A friend of mine has been trying to get me interested in armada, and I have a few questions before I have any regrets.

1 how similar are the rules? Is it fairly easy to pick up if you play x-wing?

2 how many capital ships are generally used per side?

3 I tend to like lighter capital ships in larger quantities is it viable to have multiple corvettes/frigates rather than a big cruiser or battleship?

4 it seemed as though you cant select the same fighter squadron more than once(at least on the builder I tried) is that the case?

5 what is the purpose of fighter/escort squadrons?

6 is running a lot of escort/fighter squadrons a good idea or will you struggle to hurt capital ships with an over abundance of escorts?

any other tips for someone who knows almost nothing about armada are welcome. If it helps I did play battlefleet gothic in the past so if armada has orders or special capital ship ramming rules, I can most likely understand them without much difficulty.

6 minutes ago, DakkaDakka12 said:

1 how similar are the rules? Is it fairly easy to pick up if you play x-wing?

2 how many capital ships are generally used per side?

3 I tend to like lighter capital ships in larger quantities is it viable to have multiple corvettes/frigates rather than a big cruiser or battleship?

4 it seemed as though you cant select the same fighter squadron more than once(at least on the builder I tried) is that the case?

5 what is the purpose of fighter/escort squadrons?

6 is running a lot of escort/fighter squadrons a good idea or will you struggle to hurt capital ships with an over abundance of escorts?

1. Very dissimilar. Understanding how FFG writes rules and breaks things out makes it a lot easier, but you must unlearn what you have learned.

2. Most often around 2-5. Potentially up to 7-8, potentially down to just 1 in a few months.

3. We call that "MSU" (multiple small units), and it's pretty viable for Rebels and (currently) not as viable for the Empire. In the past, it's had stronger and weaker eras.

4. Unique pilots, like Luke? No. Generics, like X-Wings? Yeah, as many as you want (and can fit).

5. Shooting other squadrons before they bomb your ships; protecting your bombers and other squishy things from their fighters.

6. Depends. X-Wings are fairly multipurpose and alright at bombing. A bunch of YT-1300s will not really kill ships too good. This has also varied more or less over time.

1) Fairly different. They share really only the card/slot style upgrade system.

2) 2-7 depending on how you’re feeling.

3) on the 2 ship side of things would be two ISDs or big MonCals. On the 7 side would be multiple corvettes ir transports. Almost all are viable, and we have a constantly evolving meta.

4) There are uniques, but generics can be spammed up to your squad limit of 1/3rd your points total.

5) Killing other squads and bombing ships. In the words of Thrawn, “if they can penetrate point defences, Fighters are often more deadly than capital ships.0

6) See my 5 😁

On your fleetbuilder experience with squads:

You probably used one where you choose the kind of squad and add it to your list. Then, in the list, you probably will find a + and - button by the listentry for that squad, to increase or decrease the number.

1 hour ago, R4Pi3R said:

On your fleetbuilder experience with squads:

You probably used one where you choose the kind of squad and add it to your list. Then, in the list, you probably will find a + and - button by the listentry for that squad, to increase or decrease the number.

Armada *is* different than X-Wing in this regard, in that for generic squads you do not need 'one card for one squad'. The squads track the only stat they have - hit points - on a dial on their base, so for the generics you only use one card for as many as you want to bring, as a rules reminder for that type. (And the uniques tends to only have cards one to a pilot because they also usually have defense tokens associated with them, which generics do not have)

1. As annoyingly similar as learning italian when you know spanish already. Just switch some "e"s for "o"s and some other letters, but you keep forgetting wich ones and fall back to spanish accidentally and give up alltogether

For example:

Armada: all you can reroll

Xwing: 1 reroll per dice max

1 hour ago, Xeletor said:

1. As annoyingly similar as learning italian when you know spanish already. Just switch some "e"s for "o"s and some other letters, but you keep forgetting wich ones and fall back to spanish accidentally and give up alltogether

For example:

Armada: all you can reroll

Xwing: 1 reroll per dice max

The other one that gets people is how crits work. In X-Wing, each crit is a crit, and there is only one effect for it, and resolving that effect spends the dice.

In Armada, the total number of [hit] and [crit] results simply tell you how many points of damage the target takes. If you got any faces with a crit on them, you can then choose to resolve one of a number of critical effects (depending on what upgrades you have on your ship) - if nothing else, the default crit effect of 'first damage card dealt is face-up'. But that isn't directly tied to the dice, so if you resolve a crit effect of something like 'each adjacent hull zone takes one damage', you still have that crit icon on a dice contributing to the overall damage total in addition to the extra critical effect - the die face isn't replaced by the crit effect like in X-Wing.

The dice rerolls are a double gotcha in xwing:

If the defender forces a reroll of the attack dice, the attacker cannot reroll them. There was one card that could do this.

I wish they had replaced the green dice by defense tokens as well.

9 hours ago, DakkaDakka12 said:

3 I tend to like lighter capital ships in larger quantities is it viable to have multiple corvettes/frigates rather than a big cruiser or battleship?

Your name is DakkaDakka, meaning you've likely played 40k (it'd be really weird if you named yourself after the ork word for gunfire but didn't know much about 40k) : you know it's called MSU

Everyone else has already answered your questions. Multi light ships can work, though 3 to 4 activations(ships) is currently the most common list style you'll see.

1 hour ago, dominosfleet said:

Your name is DakkaDakka, meaning you've likely played 40k (it'd be really weird if you named yourself after the ork word for gunfire but didn't know much about 40k) : you know it's called MSU

Everyone else has already answered your questions. Multi light ships can work, though 3 to 4 activations(ships) is currently the most common list style you'll see.

Yes I played 40k until GW started to abuse their playerbase. I mostly played Imperial guard, but I always had fun playing against orks, and if I had played a second faction it would have been either orks or eldar.

in fact I played every faction in battlefleet gothic an old GW specialist game that seems very similar to armada, it was about capital ships that usually were broadside focused, and doing a right turn took 2 turns with a minimum required forward movement.

Thus far my interest is toward the hammerhead corvette, is a list with 2 pairs of hammerheads on your flanks and a broadside focused large capital ship in the center a reasonable build/strategy?

49 minutes ago, DakkaDakka12 said:

Yes I played 40k until GW started to abuse their playerbase. I mostly played Imperial guard, but I always had fun playing against orks, and if I had played a second faction it would have been either orks or eldar.

in fact I played every faction in battlefleet gothic an old GW specialist game that seems very similar to armada, it was about capital ships that usually were broadside focused, and doing a right turn took 2 turns with a minimum required forward movement.

Thus far my interest is toward the hammerhead corvette, is a list with 2 pairs of hammerheads on your flanks and a broadside focused large capital ship in the center a reasonable build/strategy?

not a bad idea. Your broadside large ship on the rebels side would be a homeone, the movement might be complicated. I'd go back and forth between it and the 75 and see which you prefer. Liberty's focus on the forward arc with 7 dice out the front, 3 on the sides. Home one is a side arc ship with 6 on the sides, 3 in the front. the MC75 is a mix with 5 in the front and on the sides. the 75 is designed for mid to close combat as well whereas the other two are best around mid/long range.

Multi hammerheads is very common, you either take just one with the title or 4+

You'll want a fighter escort but this fleet won't likely be fighter heavy, your best bet in that case are A-wings. They take a bit to kill and they have thorns (counter 2).

Edit: I got into 40k around 2003, right after BFG ended. I've played the pc game plenty and have been hoping they'll bring it back with all the specialist games they've been doing lately.

Everyone else has answered your question so I’m just going to comment.

I’ve been an X-Wing player for a while. Decided to try Armada for the first time two weeks ago. I’m hooked!! Probably more excited to play in an Armada tournament than an X-Wing tournament right now. Yeah, I’d lose but it would be a great experience.

Now, the one thing I do want to try is a double table game. Have one table for Armada but settle all Squadron vs Squadron attacks on another table using X-Wing!

So, would it be wise to get into armada now, or should I wait until new stuff/v2 is announced? Or should I just not?

1 hour ago, Kelsier16 said:

So, would it be wise to get into armada now, or should I wait until new stuff/v2 is announced? Or should I just not?

V2 isn’t necessarily going to come, given that the game is well-balanced and major changes would meet pushback. If you want a quality strategy game, now’s a pretty good time to buy in given the sales on the core set.

Awesome thanks

There is nothing particularly difficult in the rules if you have experience with X-wing and other wargames. One difficulty switching between X-wing and Armada is that critical effects and dice modification are a bit different but it is more oranges and grapefruit than oranges and apples.

The BIG difficulty is ships shoot and then move and do so on being activated. All ships do not move and then all ships shoot. A player selects a ship, it does its things then the second player selects a ship which does its thing, and so on till all the ships have activated. Ships don't necessarily activate in the same order each turn. There is no pilot skill or initiative value on ships. This difference is the deeper distinction between X-wing and Armada. It isn't a particularly difficult difference from a rules standpoint but it is enormous from a strategy and visualizing the board next turn standpoint.

Another big difference, that's throwing me off as I've jumped back into XWing for thematic events - you can do a lot of measuring in Armada that you can't do in XWing. Checking range/distance isn't as locked down.

One thing that I had a hard time remembering was Fire first, THEN you move. I had a hard time wrapping my head around that one.

And welcome to the fleet, commander DakkaDakka12.