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View Full Version : Star Wars Armada- Unboxing and First Thoughts



Brenlak
04-12-2015, 03:35 PM
So I got my mitts on Armada and this morning started pulling the box apart (Mmmmmmm, that new game smell....), and thought I would share my thoughts so far (so far being building the ships and assembling the dials)

First little thing I noticed was the shield dials are colored, a nice cool blue at full and fading as it goes down, maybe not worth a second thought but it's that little extra detail that makes you appreciate a big purchase like Armada. For almost three times what the X-Wing starter costs I'm looking for value!
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The Movement snake was a bit sketchy to build and I was worried that I would apply to much pressure and break the little plastic kajiggers but they went in fine the numbers on the darned thing are card that you insert, those I had trouble getting in straight but if your a real stickler you can pop them out the back and try again.

As far as the detail of the ships if X-Wing was a 10 I would give these ones a 7. You would think that on a larger ship the increased surface area would tend to make it more drab but somehow that's not the case the destroyer looks great its' the scum I don't like. I hope my pics do it justice but the paint job on the Nebulon -B is drab (The front is begging for a wash to bring out all those bumps and contours).
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The fighter squadrons come with a few choices for the bases, of course I gave the best ones to my TIE-Fighters. They do fit in there quite snug and again my clumsy paws made me worry about breaking a wing off the TIEs, they are gonna come out one more for painting and then never again (The flash on the TIE wings is pretty bad, and on the X-wing bodies)
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This thing won't let me upload any more pictures!!! Gonna have some breakfast and try again after.

Brenlak
04-12-2015, 04:11 PM
Well maybe I hit an upload limit or something, those last three pictures are to show the scaling compared to X-Wing, I was expecting them to be a bit bigger (look at the tiny corvette, ain't it cute). These three show the scaling of the fighter squadrons.
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One thing I was worried about were the ugly grey cups and the speed dial, but the cups are much smaller than I had originally thought.
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I still think it would have been better if these dials were somehow incorporated with the ship card (kind of like how they did the Battlestar Galactica boardgame) but then again having the dials next to the ships will stop any buggering during gameplay.

Gonna grab some breakfast and get back too it, Anybody else opening there Armada? What are your thoughts so far?

Brenlak
04-13-2015, 05:14 PM
Sleeved up all the cards (well except the ship cards as they are an awkward size) the cards are made of plastic like the cards in Attack Wing. Not a big deal but you can see the fibers on the surface of the card, it takes away from the artwork a bit.
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Besides the main components there are also tons of tokens in the set, some for Objectives, some to keep track of turns some to denote capital ships but most of them seem to be used for the objectives.

The Objectives are just cool!
Assault objectives have you gaining extra attacks off the start and reward you for your kills with extra victory points
Defense Objectives have ambush and assault type rules alter fleet setup and the battlefield
Navigation Objectives have you dodging minefields and asteroids rewarding tactful movement
Players chose 3 Objective cards and the second player choses one of there opponents objective cards for the game.

Also included are some upgrade cards. One title card for each ship, a commander for each fleet (G Moff Tarkin and General "are there cheerios in my beard?" Dodonna) and an officer for each (Leia and some geezer called Wulff Yularen) and 11 more upgrade cards. Much less impressive then the spread of goodies in the X-Wing starter box.

Rule book is read, ships are set up, its time to play!
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Brenlak
04-13-2015, 08:21 PM
Well just finished up my first game of Armada, what a fun game!!

The initial start up
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Turn one saw everyone moving closer into range and some fun with the movement snake
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Turn two things got a little too spicy for the pepper as the Star Destroyer moved in (Probably a little too close)
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Turn three saw the Star Destroyer level it's forward cannons at the Corvette wow!
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It was short range so the Corvette was unable to use its evade and the attack left the ship with one hull point left! And then because they were in such close proximity the Destroyer plowed into it taking it's last hull point away, leaving things pretty grim for the rebels...
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Luckily due to clumsy movement things got better! oh and X-Wings beat TIEs any day of the week.
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Squadrons killed each other and there were only two left
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Turn six saw the Nebula blow up the last TIE-Fighter and that was game, victory to the Empire!!

All in all a fun hour and a half, the rules seem to flow well in this game (Just remember shooting THEN movement X-Wing fans) and I am looking forward too seeing how Howlrunner and Luke will make the squadrons even more of a force to be reckoned with.

I was a little disappointed in what you get for your money out of the box, there is no significant savings and the lack of upgrade cards means I won't be picking up another, much better off to get copies of the ships through the wave one expansions, they are chalked full of delicious upgrade cards...

Brenlak
04-20-2015, 09:48 PM
Me again (of course it is this thread is 100% mine, Ha ha ha!) taught a friend the skinny on Armada yesterday, thought I would share my first victory (at learn to play so it's like a big deal...). Same set up as usual, this time I was the filthy Rebels.
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My plan was to run the corvette up his flank solo to maneuver around to the vulnerable backside of the Destroyer, its X-wings cutting up-field hoping to draw foolish fire (hey I was playing a noob hoping for the best here), the Nebulon rocketed forward (thanks to the pre-loaded navigation command) its X-Wings following behind.
The Destroyer aimed towards the Nebulon and its mass of X-Wings and lurched forward TIE-Fighters zooming past (though not as tough as X-Wings, TIE's have a movement of 4 that gets them in your face fast). No shoosting so round 2 was a start.
Forgot to take picture.

My Nebulon activated its pre-loaded Squadron command (Ships have a command value this is how many turns in advance you will have to plan Commands, basically lower command value means a ship is better at reacting to events quickly) this allowed me to move and attack with as many squadrons as my Squadron value for the Nebulon, two X-Wings moved and both killed a squadron of TIE-Fighters! (not a huge fleet TIE's have 3 hull points and an X-Wing squadron rolls three blue dice against squadrons)
The Imperial turn was pretty action packed (during the ship phase ships activate one at a time, revealing command dials, attacking and moving, I was eager to kill some TIE's so I activated the Nebulon first, this left my corvette right on the path of peril, wont do that again) The Star destroyer was able to draw line of fire from two hull zones ( Ships can attack twice but it must be from different hull zones, one of them the dreaded six die front arc) and promptly blew the Corvette to smithereens!!! battle lines were being drawn quickly.
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The next few turns were basically maneuvering to get the Nebulon in place to blast the Destroyer in the *** and the Imperials trying to re maneuver the Destroyer to be a threat again (The Victory Class has terrible Maneuverability reminds me of my dear Lambda...)
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Cathing up to the Destroyer I managed to pound it's shields down but that was a tough feat with it's two re-direct tokens (no defense die in Armada but the re-direct token meant that damage could be allocated to adjacent facings on the hull and he had two of the bloody things)
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It was all for naught in the end as the Destroyer moved off the play area and was destroyed the turn after this picture
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Moral of the story is slow your Destroyers down! next game I'm gonna use it like a fortress, fly it in the middle and change my speed to 0. Hope my TIE's can keep trouble at bay while I hammer the rebels. On the Other hand if I play rebels again gonna keep that Corvette back for a turn or two and then rocket in and those X-Wings were keen! I can see why you can only spend 1/3 of your points on squadrons.