So, before the announce of wave 2, I thought of the fighter group models as representing a full squadron of fighters in a abstract way, just like they are not the scaled the right size. Twelve ships if we go by the traditional number for Star Wars squadrons. But do the models actually represent three ships, exactly as depicted by the model?

The wave 2 set of Rogues and Villains have one small model for each ship. Do they really represent one or a group of them? And if it's a group, I think it would be really odd to have multiples of most of them in one battle acting as one unit. Also if it represent a group, I would say that must mean the normal wave 1 fighters would represent a group of 12... it wouldn't make sense, for example, an average single Firespray to be about to take out a full squadron of X-Wings, but a Three X-Wings vs. a single Firespray might be about even.

I know it really doesn't matter, and there's likely not an answer to this right now... I just want to know what to picture in my head during the battles!

||I igure the fighters represent anywhere from 6-12. The larger single ship fighter types are just really iconic and couldn't be left out. They are all epic pilots with famous ships, of course they represent single craft lol.

There's going to be generic versions of the wave 2 ships that a flown by normal pilots. There's epic pilots for the wave 1 fighters. Do you count them as flying by themselves? I always thought of them leading a squad.

Full squadrons that are abstracted.

Oh of course they are leading the no name rabble, I just assume the large fighter is significant enough to represent one freighter size ship. I suppose you could think of them as multiple ships, but I figure most of the large craft are not squadrons. As you say though, it does not matter really.

I think its easier to think of these as the freighter is the squad leader, with normal ships in the squad. (Say Han and 2-3 x wings) it would have a different attack profile by the nature of the large ship, and to keep it easy to see on the board and identify, you just use the large ship. That's how I'm rationalizing it anyway

I also wouldn't be surprised if the Rogues and Villains ships have rules slightly tweaked from the Squadron rules, even if it's just that they're all "Heavy" and can't cause other squadrons to be engaged.

I think its easier to think of these as the freighter is the squad leader, with normal ships in the squad. (Say Han and 2-3 x wings) it would have a different attack profile by the nature of the large ship, and to keep it easy to see on the board and identify, you just use the large ship. That's how I'm rationalizing it anyway

The Falcon did lead a couple of fighters into the heart of the Death Star. I think that's a pretty good idea you have there.

So, before the announce of wave 2, I thought of the fighter group models as representing a full squadron of fighters in a abstract way, just like they are not the scaled the right size. Twelve ships if we go by the traditional number for Star Wars squadrons. But do the models actually represent three ships, exactly as depicted by the model?

The wave 2 set of Rogues and Villains have one small model for each ship. Do they really represent one or a group of them? And if it's a group, I think it would be really odd to have multiples of most of them in one battle acting as one unit. Also if it represent a group, I would say that must mean the normal wave 1 fighters would represent a group of 12... it wouldn't make sense, for example, an average single Firespray to be about to take out a full squadron of X-Wings, but a Three X-Wings vs. a single Firespray might be about even.

I know it really doesn't matter, and there's likely not an answer to this right now... I just want to know what to picture in my head during the battles!

My friend, you were correct with your opening sentence, in that each 'stand of three' ships represents a full squadron of 12 fighters.

In FFG's "Assemble the Fleet" article:

"A Victory-class Star Destroyer heads to battle, flanked by six TIE fighter squadrons."

I would say that each individual miniature represents a flight of 4 starfighters.

As for the Rogues and Scoundrels expansions, I do not know, although from what we've seen on the 'hull' values seems a bit OP if each stand represented 1 unit -most likely abstract.

Unless the model connects to the stand differently, would you not be able to swap the one-ship peg for a three-ship peg and actually have two x-wings/tie fighters flanking the larger ship?

The issue here is trying to look at what constitutes a squadron and how powerful certain ships are, based on differences between the "on screen" canon of some ships and for the number of points in Armada, and FFG's treatment of the ships in X-wing. Particularly if you wanted to use x-wing to represent those individual fighters in any way. (I had a thread a while back about using X-Wing to resolve Armada fighter battles).

In the films we saw the falcon easily best half a dozen tie fighters when escaping from the Death Star, yet in x-wing, it only point totals four of the absolute cheapest academy tie fighers. Based on the film it would suggest that FFG over specced and over costed the tie fighters, or under specced and costed the Falcon, (really it should have two attacks by default)but then how viable would it be to fly against (or field) a swarm of 12 of them, even if they only had one attack dice and two evade dice each? So they had to rebalance it to make the game "work". I would believe though that based on the films that the falcon could potentially win against even a dozen such tie fighters, so having it as a solo unit in Armada isn't unthinkable (I'm not sure why some people are so desperate that it "must" have some sort of fighters included as part of it, it really makes no difference for Armada's gameplay but you can pretend that if you like). Same thing with x-wings, is an x-wing really worth 2 tie fighters? If we then tried to look back on X-wing, a squad of 12 x-wings would decimate a squad of 12 Tie fighters, but rightly so as they cost twice as much, but in Armada they don't cost twice as much, only a little more, so are there 12 x-wings in a squadron still, or only 6 perhaps?

For the purposes of Armada the answer is of course, that it doesn't actually matter if we think there are 3 or 12, mearly that we know the respective strength of each squadron against each other, however many each might contain. It's only if we are trying to look at transferring to X-wing that we must say, ok, perhaps every squadron is worth 50-70 points. In which case it could be a solo falcon with upgrades and crew, or 6 tie fighters or 3 x-wings.

Don't bother. Star Wars Armada is a tabletop, not a movie. The scales are off, and balancing is done according to the new scale, as it should be. Consider the Corellian Corvette. It is blown up massively in scale in comparison to the Star Destroyer and its firepower has been increased accordingly. It does not represent what we know from the movies, but, and that is an important but - it works. Threat and size match on the tabletop and this is what counts. You simply can't put the Executor and a Tie Fighter on the same table and keep the scale and FFG did the only right thing in not even trying, fanboys be damned.