So I guess it had to come to this.
Armada.
Bare Bones.
The problem of illogical and over powered upgrades seems less of a game breaker in this space and there seems to be a concerted effort to keep it that way (1.5 upgrades, often employed campaign limits etc), but I am still tempted to take out the “big one”, Titles.
Titles make and/or break many of the ships in the game, but do they really do any harm. Hammerhead Corvettes for example are not considered that useful, unless you have a a few and a Title and some Titles seem stapled on to some ships (Gladiator=Devastator, Nebulon=Yavaris etc), but overall, most upgrades in Armada including Titles, seem well proportioned and are often replaceable with something similar. They also do not seem to define all the ships, many are fine as they are in one of their offered forms.
Upgrades are simply not as “twitchy” as they can be in the smaller scale game.
Possibly the perfect balancer is on the way. The Rebellion in the Rim campaign pack has some strict limits. Limits that seem to put the game in the right place for me.
Small 200 point fleets on 3x3 mats (optional), a single upgrade per ship and no squadron limit, but a limit on Aces per fleet.
Perfecto!
Added to these highly desired restrictions is a campaign feel that gives a lot of relevance to your games.
My collection, small as it is, has just the right feel for these small battle games.
The Empire has allocated;
1 Imperial class Star Destroyer to tower over all others, rueing it’s exile to the fringe of civilisation, which it intends to “pay forward”.
1 Onager, likely used in early iteration Testbed form, cruising the Rim testing out it’s usefulness on the unsuspecting. It’s upgrade points will be used promoting it to full Star Destroyer.
1 Victory class Star Destroyer, relegated to edge of the Empire peace keeping where it becomes a relatively big fish.
2 Gladiators, each capable of anchoring a small fleet or supporting a big gun. One will be the flag for my Hunter fleet, the other will support the Victory.
2 Gozanti flotillas. These will add much needed fighter control and support to the Onager and Hunters.
2 Decimators.
2 Lambdas.
4 Villains
24 Squadrons.
The Rebels have cobbled together;
1 Pelta as fleet command and fighter support.
1 Assault Frigate as the “big gun” of the fleet, used too extricate the hopelessly engaged. Roughly equal to the Victory class, it’s Whale like presence is reassuring.
1 MC-30 angry little attack fish. The finisher and basically the opposite of the Assault Frigate.
2 Nebulon-B’s for support and sniping.
2 CR-90’s. You’ve gotta have your icons zipping around causing problems!
2 Hammerheads, split between brawler and sniper duties.
3 GR-75 Transport flotillas to get from here to there and control those fighters.
6 Rogues. Powerful in small fleets, these will fill in each fleet’s role perfectly.
16 mixed Squadrons.
Points wise, with campaign limitations taken into account, they make up roughly 4x 200 point fleets per side, with a distinct feel to each.
The Empire has the Enforcer (VSD), Dominator (ISD), Destroyer (OSD) and Hunter fleets (2x GSD), the Rebels have the Striker (MC-30/CR-90/HH), Defender (Pelta/Neb), Raider (Neb/CR-90) and Marauder (AF2/HH) based fleets.
Enough for a solid fleet, but possibly not enough room for those awesome squadrons (not painted yet).
Funny thing about Armada;
Many are put off by it’s high entry cost, but I have reached gaming completion within a month*, while X Wing has cost 10x as much over a much longer time. Sure I may add some more ships (Raider?), but nothing that will break the bank. With relatively little effort, I have most of the Pilots I like, most of the ships they flew, almost 2000 pts of ships in one period, 1200 in another, 2 campaign packs and a card pack coming that covers every upgrade.
Maybe if TFA era ships appear (I hope), things will get ugly, but still, I spent almost as much on the three new squadron packs for X Wing as I did on my entire Clone Wars fleet.
* with excess as the Clone Wars fleet, purchased rationally, but was then overtaken has been side lined.