Is it me or did we all just agree on the same thing on this thread?

That has to be a record for something.

Saves time on maintince too! Plenty of guns, light weight, short range, and inexpensive. Perfect for a galactic empire.

_{^{Just like our women.}}

I think we did all more or less agree, in fact. This must change in order to respect forum traditions everywhere. Here we go...

You are all wrong. I am right. You are idiots for not agreeing.

There, I feel much better.

Seriously, though, I agree that speed is a defining characteristic of interceptors in Star Wars, and these ships have it. I also think that counter will make them a good ship to push out and tangle with enemies early and often, which will free up your other fighters if desired or keep them away from your caps, which seems pretty interceptory (making a new word) to me.

Finally, in response to the suggestion above that they should ignore engagement restrictions, that does appear to be Tycho Celchu's special ability. A good call, even if it is limited to one squadron!

Saves time on maintince too! Plenty of guns, light weight, short range, and inexpensive. Perfect for a galactic empire.

_{^{Just like our women.}}

Wait waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaht.

Agreed. The presence of capital ships instantly makes gunships and bombers far more relevant.

In X-wing, it's all about dogfighting. So whether you kill enemy fighters by knife-fighting them with high-speed turns and barrel rolls, or fling missiles at them from long range, that's all the game is about.

Armada, by comparison, is ultimately about capital ship duels. Bombers are important because they can kill capital ships and capital ships can't effectively fight back. Fighters are important because they can stop bombers getting to attack..... By comparison, the area which may become less relevant is 'superiority fighters' - designed to kill other fighters - because if your opponent just brought capital ships and there's no bombers to fend off, you've wasted your time.

Personally, I hope Interceptor allows you to bypass Escort/Engagement rules in some way. Interceptors and A-wings have historically been used to either draw off defending fighters or punch right through a fighter screen faster than the defenders can react.

Thats exactly what it does. Escort: Squadrons that you are engaged with can not attack squadrons without escort unless performing a Counter attack.

X-wings and Tie advanced have Escort.
Tie Interceptors and A wings have Counter 2

Ywings and Tie bombers have Heavy and Bomber

X wing and Bwing have Bomber
Tie Fighter has Swarm.




Ergo, a single squad of Xwings can prevent a tie fighter from attacking a Y-wing, while it can do nothing to prevent a TIE Interceptor from attacking said Y-wing. Of course i can't tell exactly what Counter says, but that seems a reasonable guess.

Wedge seems to add 2 blue dice or something.
Dutch affects tokens that have been already activated once, not sure if thats on defense or offense.
Tycho, i can't quite make out. Something about attacking ships after you move, maybe even if they are out of range after moving? i dunno.
Keyan gets to reroll any number of attack dice if the hull zone he's targeting has no shields.
Luke ignores Shields

Mauler Mithel (?) does a damage after you move?
Darth Vader does an extra damage sometime after he attacks.
Soontir Fel does something related to damage after a squadron you control does a Counter.
Major Rhymer lets all friendly squadrons in close range attack ships with full dice? Edit: Oh god. Auto include right here.
Howlrunner adds a blue dice to squadrons with swarm.

Couple of surprises:
Bwings have a much health as X wings, slower than Y's? Whut?
Tie Advanced are beefy as all get out.
All the Imperial fighters are fast as hell. 4's or higher, whereas the Rebels are at 2 with B's, 3 with X's and Y's, and 5's with A's. Makes for good counter play as the Imp ships are slow, while the Rebel caps are fast.

All in all i feel like they got the fighters translated MUCH better in Armada than they did in Xwing. Although the B-wing feels like the odd duck out. What the hell is going on with its stats?

Counter appears (at least from the cards visible) to allow that ship to roll two blue dice against a ship that just attacked them. It would allow an Interceptor or A-Wing to attack a ship that it otherwise wouldn't be able to due to Escort, but only if that ship attacked the Interceptor. My best interpretation:

Counter: After [being attacked by] a non-Counter attack, [you may] attack that squadron with an armament of two blue dice, even [if you are] destroyed.

There's still a good bit of ambiguity there, but I think the goal is that they're a good first strike fighter used to lock down enemy fighters.

B-Wing stats do seem a bit odd, but I suspect I know the reason. It appears they wanted to differentiate them more from Y-Wings, and go for a TRUE assault fighter role which of course is what they were in the fluff. Have you seen that freaking firepower?!

They will be absolute dead meat against other fighters (just because they are slow and not THAT tough....they have enormous firepower against fighters too though), but if you can deliver them safely, they are going to absolutely wreck face.

I'm not saying the stats are right (they definitely seem odd), but I think this was the "design space" they were thinking of.

It will at least help seperate them from Y-Wings. I see it like this:

A's: Fighter

X's: Fighter bomber, emphasis fighter

Y's: Fighter bomber, emphasis bomber

B's: Bomber/assault

So at least they all have a place.

I'm just a little worried that either they Y or the B will exclude each other based on their points cost. Where one won't be worth taking because the other is so much better. We can see the B-wings dice, and they look great. Can we assume that the Y wing will have 2 blue? Then 1 or 2 black dice for anti ship? If they have 2 anti ship dice, i can easily see Bwings never being fielded due to the faster speed and extra hp of the Y's. Of course the point difference will matter greatly in the end.

And if you're right Brian_Black, which you very well could be, then that makes Escort REALLY strong. I mean, why would you ever attack the the squadron that has counter? Just bypass it and make your run on the capital ships. :/

I NEED MORE INFO.

I think the point is that the counter squads can jump out in advance of your other ships, and get in range of enemy squadrons quickly. Once engaged, the enemies can't move, so they have no choice but to shoot at the squad with counter. I wouldn't use counter squads as escorts, but as interceptors.