The more I think about this game, the more that I imagine that there will be added-value to balanced and multifaceted fleets. By that balance, what I mean is including elements that are complementary to one another - big ships, small ships, fighters, as well as they types of damage that can be done, and how well ships synergize with one another.

(as opposed to Corvette Swarms) or Big Hulks. Obviously, until we've played it, we can't know what that is. It will also depend on FFG's game design and how they want it to play, and how well they've implemented the rules to achieve that.

But with their design aimed at the 300 point game, I wonder how questions of balance will play out in smaller point games. I don't know how quickly my community is going to start playing 300-pointers. In the beginning, I think folks might just start playing smaller battles until their fleets get up to size.

For right now, I've got a core set and a fighter pack on pre-order. When they arrive, I don't know how long it will be before I'm playing with more than just my fighters and Victory against someone else flying my rebel ships and the fighters included in the Core. (Because I'm loyal to the Empire!)

I guess there's two questions here: what sort of balances will have premiums, and how will that balance shift based on the point value of the fleets?

Hard to say,

Smaller battles based around 1 ship and a few fighter squadrons might end up being the way the game go's since there is so much to manage. With just a Victory for your main ship I would think you wanna bulk up on TIE Fighters & Interceptors. You'll probably end up using all the ships in the fighter pack lol. Since synergy wise it looks like the Rebels fleets might push the Fighter squadrons as their main focus and Capitals as support. Then it becomes a chess match with the fighter squadrons as the pawns.

Now as fleets get bigger there will probably be a big shift for the Imperials to get more Victories and/or Gladiators on the board to help tackle the Rebels speed and fighter advantages. While the Rebels will probably just fine to their fleets a little. So maybe instead of a corvette and a Neb they go with 2 Neb's or such. Really at this point we gotta play it to realy figure out these questions.

I'm really curious how the squadrons side of the game is going to play out.

When I used to play the naval battles in Empire at War, I'd have a doctrine (because every battle against the AI ended up being roughly similar, ... and boring) of using my TIE fighters to tie up the enemy's snubfighters, and then letting the TIE bombers take out critical targets.

Because of that, I learned to love the TIE Bomber, so much so that it's my go-to piece in X-Wing (see this thread ). As such, I\ve just kind of made it my own, and people know me as the Bomber guy. I have a mind to keep that up with Armada, especially because it's the sort of skirmish where the bomber is supposed to make sense. (It really shouldn't make sense in X-Wing.)

So, Victory Star Destroyers and Bombers, with TIE fighter escorts swarms, that's gonna be me.

(Until I figure out that my fleets need to be more balanced. Also, until I understand more about the game mechanics of squadrons.)

Anything to discredit C-90 swarm. Seriously, it hope it seriously doesn't work.

Balanced lists and skewed lists will work in the game. It just the matter of do you have the answer to the list or do you pose a question for your opponent to answer.

I imagine that 300 points will be the standard. Eventually Imperial Class Star Destroyers will come out and their has to be a possibility to play 2 of them. Sure 1 Star Destroyer and its consorts would e fine, but do you want that to be the only way you can play the most iconic ship of this game.

That being said 2 Imperial Class Star Destroyers isn't a very balanced list. I hope it is still good. I imagine it will be.

Both 2VSD and 1VSD-2GSD builds with Corrupter will work well as imperial bomber lists.

The Corrupter will use its high squadron rating and ability to launch the bombers almost as if they were a long range weapon.

In terms of bomber tactics, you would be able to use the squadron command to fly the bombers in front or slightly to the side of an enemy ship that's trying to flank, keeping the squadron at maximum firing range, and shooting. When the enemy vessel moves, it will either have to break off its flanking maneuver or have all the bombers still within range of it's side or rear arc being able to fire without moving. If the ship overlaps the bombers, then you can place them back in front of the enemy ship to fire at the exposed section you fired at last turn. In this way the bombers don't just do raw damage, but act as area denial for lighter, faster ships too.

If a rebel list has Mon Mothma, the bomber's close range attacks will be all the more valuble.

I wonder how effective fighters will be given FFG nerfed all the anti starfighter dice (roughly dropped all caps by one blue die) on the capital ships.

I wonder how effective fighters will be given FFG nerfed all the anti starfighter dice (roughly dropped all caps by one blue die) on the capital ships.

You mean balanced. You can't really nerd something that doesn't exist yet. Until the rules are finalized we can't look at some information from several months ago and say it is 100% accurate.

The blue dice are either:

3-hit

3-accuracy

2-crit

or

4-hit

2-accuracy

2-crit

Assuming the latter, a 1ASA ship will average 0.5 damage to a squadron per turn, and a 2ASA ship will average 1 damage per turn. Bombers and B-wings have 5 hp and Y-wings have 6hp. The drop in ASA values just means FFG wants players to have to take fighter squadrons to counter bombers.

Currently capital ship's AoE damage to squadrons is meant to support fighters rather than replace them. A X-wing shot plus a 2ASA cap ship shot will do an average of 3 damage, enough to kill a tie, while 2 ties with swarm and Howlrunner plus a 1ASA cap ship shot will average 5 damage, enough to kill either a X or B, or prevent an extra counter from an A

Anything to discredit C-90 swarm. Seriously, it hope it seriously doesn't work.

I have a feeling they might be too cumbersome to navigate well to work. Also, a Victory can nearly one-shot or close to it one from the front arc. I have to imagine an ISD will swat Corvettes like flies.

I don't think corvettes are going to be a huge deal like tie fighters were. They will have an advantage with navigation objectives, but won't be terribly effective at the slugging match ones, or the holding objectives, as even nebulon b's can put hurt on them. Even the corruptor + bomber combo could one shot a corvette, and allow the corruptor to shoot a second one. I think there's enough built in incentive with the way objectives work to keep spam lists from being supreme. They're just gonna require a different approach, which is a good thing if ffg does it right.

I have to imagine an ISD will swat Corvettes like flies.

And then gobble them up like spiders (as in, suck out all the rebel princesses and the locations of their hidden rebel bases).

I'm actually quite excited about the potential for fleet variety being the norm rather than exception. I think Rebel lists will have a ton of variety between 3 cap ships and 4 types of fighters (combinations are quite a lot so not spelling them out as much as imps). The Imperials will have variety but not nearly as much.

Imp lists basically will revolve around one of the following:

2 VSD <- Pretty basic but I think this will be a lot of fun and fairly cheap core + 1 exp

3 VSD <- $$$ list but probably very weak w/o room for any real squadron support

3 GSD <- Neat idea but $$$ since you will also be getting core, lot of potential though

1 VSD 2 GSD <- The transition list for those who intend to get a 3rd GSD later.

2 VSD 1 GSD <- Think this will be really common for those who want both expansion packs + core

** 1 VSD 1 GSD <- Added but I dont think its very viable since so few points in base cap ship models

My one semi concern is corvette swarms. If they aren't OP all is well but if they are OP and become a big part of the meta I will be irritated. I'm not against it being viable, just against if being dominant like the TIE swarms lists were in XWing for a very long time. If dominant FFG will have to spend a lot of cards in future expansions trying to make them weaker, but if they are simply viable those who want to play them can and those who dont can deal with it.

Ideally no single list will be so dominant that it becomes the meta. Im hoping the objective system will promote balanced lists on the rebel side while not removing any of the Imp lists mentioned from viability (I say that bc Imps simply dont have as much variety so dont need any unviable lists).

Yea, corvette swarms are a huge potential problem. Concentrate fire only scales with ship number, not ship quality, and CR-90s have a lot of firepower for their point cost, and with Mon Mothma they are pretty tough too.

If you try to foucus down a CR-90 it can just burn its defense tokens to try to stay alive for another turn, and the evades are very good at that. With Mothma, the CR-90 can negate 4 dice (potentially double hits) and shift damage to both side shields.

For example, 3 VSD-1s using concentrate fire will average ~9 hits at medium or long range, and the Cr-90 can cancel 4 of them and shift damage between its collective 6 front and side shields. It is almost guaranteed to survive these attacks. Sure, it won't have any tokens for the rest fo the game, but the alternative would be being destroyed. Even then, it will take more shots from the VSD-1s to actually kill it in the next turn.

Compare that with a 6 CR-90a swarm shooting 18 dice at long range, or 24 dice at medium range, with concentrate fire. That is likely 13.5 and 18 damage respectively, not including the possibility of CF tokens. A VSD has 8 hull and a collective 9 front and side shields; 17 total. The half damage and redirect tokens will be ineffective versus many small attacks, and the result is at long range the VSD could lose all its sheilds by burning its tokens and still take hull damage. At medium range the VSD either lives with 1-2 hull remaining, or is outright destroyed. In one turn.

This doesn't include any of the upgrades you could put on the Cr-90 swarm by dropping some from A's to B's. Overload pulse, anyone?

Yea, corvette swarms are a huge potential problem. Concentrate fire only scales with ship number, not ship quality, and CR-90s have a lot of firepower for their point cost, and with Mon Mothma they are pretty tough too.

If you try to foucus down a CR-90 it can just burn its defense tokens to try to stay alive for another turn, and the evades are very good at that. With Mothma, the CR-90 can negate 4 dice (potentially double hits) and shift damage to both side shields.

For example, 3 VSD-1s using concentrate fire will average ~9 hits at medium or long range, and the Cr-90 can cancel 4 of them and shift damage between its collective 6 front and side shields. It is almost guaranteed to survive these attacks. Sure, it won't have any tokens for the rest fo the game, but the alternative would be being destroyed. Even then, it will take more shots from the VSD-1s to actually kill it in the next turn.

Compare that with a 6 CR-90a swarm shooting 18 dice at long range, or 24 dice at medium range, with concentrate fire. That is likely 13.5 and 18 damage respectively, not including the possibility of CF tokens. A VSD has 8 hull and a collective 9 front and side shields; 17 total. The half damage and redirect tokens will be ineffective versus many small attacks, and the result is at long range the VSD could lose all its sheilds by burning its tokens and still take hull damage. At medium range the VSD either lives with 1-2 hull remaining, or is outright destroyed. In one turn.

This doesn't include any of the upgrades you could put on the Cr-90 swarm by dropping some from A's to B's. Overload pulse, anyone?

I recall hearing in one of the videos that you can only use one defense token of each type per attack (So 1 Evade and 1 Redirect). And I'm pretty sure you can't 'double down' on defense tokens using it from green to red, then again red to gone in a single attack.

I could be wrong of course, its been a while since I watched the vids.

Yea, corvette swarms are a huge potential problem. Concentrate fire only scales with ship number, not ship quality, and CR-90s have a lot of firepower for their point cost, and with Mon Mothma they are pretty tough too.

If you try to foucus down a CR-90 it can just burn its defense tokens to try to stay alive for another turn, and the evades are very good at that. With Mothma, the CR-90 can negate 4 dice (potentially double hits) and shift damage to both side shields.

For example, 3 VSD-1s using concentrate fire will average ~9 hits at medium or long range, and the Cr-90 can cancel 4 of them and shift damage between its collective 6 front and side shields. It is almost guaranteed to survive these attacks. Sure, it won't have any tokens for the rest fo the game, but the alternative would be being destroyed. Even then, it will take more shots from the VSD-1s to actually kill it in the next turn.

Compare that with a 6 CR-90a swarm shooting 18 dice at long range, or 24 dice at medium range, with concentrate fire. That is likely 13.5 and 18 damage respectively, not including the possibility of CF tokens. A VSD has 8 hull and a collective 9 front and side shields; 17 total. The half damage and redirect tokens will be ineffective versus many small attacks, and the result is at long range the VSD could lose all its sheilds by burning its tokens and still take hull damage. At medium range the VSD either lives with 1-2 hull remaining, or is outright destroyed. In one turn.

This doesn't include any of the upgrades you could put on the Cr-90 swarm by dropping some from A's to B's. Overload pulse, anyone?

Keep in mind that you are doing math not the game. I think it may be much harder to get 6 Cr90 all firing in the same turn at one the VSD. The sizes of the bases make it so a CR 90 behind another will mean that the front Cr 90s will have to be very close and risk the 3 black dice and that does not sound like a good plan. So you then would have to have them all side by side, So the ones on the far sides will be to far away.

Keep in mind that you are doing math not the game. I think it may be much harder to get 6 Cr90 all firing in the same turn at one the VSD. The sizes of the bases make it so a CR 90 behind another will mean that the front Cr 90s will have to be very close and risk the 3 black dice and that does not sound like a good plan. So you then would have to have them all side by side, So the ones on the far sides will be to far away.

Here is a few reasons why corvette swarms will fail:

1. Formations that can get a bunch of front arc attacks on a single enemy ship on the first pass will very likely have to split and fly down both sides of that target. Otherwise some of them probably wont have the range/arc to get their shots off.

2. Formation flying will run into all kinds of issues because your ships will not have the ability to smoothly keep the formations when turning like Xwing allows with different speeds for the same turn.

3. No K-turns means those high speed ships will have to make big turning arcs to come back around likely resulting in few front arc opportunities after the first pass. Can we say slower ships turn towards the corvettes to stay inside their turning circle?

4. 1 Accuracy is all a big dice attack needs to really mess up a corvette. VSDs, GSDs, and assault frigates all have a high potential to cripple a corvette in one turn.

5. Corvette swarms by the sheer point cost will not have squadrons to protect them so will have to deal with enemy bombers wrecking them pretty hard. Rebel squadron heavy fleets will have plenty of opportunity to place their formations in a way that a swarm that attacks a cap ship will then fly into an enemy squadron and get pounded in the squadron phase.

6. A lot of objectives will not favor these ships and anyone who really wants to wreck their day in a swarm heavy local meta will find a way to always get initiative while running a good anti swarm setup. Can you imagine 6 swarm fleets being a ship down right off the bat because they cant risk their squishy HQ ship in a kill the other guy's hq ship?

7. Corvette swarms will have their commanders in a squishy ship. Hmm a corvette that will cost as much as a VSD simply by having the commander on board?

8. Corvette swarms will require 5 expansions beyond the core set to run this list while a lot of other lists will run core + 1-3 expansions. This isn't the same as the very practical 2 core set purchase in X-wing that puts you well on the way to a swarm. If you want to risk committing to the corvette swarm you may find yourself with a fleet that is effective, but you might also find a giant unwieldy club in your hand that cost a good bit of money and wont work once people figure how to counter it.

9. Most players will want to buy a variety of ships and cost in this game is high enough that a lot of people will balk at running a fleet that basically is a bunch of duplicates when they could spend the money on variety that will get them a lot more mileage and fun out of this game.

10. 6 turn games. Seriously I want you to go to youtube and look at the movement ruler and models in a gencon demo. Imagine spending 6 turns trying to keep a swarm in formation while spending as much of that time facing the enemy and moving at speed 3 or 4. I think thats going to be a headache because you either have a lot of ships out of range a lot of the match or you got a lot of ships flying much closer to the those nasty black die bearing enemies for a lot longer than you want.

Yeah I'm pretty sure some of those 10 points are variations of each other but I think it gets the point across that glass cannon formation flying corvette swarms are going to be rare.

Another thing counting against swarms is that your own ships can obstruct your attacks, forcing you to do some pretty impressive think work to keep them all aligned without blocking each other's shots.

I think the Corvette swarm will be pretty competitive. It does have some big weaknesses though. Bombers activated by a Cap will have a clear shot at them and if someone speeds towards them while they are speeding towards that first fleet then the Corvettes will have a hard time turning around and bringing their main guns to bear. Corvettes side guns and rear guns are pretty sad, so they kind of need to keep pointing right at the enemy.

I imagine Vette Swarm's biggest enemies will be:

Corrupter and bombers

Assault Frigates

Corrupter because of TIE Bombers

AF because they have the ability to split fire well and their speed allows them go close in on the swarm quickly.

I think the Corvette swarm will be pretty competitive. It does have some big weaknesses though. Bombers activated by a Cap will have a clear shot at them and if someone speeds towards them while they are speeding towards that first fleet then the Corvettes will have a hard time turning around and bringing their main guns to bear. Corvettes side guns and rear guns are pretty sad, so they kind of need to keep pointing right at the enemy.

I imagine Vette Swarm's biggest enemies will be:

Corrupter and bombers

Assault Frigates

Corrupter because of TIE Bombers

AF because they have the ability to split fire well and their speed allows them go close in on the swarm quickly.

I'm just curious how do you envision someone playing the swarm?

I keep thinking the formation flying will be incredibly difficult and fragility of the ships involved will be their downfall. Any formation that gets all those front arcs lined up will have to be a tight formation and you will lose your ability to use the side arcs effectively while your opponent will be able to angle his ships to get a lot more out of his fewer ships.

I think the Corvette swarm will be pretty competitive. It does have some big weaknesses though. Bombers activated by a Cap will have a clear shot at them and if someone speeds towards them while they are speeding towards that first fleet then the Corvettes will have a hard time turning around and bringing their main guns to bear. Corvettes side guns and rear guns are pretty sad, so they kind of need to keep pointing right at the enemy.

I imagine Vette Swarm's biggest enemies will be:

Corrupter and bombers

Assault Frigates

Corrupter because of TIE Bombers

AF because they have the ability to split fire well and their speed allows them go close in on the swarm quickly.

I'm just curious how do you envision someone playing the swarm?

I keep thinking the formation flying will be incredibly difficult and fragility of the ships involved will be their downfall. Any formation that gets all those front arcs lined up will have to be a tight formation and you will lose your ability to use the side arcs effectively while your opponent will be able to angle his ships to get a lot more out of his fewer ships.

f I had the mulla to buy 6 Vettes I'd fly them in two groups of 3 in a pincer from 1/4 of the way off center (putting them 1/2 a board distance from each other), and move them towards the center. That forces the enemy to pick one group to focus on or to split fire. It also mitigates Squadrons a bit as after they are 'launched' from Caps in an attack they will be out of range (or the Cap won't have another Squad command) to both move and shoot towards group 2.

Plus the Vettes extended forward arc (similar to the VSD) means they'll have an easier time shooting their forward guns while not pointing straight at the enemy, allowing some limited circle and shoot tactics. So they are better being off to the side rather than going head-on.

I think the Corvette swarm will be pretty competitive. It does have some big weaknesses though. Bombers activated by a Cap will have a clear shot at them and if someone speeds towards them while they are speeding towards that first fleet then the Corvettes will have a hard time turning around and bringing their main guns to bear. Corvettes side guns and rear guns are pretty sad, so they kind of need to keep pointing right at the enemy.

I imagine Vette Swarm's biggest enemies will be:

Corrupter and bombers

Assault Frigates

Corrupter because of TIE Bombers

AF because they have the ability to split fire well and their speed allows them go close in on the swarm quickly.

I'm just curious how do you envision someone playing the swarm?

I keep thinking the formation flying will be incredibly difficult and fragility of the ships involved will be their downfall. Any formation that gets all those front arcs lined up will have to be a tight formation and you will lose your ability to use the side arcs effectively while your opponent will be able to angle his ships to get a lot more out of his fewer ships.

f I had the mulla to buy 6 Vettes I'd fly them in two groups of 3 in a pincer from 1/4 of the way off center (putting them 1/2 a board distance from each other), and move them towards the center. That forces the enemy to pick one group to focus on or to split fire. It also mitigates Squadrons a bit as after they are 'launched' from Caps in an attack they will be out of range (or the Cap won't have another Squad command) to both move and shoot towards group 2.

Plus the Vettes extended forward arc (similar to the VSD) means they'll have an easier time shooting their forward guns while not pointing straight at the enemy, allowing some limited circle and shoot tactics. So they are better being off to the side rather than going head-on.

Interesting idea. If I saw a swarm though I would place my ships as close to the end of the board as deployment allows if the objectives wont punish me for doing that. If the objectives require me to be mid board I'd place my ships a few inches apart and set speed 1 so your pincer formations will have to run into each other or turn before they get to me (imagine your 2 formations will have to cross paths in front of me or they will have to turn towards me still in front of me).

One question though is if you place your ships likes that what do you think will happen when you get to the turn where they will run into each other unless you turn? This game's rules for bumping /collisions will punish you if your 2 formations were to run into each other.

http://www.fantasyflightgames.com/edge_news.asp?eidn=5147

the official bit that matters:

Whenever your ship’s final position would overlap another ship, it cannot finish its movement normally. Instead, you temporarily reduce its speed by one increment and attempt to execute your ship’s movement at the reduced speed. If reducing your ship’s speed by one still wouldn’t permit a legal movement, you continue to decrease your speed by one increment and attempt to move until your ship can legally finish its movement or until its speed is temporarily reduced to “0,” in which case it does not move.

After resolving this movement, your ship and the closest ship that it overlapped both receive one facedown damage card.

I see that as meaning you will have to turn your pincer formations (or have them approach at different speeds) or you will suddenly be dishing out a lot of damage to your own ships with a pile of collisions.

At the point where they'd meet I'd have one group make a harder turn (the group that moves second so they aren't in that vulnerable position when the enemy gets to activate) while the other group would either:

1) Ram the enemy

2) Mitigate their turn (lessen the degree of that Pincer) to come broadside of the enemy. Not advantageous for me, but except for Gladiators and Assault Frigates not helpful to the enemy either.

1) occurs if the enemy is weakened and sacrificing a few of my ships will push them over the edge. Or if the enemy has Gladiators of Assault Frigates.

2) occurs in all other circumstances.

Not fool proof, adaptations have to be made based on actual events, but in general I think it'll provide a good baseline.

Those sound reasonable. I really want to see how tight or loose a formation will have to fly to make it so you can turn. I'm rather concerned with the shoebox shape of the bases that turns with tight formations at same speed will not hard for a 2 ship formation but will be problematic for 3+ ship formations unless you loosen the formation enough. Even with that you will not be able to make 90 degree turns nor a total of 90 degrees worth of turn to the left or right of your original direction unless you have the room for the ships to line up that way if you had turned them in place in their original deployment.

One way to think of this is that ship is x long and y wide. A formation of 3 corvettes will need a total width of slightly more than 3x if you want to turn 90 degrees or more while maintaining formation. How much more will depend upon several factors but I think a good way to figure it out would be to place the ships in your proposed formation and then pivot 2 ships clockwise using their front right corners. If the ships bump note how much you turn you got and decide if thats enough for you. If not enough reset formation, widen it slightly and repeat. Once you find a width you are happy with note it for future games. I suspect there are times when you will really want the formation to make full turns while there are other times when you dont need the full effect.

Another modest idea to help the formation flying is to play around with stacking a maneuver token with the command on 1 or possibly 2 ships of a formation to prevent bumping. One way I could see using this is stacking on one ship, using just the command on the next ship, and nothing on the last ship. The first ship can get 2 speed reductions while the next guy 1, and the last guy nothing so you can have the last guy take a bigger turn while the innermost take a smaller tighter turn with the middle guy doing something in between.