Since there is not a specific threat for Tactics I am placing it here. I do believe there should be a "Tactics" Subject.

I realize, tactics in a game like this is closely tied to your build, but I would like to use this section for discussions on dirty tricks, starship maneuvering, Fighter Tactics, Choosing initiative (or not), Mission Objectives and how those choices affect the outcome of the battle, and any other topic of tactical discussion.

So, while having a specific upgrade or ship may enable a tactic, I would like to submit to the group that we use this particular thread be used more for Tactics than fleet builds. I am working on a couple Tactics Articles and I'll post them when they are done to get the discussions going.

In the base game I played a game with my Victory equiped with the TItle Dominator, Gunner Officer, Ion Cannons and The card that lets me get a additional Red Dice from my side arcs. This build really let me dish out the dice. I would pretty much start the game with a Nav to give myself a nav token to hold for decressing my speed once I closed in followed up with at least either a Squad Command and then Engineer Command. The following commands of course would be based on how my opponent was approaching me. With this build as long as I was spamming my Engine command I could be spamming out those blue dice so that no where could my enemy approach me that wasn't facing 6 dice at med range. I could then use my engineer command to replace those shields i was burning and if I got a blue crit i would be forcing my enemy to start burning defence tokens. Even if he tried to attack on the same hull zone with multiple I would still be shooting at both his ships. This is a good build for a very strong alpha strike in the early stages of the game yet is not great for a longer game since enemy attaks will start to weaken my offensive punch. I mainly use my tie fighters to hold back his x-wing attacks in twin waves to try and keep them out of the fight for as long as possible.

I'm rather hoping that Armada list building discussion is going to have to include a brief overview of planned tactics with each list as choosing your potential victory parameters through the mission/initiative bid system is part of making a list. So I'd imagine beyond basic optimisation advice its very difficult to offer constructive criticism without having a clue about what someone is aiming to achieve with their fleet as opposed to X-Wings "kill them all, god will know his own" approach to victory.

I think it is too early to really discuss tactics when only the core sets are out. There isn't much variation. Theres no way to know how effective a 3 victory fleet with minimal upgrades and fighter support will be against a fleet that balances both for fewer capitals, how effective is the rhymer bomber squad going to be? Is 9 ties + howlrunner + another squadron overkill. I think there is too much in the air to really confirm a decent outline of tactics,

there is a ton of variation, but it's in the objective cards

Since objective cards are an integral part of fleet building, I see no reason why Objective centered tactics can't be included as a sub-section of the fleet sub-forums

You know the objective cards are a big part of the game but not the end all be all. Keep in mind you don't even get to pick the cards you use so for me I would rather build a fleet that is balanced for most missions and forces. Even though the full card sets are not out we know what most of the cards are as well as the basics of each ship so we can have some good idea's for basic tatics.

Someone who has played mini war games for years i find that those who are set in there tactics tend to lose there games in the long run so for me the name of the game is flexablitiy within each list i make.

apart from being flexible, your own objectives have to favor your list

if you don't get the initiative, your opponent is choosing one of them to dictate the course of the game

One thing I would say is be careful with your starfighters if you use them right they can tear a ship up fast, many people, not all, say fighters are just meant to keep enemy fighters away from your ships, which is partly true but remember even though a single Tie fighter squadron only gets 1 blue dice and it ignores half of the results, if you have 4-6 of them attacking the same section that is, on average, 2-3 damage that is much harder to avoid(Evades dont work range 1, you only have so many redirects, and brace does nothing against only a single damage). Use your fighters wisely and they can often be more dangerous than your ships. Also another "Tactic" always be ready to change speed one minor course change 2 turns ago could have you running into your own ships which sucks big time. Lastly make sure you have a plan of attack. It doesn't matter what your fleet is, look at the objectives and your enemies ships and decide which "plan" you want to go with, if you want to kill your enemies ships go full speed at them, if you want to complete the most objectives head for them instead, and be prepared to change tactics if the situation calls for it. Lastly have fun, and do everything you can to try to make sure your opponent does as well. one of the most rewarding things I have found playing Xwing is the amazing community that has been developed I hope to see the same for armada, so keep trying new things and fly casual!

Command Casual!

I agree, with your sentiment. The X-Wing community has been great and we should all work toward a similar dynamic with Armada.

I was gonna post a write up thread myself but since this thread has been made lets just keep it in one place.

Core Box Playstyles/Tactics:

In the games I have played these seem to be the tactics and playstyles I have seen working out at 300pts

I have only played a limited number of games and mostly as imperial. This is how I approach my games right now and I am sure it will change with Wave 1.

Imperials

I took 1 of each type of Victory class. 5 TIEs and Howlrunner. Upgrades and such I do not remember.

For the Imperial play its all about planning ahead. I usually go with Squadrons, Fire Power, Engineering as my starting command dials. Here's why. Tarkin gives out engineering to all. Then you can move or bank the squadron token. Turn 2 tarkin gives out the Fire Power token and you may commerce your attack. When turn 3 hits, you've been trading blows your about halfway through the game. Seems like a fine time to increase your speed by 1 with tarkin and burn that engineer token and dial to repair 3 shields.

Imperials are less adaptive as they have a command stack so I feel like you should try and plan the game in early, mid, late phases and do your dials appropriately. You can essentially set the dial order for the entire game turn 1 if you are cunning enough. this lets you abuse the hell out of Tarkin and his adaptability, mostly to increase and decrease your speed.

I set my ships to speed one keep them kinda close and just long range bombard my enemy while my TIEs swarm the X-Wings. If I can destroy a Rebel ship before the X-wings clear out my TIEs I feel like I am in good shape. If I can take 2 out, I am very confident that I have won.

Rebels

X-WINGS X-WINGS X-WINGS X-WINGS, use all your squadron points all the time.

When I played Rebels my tactic was simple. Spam X-Wings. Keep my ships at speed 1 or 2. Use my ships superior Squadron fighting to clear Ties faster to get my x-wings into the star destroyers. This means almost every turn you will be using the engineering command so you can survive the imperial bombardment.

Once your X-Wings are clear, use the Pulse upgrade to exhaust their defensive tokens and bombs away. You would be surprised and how deadly X-Wings are vs Imperial Capital ships and Imperial players need to realize this.

Also, when the X-wings are clear (by turn 3 hopefully) you wanna kick in the after burners and stay as far away as the imperial ships as you can potentially out of range and let them roll 1 blue dice vs 5hp x-wings. As the X-Wings pepper them, then fully commit to the assault come in fast and hard (RAMMMING SPEED), light them up get damage on them and try to finish off a ship.

This is kinda 101 tactics and stuff but I found playing 300pts with 2 cores these tactics are pretty sound and make the game really fun. When Wave 1 hits things will change drastically.

Playing imps a bit there are three things I've noticed tactics wise.

This is at the 180 points size, but I think the info can scale.

Firepower: Ive been playing the Vic-1 loaded to kill capital ships. It works great on rebel ships, (they really can't repel firepower of that magnitude) but it suffers vs imps. Part of this is my amazing ability to not roll accuracies, but that can be mitigated by upgrades. Anyway, the lesson is when you can throw out lots of dice that is mainly red/black, the ability to ensure you have at least 1 defense negation is critical. I have to test more, but i think the Vic-2 (and blue heavier rolls in general, don't suffer from the same issues, but inherently won't produce as many hits).

Commands: I was running a defense liaison, two of my imp opponents ran wulan. I'd like to think I had a more flexible setup (mostly spamming squadron or concentrates, with the ability to change to navigates or repairs easily. But they had an advantage in tokens that proved pretty decisive. Overall lesson, having quickchange command abilities is nice, but with larger ships you still have to try and dictate the battle to match your projected command dials (much easier at this stage vs slow imps).

Fighters: Imp side there are two schools of thought right now at our shop: take the max or take whatever is left after essential upgrades. Both have merits but will change depending on what your facing. I like running 3 or 4 tie squadrons. They will kill a similar or smaller number of enemy fighters with a good alpha, but if they get hit first or run into superior numbers, they're done (Xwings scale up a bit with better hits/HP, so vs them its not really 1 to 1). At that point the name of the game is tieing the enemy up with engagement while I try to drop the enemy capital ships. It works pretty well vs Imps since its mostly single ship, but I feel anytime you are vs a fleet that has more large ships (both sides as releases happen), you can take the minimum number of fighters to delay the enemy. Later on this means you'll need to either raise your 'minimum number' or have a dedicated anti fighter capital ship.

That's all I've got so far, hope any of that's usefull.

Some Early Thoughts

I've got 6 or 7 180 and 300 point games under my belt now. We've been playing by the book and using Objectives once we had the game figured out.

1. Pre-Game: This game can be won or lost in the pre-game. Your choice of objectives, how many point you bring, and how you set up are all crucial to winning. We have found that very often (maybe always, I need to keep better records), whoever brings the least fleet points seem to win the game if they do the pre-game stuff right. Fewer points means that you force the other player to be the First Player. Then, the first player has to choose from your Objective cards. (Hopefully you chose well). Next as the Second player, you start off setting up the Obstacles. And finally, the First Player must place the first ship.

2. Combat: Admiral Akbar wasn't kidding when he said, "we can't repel firepower of that magnitude." In the 180 point matches we have done, the Rebels small ships have generally not been able to kill Victory-class star Destroyers. I'm not saying its an absolute, but it does seem difficult and unlikely, especially when the VSDs are constantly taking the engineering action and replenishing 2-3 shields per round.

It wasn't until we played a 300-point game that the Rebels were able to take down a VSD. What we have focussed on more when playing the Rebels (i.e., small, fast ships vs Large slow ships) is picking mission objectives that allow the rebels to win the game without having to kill a VSD. Basically, they concentrate on using their speed to avoid a head on clash. Since there are no points for damaging a ship, you can take some hits, accomplish your mission and minimize your exposure to Heavy fire from large and medium sized ships.

Ive only played rebels twice and both times I was able to take down the Victory, by sacrficing one ship to take a lot of shots and ramming, and the other ship comes in on the last turn for a lucky dice roll and kill,

1st time I was running Corvette B with Pride title and got the 1 Crit to pass the shield which was the last damage needed, and other time was a nebulan b after being out of range for a turn, speed past) was able to throw 4 reds out of the front arc for an accuracy and 3 double hits, no halving that damage. but yeah I feel like the rebels are going to need some help because ramming and lucky last shots are not a good way to try and take down the star destroyer

Played a couple of games, I've found myself using way more navigation commands/tokens than I expected. The ability to slow your corvette from 4-2 in a single turn or get a full 45 degree turn for a victory have been huge.

Played a couple of games, I've found myself using way more navigation commands/tokens than I expected. The ability to slow your corvette from 4-2 in a single turn or get a full 45 degree turn for a victory have been huge.

For your latter example, just bear in mind that unless you have the Nav Team upgrade, you can't use the navigate token to increase yaw.

Please do publish those tactics articles when you find the time .

Also please talk some more about fleet formations for the imperials,

i find that most of the time the rebel can avoid the medium/short range bit of the VSD front arc,

and not allow much of a chance for the imperials to use their massive firepower .

So i personally find the VSD I to be very dissapointing and easily outmaneuvered ,

however soo many people seem to be enamored with it .

The only use i see for it is part of the rearguard bringing up a refused flank ,

since , aside from using it as area control/denial to enemy , i dont see them actually using a lot of their vaunted firepower.

Also personally , i think when sending in a ship like a speed 3 Neb b toe to toe , when pressed right up to their face ,

it can live and fly past , (2 braces) , as well as many formations being unable to add much weight of return fire

due to alternating moves and simple range .

I as rebel can pick out one ship to focus on .

Maybe a Line abreast start with a maneuver command or token to have a speed difference turn it into a right or left flank formation?

thinking tank formations with VSDs

I have played four games now, so I am no expert. However, I have learned some lessons the hard way in those four games.

It seems that Rebel players, myself included, go too fast. The speed difference makes it seem like the rebels should always be going faster than the Imperials. This is painfully not true. The speed difference should be exploited during turns with initiative to disengage and get out of range prior to the Imperial initiative turn , but running the ships at full blast all of the time leads to bad maneuvers that leave the Imperial fleet with deadly shots during the Imperial initiative turn.

It is easy to overvalue the flashy damage-centric upgrades and undervalue the less flashy upgrades. Engine techs is perhaps the best upgrade in the game for either side. Demolisher + engine techs is truly terrifying. A corvette with engine techs is much, much better than a corvette without engine techs. Engineering teams are also not very exciting and don't get the girls, but when you need them they are worth every point.

Overload pulse is probably the best weapons upgrade available to the rebels, especially on the cheaper corvette. Exhausting all of a ship's defense tokens is beyond powerful, especially as a first attack in a turn.

The B-Wing is not as bad as you think it is in your head. The speed 2 actually causes the B-Wing to miss the initial scrum of X-Wings, Y-Wings and TIE fighters as the B-Wings slowly lumber out of the deployment area. While every other ship is engaged, the B-Wing is not. This allows it to actually attack ships.

Navigate commands are very important for both the Imperial and Rebel player. Extra yaw is nice. Being able to control speed is critical. A well thought-out and lined up shot without Concentrate Fire is going to do a lot more good than a poorly planned one with Concentrate Fire.

Initiative changes everything. Often, the last ship you move on the turn where do not have initiative should be the first to go on the turn you do, as it will be in the best position to shoot before moving. Understand that the Victory is a lumbering giant. Get into it's path after it has moved, take a shot on the next turn, navigate your speed up, and escape it's arcs before it has time to respond.

I have played four games now, so I am no expert. However, I have learned some lessons the hard way in those four games.

It seems that Rebel players, myself included, go too fast. The speed difference makes it seem like the rebels should always be going faster than the Imperials. This is painfully not true. The speed difference should be exploited during turns with initiative to disengage and get out of range prior to the Imperial initiative turn, but running the ships at full blast all of the time leads to bad maneuvers that leave the Imperial fleet with deadly shots during the Imperial initiative turn.

...

Initiative changes everything. Often, the last ship you move on the turn where do not have initiative should be the first to go on the turn you do, as it will be in the best position to shoot before moving. Understand that the Victory is a lumbering giant. Get into it's path after it has moved, take a shot on the next turn, navigate your speed up, and escape it's arcs before it has time to respond.

Initiative doesn't actually switch during a game. Whoever has initiative (or is first player) at the beginning of the game will remain with initiative until the end of turn 6. The "learn to play" game uses alternating initiative, which has only led to lots of confusion as people transition to playing the full game.

I have played four games now, so I am no expert. However, I have learned some lessons the hard way in those four games.

It seems that Rebel players, myself included, go too fast. The speed difference makes it seem like the rebels should always be going faster than the Imperials. This is painfully not true. The speed difference should be exploited during turns with initiative to disengage and get out of range prior to the Imperial initiative turn, but running the ships at full blast all of the time leads to bad maneuvers that leave the Imperial fleet with deadly shots during the Imperial initiative turn.

...

Initiative changes everything. Often, the last ship you move on the turn where do not have initiative should be the first to go on the turn you do, as it will be in the best position to shoot before moving. Understand that the Victory is a lumbering giant. Get into it's path after it has moved, take a shot on the next turn, navigate your speed up, and escape it's arcs before it has time to respond.

Initiative doesn't actually switch during a game. Whoever has initiative (or is first player) at the beginning of the game will remain with initiative until the end of turn 6. The "learn to play" game uses alternating initiative, which has only led to lots of confusion as people transition to playing the full game.

Yeah, you're right. Wow. That actually changes everything. So I guess try not to make that mistake, everyone, as it makes you spend time learning lessons that are wrong. Thanks for the reply.

Hey man, it took me 5 games to finally get the game right! Don't feel bad, we all have been there!