Armada: The King is dead, long live the King

23rd November 2024

Rosco

5 min

Ok so, let’s just say you’ve only just recently discovered Star Wars Armada. Whether it was through a mate, spotted it in a shop or garage sale, read about it in online content, etc., you saw this game and thought that you’d finally found a way to jump in and enjoy the epic space battles of Star Wars right on your kitchen table! …only to then immediately also discover that, after almost 10 years, it is completely out of print, there’s bugger-all stock in shops or online aaaand the game studio that owns it (and X-Wing) has officially canned it with final support ending completely after the last Grand Tournament in around May 2025 with no chance of any reprints. Great.

Ah welp. All is lost. No point trying to get into it now, right…?

Wrong.

Here’s why and how you can still join the Fleet:

The Armada player base remains strong, welcoming and supportive. Despite the distinct lack of any major new content drops over the past 3-4 years (only two tiny print-and-play expansions called ‘Rapid Reinforcements’), the existing content from initial game release through to the arrival of the Clone Wars factions in 2021 has seen the community continue to thrive and enjoy the game. Even with the latest announcements, new players are still arriving on the scene and, for the most part, the community is still coming together to support newcomers (and returners). We may not have the numbers that we used to back in the hey-day of SW mini gaming, but in a virtually flooded miniature wargaming market, a great many of us are still here and enjoying playing Armada at tabletop conventions, in game shops and at home on the kitchen table. The bottom line is: Just ask and any of us will bend over backwards to help you get set up for Armada!

There is a very active core Armada community supporting organised play online and in person. Even now, there is still a large number of organised play events and tournaments that are being planned abd held around the world virtually, at major cons and in LFGS. This is in addition to the Grand Tournament series that are, sadly, the last to be supported by AMG, with the last one completing in around May 2025. Granted, these events are centred in a number of key cites and regions in the US, Canada, Europe, Australia and elsewhere, with the flagship event being the World Championship that is typically held annually at AdeptiCon in the US. In 2025, this will be in Milwaukee, WI (previously in Chicago, IL). All of these events, casual or compeitive, are generally promoted on, monitored by and even ran using the various online Armada social media communities on Discord and Facebook (see Links). To be honest, it’s worth it to go to any of these large events just for the community and atmosphere!

You can still get ships, squadrons and game components! Believe it or not, at the time of publishing this, there’s still small pockets of new in box stock out there - some even at a decent price - but after 10 years, there is A LOT of Armada gear out there in the wild on Facebook marketplace, eBay, Reddit and dusty corners of one of the many FLGS around the world. Yeah, there’s some people out there that are taking advantage of the sudden demand to make a buck, good for them, but you don’t need to ‘pay through the nose’ to get a player’s set of at least one faction for Armada. So far, the best place I’ve seen to pick up full collections is either placing a wanted post on Reddit (r/FFGtrade), keeping an eye on your local Facebook marketplace and simply asking around at your local game shops or groups. You’d be surprised at what bargains and/or trades you’ll find doing that.

PSA: And if you’re on the other side of this (i.e. too much Armada stuff or have retired from the game) - please do feel free to offload and/or downsize your unwanted collection or ships onto someone who is very keen to get into the game and grow their own fleets!

3D and cardboard printers for ships and components are also available. Ships, squadrons, cardboard and other components can also all be found from a plethora of 3D and cardboard printing services that are found on Etsy and Armada related social media. Following AMG’s announcement, this accelerated significantly, with some very smart and motivated people quickly finding ways to make more of these items available for players to order online - including ship and squadron types not currently officially available in Armada. These vendors are great for ship/squadron minis, cardboard base tokens, plastic stands, ship manoeuvre tools and so on that are necessary to physically play the game. Did I mention that the community is awesome? To find them, a cursory search on Etsy for Star Wars Armada or asking a couple of questions on Reddit/Discord/Facebook should provide a great starting point while we continue to collate our links page here.

Third party gear and prize support is top-notch! Between Etsy and chatting to players in the Discords, there’s quite a few passionate players who have created additional items that both look great and improve the game experience overall. In particular, Admiral Tater’s Ship Shop on Etsy is a gold mine of acrylic goodness for all your Armada needs - whether that be templates for casual play, full tournament kits or high quality prize support - he has you covered. He is just one of many that continue to contribute to the Armada community with great content and personality. The AMG prize support is still ongoing until the end of this season, so there’ll be some other gear kicking around as well, such as foil cards, pretty dice and range templates.

You don’t even need any physical game components at all, if you play virtually. You just need a suitable PC or Laptop, download Vassal and/or TableTop Simulator (TTS) and the relevant mods for Armada, then you’re off! There’s great tutorials on YouTube (Green Knight for Vassal & Fly Casual for TTS) for both systems and setting up a game via Discord is easy as well. You could even play hot-seat as well, if you want. Brilliant.

In additional to the large-scale competitive play tournaments, there’s also a regular annual online tournament circuit with players from all around the world. These range from high-level competition to fun casual tournaments that use different and entertaining rulesets that make it so much more interesting or thematic…or just silly. Either way, they’re all great fun and incredibly well-run.

The Future of Armada: Armada Ruleset Collective (ARC) and Armada Legacy. As the twin suns set on AMG’s support to Armada, these two community groups have been working in the background and preparing to take stewardship of the game moving forward. Armada Legacy has been around for some time already, with it’s beginnings in home brew content and other game balancing trials, whereas ARC has been recently established in answer to the AMG announcement this year. That’s all i’ll say on those two for now though, except that there is still hope, and rebellions are built on hope… ugh, nevermind. Look, what I’m trying to say is that there’s a lot of passionate players who want to see this game continue and these two groups will be among those at the vanguard to make sure of that.

Alright then. Feel better now? I reckon I’ll have more to say on this in the future - probably after I come back from Worlds - but for now, jump in and we’ll get a game in soon. I need another wee dram.

Cheers,

- Rosco