I know, first world problems and all, but like many of you I’ve had my pre-order in since early August of last year. We’re coming up on almost a year now and the Upcoming page still shows the SSD as being in development - I don’t see us getting this thing until October/November. We have a ton of news about new Legion expansions and the new Clone Wars core set/expansions; I can’t help but think that those product runs have been prioritized over the SSD. From a business perspective I can understand - Legion is hot and the Clone Wars expansion is going to really heat things up (I’m invested in Legion too); the SSD is really a niche (though popular) product with comparatively limited sales. Still, I’m starting to feel that FFG is intentionally delaying the SSD release / production.

Has anyone heard anything lately? I’m hoping that after this run of Legion expansions FFG will finally focus on getting out the SSD.

Someone on a Canadian FB page posted their stores expects them on June 30th. No clue on its merit.

Release date is Q3 of this year, which means don't expect it until end of September, as that is end of Q3. Same deal with Rebellion in the Rim, it is likely they are going to both be released together.

I agree, it sucks to have waited this long, but they also have announced more product is in the pipeline. Armada isn't dead, it's just not FFG's priority compared to Xwing or Legion, and I will say that I'm glad we do not have legion or Xwings issues due to that. They have huge balance issues, Armada does not.

I'll keep my Armada thanks.

Its called how to kill a game...

1. build up hype -'hay that ship you've been talking about since day 1... yep we're doing it'
2. expand hype - 'look heres pictures, heres a pre-run model, heres 2 articules discussing it'
3. drop hype - '6+ months of radio silence'
4. pretend hype never existed - 'ignore players going ...erm where that ship then'
5. watch players quit.....

thing is FFG are not unique in this... in fact I think CMON hold the title in making good games doing 2 or 3 releases then dropping it without any official word... (RIP Wrath of Kings!)

I feel you.

Been there.

But you just have to accept that this is Armada. It moves at its own unfathomable pace.

Once you internalize that, your life will be better.

I think what got me was the blast of Armada news in announcements and articles between Adepticon and Star Wars Celebration.

I felt we got attention, everyone was happy, and now we’re waiting again. Perhaps we would all feel a little differently if they spaced out all of their announcements?

We will likely hear something at GenCon (August 1-4). I just kind of wish we would get a monthly article / update versus two months of bi-weekly news followed by 3 months of silence.

Tell them that your boss is most unpleased with their apparent lack of progress. Tell them that you boss is coming to visit them in person. Maybe they will double their efforts.

1 hour ago, ptownhiker said:

Tell them that your boss is most unpleased with their apparent lack of progress. Tell them that you boss is coming to visit them in person. Maybe they will double their efforts.

From what we’ve seen so far I don’t foresee any doubling of efforts.

0 doubled is still 0

😢

It is getting really frustrating but it’s to be expected. Armada has had issues with getting product out in a timely manner since pretty much day one. Just have to accept it and try hard to be patient.

Yeah sorry guys, this wasn’t meant to be an “Armada is dead” post. I was just looking at all the Legion, X-wing, Armada, and other FFG products on my shelves and got to thinking about the SSD. I haven’t checked the upcoming page in awhile, which I know isn’t always accurate, and got a bit bummed to see Clone Wars stuff being “printed” but not the SSD.

i just hope we get it this year.

Its just amazing to me that FFG/Asmodee apparently don't want to take the money I am willing to give them.

They could always just spoil another couple of cards and the fan base would be cool with that.

It's always been the radio silence that's the real issue, not even the delays.

We would do well to remember that on top of Armada’s schedule, the physical model is a significant step for them in terms of sheer scale and has almost certainly held them back.

I would be perfectly willing to wait another year, let alone 3 months, if it means getting the same quality we know and expect from FFG.

Also, remember that anyone who pre-oredered an SSD way back when at ~$165 has now lost about $8-13 as that money has sat in CSI/MM's pockets instead of their own (thanks to both inflation and lost interest).

That said, on topic I seem to recall that around or at Adepticon (Worlds) they said Q3 and/or around October was their new goal for release. Which means it might be available for early purchase at Gencon, but you never know. In the past they've had early release Gencon stuff for items that didn't end up releasing until October, so maybe. That said, FFG hasn't had any Armada stock at their Gencon booth the past two years, as space is such a premium in their booth.

It's also very much in FFG's interest to sell the SSD first at Gencon, since when they sell product through retailers they are selling the units for a fraction of the MSRP to distributors, who then sell it to retailers. When FFG sells something at their Gencon booth, they collect 100% of the MSRP right into their own pocket. So with something big like the SSD where they probably won't expect to sell a ton of units and the maximum number of units purchased are going to be much, much lower than cases of Keyforge sets or X-Wing expansions, FFG might want to get the lion's share of those sales by selling direct at MSRP at Gencon (where lots of fans who already preordered an SSD would probably still buy one on site and either keep the extra or cancel their preorder (but the retailer has already committed to buy that SSD from FFG anyways...). I don't think FFG would really drag their feet on purpose to drop this thing early at Gencon so they could sell a few hundred units direct at MSRP... but I mean that possibility probably isn't lighting any fires under their *** either to rush this thing out before then... But then again, the box is huge and will take up a ton of their travel and booth space, so who knows what is really in their best interest.

24 minutes ago, The Jabbawookie said:

We would do well to remember that on top of Armada’s schedule, the physical model is a significant step for them in terms of sheer scale and has almost certainly held them back.

I simply don't buy this argument. The Epic X-Wing Imperial Raider and CR90 aren't that much smaller than the SSD, and in several ways they both seem to be more complex/intricate miniatures. And yet FFG had those printed, packaged, and released years ago (the CR90 came out pretty early in X-Wing's run, back in 2014 think, somewhere around the first third of the game's 1.0 life). So I find it hard to believe that the SSD was soooo different in scale that despite having five additional years of experience and churning out five Epic X-Wing ships during those years that the SSD was somehow just totally different in kind and not just in degree. It's size might explain some of the production stops and delays, but I'm skeptical the size of the mini really explains most of the delay.

1 hour ago, strikenowhere said:

Its just amazing to me that FFG/Asmodee apparently don't want to take the money I am willing to give them.

Why prioritize $165 from a couple hundred Armada players/collectors, when you could be getting tens of thousands of $15 purchases on each and every new X-Wing ship, especially when each X-Wing wave includes about a half dozen ships? No one has ever questioned whether or not Armada was successful, but the question has been whether it was successful enough to justify its in-house competition with other FFG lines for production resources and time.

17 minutes ago, The Jabbawookie said:

We would do well to remember that on top of Armada’s schedule, the physical model is a significant step for them in terms of sheer scale and has almost certainly held them back.

I would be perfectly willing to wait another year, let alone 3 months, if it means getting the same quality we know and expect from FFG.

Seriously. The devs and production team are probably more excited to have the SSD hit shelves than we are. They put an *insane* amount of time into the SSD both on the game side and model side and those I've chatted with about it are just as frustrated by the delays as the players. FFG isn't just sitting and ho-humming about this release and kicking it back over X-Wing and Legion. They're trying to deliver quality product and the least folks can do is respect them enough to take them at their word and have patience.

1 minute ago, Alzer said:

. FFG isn't just sitting and ho-humming about this release and kicking it back over X-Wing and Legion. They're trying to deliver quality product and the least folks can do is respect them enough to take them at their word and have patience.

They could certainly be more explicit about that, though, and they could offer apologies and explanations for the delay. For instance, why has this been delayed so long when they were able to produce, package, and release the gigantic X-Wing CR90 and X-Wing Imperial Raider years ago without any issue, at at time when they were much newer to the world of prepainted plastic miniature production?

20 minutes ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

They could certainly be more explicit about that, though, and they could offer apologies and explanations for the delay. For instance, why has this been delayed so long when they were able to produce, package, and release the gigantic X-Wing CR90 and X-Wing Imperial Raider years ago without any issue, at at time when they were much newer to the world of prepainted plastic miniature production?

Because when it comes to the SSD, “gigantic” is relative, and the cr90/raider is relatively not 🙂

It is an entire cluster... but at least they did communicate something not too long ago, and at worst case, their InFlight Report is like, a little over a month away where they do give that sort of info...

They already did. They very clearly explained themselves and apologized at the Adepticon and SW Celebration panels.

SSD is well over twice the size of either, and a harder shape to make a sufficiently sturdy frame for, being long and thin in profile.

20 minutes ago, AllWingsStandyingBy said:

They could certainly be more explicit about that, though, and they could offer apologies and explanations for the delay. For instance, why has this been delayed so long when they were able to produce, package, and release the gigantic X-Wing CR90 and X-Wing Imperial Raider years ago without any issue, at at time when they were much newer to the world of prepainted plastic miniature production?

Remember, the Raider and Corvette are only about 1 foot long, while the SSD is over 2. And it is much, much more scaled down, making it harder to keep the details. I mean have you looked at the citadel city of the SSD? Its highly complex, which is probably the hardest aspect of the model.

22 minutes ago, idjmv said:

Remember, the Raider and Corvette are only about 1 foot long, while the SSD is over 2. And it is much, much more scaled down, making it harder to keep the details. I mean have you looked at the citadel city of the SSD? Its highly complex, which is probably the hardest aspect of the model.

My Uncle doesn't play Armada but he loves the models and is aware of the general game space/mechanics. He asked me recently when it was coming out and what the final size was. He literally spit out his drink when I told him 2 and a half feet. He started laughing and said "What do you get to move it twice before its off the board?"

My guess would be that it's not the model that is the issue, but the cards and rules being 'balanced' because if the model isn't already done then Q3 is a non-starter.

6 minutes ago, Englishpete said:

My guess would be that it's not the model that is the issue, but the cards and rules being 'balanced' because if the model isn't already done then Q3 is a non-starter.

That is assuming that the model hasn't been started yet.

If its a slow-*** production, taking 4x the usual because of its size, the paint, etc... Then it could still be wrapping up in production, it just took four times longer than usual to get there.

48 minutes ago, Drasnighta said:

That is assuming that the model hasn't been started yet.

If its a slow-*** production, taking 4x the usual because of its size, the paint, etc... Then it could still be wrapping up in production, it just took four times longer than usual to get there.

Mayhap, but if it isn't production complete already (that is to say about to be put in boxes) I can't see how they would get it on shelves by end Sep.

Who knows 🙂

6 minutes ago, Englishpete said:

Mayhap, but if it isn't production complete already (that is to say about to be put in boxes) I can't see how they would get it on shelves by end Sep.

Who knows 🙂

I don't think its staged like that. I think it goes through the process. Goes in component one end and comes out Boxed.

They just need to have a critical mass ready to actually *ship* before they get shipped.

Or, in another likely sense, they've been Ready to Ship. And just Sat. On the Docks. For 6 months. While others paid bribes to get stuff ahead of them, or their containers were re prioritised by container renters and such. Even just regular everyday delays and reassignments, no malfeasece.

When I moved from Australia to Canada, I bought 2 cubic meters on a Shipping Container to send my house worth of stuff over, because it was a flat rate per cubic and weight was irrelevant, unlike all other forms of postage (and I had a lot of books).

The Caveat when you do that sort of thing is, "Generally assume that Dock Delays can amount to anything from 2-8 months before it even moves, with an additional 3-6 weeks *per stop* the Selected ship is making on its journey".

From Melbourne to Vancouver, that was 9 stops.

It did take a while.

They also said as part of their Inflight report, I think, 2 years ago now? That basically, they weren't shiping stuff until they had the stuff to ship, basically... They'd been paying advanced prices to ship small amounts of Destiny forward ahead to meet their deadlines, and on one of those agreements, they got BURNED BADLY and Navarro said they wouldn't be doing anything like that again.

When stuff is shipped, its supposed to be shipped to sell. No initial market splashes.

Of course, that was also pre Legion, and we've seen how that goes, so who knows if they're still adhering to that...