First Thoughts on Armada
++ I like the scale and resolution of the game. Each ship, individually, hits a sweet spot for complexity. They are more complex than the standard fleet battle games(Firestorm Armada, Full Thrust, Starmada) while at the same time avoiding the other end of the complexity scale(Star Fleet Battles, Federation Commander). The size of starships vs. the Squadrons of fighters is a nice touch too.
++ Speaking of correct resolution it reminds me of Lightning Strike. Part of this is the aforementioned resolution, but the Squadrons vs. Capital ships pinged in the same way. This is a good thing as Lightning Stike is awesome, but unloved.
++ The clunkiness of the command structure and the movement system gave the larger ships an "inertia" that the smaller ships lacked. This felt appropriate and thematic.
++ Much like X-Wing and in direct comparison to Infinity, the game doesn't front load its complexity. Not having a huge learning hump to get over before you start making decisions is very appreciated.
++ There are no defense dice in the game. Active, random defense is something that tends to drive me crazy.
-- The starter box game doesn't feel like a complete game. One side has a single ship and a few squadrons vs. two ships and a single squadron. Playing only to 6 turns makes it hard to see much of anything happen. It doesn't feel like it will come into its own until the first wave. Buying two starter boxes surprisingly doesn't feel worth it either, especially with their cost.
-- The squadron setup is way too fiddly. Squadron position and movement is very free form but the solution in place felt very clunky.
+/- I would love to see individual ship display boards to hold the ship card and individual tokens for each ship.
This is a bit out there, but I'm not sure its a miniatures game. Once after playing Hanabi, I floated the idea that much like how viruses aren't alive despite sharing a lot of similar qualities with living things, Hanabi isn't really a game. It shares several of the same qualities that games have but its just missing key concepts that would make it a game. Lucas recently pointed out that this can also be applied to X-Wing and miniature games.
While playing Armada this really pinged as well. Part of what I like about this scale is it should lend itself to more terrain and scenarios than X-Wing. This is a major weakness in X-Wing and its not something that FFG has shown any interest in rectifying either.
Sadly, the Armada terrain in the box is just as bland as X-Wing's terrain and there aren't any rules for other terrain effects in the rather spartan rulebook. Scenarios are in a significantly better shape but they all feel more appropriate for tournament play. They don't really evoke the setting or involve you playing out a scenario that occurred in the SW fluff. Hopefully this will be improved upon in the future.
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