It's Just Business

When the Clone Wars was announced for Armada, it came along with a shift in the games components and rules. Sort of like Armada 1.5. This included some rule changes and card mechanic redesign. A new box would be released containing copies of all the previously released upgrade cards with the upgrade cost, text and mechanic changes. This felt like a good compromise from X-wings more dramatic shift to 2.0. Just a single card box is all you need and at a reasonable price too.

Another change was more physical. All of the games cards were standardized to the same size. This was good because if you like sleeving your cards you only need one type now and there are a lot more options at this size. For storage you also only need one type of container instead of three. For a new player this is much easier. For older players, who already have stuff for the different sizes, its annoying but they can still use what they have so its not too big of a deal.

The change in ship card size is the most inconvenient part, as they become harder to read and some information is moved to the back. Since the box with updated cards only comes with upgrade cards this now means you have two different sized ship cards to store. But again, minor annoyance all in all.

The other physical change was the decision to no longer include command and maneuver dials with each new ship release. Instead, the Separatist and Republic core starter boxes come with a few extra and a dials only box will come out. At the time this seemed like a reasonable choice. For anyone who collects a lot of Armada ships, you’re never going to use all of them in a regular game so you’ll have tons of extra dials. Even if you do a double or triple point game. And extra dials would be available if you needed them. In theory, this should keep the price for future expansions down as they need to include less stuff.

But then the second wave of the Clone Wars were announced. Finally the Venator, a ship long awaited by Armada players, would come to the game. It’s a cool looking ship. A perfect precursor to the Empire’s familiar star destroyers. Maybe worth buying two of for my fleet…wait, what, it’s $65?!?

Yes, that’s right, the latest wave of Armada ships have seen a nearly 30% price increase. Large vessels have traditionally been $50. Even the Chimera version of the Star Destroyer MSRP at $50 and it includes some fighters as well. There have been a few higher priced ones, such as the Onager and Starhawk. But the Onager was only $60 and a weird shape and the Starhawk, at $80 is significantly larger than other ships. The Venator model is physically smaller than Imperial Star Destoyers and the corresponding Separatist ships, also now priced at $65, are smaller still. The also releasing Pelta is $40, $10 more than the previously released Rebel version.

So the decision was made to reduce the components included and increase the price. X-Wing saw a similar price hike when it went to 2.o but at least with those there was a corresponding increase in model quality. X-wing’s now had their wings open and close for example. Also, as they went from $15 to $20, a similar percent increase, they were still at a reasonable overall price. $50 for a single Armada ship was already on the upper edge of reasonable for a lot of people. $65 overshoots that.

For me personally, will this mean I don’t buy Armada ships? Not sure. I definitely won’t be buying two Venators, which I was considering before. I’ll be more tempted to pursue online deals rather than FLGS (though my primary store no longer carries Armada unless you specifically order it so there’s less guilt for me personally). Because when you’re talking about a higher price, a good percent discount means even more. For X-Wing, an online discount of 20% ($16) is only saving you $4. But the same math on a $65 item makes that a savings of $13 which is almost enough to buy a discounted X-wing ship along with the Armada ship. How can FLGS compete with that?

These expansions are still being released under the FFG banner but what does this mean for the transition to Atomic Mass Games? It certainly seems like they are letting FFG take the hit for the price increase and them AMG can release at the higher price without stigma, or even gain goodwill with a slightly lower price. Will X-wing see another corresponding price increase?

Now, this whole pandemic thing has made trouble with overseas production. We all get that. But given the previous plans for cutting components to save money, the sudden shift to AMG from FFG that saw most X-wing and Armada devs lose their jobs, I’m not inclined to cut Asmodee a lot of slack. “It’s just business” is permission for bad behavior. I’d pay more if it meant people kept their jobs or earned more. But firing people and raising prices?