Tonight, I played a casual game with a friend of mine, we had a very well balanced two fleets and gameplay was very fun.

it just made me think, I always thought, Armada was at a good place even though there were no new releases for over 18 months.

in a few days SSD will have its general release and we will begin to see at gaming tables ( including mine).

Will SSD change the game? Will we remember Armada as before SSD/ after SSD?

I am looking forward for SSD but at the same time I am hoping it will be just another ship coming to the game rather than a system changer.

No, I think the turning point of the SSD will be the upgrade cards. Palp commander, Vader crew, etc will be the real winners here. they bring so much to empire and how they will function.

2 minutes ago, Mig1921 said:

No, I think the turning point of the SSD will be the upgrade cards. Palp commander, Vader crew, etc will be the real winners here. they bring so much to empire and how they will function.

I agree, at least as far as 400 pt games go. It's certainly powerful, but I don't think it will disrupt balance in a major way. At least not in the sense that SSD lists will suddenly dominate the competitive meta.

Neither SSD seems very good at 400 points, I think the SSD will be less impactful for competitive play than most ships. Once people became aware of the 'half points at half health' rule, SSDs seemed to lose most of the matches I've seen on youtube.

Its just like losing an ISD... Current wisdom seems to be losing an ISD is losing the game, so don't lose it...

As an SSD, rather than a twin ISD, It has the added benefit that it *can* repair itself above that level at end of game... But Damage Mitigation is going to be surpeme, and it is an obvious target...

It takes a shift in thought how to use, to be sure.

5 minutes ago, bleezy said:

Neither SSD seems very good at 400 points, I think the SSD will be less impactful for competitive play than most ships. Once people became aware of the 'half points at half health' rule, SSDs seemed to lose most of the matches I've seen on youtube.

I agree that the SSDs looks very weak for their cost but I really think we should not jump to conclusions on this. Lets discuss this topic again in a few months when we had some time to actually gather data on how the ship performs.

I don't think it will 'shift the game' as much as the upcoming campaign expansion - which isn't really a surprise, given the last campaign expansion was probably the biggest shake-up the game saw since flotillas were introduced.

The game is, after all, very nearly defined by its objectives - and a lot of new objectives coming is going to have big impacts on what kind of fleets are viable.

1 hour ago, LostFleet said:

I always thought Armada was at a good place even though there were no new releases for over 18 months.

http://cannotgetyourshipout.blogspot.com/2019/04/worlds-2019-data-and-analysis.html

I think it's certainly the start of a turning point. Not just because it's beautiful and eye-catching, but because our release schedule is likely to pick up a bit without a massive project quietly consuming most of the resources devoted to the game.

I will most certainly be dusting off my collection, for the most part I just lost interest in the game because of the meta (while I played) being stale.

I'll probably make some changes to the way I play in terms of rules and structure, I have no more interest in the 400 point competitive format now, I want to throw down two fleets and just have a fun evening blowing them up with friends. So bigger tables, different activation order, different rules for moving and measuring and random game end will be experimented with.

25 minutes ago, Amanal said:

I will most certainly be dusting off my collection, for the most part I just lost interest in the game because of the meta (while I played) being stale.

I'll probably make some changes to the way I play in terms of rules and structure, I have no more interest in the 400 point competitive format now, I want to throw down two fleets and just have a fun evening blowing them up with friends. So bigger tables, different activation order, different rules for moving and measuring and random game end will be experimented with.

Well...

#1) Surprisingly, the meta hasn't been stale even WITH lack of releases. There has been enough variety in the ships that new combinations of what is effective still seems to keep getting worked out

#2) Again, per up-thread post... Rebellion in the Rim! I mean, the standard format objectives are amazing sure, but...that's not even the big deal. Apparently it's bringing battles down to 200 pts and 3'x3' play area - more focused and (apparently, IMHO anyway) FAR easier for casual gaming. More story-focused (from early reveals on it) campaign. Hopefully we'll get more details this weekend, but on initial glance it seems tailor-made for small groups of friends to run moderately-scaled Armada campaigns over a reasonable number of weekends with only a handful of small-scale battles each time. I mean, heck, custom commanders! C'mon! How can you put so much cool in one package??

1 hour ago, xanderf said:

Well...

#1) Surprisingly, the meta hasn't been stale even WITH lack of releases. There has been enough variety in the ships that new combinations of what is effective still seems to keep getting worked out

#2) Again, per up-thread post... Rebellion in the Rim! I mean, the standard format objectives are amazing sure, but...that's not even the big deal. Apparently it's bringing battles down to 200 pts and 3'x3' play area - more focused and (apparently, IMHO anyway) FAR easier for casual gaming. More story-focused (from early reveals on it) campaign. Hopefully we'll get more details this weekend, but on initial glance it seems tailor-made for small groups of friends to run moderately-scaled Armada campaigns over a reasonable number of weekends with only a handful of small-scale battles each time. I mean, heck, custom commanders! C'mon! How can you put so much cool in one package??

The custom commanders intrigue me. As far as smaller games, that holds no interest for me. The game for me is far more enjoyable at 600 points and up. I want to command a fleet, not a squadron.

The only way I see it "shifting the game" will be in the first few months it's out. I foresee a lot of double accuracy proc in our local meta. FFG really curb-stomped it's teeth out at 400 points with the ruling on Tua and the "crippled" effect.

To be honest, I don't think it has a whole lot of bite in <1200 point sector fleets either... I have a match lined up for Friday at 800 points and I can't justify running the executor versions at all... I'd rather have the 3 ISDs... or 6 kittens... Maybe at 1200 it'll shine....

I'm mad hyped for it, but I don't expect to be good in any way.

Its surprisingly tanky - especially over the course of a game, where if you're able to funnel and pin your enemy in place, it doesn't drop out in Firepower like ISDs taking losses are. That's its main strength.

Which is actually one of the meta pivot points we'll see... The Domination of 2-Ship is somewhat threatened by it in some instances, because it *is* tanky enough out outfight most things, and has the Upgrade and Antisquad power to put the hate on them over multiple turns... The Single-Hammer-Smash lists can't muster the firepower to get it all done quick enough, and it repairs quickly .

I suppose I'll have to get some time in with it. I bought 2 of them so, It'd be a waste not to.

Only time will tell. My guess is that there won't be any major tournament victories with it, not in the first year or so anyway, and mostly because of the crippled rule. Everyone will be at least to some extent prepared to an SSD, the kitted-out variant.

Therefor I think we have to wait till the meta goes by the "expected" or "obvious" SSD builds, the one we already saw on the forums. Once someone will come up with a surprisng and innovative way to use the SSD and he'll win a couple of major tournaments with it, but the SSD needs lots of table time first. If you look at the huge ships for X-Wing, they don't dominate the competitive meta either, even though the Raider is a quite potent starship for example. The cards that come with it have much more impact on the game (looking at you Palpy!)

8 minutes ago, Norell said:

My guess is that there won't be any major tournament victories with it

to be fair, i'll be happy if tournaments even happen at all with the way FFG OP is right now with Armada.

The biggest problem, that i see with the SSD is, that you can play it so extremly different.
It will be hard to play against it, when the list can be anything from total anti ship to total anti squadron. From one ship to 4 ships, from focus on damage to focus on repair.

You can do super tank SSD, with an Interdictor as Shield booster.
Every turn 6 Engineering points + 2 shields from Projection Experts + 2 dice negation (Brunson and Iden). Combined with a double Targeting Scramber. It might be a bit hard to take this one down.

Or the super ace squadorn killer. With Intel Officer, Kallus, Quad Laser, Palpatine, ... Where aces dont last 2 turns.

5 hours ago, xanderf said:

#1) Surprisingly, the meta hasn't been stale even WITH lack of releases....

I think my view here may well be subject to the point in time I stopped playing. I found that Ryhmer, Demolisher and Hide your Commander in Flotilla over and over was not a fun game. Eventually the effort to table the game exceeded the fun of playing it to me and I just stopped playing.

5 hours ago, xanderf said:

#2) Again, per up-thread post... Rebellion in the Rim!

This has little to no bearing on my desire to retry the game, for me without the SSD I probably wouldn't even bother.

So for me the SSD is the game changer, it is the reason I will give the game a second try and I'll probably look at more casual and fun ways of playing rather than OP events.

For me at least the SSD is a game changer because it will renew my interest in getting the game out and playing some more.

15 minutes ago, Amanal said:

I think my view here may well be subject to the point in time I stopped playing. I found that Ryhmer, Demolisher and Hide your Commander in Flotilla over and over was not a fun game. Eventually the effort to table the game exceeded the fun of playing it to me and I just stopped playing.  

This has little to no bearing on my desire to retry the game, for me without the SSD I probably wouldn't even bother.

So for me the SSD is the game changer, it is the reason I will give the game a second try and I'll probably look at more casual and fun ways of playing rather than OP events.

For me at least the SSD is a game changer because it will renew my interest in getting the game out and playing some more.

Things have changed a lot since the days of Rhymerballs and flotilla lifeboats. There are still meta lists, but with some careful planning you can make even a competitive fleet that's different from anything else hitting the table. Not a lot released in the past couple waves has come close to breaking the game (though Pryce and Squall push the limit,) and both factions have a whole lot more options.

From a "fly casual" type player, I think it will be like ships in X-wing. A niche thing, but not an "OMG, I can't wait to buy an ISD!" kind of moment. Personally, as a dual faction player who hasn't even gotten the Chimera or Profundity because of lean times recently, I'm not sure if it's a case of "if not when" for me purchasing it. Honestly, I'm glad they made it, just so all the "where's the SSD" types can stop asking that on the forum, but my main interest is its coolness factor over its play factor.

From a competitive tournament level, how many mor points do you need to play with?

36 minutes ago, coastcityo said:

From a competitive tournament level, how many mor points do you need to play with?

Non. You can fly this one at a tournament (at least the two "tournament" versions for 220 and 250 points).

Basically they did this in different to the huge ships in X-Wing. These were only for epic play.
But in this SSD are two kind of ships. 2 normal ones for 400 point games, and two epic ones for big (non tournament) games.

On 7/31/2019 at 10:05 AM, Amanal said:

SSD is the game  c  hanger  , i  t  is the re   a  s  on  I will  g  i  ve  t   h  e    ga   m   e   a second try    

I hope it will be for a lot of people who did not continue to play the game, also I hope it will be a good recruit tool at the tables.

On 7/30/2019 at 7:14 PM, The Jabbawookie said:

I think it's certainly the start of a turning point. Not just because it's beautiful and eye-catching, but because our release schedule is likely to pick up a bit without a massive project quietly consuming most of the resources devoted to the game.

I too suspect we wont' have the year long wait before the next xpac is out ("starting" with the release of the next set which is set for q4, though i wouldn't be surprised if that got delayed)

I don’t care about the SSD. $200 expansion good for only one side is a non-starter. Hopefully the wiki has good images of the cards so I can proxy them.

But I am excited about the surprise announcement of the two new ships! And the implication that they’re bringing new rules and mechanics to Armada: these feel like the big deal to me.