I did a bit of an analysis on the various objectives, and posted them on my blog.

http://xwingtactics.blogspot.com/2015/05/armada-objectives-part-13-assault.html

http://xwingtactics.blogspot.com/2015/05/armada-objectives-part-23-defense.html

http://xwingtactics.blogspot.com/2015/06/armada-objectives-part-33-navigation.html

I was hoping to get a discussion going on the objectives themselves. When to select each one from the perspective of both the First Player and the Second Player. Which objectives do you take as the Second Player, and how does your fleet build lend itself towards each objective as the First Player? Do you build with an initiative bid in mind, or do you build to be able to handle any objective that comes your way?

depends on the fleet, always

been primarily flying double fatties with spamed X-wing escorts. It's a list that I feel is flexible enough to the point where I haven't missed initiative or objective choice, so I just build to the full 300 (or as close as possible) because it has enough maneuverability, durability, long range firepower, and bombers to handle most situations.

My standbys are Advanced Gunnery (dat paragon), Fleet Ambush (isolates a single ship that gets torn asunder before the other one can arrive to support), and Intel Sweep (fatties love running around while still get their wide side-arc shots)

So far, all my games have been vs VSD + GSD (skreed, demolisher, squadrons) and they've always taken the initiative (because it's amazing to have on the demolisher, and on frail interceptors) and opted for either Fleet Ambush or Intel Sweep because they derive so little benefit from Advanced Gunnery.

I've also played some triple Nebs, where I drop a 7/10 point bid in order to counter GSD initiatives (+ reserve them for my own squadrons) or force choice of my objectives (same as the double fatties, only subbing out Advanced--which is pretty decent on salvation--for Most Wanted which scales heavily off of having more ships to shoot with). Fleet Ambush is hilariously devastating with triple Nebs, because I make sure to include some B-wings which love having their dinner served to them on a silver platter

Moving onto double VSD, however, I drop at least a 10 point bid. Havn't put them on the table yet (need more gorram rebel opponents!) but certain objective choices (especially contested outpost) so heavily favor VSDs that it's almost comical, while others (intel sweep) kind of screw them over unless they take risks (there's generally one token that decides who gets the majority, having a VSD glowering at it tends to discourage the opponent from picking it up). Furthermore, having initiative makes getting those front arc shots far more possible since you can park a VSD in front of an opposing ship and them fire off a full salvo before that ship can even activate.

Popular choices (judging mostly from opponents) are Advanced Gunnery (dat VSD front arc), Contested Outpost (park on it, win) or Firing Lanes (dat VSD front arc), and Minefields (close of a section of the table, forcing enemies towards the VSD).

I usually fly Imperial myself, and I've gone with two main builds:

The first is a carrier style Victory and fully kitted out Gladiator with heavy squadron support, Screed in charge. For that, I really like Advanced Gunnery for my Gladiator, Hyperspace Assault with the Carrier Victory popping in to clear out a out of possition enemy, and Dangerous Territory (using it to soften up the enemy before they hit the hammer / anvil combo. I can drop a TIE Fighter for an 11 point bid, but I've been keeping it at 3.

When I am the First Player with this setup, I try to play to my strengths. Almost all the Navigation objectives work for me, with a kitted out Gladiator, and I tend to look at them first. Advanced Gunnery (Gladiator) and Opening Salvo work out okay for me, depending on the matchup. I might chose Fleet Ambush with my Gladiator in the ambush zone, just because of how easy it is to start with him pointed the other way, and flip him around by T3.

The other build I have is Motti commanding a bare bones pair of Victories and a slightly kitted out Gladiator with almost no squadrons (just 5 TIE Fighters) that are used to tie up oppenent's squadrons for a few turns. For this one Opening Salvo (3 ships), Contested Outpost (So much Command), and Dangerous Terrain (3 ships, again) are my best bets. There's basically no bid for this one though. If I have to chose (and I will), it loves the Defensive Objectives. Contested Outpost obviously, Fire Lanes - I have a lot of ships with a lot of dice, Hyper Space Assault - I screen where they could drop with the fighters and chase after what is still on the board. Fleet Ambush is the only really weak link - I'd put down both Victories and have the Gladiator come up on one flank. I can make a play at Dangerous Territory (3 ships) or Intel Sweep (Gladiator w/ movement boost) if the matchup looked right. Opening Salvo and Advanced Gunnery also work, if the matchups were favorable.

@FGD: I find your points interesting...as I play 300pt empire and prefer going second, for my objectives. So I kind of like the idea of people dropping 10 points to go for initiative, which I want them to have anyway.

For me, it seems that a lot of the strategies people focus on with imps are just cruches that good play can help avoid. Such as going second with heavy hitting ships and even some objectives people cite at times, as well as spamming homogenous fighters instead of diversifying for options

It's possible. The games still evolving here.

Lots of love for initiative, howler interceptors + rhymer bombers w/vsd carrier und demolisher

So far i've been building lists I like to fly and then picking objectives to suit. I don't think I would want to emphasise a certain objective set too heavily as you cannot guarantee you will get what you want.

Hmmm, May have to add a link to your articles in my strategy guide

For me the objectives make the game!

So many possibilities, and each new wave will build on what you can do with them.

So far i've been building lists I like to fly and then picking objectives to suit. I don't think I would want to emphasise a certain objective set too heavily as you cannot guarantee you will get what you want.

No, you can't get what you want, but you should have some idea going in which objectives your list would want to pick, and which it should stay far, far away from, assuming you will wind up as the first player. I saw someone earlier who figured out that you really need to build a list for 6 total objectives at a minimum - the three that you are taking (as Second Player) and three from one of the objective sets - say defensive objectives for example (you know that if you are first player you'll be picking whatever defensive objective the opponent selected). I think that you can build with more in mind, but being able to manage well for all objectives in one of the three sets should be a baseline for a competitive list, unless you know for a fact no one in your local meta is going to run one or two of the objectives from that list.

For example, when I am going into a game as first player with my first list, my thought process is "I can do a decent job no matter which of the Navigation Objectives there are. But if the opponent brought Advanced Gunnery / Opening Salvo, I need to look at the match-up in front of me to decide if I'd have a better run with one of them instead of Minefields.

Edit: Another way of looking at it is to rank the objectives you'd want (assuming fairly even match-ups) until you get to all of the same color. So for my first list it would go:

1: Intel Sweep (Nav)

2: Superior Positions (Nav)

3: Advanced Gunnery (Atk)

4: Dangerous Territory (Nav)

5: Opening Salvo (Atk)

6: Fleet Ambush (Def)

7: Minefields (4th Navigation - stop here)

That simplifies it a bit, things would move up and down on that list based on the opponents setup - but baring them from doing something really silly and taking an objective that doesn't play to their strengths, it's pretty much the order I'd pick things. To be good enough to fly, my list would have to be able to at least compete in the last objective on the list - if it can't, then I can effectively lose the match just by losing the initiative bid and being handed a set of objectives that all but destroy me.

Perhaps...though my take on objectives, thus far, is to play a balanced list that is OK with almost all of them and if I end up as Player One I'll pick the one that gives my opponent the least advantage and me the most. I'm not really interested in tailoring my list to one category per-se, as it could be that the opponent's list is HEAVILY favored over yours in that one objective.

Of course, all said and done, there's so many variables that I feel most suggestions are viable at this point till we learn more and, maybe, find some glaring points that objectively support a certain tactic more than others.

Amazing what changes over time.

I remember first reading your blog in 2017 and wondering why xwingtactics was in the URL.

13 hours ago, Bertie Wooster said:

I remember first reading your blog in 2017 and wondering why xwingtactics was in the URL.

Fun fact, it started as an X-Wing blog! It also... uh... had about 23 views before I switched to Armada.

My nicknamed "Biggs" is even from X-Wing. Specifically that we already had someone with the same first name as me in our local meta, so rather than be New-"X" they looked at my mustache and said "you look like Biggs" and thus I was Biggs.

I kept the name when I changed games.

2 hours ago, BiggsIRL said:

Fun fact, it started as an X-Wing blog! It also... uh... had about 23 views before I switched to Armada.

My nicknamed "Biggs" is even from X-Wing. Specifically that we already had someone with the same first name as me in our local meta, so rather than be New-"X" they looked at my mustache and said "you look like Biggs" and thus I was Biggs.

I kept the name when I changed games.

I figured.

I seem to be in the minority who did not play X-Wing or Warhammer before Armada (I've still never played either, or any other miniatures games). I came to Armada because of a little-known board game called Quantum. My friend played it, found the space combat kinda lacking, and decided to look for a game that was nothing but space combat. So settled on Armada, invested in it with another friend, and once I found out about it I asked if I could play a game. Then I became part of their CC.