything about adding more ships to grow the base. I said a super expensive ship would create a new gateway that new players wouldn’t want to enter.

Im all for faction specific starter sets that would allow new users to jump in at a fraction of the cost of the current core. I have stated this many times in wishlist threads.

A 3’, $300 SSD expansion would be useless and pointless. You wouldn’t be able to use it in game without it either being immobile or flying off the board within 3 turns, And the price would create a divide between those with deep pockets and those without. FFG is known for releasing unique cards with each expansion; this would put the poorer players at a disadvantage likely causing them to leave.

At that size it would be better off as a $30+ play-mat with upgrade cards.

A 18”, $100 SSD expansion would Be manageable both on the table, and on the pocketbook.

1) I think a $300 epic-only model is less of a hinderance to new players than the current core set, and enough to keep the current players excited. Although maybe $300 is a bit too steep. Anyway, I would rather them do that then churn out more and more increasingly obscure ships. Choose a new era, or create a better narrative structure. I never struggle to get people to try IA, cant say the same about a wing/Armada.

2) No issue at all with the game mat idea. I can’t remember who made the pdf files for it but I love my printed out giant ISD xwing matt with the different hull cards for epic games.

Armada, and X-wing are more visually intimidating to a casual observer. We always get the magic crew stopping to watch, saying how amazing it looks, then mumbling excuses when we offer to teach them. Happens almost every other time in a FLGS, going back to wave 1! This has always been the case for tabletop games. The more imposing the game looks, the less people are willing to buy in.

2 minutes ago, cynanbloodbane said:

Armada, and X-wing are more visually intimidating to a casual observer. We always get the magic crew stopping to watch, saying how amazing it looks, then mumbling excuses when we offer to teach them. Happens almost every other time in a FLGS, going back to wave 1! This has always been the case for tabletop games. The more imposing the game looks, the less people are willing to buy in.

Their loss. They'd probably save enough switching from MtG to Armada to be able to put a downpayment on a reasonable starting home.

It's worth pointing out that the Legion core set retails for $90, with $176 worth of plastic in it.

The Armada core retails for $100, with $125 worth of plastic in it.

(Legion: 2x Rebel Troopers, 2x Stormtroopers, AT-RT, Speeder Bikes, all at $25 separately; plus Luke/Vader, equivalent to Leia/Veers at $13 each. Armada: Victory at $40, Nebulon/CR90 at $20 each; plus 10 fighters equivalent to 1.25 $20 squadron boxes.)

No doubt that has something to do with the percieved value proposition.

(Edit: if we include accessories, Armada goes up by $18 - dice, movement tool - and Legion goes up by $45 - dice, distance tools, barricades )

If we see an SSD I’m betting it’ll be at the $100 price point, with potentially $150 depending on size, but I think it’s far more likely to be the former.

3 hours ago, GrandAdmiralCrunch said:

A 3’, $300 SSD expansion would be useless and pointless. You wouldn’t be able to use it in game without it either being immobile or flying off the board within 3 turns, And the price would create a divide between those with deep pockets and those without. FFG is known for releasing unique cards with each expansion; this would put the poorer players at a disadvantage likely causing them to leave.

At that size it would be better off as a $30+ play-mat with upgrade cards.

A 18”, $100 SSD expansion would Be manageable both on the table, and on the pocketbook.

While visually I would love a 3' SSD, for playability sake, I'm hoping for something a bit closer to Mel's, at 25", it is both imposing and playable.

I would not mind a Resurgent SD. Let's see if they can make those first, and balance them. Cuz, while I moan about balance all the time, its really darn tricky already to balance between 5 different types of play-units: squads, flots, smalls, meds, larges. RSD might be a big large... or it might be a new size, huge? (SSD and FO-mega-wing would likely be massive)

3 hours ago, Bakura83 said:

Their loss. They'd probably save enough switching from MtG to Armada to be able to put a downpayment on a reasonable starting home.

Switch?

I play both, despite not really having the disposable income to justify it. Luckily, my wife is the understanding sort!