by Giled Pallaeon
They say that change is good. They say that grief is a natural part of life. They say that to create first you must destroy. They say that good things must always come to an end. “They” sure are good at saying things nobody asked for. Why do we listen to “them” anyway?
Well, for one, they’re right. For another, they are a useful proxy for saying things we know to be true but that we don’t want to be. For saying things that we need to hear but can’t bring ourselves to say.
They say not to speak ill of the dead. We can argue all day long and into the night about what makes a game dead, but at the end of it, we have come to the end of an era. And in that spirit, I want to talk about the positive of that era, if only to give myself more closure. And maybe with a bit of luck it can help someone else too.
Star Wars: Armada gave me a lot. It gave me amazing friends around the country. It gave me formative experiences. It gave me skills I apply in my workplace. It gave me knowledge about myself. It saved my cat’s life. And it probably gave me the joy and fun I needed to be where I am today, and not somewhere darker. And for all of those things, I am eternally in its debt.
After reading Biggs’ memoriam, I am left wondering how many house cats, and how many personal pets in general are inextricably linked to this game. When my wife and I moved to DC about five years ago, my connections within the Armada community were instrumental in helping us get settled in a new city where we knew nearly no one, and where we had little chance to do so since about nine months after we moved, COVID upended the world in its dramatic way. But this is about how Armada, and more specifically FFG’s packaging, saved my cat’s life.
You see, when we moved to DC, we initially stayed in a three level townhouse. (Sidebar, do what you gotta do but I’m never going to recommend a townhouse willingly.) The entire staircase for our townhouse at one end was open from ceiling to ground floor, and roughly at the highest landing was an abutment too far for a human to reach but within easy jumping distance of a cat. And on the other side of this abutment was the aforementioned clear column of space, straight down to where we set up my (metal) computer desk.
In another timeline, when Nova jumped, missed the abutment, and fell about fifteen feet, she died on impact. Her head would have slammed into an aluminum corner. In this one however, two FFG large bases, one I think for my Chimaera and one for my MC75 were stacked on that corner. Instead she hit those, shredded one on the force of the impact, rolled off, fell the remaining three feet to the ground, and ran off unscathed. To whoever designed that packaging, you saved my cat’s life.
I found Armada in the summer of 2015. I remember this very clearly. I was walking home from my first semester as an intern with GTRI, on my way to the metro since I was staying with my parents that summer. As if we needed any more proof that it was another era, what cued me was an ad on Facebook. Remember when Facebook ads were worth the electrons used to send them? Pepperidge Farm remembers, and so do I.
By the time I made it to the car, I knew everything there was to know (at the time) about the game. Of course, I was long since sold, since the ad was for Wave 2, and the incoming ISD and MC80. By the end of the summer I had a core set, a space Victory, some extra squadrons, and my first miniatures game. And we were off to the races.
A couple years even prior to that (three-ish, maybe four), I was a Boy Scout out in a wilderness survival camp out. And Lord if I remember how, but at some point over the weekend, the conversation turned to the point of games. The adult leader of the trip said something I didn’t understand at the time, but it stuck with me. He said that the point of games, particularly the point of learning the strategy and tactics of games, wasn’t to win games, but so you could learn things you could apply in real life. I didn’t understand it then, Mr. Thompson, but you were right and I understand it now.
Armada taught me how to think in a process oriented fashion. As steel sharpens steel, Armada was practically perfect in its timing to help shape how I am a systems and operational level thinker today. It taught me how to do nested probabilities (in my head for simple ones) and how to apply those probabilities to decision making. It meant that when my office broke out the new Air Force educational war game, I had such an edge over the other analysts that not only could I win handily, I understood why I was successful and how to explain it to someone else.
Armada taught me a lot about myself. It showed me, in a controlled environment, what my mental biases are. Now when I do professional analytic war games, I can more easily assess not just how to win, but when I’m playing “my way” versus the way I should be replicating a more realistic strategy (for Blue or Red). It taught me something I always knew but never liked facing, that I am pretty damn competitive. And it gave me wonderful practice learning how to control my ego, swallow my pride, and lose gracefully. (And how to learn something as I did it.)
As anyone who has read my writing on this game before knows, I am no stranger to waxing poetic about plastic spaceships. But I owe Armada a bit for that too. It’s given me a place to write, to learn how to blend the complex and the mundane, and how to write in a way accessible to as many people as possible. It also taught me how to work with myself writing, how to go with the flow of the words, and how to craft something that may not be what I originally envisioned, but may be the better for it.
I would be remiss if at some point the community that is Star Wars: Armada didn’t come up. For one, it’s why I was able to write a lot of the pieces I did, from the encouragement and the positive feedback each effort generated. But when I say Star Wars: Armada, I don’t just mean the game. There’s something special in this community.
Armada was my first miniatures game, so I’ll never quite judge it truly objectively. There’s so much genius buried in the design that when I look at other games, something always seems to come up short. But beyond the rules, somehow, some way, Arnada attracted a truly unique community experience I’ve never found elsewhere, not even heard of.
I’ve had a wonderful privilege during my nine years with the game to really run the gauntlet of experiences. I’ve been that kitchen table player. I’ve been the scrub. I’ve been the homebrewer (hat tip to you DA and Wes). I’ve been the hardcore tournament player in it to win it. I’ve been the elder statesman running events for others’ benefit. I’ve been the grognard writing overly complex theses on Armada at high theoretical levels. I was a playtester (and that’s all you’ll hear from me on that count). And at no point in any of those places, in any of those positions, did I regret a minute of it.
Armada is and was one of the best communities in gaming, probably ever. I don’t know what did it, and I’m not about sit here and say it was all sunshine and rainbows, because God knows it wasn’t. But we didn’t just endure. We thrived. I’ve been to a wedding because of this game. I’ve traveled across the country for this game. I’ve made friends I know I’ll have for life. Armada brought us together, but as it passes into the night, that doesn’t mean that these bonds we have all made have to go as well.
I’ve been fighting with myself about what I’m going to say here this entire time I’ve been writing. “Armada is dead” has been somewhere between a joke and a rallying cry for almost its entire existence, but it hits a little different now. Is Armada dead? Does it matter? Yes, and no, and yes again.
It is unmistakable at this point that our beloved game has reached a crossroads. Cast what blame you want, we’re here now. I’ve made my peace. Armada the community isn’t dead. Certainly many, not the least of which being Legacy and effort of Ion Radio to keep the game going mean that there will be opportunities to play going forward.
And I intend to keep playing myself, for what that’s worth. I am blessed enough to have a very complete collection and neither the need nor intention to sell. As events pop up, I’m sure I will still break out my ships and my dice and see what a Star Destroyer can really do.
But as I said earlier, we are at the end of an era. We can deny it. We can seek to change it. We can try with all our might to make this next chapter the one we want it to be. And God help us I hope it works. But I still believe I would be remiss to not close the page on this chapter deliberately.
Fair winds and following seas. That’s a traditional sailing farewell. Call me a hopeless romantic, call me an optimist, call me whatever you want, but I still can’t bring myself to wield that finality. Certainly not to this community we all are. I know I will see many of you again, whether on the ground, in the skies, between the stars, or somewhere else entirely. So in that spirit, I shall instead say:
Good luck.
Good hunting.
And Godspeed.
This is GiledPallaeon signing off. I’ll see you when I see you.
