Armada – your* questions answered!

By now you should have seen the intensely exciting announcement about our new game Armada. We imagine you’ve probably already starting splashing yourself with sea water, drinking grog and singing sea shanties to make sure you’re prepared to engage in some epic naval warfare. Just in case you missed it, you can watch the announcement video below. Go on, we’ll wait…

Good to have you back. Even after Ronnie’s excitable video, it’s likely you may have a few more questions, so we’re going to try and answer them all RIGHT NOW!

WHEN WILL PRE-ORDERS BE AVAILABLE? I NEED THIS IN MY LIFE.

The official release date for Armada is November 21st, but gaming stores have all the info they need to start putting up pre-orders from today. We’ll be launching pre-orders on the Mantic website this Friday.

WHAT PRODUCTS ARE AVAILABLE IN THE LAUNCH PERIOD? SEE ABOVE ABOUT NEEDING IT IN MY LIFE.

Good question! At launch we’re focusing on the two-player starter set – featuring the holier-than-thou Basileans and the marauding orcs. The two-player set is a great way to get into the game and features everything you need to start playing.

We’ll have some special bundles on the website to get the two-player starter set and some additional boats – just in case you want to dive straight in at the deep end. Along with the starter set, you can buy fleet starters and fleet boosters for the Basileans and orcs – just in case you want to pick and choose your ships.

You can upgrade your purchases with some super sweet accessories, like the deluxe 4x4 gaming mat, acrylic ship bases, acrylic template set and an additional set of dice.

After launching with the orcs and Basileans and giving everyone the chance to get to grips with the rules in the two-player set, we’ll be quickly expanding the fleet choices with the dwarfs and Empire of Dust.

We'll also be launching with a Armada-inspired novel! Winged Hussar Publishing will be releasing Pious by Mark Barber (author of the excellent Steps to Deliverance). We're really excited about the book launch because it helps bring the furious battles of Armada to life.

WHAT’S IN THE RULEBOOK?

Inside the rulebook you’ll find all the rules required to play the game, 10 action-packed scenarios, rules for upgrading ships (with magic items, improved equipment or legendary captains) and advanced rules for weather effects. We’ll be going into more detail about all the rules over the next few weeks. The rulebook also comes with card token sheets!

All the stats for the ships are included as cards in the fleet starters and boosters.

HOW LONG DOES A GAME LAST AND HOW MANY BOATS DO I NEED? OBVIOUSLY I NEED THEM ALL!

A typical fleet size is between six and nine ships, with a play time of around 90 to 120 minutes (similar to Kings of War). The great thing about having a small fleet is that you’ll be playing in no time – it’s similar to playing a skirmish game but with boats.

I’VE SEEN YOU MENTION THE BLACK SEAS RULES? WHAT ARE THEY?

We’ve based Armada on the best-selling Black Seas ruleset by our pals over Warlord Games. Matt Gilbert – creator of Vanguard – then went over the rules to give them a fantasy makeover, as well as streamlining certain elements. The result is a game that players of Black Seas will be familiar with but given an exciting fantasy twist.

WHAT SCALE ARE THE BOATS?

We wanted to make sure the boats were packed with great details and character – plus because they’re made in resin, we can ensure really crisp sculpts. As a result, the boats are very loosely the same size as Black Seas but a little more heroic. We’ve used the same size categories as Black Seas, however. You can see how they size up against a typical Kings of War figure below.

We think they’re probably the most burning questions for now. If you’ve got anything else to ask, make sure you head to social media and we’ll do our best to answer your question. Now, where did we put that grog?!

* well, questions we imagine you might have