Armada: + pros: the most immersive Star Wars game I've played (to be fair, I'm not an RPG person though); great sense of an epic/cinematic scale; great rule set; well-balanced; great tactical decisions - cons: set-up time can be long (if players have not made fleet list in advance); many upgrade cards are only found in particular expansions
X-Wing: + pros: the "2.0 version" has pretty good balance; good sense of scale (you get that individual pilot feel); widespread play communities; simultaneous play; great initiative system; possibility of co-op and solo play with "Heroes of the Aturi Cluster" campaign (fan-made campaign); price of entry is lower - cons: may take several tries to get the "feel" of flying and hitting a moving target (small con, and one you can certainly overcome)
Armada is among my very favorites. I have admittedly not played X-Wing to the same extent, though I enjoy it, too. Your comparison of Armada to W@S and X-Wing to AAAF is fair for scale (just know that both Star Wars games have a fair bit more depth of rule sets).
I'd be curious to know what you end up going with!
PS- the CannotGetYourShipOut blog is a great (and hilarious) one for all things Armada
Yep! My brother and I definitely had sprawling fleets spanning the living room floor in years past. I still use some for demonstrations in my military history class (when teaching age of sail) - my after-school board game club enjoys them from time to time, too.
Lots of fun to be had with entry-level pieces (though certainly has the addictive potential of all collectible games). Glad to see you're enjoying them, attackercat!
Sounds good - I'd gladly share templates or complete cards (or even make complete cards for you if you'd like to send the stats you'd like on them).
Now for my embarrassingly naive question - how do I go about uploading things here? I haven't uploaded things since the site switched over to the new format a few years back.
I have made tons of custom cards. My card layout is a bit different than original AAAF (title and photo style), but stats and text are similar. I could gladly share some if you’re interested.