Star Wars: Armada CORE SET - Epic Space Battles Game! Strategy Game with Tabletop Miniatures for Kids & Adults, Ages 14+, 2 Players, 2 Hour Playtime, Made by Atomic Mass Games

I am a huge fan and player of Fantasy Flight's X-wing and when I heard about this new game I was excited, but had a few concerns. I was worried it would just be X-Wing with big ships, but it is a different experience altogether. The ships are represented well, with speed and firepower that seems appropriate for vessels of their size. The models are painted to the same standard of X-Wing's, with the exception of the fighters which are black or white plastic depending on what side you are on. It is important to note that the ships are NOT perfect to scale as FF chose to make them have a relative scale, but still look good on the table. The cards and art are excellent, and the rules while more complex than X-wing, are still fairly straight forward. The price is a little higher per model, but I think are worth it for the fleet sized battles you can have. One cool aspect of this game is that the expanded universe is a prime source for ships that appear. Classics that were mentioned but not seen such as the Victory Class Star Destroyer and the Rebel Assault Frigate appear aside newer models like the Imperial Raider. This opens up a huge wargaming area that has not been available for Star Wars fans in the past, and seeing six star destroyers and flights of tie fighters taking on ten smaller Rebel ships and flights of X-wings is very satisfying. I would definitely recommend it to Star Wars fans, or wargaming players who are looking for a fun new game. Those who are interested in how it compares to X-wing should read this part, as it is a bit technical. The game play requires less guessing what your opponent will do, and rather more planning than in X-Wing. Ships speeds are consistent from turn to turn, and require an order to speed up or slow down. Course corrections are made when the ship moves, rather than determined before hand all at once, and are based upon the speed of the ship. The bases are excellent in this game as each base has the ship's weapons statistics, hull points and attachable dials that allow you to keep track of shield strength on all four sides. Just like in X-wing, actions which are now called orders play an integral role in this game, as they allow you to change speed, fire your weapons more effectively and control fighter squadrons before their normal activation. However one of my favorite parts of the game is that one order allows you not only to reassign shields from one facing to another, but even allow the crew to repair the ship. Fighters operate as squadrons and have separate strengths against ships and fighters which makes the serve specific roles rather effectively, and their bases also keep track of activation and damage. Damage for ships works the same as in X-wing, using the face down/face up for critical system so nothing new there, and fighters mostly just take hits until they are destroyed. The die system uses red, blue, and black die, with each color representing weapons at different ranges, and different chances at critical hits. Ships can also react to attacks with special abilities, similar to the barrel roll, boost, dodge and focus actions, but are not handled the same way. Well I hope this helps, and encourages you to give it a try!

Star Wars WAS my childhood- 25 years ago I was playing "space battles" with micromachines. Armada is exactly what I pictured a Star Wars tabletop game to be: epic fleets doing battle in space, Star Destroyers slowly moving across the battle firing volleys of turbolaser blasts while swarms of TIE fighters attempt to keep Rebel X-Wing fighters from launching their Proton Torpedos, Corellian Corvettes speeding through space trying to capture important documents while Nebulon B frigates attempt to hold off the Empire... This is a core game experience, meaning it comes with all the rules and pieces to play the game, but not enough ships for a full "fleet" experience, or for tournament play. This lets you customize your fleet as you see fit- will you fight against the forces of tyranny and collect only Rebel expansions, or are you supplying the game for your group and you need everything? The models are everything we have come to expect from FFG, accurate and detailed, and well painted. They are not "to scale" but are on a sliding scale that looks amazing on the table. Groups of squadrons are dwarfed by the ships, and the Victory-Class (the movies feature the Imperial-Class, a much larger ship that is expected to be released for Armada soon) Star Destroyer makes the Corvette look very small. The squads are unpainted, they are too small to come pre-painted up to FFGs excellent standards, but with a few minutes and some ultra-fine point sharpies they can look really good. The gameplay is deep and engrossing. FFG have removed some of the chance aspect present in their other Star Wars game, X-Wing, by replacing the defense dice with a token system that makes more sense for larger, more cumbersome ships that still allows for player choice on both sides during an attack- do you block their ability to take half damage but allow them to redirect the hit to adjacent shields? Do you discard that evade token to cancel that double hit die, leaving you more vulnerable the next round? An objective system built into the core gameplay (every tournament game is played with objectives) means even the same two fleets fighting against each other can have a different experience. This game is highly recommended- come on down the Saarlac pit of tabletop miniature games!

The box was far larger than anticipated, and much heavier as well. For anyone that has played the X-Wing Fighters game, the contents should not be a surprise. Three large, lovingly detailed models, and a mountain of thick cardboard for punch out the rest of the pieces. Over all the models are of excellent quality, worthy of being displayed on a shelf by themselves, but sturdy enough to handle some swooshing around while making ship noises. The rest of the pieces are the standard cardboard affairs, which were nice quality although some pieces did not punch out all that cleanly. Putting together all of the little dials and pieces got to be a bit mind numbing, but was worth it in the end. The shining piece was the ship movement pieces. Works very well to accurately and precisely guide your ships, and operation is smooth and fluid. Much better then curved cardboard! The game itself is fairly easy to learn, but it may take a few trial games to get up to speed, even if you are familiar with X Wing, as there is a lot more going on, especially with the wings of fighters. Instructions are a bit lacking in detail in some areas, but not enough that you can piece it all together while playing. Also requires a significant amount of table space(3' x 3' per the rules, plan for more) and a good time investment. For a tactical strategy/Star Wars fan this game is a perfect fit. If you're only one of those, you may find it lacking in some areas, but overall I am very pleased with this, and it will make it into my rotation of play much more often.