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Star Wars: Armada v1

Star Wars: Armada

Commander, tear this ship apart until you’ve found those plans.

Time to get out the big ships with the aid of the Star Wars: Armada rules summary and reference.

The nimble star fighters of the Rebellion and the Imperium (and some galactics scum and villainy) have fought it out in Star Wars: X-Wing for a while now, and now FFG brings us a whole new scale of spaceship combat in Star Wars: Armada. Yes, it’s all Star Wars all of the time lately, and we still have a brand new film on the way. No pressure, Mr Abrams.

Thankfully, this isn’t just a cash-in super-size of X-Wing, but an original, engaging, tactical spaceship combat game that’s probably the best of its type. It sure ain’t cheap – the starter set could certainly have been better value – and a flow of expansions will keep you dipping into your wallet, but it does capture the feel of huge, lumbering spaceships with a clever system that forces you to order your ships ahead of time – the more turns ahead, the larger and more ungainly the ship. Around the big ships zip squadrons of TIE fighters and X-wings like busy gnats, and I think it’s the contrast between the two systems that control the ships and the squadrons that gives the game its epic feel.

4 Comments

  • Andre says:

    Great game! Thanks for the summary. I know what you mean about value in the starter box – even a couple more dice would have helped.

  • SirWillibald says:

    Thank very much, perfect! Not that I had expected anything else. 🙂

  • Thank you! The starter box does feel “light” for what you are paying. Of course it is in line with another fleet game, Sails of Glory with regards to contents. This is a sad trend in games these days. It is all the more reason to shop with vendors where your dollar goes further.

    If there is one item in the box I despise it is the flimsy cardboard range ruler which needs to be used and passed about CONSTANTLY. The only online options for plastic ones are not really a nice option. I have resorted to printing out color scans full size for every size, gluing them to small wood bars available from craft shops, cutting them to length and taping over them. I now have every size available for checking in tight places and spares to pass around the table.

    As far as the reference sheets go, great job as always. I have one request; as an aging gamer, 45, I am finding my eyes are not what they were and I regularly am zooming up the size of the sheets before printing and laminating them. Please think of your aging fans. Larger sized sheets can easily be scaled down but smaller ones made larger sometimes loose resolution.

    • Kenneth, I’m no spring chicken myself (50 this year!) and my eyesight has deteriorated a lot in the last few years, to the point where I now wear reading glasses when I play games. With reading glasses, the summaries are fine. But I can’t make them bigger otherwise they will turn from ‘summaries’ into ‘rule booklets’. The whole point is to get rules on one sheet if possible. Changing the sheets to cater for those with poorer eyesight is chasing an uncatchable goal, as everyone’s definition of ‘poor eyesight’ is different. Is 7 point text big enough? 8 point? 9 point? You can see where this is going.

      Therefore, it’s best to set a standard, which I’ve done. Those with less than good eyesight – and remember, I include myself in that group – will have to make do with scaling them up or wearing glasses. In my experience, they’ll be wearing them anyway to read the small text on the cards that come with whatever game they’re playing. 🙂

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