When I got into Armada, it was, I felt, for two good reasons (maybe justifications is closer, but bare with me).

First, it allowed me to enter the “Prequel” Star Wars story stream in a cheaper and more comprehensive fashion than through X Wing (I felt at the time).

Secondly, it allowed a “contained” route into Armada, offering a new game and style of play but a limited upgrade path (again, at the time).

Both good, sensible reasons. A sound plan.

Logic rules.

Of course I know me, but I forget what I know about me.

I often manage that it seems.

Armada grew into a more “comprehensive” build, now boasting (ah, he boasts, the sad fool!) two almost complete and well balanced Imperial and Rebel fleets as well as two (much smaller now) Separatist and Republic ones.

Here is the rub.

Asmodee have unofficially scrapped future Armada releases with quite a lot still missing from the prequel period and no mention of TFA period ships, so even if I wanted to continue my prequel fleets, there is no more variety I can add (2 more starters maybe for depth?). On one hand going into the main period now makes more sense, but………

If I had actually just bought the prequel X Wing fleets, I would be done by now and at half the cost and have the ships that will never now come to Armada.

Lesson to be learned here and one I often preach, is to aim for where you are going to go and go there only. Go straight, do not take a circuitous route, because you will only end up diluting the process, spending more (time/money) and end up there anyway.

Three times this has cost me big time;

1. Buying Old School Tactical and several games from the Lock N Load Tactical series instead of Heroes of Normandie, which I now have a full collection of. It took longer and cost more and LnL and OST fell away in the mean time as it was too large a commitment on top of so many other choices. I did also dabble in Combat Commander, which I will keep, but LnL and OST it turned out, were a wonderful waste of resources for me.

2. Buying Star Trek Attack Wing instead of X Wing, then going into X Wing anyway during the 1e>2e transition period. This doubly hurt, because I actually prefer 1e, but largely missed that boat as well. Attack Wing is fine, but not the same intensity as X Wing (and the models are not even in the same galaxy). I also have to remember that I have a lot of ADB stuff that covers 4 (!) different Star Trek games at once. X Wing 1e, with early movie fleets only would have done.

3. Buying into Armada prequel fleets to avoid prequel X Wing, then getting comprehensive fleets anyway, then regretting (with Asmodee’s current direction) going into the prequels at all. Armada main period fleets or no Armada and instead Prequel X Wing, both would have worked and cost considerably less.

Hindsight is not often a friend, but lessons can be learned. Main one is to call enough for now. I have more than I will ever play (Full collections of Sails of Glory, Wings of Glory WW1&2 and a huge Fed Commander list also), so now it is time to finish things and play more, not continue to collect.

As for blogging, there is much to explore and share.

My main aim is to finish my WW2 20mm rules that have been an on-again off-again project for many years now.