Hey thanks Cod, Im on the Armada Ontario group but I didn't know about the other one. The Armada group is very quiet with very few people actually talking or interacting.

Yeah it wouldn't be too hard to vary the stats a bit and as long as the point cost is consistent with the power it becomes a matter of personal preference in fleet building. If the new SD from FA is maybe heavier shielded and armored but only goes speed 2 it can have a place in the lineup no problem

All this being said I've had some experience running raiders and had an opponent make the mistake of entering into a fighter engagement on the raiders trajectory. That little bugger did tremendous damage to his fighter stack and even tho I was outnumbered by 4 full stands that game I still won the squadron battle, largely thanks to the raiders ability to get somewhere quickly. The title would have been a big bonus for very cheap. This little ship is born to be a support ship, I usually play it cheek-by-jowl with my ISDs and virtually always set a navigate command for it. The maneuverability afforded by this (including keeping a nav token on deck half the game) means the raider is a constant question mark for your opponent. I had one game where my rebel opponent managed to sneak a CR90 with 1 health remaining behind my ISD, I turned my raider on a dime and shot after him and rammed him dead and couldn't stop laughing. I will definitely be trying lists with the raider titles and using the ship in reserve to support fighter swarms.

You might be taking things too seriously lol, Shut Up and sit down for my money are some of the best and most accurate game reviewers on the net and an endorsement from them for Armada cannot be a bad thing

One of the people who writes it won two ships at the Massing and bought the other three expansions on the secondary market- He responded to that question in the comments, in case you're wondering. I think you're confusing a commenter with Paul and/or Quinns. The article had three writers, one of whom was named Matt, and the post in question was by someone named matias. I assumed it was the one of the authors. Fair assumption, but the third guy is Matt Lees, and also, I abbreviate Matias with 1 T

Was just heading over to post this!

Nicely done. I wish my Qtips were hollow, I tried cutting some up to paint squads and they are solid! Also be more careful with framing your pics. Your Visa is showing more then half its numbers....

Dirty pool! That's bound to get FAQ'd away once wave 2 finishes floating over the pacific in an unpowered raft....

I appreciate the idea, but TBH who really has 3 copies of boosted comms? I'm virtually insane with collecting (I have 2 raiders, an MC30, an ISD and 1.5 rogues and villains packs) having a good bit of wave 2 bought on the secondary market and I don't even KNOW anyone with more than 2 of those cards yet! Some people proxy cards.... Personally, I don't or at the very least haven't done it or seen it done locally, but it's apparently a thing elsewhere. Oh yeah, I have heard of that, however in my experience its only done in practice matches between friends. Personally if I went to a match and someone had some proxy cards I wouldn't like it because I don't believe in doing that myself, so I would be at an automatic disadvantage in not being able to maximize my fleet. Technically you can proxy everything and push around pieces of cardboard and roll 8-sided dice with the numbers mapped to Armada icons, but where do you draw the line? Proxying is fine as a method to learn a list. You shouldn't expect someone to invest an extra 60$ just for an extra card. Ships you should have but cards is kinda a prudish thing to get upset over. At least if you're not at an event, but in that case you can borrow anything you need specifically. I don't own a gladiator personally, but I don't let that keep me from list building since I know 3-5 different opponents who'd let me use one to have a better game Good for you that you have people to borrow things from! HURRAY YOU! I don't. I also think that while expecting someone to buy a ship for an upgrade card is silly, but thems the breaks! Building the best fleet you can with what you have ADDS flavour and variety to the game. It's part of what makes collecting compelling. So to summarize, I don't have anyone to borrow from, I don't believe in faking components for the reasons above, I refuse to be at a disadvantage because I insist on playing with proper components. If you are someone I play with regularly and you want to have a practice match to decide if you want to drop $60 on Neb-Bs so you fake some cards, sure I'd be happy to help, but if I show up to play a stranger and he wants to field stuff printed out of his Inkjet...I don't think so.

https://www.facebook.com/events/1127258067344068/ Event at a great game store in Toronto. It's a must-go-to store for me when I'm in the area. Bring many Americano dollars and reap the rewards of a crazy exchange rate.

I appreciate the idea, but TBH who really has 3 copies of boosted comms? I'm virtually insane with collecting (I have 2 raiders, an MC30, an ISD and 1.5 rogues and villains packs) having a good bit of wave 2 bought on the secondary market and I don't even KNOW anyone with more than 2 of those cards yet! Some people proxy cards.... Personally, I don't or at the very least haven't done it or seen it done locally, but it's apparently a thing elsewhere. Oh yeah, I have heard of that, however in my experience its only done in practice matches between friends. Personally if I went to a match and someone had some proxy cards I wouldn't like it because I don't believe in doing that myself, so I would be at an automatic disadvantage in not being able to maximize my fleet. Technically you can proxy everything and push around pieces of cardboard and roll 8-sided dice with the numbers mapped to Armada icons, but where do you draw the line?

If anything comes up in my area I will let you know. I think someone is putting together a pretty big one soon.

It really would be nice if they sold stand-alone upgrade card packs, but I guess they gotta make a living too, right? Altho if they sold them at enough of a margin they could probably still do quite well with less manufacturing overhead. Like if they had a "rebel upgrades" and "Imperial upgrades" that have 1 of each ship pack upgrade cards and sold them for something ridiculous like $15 they would still make a mint without burdening people with crazy barriers to entry.

I appreciate the idea, but TBH who really has 3 copies of boosted comms? I'm virtually insane with collecting (I have 2 raiders, an MC30, an ISD and 1.5 rogues and villains packs) having a good bit of wave 2 bought on the secondary market and I don't even KNOW anyone with more than 2 of those cards yet!

I don't know why its even a question. If you know exactly what list you are facing and its not a tournament where you have to have a balanced list of your own its a pretty straight forward answer. The opposing list has no squadrons. Game over. Build an entire list around being a big fat carrier for a max bomber point list. Bring the stuff that makes bombers go fast. Put your bombers where they will only face 1 arc of anti-fighter (typically the list you are facing is a "conga line list" that will try to make you charge into an overlapping set of broadside arcs so run your ISD carrier with boosted comms, hangar bays and wing commander(optional) parallel to it in range to activate your bomber swarm and stick them in front of the leading whale, unless he's going speed 3 you will get to put your bombers back in front of his whale after every activation meaning your carrier can almost sit pretty a mile away. Once he realizes hes going to get pinged down by bombers he might decide to come face you, which is where the empire shines, brother! I realize the obvious downside to this list is the sheer cost in money to put it together. If i got this right, in max fighter point list you can cram 13 tie bombers and Rhymer which would require the purchase of 7 imperial fighter packs (insanity) but with 3 squadron packs (reasonable expectation for competitive play, if not conservative) you can still run out with Vader, 5 bombers, Rhymer and fill the rest with Tie Advanced (personally I would use firesprays, tho I only have 2 ATM). I promise you if you play a list like this correctly he will poop himself when he sees the rhymerball.

Heading towards offence myself. Been trying a brutal ISD build with the idea of mostly spamming repair commands and/or running with grand moff tarkin, so far it has worked quite well. Combining things like intel officer, XI7 and NK7s a medium range barrage is devastating. Took out a fresh motti ISD in 2 frontals and 1 side arc with mediocre rolling at medium range. Been paring it with Avenger and a suicide overload pulse raider @ speed 4 spamming navigate. Needs tweaking and I haven't faced enough different lists but its hella fun to play! Intel officer and NK7s with even 1 accuracy make any target sweat. Also been running it with screed to guarantee the NK7 proc. Thing is, we are all talking about XI7s etc because WAVE 2 ISN'T OUT yet, so Heavy TLTs aren't "really" a thing yet but people can easily buy 2 or 3 Neb B packs for some XI7s, intel officers and painting fun.

I would like to see more articles in general. But FFG isn't that big of a company but they produce a ton of games. 3 Miniature games, 8 LCG's, 20 odd RPG's, and over 50 board games. So it's not like Armada is the only thing they got going. There also isn't a whole lot to say about wave 2 really. They've previewed everything and they're waiting for it to get the stores like the rest of us. Also at this point saying anything about Wave 3 until it's at the printers is IMO a bad decision. Yeah you are right, I remember an interview with the CEO when he talks about how many simultaneous production orders they have to juggle in a month and for a relatively small company it's absolutely insane! For the volume they handle and the number of properties they have to manage they do an unbelievable job. For all we know they have Wave 3 pretty much designed and ready to playtest but to start talking about it before wave 2 even hits (or to even start talking about it before wave 2 has had time to settle into the community) would be bad form and feel rushed, I for one will need time to stock up on the wave and get a bunch of games under my belt before I really want to hear about wave 3.

Liberty Mon Cal is practically a must have. I can see it on a medium base and slotting somewhere between a whale and MC80. But really, if support and sales fizzle we may not see much more than a wave 3. TBH FA ships would be terrible from a game design perspective (as they are bound to be linear replacements to existing types, especially if launched in a new core set) and may annoy some people, but they would have to be insane to not try and hitch every property they have to the Rampaging Cash Elephant of the upcoming movie.

Yeah in the numbers my FLGS will probably stock this it won't take much to evaporate stock. Good thing I already pre-ordered 1 of everything and can fill gaps as budget and stocking allows.

Vader for damage potential. Motti if you just want to go fairly generic. Ozzel if you want to go from 2 to 4 speed on a dime. Tarkin if you want to double up on tokens + command dials. Unfortunately there is not. Online retailers of single cards have a hard time keeping unique upgrades (those from just one box) in stock. It's sad. This will change as the game grows. Its just not worth spending like $20 buying for e.g. a Neb B to sell the XI7s for 5 and the Intel officers for 3 or 4, there isn't much of a modder/painter market for just the model and stand (i've noticed the "no upgrade card" ship sellers drying up). You'd have to find a way to get them at cost to bust them up and then its hardly worth the effort cause you'd make more hawking them for MSRP with less effort.

Played my first match ever with a raider yesterday, pairing it with a monster ISD in a 300 point match, and holy hell can that little bugger maneuver! I'm probably going to aim for having 3-5 of these in my box, they can be a great "sheepdog" force against rebel corvette spam lists. I actually used mine as a bump-missile to take out a corvette that needed one more hit (I soloed it down with Bossk) and it was the most fun thing. I can see a list with 3 or 4 raiders with minimum upgrades, a monster ship killer ISD and a few pinning fighters or rogues as a thing in wave 2, can use the raiders in a pack to block conga lines and T up the ISD or chase corvettes into a corner, or just dump 3 or 4 of them into a cluster of fighters and just shred them. At the very least it would be a blast.

Really? What an obnoxious thing to say. If you wanted to tell everyone you won stuff at Sullust you can do it without insulting everyone else. Only thing I don't have 1 of right now is MC80 but if your concern for the health of the game only encompasses what you yourself have you aren't really about the community. Yeah, I'm anxious for wave 2, but not because I wan't to buy such and such a thing but because the total lack of regard for the Armada community from FFG is troubling to me, I have to ask myself if I want to continue devoting time and money to a game that doesn't seem to have the same level of support and concern as it could. Will there be anyone playing this in a year? Are they truly investing in growing the player base? After watching the only game of Armada streamed from worlds my heart sank. They picked lists guaranteed to be a yawnfest, every non Armada player on the stream was NOT impressed and I could hardly blame them. Not a single ship destroyed and a slow paced game bogged down by 7 CR90 activations *facepalm*. I'm not saying they aren't viable lists, just that they were probably the worst to pick to showcase the game! Yes the 3rd round game was boring in that no ships went boom. But us a great show of tacits and you can win even if you dont table the other guy. However rounds 4 and 5 with the duel AFM and a wing swarms was great Yeah, I loved the "Meta Smashing" of those rounds, TBH I hate "The Meta", it sucks the life out of a game and I think FFG know this and they understand the importance of timely releases to keep the game dynamic and interesting. Once again why true fans of the game are so frustrated about this release. I played a few games last night that included a bunch of Wave 2 including an epic 4 player game with 2x ISD and a 1 on 1 where I took my ISD, Raider and Bossk against an ISD/vic list @300 points (my ISD kitted out to be a ship smasher 2-rounded the other ISD with Motti on it) and that was SO MUCH fun. Yet here we are 2+ months after sullust and the game dwindles. *1 month. Sullust was Oct 2, 3, & 4. And I don't know about you, but we've seen increases in numbers in that month. I feel like if having to wait 1 month for a release is killing your scene, you have bigger problems. Not my problem, I don't make a living selling games. Around here thanks in part to a horrible exchange rate Armada can be an expensive game and finding players was already difficult, delayed release of wave 2 has led to some community apathy towards the game. It is very very hard for me to find a group to play with despite evangelizing the game and putting in a good deal of effort into establishing a network of players, I would not expect the "average" player to go to the lengths I have, so yes, this is hurting the toehold the game has locally.

Welcome to the game! And remember to stay out of those imperial front arcs!

Or a power drill

Really? What an obnoxious thing to say. If you wanted to tell everyone you won stuff at Sullust you can do it without insulting everyone else. Only thing I don't have 1 of right now is MC80 but if your concern for the health of the game only encompasses what you yourself have you aren't really about the community. Yeah, I'm anxious for wave 2, but not because I wan't to buy such and such a thing but because the total lack of regard for the Armada community from FFG is troubling to me, I have to ask myself if I want to continue devoting time and money to a game that doesn't seem to have the same level of support and concern as it could. Will there be anyone playing this in a year? Are they truly investing in growing the player base? After watching the only game of Armada streamed from worlds my heart sank. They picked lists guaranteed to be a yawnfest, every non Armada player on the stream was NOT impressed and I could hardly blame them. Not a single ship destroyed and a slow paced game bogged down by 7 CR90 activations *facepalm*. I'm not saying they aren't viable lists, just that they were probably the worst to pick to showcase the game! Yes the 3rd round game was boring in that no ships went boom. But us a great show of tacits and you can win even if you dont table the other guy. However rounds 4 and 5 with the duel AFM and a wing swarms was great Yeah, I loved the "Meta Smashing" of those rounds, TBH I hate "The Meta", it sucks the life out of a game and I think FFG know this and they understand the importance of timely releases to keep the game dynamic and interesting. Once again why true fans of the game are so frustrated about this release. I played a few games last night that included a bunch of Wave 2 including an epic 4 player game with 2x ISD and a 1 on 1 where I took my ISD, Raider and Bossk against an ISD/vic list @300 points (my ISD kitted out to be a ship smasher 2-rounded the other ISD with Motti on it) and that was SO MUCH fun. Yet here we are 2+ months after sullust and the game dwindles.