Star Wars ARMADA : Wave 1 Arrives!
Admirals to Battle Stations! FFG’s ARMADA Wave 1 Ships are hitting the shelves. Here’s what’s ready for your wallet’s attention:
Take it away FFG:
The Fleet Has Arrived
“Comprised of seven different expansion packs, Armada Wave I greatly enriches your fleet-building options. Five different capital ship expansion packs each come with one pre-painted miniature starship with which you can bolster your fleet, along with two different ship cards that allow you to choose how you want it to function in battle.
- Victory-class Star Destroyer Expansion Pack
- CR90 Corellian Corvette Expansion Pack
- Nebulon-B Frigate Expansion Pack
- Assault Frigate Mark II Expansion Pack
- Gladiator-class Star Destroyer Expansion Pack
- Rebel Fighter Squadrons Expansion Pack
- Imperial Fighter Squadrons Expansion Pack
You’ll also find new commanders to place aboard your flagships and a number of other upgrades, including new weapons, crew, and teams.
Meanwhile, the Rebel and Imperial Fighter Squadron Expansion Packs add to the number of X-wing and TIE squadrons that you can field, even as they introduce three new starfighter squadron types each, as well as unique squadrons led by some of the galaxy’s greatest pilots.
Altogether, Armada Wave I marks a significant escalation in the ongoing Galactic Civil War. More ships head to battle, and they’re armed with more weapons, more commanders, officers, and more crew that await your orders.
Deadlier Than Ever
First of all, two new ships introduce new options for both Rebel and Imperial fleets.
The Imperial Navy’s Gladiator-class Star Destroyer is smaller than its Victory-class cousin, but it’s also faster, costs fewer fleet points, and fires nearly as hard. Its arrival allows the Empire to field a smaller, faster, and nimbler fleet that utilizes a larger number of starships, or you can balance your Imperial fleet with a couple Gladiator-class Star Destroyers and a Victory-class Star Destroyer to partner raw firepower with the ability to aggressively pursue a wider array of the game’s possible objectives.
Meanwhile, the Rebel Alliance gains the Assault Frigate Mark II, which can survive much longer in a straight-up shoot-out with an Imperial Star Destroyer than either the Corellian corvette or Nebulon-B frigate. That means the Rebels may be able to fly ships into battle earlier than before, rather than spending their opening rounds trying to maneuver into flanking positions outside the arc of the Victory-class Star Destroyer’s overpowering forward battery armament.
Additionally, Wave I and its expansions introduce a wealth of new upgrade cards that allow you to revise and refine your strategies, or you can simply abandon your old strategies in favor of new strategies that suddenly become possible. Imperial players can use Director Isard and an Intel Officer to translate advance knowledge of their opponent’s commands into battlefield control. Or they can combine Admiral Screed and his unique talents with the effects of an Overload Pulse to exhaust enemy defense tokens at will.
On the other hand, the Rebel Alliance benefits from the leadership of Mon Mothma and Garm Bel Iblis , both of whom encourage tactics that vary considerably from those utilized by the Core Set’s commander, General Dodonna . Perhaps you’ll pass command tokens from ship to ship with the Tantive IV title, or perhaps you’ll focus everything you’ve got in a series of punishing volleys from the Paragon . Perhaps you’ll invest more of your fleet points into starfighter squadrons, drawing upon the power of the B-wing and unique talents of Tycho Celchu to launch strikes that your opponent will never expect.
However, you use its ships and upgrades, Wave I marks a massive increase in the number of ships, upgrades, and possible fleets available for Armada. Accordingly, the release of Wave I also brings an increase in the number of fleet points available to players in a standard tournament game. All standard Armada tournaments now allow fleets of up to 300 points”
These ships should be hitting store shelves now.
~ “Our first catch of the day!”
