The lack of news, especially the lack of news about future expansions, disturbs a lot of us. And of course, sorrows about the future of the game have been uttered by many. Here I want to present some considerations in order to ease the mood and to speculate on when we will get new stuff.

First the facts:

1. In 2016 and 2017 around the beginning of April new Waves has been announced (and around August). This year there has been nothing so far.
2. After Euros a member of the the discord armada community (named Ghazgoth there) has told us that he has spoken with one of the developers after the finals and the dev had said that they "plan" (whatever that means for the state of progress of this plan) to release a new campaign.
3. Before the Hyperfool Report an Armada playtester had a bet with @Undeadguy whether new armada stuff will be anounced during the (now) accursed report. The playtesters prediction was that it will be announced.
4. Wave 7 of Armada was released late. It was announced for before Christmas, but FFG has not managed to keep the deadline.
5. At the same time Wave 13 (which had stuff from the new sequel movie The Last Jedi which premiered in December) was advanced and released in December (long before its planned release).
6. FFG has announced X-Wing Wave 14 and X-Wing 2.0 for around August.
7. FFG has had several times difficulties to restock their miniatures or even release them in a number that matched the demands.

Some speculations among the Armada community:

1. Armada might be dead. No future expansions.
2. The developers have no time at the moment for Armada, because auf X-Wing/Legion/Runewars.

Here are my (not on 100% certainty based) conclusions:

• I think speculation 1 can be outright dismissed for two reasons. First reason is simply fact no. 2 (what Ghazgoth has told us). This might not convince you, because you have not spoken to him and it is a case of my-brother's-friend-has-a-cousin-who-told-that-his-grandfather. Paired with an examination of fact 2 it seems to me that it is an implausible position that Armada is dead: Would a playtester start such a bet with Undeadguy, if he has not already tested future stuff? Quite unlikely. Of course FFG can drop Armada allthough they have already tested expansions in the pipeline. But this is not very likely. And in addition to keep this view you also need to dismiss the Ghazgoth-rumor for the Armada-is-dead position.
• Also that the developers are to busy at the moment for Armada does not seem quite plausible. Again it is the bet that we have as a reason. Most likely: If a playtester enters such a bet, he expects that stuff he has tested is ready for release.
• So, why are there no news? FFG's production partners have quite limited production capacities (fact 7). The facts 5&6 seem to me to indicate that FFG has no problem to postpone Aramda stuff, if "more important" stuff needs to be pushed (my personal theory is that the mouse demanded The Last Jedi stuff before christmas in order to push the movie, hence FFG postponed Armada and advanced Wave 13). With X-Wing 2.0 FFG is going to realease not merely a new wave, but a new core set plus a multitude of new expansions. This will face a demand like bread in an area of a famine. I think production capacities are already beyond their limits at the moment. And once more Armada has to wait.
• If this is true, the moment when X-Wing Wave 14, X-Wing 2.0, the X-Wing 2.0 Wave 1 expansions, and the new X-Wing 2.0 Lando-Flacon leave the printers are the earliest moment new Armada stuff can hit the printer. The question is how long normally the time span is between announcement and the status change to being at the printer. A plausible moment for news would be: The moment when the X-Wing stuff status changes to on-the-boat minus the mentioned time span. (Of course there is the often mentioned possibility that for marketing reasons we don't hear anything about Armada: They want X-Wing to get all the attention. If this is the reason for the lack of news, predictions become more difficult to make.)

TL;DR There will be future armada expansions (however, I am still pi**ed because of the Hyperfool Report).

I would also state the facts that Andrew Navarro claimed they were working on "Something Big" for Armada GenCon 2017?, and later (Adepticon?) that they still were.

I'd like to point out that a lot of companies will go into R&D for a product, just to scrap it last minute. I know you touched on that, but that's the only possible explanation as to a disconnect between play testers and the dev team. They could have the next 2 waves finalized and ready for production, but if the projected sales don't make up for development, the entire project could be scrapped. Based off the loss of Netrunner where the lead producer didn't know the game was going to be pulled, I'd say it's also possible that Asmodee or the higher ups of FFG give the ax to Armada without the development team knowing. Granted, both are under different circumstances (there's no licence issue for Armada), but I think Netrunner shows there's a lapse in communication in FFG, which is a real shocker...

So all we know is that we know nothing.

Let Runewars die. Kill it if you have to.

Refocus development on Armada.

32 minutes ago, Ewok on Stilts said:

So all we know is that we know nothing.

Don't go letting facts spoil Armada Forums favourite pastime.

Also...

I know something: Armada has never been a high-priority game. It's been delays and more delays.

My guess that with Legion and Nu-Wing it's even less of a priority.

I don’t belive that game that was in top-5 of best selling games can be a low priority game.

I’d rather belive that problem is in people that are responsible for game’s fate. When a person indifferent to the product he responsible to takes a position of importance, there will be no good for this product. And I’m afraid Armada was unlucky enough to get a portion of such people. I think that is why Armada been ignored so much.

31 minutes ago, maxster said:

I don’t belive that game that was in top-5 of best selling games can be a low priority game.

I have always said if Armada was another companies product it could be a tentpole franchise.

Unfortunately, FFG also makes the #1 mini game and has to work extremely hard to keep that title through a constant stream of content for that game, as well as a secondary direct competitor to undermine #2's market share which in turn helps #1 stay #1. (X-wing and Legion respectively.) FFGs priorities always have and always will center solely on X-Wing as their cash cow.

Armada therefore takes a slot on down the road. Maybe 3rd, maybe 5th after Destiny and Game of Thrones. For the card games and board games to be a lower priority is not too big of a deal because the components can be cheaply produced without the need for a plastic factory. However, a miniature game that far down the totem pole, that shares limited production bandwith with priorities 1 and 2, means we experience constant delays.

It used to be bad. Now it's really bad. I don't see it getting better, only worse and worse until they put themselves in a position where the community ceases to exist for no reason other than that FFG has starved it to death.

This 2018 worlds is a perfect allegory for the whole state of Armada.

They limited the spots to half the people who wanted to come, gave 20% of the spots to people playing X-Wing, and then posted a bar graph that made Armada look like a crappy unpopular game that couldn't draw participants at the level their other games could.

That's offensive to me, but THAT is the state of this game I love in a nutshell.

I don't see us getting any news for Armada until Gencon at the earliest or some time after X-Wing 2.0 drops. I just base this on the precedent set by Legion and Imperial Assault. FFG will likely not want to divert hype and attention away from their new release with a product that is even remotely similar to it. In the worst case scenario we might get news that the next release will be pushed back to some time next year while X-Wing and Legion eat up the majority of their miniature production due to the more rapid release of their products.

The whole graph thing at worlds is laughable because FFG sets the cap. All events are sold out so whatever the max number of tickets there is, is the number that is shown.

8 hours ago, Darth Veggie said:

... Here I want to present some considerations in order to ease the mood and to speculate on when we will get new stuff.

Thanks for trying, but I'm still a little down....

?

(See what I did there?!?)

2 minutes ago, moodswing5537 said:

Thanks for trying, but I'm still a little down....

?

(See what I did there?!?)

I missed it.

Care to take another swing at it? ?

7 hours ago, Ewok on Stilts said:

So all we know is that we know nothing.

We are all mushrooms. Kept in the dark and fed sh**.

1 hour ago, Palanthas said:

The whole graph thing at worlds is laughable because FFG sets the cap. All events are sold out so whatever the max number of tickets there is, is the number that is shown.

See, I don't think the graph was meant to do anything but report the facts - it wasn't saying, "hey, Armada sucks, look how few people are playing it", it was saying "here's how many people played each game at Worlds." Everyone with half a brain knows Armada takes twice the space and three times the time of X-Wing - of course there will be fewer players. I think FFG does what FFG does and put out a shiny graph and the forum community went "boo! they hate us!".

I recall somewhere (probably an intensify firepower podcast?) one of the developers (Michael Gerins?) saying that the owner of FFG put a lot of focus into making Armada since it was the game that he (the owner) wanted to play. Of course, since then, FFG has been sold to Asmodee, and presumably that guy (the previous owner) now has a lot less say in things.

I imagine that the change of ownership / management / culture of FFG has had a big impact (as well as all the things DarthVeggie wrote above). I work in an organisation with a prevalent bureaucratic culture that is undergoing some level of change - some of us keep on doing the things we were doing before, but a lot of decisions have been put aside / delayed / obstructed while the "changes" actually occur and people work out what is going on. I assume Armada has simply fallen into the leadership gap that develops when the boss / owner sells to the international company and is no longer in the building directing what goes on in person.

1 hour ago, LTD said:

See, I don't think the graph was meant to do anything but report the facts - it wasn't saying, "hey, Armada sucks, look how few people are playing it", it was saying "here's how many people played each game at Worlds." Everyone with half a brain knows Armada takes twice the space and three times the time of X-Wing - of course there will be fewer players. I think FFG does what FFG does and put out a shiny graph and the forum community went "boo! they hate us!".

No the graph is pointless as they is a ticket cap. It’s like saying we allowed the first 30 people access to the product and we had 30 people. It doesn’t really tell you anything other then there event was sold out.

If the graph would have listed the amount of people who requested tickets then we had some info that could be used.

15 hours ago, Ewok on Stilts said:

So all we know is that we know nothing.

OT - Op Ivy came to mind here!

Maybe FFG needs to rethink its marketing policy.

Eg: TIE Defenders. I want about 8 of these. Fighter pack 2 is £15. I’m not buying 4 packs to get them.

I have 2 packs & wont buy any more. Especially when I don’t need the other fighters in those quantities.

Same goes for upgrade cards.

Maybe if things were packaged a little differently, FFG would have more of my money. More money = continued investment & a more ‘popular’ game.

FFG are shooting themselves in the foot in my mind.

1 hour ago, ISD Avenger said:

Maybe FFG needs to rethink its marketing policy.

Eg: TIE Defenders. I want about 8 of these. Fighter pack 2 is £15. I’m not buying 4 packs to get them.

I have 2 packs & wont buy any more. Especially when I don’t need the other fighters in those quantities.

Same goes for upgrade cards.

Maybe if things were packaged a little differently, FFG would have more of my money. More money = continued investment & a more ‘popular’ game.

FFG are shooting themselves in the foot in my mind.

But a good lot of people will spend £60 on 8 TIE defenders, ffg counts on that, especially if you want to play competitive. Because I play casual only, I’m fine proxying, I do this for literally every ffg game I play. But this is not legal in tournaments. The real change to the marketing strategy that could do any good is reducing the entry cost, perhaps with a faction specific core set. However, again, devoted fans will still pay up to buy the game, and anyone brave enough to buy in will probably get addicted and then buy more anyway.

Though seriously, wave 8 is probably going to be two booster packs and a formal apology by this point.

Armada is not dead!

Do I like the fact that we don't have a lot of attention from FFG? No! Like everybody on the forum. We all like read things about our favorite game.

But, I'm not worry from this. Even if we are put aside for a moment, as long as the game (and new wave) continue, there is no problem. Enjoy what you have and when new stuff will come, you will be happy.

Santa is coming once a year... so it's the same for new wave in Armada too

29 minutes ago, Mostly_Harmless_Species said:

But a good lot of people will spend £60 on 8 TIE defenders, ffg counts on that, especially if you want to play competitive. Because I play casual only, I’m fine proxying, I do this for literally every ffg game I play. But this is not legal in tournaments. The real change to the marketing strategy that could do any good is reducing the entry cost, perhaps with a faction specific core set. However, again, devoted fans will still pay up to buy the game, and anyone brave enough to buy in will probably get addicted and then buy more anyway.

Though seriously, wave 8 is probably going to be two booster packs and a formal apology by this point.

I agree on the lower entry cost point.

I imagine non-tournament players (casual) outnumber their opposites quite considerably. As such, as with a lower entry point & a different marketing pitch I think FFG would have had a much easier time keeping the more casual players from feeling priced out.

On 6/9/2018 at 1:50 PM, Undeadguy said:

I'd like to point out that a lot of companies will go into R&D for a product, just to scrap it last minute. I know you touched on that, but that's the only possible explanation as to a disconnect between play testers and the dev team. They could have the next 2 waves finalized and ready for production, but if the projected sales don't make up for development, the entire project could be scrapped. Based off the loss of Netrunner where the lead producer didn't know the game was going to be pulled, I'd say it's also possible that Asmodee or the higher ups of FFG give the ax to Armada without the development team knowing. Granted, both are under different circumstances (there's no licence issue for Armada), but I think Netrunner shows there's a lapse in communication in FFG, which is a real shocker...

That is very true. However, my point is that such a scenario is, given all the facts I have mentioned above, much more unlikely than the scenario that they simply postpone Armada because they they need all their production capacity for their beloved cash cow.

What if they announced a Terrinoth based naval warfare game, using Armada's engine, but using boats? Could use their own IP and keep the gameplay similar, maybe even add dragons or something.

Just now, Crabbok said:

What if they announced a Terrinoth based naval warfare game, using Armada's engine, but using boats? Could use their own IP and keep the gameplay similar, maybe even add dragons or something.

It isn't Star Destroyers blowing up Mon Cal cruisers.

1 hour ago, TallGiraffe said:

It isn't Star Destroyers blowing up Mon Cal cruisers.

That doesn't happen now ?