These days I more or less only collect the miniatures and repaint them and don't actually play the game, so after a long hiatus I decided to add a couple of ships to my collection. However, my attempt to buy some ships that I'd like (Arquitens or winged MC80) was quickly foiled as it seems in my country or even beyond my country in other European countries only a fraction of the ships are actually in stock. It's really very strange. I can understand 1 model being out for a while if demand is unexpectedly high, but over half the models?? Is the Original Trilogy stuff being phased out already?

I don’t think so. They might just have problems with production because of corona.

They could also make slight updates for future print runs, like the new, bigger cards.

However, I don’t think anything will be discontinued.

Waves have always come in stock and go out of stock, and I don’t think at any point in time all waves have been available at the same time. It’s been frustrating, because I think it’s been a huge deterrent for new players to get into the game (us old-timers know to just pre-order the entire wave when it comes out)

since FFG won’t be reprinting, as the property is changing hands to a different studio, I suspect that we’ll see more gaps in the reprints than normal, at least until the new guys get an idea of what needs resupply and the supply chain catches up with demand. After that, maybe things get better than they were under FFGs custodianship, but I am not holding my breath.

3 hours ago, FrozenFlesh said:

I don’t think so. They might just have problems with production because of corona.

This is likely true, but Asmodee/FFG has always had trouble keeping Armada well stocked and available, even well before Corona. Searching these forums will reveal stock and availability issues going years back.

It's just the nature of these sorts of games with lots of expansions (e.g. the Lord of the Rings LCG). FFG will reprint things in batches and roll them out, then they'll go out of stock again until the next reprint. So patience or a willingness to hunt things on the secondary market are sort of required and come with the territory.

I can't see it being phased out, there is nothing I've seen that suggests the original 2 factions will be discontinued and they would be crazy to do so.

Funnily enough, my FLGS in the UK received a long-awaited restock this week, including MC80's and Arquitens: https://kirtongames.co.uk/collections/in-stock-star-wars-armada

OP, keep looking. A lot of ships just became available on Asmodees website in the last few months. They are not great at keeping up with stock. But FFG and Asmodee are not discontinuing and of there armada product. Covid has not helped with production of reprints either.