The flip-side to fighter screens jamming bombers is that it puts the blocking fighters in awkward positions (potential right in the line of fire, for example), while this won't matter for our Ties in terms of expandability, it will matter in how able we will be to set-up these conditions.

Squadrons activate after ships without the squadron command, meaning ships will have to sacrifice some degree of efficiency to carry their screen around with them or will have to risk the corrupter activating afterwards and flinging bombers at them

Rebels might just slow roll at range, but given the speed of their capital ships and the lack there-of of most of their Squadrons, they might have to give up their maneuverability to do so.

All theory obviously, but I desperately want to put it into practice.

Here is the relevant line from the article:

In Armada , whenever two squadrons are at distance “1” of each other, those squadrons are engaged and must abide by the rules for engagement:

This doesn't specify anything about moving 'over' squadrons, it only says if you are ever within Range 1 of a squadron.

As for how that works space is 3 Dimensional, your bombers are flying way above/below (awkward to decide in space where there really is no down, or necessarily even a logical horizontal plane for that matter) the fighters.

It could go either way, but I feel that the start/end placement is the only space the squadron ever qualifies for being engaged or not is more strategic, as you have to plan for the enemies abilities to get behind your lines if you aren't careful.

But this game isn't played in a 3D space. You can just look at the picture in the article and IMO it's pretty clearly defined. Other wise, you just invalidate the whole point of having fighters defending your capital ships.

Given that fighters can move range 3-4, but are only "engaged" at range one, having them able to leapfrog over defending fighers would just defeat the entire purpose of having a fighter screen in the first place.

Say you leapfrog with a bomber squadron like we are talking about here, because the defending fighter screen can only move or shoot (ignoring squadron commands for the moment), once they are passed by the bombers, they won't be able to catch up and effectively attack the bombers on their turn (because when they do get to move they will have to move to range 1 of the bombers that passed them, thus engaging them, so then the next turn those bombers would have to fight the fighters), but this would mean the bombers attack first, which again is completely the opposite of what would be expected from having a defensive screen.

It was commented that this would mean you have to have your screen set up at range 1 from your ship, so as not to give your enemies fighters room to leapfrog and then shoot your capital, but since fighters generally move after capital ships, then this means that your fighters would end up being often displaced by your capital ship, (which then allows your opponent to place them at their choice of location touching the ship that moved), which then even further messes up the players ability to run a defensive screen of any value.

The most sensible answer is that fighters shouldn't be able to move past within range 1 of other fighters without engaging them, so that the player would keep his screen slightly further away from his ship then his next intended move, so that he never catches up to it. This works with the lore perspective of Star Destroyers being partially mobile carriers that spread their fighters out infront of them, whilst the rebels used them in more of an individual supporting role. It also explains why we would have ships like interceptors and fighters, instead of just running entire bomber/fighter wings.

Where I would see the Corruptors ability really coming in handy is looking for those gaps once there is a break in the fighter screen, to be able to get through the holes - particularly if we are able to multi-stage fighter moves, i.e. move 2 in this direction, then move the remainder in this direction (like a dog leg shape).

Where I would see the Corruptors ability really coming in handy is looking for those gaps once there is a break in the fighter screen, to be able to get through the holes - particularly if we are able to multi-stage fighter moves, i.e. move 2 in this direction, then move the remainder in this direction (like a dog leg shape).

I think that is something we should be able to do I haven't seen anything saying we cant yet. I think my Vic is gonna be the corruptor with Tarkin as my Admerial. Just sounds like such a beast of a combo once you get the bombers involved.

Where I would see the Corruptors ability really coming in handy is looking for those gaps once there is a break in the fighter screen, to be able to get through the holes - particularly if we are able to multi-stage fighter moves, i.e. move 2 in this direction, then move the remainder in this direction (like a dog leg shape).

I think that is something we should be able to do I haven't seen anything saying we cant yet. I think my Vic is gonna be the corruptor with Tarkin as my Admerial. Just sounds like such a beast of a combo once you get the bombers involved.

You think that's how he handled making examples of traitors to the empire, just a good ole carpet bombing?

Must've been really happy about the Deathstar creating a far bigger spectacle with far less effort

Where I would see the Corruptors ability really coming in handy is looking for those gaps once there is a break in the fighter screen, to be able to get through the holes - particularly if we are able to multi-stage fighter moves, i.e. move 2 in this direction, then move the remainder in this direction (like a dog leg shape).

I think that is something we should be able to do I haven't seen anything saying we cant yet. I think my Vic is gonna be the corruptor with Tarkin as my Admerial. Just sounds like such a beast of a combo once you get the bombers involved.

You think that's how he handled making examples of traitors to the empire, just a good ole carpet bombing?

Must've been really happy about the Deathstar creating a far bigger spectacle with far less effort

Hey ask anyone who has seen or been near a B-52 Carpet bombing I bet you that is something they will never forget

I'm thinking the Corrupter title is begging for a 2 cap ship fleet so players can pack in as many fighters and bombers as possible. A 3 ship fleet is looking at 5-7 fighters most likely and I cant see cutting your fighter screen below that to fit in bombers. I suppose you could go 1 vsd 2 gsd and make it work.

I will definitely try a 2 VSD list though packed to the gills with fighter squadrons. Swarm the rebel squadrons, eliminate them and then set the bombers loose. Until the rebs screen is dealt with just keep the bombers and their escorts tucked in close. Im thinking 2 basic vsd plus upgrades and commander will run 170-200 points. 5 ties at 40 points, leaves 60ish points for 2 bombers and some additional squadrons. Will that be a competitive list? Who knows until the game is out and meta develops but it will look cool deploying my vsds with a veritable cloud of fighters moving around them.

The primary justification I have for believing that you can leapfrog enemy squadrons is that otherwise, you would have to stop your movement immediately after hitting range 1, requiring you to measure your location to every close enemy squad before committing to the movement. It feels tremendously clumsy to have to measure your distance to an enemy squadron while you're still measuring your initial movement.

Here is the relevant line from the article:

In Armada , whenever two squadrons are at distance “1” of each other, those squadrons are engaged and must abide by the rules for engagement:

This doesn't specify anything about moving 'over' squadrons, it only says if you are ever within Range 1 of a squadron.

As for how that works space is 3 Dimensional, your bombers are flying way above/below (awkward to decide in space where there really is no down, or necessarily even a logical horizontal plane for that matter) the fighters.

It could go either way, but I feel that the start/end placement is the only space the squadron ever qualifies for being engaged or not is more strategic, as you have to plan for the enemies abilities to get behind your lines if you aren't careful.

29:20 One player moves a tie fighter over and beyond an xwing with the FFG rep who is one of the designers saying that will work. This is right after the FFG guy gave the player advice about engagement and the swarm ability so im fairly certain we can move through fighters.

Yes, that is how it worked in Gencon, but what you are missing (and what I am struggling to find again to link to) was that there was something that had changed with the fighters since the Gencon demos. Not sure exactly what the change was now from memory, but I believe it had something to do with fighter engagement ranges.

hmm if they changed the engagement rules post gencon that would be good to know. I will look around and see if I can find anything else referencing it from a somewhat official source.

EDIT: looking back over very old threads it appears that it was the range 1 "engagement" factor announced in the fighters preview that surprised some people. I.e. that when there is an enemy squadron at range 1, fighters cannot move, and cannot anything other than the engaging squadron (i.e. a capital ship in the fighters article), which surprised some people as they wanted to be able to continue bombing runs even if they had fighters on their tail. (like the Death Star trench run).

The primary justification I have for believing that you can leapfrog enemy squadrons is that otherwise, you would have to stop your movement immediately after hitting range 1, requiring you to measure your location to every close enemy squad before committing to the movement. It feels tremendously clumsy to have to measure your distance to an enemy squadron while you're still measuring your initial movement.

This is pretty much what I was thinking. You'd have to get some Range 1 'Circles' and drop the on top of every squadron to make sure your movement didn't overlap, it would be fairly clumsy.

Not really, you can just eye ball it. After a while, you will be able to look at a distance and judge it to be in range or not.

Not really, you can just eye ball it. After a while, you will be able to look at a distance and judge it to be in range or not.

Considering we will all be just starting the game, that won't really be a factor yet.

As I said earlier it could go either way, but for simplicity's sake I would bet they go with starting point and ending point only for determining engagement. Why would I think this? From the articles on capital ship movement they can move through other capital ships willy-nilly, so it wouldn't make sense for giant kilometer long ships to be able to move through each-other while tiny squadrons somehow can't.

In general the pit-falls that games like 40K's rules get into, making things overly complicated and laborious, are things that FFG manages to avoid with all its games. There is certainly merit for this thing going either way, but I would bet money (joking, don't ban me!) FFG goes with the simpler option.

So I have gone through it and looked at some rough figures around the "leapfrogging" as such.

If FFG does go with the "simple" method and allow it, it will still work from a defender point of view, but the defender will have to "chase" the person leapfrogging and will be at the mercy of their attack the next turn (unless they have a squadron command).

Here is a very rough diagram. Bear in mind these are based on a straight line concept (of a defender being directly between the attacker and the capital ship), so there will be additional complexity depending on the angles involved.

In order for an X-Wing or Y-wing to "leapfrog" the defender must be at range 2. This is because they can only move upto speed 3, and the defender cannot be in range 1 at the beginning or end of the move (or they will be engaged).

If the X-Wing or Y-Wing here was using a squadron command, then yes, they could clear the defender and then shoot (assuming they were then within range 1 of the capital ship at the end of the jump). B-Wings can only move 2, so they would definitely be engaged at the end of the "leapfrog".

The TIE fighter can move upto 4, so it is a dead easy chase for the TIE to catch the X-Wing when it is his turn to move, thus engaging him and protecting the capital ship from fire.

With the roles reversed is where it gets interesting because the TIE fighers and bombers are faster than the X/Y wings.

If the TIE starts with the X/Y-Wing at range 2, it can move at speed 4. This means the X/Y-wing needs to potentially use its full move of 3 to engage the TIE fighter/bomber.

This is where if the Corruptor title comes into play and allows the TIE Bomber to move one speed greater, it potentially outruns the X-Wing's maximum speed, allowing it to escape engagement by the rebel fighters.

If leapfrogging can work simple solution for defender is just escort each cap ship with 1-2 fighters right up against it to provide a basic zone of engagement around it. Each turn cap ship moves up squadrons regroup on it during the squadron phase.

As the attacker your best bet will be to use squadron command on some fighters to

Move up and engage enemy squadrons and then on squadron phase move your bombers into position to make attack runs on the following turn. As long as your fighters survive long enough for the bombers to do their thing your good to go.

Other way to play it would be to set your squadrons out with the goal of stripping the enemy squadrons off of the cap ship. Basically set it up so the enemy cap ship has to run over your squadrons and then if enemy squadrons come in you are engaged. Following turn enemy cap ship keeps moving but his fighters dont so your bombers have an opening.

If leapfrogging can work simple solution for defender is just escort each cap ship with 1-2 fighters right up against it to provide a basic zone of engagement around it. Each turn cap ship moves up squadrons regroup on it during the squadron phase.

As the attacker your best bet will be to use squadron command on some fighters to

Move up and engage enemy squadrons and then on squadron phase move your bombers into position to make attack runs on the following turn. As long as your fighters survive long enough for the bombers to do their thing your good to go.

Other way to play it would be to set your squadrons out with the goal of stripping the enemy squadrons off of the cap ship. Basically set it up so the enemy cap ship has to run over your squadrons and then if enemy squadrons come in you are engaged. Following turn enemy cap ship keeps moving but his fighters dont so your bombers have an opening.

I think we are all talking out our a** until we get the game, but here are my thoughts.

In order for a fighter escort to work, you need to have fighters both where you are and where Ty want to be. Why? Because fighters normally move after capitals. Or you need to use the squadron command to keep your escort with you.

Let's look at an example using the tie bomber, with the rebels going first.

Rebel has 1 assault frigate with 2 xwing escorts, right beside it. AF uses concentrate fire and does damage to imp Vic at long range. Assault frigate moves 2 forward (this is range 1 attack range, so it moves out of engagement range of x wings)

Imperial player has 1 Vic with 3 bombers. Vic reveals squadron command. Imp player drops both bombers range 1 infront of AF. Bombers are out of engagement range and strike AF.

Depending on how you play it, you could even use a tie to lock the xwings into position and get a second shot with the bombers.

... You know what, I think tie bombers might be too fast. Time will tell.

I''m afraid "time will tell" is going to be the manta for a long time to come

Excited, though. The threat of zippy bombers is going to make foresight and formations incredibly important, and it'll make the desperate scramble for when it all falls apart all the more intense

Remember that the distances of each section of the squadron measurement stick are not equal. Check the pictures in the fighter article.

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=5240

"1" is by far the longest while "2" is the shortest and "3", "4", and "5" seem to be the same lenght. "2" and "3" together are slightly longer than "1" by itself.

This makes the squadron command incredibly powerful for large ships like the VSD or the eventual ISD (where concentrate fire does not scale and seems underwhelming).

The very long range of interceptors mean they can place themselves in a position that would only pin a bomber, while the regular tie fighters move up and pin the escorting ships. The squint can then shoot the bomber avoiding the escorts and the bomber can only shoot at the squint triggering counter.

After killing the bomber(s) the squints can then reposition themselves to help the regular ties.

Chosing how to deploy your squadrons is going to be incredibly important.

well after the rebel capital ship spoiler I'm kinda leaning on playing Rebels now because the capital ships are cheaper. were I'm pretty sure a common list composition will consist of for an imperial build will be two capital ships and a compliment of fighters to screen them. and for Rebels I can see three capital ships and compliments of fighters to screen them.

so back to the drawing board for a imperial fleet build

This makes the squadron command incredibly powerful for large ships like the VSD or the eventual ISD (where concentrate fire does not scale and seems underwhelming).

I wouldnt be surprised if when we get an ISD and the Mon Cal cruisers that we get a large ship only upgrade to rectify that, i.e. add two dice, or reroll two dice instead of one.

well after the rebel capital ship spoiler I'm kinda leaning on playing Rebels now because the capital ships are cheaper. were I'm pretty sure a common list composition will consist of for an imperial build will be two capital ships and a compliment of fighters to screen them. and for Rebels I can see three capital ships and compliments of fighters to screen them.

so back to the drawing board for a imperial fleet build

I will admit I've been thinking about that as well the Rebel fleet seems more exciting in the dynamics and stuff. But I'm wondering if that is just because it has been so long since the Imperial fleet article came out?

Either way I feel the Rebel Article has made my choice of 1 VSD II and 2 GSD I's worth it. With what we have in Fabs Fleet Generator I can make up a pretty decent fleet with those 3 ships and 6 TIE fighter squadrons. Also the mechanics of the game kinda balance things out. Unless your planning on running nothing but Assault Frigates the Rebel Commander is gonna have to be on his A game with how fragile the majority of his ships are. Where as Imperials it will be more like "Sir, would you like some more Tea as you watch the exploding rebel frigate?"