The SSD's design is so weird to me that while it might limit it I'm not sure that it's bad that it does. I was pretty astonished to see that it's limited to 8 dice out the front. even with the 3 arcs it'll be REALLY hard to triple arc something so the most you're throwing is 13 dice before modifications which is only 1 more than an ISD.

Given, like other people have noted, this is just the lowest card we've seen for the SSD so who knows what the limit will be and if the game does go on further who knows what else they add to it.

3 minutes ago, dominosfleet said:

The SSD's design is so weird to me that while it might limit it I'm not sure that it's bad that it does. I was pretty astonished to see that it's limited to 8 dice out the front. even with the 3 arcs it'll be REALLY hard to triple arc something so the most you're throwing is 13 dice before modifications which is only 1 more than an ISD.

Given, like other people have noted, this is just the lowest card we've seen for the SSD so who knows what the limit will be and if the game does go on further who knows what else they add to it.

The 8 dice front arc is what has me confused, as it's the same as an ISD-2.

There's no in between amount of dice for another Imperial ship to have to differentiate itself.

Just now, Piratical Moustache said:

The 8 dice front arc is what has me confused, as it's the same as an ISD-2.

There's no in between amount of dice for another Imperial ship to have to differentiate itself.

I'd say there doesn't really need to be but ya, it throws me off too. That's honestly not the part that bugs me the most about the SSD release though.

17 minutes ago, dominosfleet said:

I'd say there doesn't really need to be but ya, it throws me off too. That's honestly not the part that bugs me the most about the SSD release though.

Out of curiosity what does bug you the most about the SSD?

51 minutes ago, Piratical Moustache said:

Out of curiosity what does bug you the most about the SSD?

Listen to the podcast "fire when ready". @Armada Jim does an AMAZING job putting my concerns into a structured form.

largely it's that it's a supplemental release to the game that desperately needs another wave to stay relevant.

200 is too much for most people (I'm still buying one, but MOST won't and that's a problem if there are unique upgrades in this kit)

The overall ship feels a little "meh" with that first card. there are 3 other cards, maybe it'll get better but for 220 points I'm not sure 2 ISD's won't tear it apart.

but the "biggest" issue is that i just don't think it'll grow the game. I WANT this game to be great and continue to be healthy, this release doesn't go toward that goal. It is pretty though(anyone that's like "but it's such a pretty set piece", no titan ever sold anyone on 40k).

3 hours ago, dominosfleet said:

Listen to the podcast "fire when ready". @Armada Jim does an AMAZING job putting my concerns into a structured form.

largely it's that it's a supplemental release to the game that desperately needs another wave to stay relevant.

200 is too much for most people (I'm still buying one, but MOST won't and that's a problem if there are unique upgrades in this kit)

The overall ship feels a little "meh" with that first card. there are 3 other cards, maybe it'll get better but for 220 points I'm not sure 2 ISD's won't tear it apart.

but the "biggest" issue is that i just don't think it'll grow the game. I WANT this game to be great and continue to be healthy, this release doesn't go toward that goal. It is pretty though(anyone that's like "but it's such a pretty set piece", no titan ever sold anyone on 40k).

Just two counter points, the may both be a load of crap but what eves...

1) While £150 is a lot, I think Armada has a much higher than normal number of fans who fall into one or both categories of “adults with large disposable income” and “people who enjoy large display items”, and frankly some of the - for example - Star Wars Lego kits dwarf the SSD in price.

2) I’m not sure that’s true about no Titan ever selling anyone on 40k. Having an “el dorado” miniature you are waiting to have as the crowning glory of your collection motivated plenty of customers when I worked for GW. Lots of games never get popular enough to financially justify something this big, and I think Armada getting one is a sign of health, not sickness.

Bonus 3) This may be controversial, but I’m not really sure what could be in wave 8 I would want to buy. ?. I definitely don’t want Armada to over-bloat into complete chaos like x-wing did, and I’m struggling to think of any more iconic ships I want to own. I’d rather spend money on a new campaign.

I’m pretty content with where Armada is at the moment.

I don’t think there’s any danger of armada over bloat with their release schedule ?

Future releases (decent ones) really depends on if FFG will draw from the old EU. There’s plenty of decent stuff there.

14 hours ago, dominosfleet said:

The SSD's design is so weird to me that while it might limit it I'm not sure that it's bad that it does. I was pretty astonished to see that it's limited to 8 dice out the front. even with the 3 arcs it'll be REALLY hard to triple arc something so the most you're throwing is 13 dice before modifications which is only 1 more than an ISD.

Given, like other people have noted, this is just the lowest card we've seen for the SSD so who knows what the limit will be and if the game does go on further who knows what else they add to it.

14 hours ago, Piratical Moustache said:

The 8 dice front arc is what has me confused, as it's the same as an ISD-2.

There's no in between amount of dice for another Imperial ship to have to differentiate itself.

Star Wars Weapons have stupidly limited range for REASONS(?). The SSD is 8 or 17 or however many kilometers long (because the EU was never consistent), but the weapons on it had effective ranges of 1-2km. That means that while it had so much more weaponry in absolute numbers than an ISD, it couldn’t really bring much more to bear on any single target.

The SSD - in legends - was a mind numbingly impractical weapon of war. It was ALWAYS more effective to bring the same resources in ISDs to bear on a target than a single SSD. It was just a symbol. Essentially a Freudian one at that.

I for one never wanted the ship in Armada and the implications of it are pushing me more away from the game. I don’t like that there won’t be new Rebel releases for 2 years because somebody wanted to manufacture one big model. I don’t like that they have a commander (Palpatine) who never commanded fleets who is also looking to be an amazing commander that is a potential requirement for competitive play. This is (probably) the XWMG Raider all over again.

I am not worried about design space. Both canonical and in gameplay you can justify a stronger ship in certain aspects.

Also, the SSD doesn’t harm competitive play as long as they add partial credit for killing half of a huge ship. If you have to destroy the SSD entirely for any credit, then you strongly encourage super tank SSD play at a competitive level and everyone has to revolve their strategies around it. That is unhealthy for the meta.

Overall, I’m waiting on more info for final judgement but not super optimistic about the effect the SSD will have on Armada.

As others have said, Id rather have had a wave of medium ships than a huge ship.

28 minutes ago, Ling27 said:

As others have said, Id rather have had a wave of medium ships than a huge ship.

The Medium size range needs some exclusive upgrade cards in my opinion, and the Rebels should get at the very least one more medium, preferably a AFMK1 variant.

I have mixed feelings about the SSD, originally I was completely opposed to it, but that model is great looking.

My big question @melminiatures: now that there is an SSD, will you release a line of SSD scaled ships like you did for the 1/7000 fleet ?

P.S. I'm still waiting for print technology that can do 1/7000 fighters (Or, I guess I could just roll up some dust bunnies and stick em on a flight stand

Yes. I want to do all kind of large ships in SSD scale. It will be awesome to have the SSD for display with some other ships around it as a miniature Battle of Endor.

2 hours ago, Piratical Moustache said:

The Medium size range needs some exclusive upgrade cards in my opinion, and the Rebels should get at the very least one more medium, preferably a AFMK1 variant.

I have mixed feelings about the SSD, originally I was completely opposed to it, but that model is great looking.

Literally the only thing I like about it is the way it looks. I'm going to spend 200 on this model because it's pretty. I LOVE my raider, I haven't played X-wing in 2 years.

11 minutes ago, dominosfleet said:

Literally the only thing I like about it is the way it looks. I'm going to spend 200 on this model because it's pretty. I LOVE my raider, I haven't played X-wing in 2 years.

This is me

In a certain sense, all expansions are limited by the expansion that come before and by expectations for the expansions that will come after.

Assuming that we will stay at 400pts as standard point limit, I think the SSD wont be that invincible monster we may imagine. One single SSD + a few upgrades and squadrons will reach the 400 very fast. Double or Triple ISD-Lists will still be the way to go.

So, with my interpretation of playing Rebels, spamming Flotillas and flying unique squadrons is trendy, do you guys really think playing one single fat whale is gonna change things? I dont think so..

For me the SSD will be the most iconic game element since Wave IV and it will shine in narrative, custom games with 600+ point limits - but wont have that meta-changing impact on your rebel friends.

15 minutes ago, BiggsIRL said:

In a certain sense, all expansions are limited by the expansion that come before and by expectations for the expansions that will come after.

Finding the right words to describe my SSD thoughts is difficult, but I'll try in this post.

This Command Prototype feels weaker than it should to me, and my concern is that any battlecruiser or smaller dreadnought class between the ISD and SSD will be weaker than I'd like as a sort of cascade effect because the Executor must be the most powerful warship. I also think the sliding scale will be worse for future releases to stay smaller than the SSD, because part of the Executor's icon status is its size. The Praetor II-class battlecruiser for example is 4800 meters long (exactly 3 ISDs in length), and compared to the ISD being roughly 8 inches long would mean the Praetor II should be a 2 foot long model.

Since the SSD model is downscaled so drastically to that length, the Praetor II can't be scaled appropriately either, and despite having superior firepower to an ISD likely would have only a 8 dice front battery, because not even the Command Prototype of the Executor exceeds 8 dice.

Overall I am worried that what should be the largest and most powerful warship left no room for ships between itself and the ISD.

1 hour ago, Piratical Moustache said:

Overall I am worried that what should be the largest and most powerful warship left no room for ships between itself and the ISD.

I know what you mean.

This is why I favour a double/split front arc (see earlier post). It would solve so many problems.

12 hours ago, melminiatures said:

Yes. I want to do all kind of large ships in SSD scale. It will be awesome to have the SSD for display with some other ships around it as a miniature Battle of Endor.

Sign me up for that, that would make for an amazing display.

As for the SSD and power levels I am going to reserve all judgement until we have more info on the other 3 versions.

We’re in the habit of treating triangles as front arc oriented, but one could technically view the SSD as having a 9 dice split broadside. The epic play versions are more likely to be the “ceiling” anyway, I expect. FFG effectively admitted the SSD is watered down for balance when they called it a prototype on the ship card.

4 hours ago, The Jabbawookie said:

We’re in the habit of treating triangles as front arc oriented, but one could technically view the SSD as having a 9 dice split broadside. The epic play versions are more likely to be the “ceiling” anyway, I expect. FFG effectively admitted the SSD is watered down for balance when they called it a prototype on the ship card.

When I get the SSD I'm going to try to play with one of the Executor variants first in a standard game to see if the prototypes were unnecessary nerfs.

After looking at the release photo again thanks to @clontroper5 I believe that the Executor I has 5 blue 5 red in the front arc, and 4 red, 3 blue 1 black in the side arcs. Can't see the auxiliary arcs but I'm guessing it's no more than 5 dice.

Honestly my Rebel SSD plan would be unchanged, I would take it out like in the movies. A pair of Assault Cruisers or 2 Command Cruisers with a bomber wing makes its way to the auxiliary arcs to get away from the front. The Command Prototype has Paragon side arcs but the Executor I added 4 more dice so it will be more urgent to get the back half, but that sounds more like a fun challenge.

On ‎10‎/‎6‎/‎2018 at 7:33 AM, Piratical Moustache said:

When I get the SSD I'm going to try to play with one of the Executor variants first in a standard game to see if the prototypes were unnecessary nerfs.

After looking at the release photo again thanks to @clontroper5 I believe that the Executor I has 5 blue 5 red in the front arc, and 4 red, 3 blue 1 black in the side arcs. Can't see the auxiliary arcs but I'm guessing it's no more than 5 dice.

Honestly my Rebel SSD plan would be unchanged, I would take it out like in the movies. A pair of Assault Cruisers or 2 Command Cruisers with a bomber wing makes its way to the auxiliary arcs to get away from the front. The Command Prototype has Paragon side arcs but the Executor I added 4 more dice so it will be more urgent to get the back half, but that sounds more like a fun challenge.

I'm guessing the Executor variants are more than 400 (or hey, 381) points, hence making them illegal on those grounds.

2 hours ago, Do I need a Username said:

I'm guessing the Executor variants are more than 400 (or hey, 381) points, hence making them illegal on those grounds.

I should have said "as close to a standard game as possible". Really curious about Epic Play, but until the next article comes out all I know for sure is that it's a points increase.

19 hours ago, Do I need a Username said:

I'm guessing the Executor variants are more than 400 (or hey, 381) points, hence making them illegal on those grounds.

As a rule of thumb you can guess that a ship costs about 10x its hull value. VSD with 8 hull costs 73-85 FP. Interdictor with 9 hull costs 90-93 FP. The ISD with 11 hull costs between 110 and 120 FP. The Dreadnought with 22 hull costs 220 FP. And the Executor-class with 33 hull will be about 330 pts, I suppose.

On 10/6/2018 at 4:18 AM, The Jabbawookie said:

We’re in the habit of treating triangles as front arc oriented, but one could technically view the SSD as having a 9 dice split broadside.

I do broadsides more, I like broadsiding more. The SSD is a ship with a potential 17 dice broadside (as the front can also do a bit of the side, 19 if Enhanced Armaments does both portions of a side. Or a 11 side broadside just with the two sides with EA ... or High Capacity Ion Turbines. HCITs would let you also have TRCs that people love. Throw on Wuleff and you can continue to throw even more rerolls from CF, and IF lets you manipulate more dice...

The broadside is real...

If only it hadnt been a $200, single item release, and more light cruisers got printed.