X-Wing and Starwars fleet scale game?

[(SMD)MadCow]

Wow..  Seems rather pricy.  But then again it seemed that way for 10$ for a small lance pack of battle tech back in the day.

Armada is about the same as 40k/Fantasy but you get everything you need to play with a painted mini (for ships) and no extra $50 rulebook that changes every few months.

[HobbesHurlbut]

Armada is about the same as 40k/Fantasy but you get everything you need to play with a painted mini (for ships) and no extra $50 rulebook that changes every few months.

Just an FAQ and Rules clarifications to balance things out. Of course, they usually do this after a major tournament to look at the meta and see what's being OP.

[(SMD)MadCow]

Just an FAQ and Rules clarifications to balance things out. Of course, they usually do this after a major tournament to look at the meta and see what's being OP.

And it's free.

[NeonKnight]

With Armada, it is not a bad thing.

To play, however, one MUST buy the starter. There is no alternative to this, as it is the only way to get a damage deck, and certain upgrade/unit Cards.

Everything else can be found elsewhere, Dice, measurement tools, even the Asteroid/debris field markers.

Even as someone (like myself) who only plays Imperials, I must have the starter with a Nebulon and a Corellian Corvette.

[glitterboy2098]

Xwing is sorta the same way.. the starters have upgrade cards and pilots not found anywhere else, even if you buy the individual expansions for the ships involved.
thankful they are mostly the unique ones that you only can use one of during a game anyway. though the need to buy expansions you might not use the ship from to get a card you want can be annoying.

[NeonKnight]

Xwing is sorta the same way.. the starters have upgrade cards and pilots not found anywhere else, even if you buy the individual expansions for the ships involved.
thankful they are mostly the unique ones that you only can use one of during a game anyway. though the need to buy expansions you might not use the ship from to get a card you want can be annoying.

Well, there are a few Non-Unique cards that as a REBEL only Player, can only be obtained through the Starter (Imperials can get them with the Victory Star Destroyer for extras).

And some of these are pretty nice cards:

http://starwars-armada.wikia.com/wiki/Expanded_Hangar_Bay

http://starwars-armada.wikia.com/wiki/Overload_Pulse

As an Imperial player, there are a few cards that unless you buy Rebel Ships, you can't get them otherwise:

http://starwars-armada.wikia.com/wiki/Electronic_Countermeasures

http://starwars-armada.wikia.com/wiki/Enhanced_Armament (Useful for the Imperial Arquitens)

http://starwars-armada.wikia.com/wiki/H9_Turbolasers

[glitterboy2098]

Xwing used to be the same, but 11 (soon to be 12) waves in there aren't many unique to the starter aside from a few pilots and some astromechs left.

[iamfanboy]

Wow..  Seems rather pricy.  But then again it seemed that way for 10$ for a small lance pack of battle tech back in the day.

Where'd you find lance packs for $10? I always saw them at between $35-50 depending on the weight of the 'mechs.

Recently I did a LOT of ciphering when it came to wargames and the 'average' price to get started with a reasonable variety of PLAYABLE units in a competitive setting is between $300 and $400, retail. That isn't bare-bones, "What you need to play", but "what you need to not get curb-stomped if you play in tournaments".

Yes, that includes X-Wing too, because while you might be able to skate with a couple of blisters and the starter box in a casual setting, FFG has very intentionally split up the essential upgrade cards between factions and boxes - and you HAVE to have the cards if you're going to play in tournaments. Expertise only comes in the Heroes of the Resistance (Rebel faction), but it's practically STAPLED to Quickdraw (Imperial), one of the best Empire ships right now. Autothrusters are great for Poe Dameron and a bunch of other ships, but they ONLY come in the Starviper (Scum) blister. And Twin Laser Turret is the only Turret upgrade worth using, but while Scum uses turrets a fair bit they only come in the K-Wing (Rebel) blister.

About the cheapest wargames, on average, are Bloodbowl (about $100 provided you can print out a pitch to play on) and Malifaux ($200 will get you EVERYTHING you need for every faction but Ressurectionists). Alpha Strike isn't too bad either, unless you want metal minis...

The only wargame currently played that I left out of my calculations was Infinity; I keep meaning to try it out with my friend who owns the starter box and then get a handle on the cost. It seems like a sub-$200 game as well, but I can't make a judgment call on that.

For the sake of comparison, a Warhammer 40k army costs between $500 and $800, depending on the faction chosen. And that $500 is barely competitive and blatantly Space Maweens.


Personally, I'm pretty negative on FFG right now. Star Wars Legion irritates me to no end; what good is a ground battle game that doesn't focus on a much larger scale than the game they ALREADY HAVE in a similar scale, Imperial Assault? It's also such a blatant cashgrab that the miniatures are going to be noticeably larger than the ones for IA, meaning you have to rebuy EVERYTHING. If only they'd gone 15mm or 6mm instead, and focused on the BIG battles with lots of speeder bikes, AT-ATs, grav vehicles, maybe even strafing attacks from fighters...

But no. It just grates my cheese the wrong way.

[glitterboy2098]

i never assume the person is going to go right to tournaments, so casual play is the best way to gauge entry costs. some people never go to tourney's. (like me), some people who do buck the Meta. if they are interested in tourney play, they'll be able to figure that stuff out on their own once they've played casual for awhile.

pushing hyper competitive tourney build's when introducing people to a game is counter productive to getting them interested.


and Legion is aimed more at the building and painting side of the hobby. Legion also looks to have a ruleset that is more conductive to growing into massive battles than IA.. but if they start a game pushing "you have to buy, assemble, and paint $1000+ dollars of our models to build a starter army" they are going to flat out fail to gather fans. hell, even 40K started out small scale as well.. and current 40K still pushes smaller scale forces (like killteam and/or 500pt forces) as the way to get into the game, leaving the 1000, 1500, 2000, 2500, and higher battles that look so awesome as something players build up to eventually, not as the intro level.

[iamfanboy]

i never assume the person is going to go right to tournaments, so casual play is the best way to gauge entry costs. some people never go to tourney's. (like me), some people who do buck the Meta. if they are interested in tourney play, they'll be able to figure that stuff out on their own once they've played casual for awhile.

pushing hyper competitive tourney build's when introducing people to a game is counter productive to getting them interested.

*sigh* why is that always the strawman? "Pushing hyper competitive builds..." when what a person is trying to do is steer new players away from the bottom 10% of models - a problem exacerbated by the X-Wing dev's focus on driving sales and overpowering the newest stuff. I'd love the game to be one where you could fly B-Wings and TIE/Interceptors competitively instead of random EU ship that no one has cared about in a decade - that's why I play Heroes of the Aturi Cluster by the way - but it's a serious negative play experience for relatively experienced wargamers (not even noobs, people who like wargames!) to get their heads kicked in constantly because of ignorance. It's one of the reasons that I have grown to hate Warmachine, too - all too often it's some minor rule that you didn't know about or forgot or didn't fully understand the interactions of that leads to a warcaster assassination and game loss.

and Legion is aimed more at the building and painting side of the hobby. Legion also looks to have a ruleset that is more conductive to growing into massive battles than IA.. but if they start a game pushing "you have to buy, assemble, and paint $1000+ dollars of our models to build a starter army" they are going to flat out fail to gather fans. hell, even 40K started out small scale as well.. and current 40K still pushes smaller scale forces (like killteam and/or 500pt forces) as the way to get into the game, leaving the 1000, 1500, 2000, 2500, and higher battles that look so awesome as something players build up to eventually, not as the intro level.

So, massive land battle in Star Wars. Close your eyes and imagine it. What do you see?

Were AT-ATs involved? They should have been. They're iconic for a reason.

At Legion's scale, an AT-AT is going to be upwards of two feet long and even taller than that. There's NO WAY that is a reasonable play piece at that size, and I can't imagine what the price point would be... and that's one AT-AT. Where's the half-dozen that a Star Destroyer carries, as well as AT-ST escorts and speeder bike flankers and a phalanx of storm troopers? THAT'S massive land battle. THAT would be nice in a 15mm game.

Frankly, the only reason that Games Workshop can get away with titans in 40k scale is because if someone's still playing 40k in this day and age they have no qualms about flushing money away.

What are the expansions going to be for Legion? Sandtroopers? Snowtroopers? Scouttroopers? Stormtroopers with Hello Kitty visors? And on the Rebel side, once they go through regular trooper, commando, and wookie, what are they going to add? Ewoks? Yub nub.

Or else it'll be just like Imperial Assault, with tons of different character packs - and I'm willing to wager that they'll be the exact same sculpts as IA, just upscaled to fit the new mandatory base size.

At 15mm, there'd be LOTs of options - vehicles? Fighters? Formations? Even old Clone Wars stuff? Yeah, that would have been great.

Plus, the Rune Wars system is mediocre at best. It ain't bad, just meh. This is just a lazy combining of a game system they already made (so they don't have to playtest anything new!) with a franchise that they don't think they've fully exploited yet. 


I don't mind when a company reaches into my wallet. What I DO mind is when they do so without even using half of their ass in the process and still expect me to smile about it. It's making me look askance at spending more money on Armada, a game I do legitimately enjoy.

[Sabelkatten]

If you're not planning to play in tournaments you don't need the cards (use an online squadron builder). I think there still are a fair number of people buying sets to get the cards and then selling off the ships cheap. A friend of mine got IIRC about 20 ships for $50!

[glitterboy2098]

its not a strawman. all those builds your saying are "vital" and "must haves"? are from and designed to be competitive with the very top players in the national tournaments.. its like expecting someone just starting a sport to immediately go into competition for the olympic gold medal. the Tourney scene is incredibly competitive, thanks to people who insist on using the latest abuse-every-loophole builds. that is one of the reasons they always release a FAQ after the tourney's.. because that competitive nature means that lots of odd synergies, rules questions, and loopholes get found and exposed, revealing the stuff that makes the game unbalanced.

and expecting new players, who might not even know if they'll enjoy the game, to go into that deep end right off the bat, with the resulting financial investment? is a good way to kill a game. new players should always be brought in as casual play, playing with what they find interesting and fun.. even if it isn't optimized or competitive.

[iamfanboy]

its not a strawman. all those builds your saying are "vital" and "must haves"? are from and designed to be competitive with the very top players in the national tournaments.. its like expecting someone just starting a sport to immediately go into competition for the olympic gold medal. the Tourney scene is incredibly competitive, thanks to people who insist on using the latest abuse-every-loophole builds. that is one of the reasons they always release a FAQ after the tourney's.. because that competitive nature means that lots of odd synergies, rules questions, and loopholes get found and exposed, revealing the stuff that makes the game unbalanced.

and expecting new players, who might not even know if they'll enjoy the game, to go into that deep end right off the bat, with the resulting financial investment? is a good way to kill a game. new players should always be brought in as casual play, playing with what they find interesting and fun.. even if it isn't optimized or competitive.

Maybe you missed the part where I was said those prices were FOR tournament players, not casual just get started playing? That's the part that you strawmanned me on; you immediately leapt to the worst interpretation (that I'm a hardcore, only care about winning tournaments player and that's exactly the sort of thing that I push in the people I demo to) and it did you no favor in my eye.

X-Wing isn't too bad in the getting started department - maybe $100 all told for a starter and a few blisters if you want to go Imperial or Rebel. It's worse for Scum, of course, because they can't use the ships in the starter yet still need to buy it. Armada IS bad in the getting started department - you're looking at $200, $250 minimum for a reasonably sized fleet, and it doesn't help that you NEED an extra set of dice because the Armada box doesn't include enough even for its OWN stuff.


The best game for getting started and tournament play is, amusingly enough considering our forum, the Battletech box for Alpha Strike. There's a lot you can do just straight out of the box for $60, and spending $100 can get you pretty much whatever you require. It's a shame the minis themselves are so boringly posed, but that's not terribly hard to fix.

[glitterboy2098]

then why bring it up at all, in a discussion of the prices to get started in the game? or were you just looking to troll?

[garhkal]

Where'd you find lance packs for $10? I always saw them at between $35-50 depending on the weight of the 'mechs.

That was the cost i spent back in 1990-92 time frame out in Fresno Ca...

[I am Belch II]

Games are expensive, and games like armada are expensive because of all the stuff extra to play it.

[iamfanboy]

then why bring it up at all, in a discussion of the prices to get started in the game? or were you just looking to troll?

Because there's a beginning point (cost to get started) and an end point (cost to play competitively), and not mentioning both of those points would be dishonest?

It's like saying, "Well, all you REALLY need is this one $85 Space Marine box that has one squad, a Dreadnaught, and a Commander" without mentioning that play at the (in theory) tested and balanced size requires at least four times that; and that's an absolute bare, inflexible minimum that will get its ass handed to it on the regular.

[glitterboy2098]

except that again, that assumes that everyone goes in for the Tourney scene. and that everyone builds the "meta' builds, instead of working out something of their own using what they have. or sticking to more casual play.

when you talk about the costs to get into a hobby, you always focus on casual play because that is what the new player is going to want to do first, generally, and it is the minimum cost. competitive tourney scene is very much a maximum cost, which is basically infinite.. in theory the player could buy a hundred of every expansion, even if playing casual. the maximum cost is literally "infinite" and thus pointless to discuss. no one is required to go to tourney's or to only build meta-lists.. so why bring it up unless the new player expresses interest in that type of play? and even then, you need to approach it from a more inviting and friendly stance than complaining about how expensive a good meta-build is.

[iamfanboy]

except that again, that assumes that everyone goes in for the Tourney scene. and that everyone builds the "meta' builds, instead of working out something of their own using what they have. or sticking to more casual play.

How many wargaming players have you met that aren't interested in tournament play? I don't mean hardcore, dive deep into the metagame where if it ain't in the top 10% it ain't worth playing flip a table when they start losing, but not being interested in bringing an army to play against a bunch of people and have a day enjoying themselves with people who share their unique hobby?

I've been wargaming for 25 years now and I can count the number of players who asked about buying into a wargame but only for 'casual' play on the fingers of one foot.

Okay, that's an exaggeration, especially with X-Wing - people will buy the models just for decoration and collecting, THEN get interested in the game - but generally speaking people will be interested if you mention tournaments and a day spent around other geeks just like you.

Where that interest gets crushed is if there's a widespread imbalance in the game, and what you like and spent money on is awful, requiring you to buy more than that. THEN people will be more interested in casual play, because tournament play isn't fun and costs too much.

I mean, that's what I like about Heroes of the Aturi Cluster. You're playing X-Wing WITH your friends, against an impersonal AI, with missions that are interesting, require teamwork, and favor 60% of the game instead of that top 10%. I personally always fly an HWK-290, callsign White Mage, that's all about supporting people.

[garhkal]

Quite a few to be honest.  Most of the gamers i knew when i lived in the UK who were WH40K players only did it for the fun, not to get into tournies.
Same with those stateside i started meeting int he early to mid 90s for btech..

[Daemion]

If only they'd gone 15mm or 6mm instead, and focused on the BIG battles with lots of speeder bikes, AT-ATs, grav vehicles, maybe even strafing attacks from fighters...

If only. I would love 6 or even 8mm right now. Would be nice to have little pilot characters to put next to grounded fighters. I was hoping that with X-Wing being consistently scaled (with only one or two exceptions), they would end up doing that across the board with a ground combat game that could see ground attacks from fighter craft.

 

[Daemion]

except that again, that assumes that everyone goes in for the Tourney scene. and that everyone builds the "meta' builds, instead of working out something of their own using what they have. or sticking to more casual play.

when you talk about the costs to get into a hobby, you always focus on casual play because that is what the new player is going to want to do first, generally, and it is the minimum cost. competitive tourney scene is very much a maximum cost, which is basically infinite.. in theory the player could buy a hundred of every expansion, even if playing casual. the maximum cost is literally "infinite" and thus pointless to discuss. no one is required to go to tourney's or to only build meta-lists.. so why bring it up unless the new player expresses interest in that type of play? and even then, you need to approach it from a more inviting and friendly stance than complaining about how expensive a good meta-build is.

But, it never hurts to have someone point out where it might lead, if you decide to go that way. Besides, Some of us have the collectors bug, and we can probably end up fielding competitive if we wanted by dint of 'catching them all'.

[Charlie 6]

Gents, sorry for the resurrection of the thread but FFG has announced (via their Inflight Briefing at GenCon) that the SSD will be coming to Armada this year...for $200.

Also, X-wing 2.0 is getting Clone Wars stuff.

[glitterboy2098]

also released were PDF files with all the list building info for X-wing 2.0, with a promise to keep it up to date. proving that you don't need the App to play.

i haven't checked the Xwing forums yet, but i suspect to be underwhelmed with the amount of crow being eaten by all the people who predicted doom and gloom with no offline list building info..

[Empyrus]

also released were PDF files with all the list building info for X-wing 2.0, with a promise to keep it up to date. proving that you don't need the App to play.

i haven't checked the Xwing forums yet, but i suspect to be underwhelmed with the amount of crow being eaten by all the people who predicted doom and gloom with no offline list building info..

No doom and gloom, though the Clone Wars announcement caused some... Off-line point lists were confirmed back when 2e was announced IIRC, or soon after in any case. Not well, meaning no big red letters anywhere noting that, but it was stated somewhere.

[I am Belch II]

A SSD for $200 for Armada. I'm intrested.

[Kentares]

A SSD for $200 for Armada. I'm intrested.

Some guys on the FFG forums complain its too small...  ;D ;D ;D

[glitterboy2098]

No doom and gloom, though the Clone Wars announcement caused some... Off-line point lists were confirmed back when 2e was announced IIRC, or soon after in any case. Not well, meaning no big red letters anywhere noting that, but it was stated somewhere.

yes the offline points were confirmed when it was announced. that did not stop a lot of people from trying to convince the fandom that the end was near "because you'll have to use the app they never said they'll do PDF's".

usually the people who were whining that the game didn't need a 2nd edition update, and that it was all just a scam to cheat players out of many hundreds of dollars to buy lots of update boxes to convert their entire extensive collections.

[Empyrus]

I wonder if those same people are those who are utterly stuck to flying meta-cookie cutter lists...

I do think the conversion is a bit expensive but i'll pay that for much, much improved rules and squad-building. So many ships are utterly worthless for even casual play in 1e.

[garhkal]

For me, i recently got introduced to the X-wing mini's game last year, at Gencon, when one of my SW gamer buddies, was running a Heroes of the Aturi cluster game.  I also played it at this year's Origins, and had a few look ins during Marcon too.  So since our gaming group's looking to make it a full on thing for our group at conventions, i decided to start buying a bunch o stuff of the 1e stuff..

Though, even WITH 'used' price discounting, i've still spent a cool 400+ bucks getting all the stuff i'll need..
Imp side;
9 Tie fighters
5 bombers (inc 2 from the imp veterans packs)
4 interceptors (inc both from the aces pack)
2e of Advanced and phantoms
3 defenders (inc 2 imp vets)
1 decimator
1 lambda
1 Gozanti escort carrier
1 inquisitor's tie.

On the reb's side
3 x-wings (a 4th enroute)
3 b-wings (inc the one from reb aces)
3 a-wings (inc the one from reb aces)
4 y-wings
1 HWK-290
1 YT-1300
1 reb transport.

I have most of all of that in 3 plano boxes, a 1 inch binder with sleeves for all the upgrade cards (pilot cards are individually sleeved in a plastic, clear box).  Now just need to get some foam to cut out slots for, all the big ships...