"Star Wars Armada Wave 2 announced" Topic

Strike me down with all of your hatred and your journey towards the dark side will be complete!

link

Lovely models.

They look great.

Yes, the models look superb…

… as for the rest of what comes with them…

Is it just me? Is anyone else over the over-abundance of counters, cards, dials and other paraphernalia that this system relies on?

Am I just woefully old-fashioned for wishing this game didn't require players to have one case for miniatures, and another for all these bits of cardboard?

As for those mini-tables upon which the models balance… no. Can't like them. Really can't.

Anyone know of a re-seller who's breaking up these packs, and selling the models separately?

End of grump.

Why would anyone break them up? Doesn't seem like all the bits and pieces would really have any worth without the ship. If you don't want them just throw them away.

Yes, I expect there will be pretty close to zero 'break up the box' resellers. Major money-losing proposition, since the play-aids are what makes up a significant % of the cost.

As for the over-abundance of bits, I don't really disagree, but 1) it's a FFG product, so it actually could have been much worse and 2) they are obviously aiming the game at the 'buy it and play' market, which implies each model must be 'atomic' and come with everything needed to play right out of the box.

-Will

The models ARE lovely though.

A couple of interesting choices in terms of what ships they included. The ISD and the MC80 were no-brainers, the Raider and the Mon Cal frigate sort of surprised me. I'm also kind of surprised that the 'Heroes and Villains' small craft pack is all Bounty Hunters on the Imperial side; I would have expected to have the Lambda shuttle as a support craft of some kind at least. Maybe in Wave 3?

-Will

So the ships that carry a complement of fighters do not come with their squadrons, I'm guessing (since I didn't see them in the pictures of the box contents). Are there sufficient fighters in the starter box to cover the gap? Or would you need to purchase fighter expansions (which I don't think are available yet) too?

Doug

@ Doug: You'll have to purchase the fighter squadrons separately. I believe each squadron box comes with 2 of each ship squadron, Imperial comes with 2 TIE squadrons, 2 TIE Interceptor squadrons, 2 TIE Bomber and 2 TIE Advanced squadrons.Rebel is 2 A-Wing squadrons, 2 B-Wing squadrons, 2 X-Wing and 2 Y-Wing squadrons. All of the wave 1 expansions that were supposed to be released with the core box are "on the boat" currently…who knows when they will arrive.:/

Edit: The core box comes with 10 squadrons of fighters, looks like its just 5 X-Wing squadrons and 5 TIE squadrons.

However, what a ship is supposed to carry is not all that important in Armada; there's no 'launch/land' fighter concept, ships don't come with fighters for no points. So the fighters and the ships that carry them aren't that closely linked. My understanding is that you can field a ISD with no fighters, or 12 squadrons of fighters, for example.

-Will

That lack of a launch/land mechanism bothers me, but I suppose it could be houseruled easily enough.

Doug

FFG's overreliance on lots of little counters and cards has always bugged me, but I do think this game is shaping up to be a winner.

I dunno if a launch/land mechanism is really needed though. At Endor did we see either side landing their fighters to reload/refuel them while the battle was on? Is doing this under fire even a good idea (a question for space games in general)? I could see more use for a launch mechanism, since that would allow scenarios like the Rebels catching a Star Destroyer with only a single squadron of TIEs on CAP and the rest have the launch, etc.

-Will

I remember when miniatures a couple of pieces of paper and some dice were all we needed. We didnt need cards to tell us what our ships could do. Hey kids get off my lawn!

I personally think the shield dials and bases showing which dice to roll from each quadrant of the ship are kind of slick as is the maneuver bar and range finder marked for the various dice. You don't have to use all the markers. The critical damage cards are fun too as they add a random element to damage the ship takes above and beyond the old "this ship can take 4 hits" method. They played a significant role in the game I played as one ship lost the ability to target fighters and another lost the ability to repair damage.

As to the plastic bases I hadn't thought much about them before playing, but they give the game a kind of holographic look.

I'll get the MC80 and Star Destroyer. Looks like I need to buy all the small ships to get the Millennium Falcon and Slave One.

I plan on sticking to my Original Movies only collection strategy.

Doug,

The squadron's on ships thing is abstracted out. You have to deploy squadrons near ships (plus there is a composition limit on squadrons) and the "squadron" trait of a ship determines how many squadrons it can get to "improve" their performance when given the right command. IMHO it hits a nice balance but does away with anything fiddly (or require bookkeeping beyond what the play aids already do for you).

Overall I think the game is very slick. Looking forward to more of these ships. The ISD's forward armament scares me.

-Tim

But I want them NOW!

Thanks for the details Tim … I need to keep in mind that this is, very specifically, a Star Wars game, and not a general purpose starship combat game. It's VERY tempting.

Doug

If you want to check out the rules they are a free download:

link

It's down at the bottom of the page under support. Read the learn to play file.

-Tim

Well Scott,
The Disney Store is selling an Imperial Star Destroyer model that is very close to look and scale of the Armada models and they have already provided the ship's stats in PR announcement so if you want an ISD you can play with one…pretty much right away. :)