@LinoB Or you could just put the cards on top of each other so only the name is showing. Not like you need the effects constantly showing.

4 hours ago, TallGiraffe said:

@LinoB Or you could just put the cards on top of each other so only the name is showing. Not like you need the effects constantly showing.

Hide your cards from the opponent, great.

Few can read upside-down from across the table. The art makes cards instantly recognizable, though. Dunno how others do it, but I can't remember my opponent's list - I peek at his cards all game long when making decisions.

8 hours ago, Petersaber said:

Hide your cards from the opponent, great.

Few can read upside-down from across the table. The art makes cards instantly recognizable, though. Dunno how others do it, but I can't remember my opponent's list - I peek at his cards all game long when making decisions.

You can stack em so the art is visible.

On 9/2/2020 at 5:27 AM, FreakinUnoriginal said:

Swapping dies still takes time and means that machine can't be used for other order types until it's swapped back. The print service would likely print the sheets, sort them, and then send each batch to a cutter once enough other requests for similar sizes justifies swapping the die to one appropriate for that batch. In this scenario, standard gets cut most quickly because that's probably the most common size (out of all the printer's customers' orders, not just Asmodee's orders) while mini and tarot wait until it's reasonable (or necessary) to swap the die on however many machines it'll take to balance orders waiting for standard size cutting vs. other size cutting.

Raw material cost is not going to be a motivating factor, but turnaround time can affect how long incomplete product is waiting for one of the sizes to finish before packing, or how quickly prints can be ordered. If FFG wants to more rapidly release products and/or react more quickly to demand, a less complex product might achieve that without having to consider expedited order costs.

Firstly, swapping out the dies would take a matter of minutes because the dies already exist and don't change, so the "cost" of changing them is virtually nothing. As I've mentioned before, daily newspapers have to change their printing plates literally every day, and you don't hear the print industry bemoaning the cost of doing business.

Second, you just assume that the printers would swap the cutting dies. Realistically, they have printing lines for each size card and they run cards through the appropriate lines so they don't need to change anything.

Third, the change from Mini-American size cards being the most commonly used card in Armada to Clone Wars Armada using all Standard size cards might disrupt the printing factories and compel them to convert some of the Mini-American size printing lines to Standard size so they can handle increased production demand for those cards.

If anything is going to increase production costs, FFG's choice to change to all Standard size cards will be the cause because it will inarguably change the amount of each size cards that are produced by the printing factories.

The "best" case scenario is that the printing factories don't make any costly changes, leaving the production lines as they are, which would free up demand for the Mini-American size print lines for other games, whereas Clone Wars Armada would increase demand on the Standard size print lines, ultimately resulting in a production bottleneck that negatively impacts Armada, X-Wing, Legion (to a lesser extent), and all other games that use Standard Size cards.

The worst case scenario is that the printing factories have to convert their printers to deal with increased demand for Standard size cards, the printers charge FFG/Asmodee more money per card, and those increased production costs are passed along to customers: us .

Asmodee has raised prices on all FFG products in the past 8+ months. Perhaps these changes are the reasons why the MSRP has increased?

Or, Asmodee is just greedy and chooses to raise prices purely to increase profits, and they know that their cultish customers will not only contently pay more for the same products without complaint, their cult followers will zealously leap to Asmodee's defense when anyone dares to call them out on their shameless greed.

@shmitty comes in all confused about what "upgrade cards" are and why this is so important.

I definitely get the card size restriction being a hassle, I like to have mine nicely laid out and our table has limited edge-space, but it's also something that can be worked around.

Cmon now. I use a few upgrades here and there.

And for the most part I just don’t care about the upgrade card size. It will in now way impact why or how I enjoy the game.

I don’t at all understand why this is important.

1 hour ago, shmitty said:

Cmon now. I use a few upgrades here and there.

And for the most part I just don’t care about the upgrade card size. It will in now way impact why or how I enjoy the game.

I don’t at all understand why this is important.

So finally, we're all in agreement:

The Rand corporation, in conjunction with the Saucer People, under the supervision of the Reverse Vampires, are FORCING Asmodee to release bigger card sizes in a fiendish plot to eliminate the game of Armada!

We're through the looking glass here, sheeple.

Jfc how many times does Jabba have to drop the mic on this thread for it to finally die?

1 hour ago, Madaghmire said:

Jfc how many times does Jabba have to drop the mic on this thread for it to finally die?

3 hours ago, geek19 said:

So finally, we're all in agreement:

The Rand corporation, in conjunction with the Saucer People, under the supervision of the Reverse Vampires, are FORCING Asmodee to release bigger card sizes in a fiendish plot to eliminate the game of Armada!

We're through the looking glass here, sheeple.

41 minutes ago, Revan Reborn said:

If anything is going to increase production costs

On 9/2/2020 at 2:27 AM, FreakinUnoriginal said:

Raw material cost is not going to be a motivating factor, but turnaround time can affect how long incomplete product is waiting for one of the sizes to finish before packing, or how quickly prints can be ordered. If FFG wants to more rapidly release products and/or react more quickly to demand

I'm not saying it'll be cheaper.

44 minutes ago, Revan Reborn said:

Second, you just assume that the printers would swap the cutting dies. Realistically, they have printing lines for each size card and they run cards through the appropriate lines so they don't need to change anything.

From my point of view the Jedi are evil it seems to be a bigger assumption that enough of their customers order enough non-standard-sized cards to warrant significant dedicated resources. Mini-cards are less common game components despite obviously getting twice the cards cut from the same size sheet (which, in a vacuum, should make them half as expensive and twice as fast to make), and yet many board games use standard-sized cards even when the design or text barely covers half the card. Even FFG who has used mini-cards for other games, for Outer Rim has gear and crew cards on standard size but half the card spends its time under other components . It may seem counter-intuitive, but if most customers are ordering standard-sized cards then the manufacturer is going to prioritize production of that type, making the more-costly item more efficient to produce (not necessarily cheaper) and thus potentially more attractive to more customers, reinforcing that demand in a feedback loop.

1 hour ago, Revan Reborn said:

The worst case scenario is that the printing factories have to convert their printers to deal with increased demand for Standard size cards,

I doubt Asmodee is working with manufacturers small enough that one customer's design decision for one product line (or even most of their product lines) would result in a change to their operating procedures.

7 hours ago, Revan Reborn said:

Or, Asmodee is just greedy and chooses to raise prices purely to increase profits, and they know that their cultish customers will not only contently pay more for the same products without complaint, their cult followers will zealously leap to Asmodee's defense when anyone dares to call them out on their shameless greed.

I don't follow their non-Star Wars stuff (well, anymore; RIP Netrunner) but I haven't noticed MSRP change for Armada/X-wing/Legion. The Clone Wars squadron packs will be $5 more expensive than previous squadron packs, but they're also supposed to have more aces so hopefully that will feel like it balances out. If whatever they're altering means that next year products are consistently available, I'll like that much more than having to consider paying 2 to 3 times MSRP to ebay scalpers.

We won't have a clearer picture until at least wave 1 drops, or maybe until summer 2021, to see how this shakes out.

4 hours ago, FreakinUnoriginal said:

The Clone Wars squadron packs will be $5 more expensive than previous squadron packs, but they're also supposed to have more aces so hopefully that will feel like it balances out.

The funny thing is that we will get two aces per squadron type with only one expansion pack. At the same time they drastically reduce the number of aces we are allowed to play. Hopefully that will feel like it balances out. 😉

For the rest of this 10 pages I don't get why anyone bothers at all with how much ink may cost or what possibly could have made devs changing the card size. I don't like it. It doesn't matter. End.

10 hours ago, FreakinUnoriginal said:

I don't follow their non-Star Wars stuff (well, anymore; RIP Netrunner)

Man i also miss netrunner. I was usually HB and Shaper. You?

8 hours ago, Triangular said:

I don't like it. It doesn't matter. End.

We've tried to kill this thread with that exact sentiment more times than I care to count. Odds are our local troll will post something useless (again) and continue to call us sheeple because reasons.

Not sure if this is brought up before or not, but does anyone else think the card size is just their way to do a points change? FFG often seems reluctant to ever change points (unless its X-wing) and it seems like their best way to make us pay for it lol.

Would also explain why the ship ones are not coming out yet. They need to test how the Clone Wars factions do aginst GCW before they could change the defense tokens/points of the older ships.

1 hour ago, Truthiness said:

We've tried to kill this thread with that exact sentiment more times than I care to count.

To be fair, you tried with heavy doses of sarcasm and that which bordered dangerously on personal attacks. And that's assuming I grant you the first heavily angst ridden post you offered, T. Rarely throughout this discussion, as I've lurked, have you or others addressed your opposition with scant more than a quip, detailed out frustration, or an antagonizing meme. My personal favorite was when you yourself fed the discussion, with a meme of *not* feeding it. Which is counter intuitive at best. G-19 (no need to tag you old friend, you're certainly reading along as usual) himself has spent a good deal of time attacking the complaint instead of inquiring how he may better understand it. To date I don't think I've seen a less admirable post in the forum than the one he had on the first page of this thread with a sarcasm laden double spaced "ok".(kudos, I didn't know that was possible lol) This is somewhat alarming as another has pointed out previously in another thread that he's done playtest work for the game. And you'd think he would be therefore be a good champion of the players concerns. If his gut reaction is to attack the fans and forum members opinion, than what good could he do for the fans opinion? Evident apparent, the answer is: nothing. (Sorry guys, you and I can get along on a hundred fronts I'm sure, just not this one at the moment.)

Point of fact. Truthiness or Geek19, I've not seen either of you once offer the discussion one bit of constructive commentary, or even a question in search of deeper understanding. Across all ten pages of it. So you've had plenty of opportunity. You have not asked what would be helpful to these players. You have not offered a sorting/storage method alternative idea. You have not countered a single argument with a reasoned point beyond 'ffg said so' in so many words of implication and a super phrased 'shut up' to the ones concerned. You have not even offered so much as a sympathetic 'sorry bro, wish I had some helpful commentary' and left it at that with some sense of politeness. This may be a complaint thread, but the two of you seem to be the only antagonists in it. This quoted text was just a final straw. Trying to openly silence a group is self admitting your will to oppress said groups ideas. It comes as no wonder why they only keep going in light and in spite of that. I'd say if you wanted the thread to end, help with the solution.

Back to all. I think the concern is well warranted about the change being a net negative.

I could engage at length with the possible costs or reasons otherwise that the game took this shift from a production view. We could together talk at length about other games and how their changes to card size have impacted it. But that's already been discussed and hats off to you. I've learned a thing or two and was shown some angles I hadn't thought about. I was thinking it had more to do with contract roll overs to asmodee, or market undercutting start ups that didn't have the ability to print all the sizes. But whatever that truth may be, as a game design decision, it sucks.

Were I to get back to Armada, my storage and sorting system would be totally screwed and need overhauled completely. I could find an answer I'm sure eventually, though none are as appealing as the one I have currently Space wise. In play the larger cards become worse. Especially since so many will need token stacks and exhausted states tracked seperately. So many can't be kept stacked to the side for either reason. And the six inch rail available on a standard 6'*4' table at the FLGS barely fit the double upgrade row overlapped a bit in the first place. I suppose more will have to migrate into the play space itself to compensate and this will irk my visuals surely, and eventually flat out interfere with play. In short, I agree with the OP. This particular change is full of suck.

Here's where I see issues come up and make us all act like NOT the community we need to be:

Person brings up a point (like this card change.)

There is some yay/nay arguing.

Some people get SUPER entrenched and react like the gravity of the situation is ruining Armada.

Some people react back.

We really all need to take a step back, realize that we're really lucky that this is what we're arguing about, and be nice to each other.

20 hours ago, FreakinUnoriginal said:

From my point of view the Jedi are evil it seems to be a bigger assumption that enough of their customers order enough non-standard-sized cards to warrant significant dedicated resources. Mini-cards are less common game components despite obviously getting twice the cards cut from the same size sheet (which, in a vacuum, should make them half as expensive and twice as fast to make), and yet many board games use standard-sized cards even when the design or text barely covers half the card. Even FFG who has used mini-cards for other games, for Outer Rim has gear and crew cards on standard size but half the card spends its time under other components . It may seem counter-intuitive, but if most customers are ordering standard-sized cards then the manufacturer is going to prioritize production of that type, making the more-costly item more efficient to produce (not necessarily cheaper) and thus potentially more attractive to more customers, reinforcing that demand in a feedback loop.

I doubt Asmodee is working with manufacturers small enough that one customer's design decision for one product line (or even most of their product lines) would result in a change to their operating procedures.

We have no idea how the printing factories operate and what the price is per card that they offer their customers (i.e. FFG). Purely from a manufacturing point of view, it makes no sense that standard size cards are cheaper than Mini-American size cards because the latter would use less cardboard and less ink.

We also don't know if the printing company that FFG contracts to produce Armada cards (and presumably X-Wing, Legion, and other FFG products) also produces cards for other board game and LCG publishers. If the printing company is exclusive to FFG, they would probably have printing lines for all of the card sizes the FFG's games use. Yes, the standard size card would be the most popular because of Keyforge, Arkham Horror TCG, and X-Wing 2E, but that probably would've been different just a few years ago, before Keyforge and X-Wing 2E were released. I think the Mini-American size cards would've been nearly as popular as the standard size based on the number of FFG games that used them.

It's possible that the printing company converted some of their printing lines to cater to Keyforge, reducing the printing lines dedicated to Mini-American (and Tarot) size cards, which caused delays for reprinting Armada and Legion products. Consequently, FFG is changing more of their games to use standard size cards. But that's pure speculation.

And if the printing company was over-charging FFG/Asmodee for Mini-American and Tarot size cards to try to compel them to convert to standard size cards, FFG/Asmodee could simply contract a different printing company that offers better rates.

Something similar to this has recently happened with FFG changing from their own Fantasy Flight Supply brand of plastic card sleeves to the GameGenic brand. I don't know what's that about but some have speculated that change was the reason for the Armada supply shortage the last 9+ months. But it demonstrates that FFG does have the option of changing its production supplier, so if they're getting ripped off, they have other options than arbitrarily changing the card sizes for Clone Wars Armada.

But my suspicion is that the card size change is primarily motivated by the desire to sell the $25 Upgrade Card Collection to the thousands of existing Armada players, plus the unknowable number of new Armada players that FFG covets. The fact that it's "optional" doesn't matter, because giving customers the illusion of choice is the most insidious business practice of all.

FFG claiming that the Upgrade Card Collection is "optional" simply gives them plausible deniability that creating it wasn't primarily motivated to sell to existing customers. It's an easy money grab for FFG/ Asmodee because there were virtually no development costs involved, unlike most other Armada expansions that need to be developed and extensively tested by a dedicated, salaried staff of game designers and testers. The UCC is objectively a very cost efficient, business-friendly product to publish, and the fact that so many people on this forum refuse to acknowledge that is disappointing, because to have any faith in modern business to place the consumer first is to be ludicrously naïve.

I'm definitely not naïve. I can see the code of The Matrix.

20 hours ago, FreakinUnoriginal said:

I don't follow their non-Star Wars stuff (well, anymore; RIP Netrunner) but I haven't noticed MSRP change for Armada/X-wing/Legion. The Clone Wars squadron packs will be $5 more expensive than previous squadron packs, but they're also supposed to have more aces so hopefully that will feel like it balances out. If whatever they're altering means that next year products are consistently available, I'll like that much more than having to consider paying 2 to 3 times MSRP to ebay scalpers.

We won't have a clearer picture until at least wave 1 drops, or maybe until summer 2021, to see how this shakes out.

If you haven't noticed the MSRP change for Armada, X-Wing, and Legion products, then it must be because you aren't paying attention.

Check out the Fantasy Flight Store Legion products and you'll see that the MSRP of the Clone Wars Legion Wave 2 Corps unit expansions is $10 more than Wave 1 Corps unit expansions:

Republic Phase 1 Clone Troopers expansion: $24.95

Separatist B1 Battle Droids expansion: $24.95

Republic Phase 2 Clone Troopers expansion: $34.95

Separatist B2 Battle Droids expansion: $34.95

This change can't even be attributed to the switch from soft plastic minis to hard plastic sprues because both Phase 1 & 2 Clones are soft plastic, and both B1s and B2s are on sprues.

FFG arbitrarily raised the prices of newer Legion products; and in 2020, most board game retailers have raised their prices of Legion products across the board. Recently, my not-so-friendly LGS increased their prices for Legion and Armada products. When I pre-ordered Phase 2 Clones and B2 Battle Droids back in January, my LGS priced them at $28.04. Now they're $38.24! I actually heard about the price hike and ordered 3 more B2s just a day or two before my LGS hiked the price. Now I wish I had ordered 3 more Phase 2 Clones too.

X-Wing's recently announced ship expansions are all more expensive than previous expansions.

And you already mentioned the $5 price increase of Armada's Clone Wars Squadron Packs. $25 will presumably be the new MSRP tier for small ship expansions. Who knows how much medium and large ship expansions will be!? I doubt they'll only be $5 more expensive. I think the $40 expansions will jump to $50. But we'll have to wait and see.

Is there any justification for these price increases... other than unbridled greed ?

(Cue the sycophantic FFG cultists chiming in with their laundry list of excuses .)

1 hour ago, Revan Reborn said:

We have no idea how the printing factories operate and what the price is per card that they offer their customers (i.e. FFG). Purely from a manufacturing point of view, it makes no sense that standard size cards are cheaper than Mini-American size cards because the latter would use less cardboard and less ink.

The first part of the first sentence is not true. The basic technologies that are used to mass-produce cards are a matter of public record. They're taught in engineering universities, and the patents for US production are freely viewable on the US PTO website. The second sentence is true but misleading. Yes, the individual cards are more expensive. What has been pointed out in previous threads is that the difference is that a major part of the expense is retooling the machines. Factories that handle this almost always have machines that can do any size of cards within their production range, when configured for it. Standard practice is to convert machines between runs. This is the expense that FFG is tossing out the window, because the factory still has to work this overhead time into the billing. Depending on the size of the order and how fast the machines work versus how long changeover takes, this can easily run a substantial fraction of a given amount of "up time" for the company, and is therefore a large part of their pricing. If FFG makes everything on the same trays the machines are never idle, and the costs of a given card go down because they are no longer covering as much down time for the company.

1 hour ago, Revan Reborn said:

We also don't know if the printing company that FFG contracts to produce Armada cards (and presumably X-Wing, Legion, and other FFG products) also produces cards for other board game and LCG publishers. If the printing company is exclusive to FFG, they would probably have printing lines for all of the card sizes the FFG's games use. Yes, the standard size card would be the most popular because of Keyforge, Arkham Horror TCG, and X-Wing 2E, but that probably would've been different just a few years ago, before Keyforge and X-Wing 2E were released. I think the Mini-American size cards would've been nearly as popular as the standard size based on the number of FFG games that used them.

It's possible that the printing company converted some of their printing lines to cater to Keyforge, reducing the printing lines dedicated to Mini-American (and Tarot) size cards, which caused delays for reprinting Armada and Legion products. Consequently, FFG is changing more of their games to use standard size cards. But that's pure speculation.

I am skeptical that any given line of machines is actually dedicated to any game or any size. Flexibility across the board lets those companies accept any order at any time, which is generally seen to be the more resilient business practice versus the risk associated with leaving a machine up for a consistent order that might suddenly leave them idling, which unlike conversion carries no guarantee of future work for that system in a timely manner.

1 hour ago, Revan Reborn said:

And if the printing company was over-charging FFG/Asmodee for Mini-American and Tarot size cards to try to compel them to convert to standard size cards, FFG/Asmodee could simply contract a different printing company that offers better rates.

Something similar to this has recently happened with FFG changing from their own Fantasy Flight Supply brand of plastic card sleeves to the GameGenic brand. I don't know what's that about but some have speculated that change was the reason for the Armada supply shortage the last 9+ months. But it demonstrates that FFG does have the option of changing its production supplier, so if they're getting ripped off, they have other options than arbitrarily changing the card sizes for Clone Wars Armada.

Another factor could be contracted time of work and scope between FFG and the manufacturers. Frequently these will include clauses about minimum guaranteed work or severance payments if the contract is ended early.

1 hour ago, Revan Reborn said:

But my suspicion is that the card size change is primarily motivated by the desire to sell the $25 Upgrade Card Collection to the thousands of existing Armada players, plus the unknowable number of new Armada players that FFG covets. The fact that it's "optional" doesn't matter, because giving customers the illusion of choice is the most insidious business practice of all.

FFG claiming that the Upgrade Card Collection is "optional" simply gives them plausible deniability that creating it wasn't primarily motivated to sell to existing customers. It's an easy money grab for FFG/ Asmodee because there were virtually no development costs involved, unlike most other Armada expansions that need to be developed and extensively tested by a dedicated, salaried staff of game designers and testers. The UCC is objectively a very cost efficient, business-friendly product to publish, and the fact that so many people on this forum refuse to acknowledge that is disappointing, because to have any faith in modern business to place the consumer first is to be ludicrously naïve.

Generally, "the illusion of choice" is not used to refer to the purchase of an optional product. As your own memes illustrate quite neatly, it normally refers to the idea of changing "brands" to get a different, notionally higher quality product. If Halo: Fleet Battles and Battlefleet Gothic were both currently active, and owned by Asmodee at some level, that would be the illusion of choice as it is normally defined. I don't find this argument terribly convincing.

As to low overhead, FFG has made it clear the card pack is part of Armada 1.5. We know about 18% of the cards have been changed. If FFG holds true to form, any changes that weren't just merged formatting were tested. Armada has on the order of ~200 cards, half of them being updated is still 15-20, or about as many new cards as in a Wave, minus the ships. And while the testers are not salaried employees of FFG, the developers reading reports, building new test packets, and working through the changes to make sure they are where FFG wants them are all salaried. This is a low overhead product for FFG, but it is not pure profit, even after production costs.

We can debate your assumptions about the nature of capitalism at some length. In short, while I think you are not that far from the mark for many large corporations or venture capital firms, FFG is neither, and does not have a reputation for scalping. On the contrary, it is frequently remarked on that the early waves of Armada were remarkably cheap given what they are (large, detailed, pre-painted models, that happen to come with game components).

1 hour ago, Revan Reborn said:

If you haven't noticed the MSRP change for Armada, X-Wing, and Legion products, then it must be because you aren't paying attention.

Check out the Fantasy Flight Store Legion products and you'll see that the MSRP of the Clone Wars Legion Wave 2 Corps unit expansions is $10 more than Wave 1 Corps unit expansions:

Republic Phase 1 Clone Troopers expansion: $24.95

Separatist B1 Battle Droids expansion: $24.95

Republic Phase 2 Clone Troopers expansion: $34.95

Separatist B2 Battle Droids expansion: $34.95

This change can't even be attributed to the switch from soft plastic minis to hard plastic sprues because both Phase 1 & 2 Clones are soft plastic, and both B1s and B2s are on sprues.

FFG arbitrarily raised the prices of newer Legion products; and in 2020, most board game retailers have raised their prices of Legion products across the board. Recently, my not-so-friendly LGS increased their prices for Legion and Armada products. When I pre-ordered Phase 2 Clones and B2 Battle Droids back in January, my LGS priced them at $28.04. Now they're $38.24! I actually heard about the price hike and ordered 3 more B2s just a day or two before my LGS hiked the price. Now I wish I had ordered 3 more Phase 2 Clones too.

X-Wing's recently announced ship expansions are all more expensive than previous expansions.

And you already mentioned the $5 price increase of Armada's Clone Wars Squadron Packs. $25 will presumably be the new MSRP tier for small ship expansions. Who knows how much medium and large ship expansions will be!? I doubt they'll only be $5 more expensive. I think the $40 expansions will jump to $50. But we'll have to wait and see.

Is there any justification for these price increases... other than unbridled greed ?

Yes, see my previous comments immediately above this. 2015-2020 you're looking at, on average 9.3% inflation. 2012-2020 is 12.9%. All of the price increases you've noted have all outrun inflation, but inflation isn't just one number, and the writing on the wall says that FFG's finances are not where either they or Asmodee NA want them to be. We don't have an inside look at the books or how much freedom the Head of Studio for FFG actually has to call the shots, but we know that they were bad enough something north of a quarter of the company was laid off this past December. Is it possible that some of this was forced profiteering from on high? Potentially. It is also possible that at least some of this is to do with FFG never raising their prices, creating an artificial state of affairs in the heads of customers, and these are all changes attempting to course correct quickly. We don't have the data to be conclusive one way or the other, but I definitely see alternatives to "unbridled greed".

6 hours ago, geek19 said:

Man i also miss netrunner. I was usually HB and Shaper. You?

I prefer how HB plays, but I really like the themes of NBN. And mostly Shaper here too.

2 hours ago, RyantheFett said:

Not sure if this is brought up before or not, but does anyone else think the card size is just their way to do a points change?

When Legion started getting points updates, right before their Upgrade Card Pack released, they confirmed they weren't going to change the printed cards; and the rules indicate that for casual play lists can be built using the printed points. But, Armada is getting some layout and mechanics adjustments at the same time; so it might be reasonable to think they were more comfortable printing errata and new points since it would be alongside a new size/design, as it's easy to identify which is newer/more up-to-date without doing completely new border art (which would be more indicative of a whole new edition).

20 minutes ago, Petersaber said:

It doesn't help when one side is trying to logically lay out their grievances, and the other is full of attention-wh-%$ing trolls like Geek19 or people who don't care and act like they are offended by the idea that FFG may have made a bad decision.

You weren't logically laying out your grievances. You decided you didn't like what had been done, because it was change, and generated post-hoc rationalisations to justify it. Until you can say 'there are good and bad points to this decision' and lay out both sides of the argument equally, logic is taking a holiday.

It is certainly the case that taking the piss out of you after 6 pages did not help you change your mind, but offering 6 pages of logical counterarguments didn't do that either. I can completely understand why you were trolled. It was due to frustration at your inability to say 'You guys might have a point here' to the large number of people who disagreed with you. In not one post did you accept that there might have been good reasons for FFG to make the change they did.

I don't think it's a 'bad' decision that FFG have made. I think it's got its positive and negative points. Positive - more space for words, clearer cards. Negative - got to buy new storage for the cards, takes up more space on the table (perhaps too much space). Most decisions have positive and negative points.

5 hours ago, Revan Reborn said:

it makes no sense that standard size cards are cheaper

On 9/8/2020 at 10:11 PM, FreakinUnoriginal said:

I'm not saying it'll be cheaper.

On 9/8/2020 at 10:11 PM, FreakinUnoriginal said:

more efficient to produce (not necessarily cheaper)

5 hours ago, Revan Reborn said:

Something similar to this has recently happened with FFG changing from their own Fantasy Flight Supply brand of plastic card sleeves to the GameGenic brand. I don't know what's that about but some have speculated that change was the reason for the Armada supply shortage the last 9+ months. But it demonstrates that FFG does have the option of changing its production supplier

FFG is an Asmodee company. GameGenic is an Asmodee company. GameGenic's lineup supports products from multiple Asmodee studios, not just FFG. It seems fairly straightforward that Asmodee would want all of their studios promoting a single in-house brand for accessories.

5 hours ago, Revan Reborn said:

We also don't know if the printing company that FFG contracts to produce Armada cards (and presumably X-Wing, Legion, and other FFG products) also produces cards for other board game and LCG publishers. If the printing company is exclusive to FFG, they would probably have printing lines for all of the card sizes the FFG's games use.

I'm highly skeptical any contracted printer would exclusively take orders from a single customer; and Asmodee discloses its properties, even its warehouses, so they don't have any factories of their own.

5 hours ago, Revan Reborn said:

This change can't even be attributed to the switch from soft plastic minis to hard plastic sprues because both Phase 1 & 2 Clones are soft plastic

Phase 2 are on sprues, but overall I'll concede that for Legion I haven't been paying as much attention. That said...

5 hours ago, Revan Reborn said:

X-Wing's recently announced ship expansions are all more expensive than previous expansions.

The Xi-class, TIE/rb, Slave I, and LAAT/i are the same price as all previous medium-size ships at $30. The HMP, Eta-2 and Nimbus are the same price as all previous small-size ships at $20 - even the Eta-2 which will have an extra stand and cards/cardboard for the hyperspace ring!

5 hours ago, Revan Reborn said:

$25 will presumably be the new MSRP tier for small ship expansions. Who knows how much medium and large ship expansions will be!?

Armada ship pricing is loosely tied to box size, not ship base. Blister packs (squadrons, CR90, Raider, etc) have been $20, what I'll call "box size 1" with the narrow window (Quasar, MC30c, Phoenix Home) have been $30 (except when used by the Hammerheads, that was $40), "box size 2" has a larger-but-still-rectangular window (Interdictor, Home One) at $40, and then "box size 3" (big square window) has been all over the place - Profundity and Liberty at $40, ISD $50, Onager $60. The Starhawk has its own size box at $80. It doesn't have to do with when they were released, either, as the Pelta got a $30 box while the Arquitens got a $20 blister both in wave 5.

So if packaging changes for ships, I think anything that goes in the same box size as squadrons will be $25, there will be a box size above that at $35, and a third new box size at $50.

If packaging stays the same, it'll be interesting to see if all small ships go in the narrow-window box at $30 (but that's already where the Pelta is, and that's the first revealed standalone small ship, so that'd be no change.)

5 hours ago, flatpackhamster said:

You weren't logically laying out your grievances. You decided you didn't like what had been done, because it was change, and generated post-hoc rationalisations to justify it. Until you can say 'there are good and bad points to this decision' and lay out both sides of the argument equally, logic is taking a holiday.

It is certainly the case that taking the piss out of you after 6 pages did not help you change your mind, but offering 6 pages of logical counterarguments didn't do that either. I can completely understand why you were trolled. It was due to frustration at your inability to say 'You guys might have a point here' to the large number of people who disagreed with you. In not one post did you accept that there might have been good reasons for FFG to make the change they did.

I don't think it's a 'bad' decision that FFG have made. I think it's got its positive and negative points. Positive - more space for words, clearer cards. Negative - got to buy new storage for the cards, takes up more space on the table (perhaps too much space). Most decisions have positive and negative points.

Must've missed those 6 pages, since the only argument *for* the change I've seen is "it's convenient for FFG", and trolling starts on page 1.

The general feel of the thread for me is a difference of "this is inconvenient for me, but not enough to stop playing a game I enjoy" and "this doesn't inconvenience me personally".

Personally I'm on the side of "this might inconvenience me slightly, sometimes", and the need for those card rebalancing has made it much more palatable at accept some slightly bigger cards and less play space. Plus it'll make it a bit easier for those of us without good eyesight to pick out upgrades from across the table.

As for ****-posting:

One specific poster (Revan Reborn) who is a rereg of Reavern has already been banned once here for posting anti-semitic comments and repeatedly insulting anyone who disagrees with him. I'm sorry if anyone who happened to be arguing on his side felt like they were being attacked, because I'm sure that was not the intention. Because moderation on this forum is... lax at best it is up to the community to show what will not be tolerated, and he's explicitly persona non grata. He's been banned already so put him on ignore.

I ain't afraid of no ghost.

FFG doesn't really look on here much, so if you are hoping to complain about company policy, this really isn't an effective forum.

If your goal is to gain some catharsis for complaining... I hope this helped?

If your goal is to figure out how to deal with less board real estate, try stacking cards with passive effects, possibly under the ship card?

13 hours ago, Revan Reborn said:

But my suspicion is that the card size change is primarily motivated by the desire to sell the $25 Upgrade Card Collection to the thousands of existing Armada players, plus the unknowable number of new Armada players that FFG covets. The fact that it's "optional" doesn't matter, because giving customers the illusion of choice is the most insidious business practice of all.

FFG claiming that the Upgrade Card Collection is "optional" simply gives them plausible deniability that creating it wasn't primarily motivated to sell to existing customers. It's an easy money grab for FFG/ Asmodee because there were virtually no development costs involved, unlike most other Armada expansions that need to be developed and extensively tested by a dedicated, salaried staff of game designers and testers. The UCC is objectively a very cost efficient, business-friendly product to publish, and the fact that so many people on this forum refuse to acknowledge that is disappointing, because to have any faith in modern business to place the consumer first is to be ludicrously naïve.

Erm, hasn't the community been badgering FFG to make an upgrade card pack for years? Hasn't one of the complaints about not having an upgrade pack been that FFG is a greedy company that forces you to buy ships to get the cards? And now you're complaining that FFG is selling us an upgrade card pack...because they're a greedy company?

They didn't need to change the card size to get people to buy an upgrade pack....the points changes were enough for that.

As to the card sizes, I'm going to play with them first before I complain. As others have said, pros and cons to the decision.

Happy that Armada is receiving attention.