Star Wars Armada - Ship Review: The Victory Star Destroyer

As I continue my look at ships and how they fit into Armada in the current wave 2 world, I decided to go chronologically. The Victory Star Destroyer was initially the beast of the core set, and the bane of many Rebels who hadn't yet learned how to out maneuver the monster. In Wave 2, the ship has largely been left by the way side for it's big brother the Imperial Star Destroyer. But is it still viable? Is there still room in your fleet for the aging capital ship?

I think the short answer is "yes", but the ship is not a no-brainer like it was in the Wave 1 days. On paper, the Victory Star Destroyer (VSD) is great! 8 hull, 3 shields on the front and sides with 2 redirects and a brace. It can take hits with the best of them. It's front arc is massive (even wider than an ISD), and it chucks a solid amount of dice. The cheaper variant (The Victory I) sports 3 red 3 black out of the front, and 2 red, 1 back out of the side. For 73 points, that's a lot of damage! You pay 13 points to upgrade to the Victory II, which swaps the black dice with blues. That extra reach is nice, but at 85 points the ROI for expected damage on both Victory variants is actually quite low.

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Star Wars Armada - Steve's Imperial Fleet

By Steven MacLauchlan

Just another quick post to document my Imperial fleet for Star Wars Armada. Naturally, this fleet is far less colorful, and only one capital ship has seen any appreciable paint added! I have, however, added windows to all of the capital ships, which only show up so well in these pictures.

The former flagship of the fleet- an againg Victory Star Destroyer, and one of the last capital ships to be granted permission to paint any flashing.

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Star Wars Armada - Stats Analysis: Vader vs Screed

Wave 1 gave the Imperial Fleet one of the most popular commanders in the game: Admiral Screed. Wave 2 brings the Imperial Fleet one of the most iconic commanders in Star Wars: Lord Vader. But the debate over "who's better" has been going on ever since Vader's ability text was revealed.

Today, we're going to throw some math at the debate and see what sticks. It's:

VADER vs SCREED

MATH DEBATE

(the most exciting of all debate formats)

First, let's start with the card text.

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Star Wars X-Wing - I Have You Now!! (X-Wing 'Imperial Raider' a Closer Look)

By Matt MacKenzie

Even though the majority of articles I write for you guys here visiting WWPD are Flames of War or hobby related, it's nice to have other gaming interests to discuss. Although I am not into 'Star Wars Armada', one of Fantasy Flight's other miniature games, I do play X-Wing. Green Squadron I admit, has peaked my interest and has turned my gaming life upside down! I've got Star Wars tokens, models and even LEGO from one end of the house to the other! In this case, we are going to take a look at one of the largest miniatures (I use that term loosely) in the X-Wing Miniatures game.

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Star Wars Armada - Painting TIE Fighters Tutorial

As with my X-Wing Painting Tutorial, I wanted to keep the workload to a minimum when it came to dressing up the TIEs. Initially, I only painted the outer solar panels, but that just would not to! The iconic frames forming the segmented hexagonal solar panels just have to be there for a TIE to be a TIE. So bear with me! This will be a bit more involved than the X-Wings, but the end result is so worth it!

The Tools!

Thankfully, not much is really needed to knock these guys out! I went with el cheapo paints from a local hobby store, though Vallejo or anything else would be fine. I did not even bother priming the fighters (though I did hit them with a matte varnish at the end to protect the paint). The bottle in the top left is the best wash I've ever used. It's a product called Magic Mudd by CGR painters.

STEP ONE

To get things started I Simply paint small green dots on the weapons. While a bit exaggerated, I think it gives the right effect.

STEP TWO

Then I flip the fighter over and paint two red dots for the engines. Dead easy- both of these steps take seconds!

STEP THREE

Next I paint the circular ionization reactor black. You might be able to skip that with a heavy wash of the body (which we'll get to), but in my tests it was easy and paid off to give it additional depth.

STEP FOUR

Here comes the tedium. Now I block paint the 6 individual panels that comprise the solar array wing. Honestly, I'm a bit sloppy here, as it just won't be noticeable from 4 feet away in the heat of battle! This takes a while. Don't let the math scare you, but at 2 cores each with 18 TIEs... that's 36 TIE fighters each with 12 individual panels.... that's 432 individual little panels. Don't let that scare you, just put on The Clone Wars on Netflix and rock and roll!

STEP FIVE

Now you want to paint all of the non-textured inside areas of the solar arrays black. I used my medium brush for this.

STEP SIX

Next I used the medium grey to paint the 6 internal struts. You COULD skip this step, but honestly- it's not very difficult. Dip the brush, paint 2 lines, repeat many times.

STEP SEVEN

Finally, I hit the internal body with a wash using the Magic Mudd. While that is drying I clean up any solar array edges with the medium grey. Last, I hit the cockpit with a second wash just to really darken it up.

And that's it! The end result is pretty dope!

Want to join the conversation? Please sound off in the comments below, or let us know on our forum!

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Star Wars X-Wing - Spoiler Alert: X-Wing Slave 1

I recently won my local X-Wing Kessel Run Tournament.  In the final round of play my opponent and I built forces using the ships from the Wave Two X-Wing Expansion.  As a loyal supporter of the Empror I felt that it was only right for me to play the Imperial force.  So I got to field field Slave 1 and two TIE interceptors.  It was a close, hard fought fight, but I managed to pull off the win.  The top four players got to take new ships home as prizes and since Slave 1 helped me secure victory, and since I have no love for those Rebel Scum, I took it home.

The expansion forces mixing it up.

In the final moment of the game I took advantage of Slave 1's ability to shoot to its rear arc to knock out the final A-Wing.

Since Wave Two is not due in shops for a few more months, I thought I let everyone share in my victory by spoiling the contents of the Slave 1 expansion.

The Model

I still cannot believe how well painted these models are.  Check out all the detail. I have absolutely no complaints about this model.

New Cards
This missile looks awesome, my question is is the damage automatic or do the other ships get a chance to save?  I think they are just damaged.

I used this with awesome success during the tournament.  It was awesome when shooting at longer ranges, just remember only primary weapons can shoot to the rear, not the secondary weapons.

Drop one of these on a ship that has already moved and game over.

Another awesome upgrade.  My question for this card is if I am hit by an attack does it go away before my save roll?  If I save all the hits does it go away?  If I take no damage, but lose shields does it go away?  I think I may have played this wrong in the tournament and must have answers.

This is awesome against A-Wings

There are so many cool named pilots that could benefit from an increased pilot skill.

When you got to get the kill this will make sure it happens.

Giving Slave 1 even more firepower

Oh the possibilities.

Making long range attacks nasty again.

You have got to see the template for this.

Same as the Y-Wing, except it isn't turreted (no 360* fire)

Taking maneuverability to the next level.

Sweet Sassy

Not bad for a basic pilot.

This will come in handy

Kaboom Rules

These are the tokens for the bombs and mines

Not the most agile, but trust me, you don't need to be

Well there it is all the stuff included inside Slave 1.  I am not able to spoil the other ships at this time, but trust me, they are just as awesome as Slave 1.

If you have any thoughts on Slave 1, it components or have thoughts on any of the questions I posed feel free to discuss them on the WWPD forum.

“Craig Baxter is the Director of the WWPD Northern Research center in Anchorage, AK. When he’s not contributing to WWPD.net he is busy blogging, painting, modeling and rolling dice. You can find more of his work and articles at frozengamerak.blogspot.com.”

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