Just played a 4 player game last night, 300 points each, I was forced to play rebel to make a 2v2 rebel vs empire team and since I don't normally play rebels I just used that worlds winning list (for the same reason most people slavishly follow the "meta", They don't want to engage their brains). The empire players saw I was doing this and fielded a ridiculous number of ties. In total it was 10 A-wings vs 10 ties and 2 Tia Advanced. Only 8 A-wings actually participated in the fighter swarm battle, the Imps used a ISD carrier to activate and attack first and I found the real advantage of A-wings vs Ties is those counter dice. I was rolling hot and even tho after the first unanswered attack from 5 ties I had lost 2 A-wings more than half of his stands were hurt and limping. On my next activation I activated 4 A-wings (whale + Garm token) and easily wiped 4 ties (22 vs 24 pts) and with judicious activation and average rolling throughout the rest of the fighter engagement the 8 A-wings handily won the battle with 2 or 3 stands of the 8 left along with the other players 2 stands (that did good work pinging down an ISD in the meantime and actually getting the last shot and killing it). From my analysis of that match I would say that tie fighter spam is ineffective vs A wings, BUT using slightly less ties and swapping out the advanced and using Howlrunner and Mauler to synergize with the swarm IMO would have been vastly superior. If the a-wings mass 1 good activation with Mauler can wipe out 25% health on most of the swarm, if they don't you can outnumber a group and shred it. Add in the Howlrunner swarm die and they would go down much quicker stopping more counters. Vanilla Tie swarm is NOT a counter to A-wing swarm but I believe with a couple of named pilots and a little skill, you can spend less points and still effectively counter the A-wing Cluster-F strat.

During worlds the commentator on stream was one of the people that handles getting these things released and while coy he did say they expected to have news very soon and to keep an eye on their web page. I would expect to see something new on there next week.

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!

I know. It's ridiculous. They ran Massing at Sullust to increase interest in a wave of ships that hasn't launched well over a MONTH after the event. It's silly and frustrating.

I use a business card folio for my upgrade cards. Works great.

Nice thing about a well balanced game like this is that there are many many technically viable lists and it comes down to how you execute.

But what role would a Gozanti play in the Armada context? Small-base ship with high squadron and high hull value and low weapons?

Empire, duh!

I am loving wing commander for carriers, its a must have. I think its important to think of these upgrades as what they are: Command dial uncertainty mitigators. We all know that feeling of "I wish I had X command dial right now" and if you don't feel that at LEAST once or twice a game I would love for you to pick out some lottery numbers for me. Its 6 points to have a 2 setting command dial every round, vastly increasing your chances of having the most optimal command at the most optimal time, which is great for specialized 3-dial ships in giving a tactical situational response option. Like the time just recently when my ISD carrier was spamming Wing Commander while safely out of reach of the enemy, but when tactically appropriate I let the last 2 commands stay as concentrate fire to help evaporate a couple of ships. Fun stuff!

This looks pretty good assuming I can get stuff in range. I will try it after the widowmaker build

I really like the idea of squadron immobilization. Would be a good counter to the "Rogue" keyword being introduced in wave 2. Also thanks, I had forgotten about the CC series ships, however after looking them up, wouldn't it be the CC7700, since the stuff im reading says the 9600 does not mount the grav wells?

So there is a local tourney about to happen and the TO has decided to keep it to a wave 1 level of 300pts BUT allow wave 2 ships so Sullust vets can play with their toys. I really really really want to run my ISD but I'm finding that the point constraint is very tough. I tried a practice game where I ran a full-on carrier with boosted comms, expanded hangar and wing commander and a demolisher with screed but was only able to cram 3 bombers and a couple of ties (including Howl and Rhymer). I was playing a relative newb to the game and he brought a LOT of ties and a VSD and demolisher. It did not go well. The poorly supported ISD was a sitting duck for the demolisher (plus I rolled poorly and he rolled well), and the low-rent Rhymer ball was tied down for half the game by pesky ties. I imagine vs a rebel player with many activations and a well deployed fighter screen it would have gone even worse. My next idea is to bring a brutal brawler ISDII designed to dish out punishment and disrupt defenses. At medium range with intel officer and a blue crit it would be possible to nearly strip defensive options and drill through most shields (thanks to the x17), next activation finishes. Intel Officer Avenger ship title X17 ECM Gunnery team Admiral Motti NK7 Ion Cannons The idea is to start this thing at speed 3 with an engineering command for the token then a navigate to slow down to spd 2 then a concentrate fire and then spam engineering to keep it alive and swinging It would be supported by an "Insidious" GSD with Assault proton torpedoes, the idea there is that I trail it behind and try to catch ISD flankers in the rear and potentially finish them off after they have been softened by the ISD. In addition there would be a nominal fighter screen of 2 squints, Howl and a Tie. This Idea has not been tested yet. Any thoughts on issues (other than the obvious ones) OR any other ideas on how to effectively bring an ISD into a 300 point game? If this doesn't work, I got nothing.

A very common and popular Imperial ship in the EU is the much beloved Interdictor Cruiser, the little dagger with so much gumption its got four balls. BUT in a game where retreating is not in the cards, what would be the game function of this ship to justify its inclusion? I wonder if they will create an interdictor as a EW (Electronic Warfare) ship that can either confer defensive bonuses to friendly ships in range or disrupt enemy ships in range? Give it piddly armaments and introduce it as a meta-expanding true "Support Class" ship. This could be borne out by the recent X17 decision ("for future game balance") where perhaps X17 type effects are a valid counter to aggressive EW defenses from an Interdictor. Do the filthy rebel scum have a ship that can perform a similar function for the sake of balance? If they do I am not aware of it. Thoughts and ideas?

When is worlds? and where? and what is it? lol

Yeah every Canadian store owner I've drilled says there is none of yet. The Lion Rampant site itself is also showing not available, but again, I'm sure some distis in the US have at least some stock by now and when it hit lion rampant it will be a go for release. In fact Lion Rampant is a 40 minute drive from where I live. I should hope they ship to stores near me faster

Yeah every Canadian store owner I've drilled says there is none of yet. The Lion Rampant site itself is also showing not available, but again, I'm sure some distis in the US have at least some stock by now and when it hit lion rampant it will be a go for release.

It could also be that they stocked some but not all their distributors and so they need to hold on till a given critical mass or same thing will happen where FFG is likely to piss off its supply chain right down to the customer level. TBH I don't buy the whole "entirety of wave 2 is on a single boat headed for North America" crap, they have been pumping these things out for a while now and you can walk from here to China on boats, certainly there is some stock already at some distributors. If they would like to PM me their addresses I volunteer to personally test their security protocols.

I can state unequivocally that releasing in the states before Canada by even 1 week would absolutely hurt Canadian stores and distributors because I would most certainly take my impatient ass on a 1 hour road trip over the border to buy all the lovelies and worry about apologizing to my FLGS owner after.

Just checked my local Canadian distributors website, not available from them yet.

Are you for serious? Because if you are for serious I need to plan a trip to the US soon.

NOOB QUESTION TIME! when you move shields can you exceed the maximum shield number as printed on the ship card for a given hull zone? I never thought of this before and when moving shields I always assumed you were limited to the starting value.

I do not understand the hostility. I would rather them get it right then rush things. No one wants an Attack Wing game here. What if they found out all the ISD's were painting Green? You would still rather them just release the wave because 'all' they needed to do is release on time? The game is still great, the wave is still coming...who cares who and why. They did address it, even if it was not to everyone's satisfaction. There is an easy solution. Do not play the game and cause yourself the stress. Life is too short. Maybe thats easy for me because I won something at Massing at Sullust. Lol the winning something thing only made it worse for me!! I won the ISD, bought the MC30 off another guy who placed and am waiting for my raider and villains half of the fighters to come from the guy I bought it off on the internet and all I can think of is rounding out my fleets. The missing MC80 is like a festering black hole in my collection and the duplicates I need to try out some lists are like an itch I can't scratch. I agree getting mad at FFG is silly and pointless, but a certain amount of frustration is natural and to be expected. I wonder if FFG will consider doing something cool to mollify players? I mean its been "On the Boat" for like 5 weeks now...

true, I mean, they could easily release a fighter pack with the new ties and x-wings and/or any special characters from the film. but tbh there is still SOOO much they can release that is already existing in some form in the SW universe and easier to balance into the meta. I'm sure they are already pretty deep into the pre-production of wave 3

Yeah frustrating a loyal player base is never a great idea, but from what I heard it was due to "Unavoidable manufacturing delays", in other words it was most definitely not planned this way. I have worked in manufacturing before and I know that sometimes s*** happens, like you can design: all good, prototype: all good, produce tooling: all good, hit GO: "OMFG huge problem we didn't foresee shut it down omfg" I think where they are falling down is in the communications department, unavoidable manufacturing delays are unavoidable but no updates to your fan base is CERTAINLY avoidable and might be where the frustration arises.

You are a brave man. I would never attempt to demo Armada to that many at once! What I have done with my game group of approximately that size is to show likely candidates the ships and stuff for the game and give a 15 minute overview/review while they are over playing other games. I then set up 1/1 time with those that show interest and play the learning scenario from the core set and then explain how the full game builds on that. If they enjoyed themselves up till that point I know I have them hooked!