So I just gotten this game and it's pretty much my first table top miniature game.
How are you guys storing the figures? Cause I every time I take out the Nebula from the plastic holder I'm afraid that I'm going to break it.
Oh yeah for sweet mercy don't use the plastic holder it came in. It was scary enough just pulling the Nebulon out the first time.
Your storage options are:
Custom cut foam like Battlefoam
Self-cut pluckfoam (I use this for my Victory Star Destroyers)
Plano/Stanley/Other tackle box style cases (I use these for all the little game pieces, the squadrons, and the Rebel ships padded with pluckfoam remains)
Casually HardcoreOnce an Asshole. Trying to be better.Registered Userregular
So I played my first game of Armada the other day using the 'learn the game' scenario.
All round, this is a very well designed game. I can see myself playing this regularly. Also, my buddy learned a very valuable lesson; don't park in front of the star destroyer. I damn near one shotted is corvette.
Yo! fairly new to the site and was just reading up on what you guys thought of and are trying with armada. I love the game and have broke down and own two of each ship =X. However i wanted to point out a rule for navy building that I saw. When you are building your fleet your squadron point total cant be more then one third of the fleet points. Which means you cant ever have more then 100 points in squadrons. I would have loved to try tie swarm myself but this limits it a tiny bit. Can still do it but with the basic ties primarily.
I've seen some people paint theirs. One guy's looked awful, but mostly it's a significant improvement. They're so small they don't have to look great, just some nice little details and let your memory fill in the rest.
There's a Games Workshop store near me that does free painting lessons. Even though it's the wrong franchise, they've told me I can bring my fighters in and they'll help me get the right paints and brushes, and show me how to do it, which is very nice of them. I've not painted miniatures before, so I'm looking forward to it.
+2
webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
I've seen some people paint theirs. One guy's looked awful, but mostly it's a significant improvement. They're so small they don't have to look great, just some nice little details and let your memory fill in the rest.
There's a Games Workshop store near me that does free painting lessons. Even though it's the wrong franchise, they've told me I can bring my fighters in and they'll help me get the right paints and brushes, and show me how to do it, which is very nice of them. I've not painted miniatures before, so I'm looking forward to it.
wrong or right franchise, if they can score your business then it's a win for them. I imagine the the branded paints have a pretty good margin.
I've seen some people paint theirs. One guy's looked awful, but mostly it's a significant improvement. They're so small they don't have to look great, just some nice little details and let your memory fill in the rest.
There's a Games Workshop store near me that does free painting lessons. Even though it's the wrong franchise, they've told me I can bring my fighters in and they'll help me get the right paints and brushes, and show me how to do it, which is very nice of them. I've not painted miniatures before, so I'm looking forward to it.
wrong or right franchise, if they can score your business then it's a win for them. I imagine the the branded paints have a pretty good margin.
The real margin items are the non-paint equipment for the hobby.
GW branded brushes, sculpting tools, flock and basing materials...
I've seen some people paint theirs. One guy's looked awful, but mostly it's a significant improvement. They're so small they don't have to look great, just some nice little details and let your memory fill in the rest.
There's a Games Workshop store near me that does free painting lessons. Even though it's the wrong franchise, they've told me I can bring my fighters in and they'll help me get the right paints and brushes, and show me how to do it, which is very nice of them. I've not painted miniatures before, so I'm looking forward to it.
wrong or right franchise, if they can score your business then it's a win for them. I imagine the the branded paints have a pretty good margin.
True, they get to sell me paint. But the guy was very cool about it, telling me when they have free painting lessons, or to come in any other time and they'll make time for me. Telling me he could sell me a bunch of paint I don't need but he'd rather I bring them in, and he can see what they need and show me how to do it. It was a much better experience than I expected given that they're not Games Workshop miniatures.
+2
webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
I've seen some people paint theirs. One guy's looked awful, but mostly it's a significant improvement. They're so small they don't have to look great, just some nice little details and let your memory fill in the rest.
There's a Games Workshop store near me that does free painting lessons. Even though it's the wrong franchise, they've told me I can bring my fighters in and they'll help me get the right paints and brushes, and show me how to do it, which is very nice of them. I've not painted miniatures before, so I'm looking forward to it.
wrong or right franchise, if they can score your business then it's a win for them. I imagine the the branded paints have a pretty good margin.
True, they get to sell me paint. But the guy was very cool about it, telling me when they have free painting lessons, or to come in any other time and they'll make time for me. Telling me he could sell me a bunch of paint I don't need but he'd rather I bring them in, and he can see what they need and show me how to do it. It was a much better experience than I expected given that they're not Games Workshop miniatures.
I used to work in the Archery business and our unofficial motto was that we didn't care what you shot, as long as you were an archer. Of course we hoped once you tried our products you would switch over. The potential Archery market for our products was only about 500k people, so if we could encourage someone to pick up the hobby it was a great thing.
I guess what I'm saying is they're hoping you'll fall down the rabbit hole of GW minis once you see them painted during a class. Resist! Still pretty awesome though. That's why I try to support my FLGS whenever possible.
When you are building your fleet your squadron point total cant be more then one third of the fleet points. Which means you cant ever have more then 100 points in squadrons. I would have loved to try tie swarm myself but this limits it a tiny bit. Can still do it but with the basic ties primarily.
FYI when Wave 2 releases they're supposedly going to be raising the official fleet point limit to 400.
Had my second game of Armada yesterday, against a friend who has played a bunch of X-Wing but didn't know a lot about Armada. We spent about an hour going over the rules, and my theories of what works, before we started playing. I was Imperials, he was Rebels, and we decided on a 180 point deathmatch.
We'd talked about how the Rebels benefit from longer range, and outmanoeuvring the Imperials, and how the Rebel fighters are a big strength, so I picked the Vic with blue dice, instead of the short range black dice, point defence systems, flight controllers, and 8 TIE fighters. In return, he completely surprised me by taking an Assault Frigate, a Corvette, and 2 X-Wings: Wedge and Luke.
I don't think he realised the strength of squadron commands. He had one fighter with each ship, and I used squadron commands to drop 3 fighters on one, then the other, and killed them both before they got an attack. He charged the Corvette straight at my Vic's side, and I learnt that the forward arc of a Corvette is surprisingly strong, but then he ended up right next to me, trading broadsides, and my forward arc had a shot at his tail.
The Assault Frigate is quite strong, and he was using the right idea with it, circling my Vic and keeping his side guns on me, staying out of my forward arc, but he was going too fast so that when he was behind me, he was out of range. My TIEs kept wearing him down, I lost 5 squadrons at this point, but when we reengaged he had a little damage and two unshielded sections, and it was all over.
A lot of fun! And next time we play, it won't take so long, and we should get more games in.
+3
Casually HardcoreOnce an Asshole. Trying to be better.Registered Userregular
Man, I wish I could just stop the victory Star Destroyer. It's just so slow and lumbersome that you can't change its strategy all that easily.
I've been painting my fighters, with roughly the idea that half are painted 'canonically' and half are painted in a way I think looks good. Pretty much done with my Rebel fighters now. I have a few extra X-Wings but I'll leave them for now. Started on the Imperial fighters, I'm painting them black instead of black and grey, partly because it looks good and partly because I'm lazy. Done half of them, will do the next half when I have an idea what I want them to look like.
I'm really happy with the purple and yellow A-Wings, though I don't like the mostly yellow X, Y, and B-Wings. I ended up really liking the all-black fighters, and especially the one with yellow flecks on it.
+2
webguy20I spend too much time on the InternetRegistered Userregular
Damn if that doesn't make me want to play the game even more!
Just got back from playing my first game of Armada. Did the starter game with another new player.
Here is my take: You might not want to arrange a situation where your Nebulon is stuck in front of a Star Destroyer and can't move. If you nevertheless do find yourself in that situation, you might not want to move your corvette into just the right spot to stop the Nebulon from moving the next turn either. But if you do, I suggest having your opponent roll like 2 hits total on their 7 die focus fire attack.
This game is pretty rad. I'm trying not to think about how much money it's going to eventually cost me.
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
I just played a match against myself to try out two fleets, and learnt some good lessons from it. I took 3 Vics for the Imperials, with no fighter cover. This works well, and Motti is very valuable in a 3 Vic list, but don't split them up! I had one separate, and it did basically nothing. I think keeping that close would have stopped the Rebel victory that happened.
The second lesson is that Minefields absolutely destroys a Rebel fleet, especially against such an aggressive Imperial fleet. As the Imperial player, I spread the obstacles and mines over one side of the map, and it forced the game to play almost entirely on the other side of the map. 3 Vics in such a narrow configuration is devastating for the Rebels.
I tried to run a Corvette through the minefield, which cost it two damage, so a Vic went along the edge of the mines to hold it off, and it ended up basically taking the two of them out of the game.
One big advantage to an all-ship fleet is that any points your opponent has put into anti-squadron capabilities are wasted. My Rebel fleet had an A-Wing, Expanded Hangars, and Flight Controllers, that were all wasted. Unique pilots are a bit of a waste too, because they'll never need their defence tokens.
If I fly them better, I can see 3 Vics being a really solid list. Advanced Gunnery, Contested Outpost, and Minefields are all play very, very well for that fleet, and at 295 points I can see it winning most initiative bids.
Anyway, here are the two fleets:
(295 of 300 pts) Faction: The Empire
Flagship: (109 pts)
Victory II-Class Star Destroyer(85 pts)
Admiral Motti (24 pts)
If they take Advanced Gunnery, I'd make the Fleet Ship 1 the objective ship, for the chance to fire twice from its front arc, at the start of the turn, and exhaust the defence tokens of two ships. Minefields obviously forces everything into a smaller area. Contested Outpost fits brilliantly with this list, because I can park on top of it and just dare anyone to come close. And if they don't, that's 100 victory points. The costs of the ships are spread about to make none a high-value target. 295 is a bit low, but it's important to win the initiative bid, because some objectives would absolutely not fit this fleet at all.
(299 of 300 pts) Faction: Rebel Alliance
Flagship: (103 pts)
Assault Frigate Mark II B(72 pts)
General Dodonna (20 pts)
Flight Controllers (6 pts)
Expanded Hangar Bay (5 pts)
Objectives:
Precision Strike
Hyperspace Assault
Superior Positions
This is a much more general fleet. The Nebulon is surprisingly hardy, I wrote it off originally but it can trade shots with a Vic and survive. 4 red dice (with concentrated fire), double damage on a crit, means it can outshoot a Vic's front arc at long range, it's just as tough as a Vic (from the front), and it's almost half the points. I have that trailing the Assault Frigate, at low speed, so it can stay at long range as long as possible. Dodonna's Pride with General Dodonna is brutal, I don't know if it *needs* Engine Techs though. I don't know about Tycho, Dutch, or the generic X-Wing, but Luke and generic Y-Wings are incredible against ships. This game didn't teach me much about making the most of my squadrons though, so I'll have to try them out more later.
The rebel fleet, convoying Mon Mothma on a diplomatic mission with the Salvation, the Yavaris, and the Corvette Redshirt, is ambushed by two Victory II-class Star destroyers. Panicking, the Yavaris launches its X-wing squadrons, which destroy several squadrons of TIE fighters that are already on top of the convoy- and then yaws hard to starboard and promptly glances off of the Redshirt. The Redshirt, undeterred and with more bravery than sense, charges straight into the bow turbolasers of the Dominator, and explodes without firing a shot. Enraged, the captain of the Salvation closes with the Dominator, firing all turbolasers as the B-wings off the Yavaris also close in, and he heroically rams the Dominator, destroying it but taking serious damage in the process.
Surprised by the loss of his second Star Destroyer, Admiral Screed watches as Major Rhymer and his remaining escort are decimated by Luke Skywalker and the Salvation comes around for another pass. Deciding that discretion is the better part of valor, he orders his carrier to jump to hyperspace, leaving the remaining Rebel ships to lick their wounds and continue on their diplomatic mission.
Yavaris + B-wings handle Fleet Ambush surprisingly well! If you can actually pull off a double B-wing activation with Yavaris, it's 8 black dice with crits enabled. It works even better if you don't ram your own ships or throw a Corvette right in front of Dominator.
Posts
The Star Wars Armada core set is on sale at Cool Stuff Inc. for only $55 in case anybody was on the fence or wanted to pick up a second.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
... You bastard.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
Not worth it
How are you guys storing the figures? Cause I every time I take out the Nebula from the plastic holder I'm afraid that I'm going to break it.
Oh yeah for sweet mercy don't use the plastic holder it came in. It was scary enough just pulling the Nebulon out the first time.
Your storage options are:
All round, this is a very well designed game. I can see myself playing this regularly. Also, my buddy learned a very valuable lesson; don't park in front of the star destroyer. I damn near one shotted is corvette.
Here's my recent arrivals
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
Some folks at the con I am at did. It makes a HUGE difference, worth the work imo,
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
There's a Games Workshop store near me that does free painting lessons. Even though it's the wrong franchise, they've told me I can bring my fighters in and they'll help me get the right paints and brushes, and show me how to do it, which is very nice of them. I've not painted miniatures before, so I'm looking forward to it.
wrong or right franchise, if they can score your business then it's a win for them. I imagine the the branded paints have a pretty good margin.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
The real margin items are the non-paint equipment for the hobby.
GW branded brushes, sculpting tools, flock and basing materials...
True, they get to sell me paint. But the guy was very cool about it, telling me when they have free painting lessons, or to come in any other time and they'll make time for me. Telling me he could sell me a bunch of paint I don't need but he'd rather I bring them in, and he can see what they need and show me how to do it. It was a much better experience than I expected given that they're not Games Workshop miniatures.
I used to work in the Archery business and our unofficial motto was that we didn't care what you shot, as long as you were an archer. Of course we hoped once you tried our products you would switch over. The potential Archery market for our products was only about 500k people, so if we could encourage someone to pick up the hobby it was a great thing.
I guess what I'm saying is they're hoping you'll fall down the rabbit hole of GW minis once you see them painted during a class. Resist! Still pretty awesome though. That's why I try to support my FLGS whenever possible.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
FYI when Wave 2 releases they're supposedly going to be raising the official fleet point limit to 400.
We'd talked about how the Rebels benefit from longer range, and outmanoeuvring the Imperials, and how the Rebel fighters are a big strength, so I picked the Vic with blue dice, instead of the short range black dice, point defence systems, flight controllers, and 8 TIE fighters. In return, he completely surprised me by taking an Assault Frigate, a Corvette, and 2 X-Wings: Wedge and Luke.
I don't think he realised the strength of squadron commands. He had one fighter with each ship, and I used squadron commands to drop 3 fighters on one, then the other, and killed them both before they got an attack. He charged the Corvette straight at my Vic's side, and I learnt that the forward arc of a Corvette is surprisingly strong, but then he ended up right next to me, trading broadsides, and my forward arc had a shot at his tail.
The Assault Frigate is quite strong, and he was using the right idea with it, circling my Vic and keeping his side guns on me, staying out of my forward arc, but he was going too fast so that when he was behind me, he was out of range. My TIEs kept wearing him down, I lost 5 squadrons at this point, but when we reengaged he had a little damage and two unshielded sections, and it was all over.
A lot of fun! And next time we play, it won't take so long, and we should get more games in.
Production value looks a smidge better with this version, though.
An old new ship-type!
It originally showed up in Droids, of all places, in 1985, but wasn't given a name until recently.
Steam: Elvenshae // PSN: Elvenshae // WotC: Elvenshae
Wilds of Aladrion: [https://forums.penny-arcade.com/discussion/comment/43159014/#Comment_43159014]Ellandryn[/url]
$80 for an epic sized mat(or two regular sized mats) and 20 stick on magnets. And a case.
I'm really happy with the purple and yellow A-Wings, though I don't like the mostly yellow X, Y, and B-Wings. I ended up really liking the all-black fighters, and especially the one with yellow flecks on it.
Origin ID: Discgolfer27
Untappd ID: Discgolfer1981
Here is my take: You might not want to arrange a situation where your Nebulon is stuck in front of a Star Destroyer and can't move. If you nevertheless do find yourself in that situation, you might not want to move your corvette into just the right spot to stop the Nebulon from moving the next turn either. But if you do, I suggest having your opponent roll like 2 hits total on their 7 die focus fire attack.
This game is pretty rad. I'm trying not to think about how much money it's going to eventually cost me.
(Please do not gift. My game bank is already full.)
I got some more ships and going to play a full 300 against someone who knows what they're doing on Tuesday, should be fun.
The second lesson is that Minefields absolutely destroys a Rebel fleet, especially against such an aggressive Imperial fleet. As the Imperial player, I spread the obstacles and mines over one side of the map, and it forced the game to play almost entirely on the other side of the map. 3 Vics in such a narrow configuration is devastating for the Rebels.
I tried to run a Corvette through the minefield, which cost it two damage, so a Vic went along the edge of the mines to hold it off, and it ended up basically taking the two of them out of the game.
One big advantage to an all-ship fleet is that any points your opponent has put into anti-squadron capabilities are wasted. My Rebel fleet had an A-Wing, Expanded Hangars, and Flight Controllers, that were all wasted. Unique pilots are a bit of a waste too, because they'll never need their defence tokens.
If I fly them better, I can see 3 Vics being a really solid list. Advanced Gunnery, Contested Outpost, and Minefields are all play very, very well for that fleet, and at 295 points I can see it winning most initiative bids.
Anyway, here are the two fleets:
Flagship: (109 pts)
Victory II-Class Star Destroyer(85 pts)
Admiral Motti (24 pts)
Fleet Ship 1: (93 pts)
Victory II-Class Star Destroyer(85 pts)
Overload Pulse (8 pts)
Fleet Ship 2: (93 pts)
Victory II-Class Star Destroyer(85 pts)
Warlord (8 pts)
Squadrons (0 of 99 pts):
Objectives:
Advanced Gunnery
Contested Outpost
Minefields
If they take Advanced Gunnery, I'd make the Fleet Ship 1 the objective ship, for the chance to fire twice from its front arc, at the start of the turn, and exhaust the defence tokens of two ships. Minefields obviously forces everything into a smaller area. Contested Outpost fits brilliantly with this list, because I can park on top of it and just dare anyone to come close. And if they don't, that's 100 victory points. The costs of the ships are spread about to make none a high-value target. 295 is a bit low, but it's important to win the initiative bid, because some objectives would absolutely not fit this fleet at all.
Flagship: (103 pts)
Assault Frigate Mark II B(72 pts)
General Dodonna (20 pts)
Flight Controllers (6 pts)
Expanded Hangar Bay (5 pts)
Fleet Ship 1: (58 pts)
Nebulon-B Support Refit(51 pts)
Salvation (7 pts)
Fleet Ship 2: (53 pts)
CR90 Corvette B(39 pts)
Engine Techs (8 pts)
Dodonna's Pride (6 pts)
Squadrons (85 of 100 pts):
1x Tycho Celchu A-Wing Squadron (16 pts)
2x Y-Wing Squadron (20 pts)
1x Luke Skywalker X-Wing Squadron (20 pts)
1x X-Wing Squadron (13 pts)
1x Dutch Vander Y-Wing Squadron (16 pts)
Objectives:
Precision Strike
Hyperspace Assault
Superior Positions
This is a much more general fleet. The Nebulon is surprisingly hardy, I wrote it off originally but it can trade shots with a Vic and survive. 4 red dice (with concentrated fire), double damage on a crit, means it can outshoot a Vic's front arc at long range, it's just as tough as a Vic (from the front), and it's almost half the points. I have that trailing the Assault Frigate, at low speed, so it can stay at long range as long as possible. Dodonna's Pride with General Dodonna is brutal, I don't know if it *needs* Engine Techs though. I don't know about Tycho, Dutch, or the generic X-Wing, but Luke and generic Y-Wings are incredible against ships. This game didn't teach me much about making the most of my squadrons though, so I'll have to try them out more later.
The rebel fleet, convoying Mon Mothma on a diplomatic mission with the Salvation, the Yavaris, and the Corvette Redshirt, is ambushed by two Victory II-class Star destroyers. Panicking, the Yavaris launches its X-wing squadrons, which destroy several squadrons of TIE fighters that are already on top of the convoy- and then yaws hard to starboard and promptly glances off of the Redshirt. The Redshirt, undeterred and with more bravery than sense, charges straight into the bow turbolasers of the Dominator, and explodes without firing a shot. Enraged, the captain of the Salvation closes with the Dominator, firing all turbolasers as the B-wings off the Yavaris also close in, and he heroically rams the Dominator, destroying it but taking serious damage in the process.
Surprised by the loss of his second Star Destroyer, Admiral Screed watches as Major Rhymer and his remaining escort are decimated by Luke Skywalker and the Salvation comes around for another pass. Deciding that discretion is the better part of valor, he orders his carrier to jump to hyperspace, leaving the remaining Rebel ships to lick their wounds and continue on their diplomatic mission.