On 1/12/2019 at 11:13 PM, Irokenics said:

What's the purpose of this topic?

Let it die. Kill it if you have to!

5 hours ago, Xeletor said:

To be fair armada is reasonably priced so if it goes it goes. Hope it gets a 2.0

I think a 2.0 would be awful for Armada. The 2.0 transition for X-Wing seems to have really sucker-punched it. As recently as last Spring, we were packing 8-12 players into our weekly X-Wing night, and local kit tourneys had booming attendance. Over the past month, the weekly X-Wing night has seen an attendance of 4, 1, 6, and 2 folks show up. The kit tourneys are fewer and farther between, with less attendance in the 1.5 hour radius stores than we had a year or two ago. The FB groups that used to be all a-chatter about the game are much quieter. About 75% of my closest friends in the game have jumped ship away from the game.

Granted, all of that may be Regional variance, but X-Wing 2.0 seems much less healthy and lively than X-Wing 1.0, at least so far.

I can't imagine an Armada 2.0 would fair any better...

53 minutes ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

I can't imagine an Armada 2.0 would fair any better...

First off, I don't want Armada 2.0. Just some better errata/FAQ and fully available reprints of the changed cards. I don't know if I would even buy into a 2.0, I only play casual.

That being said, Armada has never had the following or attendance figures of X-Wing. So I see a possibility that 2.0 could revitalize the game and bring a new set of players into it. Though I wouldn't expect that to happen.

As has been said before, a core set that was faction specific for half the price has the potential to increase interest far more than anything else.

9 hours ago, thestag said:

So I see a possibility that 2.0 could revitalize the game and bring a new set of players into it.

I feel like 95% of the players out there interested enough in a game like Armada to pick it up have already picked it up. I think the gaming community and gaming companies often sort of work under the idea that there's some tweak to the system or some opportunity for exposure and visibility that might suddenly generate a meaningful influx of new players. But I've been playing "hobby" games for twenty years, and have been in many twlighting or flat-out dead gaming communities in my day and I've never seen anything actually work, even for fantastic properties. There may be some examples of success stories out there, but I am not familiar with them.

And I think that's truer now than it ever was. In this age of online communication, getting "visibility" and "exposure" for a game is not hard. Things like BGG, PAX, Vox, The Star Wars Show, Tabletop, and a veritable host of other forums, blogs, podcasts, and psuedo-news outlets all cover boardgaming and tabletop gaming, coupled with simple word-of-mouth between friends and local gaming communities. After five years of existence, I think the vast majority of potential customers who might jump into the game have already encountered the game and have already decided whether or not to pull the trigger.

Sure, there are lots of non-gamers out there who have no idea Armada exists, but they're not terribly likely to jump into the game and start collecting ex nihilo (this is why you simply don't see television ads for 'hobby' boardgames/tabletopgames, and it's also why at least in the States there's no such thing as a national chain gamestore ... the clientele and their particular tastes at any given time are far too contextualized and localized... though you can see mega-chains like Target or Wal-Mart add some 'heavier' titles to their gaming aisle, since they've got the capital and the resources to absorb or redistribute those costs as needed if a particular title or a particular region don't meet projected sales numbers.

21 hours ago, Thrindal said:

Is that because of lack of supply or the lack of desire for the stores to stock it? The former is problematic the later can be dealt with but special ordering from stores (preferable as it is tangible interest shown to the store) or buy on-line.

From speaking to the shops its the former.

3 hours ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

I feel like 95% of the players out there interested enough in a game like Armada to pick it up have already picked it up. I think the gaming community and gaming companies often sort of work under the idea that there's some tweak to the system or some opportunity for exposure and visibility that might suddenly generate a meaningful influx of new players. But I've been playing "hobby" games for twenty years, and have been in many twlighting or flat-out dead gaming communities in my day and I've never seen anything actually work, even for fantastic properties. There may be some examples of success stories out there, but I am not familiar with them.

And I think that's truer now than it ever was. In this age of online communication, getting "visibility" and "exposure" for a game is not hard. Things like BGG, PAX, Vox, The Star Wars Show, Tabletop, and a veritable host of other forums, blogs, podcasts, and psuedo-news outlets all cover boardgaming and tabletop gaming, coupled with simple word-of-mouth between friends and local gaming communities. After five years of existence, I think the vast majority of potential customers who might jump into the game have already encountered the game and have already decided whether or not to pull the trigger.

Sure, there are lots of non-gamers out there who have no idea Armada exists, but they're not terribly likely to jump into the game and start collecting ex nihilo (this is why you simply don't see television ads for 'hobby' boardgames/tabletopgames, and it's also why at least in the States there's no such thing as a national chain gamestore ... the clientele and their particular tastes at any given time are far too contextualized and localized... though you can see mega-chains like Target or Wal-Mart add some 'heavier' titles to their gaming aisle, since they've got the capital and the resources to absorb or redistribute those costs as needed if a particular title or a particular region don't meet projected sales numbers.

I don't disagree with those sentiments either. Though I think I can better express the point I was trying to make:

What I was trying to say is that when you take a game with as large a following as X-Wing and introduce a 2.0, it's not surprising to infer a drop off of players. Since Armada never had the high numbers that X-Wing had, coupled with the fact that all we see on the horizon is doom and gloom (eg. Armada is dead), it would be easier to imagine a scenario where Armada 2.0 would not only revitalize the current player base, but also bring in players that may have stopped playing as well as entice players that are on the fence for fear of a dead game. As a percentage, the people likely to join Armada after a 2.0 is higher than with X-Wing.

I will also reiterate that I don't think an increase in player base or sales would happen with Armada 2.0, only that I think that there is a better opportunity for that with Armada.

2 hours ago, thestag said:

What I was trying to say is that when you take a game with as large a following as X-Wing and introduce a 2.0, it's not surprising to infer a drop off of players. Since Armada never had the high numbers that X-Wing had, coupled with the fact that all we see on the horizon is doom and gloom (eg. Armada is dead), it would be easier to imagine a scenario where Armada 2.0 would not only revitalize the current player base, but also bring in players that may have stopped playing as well as entice players that are on the fence for fear of a dead game. there is a better opportunity for that with Armada.

Ah, I see.

While in principle I agree with the logic here, in practice I don't think it pans out.

Consider, for instance, MonsterPocalypse. A semi-popular but small cult following game that waned and fizzled for awhile. Just now getting re-released in a new Second Edition, which we'd think would make that small but loyal playerbase happy. Yet, based on what I've seen on the MonPoc 2.0 boards at BGG, it's a very divisive event with some folks saying that they want to stick to 1.0 or advising would-be new players to just try and scoop up old 1.0 stuff and play that game instead. Similarly, with BloodBowl, when GW took control of the property back from the Community-ran NAF and released the new Edition, there was lots of skepticism and grumbling about the new edition, and discussions of "what will do if GW does X, Y, or Z with the game?" That one had a relatively happy ending, since GW basically re-released what was 95% the same as the most recent NAF-Approved Living Rulebook 6 anyways, so the community avoided having to make a tricky call would it have been the case that the new GW edition was too unpalatable.

New editions seem to be divisive and tumultuous times for new games, even within small and passionate communities.

4 minutes ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

New editions seem to be divisive and tumultuous times for new games, even within small and passionate communities.

Or perhaps because of them.

X-Wing needed 2.0 because it was horribly balanced. Some cards and ships were so superior they were auto-included in every list. This is not the case in Armada. You can build a list of any combination of ships, fighters and cards. Granted, some will be more competitive than others, but there are very few cards and no ships that wouldn't see at least some table time in any given tournament. X-Wing has a long list of ships that will never be played competitively.

X-Wing required 2.0 to allow FFG to tweak the balancw of the game. Armada does not. So there is nothing to gain by creating an Armada 2.0, but there is much to lose.

7 hours ago, Norell said:

X-Wing required 2.0 to allow FFG to tweak the balancw of the game. Armada does not. So there is nothing to gain by creating an Armada 2.0, but there is much to lose.

This is not intended to be a doom-and-gloom or "Give me 2.0 immediately!" response, but... "there is nothing to gain by creating an Armada 2.0"? Come on, you know that a LOT of community members would disagree. While most (I'm not going to say all, because I don't truly believe that) options are relatively balanced, there are obvious outliers. That aside, I would dare say the majority of the community thinks squadrons could be streamlined in some way. Finally, an announcement of Armada 2.0 would be a clear message to the community that FFG intends to continue supporting and expanding this amazing game, as they wouldn't waste their time and money on a dead property.

Armada is fantastic, and despite my issues with it and FFG, it's still the best tactical miniatures game out there. That said, it is far from perfect, and it bugs me when it is treated as a fact that Armada is the best it can be right now. We can love things but still want them to be better, that's where I am with Armada right now.

13 hours ago, Norell said:

X-Wing needed 2.0 because it was horribly balanced. Some cards and ships were so superior they were auto-included in every list.

The sad part is that in X-Wing 2.0 there are still lots of auto-include cards and ships that just totally flounder

13 hours ago, Norell said:

This is not the case in Armada. You can build a list of any combination of ships, fighters and cards. Granted, some will be more competitive than others, but there are very few cards and no ships that wouldn't see at least some table time in any given tournament. X-Wing has a long list of ships that will never be played competitively.

While I agree that generally Armada is better-balanced than X-Wing, I'm not sure this is a fair metric to assess that. First of all, there are a lot more ship options and pilot options and upgrade options in X-Wing, and squads generally contain less stuff, so there's gonna be far more pressure for what can go into a tournament list and that leaves a lot of stuff out in the cold. In Armada, there are just a half-dozen ships with two variants each for each faction, less upgrade options, and squads get to include 400pts of stuff. That alone should make Armada's % of represented options higher than in X-Wing. When Armada has fifteen ships per faction we can see what % of them get used competitively...

Secondly, X-Wing is a much more popular game, in the sense that there are more tournaments for X-Wing than Armada. Attendance is also typically larger, the number of rounds is higher, and due to the games being shorter and "faster-paced" there are countless recorded games with commentary out there, as well as over ten podcasts devoted to X-Wing. This amount of play and amount of analysis means that X-Wing is much closer to being a "solved" game than Armada, and as such you will see more convergence around the heavily identified 'best' archetypes, with ample net-deckers taking up the mantle of those squads as well. Armada just has fewer events, fewer games at the events that do happen, and basically no one in the community doing strategic dissection and analysis of games / video reports in the way the X-Wing community does. This makes Armada much less of a 'solved' game, and this makes it harder for players to just google the "best" lists to copy and bring.

And while it's possible to find most Armada options on tables at a tournament (e.g. Leia, Garm, Konstatine, Tagge, Peltas, Victories, Z-95s, Phantoms, etc.) you typically won't find them in the top spots of the tournament. There are plenty of upgrades (especially ion cannons and turbolasers and titles) that see next to no play. Similarly, you can find all sorts of weird zany ships and lists at big X-Wing events, too, they are just usually clustering down at the bottom after a few rounds.


So, I don't disagree with your conclusion, but I think your premise is a bit misleading.

@AllWingsStandyingBy haven't you quit playing Armada?

1 hour ago, Ginkapo said:

@AllWingsStandyingBy haven't you quit playing Armada?

Sort of?

I sold off my Imperial Fleet and parsed down my Rebels to about 33% of what I used to own, which is still enough to have some flexibility in fleet-building (but who needed 4x MC30s anymore?).

But I still intend to play Armada, though it's true I haven't gotten a game in for... well months. At the last event we ran, only 3 people showed up (so we called it, since nobody wanted to spend 7+ hours playing 3 Rounds where we all would have had a bye sitting around). The last flyer and social media posting we did for a Corellian Conflict netted a whopping three people interested (myself included). And of our "old regulars," two have moved and three have sold off their collections and moved to "non-dead" games.


The local scene has just waned, sadly.

1 minute ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

but who needed 4x MC30s anymore?

Paging @Ardaedhel... Someone on the internet is wrong again.

1 hour ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

but who needed 4x MC30s anymore?

1 hour ago, The Jabbawookie said:

Paging @Ardaedhel... Someone on the internet is wrong again.

Only people who want to be first loser.

13 hours ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

The sad part is that in X-Wing 2.0 there are still lots of auto-include cards and ships that just totally flounder

I think that's the important thing to remember: an "Armada 2.0" wouldn't be a silver bullet that would magically fix everything. And Armada is in a much better state than X-Wing was before it got rebooted.

19 hours ago, IronNerd said:

Finally, an announcement of Armada 2.0 would be a clear message to the community that FFG intends to continue supporting and expanding this amazing game, as they wouldn't waste their time and money on a dead property.

Personally, I'd like FFG to continue supporting and expanding Armada 1.0.

Sometimes a game really, badly, needs a new edition...but probably more often than not, it's a commercial strategy to revitalise sales. This is neither a criticism nor an endorsement of that approach; even a great product will eventually lose its lustre (at least in terms of sales!) and when that happens, either you try to supplant it or a competitor will.

With X-wing, I feel FFG's decision to roll out 2.0 was probably justified, but asking us to buy into a new edition for Armada- after a couple of years of less-than-exemplary communication- would feel, to me at least, a little too cynical.

I dont think there need to be a 2.0, the game is fine as it is but to get new players a new core set would be nice.

The current coreset is pretty 'meh' but you need to buy it for the essentials. For the Empire the victory kinda sucks so you would want to buy some expansions right away, compared to for example Legion where there is actully a good deal to buy 2 core sets for what you get.

So either a core set with just the dice, tools, objective and obstacles and damage deck or a set with all that is now and other ships for example the ISD.

6 hours ago, Dobbs Mottley said:

Personally, I'd like FFG to continue supporting and expanding Armada 1.0.

As would I, as would all of us fans. Problem is that I currently have about 5% confidence that FFG is going to "fix" the current problem (long periods of time with no news or releases, poor response time for FAQs and errata, etc.). If they announced Armada 2.0 tomorrow, I would have 99.9% confidence that they will bring me at minimum some news and some product. Goes back to the point I was trying to make; saying Armada 2.0 would provide no benefit to the community is just silly. I'll take whatever I can get at this point...

18 hours ago, The Jabbawookie said:

Paging @Ardaedhel... Someone on the internet is wrong again.

Eh, don't get me wrong, I had a heckuva lot of fun flying 4x MC30s with 3x GR-75s a couple years ago, even won two Store Champs and took second at a Regional with it.

I'm not saying that it's not a good list (though it's not as potent as it once was), but it's not the sort of list I need to have at my ready disposal any longer, given that my opportunities for playing Armada have become so few and far-between. So, when paring down my collection, that seemed exactly like the sort of excessiveness that could be parted with...

14 minutes ago, IronNerd said:

As would I, as would all of us fans. Problem is that I currently have about 5% confidence that FFG is going to "fix" the current problem (long periods of time with no news or releases, poor response time for FAQs and errata, etc.).

5%!?!?!? Who let the optimist in?

4 hours ago, Grand Moff Deadblom said:

The current coreset is pretty 'meh' but you need to buy it for the essentials. For the Empire the victory kinda sucks so you would want to buy some expansions right away, compared to for example Legion where there is actully a good deal to buy 2 core sets for what you get.

It's not like the Rebels really get anything out of the Core Set either. There's no Yavaris title for the Nebulon, so it's pretty much a pointless ship since 97% of the Nebs run in the past few years have had that title stapled on them... which means a new player still has to go pick up another Nubulon expansion. The CR90 doesn't have the Jaina's Light title, which is pretty popular on the CR90 Singletons, and it's not like it comes with TRR in the Core Set.

Basically, the Core Set is full of underwhelming ships and upgrades, and if there were any way for new players to get a damage deck, objectives, or obstacles without buying a Core Set I would always tell them to do that instead.

The game is still pretty strong which is surprising due to the fact that there really has not been much news. The fans of this game..what can you say. Armada is a really good game and has lots of options for one to explore.

Tomorow all this sadness will end because we will have an article on that beauty... I hope

18 minutes ago, DOMSWAT911 said:

Tomorow all this sadness will end because we will have an article on that beauty... I hope

The Victory? It's a fancy looking alligator, alright, but I don't think it needs more articles, personally.