I'll take "cardboard expansions" for any ships or squadrons (though I, too, would like to see more Ship cardboard before we get any more squadron cardboard).

I seriously love the sheer quantity of community strategy content there is for this game. You guys are awesome. Being of excellent quality as well is just icing.

Okay, so is Catalyst the source for the "one year" thing?

I tried to grab one of everything, with two packs each of Reb/Imp Squadrons 1 and 2 (because I feel like 4 of the generic squadrons is necessary to get "the look" right). That left me with just... waaaaay too many squadron stands, but I think that's just the nature of the beast. Especially if you're supporting multiple players with your collection and you want to have Imp v Imp have as many options as possible. But seriously, just... buy ships. They're all amazing in different ways. Strategically, picking up several of each of the Flotillas is really useful, as are some of the other small ships (Arquitens especially). And if you're planning on supporting Imp v Imp, you should probably pick up more Star Destroyers than other casual people might plan on. SDs are awesome - even if they're "just" VSDs.

I really want to make Centicore work, but I'm too much of a baby when it comes to "sacrificing" ships to get it where it needs to go.

I've been trying to play Fleet Battle star wars miniatures games since... well, ever since I got into gaming in general. I tried two other games previously (SWM Starship Battles, and SWPocketmodels), but they reaaaaaaaaaaally didn't scratch the itch. I avoided X-Wing because... I don't really know. It just came out at a time when I couldn't -really- get into it? I finally got into Armada because seriously guys have you seen this game? Big ships, little squadrons - it seriously looks epic on the table, and really feels like the big Star Wars space battles. It feels like it has everything in it, and is a different scale than any other miniatures games I've had in the past.

Of the three of these, Armada is the only one that even made an attempt at a consistent scale, "sliding" or not.

Starship Battles had miniatures that looked fine-to-good, but the scale was... well, it just wasn't. And the game played on a grid? For reasons? I guess? Also, generally not good. I sold all of mine (well, traded for even more miniatures for normal SWMiniatures) once I finally admitted that I loathed the game itself. Star Wars Pocketmodels is a weird little game, with weird little pieces. It's pretty much a card game with some fancy looking "totally not just cards". The punch-out-and-build ships are done like the Pirates of the Spanish Main ships, but from "cards" closer in size to Armada ship cards. Sadly the "models" and positioning didn't mean much, as it was all "zone" based. Fun enough as a "light" game. I still have all of mine (though I only bought some of it, and even then only for the first... two? releases). And, on topic, I'm sure they both had FAQs! That existed!

"Alternate Armada" wasn't a very good game. Or maybe you meant "Bizzaro Armada" instead?

Not "Is It Balanced?", or "Is It Balanced Right Now?", but more... how is it supposed to be balanced? What is balanced? What are some of the design "rules" that it follows? I'm honestly curious how many people have the same ideas about those ideas and questions, and whether people think the designers have some specific goals and guidelines in mind (again, not asking whether they're successful at meeting those goals right now). Are there supposed to be clear Rock, Paper, Scissors strategies? Are releases intentionally designed to "shake things up", by giving new options to deal with older challenges? Are stronger options given counters? Are weaker options given support? Is it a mix? Are neither considered? Are waves designed to be "balanced" within themselves, or just to give new options? What are the clearest distinguishing mechanical themes of the two factions? How closely do releases actually need to adhere to those themes? How are squadrons balanced? Are they supposed to be a viable threat? Is defending against a squadron threat supposed to cost significantly less than fielding one? Are they supposed to be reliant on supporting ships, or augmented by them? How are ships balanced? Are "activations" and "deployments" considered as elements of their design? Were they originally? How are objectives balanced? How important are they supposed to be to the game? Are objectives designed with ships in mind? Are ships designed with objectives in mind? Uh... I guess, essentially, I mean: Tell Me Literally Everything. Whoops.

I'm in the super-casual "What Sounds Fun (and how can I make it work with what I own)?" end of things. A lot of my stuff is limited primarily by my collection (mostly everything now, but not very many duplicates). No set ratio or order of things, Though in even our tiny little "meta" of two or three people, running lite on squadrons isn't an option.

Her ability works on Tycho, too, right? If so that's... Something at least?

Interdictors and Phantoms. Just Interdictors and Phantoms. Imperial Experiments And oddities. It'll be a very long time until I can field a whole list like that though.

Those sacrifices are exactly what Pirates of the Spanish Main eventually had to do, and the game declined around the same time.

There's an older game called Pirates of the Spanish Main that had a lot of similar concepts to Armada... But it was at a MUCH lower price point (styrene cards instead of full painted plastic ships) - so much so that it makes me laugh just thinking of how bad I felt spending "sooo much money" on it, when it was essentially $50 for just... Most of everything in each release (instead of ONE ship). I think the theme brings way more interest to Armada than some people give it credit for. Personally, I love Age of Sail stuff, but I don't know many other people who would be interested enough for a game like armada to work. On a much smaller scale maybe.

I gotta say, now that I have a few Arq's, I'm incredibly impressed with them. I'll probably pick up a few more of them... after grabbing the other things I'm still missing.

I'm hoping we see more ships, though I'm not expecting any kind of big fleet battle. I'm kind of hoping that a big shiny fleet engagement might come in VIII as a surprise, kind of like the (amazing!) fleet battle at the end of Rogue One just kind of popped up as a surprise.

Hooray, I finally have (a very few) extras to trade! Haves: 2x VCX 2x Lancers 2x Lambda Shuttle Wants: 2x Phantoms 2x Z-95s Firespray YT-2400 YT-1300 Scuurg 2x A-Wing 2x Y-Wing I used to trade other miniatures a lot (a long time ago), but I've not done any Armada trading.

Haha, this. I mean, yeah, it's only trying to justify things after the fact. But eh, that's what we get right now, and I'd rather half-decent justifications than trying to slam them into things for some reason. Who knows, maybe the Resistance will need to pull old-to-ancient ships out of storage in order to rebuild their fleet in the new trilogy. Who knows! It's Star Wars!

I believe the current "canon" is only that the Empire considered it an "older generation model", and phased it out for the ISD, which they considered its modern replacement. Wookiepedia says we've still seen at least one after the Battle of Yavin , though. So "phased out", but not decommissioned.

Yeah, probably not. Seems like its how the Empire treats them, but I think that's mostly a "cult of the new" and dedication to looking just the best, rather than a statement on effectiveness. Still, I think it could give an interesting mechanical "feel", and also make sure that it doesn't step all over the toes of the Empire's more "prominent" ships, by keeping it in mind.

I still think that Thrawn is the perfect place to introduce something to let you play around with Activations, Deployments, or Initiative. Something like: Exhaust instead of activating a ship on your turn. Exhaust and spend a command token to activate two ships on your turn.

For a Venator, I suggest starting with an MC-80 Command Cruiser, and work your way down, while adjusting it to feel more like an Imperial ship, and also like an "older" or "out of date" ship. Keep it feeling "bigger" and "tougher" than the ILC, though (which may be tough - the Arquitens is pretty fantastic for its points). I'd say you should lean on the blue dice for its batteries, and if you want to make sure it doesn't feel like "ion cannons", don't give them the Ion upgrade slot (and do include a Turbolaser slot). I think a balanced take on it (on a large base) is going to be both more expensive, and less shooty, than people are wanting/expecting. If its "big" side-arc shots are only slightly better than (or the same as) an ISD's side arcs, it can still be a great ship. Go ahead and give it Squadron 5 - if you're going to make a large-base, "out of date" (to the Empire, strategically) ship, give it a unique spot and playstyle. Give it an appropriately high cost though. Two Offensive Retrofit slots. Yes, this means it can get to Long-range, 6 squadron commands (7 with token). No, I don't think that's a problem, if you keep the cost of the ship high. From the MC-80 CC base, knock off some defense tokens. We want it to feel old, and out of place. Take away the Contain - the things were (if I remember correctly) notoriously prone to damage. Maybe switch one of the Redirects out for a second Brace (the thing is bulky and solid; it also feels more Imperial)?

The only thing I would worry about with starting at 200 and running up the whole way in the campaign is addressing imbalance. I think you just need to make sure all players curve up, to keep the power disparity from becoming too great. You don't want to wind up with one side fielding 500 point fleets while the other is still scraping by around 250 or so. Just let replacement fleets come in closer to the highest total, maybe? Cool idea though.

I was brainstorming a "what if" on the assumption that they'd be their own faction, and you could deal with it accordingly. But yeah, even then, I think I'd rather use offensive retrofit upgrades to make Droid work than just boost the native squad value through the roof. Something like making your "Droid Command Center" upgrade let you activate twice your squadron value worth of ships, but prevent you from activating any non-droid squadrons. And I lean toward positive effects, just because I think it is "neater", and easier to manage. Really there's not much difference, either way.