It's funny that the reality is actually twice as bad as this post suggests (10 months instead of 5). We are rapidly approaching the 1 Year mark since anything new was announced for Armada, at Gencon. At at time when the upcoming Gencon tourney itself is the smallest it's ever been (only 40 seats made available by FFG -- what is this, a Regional?).

Even if Armada is not officially dead yet (and FFG drops another set at some point), the local community in my area has basically died with lots of folks speculating that it's a dead game. It'll be interesting to see if the Store Champ tourneys can get more than a half-dozen players this year.

On 6/9/2018 at 2:14 PM, Hrathen said:

And more than a little sad that the game has had so little attention from FFG. I am sure that FFG is doing this for reasons.

Oh absolutely, I'm sure like any large business they have a whole team of analysts who figure these sorts of things out. I'm confident they have reasons for not making new Armada stuff. But I'm not sure that reason is anything other than "New Product for Legion / X-Wing / Destiny makes far more profit than a comparable use of resources to create, produce, and ship new Armada product. Therefore, make stuff for those games instead of Armada."

18 minutes ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

Oh absolutely, I'm sure like any large business they have a whole team of analysts who figure these sorts of things out. I'm confident they have reasons for not making new Armada stuff. But I'm not sure that reason is anything other than "New Product for Legion / X-Wing / Destiny makes far more profit than a comparable use of resources to create, produce, and ship new Armada product. Therefore, make stuff for those games instead of Armada."

I'd think it has something to do with NOT letting Legion die on the vine since it's an attempt to fight GW/40K. And if you're gonna come at the king....

On 6/9/2018 at 10:03 AM, Norsehound said:

Star Wars isn't associated with big spaceship combat games

I think it was but I think times have changed a bit since then. When first trilogy was shot, it was inspired by WW2 Naval Action which was a few decades ago.

We don't have much naval action going on for a long time ( when was the last time when two battleships fighting each other?) the only thing a warship does in a conflict is to fire missiles from far far away.

So in general I think most of the people lost interest in naval battles ( even online battleship games are more like arcade games rather than simulation).

One thing I really like about Star Wars is that it has a very deep universe and therefore it allows interactivity at all levels. Since my childhood I wanted two things, fly an X-Wing and have a major battle that mimicked Battle of Endor.

For X-Wing, PC simulations were great satisfaction ( even Tie Fighters) however no PC or console game was good enough for me for the fleet action. Thats where Armada came into my life.

We’ve even ran out of things to say on the SSD!

You know things aren’t good when that happens.... ?

46 minutes ago, LostFleet said:

I think it was but I think times have changed a bit since then. When first trilogy was shot, it was inspired by WW2 Naval Action which was a few decades ago.

We don't have much naval action going on for a long time ( when was the last time when two battleships fighting each other?) the only thing a warship does in a conflict is to fire missiles from far far away.

So in general I think most of the people lost interest in naval battles ( even online battleship games are more like arcade games rather than simulation).

One thing I really like about Star Wars is that it has a very deep universe and therefore it allows interactivity at all levels. Since my childhood I wanted two things, fly an X-Wing and have a major battle that mimicked Battle of Endor.

For X-Wing, PC simulations were great satisfaction ( even Tie Fighters) however no PC or console game was good enough for me for the fleet action. Thats where Armada came into my life.

Ever try Empire at war? Especially with mods?

21 hours ago, Pwmf said:

So Armada isn't dead, no we haven't had any preview, we will get on likely in the next three months, yes that sucks but we have a slower release rate which so far has been good for the game.

So a game built on a "living minis" model is doing OK, even if you get no announcements of new releases of over a year?

(10 months and counting, plus your 3, equals 13)

I'm ok with being an optimist, but this seems beyond optimistic

I'm sure there are reasons. Business reasons: Licenses. Logistics. Priorities. And more.

But it doesn't change the fact: Armada isn't dead (we still have OP kits and events), but it's not exactly alive anymore.

I sincerely hope that changes, but ATM Armada is in a very sad place. And has been, for quite some time.

4 hours ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

Even if Armada is not officially dead yet (and FFG drops another set at some point), the local community in my area has basically died with lots of folks speculating that it's a dead game. It'll be interesting to see if the Store Champ tourneys can get more than a half-dozen players this year.

The same situation has happened in my area. Frankly I think if a new wave is dropped tomorrow it will be too little too late really but I really hope i'm wrong.

50 minutes ago, beefcake4000 said:

The same situation has happened in my area. Frankly I think if a new wave is dropped tomorrow it will be too little too late really but I really hope i'm wrong.

Same here, unfortunately.

It's been more than a year since it was possible to get more than 3-4 people to show for a friendly tournament.

If I want to play I have to drive 3-4 hours - or hop on a plane.

The store I won a SC at last year didn't apply for one this year. Nearly the entire crowd died off there. And that was nearly an hour drive from home. Now all my SC hopes are 2+ hr drives.

I'm lucky I'm having a kid next month. I don't need to be super concerned with new releases. I'll have other things to worry about for a bit. Although, that means I probably won't be making many of the SC's this year. ::womp womp::

edit- For the record, I think FFG has definitely pushed Armada to the side to release Legion and push X Wing 2.0. And they should be. I am disappointed in OP...they seem like slackers or just are not getting the right level of support they should be internally.

3 hours ago, Green Knight said:

Armada isn't dead (we still have OP kits and events), but it's not exactly alive anymore.

That is not dead which can eternal lie. And with strange aeons even death may die.

24 minutes ago, noggin said:

That is not dead which can eternal lie. And with strange aeons even death may die.

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn.

I think that, unfortunately, we have to accept the fact the FFG might well be letting Armada die off in the hopes that those of us who play it choose to shift our purchasing power to Legion or something else in their stable. It's a great shame as I have no interest in Legion or Imperial Assault, I already play X-Wing and was really enjoying Armada.

I only have one friend who was prepared to invest the upfront cost involved in getting into Armada, everyone else just couldn't afford it. So I guess, at least for us anyway, we can just keep playing.

As a player I'm not interested in tournament play but I think Armada used to get semi-regular play at our local FLGS but they have announced that moving forward they are dropping Armada from their rotation as they are finding that not enough players sign up for the tournaments to make it worth their while to run them.

2 hours ago, Stasy said:

I am disappointed in OP...they seem like slackers or just are not getting the right level of support they should be internally.

For the record, its the second one. OP has little budget to actually do things.

Other people have said it, but I generally think FFG doesn't want armada to die, they just don't have the resources right now. Their miniatures team is all hands on deck doing X-wing 2.0 and making sure legion doesn't just die, in the face of that Armada will have to wait. FFG/ Asmodee doesn't hire enough people to keep all of them going at once. Regardless, we will probably get another announcement come august and 1 wave a year isn't half bad.

4 hours ago, Stasy said:

I'm lucky I'm having a kid next month.

All the best from my side here! and congratulations

2 hours ago, Do I need a Username said:

For the record, its the second one. OP has little budget to actually do things.

Other people have said it, but I generally think FFG doesn't want armada to die, they just don't have the resources right now. Their miniatures team is all hands on deck doing X-wing 2.0 and making sure legion doesn't just die, in the face of that Armada will have to wait. FFG/ Asmodee doesn't hire enough people to keep all of them going at once. Regardless, we will probably get another announcement come august and 1 wave a year isn't half bad.

Little budget does not need to translate to "pathetic prize support." Take this SC kit... why are we getting a newly designed token when we haven't finished the old style yet? And in XWM, why is the top 2 prize ineligible for v2.0? Every other card is doubled sided v1.0/v2.0... Yet that card is double sided v1.0/v1.0... Why did they start doing stupid square tokens for XWM, and then abruptly give up on it.... what about those challenge coins they started for all of their games a few years ago, just to stop it after 6months? Or how about the 2017 NA Champs that gave Armada the same deck box as everything else... Except that we don't really have standard sized cards (yes, I know squadrons are). Not to say they needed to come up with a custom sized deck box... but they didn't need to give out 32 of those to the top finishers, especially when like only 29 people played through to the end. So I repeat, small budget != stupid prize support.

are people so eager to abandon in your areas? Last month we've had 12 people show up at a small local tourney... I guess we're a bunch of optimists.

3 hours ago, Green Knight said:

Ph'nglui mglw'nafh Cthulhu R'lyeh wgah'nagl fhtagn.

Cthulhu Wars is my current favorite game.

We've been working to rejuvenate the Armada scene where I am from, Atlantic Canada. There seems to be some small pockets of play going on, but it also seems mostly insular and part of pre-existing gaming groups. In my province Nova Scotia we are the only Armada going on at all, and our largest turnout has been 6 people. We will keep plugging away and trying to expand but it has been a hard sell.

Ultimately if FFG drops support of Armada I think most of us would continue playing, but I do think it would cause a gradual decline even in our small group.

It is really unfortunate. Armada is such a great game. I recently moved to an area (West Ohio) in which the Armada scene seems to be barely hanging on with a pulse. Tournaments are crapshoots where maybe enough people show up to hold one. Some of the FLGS’s have very much minimized the shelf space for Armada over Legion (find a dusty interdictor box stuffed behind stacks of Veers) and others just do not carry it anymore. I have been trying to rebuild the player base here; however, I dishearteningly feel as if even the stores themselves are working against me when I overhear thier staff members tell a prospective new Armada player that the game is ‘dead, but the diehards don’t know it yet’. I’m glad to hear that other communities are seeing better engagement than here.

*edited to fix grammar

I truly hope I'm wrong (and I *try* not to be a doom-and-gloom guy), but I think it's going to be too little, too late for our community as well. At one point we had a relatively regular 14+ people on a weekly basis. We're lucky for that number to be 4 now. The true test will be upcoming Store Championship(s). One store has said they are working on scheduling one now, no word from the other (we used to get one at two different stores for two in the area). I have a bad feeling it will be a stretch to get 8 players...

Eh.

If you can’t wait, you’re undeserving of getting good stuff when it - eventually - comes.

Armada is worth waiting for.

so we are at the point (again?) of telling other people they are undeserving cause they are frustrated, and not worth FFGs games?

Contrary to last time, I dont mind this drought at all. Not that I dont want news, but I am totally resigned to accept that this is how it is, and move on. The stories here, for example about drying up of player bases, which I believe a 100%, are what really make me sad, and the inevitable undeserving type posts.

FFG is simply doing a bad communication job, I just cannot say anything else. And it doesnt matter to me that this is, maybe, because they dont pay enough people to keep contact, or for any other „reason“, conjured up or real.

I startet with wave 1 after christmas 2015. For me it was the first time playing a miniatures game at all. It took me some month to find the first player to have a game with. I succeded in April 2016, when I got my wave 2 ships and squadrons. Now I have 40 ships about 118 squadrons, all painted. This year I startet to play in tournaments and I won my first SC two weeks ago.

That's only two years from now. There is no reason to look back to any "good old times" when all guys played Armada. It has never been a big group of players around here. But we stick together and we try hard to make Corellian Conflict work. We meet, when we have the time to play a game. And we look in the forums eagerly waiting for news. But we don't moan and groan all day long, why FFG doesn't love us any more or why Armada is dead. Do I need new ships? Barely, but I bought my third Arquitens.

It's stupid! Stop it. Leave your computer and play. Or if there is no friend to play with, talk to your wife/children/parents/other friends. Got out and get some fresh air! Life is beautiful. Computers and forums are ****.

3 hours ago, Cutter9999 said:

It is really unfortunate. Armada is such a great game. I recently moved to an area (West Ohio) in which the Armada scene seems to be barely hanging on with a pulse. Tournaments are crapshoots where maybe enough people show up to hold one. Some of the FLGS’s have very much minimized the shelf space for Armada over Legion (find a dusty interdictor box stuffed behind stacks of Veers) and others just do not carry it anymore. I have been trying to rebuild the player base here; however, I dishearteningly feel as if even the stores themselves are working against me when I overhear thier staff members tell a prospective new Armada player that the game is ‘dead, but the diehards don’t know it yet’. I’m glad to hear that other communities are seeing better engagement than here.

*edited to fix grammar

This may not fix your local group, but we have a good sized group on the west side of Columbus that has someone new joining almost every week. We have 6-7 regulars and manage to get about 10 people playing weekly at The Guardtower in Hilliard.

If you're willing to make the drive, we'd be happy to have you!