I would emphatically disagree here and flat out say: you're wrong if my mood wasn't agreeable I noticed this. Armada is nothing. And a lot of people complain about tournament length...I'm a Warhammer guy so I find all these views strange, at best.

My first instinct was Insidious for my glad. Sup Positions is my objective after all. It is kind of hard to justify not taking "The" Demolisher though..it's just the best 88 points you can spend o_O

Well, it's nearly identical to the fan-card, and there's a version that is identical as someone noted. So seems very questionable indeed

Two vic-1's with EA is kind of interesting actually. 3 red arcs covering nearly the entire engagement area isn't terrible. Might get good double-arc shots, and if you use nav commands liberally you might be able to trick someone to approach you thinking he'll flank you, but you'll pull a tight 1-speed turn and hit him with the full fury of your front and side arcs at close range.

You have Fleet Ambush picked and discuss Hyperspace Assault...is that an error? I would argue that if you're spending the points anyway: Expanded Launchers is a better fit on Insidious over your Vic-I. I also question Fel in the list...perhaps Mithel would be better with Chirpy? Since you can direct him and he still "works" when vader gets trashed (he seems to die pretty easy in all my games tbh). I think Fel would be better with at least one more advance in the fleet.

The one thing I found a little questionable, was how the maneuver tool is "illegally" used: in that it is slotted in then you set it as the standard method. I think you can pull the widgets out, but that's rather cumbersome to say the least.

Same here, PewPewPew. I'm really interested in how the Interdictor and Vindicator are going to be portrayed in Armada. Vindicators are one of my favorite Star Destroyers personally (Victory being my absolute favorite). Being that they are both based on the same hull, I'd expect them to both be medium ships, 6 hull, 3 speed with AFMKII notches, with fairly minimal shields (essentially the exact specs the "dubious" card reveals). I would guess that the Vindicator will be the Imperial AFMKII analogue, but specialize in its frontal arc as opposed to side arcs. Perhaps seeing it with 3 front shields 2 sides and 1 aft, exactly 1 less shield per facing than AFMKIIs with less raw power and sluggishness: IE 2 command and 3 engineering (as revealed in said card). I wouldn't be surprised to see the side arc of the AFMKII on the Vindy's front, and AFMKIIs front on the Vindys sides. Perhaps a little more power in 3red 2blue front? this would give the imps a long-range warship that can pump out some damage, but isn't anywhere near as tough as a VicII, but for less points. That said, I'd like to see some imperials ships with more balanced dice: so if vindicators were 2reds and a blue on front and sides with 2 reds on back, that might be very interesting. Perhaps the II-Class could be a closer range/balanced version iwth 1red 1blue 1black arcs with ions and missiles upgrades. Be intersting. Can't wait to see how Wave 3 looks. Probably our last chance to see older ships in Armada as Wave4 almost assuredly (and beyond) will be Sequel movie oriented for the product tie-ins.

In all fairness, it should be easy to guess what new ships will look like in terms of: hull, shields, guns, and speed values. Even upgrade slots are pretty simple to guess close. There very few permutations left to fit in certsin ship types. I would say not putting ion cannons but putting an offensive retrofit is a stretch though, and the upgrade bar is something we can't see on teh "official leaked card".

Paragon adds a die to the pool. It can be any color. The color restrictions on the range ruler are for using dice in you pool during the gather dice step. In short: adding allows you to ignore the range restriction. Paragon can add blacks at red-range. This is identical to the red mission that adds any-color you choose iirc. Conc Fire also should allow you to add a second black. The only hard part is lining up double arc shots at longer range. I bet with wave 2 Paragon will be more popular with all those large bases.

I just hope we won't have to play on a 9'*3' table Hehe, na. 3x6 is even a bit large for 300. 400 should fit perfect. My only issue is 2 hours is too long for rounds at 300...hope they get feedback and keep 400pt games to 120, minutes instead of upping the time. It seems these long round times turn people off to armada tourneys :/

/shrug I'm more than happy to play against all-ship lists, and even more so against 4+ bombers.

Sorry, but the article is correct: any list with squadron investment is already at a large advantage over all-ship lists. The point that I'd argue the article messes up is saying it's OK to invest on almost 70 points in a bomber wing. I'll even take out the advances, as those are very good as fighter screens OR makeshift bombers so 2 are easily recommended. However, buying rhymrr and 3 more bombers really is a dangerous move for imperials. They need a strong Fighter presence or all those points spent on bombers are wasted. I do love the fundamental reveal of squadrons, which argues my initial rebuttal to JBar, being highly effective at shooting ships since their defenses are utter trash against squadron attacks. Best case is MM evade vs rhymer snipes. Otherwise you might get to brace off one damage from a heavy-hitter. Image having to weather 5 blue dice and 3 blacks after your tokens have been used up from ship attacks. Statistically that's 5.5 damage that tokens won't effectively mitigate, and if you try my ship attacks might be even better next turn.

I feel this too: 400 will really expand the game, especially with wave 2 options.

I'm always down to play. Want to test these "super fleets" people keep rambling about.

Wouldn't XI7s vs advanced projectors have been better than either of those?

I think at that point you need to be less focused on winning and more focused on building your group Already teaching two other X-Wing fans the game. They just don't have the cash for Armada yet. I also spent a good half hour with the guy above trying to help him refine his list and better understand how it plays. As for the supposed off-topic: we don't know much on the ISDs; so discussion naturally goes to how a large ship may or may-not be used effectively...sounds reasonable to me

You can use him once a turn, essentially...if you shoot.

I agree, need more high-caliber opponents...but we just had a tourney scheduled sunday: only one other guy showed up. So I didn't get any new acrylic tokens as we couldn't play. Anyway, I trounced him twice, handily. It's still fun to play, but I would like some more challenging battles. Don't see how you go from 10 players to 2 in a month :/

I'm more interested in tactics than art...so watching the games going on is MUCH better than seeing the armies: back in my Warhammer days and def in these Armada days (much better game than 40k, and far more well balanced than fantasy).

I love the last sentence here, as that's my exact position for armada. Options and flexibility trumps power gaming...and as far as I know, this is the first game where this is accomplished well.

True, and I believe I said I agree that EL isn't likely worth the price for more area denial. However, while it is objectively true that VSDs are the slowest and more sluggish ship in the game. The actual in-game applications of that being a monumentous weakness IS hyperbole. Unless the AFMKII has a clear path to fly mostly perpendicular to the VSD and the imperial player has no way to cut off the ship (with his own, or via obstacles) then you're never going to be able to safely circle-strafe a VSD as far as I can tell. In most of my games against rebels, Frigates tended to move along at speed 2 much of the time as well...this gives them equal speed to my VSD all out (which I often still run at speed 1) with a click more yaw. Yet, if you're driving in the general direction of each other, there seems to be enough opportunity for imperial players to force the issue and get at least close-range shot off with their VSD...and that would be an interesting argument for EL so that your 1 or 2 shots are that much stronger when they do connect. Then again, maybe everyone I play is just that bad. /shrug Vassal games needed!

I agree completely with your second and fourth points...yet I feel they contradict your first heavily as well. I never said "just dice", in fact I qualified that my squadrons dice are better, I pointed out that your final points concerns were actually the ones that hurt you more even after you consider dice. However, I would argue that it is perhaps you that doesn't quite understand the squadron game and underestimates their contribution. All of my points, thus far, have been conceding NO squadron commands. The point that medium ships require speed 3 to give me ONLY 2-3 shots. Speed 2 can get bogged down on squadrons all day, and 1 more assuredly will. Large ships will NEVER outrun squadrons. I plop them in front and you run me over and i end up in front again...even with turns I don't think you can avoid them (of course we need the actual base to test). This is, again, ignoring your final point...which I allude to in pretty much every post: I can win the game BECAUSE of my Vic-1, and never fire its guns. It's that simple. It's funny that you essentially acknowledge this point in the last paragraph, yet you don't seem to be actually considering it. If you run away from my Vic-1's front arc, i KNOW you won't be in position X. Therefore, your ship only has Y and Z options to be: therefore I can focus every other point I have into those spots and potentially kill you BECAUSE you were avoiding the Victory's kill zone. As to your 3rd point: consider my 2nd and 3rd tourney games, one was almost a mirror match and the other was 2 VSDs with squad support half bombers/half TIEs. Essentially, at the end of turn 3, in both games, I had killed one of my opponents ships. He had had limited return fire, and his second ship hadn't engaged. I've basically won the entire game already...he's running his 200-220 point list against my 300 point list. This is going to be how 5-6 ship lists suffer and die. Currently, 3 VSD lists are, imo, terrible. I can threaten you front, using obstacles to hem your movement, with 111 points while 188pts rolls up to the side of one of your Victories and deletes it. Then my mobile ship and squadrons are never in danger due to your bad back/side arcs and your line will die fast. Perhaps a wedge formation would make this semi-effective, as my 2VSD oppoent had is support on the far side. However, This still screams "split force" to me and i'm happy to focus fire one of your ships dead while you only get limited/no support from the rest of your ships. All said and done, I think we need to organize some tactical-experimentation games on Vassal to play through these tactical ideas! Would be fun imo. Test settups, and play around with how everything interacts.

I would argue that point of Ordnance FGD with the same arguments for taking a Vic-1 over a Vic-2: area denial. Not to mention that it's nearly impossible to play a 6-turn game against a VSD-1 and NOT get shot with their black dice at least once or twice...and if you do pull it off, I feel your opponent should essentially kill you for doing so. By this I mean: if you're running away from the VSD-1 kill-zone (which you might do even more frantically against 5black dice VSDs) then the imperial player will KNOW where you WON'T be...thus he can put the rest of his force there and simply kill you with bombers/gladiators/other VSDs. Also, I would like to point out the hyperbolic point on VSD speed/maneuverability. If you get a broadside-ing rebel ship in a fight with a Vic-1, how are you going to escape and fly away if you're not flying AWAY? If you're fleeing, how's your 2 red going to fair against his front arc VS his 3 red against your back if shots go off at all? I'll be playing with it more, but essentially: the board is small enough that a VSD with manuever commands (even without if you play right) can't be circled around, and you either have to fire a few potshots and run, or dive hard at the ship and hope you get past it before that 3red 5black attack melts your entire ship. All that said, at 300 points, I'd agree that Carrier-afying your VSD-1 if often a better option.

That's exactly what I said: If I spend 100 points on 5 blue and 3 black dice that each get thrown seperate, and you spend 100 pts on, similar dice on a ship...even if you line up your shots together my attacks are simply better. Also, squadrons are much more mobile than ships; the drawback, of course, is the move OR shoot w/o command issue. However, if we're talking about ISDs, Correllian Corvette points out that they simply can't escape them at all if you end up directly in front of the ship. Not to mention, if you're flying 5-6 ships, I'll also have a lot more influence over your moves since I can punish you with a fleet of squadrons if you make move X, so you're likely to make move Y or Z which I can THEN punish you for: again, you never have to use an ability to get its usefulness realized. As for the quality of play around here: I agree. I'd like to play people who have more game understanding, yet most of my games have been against my brother. The first tournament was early in the game's life and everyone's excuse was "I'm new to the game". Yet, I fail to see how this is entirely relevant in mental planning of fleets and actual game knowledge. Perhaps my background of Warhammer has better prepared me for Armada, or (more likely) my thought processes simply click perfectly with how this game plays...so I don't see how you could get exponentially better by playing a few more games or thinking a few more hours on strategy. This, I feel, ties into these types of conversations on the boards. People claim "the meta is new" so no one can say what is actually good or bad; yet there is always objective knowledge about how things function, and I try to apply it. Yet, without any games or knowledge of exact stats, I can reason that piling on ISDs will simply fail in a game that intuitively counters lack of diversity. It harkens back to how metas are formed: if all ship lists have a massive disadvantage to anyone to has a reasonable investment into squadrons, then all-ship lists simply won't get taken...thus the core concepts of the game define the meta. See: Fat Turrets in X-Wing to see this in action. Of course, it's also partly self-fullfilling prophecy; as good combo's don't get taken as they are seen as not optimal...when they very-well might be.

The problem, I feel, everyone is making here (and the Impstars will suffer greatly) is making; is they assume you'll get good shots, not bump, not run over rocks, etc. it's kind of the same deal as X-Wing where a swarm player has a harder game due to shear mental overtaxation via planning for 5 ships. My competitive imp list hasn't lost a game yet, worst MoV was 7-3 against 4 corvettes and 9 A-Wings. The reason was actually shooting the little asshats. My opponents biggest issue was flying all the ships well even with immediate dial response. Furthermore, as I reflect, one thing that made the wins more decisive was engaging a fraction of their force for one-two turns with ALL of mine. This is something that people oft overlook in discussing all-ship builds: squads can very easily go exactly where they need. If I spend 100 points on 3 black and 5 blue that I can focus fire easily, and you spend those 100 pts on 2 ships that require getting both in range to equal my shots; chances are you'll have a harder time actually using those dice as well as I can. Not to mention tokens are much better against 2-3 sep multi dice attacks vs 8 single dice attacks. Remember, armada is brutal once the lasers fly...you might be right that my squads only get a few turns of shooting; however, the difference is that I see those 2-3 shots as game-winning where others don't.