We have been putting the smaller scale version of Armada through its paces for some time now, and I thought that everyone may enjoy what we have discovered so far and hopefully give it a try as well. The format does have some limitations, as seen in the three examples below, but the size does allow it to be played virtually anywhere. In fact, it worked surprisingly well when the kids took up the challenge of playing it in the backseat while on a road trip, but I will do my best in this review to resist the temptation of referring to Travel Edition by the colloquial nickname some have given it*.
Wind is not your friend!I am not talking about the optional wind rules for Armada, that I will never play and have successfully avoided reading to this point, but the actual rapid movement of air. For all of the benefits of this smaller format, there is a dramatic tradeoff of stability with the relative sizes of Travel Edition ships. Some people may choose to weight their bases down, but I would be concerned about increased breakage risk with that extra mass and instead just insist on playing with the windows closed to keep any ships from being blown over.
Roll with care, over there!Along the same lines as the above concern, standard Armada dice are 3 times larger dimensionally, and 9 times larger by volume when compared to Travel Edition ships. With that difference it is much more likely for an errant roll to knock a ship out of position if not damage it outright. Damage is the greater issue here as there are much fewer ways to repair a Travel Edition ship... pinning is right out as spars are generally a third of a millimeter or less, and green-stuff patching is going to overwhelm any details on the ship. In fact, apart from a miniscule amount of glue and a healthy supply of prayer, I do not know really any good way to repair a break on one of these ships that, on average, are all smaller than the average die.
Measure twice to be nice!Finally, with few exceptions, Armada is built as a precise game that depends upon good measurements and the necessity of careful ruling is even more important in Travel Edition because of the scale. A divergence of a millimeter or two when measuring range in standard Armada is not ideal, but is a magnitude of order more serious in Travel Edition. Most often, we have found that accidents in measures arise from inadvertent nudging of bases by the rulers or turn templates, and the only way to really fix this issue is by practice at avoiding bumps, multiple games of Jenga are the best training.
Which fleet is most neat?We have only tried out a few of the options to date, but I would definitely recommend the Dwarf fleet to anyone starting out, not just because of their ease of painting, but to the inherent stability of their model silhouettes. All of the traditionally rigged ships are functionally the same as far as painting difficulty goes, so just pick whichever rules fit your playstyle best. All of the rules for Travel Edition are identical to standard Armada, so compatibility with the Companion is inbuilt, build as many Travel Edition fleets as you want because storage is definitely not an issue with these.
With all that said, looking ahead...I tried to organize our local experiences on the state of Armada Travel Edition as it stands now, but I would like to climb into the crow's nest and see if I can spy out what lies at the horizon. Will there be more Travel Edition? I would say yes, contingent upon new Armada content coming out as Travel Edition can essentially be reduced down to just a reformat of the original game. Will Travel Edition make a big splash at events? Define big. Will we see other Travel Editions? I am not sure, Armada was built on the foundations of Black Seas, but I do not see any situation where Warlord Games would bring out a Black Seas Travel Edition even though those hypothetical ships would be much easier to rig!
I hope this focusing in on Armada Travel Edition has encouraged you to try out this expansion (?) and that we will see interest in Travel Edition continue to grow.
*Well, I made it virtually to the end without saying Carmada.
