Kings of War: Armada (Mantic Games Fantasy Naval Combat)

[Kelly]

Sneak peeks on Armada coming up next summer from the Mantic Open Day this week:

Official dates are not yet published for this year's Armada releases, but in an update email for the Mantic App today, the title of the next book will be Sea of Dread, set for June.

The tentative date for the next two fleets is late March, and the list builder and rule reference components of Armada are being held back from the companion App until that release.

Some of the sea monsters that will be making up the Trident Realms are halfway down the page on the below link...
https://www.manticgames.com/news/what-fantastic-things-are-in-store-for-the-world-of-pannithor/

[Kelly]

March 20th has been set as the release date for the Trident Realm fleet for Armada, and preorder details are linked to the faction background page at Mantic.
https://www.manticgames.com/news/deep-dive-into-the-lore-armada-trident-realm-of-neritica/

The flyer slot for other fleets has been replaced by “swimmer?” choices of monstrous sea creatures that are still smaller than the other sea monsters that fight surfaced, and are presumably able to maneuver beneath enemy ships with the same ease as other aerial units that can move above unhindered.

[Kelly]

It has been a big week for Armada updates leading up to the 2nd Armada National Championship at Adepticon.  Part of the event includes bundle discounts from 25% and up on starters or faction collections from the Mantic booth that are far past the 20% discount for full factions from the website currently.
https://www.manticgames.com/news/blood-in-the-water-2nd-annual-adepticon-armada-tournament/

There are also more articles on design, rule walkthroughs, and a short story as well that are all cross linked through each other with more to come up until the big week.
https://www.manticgames.com/news/deep-water-armada-short-story-part-one/
https://www.manticgames.com/news/deep-water-armada-short-story-part-two/

[Ruckdog]

Neat! Glad to see there is so much support for the game. I really wish I could have made it to Adepticon this year.

[Kelly]

The Armada portion of the Mantic companion app is now available, it contains rules, a list builder, and tournament registry aid on the free version.
https://www.manticgames.com/news/time-to-surf-the-digital-seas-armada-hits-the-mantic-companion/

This version of the free rules is indexed and formatted for browser viewing with page annotations back to the two main books and will probably replace the currently cut down pdf version of rules available now.  Almost all of the rules are included in the free version, but advanced rules and scenarios all are blocked out with stars and are not visible until the version is upgraded.  The one notable omission is the optional magic rules.

>>With a subscription all of the advanced rules are available with related page links, and the scenarios are all described with full color diagrams exactly like the physical books.

The list builder allows quick construction with drop down menus, and as far as I can tell has accurate pointing and special rule inclusions.  Just like before, the special rules are all marked in the builder, but without descriptions on the free version.  The one omission in the builder is glaring though, no Kingdom of Men ships are included from the standalone fleet with no ships that was designed for quick porting over from historical.

>>With a subscription the advanced rules and fleet special rules appear under the list as upgrades are added onto ships and a linked summary is available for all possible choices.  There is also the option to track activations, fire positions, and ship speed on screen while playing.

The tournament aid allows quick reference over to upcoming events with format descriptions, links, and results pages to be filled in after each event.  At the moment, the only sort function is by country, but it looks to be easily expandable to other searchable methods.  For organizers, there is a walkthrough summary of event calendar creation, list maintenance, and result entry.

Overall, this seems to be great implementation of Armada into an all purpose application, and the best part is any Mantic user with two other companion game system subscriptions will automatically receive Armada access as well as part of their tiered structure for more visibility.

[Kelly]

Mantic has partnered with Warhall for an online Unity version of Armada.
https://www.manticgames.com/news/play-armada-for-free-anytime-anywhere-with-anyone/

Models are loaded for the first few released fleets, except for Kingdoms of Men again, and all of the measurement tools you would need are built into the simulator including turning pivots, and most impressively, a wind initiative tracker that can be drawn progressively across the board when determining activation order.

Integration with the Mantic list builder is also well done, and importing a list from the app populates the appropriate ships from your fleet next to your deployment zone.  The first scenarios are also loaded with appropriate terrain, and they resize along with the table which is also user defined, but the zoom on the inbuilt camera limits the largest dimension to five feet.

[Kelly]

More information is out for this summer's expansion to Armada, Seas of Dread...
https://www.manticgames.com/news/ghosts-and-pirates-new-ways-to-play-armada-seas-of-dread-supplement/

...besides the new terrain pieces that were mentioned in earlier previews, two new ways to construct fleets will be included, ghost ships and pirate ships, that will allow variants of play to be built around existing collections.

Also announced are resin upgrade packs on the way...
https://www.manticgames.com/news/friday-pre-orders-coming-home-to-port/

...with new terrain from Seas of Dread, with fortifications from Seas Aflame, and sea monsters as well.  Each of these look to be boxed sets only, no individual purchases so far.

[Ruckdog]

Those are looking really great!

BTW, it looks like Mantic has made the game available to play virtually!

https://www.manticgames.com/news/mantic-joins-forces-with-warhall-the-wargaming-simulator/

@Kelly, want to get a game in sometime?

[Kelly]

This afternoon Mantic opened a new service called the Vault to offer 3D printing files from older resin pieces.  Of Armada interest are the first five Basilean and Orc ships from the starter box and boosters for each fleet… the stls are unsupported so they do need some work to adapt them into one’s individual printer but the files are very high definition, and probably are the exact ones from Mantic’s resin production masters...
https://www.manticgames.com/news/mantic-vault-faqs/

Mantic is the first major publisher that I am aware of that is embracing stls to this extent, but they have stated that hard plastic production is continuing separately, and the only Vault releases will be from resin originals post-three years or add-on pieces, so this could be a reasonable hybrid business model.

[Kelly]

The XL size ships and flyer packs for Basileans and Orcs were both released on the Mantic Vault this week, so both of the two first factions are now fully supported via stl files.  Also released were the majority of the Dwarf ships with the exception of their flyer pack and smallest ship.  Beyond those new Armada ships, there are also options for supported files on each, and my first supported ship was this Dwarf Fury…


…I was pleasantly surprised by their supporting, and had no problems detaching them after the print, which is a big difference between my own Isambard Kingdom Brunel approach to adding supports.  I have been against presupported stls but these were very well designed, and I did not see any issues with print artifacts.

The file sizes on these new releases are still massive to the point of being unmodifiable, but if the others continue to be easily printable that is a small price to pay.

[Kelly]

The one omission in the builder is glaring though, no Kingdom of Men ships are included from the standalone fleet with no ships that was designed for quick porting over from historical.

New updates are effective today for the online Mantic Companion app, with Kingdoms of Men (!) added into the list builder, along with the two new fleet options introduced by Seas of Dread, the Ghost and Pirate varieties, along with neutral ships available for every fleet.

Even more exciting than the fleet additions is that the list export function now allows ship cards to be printed, and not only prints of the base stats, but the pdf incorporates the adjustments to each ship from the options selected during building.  Personally, this will save a lot of copy and pasting on my side, as I have to put those numbers onto cards to remember them.

[Kelly]

A new direction for Armada is out with the release of a Frontier project on MyMiniFactory through next month, covering pdfs of the base game and stls of the original two fleets, Basilea and Orcs.  There is nothing much new on the project that has not already been released through the Mantic Vault, so this is mainly a marketing campaign to introduce Armada to existing users of the MyMiniFactory site, and bring them into the game.
https://www.myminifactory.com/frontier/armada-the-game-of-naval-battles-2156