The advantage of ywings is they take so much to kill. The longer try squads are tied up trying to kill my ywing, the better off the rest of my force will be.

Except Y-Wings can't tie up anything. They're too heavy.

By the rules they can't, psychologically they can.

That's not a great tactician if they get tied up and killing those Y's isn't the smart move.

That, my friend, depends entirely on the circumstance. :3

The advantage of ywings is they take so much to kill. The longer try squads are tied up trying to kill my ywing, the better off the rest of my force will be.

Except Y-Wings can't tie up anything. They're too heavy.

By the rules they can't, psychologically they can.

That's not a great tactician if they get tied up and killing those Y's isn't the smart move.

That, my friend, depends entirely on the circumstance. :3

A polite suggestion to all. Play with them (them being any of wave 1 and core) then perform analysis.

Theorycrafting is all well and good, but the proof is in the pudding.

I'm going to hazard a guess that wedge and dutch are going to synergise just fine when it comes to killing imperial aces. Dutch gets a hit in and makes them give up an activation, then wedge blasts them with 6 dice. Most imperial ties just aren't going to survive that, even with bracing.

The core problem I have with Dutch's ability is that Dutch is a heavy bomber. His ability really should boost bombing attacks. If yu are using a bomber to shoot at fighters, you did something wrong.

And yes, I understand that Dutch is using his ion cannon... But why is Dutches squadron the only Y wing squadron with ion cannons?

But the Y-Wing had been a fighter and is still often used in this role, even in the Alliance untile the X-Wing came out of the factories in large numbers....

Just because the Y-wing was used as a fighter and continued to see service as one doesn't mean it was successfully used as one... Every time a Y-wing mission came up in the old X-wing PC game I'd inherently shrudder.

The more I think of it, the more i think Tycho is the best ace.

He does the work of entire additional squadrons of ships. Imagine this situation:

Enemy is fielding a mixed TIE and Bomber force. Could be Interceptors or Advanceds, it doesn't matter. You hurl your A-Wings from Gallant Haven into the fray, Y-Wings staying back as there's no need to risk them yet against the enemy fighter screen. Your one B-Wing is waiting too, for Demolisher is sure to be boosting in any second now.

Both forces are tied up. But wait, Tycho leaves combat and then shoves himself into the Bombers, singlehandedly taking them out of the fight. If they even dare shoot at him, they're going to be wrecked.

If the enemy holds back some escort to fight Tycho, you could crush the first fighter wave and then move on anyway.

Perhaps the fight is pretty good with the fighter-on-fighter, when the GSD breaks through. Your ships fire at it and strip a shield. You can now recall tycho from the dogfight and have him contribute an additional attack to the action! All while being only 16 points. That's a lot of flexibility for 16 points, potentially more flexibility than even two A-Wings held in reserve as a second force intercept group.

Honestly, to me, it seems like the imperial fighters received a massive boost.

Ties and Ints have a blue anti ship die.

ALL area of effect ace abilities are imperial.

None of the rebel fighters benefit from their missile armament in their anti squadron armament (why no red or black die when shooting at other squadrons for all the wings)

But only A-Wings have missles as a standar layout. And the TIE-Bomber also doesnt benefit at all from the fact that he can spitt out missles like nobody else.

Just because the Y-wing was used as a fighter and continued to see service as one doesn't mean it was successfully used as one... Every time a Y-wing mission came up in the old X-wing PC game I'd inherently shrudder.

The Y-Wing was used because there were no better fighters at hand. But that doesn make it an bad fighter. I dont think the Republik and the Alliance would have used a useless fighter as a fighter. And it has its strengths: like awesome shields and hull and great weapons (better than an X-Wing even). I liked the Y-Wing best from the X-Wing game. I even shot down 52 TIE-Interceptors in one mission (you see I remembered that), also it was not easy. I would take an Y-Wing over a B-Wing any day.

The fun thing about having cheap Tie fighters is simply tying (puns!) up the rebels with Imperial entanglements until your superiority fighters can get in, or you use the might of your guns to then teach the Rebels the error of their ways.....before the Rebels deal with their speed bump. At least that's how I play them. I don't go into a dogfight expecting the Imps fighters to win, simply to delay until I eliminate the real resistance. In a 6 turn game, those fighters aren't going to worry me too much if their support is floating debris.

I am with GrandMoffMatt on this. I really see Squadrons as a means to tie up Bombers from hitting your ships. If I have bomber capable assets then I save them for the same purpose. I don't bother flying my Squadrons off to attack way in front of my Cap ships either. I wait for the fleets to engage then move the bombers in. Only fighter Squadrons patrol, essentially flying CAP.

There's nothing scarier than an Escort Frigate with a swarm of X-Wings around it. Seriously.

I guess I am just disappointed that I need to use ships to impose Rebel fighters vs Rebel aces.

As the point size of the game grows, the area of effect abilities become stronger, and the value of single pilot abilities decrease (higher risk of quick death)

Also, Wedge and Dutch are a terrible combo for killing regular ties. You spend 9 attack dice (4.5 hits) to kill a fighter with only 3 hp.

So wedge an Dutch are worth 35 points. Let's say you use them against some tie bombers. You engage in round 3 (4 turns of attacks) round three you get 6 hits and kill a bomber. Good job. Round 4 you get 4 hits on a bomber, it survives with 1 hp. Round 5 you use Wedge to finish off the second bomber, and Dutch gets two hits on a third bomber. Round six Dutch gets another two hits on the third bomber, and wedge finishes it off. You killed 27 points, good job, but the bombers tied up 35 of your points.

Let's say you were facing 4 tie bombers. Round 3 wedge takes 2.25 damage, round 4 wedge takes 1.5 (3.75 total), round 5 wedge takes .75 damage (4.5 total damage), round six Wedge takes 0.75 damage and is destroyed. Imperials get 19 points.

But, wedge has a 50% chance of being dead on round 6, so you may or may not get that final bomber kill. If you don't get the final bomber, suddenly the rebels LOST the engagement 18 to 19 points.

In the above example, wedge was overkilling the bombers, and Dutch was suppressing fire. Let's switch rolls.

Four rounds.

Dutch and wedge roll 9 dice, doing 4.5 damage.

3 Bombers roll 3 dice doing 2.25 damage.

Best case for rebels, in this round they get the extra .5 damage, and lose it next round

Round 2

Dutch and wedge do 4

2 bombers do 1.5 (3.75)

Round 3

Dutch finishes bomber 2 with 1.5 damage, wedge does 2 damage to bomber 3

2 bombers Do 1.5 damage (5.25). Wedge dies.

Round 4

Dutch does 1.5 damage to bomber 3 (3.5 total damage)

One bomber does .75 damage to Dutch, or just disengages.

Game day ends.

Imperials lost 2 bombers for 18 points, rebels lost wedge for 19 points.

What about using Dutch to suppress a tie bomber... Well, it will take 3 rounds to get to 4.5 damage, and by the fourth round yu will kill it. But you still paid 16 points to kill 9 imperial points.

I am looking forward to getting some games in this weekend with the wave 1 squadrons. The core set experience of simply X-wings and TIE fighters kind of had me feeling that the squadron aspect was a sub-game to pad your point total that felt removed from the meat of ship to ship combat. My opponents stuck with effective TIE screens and the X-wings were largely ineffective for the majority of games. When they did get through, it was usually magnificent - especially Luke - but it was often too late to really hurt the target or significantly change the outcome of the match.

I don't often play mirror matches, so I apologize for my primarily "Rebel versus Imperial" mindset. With all the list building options now, I know there are more possibilities than "dual Victories plus every TIE I can fit in the list," so I'm hoping that the increased complexity in list building will create complexity (and greater opportunity) in the squadron game.

So all that being said, I do prefer the Imperial hero squadrons. I just like them better, I think their abilities are better suited to how I feel I would like to play squadrons and will see more play when I try Imperial lists than their Rebel counterparts. That being said, because I'm in my last hours of wild, baseless speculation before I can actually play with this stuff, I am going to get it out of my system!

I find Keyan underwhelming, but my initial reaction regarding B-wings in general is that they just aren't there yet to begin with. With such a low speed and such a short range, I feel like the B-wing requires something else that doesn't exist in the game yet. If Keyan had a Rhymer-like effect simply on other B-wings, I would be ecstatic - even if it came at the cost of a reduction to their battery armament. I would take them with Keyan despite the 2-speed. The B-wing is my favorite fighter in the Star Wars universe, my soul needs it to work out in Armada, so I'll be smashing my head against tables until I can make it work.

Tycho just makes me shrug. But don't get me wrong, I totally see where there would be value in his ability, and if I had 5 points free in an A-wing heavy fleet, I think I would seriously consider upgrading one to get some defense tokens out there. If I knew I was going up against a lot of TIE bombers, I think I would take Tycho just to have the freedom of causing engagments at will when they get in range of my cruisers - especially if there are Rhymer range shenanigans about.

Luke is pretty great when he's free to assault enemy ships - but as I mentioned above, against heavy and intelligently played fighter screens, he may not see much action. I am anxious to try him out against other Imperial lists that may be sacrificing a bunch of those TIEs to squeeze a Gladiator.

Finally though... Wedge and Dutch are my jam. They are my jam, my jelly, my peanut butter and my peanuts. I love them, and I think their long-term importance will outlive a lot of the Wave 1 squadrons and heroes (along with Rhymer and Howl, I can't imagine them ever not finding a role in this game). As Megamen pointed out, they may feel like they are slightly wasted in the current game against standard squadrons of any kind and I agree. It's a hefty price to pay for what could amount to a lot of overkill followed by an inflated cost X-wing kill for your opponent. However I think they really shine in suppressing and removing the threat of opposing hero units - and to take that further out, I am already thinking about the Rogues and Villains coming our way. Think about the (hopefully) heavy investment in your opponent's hero bounty hunter loaded up with Rogue and Bomber stuck at a standstill and being ripped apart. Need to get it on the table, obviously, but I think that the impact of a well played Wedge/Dutch in tandem with other fighters could be more and more devastating as more squadron sized units and more heroes are introduced to the game.

I played a pretty interesting game last night.
I had 2 x-wings hugging the GH with Dutch and Wedge. when Vader, Fel, x1 tie advanced, and some bombers rolled up on me.

I used a command to activate Dutch who landed a hit on Vader, Then Wedge who hit him for 6 blue. after that I used my ships AA to do some damage. Then at the start of the fighter phase I used both my x-wings to finish off Vader.
When he activated his tie bombers were useless thanks to the GH.
At the end of round 6 I had lost Wedge and all of my fighters were almost dead but I had killed Vader and the other Tie advanced, Fel only had 1 HP left but his scatter kept him in the fight.

Between the GH, that other title that let me attack twice, and 3 X-wings vs what was basically only a Tie advanced, Vader, and Fell I thought I had the that fight. but Fell's ability ripped me apart. His ability almost highhandedly took out all my fighters.

Now to be fair. I made some pretty big mistakes. I had my GH running at speed 2 and when our fighters engaged I really had to fight to keep all my fighters in range. When Wedge fell out of range he died. Also My Neb-B support fell to far back and I only got to use my double fighter command 2 times.

It was still a interesting fight and I would have won on points in the end if not for a VSD poping my Ned-B in one attack at the 11th hour.

Just because the Y-wing was used as a fighter and continued to see service as one doesn't mean it was successfully used as one... Every time a Y-wing mission came up in the old X-wing PC game I'd inherently shrudder.

But did you win said missions?

Yes?

Then AHA! Successful use of a Y-wing!

Y Wing OP!!! Ok not really.

I feel I should note. Tycho is way better than he looks on paper due to scatter counter. I watched himbtank a whole lot of ties and take 2 damage while dealing a fair bit back.

I feel I should note. Tycho is way better than he looks on paper due to scatter counter. I watched himbtank a whole lot of ties and take 2 damage while dealing a fair bit back.

Scatter is great, until someone rolls an accuracy.

Howlrunner was kicking tons of X-Wing tail, until it rolled like 2 accuracy Ave 3 damage. Crap.

As a member of the Y-wing anti-defamation league, it's my duty to defend the overly maligned reputation of the best fighter in the Alliance from the usual smear tactics employed by Imperial spies bent on robbing the Rebellion of it's greatest asset. Y-wings rule! I'm so glad Armada has found a way to make them a viable option in the game.

And, I always looked forward to those missions involving the Y.

the only problem I have with Ys is that, with +1 health and -3 points to the X-wing, I'd rather have them get shot at first instead of the escort

the only problem I have with Ys is that, with +1 health and -3 points to the X-wing, I'd rather have them get shot at first instead of the escort

Absolutely! Anti squadron dice seem very expensive on fighters compared to health.

Y-Wings are great because it's a speedy and cheap purpose-made bomber for the rebellion. B-Wings are too slow for the role. If you want a powerful fighter flank send Y-Wings with X-Wings to the ambush point and wait for your prey to get into range to pummel it. X-wings will cover them from any TIEs coming to the rescue.

B-Wings just need a special upgrade or Ace to really make them shine. Right now, they just require too much planning and positioning for that 1~2 shots they might make.

got games tomorrow

and can't decide

alright guys, 3 nebs with a-wings & y-wings (w/Dutch!)

or

double whales (parago & haven) with x-wings (w/Wedge!)

will report my findings with whoever