So this king about Armada's situation as a game I have come across a few conclusions.

The first is will be the most decisive but if FFG/we do not do something it is possible we will end up like Star Wars CCG. Unsupported and discontinued.

Now this is not to say Armada is dead. Far from it. We have a vibrant core community and some of us go on hiatus and come back (I am guilty of this). However we can't stay as we are, not if we want to have a supported game and a growing community (I don't know about you all but I want a chance at a world's trophy!)

The second conclusion is that in order to expand the community it needs to be a joint effort by both FFG and us as the community.

Now the point, to do this we need to figure out what we can do as the community and what FFG can do. They have in the past created scenarios and such which I think is perfect but what else could we do or they do?

Now many people will say "release new products" and that is what the end goal is. However for FFG to put the extended time we need to improve the community or at least bolster it. We need to show that we as a community want this game and want to stick around.

Now I want to send a proposal to FFG of what we want to do as a community and what we can use from them to do this. From putting together old tournament kits and repackaging them to designing new scenarios, but we need a plan of action and something to get them on board.

So tell me what can we do, or tell me I am a fool (used to that one) but let's at least figure out what hurdles we need to jump to succeed as a game.

I always liked the idea objectives changing between quarter (or larger time periods whatever). Would keep the games fresh and exciting for everyone as different ships and lists would flourish under these ever changing objectives options.

I'm glad we finally got some news and am overjoyed at the impending SSD release but I still want more. I'd like some regular communication from FFG with the community here on the forums. I'm thinking something along the lines of a dev diary like a lot of video games do. Keep us posted on what direction there heading in, maybe clue us into what's being playtested, give us a place to ask questions about rules ambiguity. Mainly I just want FFG to acknowledge us as a valuable part of Armada.

11 minutes ago, Megatronrex said:

I'm glad we finally got some news and am overjoyed at the impending SSD release but I still want more. I'd like some regular communication from FFG with the community here on the forums. I'm thinking something along the lines of a dev diary like a lot of video games do. Keep us posted on what direction there heading in, maybe clue us into what's being playtested, give us a place to ask questions about rules ambiguity. Mainly I just want FFG to acknowledge us as a valuable part of Armada.

A road map would be nice even if it wasn't very detailed. Just something to look forward to and give us on the forums something to discuss and speculate on

Getting the public to part with their money is rule number 1 for any company. But if you ignore said public they go away. So first & foremost, FFG needs to seriously rethink its communication strategy (or lack thereof).

I don’t suppose Armada will ever outsell Xwing but I think it can’t be a tidy little earner if done right. I have no doubt it could rise to number 2 bestseller in their Star Wars catalogue if given the attention & publicity it deserves.

So first off FFG - communicate better. It’s better to say ‘we are working on something, preview in 2 months’ rather than stay silent for 6.

Generate hype. Maintain interest. Support your fan base. And the cash will follow.

All true. Communication is one of the things I wanted to broach in my email to FFG. Seeing something like a video diary or more interactions would be amazing.

The issue I see is that FFG is STRICT on the NDA's which mean we may see something but it will be vague.

So to combat that vagueness, what could we ask for that's reasonable? More Dev interaction in the community is a huge part but we need to also work on the local and lgs levels

I don't know how long you've been gone, I thought I remembered seeing you post back in 2017 a bit when I first joined, but I think Armada has suffered from a fairly consistent issue. I can't speak for the years before I started communicating on the forums, as I played the game since it released but never really followed the news, but ultimately it seems to me the issue has always been Fantasy Flight Game's lack of communication with it's Armada fan base.

The most memorable case came last year where we went 165 days without an updated FAQ.

Which was really just my favorite article of like 5 or 6 all addressing the same thing.


Simple fact is, Armada plays well, sells well, and short of X-wing, generates the highest level of attention on their forums... They know they can get away with it.

If FFG wants to boost this game, and the community around it, all they have to do is take a moment to communicate, whether that be timely FAQs (we went half a year without knowing how RLBs worked... for no reason), timely product announcements (they've been working on swa20 for years, an announcement that it was being worked on, even without previews, would have done the forums and the community heaps of good in the 11 (?) months since the last product reveal.... ) or finally, just writing articles. (I can think of 5 or 6 bloggers off the top of my head who'd love to do community articles, and that's all it would take to confirm "hey, yeah, armada is alive and well and we plan to keep supporting it until the money dries up).


There's not much else we can do from our end. I know a couple community leaders have written asmodee and FFG in an attempt to get them to recognize that there is a risk of abandonment with a radio silence policy. They don't seem to care.

Hmmmm I see. Good points @Darth Sanguis will need to figure something out. It can't just be communication though becuase the forums is not the only place people go. As you said you have been a player for years before joining the forums.

As for me, I want to say it was around the time the hammerhead were previewed. They made me a bit sad but there were other things going on.

I think the two things it seems we need is communication and minor updates or FFG created scenarios

Things have been lively locally, and I've had a ton of help from @svelok organizing and hosting events. We have new players joining regularly and regular players who show up weekly. The tournament scene has had a good turnout, and we've applied for regionals again this year.

Locally, things are good right now.

But I know they won't be easy forever. Svelok already mentioned putting his attention elsewhere once X-wing and Legion have their releases, and this last bit of summer/early fall, when school starts back up and people have stuff to do is always a dead zone to get players in. Not to mention it may be likely that Armada will not have a release until Q1 2019 (I'm still hopeful for a Wave 8 announcement between here and the end of the month, but I'm not betting on it.). So I'll have my work cut out for me, as I imagine many local leaders will.

If FFG really wanted to help, they could make sure their seasonal kits are announced,released, and distributed in a timely manner. Kits are a great way to get folks into the store.

They could also consider doing special objectives or game formats.

Ultimately though, I wouldn't expect much. I try to offer new ways for players to engage, and sometimes that's all there is. (I have the SSD ready for our group id anyone wants to test it. We host 600 or 800 points games from time to time. Blind fleet line ups.)

There is a very simple answer- be the community you want to see.

Promote and provoke discussion about the actual game.

Write strategy articles, discuss new fleet ideas, respond to other threads of the same nature.

Instead of saying, "That won't work!" say, "What about this/Why that?"

22 minutes ago, TheCallum said:

There is a very simple answer- be the community you want to see.

Promote and provoke discussion about the actual game.

Write strategy articles, discuss new fleet ideas, respond to other threads of the same nature.

Spot on. While we should continue to try and work with FFG to engage more with the community, I think we just need to focus on promoting the game and being positive ambassadors for the hobby. For instance, I am holding an Armada Learn to Play demo on Saturday, which has already garnered a lot of interest in my WH40k/MTG-heavy community. We should be doing more events like this to engage other gamers in our communities. More people buying and playing means more money for FFG which means more support for Armada.

I think new scenarios, campaigns, and play modes will do more to revitalize Armada than new ship releases.

We are getting to the point where it is harder to make new ships that are meaningfully distinct from existing ships. Yes there are still potential unimplemented designs out there, and of course there are new possible upgrades, but at some point either you must diverge significantly from the classic Star Wars ships that we know and love, or you must powercreep new ship and card designs in order to get new models and new cards on the table. The only other options are CCG-style format rotations or an X-Wing style reboot. No collectible game can continue indefinitely without one of these things. But this isn't MTG and you can't 'rotate out' the original trilogy ships in favor of a bunch of prequel/sequel/EU/legends ships. No one wants to play that game.

If FFG releases new scenarios, campaigns, objectives, or even scenario tournaments, tournaments with special list restrictions, or special narrative events it will provide a ton of material for people to build new interesting lists with existing releases.

Just now, Admiral Calkins said:

More people buying and playing means more money for FFG which means more support for Armada.

I wouldn't go that far... Armada is still selling out of expansions all over and they haven't had good support in over a year.


I agree with the rest though lol

I believe that a new campaign would go a long way to bringing in more players. It was difficult to bring players into tournament style play (400 pts), but very simple to bring folks into campaign play (Corellian Conflict). Although the campaign never played to completion, the new players have continued to play and we have talked about restarting the campaign.

Narrative campaign play or an asymmetric (Small Rebel Force vs Large Imperial one) campaign would not only help solidify future play, but likely encourage new players as well.

Also, I agree that FFG does need to have somewhat more regular communication. It would have been nice to hear at the “Hyperspace Report” that the “something big is still being worked on, wait until GenCon.” A quarterly article or a quarterly campaign scenario would also help drive Armada sales.

You are forgetting the third party,

Lucasfilm/Disney

If you want this game to flourish and have more new players coming in, you need more action on screen and on games,

For last trilogy ships, Episode IX is critical for Armada, it must have a good fleet action. TLJ had some fleet action but it was so boring I don't think people would watch that and say I want to play with the ships. Squads are different, they had much better inspiring action and X-Wing benefited a lot. I hope they have a Battle of Endor quality battle at some point.

Rogue One and Star Wars Rebels did an excellent job for OT era and Armada benefited a lot from it.

Return of the Clone Wars also is crtical for prequal ships. If there is good space action, I think it will revive the interest in prequal ships and it would be a good reason for FFG to add them.

Also computer gaming is important,

Back in the days when PC games were on, from X-Wing to Tie-Fighter, you get to shoot at the ships and blow them up ( one way interaction ) and games like Rebellion and Empire at War and etc you get to command the ships. Now at the age of console games, there is no way you get to command a ship and that is kind of a bummer for Armada. Most of the people I talk, their biggest knowledge of ships come from the games they used to play, of course novels, comic books and other source material provide a lot of info but including me the main capability of ships are thought in line with the ones in computer games.

3 hours ago, Lyraeus said:

We need to show that we as a community want this game and want to stick around.

Someone should reenact the battle between Grand Admiral Danetta Pitta and Josef Grunger with me...

I'll split the cost of the 30 Imperial-Star Destroyers and Executor-class Star Dreadnought required, and we'll have to the replace the Torpedo Sphere with another Star Dreadnought.

If that doesn't get FFG's attention, nothing will. ?

You just reminded me about the community expansion I headed and we all voted on. I need to make those title cards and define some rules on testing them!

I think with a content seller like Mel around, should Armada's support officially be dropped, we have the plastic available that FFG could have been providing to still have new content for years to come. If the community is going to generate content of its own, though, we need to consolidate that generation and establish an authority on what's "official" and what isn't- even on a community content generated level.

Looking at KDY, there are fifteen Acclamator variants to choose from, and who knows however many others are out there in the wild. Have they been tested? What's to say they wont end up as bogus over/under powered designs when actually put on the table with a real model? Are they pushing mechanics that will ultimately break the game or make it too complex for most of us to enjoy?

Quality control is essential for making good content. It's easy to generate content- look at all those entries on KDY. Even I could generate content, easily. You want to know what makes something stand out? Quality Control . If pressed, for any expansion FFG has developed, there's undoubtedly a battery of tests conducted on that unit and a history of changes all made for the end-goal of producing a balanced, functional playing piece (disclaimer: an end-goal in the eyes of FFG may not be the same as the way the community receives it, or the way the limited pool of testers received it before being released to the wider public). For most of the heaping amount of content out there on the internet? Those fifteen Acclamators? I'd almost wager real money that none have them have been tested, and they were all created by content developers (like me!) who want to theorize how the unit would look like but do not put in the quality time to make sure that unit is good.

Moreover, even if you have a quality piece, you may not be alone in putting forward a unit you've honed and tested yourself. Someone else might have also proposed an Acclamator in their home-brew tests with their community, in their clone-wars-themed campaign, and has a battery of data to also back up their playing piece. What authority is there to determine which of the two should be the community-accepted Acclamator? Right now FFG has that authority since they produce the plastic, and also produce components to support the official tournament events and prizes where you must bring authentic components and ships to authentic tournaments so you can get that authentic trophy. Without that authority you can make up whatever bull ships and vehicles you want to and win unfair tournaments.

So in order for a community, whether it's before or after Armada is unsupported, to generate content it needs to guarantee two things: Authenticity and Quality Control.

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That all said, what can the community do in a way that doesn't step on FFG's toes for creating content? Remember, anything the community comes up with will not necessarily be canon, unless Lyraeus gets the go-ahead from an FFG source to bless whatever project we come up with. So while we can develop plastic content in the form of ships and squadrons, it's never going to be allowed in a legitimate tournament. Why doesn't the community focus on, instead, content that could be enjoyed beside the tournament competitive scene?

I'll point at Heroes of the Aturi Squadron for X-Wing. That's content many fans are enjoying with the game that isn't yoked to the tournament scene.

Would the Armada community want to do something similar? Well, Aturi works because there's an AI control system developed for enemy vehicles so that the game can be enjoyed cooperatively or solo. It also has a campaign progression system to give players the thrill of personalizing craft above and beyond the tournament scene and doing something special with them. CC works within the brackets of what's already established in the tournament rules, but I'd say what makes HotAc really stand out is playing cooperatively with friends against an AI and buffing ships beyond what you can do in a tournament. I recall a custom tournament I was a part of before CC dropped where we could do the same thing, and I loved personalizing my ISD to hit much harder than any tournament ISD could.

So if the community wants something to work on something, perhaps we can work on developing an AI control system for Armada ships. If you ask me, that's the harder task between the two, because otherwise it would have been done already. And that's something, at least as far as we can see, that FFG is not working on and has no interest in working on. After all, they haven't embraced HotAc's automated rules, so it's free game for the community to work on.

Weekly articles. Designer diaries, strategy talk, deep dives on individual units, instructional piece on objectives, lists. There is a number of things that could be done, and 1 article a week is hardly a huge bit of dedication on their part. Put it on a rotation.

First Monday of the week is designer diary.

2nd Monday is a deep dive on a certain unit (individual squadron, ship, commander or upgrade).

3rd Monday is player list week. Start by using lists that have won major competitions and dissecting what was good about them. After those, have some of the major players out there from various blogs/fan sites submit some with detailed write-ups. Eventually open it up to other player submitted lists with write-ups. They don't have to be anything amazing, just interesting ideas that we can debate in the forum.

4th Monday is guest writer day. Get one of the winners from major competitions, or a blog/fan site writer, or a major forum contributor to submit an article about anything they want (armada related) such as tactics, how to behave at tournaments, how to prepare for tournaments, how to counter different meta's, etc.

They can have the occasional 5th week off.

This shows us they care and are still supporting the game. It quells the 'armada is dead' BS. It gives us more to talk about. It reinforces an active and positive environment.

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Monthly scenarios. Have a story based scenario each month that requires certain objectives, or certain ships/units/upgrades to build around. That way it's not the meta of the day, but something new and interesting so we see more variety in builds.

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New campaign. A new campaign would be fun, but in addition to the campaign this is a cheap and easy way to augment squadrons or even ships with new versions, unique pilots, etc.

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Some sort of regular cycle of updates. Give us the promise of at least a fairly dependable release schedule.

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Contests/fan submissions. Maybe tie this into that occasional 5th Monday. So like October 2018 has a 5th Monday. Do a SW themed pumpkin carving contest in October where people submit entries and people can vote on favorites and it's announced on the 29th...or just have FFG staff pick their favorites. Winner, 1st runner up, and honorable mentions all get prizes (alt-art cards, stuff from events such as rulers/dice, actual expansions). Best painted piece contest. Best mod. Best peripheral upgrade (storage system, custom table, etc)

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Just flipping ENGAGE your customer base instead of expecting us to always be here no matter how much you take us for granted.

Didn't we try figuring that out at one point @Norsehound ... Pretty sure we tried to figure out an aturi variant and it was super complex due to the amount of variability.

As for sourcing rights, I doubt they would go that far

25 minutes ago, LostFleet said:

Rogue One and Star Wars Rebels did an excellent job for OT era and Armada benefited a lot from it.

Rogue One was a catalyst for more Armada play. Solo had my group wanting to play X-Wing. Another good fleet battle will do wonders for Armada.

@kmanweiss that is a lot of work for a company primarily focused on creating games. That is also a ton of information they won't give out due to nda and such

5 minutes ago, Fraggle_Rock said:

Rogue One was a catalyst for more Armada play. Solo had my group wanting to play X-Wing. Another good fleet battle will do wonders for Armada.

It was the fact that they used Rogue one but it was meh on the hammerhead.

I honestly think they care, but revitalizing X-wing and focusing on Legion (two things that are very important to their bottom line) clearly should be at the forefront.

I hate to acknowledge that, by the way, but it’s true. And look, they obviously care. They’re giving us the biggest ship they’ve ever done.

Give it time. Let them get Legion out the door and X-wing rolling again. After that we’ll probably end up with two new waves in short order, and that’s how they’ll thank us: by tearing their teeth back into our wallets.

As far as helping this along I like the idea of monthly scenarios. They could even be part of an ongoing “season of play” where they keep track of the overall standings by having participants report in. Said standings could even affect which scenarios get released next. To top it off they could even do patches or something at the end of the year with a symbol and campaign or legendary battle name. Doesn’t have to be perfect, it just has to BE.

Don't get me wrong here, I definitely want more ship waves, articles, more stores supporting tournaments, but Armada is not a dead game by any means.

https://spikeybits.com/2016/03/warhammer-dethroned-top-5-miniature-games.html

Granted this is sales data from 2015, but look at 2014 in the article. Armada climbed to #3 bestseller in the span of a year, and I believe at the very least it has maintained a top 5 spot.

Hate to say it but FFG needs to have more frequent updates on new content like the reforming GW.

Just don't emulate GW's price points FFG if you're reading this. For the love of God please never do that.

1 hour ago, Fraggle_Rock said:

Rogue One was a catalyst for more Armada play. Solo had my group wanting to play X-Wing. Another good fleet battle will do wonders for Armada.

The Force Awakens and especially the Last Jedi killed almost any chance of large scale fleet engagements, what with the New Republic being pushovers under Mon Mothma's leadership.

She probably put Kuat, Fondor, Mon Calamari, Bilbringi, and more worlds into a recession without military contracts.

Yes I am still salty about the Canon reboot, I wanted the Nebula-class Star Destroyer and MC90 on the big screen.