Setting Sail

If you are a fan of Mantic Games and have been paying attention, then you know that their brand new game Armada is now available! (I might have mentioned it once or twice before :-) ).  They were so overwhelmed with pre-orders that the 2 player starter set has completely sold out (a second print is in process and should be available by February at the latest (they hope January, but have to play it safe anymore).  Not only has it sold out, but it is taking them well over two weeks just to ship out all the orders.  Everyone in the company (ok, maybe not the two guys in the US, but everyone local in the UK) has been working on casting, packing and shipping to get this massive new release out.

I'm one of the unfortunate few that rolled a one for delivery, so my pre-order is one of the last to ship (as I write this it still hasn't shipped but they expect to finish all orders this next week, just in time to start shipping the new goblins!)  However, I did happen to get my hands on a few things to show them off.

First off is the 2 player starter set (and even though Mantic is sold out - check with your FLGS as they may still have a copy, and if not then there are several mail order places that do).

Inside the box are a bunch of bubble wrap bags, a set of dice, a set of tokens, a rule book, Basilean and Orc upgrade tokens, cards for the ships included in the set, and a 3' x 4" paper play mat.

You can check out the dice, tokens, rule book and two of the ships (the Gur Panther and Blood Runner) in my previous blog.

The box is full and well packed.  Unfortunately.  With all the bags, I would expect each to contains the parts for a ship.

Unfortunately this is not the case.  They are grouped by faction (i.e. the basilean pieces are separate from the orc pieces), but one bag contains ships, another sails, another other pieces etc.  As I mentioned in my previous blog, each of the resin sprues is stamped with a number to identify which ship it belongs to, and this is very necessary as all the parts are mixed up.

One issue that can arise is if some parts have come off the sprues in transit (as did one of my orc masts).  If you would have the unfortunate luck to have two parts (like orc masts) come off, it could be very difficult to tell what ship each belonged to (or if you weren't paying attention and clipped them off without paying attention).

Also I have had several people ask if they are ever going to sell individual ships separately (instead of only in box sets).  As people begin to build fleets I can seem them wanting this more (i.e. I need another Boomboat, but don't want to have to buy a full booster or 2 player starter to get just the one ship).  I do hope these become available in the future, even if it is a web-exclusive.

So what about the ships?

I took pictures of all the parts/sprues before I began putting them together, but I am painting the sails/masts and ships separately - something I HIGHLY recommend as it makes the process MUCH easier (though it takes a little longer to have a fully assembled ship to show off).

First is the Orc BoomBoat.  This is a small single mast support ship that packs a bit of a punch with Indirect weapons fore and aft, and three close quarter guns on the sides.

There are two hammerfists in the box as well.  This is a medium main ship, as I would expect them to be the most common in people's fleets.  It has two masts and the eponymous hammerfists.

The other ship is a BloodRunner - as I showed in my previous blog (and we all know how precious bits are on the internet, so I don't want to waste any repeating myself again and again).

Ok, then there are the Basilean ships.  You get a Gur Panther (again, in my previous blog), and then two Elohi.  These are the medium two mast main battle ships.

The final ship is a small single mast support ship, the Gun Brig

During my demo, I opened a Basilean booster fleet box to show off a couple of the ships.  This contains an Elohi, a Gur Panther, and two Sloop Squadrons.

I took some pictures of the individual bags to illustrate what I meant when I talked about how they were packaged above.  The booster fleet has three bags in it.  One with smaller sails and bowsprit / figureheads, a second with the ships, and a third with the sails.

The Sloop Squadrons are appropriately tiny, including a little individual cannon to glue to the deck.  You will have to check the picture when assembling the two sails.  There are two tiny indents in the hull for corners of the triangular sail, and a third at the top of the mast.

Well, that just leaves one more Basilean ship (well two more, but the XL Dictator class ship doesn't come out until next year).

The main ship comes in three pieces

The bow and the aft are separate

Then there are two sprues of sails.

I will put up some painted and assembled (since I won't have them assembled until they are painted) pictures as soon as I can get them done.  I hope to have pictures of the rest of the orc ships next week as well.

Because it is all fun and games . . .