Call up the Hammerheads! I have an idea!
Yes folks, it's Star Wars season. With the premiere of Star Wars the Last Jedi this past week, Star Wars hype/hate is through the roof. I'll be getting ready to make my annual pilgrimage to the movie theatre; it's hard to get out when your child's age is counted in months. Keeping with the theme of Star Wars I thought today's subject would be about something that is a bit of an obsession for me.
Let's pause for a bit while I take you into the weeds about my personal experience with Star Wars. Being that I was born in 1978 I wasn't around for the original Star Wars and I was obviously a little too young to watch the Empire Strikes Backs at Age 2. Although, I fondly remember a Dukes of Hazzard Wrist watch car toy; growing up Asian in Alberta! YEEE HAW!
So yes, Return of the Jedi was one of the first movies I saw in theatre. In a sad bit of nostalgia the theatre at Southcentre Mall is gone. But I do remember standing outside with my Parents waiting to go into the theatre I was holding a Kenner Star Wars Figure of Luke Skywalker in his Hoth getup. I didn't really recall that memory at all for my whole life, but in the past year it has become a very vivid one. Weird what your brain does after a stroke!
I'll let you guess the one takeaway I had when I saw that movie at age 5. Can you guess?
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| Jub Jub! |
At that point we'll revisit the Clone Wars and then Ep. 1-3. We kind of watch Rebels already today, although I am sure he doesn't quite understand what is going on. In his baby Cantonese a Storm Trooper is called Baat Bing (White Colour Soldier) and Darth Vader is Hak Bing (Black Colour Soldier). So, if I happen to be watching an episode he will happily call out Baat Bing Baat Bing! It can only grow from here :)
OK onto the good stuff!
What is Star Wars: Armada?
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| PEW PEW INCOMING! |
The game is played on a 6 foot x 3 foot playing area and takes place over 6 rounds. In each round there are 4 phases. Command Phase, Ship Phase, Squadron Phase, and Status Phase.
The biggest difference in Armada vs X-Wing is in how you activate, move and shoot. In Armada you have a permanent first and second player. Each players fleet can be built up to 400 points and the person with the least amount of points is awarded the option to choose to go first or second. You then take alternating turns activating ships in the Ship Phase.
Where as in X-Wing activation depends on Pilot Skill with the lowest skill moving first. The other major difference is that in Armada a ship will shoot its armaments before it moves as compared to X-Wing's move then shoot mechanic.
8 Sided Dice are used to measure hits, accuracies(block defense tokens), and critical hits. Upgrade Cards are used to add or modify dice, similarly defensive cards and your ships suite of defense tokens can minimize damage.
Each ship model has either a Small, Medium or Large Ship Base which contains firing arcs and shield dials for each side of the base. Once you whittle down the shields you start to take damage cards with critical effects being face up and you have to resolve whats on the card! Pray you don't get a Structural Damage!
Ships are pulled from Star Wars Official Cannon from all eras, and as you would expect the most iconic ships are available. The most current release is Wave 6 featuring some ships from Rogue One and Star Wars Rebels. Wave 7's ETA is almost here and features Admiral Raddus's ship the Profundity from Rogue One and Raddus himself. For the Imperial player Grand Admiral Thrawn and his ISD the Chimera will be making an appearance!
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| 400 Points of FUN! Fresh white paint straight from the Kuat Drive Yards |
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| Stay Together you dummy!!! |
In the Command Phase each player sets the next command for that ship. The smaller ships have only one dial which makes them more agile making it easy to respond to changes in the battle. But the bigger ships like the Imperial Star Destroyer has 3 and during the command phase when you set your just used Dial it goes to the bottom of the Stack and you use the top most this turn. So hopefully you picked the right command the turn before!
Then add in obstacles on the map to ensure that you fly well as they cause damage if you fly into them, then add Objective cards which allow you to score bonus points for completing. This mechanism is great as every player picks 3 but you only choose one of the 3 from the second player. It's designed to try to even out having to go second.
And then there is the Squadron Mini Game....
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| Red 5 Roster Slot Opening soon! |
Somewhere between the first round and it all going to hell in a hand basket is the squadron mini game. You have a choice when building your lists of a small, medium or large fighter screen. Basically, you cannot have more than 33.5% of your points be fighter squadrons or heck 0%(which is crazy in today's meta).
You will assemble your squadrons of fighters, bombers, and interceptors. With Aces that are characters from the Star Wars Universe such as Luke, Han Solo, Darth Vader, Bossk, Boba Fett and more.
During the Ship Phase a Squadron Command can be used to allow the unit to move and shoot. Alternatively, squadrons can be activated in the Squadron phase where they can either move or shoot. As well some units are considered Rogue and in which case can move and shoot in the Squadron phase.
Each Ship has a certain number of Squadron activations making some ships better than others as a carrier platform. The Squadron mini game is usually over by Turn 3 though unless you max out on a bomber wing in which case you'll probably be chasing people around the system with them.
List Building
List building...ah yes the deep contemplation part of the game. This is where the game for me consumes the most of my Armada time. It is true that each game is around 1.5 hours to play vs. X-wings 30 mins or so. If you play in a standard tournament it's 3 games so you will be playing for 6+ hours!
Because the game is extremely rich in card modifying abilities and you only have 400 points to work with. You'll be spending a lot of time thinking and re thinking of cool combinations of cards and ships. Then you'll test them in a game and re-tool and re-tool and re-tool...then FFG will release new ships and cards and you'll start again as your local meta transforms.
To help with fleet building, I highly recommend this tool: Ryan Kingston's Armada Fleet builder. He is part of my local meta, he's Internet famous and a really good Armada player; he's whupped my butt every time I've come up against him in a Fleet Patrol.
Anyways, if you use the site consistently you should donate a little bit to keep it going. He is always developing the site and is really quick to add the new cards as they get released from FFG.
The French have a saying called "L'esprit de L'escalier" or Staircase wit. It basically boils down to thinking of the perfect witty reply but when you really needed it at the top of the stairs it to come up with it when you've reached the bottom of the stairs.
This is Armada in a nutshell. You will find that you would think of the perfect parry to an attack but not until you're on the car ride home. That for me is what makes the game so fun because each game you learn something and it really instills in me the desire to get to the table for the next game!
Below are some of the repaints that I have been working on, I'm going to get some Blue Milk now that we know where it comes from. Enjoy!
Some Repaints
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| What is this? A SHIP FOR ANTS? |
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| Stealth Interdictor! |
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| Black Ships in Space! |
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| Don't be me and bring alot of Z-95's - Bun Fight! |
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