Star Wars Armada [Table Top Games]

Last week was the release of a new Star Wars themed game from Fantasy Flight Games.
It was the release of Star Wars Armada, the fleet scale game.

Everything included in the starter box.

I have been anticipating this game's release since it was announced in August 2014. I watched the demo videos from Gencon 2014.

5 out of 5 stars

The game was slow arriving.  It did make it out in Q1 of this year, but I had been hoping for a Jan release date, not a March one.

But it was worth it. 

A Victory class Star Destroyer and its TIE escort.

This game is amazing. The miniatures are exactly as detailed and awesome as you'd expect from FFG. This time they even painted the engine glow. Like X-Wing, the game comes with dice, cards, minis, cardboard tokens, minis, bases, and dozens of fighters. This time there are 3 sizes of cards, including the giant tarot cards and the tiny damage cards.

The mechanics are a bit different than X-wing. The entire main game phrase is reversed from X-wing, you attack before moving, so this means that movement takes on a new aspect. There are also no defense dice. No more traitorous defense dice. Instead you have defense actions you can take. 

Movement works differently as well. You have navigation routes for the larger starships, and rather simple movement rules for fighter squads.

The biggest limitation of the game at release are the lack of ships and the fact that FFG always sells the base sets with 1 dice of each color less than you need even for the starter ships. Yep, you really need a fourth die of both blue and red right out the gate, but of course... those will be coming with Wave 1's expansion ships.

How to move a starship in Armada.

So my rating for the game as a whole. If it was just for the starter box, I'd be taking a half star off for the dice. I'm really looking foward to seeing more of this game unfold... especially since X-wing has yet to have any information on Wave 7 announced. Yes, wave 6 S&V was amazing, but I need my previews.

As for Armada, I suggest checking it out. 

Waiting for this wave to release... and yes, they have already
announced wave 2. Wave 2 has the Imperial Star Destroyer.