Armada 2.0 Too! AKA John's Thoughts and Feelings

I want to do a thing, too!

Screaming into a void about how I want a thing? This seemed appropriate

2 year anniversary, where Armada is at, and 2.0 thoughts on ace squadrons

So first and foremost, Cannot Get Your Ship Out turns 2 years old today, January 25th! We've grown a fair bit in the last two years to over a million page views (1,150,000 or thereabout as of the writing of this article) and it's been fun. Thanks to John in particular for agreeing to join this silly project with me and thanks to our readers for sticking with us and recommending us. We're going to be covering a bit of ground in this article, so please bear with me!

The original cannot get your ship out!

DEAD LINK

We tried doing an all-new article for John's big revision on the Small Fighter Coverage article and it created a hyperlinks nightmare, so this is a dead URL now. If you were sent here by a hyperlink on the site, please respond to this article telling me how you got here and I'll go fix it to point it to the right article.

The up-to-date (and original) version of this article can be found here. Thanks!

XI7 Turbolasers: yours is the drill that will pierce the hull points

Let's talk a bit more about one of the most ubiquitous turbolaser upgrades in the game going all the way back to wave one: XI7 Turbolasers.

Wanted for many many crimes against poor VSDs since the game hatched from a stone egg.

John Updates 12/28

Minor notes: I updated the CR90 article with some basic bits about the Ion upgrades, and I updated very barely the Squadrons Encyclopedia 1 article with terminology and such in there.  More to come on that all, of course.  But for now, hey look, updates!

I also hit the MC75 (some Caitken and Shollan improvements and shamelessly stealing JJ's Vassal World Cup MC75 build), and I added in C&S to the AF and the MC30 articles

Fighting Fleets: Tackling Two-Ship!

As I'm sure several people are aware, it's Regionals season.  And so many of you are trekking towards your stores, getting ready to play games and win you some shiny new stuff.  Nebs, candy dice, or even a fancy pants trophy medal thing.

I must have it, no matter WHAT Nathan Coda plans on doing to stop me (jokes 7 people in my local meta will get)!

But if there's one thing that all of our readers should be aware of and what it can do, it's the new hotness that is Imperial 2-ship.  Take a look with me as I do a quick dive into this list so you don't immediately lose to it.

Chicago Worlds guide addendum: Schaumburg

Schaumburg is where Adepticon will be hosted and while it doesn't really compete with Chicago overall when it comes to things to do, it has the benefit of propinquity (which is basically an over-educated way to say "proximity," so hopefully that pointless word of the day helps someone). With that said, one of our friends and core Fair Gamers who lives in the area, Jack Otto (who some of you may know as jottootts), wanted to make people aware of what's available locally. Take it away, Jack!

Chicago Gets Its Ship Out! AKA The Worlds Guide!

So as some people are aware, because FFG Organized Play wrote it on Twitter...

I'm gonna need a training montage!

Chicago is hosting Armada Worlds next March! WHOAAAAAAAAAAAAA!

SSD spoilers hot take

Okay so let's talk about the big pile of SSD spoilers that hit the internet, seemingly from some kind of promotional pamphlet stores got. First of all, there's all the SSDs themselves:

We can see that there are two that can be used in regular 400 point games and two that are too expensive to use in a normal game, which assumes players themselves will be encouraged to play larger games or a format will be made available to facilitate that. Let's zoom in a bit to get a better look:

A Re-Introduction to Squadron Play

There isn't a GOOD way to reintroduce yourself and your writing, but that's what this post is an attempt to be.  As you all know, I've been off-and-on rewriting the Commander articles for the Rebels in a post-wave-7 world, and I said I was going to start hitting the squadron articles, too!

I'm hitttttttttttttttttttt!

Welllll, I looked at them all tonight and they don't need just a few coats of paint and some polish, some of those articles need full rewrites.  Did you guys know that an Imperial squadron ball of Rhymer and like 7 TIE bombers isn't often seen anymore? Oh you DID? Why didn't any of you tell ME?

Anyways, I'm going to be going through a MASSIVE rewrite of that whole thing, which luckily means that I have things to do.  Some of the rewrites are because I'm better able to express myself as opposed to when I had first started blogging, and some of it involves redos of the squadron components (SFC/MFC/LFC), some of it in how to go about fighting squadrons/squadron lists, I have a lot on my plate.

What it amounts to for all of you readers is that it's going to be some time on that before they're all ready and done, comma, but I'm going to be turning them out as quickly as I can.  I'm not taking DOWN any of the articles, as there's still some value in those things, but there will be edits popping up and I'll make those known when I do them.  First up is the Introduction to the whole thing...

Holy Crud John Did Something!

Sorry, been busy working on.... let's call it some other projects.  Oh, and running a marathon in... 8.5 hours.  Huh, I should sleep.

Left foot, right foot, repeat 40,000 times

Anyways, I did what everyone does when prepping for a marathon.  Eat some carbs, take it easy, update the last of the Commander articles.

Garm Bel Iblis
Leia Organa (Commander)

Garm got a bit more updates on the ship sections throughout (nothing super meaningful there, but feel free to reread it as desired) and then a larger bit in the "How Do I Fight Garm" that turned into a brief "How is Garm actually worth using" post before morphing into a discussion of the list I saw at World's and our friend Mike's list down in Champaign.

Leia, I blathered more blathering because I could.  I mean, it's me? I updated the ship section a bit (Hey, Peltas exist! I haven't PLAYED them, but they exist, you know?) and talked more about how NOT to Leia.

This brings me to the end of my commanders section update.  Man, that took forever.  But now I can cruise through a few minor updates (Did you know there's a 4th Fleet Command the Pelta can use? Womp, forgot to add that in) before I hit the squadron articles.  That's right, I've got more to add on squadrons.  Slash Second Editions of all them articles.  Stay tuned, and as Eric said, if you want to see us write something, just let us know!

Tips and tricks: inside turns

This is the first in a series of short articles going over some of the basic things you can do in a game of Armada and, when possible, giving the terminology or at least slang term for them as well. Each article aims to focus on just one small element, so they shouldn't be lengthier treatises (like, say, my "how to use black dice" article) but little bite-sized articles. Many of these topics have been covered briefly in other articles, but having their own dedicated space instead of hiding them in places (like for example I mention inside turning in my Raider article) makes them more visible and easy to find. Anyways, let's get to the point, then:

Objectives update and where we're at on updates

I made some updates to all of the objectives articles (the header article is linked, but links to all of them are there), given some time has passed and my feelings have changed a bit and I've gained more experience too (as have most of us who keep playing, even though I've been playing for years there's always more to learn). In some cases I clarified wording a bit or added more hyperlinks, but in some cases I added (like noting Fighter Ambush enjoys Rogue squadrons, for example). Some highlights:

• Opening Salvo expanded a bit to mention it's helpful against Raddus. Similarly, Most Wanted now mentions how you can't target a ship that's not deployed yet.
• Contested Outpost revised to discuss how it's an awkward fit for squad heavy fleets.
• Raddus mentioned as yet another reason to be scared of using Fleet Ambush.
• Went into a bit more detail on Strategic Squadrons in Capture the VIP. Specifically, it's fine to have one, you don't really need it, but 2+ Strategic squads really want Fire Lanes instead usually.
• Jamming Barrier opinion improved in light of a resurgence of longer-ranged gunline fleets in wave 7. John has been getting some solid use out of it.
• Salvage Run given a solid update. It's a good objective. You don't need Strategic for it at all, but it doesn't hurt.
• Added the paradoxical Sensor Net strategy of first player deploying his tokens in the corners.
• Revised Blockade Run to focus more on ISD style fleets using it to turn the play area into a hallway.
• Station Assault expanded to include its use as an anti-squadron objective.

Lots of smaller changes among everything else too.

Otherwise, you will have likely noticed our article-writing pace has slowed down. Simply put, we've largely caught up at this point and now we're in maintenance mode until the next wave releases. I know there are a few articles I'm still looking to update and John is as well (the squadron articles for sure, the builds need updating as the meta has changed), but we've covered a lot of what we set out to cover. Of course we'll be doing write-ups of events we attend with Regionals starting up and whatnot, so there will be some new content as well when events happen for us.

That said, if there are any articles any of you would like to read that we haven't done, please ask. Worst case we aren't interested in the recommendation, but if there's a subject we missed, we'd be happy to fill in the blanks to the best of our ability.

Breaking one million page views!

Just a quick blog post to announce that we've broken one million total pageviews! Wow! For a blog about plastic spaceships that's just over a year and a half old, I'm really humbled that we've reached that high a number already. Thank you for reading, everybody!

9/10 Updates

Updated the Ackbar article to include the MC75 (yes!), Hammerheads (no!), and lumped the Pelta and Neb B together (maybe one of these but definitely not both!)

I also wish I had finished this update yesterday....

For what should seem like obvious reasons.  Leia and Garm left, then over to fixing the Squadrons Encyclopedia.