If all my opponent can do with Air Superiority is throwing down greeting cards at me, I don't really care about it. If he is throwing down nukes, I better hinder him. Thus, air superiority is, like everything, depending on context - and this thread is just discussing this context. Platitudes are not helping much.

So, the question is, what are squadrons capable of? Are they just throwing annoying greeting cards and can I spend my points on ships, or will these little buggers eat my ships if I don't stop them with a little help from my own squadrons?

If all my opponent can do with Air Superiority is throwing down greeting cards at me, I don't really care about it. If he is throwing down nukes, I better hinder him. Thus, air superiority is, like everything, depending on context - and this thread is just discussing this context. Platitudes are not helping much.

So, the question is, what are squadrons capable of? Are they just throwing annoying greeting cards and can I spend my points on ships, or will these little buggers eat my ships if I don't stop them with a little help from my own squadrons?

greeting cards are propaganda!

they could cause moral damage !

Air superiority always!

(but yes, target priority will always be context dependent I agree )

On a strict dice per points basis, squadrons (at least bombers) beat the living **** out of cap ships. Their absurd value is countered by the restrictions imposed upon them by the base rules. So I'm fully expecting the little buggers to devour ships with impunity, especially since quite a few ships can do so little to retaliate

If all my opponent can do with Air Superiority is throwing down greeting cards at me, I don't really care about it. If he is throwing down nukes, I better hinder him. Thus, air superiority is, like everything, depending on context - and this thread is just discussing this context. Platitudes are not helping much.

So, the question is, what are squadrons capable of? Are they just throwing annoying greeting cards and can I spend my points on ships, or will these little buggers eat my ships if I don't stop them with a little help from my own squadrons?

greeting cards are propaganda!

they could cause moral damage !

Air superiority always!

(but yes, target priority will always be context dependent I agree )

On a strict dice per points basis, squadrons (at least bombers) beat the living **** out of cap ships. Their absurd value is countered by the restrictions imposed upon them by the base rules. So I'm fully expecting the little buggers to devour ships with impunity, especially since quite a few ships can do so little to retaliate

I agree with you about the rules helping get everything balanced. I think its just a tough call to invest heavily in the fighters. Lets take the cheapest ship we have right now, the CR90B. It give you five attack dice if you position your arcs correctly plus the ability to do crits and damage at a longer range. Take the equivalent in Tie Bombers (and rounding up) still gives you the equivalent 5 dice, although more deadly, and way more health but you now have the contend with the engagement rules, range limitations, and the necessity of ship support for the squad commands. Tough call and I'm sure I'll change my tune once I have a bunch of B-Wings one shot a VSD...

Fighters are incredibly effective at dealing damage. Air superiority will get a huge advantage for the next several waves. If not forever. I'm lokking forward to the Fighters are cheap threads.

If all my opponent can do with Air Superiority is throwing down greeting cards at me, I don't really care about it. If he is throwing down nukes, I better hinder him. Thus, air superiority is, like everything, depending on context - and this thread is just discussing this context. Platitudes are not helping much.

So, the question is, what are squadrons capable of? Are they just throwing annoying greeting cards and can I spend my points on ships, or will these little buggers eat my ships if I don't stop them with a little help from my own squadrons?

greeting cards are propaganda!

they could cause moral damage !

Air superiority always!

(but yes, target priority will always be context dependent I agree )

On a strict dice per points basis, squadrons (at least bombers) beat the living **** out of cap ships. Their absurd value is countered by the restrictions imposed upon them by the base rules. So I'm fully expecting the little buggers to devour ships with impunity, especially since quite a few ships can do so little to retaliate

I agree with you about the rules helping get everything balanced. I think its just a tough call to invest heavily in the fighters. Lets take the cheapest ship we have right now, the CR90B. It give you five attack dice if you position your arcs correctly plus the ability to do crits and damage at a longer range. Take the equivalent in Tie Bombers (and rounding up) still gives you the equivalent 5 dice, although more deadly, and way more health but you now have the contend with the engagement rules, range limitations, and the necessity of ship support for the squad commands. Tough call and I'm sure I'll change my tune once I have a bunch of B-Wings one shot a VSD...

That's certainly true, but the CR90 is also at risk of being blown out of the water in 1-2 shots by even a single VSD. Bombers may have to contend with other squads and engagement rules, but they make the tradeoff of being **** hard for most capital ships to take out in any kind of timely manner.

I think the fact it's so hard to weigh the pros and cons is a good thing, and shows the good balance the designers put into the game. Granted part of the discussion is most of us haven't played with the Wave 1 stuff yet, but the fact there's still not a seemingly obvious choice in most situations is a good thing, in my opinion.

If all my opponent can do with Air Superiority is throwing down greeting cards at me, I don't really care about it. If he is throwing down nukes, I better hinder him. Thus, air superiority is, like everything, depending on context - and this thread is just discussing this context. Platitudes are not helping much.

So, the question is, what are squadrons capable of? Are they just throwing annoying greeting cards and can I spend my points on ships, or will these little buggers eat my ships if I don't stop them with a little help from my own squadrons?

greeting cards are propaganda!

they could cause moral damage !

Air superiority always!

(but yes, target priority will always be context dependent I agree )

On a strict dice per points basis, squadrons (at least bombers) beat the living **** out of cap ships. Their absurd value is countered by the restrictions imposed upon them by the base rules. So I'm fully expecting the little buggers to devour ships with impunity, especially since quite a few ships can do so little to retaliate

I agree with you about the rules helping get everything balanced. I think its just a tough call to invest heavily in the fighters. Lets take the cheapest ship we have right now, the CR90B. It give you five attack dice if you position your arcs correctly plus the ability to do crits and damage at a longer range. Take the equivalent in Tie Bombers (and rounding up) still gives you the equivalent 5 dice, although more deadly, and way more health but you now have the contend with the engagement rules, range limitations, and the necessity of ship support for the squad commands. Tough call and I'm sure I'll change my tune once I have a bunch of B-Wings one shot a VSD...

That's certainly true, but the CR90 is also at risk of being blown out of the water in 1-2 shots by even a single VSD. Bombers may have to contend with other squads and engagement rules, but they make the tradeoff of being **** hard for most capital ships to take out in any kind of timely manner.

I think the fact it's so hard to weigh the pros and cons is a good thing, and shows the good balance the designers put into the game. Granted part of the discussion is most of us haven't played with the Wave 1 stuff yet, but the fact there's still not a seemingly obvious choice in most situations is a good thing, in my opinion.

I couldn't agree more about the balance. The counter to your VSD point is that it only take a single 8 point Tie to counter the bombers. My nightmare scenario is someone will tie up a whole fighter wing worth a quarter of my total points with 1 Tie Fighter stand. In a 6 turn game even being delayed 1 turn can really hurt. I'd be all for max fighters every game if it wasn't for that turn limit. But we'll see how wave 1 shakes things out for sure.

It's all part of the evolving, complex strategy of what is sure to be a wonderful game. There is no need for a nightmare scenario

If all my opponent can do with Air Superiority is throwing down greeting cards at me, I don't really care about it. If he is throwing down nukes, I better hinder him. Thus, air superiority is, like everything, depending on context - and this thread is just discussing this context. Platitudes are not helping much.

So, the question is, what are squadrons capable of? Are they just throwing annoying greeting cards and can I spend my points on ships, or will these little buggers eat my ships if I don't stop them with a little help from my own squadrons?

greeting cards are propaganda!

they could cause moral damage !

Air superiority always!

(but yes, target priority will always be context dependent I agree )

On a strict dice per points basis, squadrons (at least bombers) beat the living **** out of cap ships. Their absurd value is countered by the restrictions imposed upon them by the base rules. So I'm fully expecting the little buggers to devour ships with impunity, especially since quite a few ships can do so little to retaliate

I agree with you about the rules helping get everything balanced. I think its just a tough call to invest heavily in the fighters. Lets take the cheapest ship we have right now, the CR90B. It give you five attack dice if you position your arcs correctly plus the ability to do crits and damage at a longer range. Take the equivalent in Tie Bombers (and rounding up) still gives you the equivalent 5 dice, although more deadly, and way more health but you now have the contend with the engagement rules, range limitations, and the necessity of ship support for the squad commands. Tough call and I'm sure I'll change my tune once I have a bunch of B-Wings one shot a VSD...

That's certainly true, but the CR90 is also at risk of being blown out of the water in 1-2 shots by even a single VSD. Bombers may have to contend with other squads and engagement rules, but they make the tradeoff of being **** hard for most capital ships to take out in any kind of timely manner.

I think the fact it's so hard to weigh the pros and cons is a good thing, and shows the good balance the designers put into the game. Granted part of the discussion is most of us haven't played with the Wave 1 stuff yet, but the fact there's still not a seemingly obvious choice in most situations is a good thing, in my opinion.

I couldn't agree more about the balance. The counter to your VSD point is that it only take a single 8 point Tie to counter the bombers. My nightmare scenario is someone will tie up a whole fighter wing worth a quarter of my total points with 1 Tie Fighter stand. In a 6 turn game even being delayed 1 turn can really hurt. I'd be all for max fighters every game if it wasn't for that turn limit. But we'll see how wave 1 shakes things out for sure.

I totally understand that being a nighmare scenario, but I could see ways to try and get around it if you managed to play well with other fighters of your own. If you assume the VSD would/could have fighters to help defend itself and tie up bombers I think it makes a fair comparison to assume you'd also have X-wings/A-wings as the Rebel side in that scenario too. SInce fighters like the A-wing are also much faster than the bombers, you could have them fly ahead of any bombers you have to engage the enemy ties, leaving your bombers able to more freely maenuver into a postion to fire on the capital ships. Even if that move ended up being sacrificial for the A-wings, it might be worth it to buy a couple turns for the bombers to get in position and unleash hell. I think it might take a bit more effort or strategy to get fighters to play to their full effectiveness, but it certainly seems pretty workable.

Between speed + counter to clear out ties on A-wings and Escort on X-wings to give the bombers further insurance, I think it sounds pretty viable(and very thematic and fun) to go heavy on fighters, at least for now.(Might be a bit different when the Imperial Raider is out, which would give them some relatively cheap and good anti-squadron dice)

One thing I find both interesting and thematic about Armada, is how poorly in general the Ship's deal with Squadrons.

Out of the 10 ships we have so far, only 3 have more than a single blue die as anti-fighter support, and even 2 dice is going to take a couple shots to kill even a 3 hull Tie Fighter. In the mean time Fighters can do ok damage to Ships, Bombers being a decent threat actually.

That means Ships pretty much have to take fighters or else run the risk of being swarmed to death.

One thing I find both interesting and thematic about Armada, is how poorly in general the Ship's deal with Squadrons.

Out of the 10 ships we have so far, only 3 have more than a single blue die as anti-fighter support, and even 2 dice is going to take a couple shots to kill even a 3 hull Tie Fighter. In the mean time Fighters can do ok damage to Ships, Bombers being a decent threat actually.

That means Ships pretty much have to take fighters or else run the risk of being swarmed to death.

Pretty much! Mind you, do note that those anti-squadron dice on ships attack ALL squadrons in an arc, unlike other squadrons who can only attack one at a time.

In my opening game with my friend after I picked up Core, I had managed to kill off all his X-Wings and had some four Tie squads remaining ... and they got chewed up hard over two rounds by his Neb B Escort.

One thing I find both interesting and thematic about Armada, is how poorly in general the Ship's deal with Squadrons.

Out of the 10 ships we have so far, only 3 have more than a single blue die as anti-fighter support, and even 2 dice is going to take a couple shots to kill even a 3 hull Tie Fighter. In the mean time Fighters can do ok damage to Ships, Bombers being a decent threat actually.

That means Ships pretty much have to take fighters or else run the risk of being swarmed to death.

Are you saying that the ships are so small they're evading your turbolasers, and you'll have to destroy them ship to ship?

Mind you, do note that those anti-squadron dice on ships attack ALL squadrons in an arc

Sure, but you still can only land a hit maybe each one, so if I come at your VSD with 4 undamaged X-Wings... It's going to be at least 5 rounds before your VSD kills them all, most likely longer. The whole time they're getting 5 back dice attacks in a round. On the other hand, if my group of 4 X-Wings gets stopped by your Tie Fighters or Interceptors, even if they manage to win the furball, they're going to be so banged up that a single volley from the VSD may be enough to finish them off.

I think FFG did a good job of making fighter as important as they were in the movies, without making them too powerful.

Are you saying that the ships are so small they're evading your turbolasers, and you'll have to destroy them ship to ship?

that's exactly what I'm saying.

The imperial ships (specifically fighters and ints) are far more vulnerable to anti-squadron dice from cap ships (3 health)

The rebellion ships are not as cost effective against squadrons as the tie fighters and ints. (but they're also more well rounded overall)

hooray for more different but equal

The imperial ships (specifically fighters and ints) are far more vulnerable to anti-squadron dice from cap ships (3 health)

The rebellion ships are not as cost effective against squadrons as the tie fighters and ints. (but they're also more well rounded overall)

hooray for more different but equal

Yes! Keeping things balanced but different/asymetrical seems to be an extremely hard thing to do, from video games to board games, and I think Armada has done a **** good job handling it so far.

Exactly. I'm quite happy that they designed the two sides differently. Rebel squadrons are sturdy but slow and pricey jacks of all trades. Imperial squadrons are cheap specialized fighters, but fairly fragile and near useless dealing with situations they are not designed for (I'm looking at you, one squadron die tie bomber!).

Squadrons are useful when you're using it correctly. Alone, they're nothing. With a capital ship, it screens the attack from others squadrons. With the "escort" thing and also the Counter 2... it's gonna be very useful. We'll be able to use the bomber against capital ships with the cover of the escort squadrons. Can't wait to have all my stuff.