Updated Buyer’s Guide for Star Wars Armada in 2023.
It’s been a long time since we’ve seen a new ship or squadron for Armada. Since AMG has taken over the reigns, there hasn’t been much, if any news for the game at all. But it hasn’t been a complete void. Now in 2023 we’ve seen our second installment of Rapid Reinforcements and with that comes a host of new opportunities, strategies, challenges, and best of all – cross faction ships!
With this in mind, it was long past time to update my long-running series of “What to buy first on a budget” for Star Wars Armada! Each video is dedicated to a specific faction.
Republic Buyer’s Guide
Separatist Buyer’s Guide
Rebels Buyer’s Guide
Empire Buyer’s Guide
This also marks the first year I’ve done individual guides for each of the Clone Wars factions. Hopefully you enjoy it!
I was so fortunate to have the opportunity to sit down with FFG’s Michael Gernes, Lead Developer for Star Wars Armada!
We talked about everything ranging from The Clone Wars, to Wave 2, to future support for Rebels and the Empire!
Some highlights from the interview include:
Pass Tokens – Pass Tokens will be assigned at the beginning of the game, are partially influenced by the composition of your fleet (Large Ships will likely give you more), and also are influenced by weather you are 1st Player or 2nd.
Faction Identities – We talked about the new faction, and Michael spoiled a new separatist card that upgrades a token’s effect to a full dial effect!
Konstantine! – Everyone’s least favorite commander, Konstantine, is getting refined to be more playable and to work with Huge Ship! Konstantine SSD here we go!
The Future! Armada will continue to support Empire and Rebel fleets – players just need to be patient!
Had a fun time pulling out the airbrush and repainting one of my two Starhawks this weekend!
Started out with a grey prime and then taped off a few areas that I wanted to stay grey/black. Then I did a few types of blue, a darker base, and a lighter blue at an angle to give some depth to the paneling and greebles. Next step was a wash in the grey areas. Then to start a few grey panels as well.
After some more panels colored in, I got the engines and a few other areas with more of a greenish blue. The last detail was the lights. I always like to add lots of tiny lights on board a ship to make it look more alive!
In addition to the engines being the blue green hue, I also did the Magnite generator on the front as well!
The COVID-19 lockdown has us all going sitr crazy! To help pass the time, I’ve been playing more AI games. If you aren’t familiar, you can find my Armada AI system here.
The AI system is amazing for simply passing the time for the sake of fun! This makes it especially fun for huge crazy pitched battles! I wanted to battle two Super Star Destroyers and decided to use the second base that comes with the SSD to support my Bellator model from Mel’s Miniatures.
The results were spectacular!
This was a 400 point fleet for me, facing off against over 1,000 points of Huge Ship AI! Now granted, my AI isn’t exactly the smartest opponent, but it is unpredictable and that can be exciting!
A few months back I was asked to take down my videos that talked about the recent flyer in the December issue of Game Trader Magazine, you know… the one that had the massive Super Star Destroyer article in it? Well I’ve got my own physical copy of that flyer in hand now so I figure it’s time to talk about ALL of that juicy goodness now, since FFG won’t do it!
Here are all of the images, I’ve taken newer photos of them, hopefully they are legible enough! I’ll be doing videos on them over the course of the next few months to hold us over until this gorgeous model finally comes out!
This Year’s Gen Con was my first ever Gen Con! Easily the busiest convention I’ve ever been to, it’s easy to get lost among the activity! I took a bunch of pictures though so lets go through my time!
First up – I had to wait in a line that was nearly a mile long for Will Call to get my tickets to the In Flight Report. I didn’t even have time to check into my hotel – went straight to the convention center!
But I made it! Front row seat! I was crazy nervous that I wasn’t going to make it in time but luckily I managed!
And was surprised with 2 KeyForge decks for attending! I’ve got to say I’m pretty impressed with this game. The concept of completely unique decks in every box is really ambitious! And it plays quickly and is a bit of fun as well!
But THIS thing was the star of the show! The Super Star Destroyer for Armada really stole my heart! Finally being able to see it was amazing! After the report I grabbed some dinner and made my way back to the hotel, to prepare to teach some Legion and Armada the next morning!
The next morning – right before they opened the doors and let everyone in!
Everyone wanted to get pictures of the incoming rush!
There was alot of cosplay! X-Wing and Legion were the two biggest attractions right in front of the main door, and they almost didn’t have any Armada tables, but luckily I found a core set on a table and was able to get it set up!
We had a core set, Wave 7, and the Rogues and Villains pack for Armada! Nobody was scheduled to demo it, but I jumped all over it and made alot of new Armada fans from Thursday through Saturday.
Andrew Cox, Fellow Orlando Gamer, took home the championship for Destiny! Way to represent Orlando! Now we just need to him playing Legion and Armada as well!
Got to check out some other games as well – Project Elite is being relaunched by CMON, and the new miniatures look awesome!
Finally got to see this giant Cthulhu miniature from CMON’s new Cthulhu : Death May Die kickstarter. It’s amazing, but it’s just so big it reminded me of the fact that I wouldn’t have had the room to actually put it anywhere!
Got a nice demo from Ares Games on their new title Battlestar Galactica: Starship Battles. This looks gorgeous!
And got some more pictures of new FFG releases!
Sunday I was judging for a Legion Team Battle! 2v2 Tournament!
There was also an X-Wing Epic Tournament going on!
And the Armada Finals! Congrats to JJsJuggernaut on an extremely close finish! Not exactly sure why they had Destiny promos for the Armada winners….
When all was said and done, I had a TON of stuff to bring home and just my carry-on – so I had to break everything down!
I managed to get it all to fit! Yup I put the falcon in a sock for safekeeping!
All in all, it was exhausting. Working for FFG, demoing games nonstop, over loud crowds can really drain you. Next time I need to go as a fan instead of an exhibitor. I’d love to play in the tournaments and have more time to actually shop and participate in the con a bit more!
I also managed to capture a bunch of video as well! Here’s just some of what I caught!
This expansion is a title-only expansion that has multiple new titles for every ship in Star Wars Armada! It is NOT official and NOT tournament legal. This was a project of mine and it’s now available! This expansion is free to everyone! Download the FULL PDF here!
The Nunchuck Expansion is a free expansion for Star Wars Armada. It consists exclusively of titles for existing ships, which will showcase new strategies and new options for ships that only had limited roles. The Nunchuck Expansion is NOT an official product and is not tournament legal. I am designing the expansion and will be releasing them right here on crabbok.com.
Here are a few samples of just a few of the Imperial Titles that will be included.
Some of the details are still subject to change, and I’ll be letting my patrons on patreon vote on some of the names as well! Let me know what you think!
