Opening Salvo is a BAD idea. You are pretty much giving the GSD it's normal front attack if he is second player for a long range strike. A Demolisher will take that hit you with its front then slam in with its side. . . That is a ko shot

But couldn't the same be said if you got Paragon on target? That looks like a KO shot with opening salvo. Or a pair of enhanced armament MkIIs with overlapping fields of fire on anything? A Salvation Neb-B? I don't think any of these outcomes are a sure thing. I think you can make a case for an opening salvo KO in a lot of situations.

And a Demolisher (w/ Screed & ACMs in this case) is probably not the best example either, as it already seems like the game's current "Alpha Ship." Any advantage offered to it will seem relatively massive if utilized.

Well their VSD will get black dice as well and if they have ACMs and XI7's it is a HORRIBLE day.

You are right though, this is not a vacuum

I see some odd things concerning squads, lots of people taking bomber heavy loadouts with very poor anti-fighter choices. I would argue that loading up on Bombers is worse than taking another ship over the squads...if you're going to invest in squads make sure you can engage with them.

I run Rhymer, a bomber, vader, howl, and 2 each of squints and eyes. That's enough firepower to hold off a full squad of fighter-type ships. It also lets me overwhelmingly destroy bomber-heavy lists while my Bombers are off doing the real work.

I noticed complaints that Bombers are getting tied up, I think this is why. If you don't have sufficient fighters you can't screen...and as imps your ties are fast enough to keep your bombers back while you set up a screen to engage their fighters and follow that move up with a press forward with ship-threating blackdice.

Don't skimp if you run bombers...the risk is too great imo.

Huh, just like real star wars combat. . .

Yeah, I think apart from a few quirky interactions they really did well with the squadrons in Armada.

TRD...I find it funny that most people mocked the empire for losing the death star to snubfighters, and now we have new imps repeating those mistakes.

I see some odd things concerning squads, lots of people taking bomber heavy loadouts with very poor anti-fighter choices. I would argue that loading up on Bombers is worse than taking another ship over the squads...if you're going to invest in squads make sure you can engage with them.

I run Rhymer, a bomber, vader, howl, and 2 each of squints and eyes. That's enough firepower to hold off a full squad of fighter-type ships. It also lets me overwhelmingly destroy bomber-heavy lists while my Bombers are off doing the real work.

I noticed complaints that Bombers are getting tied up, I think this is why. If you don't have sufficient fighters you can't screen...and as imps your ties are fast enough to keep your bombers back while you set up a screen to engage their fighters and follow that move up with a press forward with ship-threating blackdice.

Don't skimp if you run bombers...the risk is too great imo.

What about the concerns of investing that many points in fighters which are frankly almost useless against a ship only fleet?

And two bombers? You can't do much real work with two bombers can you?

Vader essentially has Bomber due to his ability, and Rhymer effects all Squadrons. So even the TIEs and Interceptors cam fire off a 50/50 shot from round 2 on.

Keep in mind that Rhymer buffs non-bombers, increasing the threat radius such that the usual issues of concentrating squadrons is largely negated. Imperial fighters also have the advantage of being very fast, making it much easier to deploy fighter 'mines' and get in some free hits.

A critical issue with over investing in bombers (TIE/sa's and Ys) is that comparitively few points in fighters can completely negate them. 1 or 2 Awings will make mincemeat of a bomber wing and are fast enough to intercept easily without supporting commands.

After reading Dusksong's post, this thought occurred to me:

When outnumbered and facing Demolisher, I'd assume that you never ever want to give the opponent first turn, if you have the choice. You're just asking for one of your ships to evaporate (2 activations in a row).

Am I wrong in this?

After reading Dusksong's post, this thought occurred to me:

When outnumbered and facing Demolisher, I'd assume that you never ever want to give the opponent first turn, if you have the choice. You're just asking for one of your ships to evaporate (2 activations in a row).

Am I wrong in this?

Pretty much true whenever you have fewer ships than the enemy.

I see some odd things concerning squads, lots of people taking bomber heavy loadouts with very poor anti-fighter choices. I would argue that loading up on Bombers is worse than taking another ship over the squads...if you're going to invest in squads make sure you can engage with them.

I run Rhymer, a bomber, vader, howl, and 2 each of squints and eyes. That's enough firepower to hold off a full squad of fighter-type ships. It also lets me overwhelmingly destroy bomber-heavy lists while my Bombers are off doing the real work.

I noticed complaints that Bombers are getting tied up, I think this is why. If you don't have sufficient fighters you can't screen...and as imps your ties are fast enough to keep your bombers back while you set up a screen to engage their fighters and follow that move up with a press forward with ship-threating blackdice.

Don't skimp if you run bombers...the risk is too great imo.

What about the concerns of investing that many points in fighters which are frankly almost useless against a ship only fleet?

And two bombers? You can't do much real work with two bombers can you?

I've no concerns to this effect...and to be honest I hope the rest of Armada players keep their thinking on squads so my games are a little easier to win

As stated already, bomber heavy lists are poor investment...of you spend 60-80 points on Bombers and play me you've essentially just thrown those points in the toilet. My 3 bomber ships can go and do anything they want (3 black dice, 2 that can crit is very useful regardless of what people want to claim) while my fighters shred your squadrons.

Once in done, my fighters can start shooting 50/50 shots at everything. If you were stupid and played SupPos you'll just lose, statically I'm getting 5-6 tokens a turn if youre all ships...that's just bad juju. I'll get less if you have fighters, but in pure ship builds: a very popular aspect it seems, I'll take my 5 fighters and 3 bombers over another victory any day. Partly due to the fact that I'd rather fly a balanced list, and I'll take the opportunity cost hit on some lists so that I'm not obliterated by others.

Tldr: no, 2 Bombers isn't too little, more than 2 is too much. It's an issue to too much, Armada is one of the few warts ew that supremely rewards spreading your forces and not specializing/stacking.

Once in done, my fighters can start shooting 50/50 shots at everything. If you were stupid and played SupPos you'll just lose, statically I'm getting 5-6 tokens a turn if youre all ships...that's just bad juju. I'll get less if you have fighters, but in pure ship builds: a very popular aspect it seems, I'll take my 5 fighters and 3 bombers over another victory any day. Partly due to the fact that I'd rather fly a balanced list, and I'll take the opportunity cost hit on some lists so that I'm not obliterated by others.

Oh I'm with you have no fear, so much that I think FFG missed a trick by not making the squadron requirement 50-100 points, not 0-100. I'm just concerned about the number of all ship builds I keep facing (though I have started to get a lot better at beating them now!)

After reading Dusksong's post, this thought occurred to me:

When outnumbered and facing Demolisher, I'd assume that you never ever want to give the opponent first turn, if you have the choice. You're just asking for one of your ships to evaporate (2 activations in a row).

Am I wrong in this?

I'd argue this point...problem is if you build a balanced list anyone who ditches squads will outnumber you. My argument is that not taking squadrons hurts you against sauadron lists. In said situation, my squadrons have a chance of deleting a GSD on their own. And if I "give them" first turn they have 2 objectives that severely favor me having squadrons.

The objectives are the things that balance what you're worried about.

Once in done, my fighters can start shooting 50/50 shots at everything. If you were stupid and played SupPos you'll just lose, statically I'm getting 5-6 tokens a turn if youre all ships...that's just bad juju. I'll get less if you have fighters, but in pure ship builds: a very popular aspect it seems, I'll take my 5 fighters and 3 bombers over another victory any day. Partly due to the fact that I'd rather fly a balanced list, and I'll take the opportunity cost hit on some lists so that I'm not obliterated by others.

Oh I'm with you have no fear, so much that I think FFG missed a trick by not making the squadron requirement 50-100 points, not 0-100. I'm just concerned about the number of all ship builds I keep facing (though I have started to get a lot better at beating them now!)

Free wins

Actually not requiring to have squadrons is a good thing. Think about it, if players were required to have 50 points of squadrons then situations like X-Wings taking out all your TIEs becomes a thing and you lose by squadron points. It has happened.

Been experimenting wth a no squadrons, 400 points, 2 VSD and 3 GSD list..

I don't have the GSD's to test that out yet. Likely though a GSD might be replaced by a bare bones ISD.

The thought of a ISD controlling the center board while the two VSD's control then flanks and the GSD's take out stragglers. . . . Seems legit

The Squadron setup described above is going to, if left uncontested, do about 5 damage a turn. Given that it will be over 8 attacks, thus really not defendable, I think it's very much going to be worth the points in the end. The key being that you have to keep a ship alive. And stay clear of 2AA dice arcs that really threaten the lighter TIEs.

Been experimenting wth a no squadrons, 400 points, 2 VSD and 3 GSD list..

Starts to get scary when you consider that I'll have 1VSD, 1GSD, 1Raider, and about 9-10 squadrons on hand to combat that.

Then again my VSD can delete almost any one of your ships with an attack and has gunnery team...so i'm curious to see how that works out.

An extension of my views on Armada is that naked ships are just as bad as no-squadrons. This isn't like X-Wing...you're paying a silly premium for ships compared to what the upgardes cost. My 88 point Demolisher is exponentially more powerful than a naked gladiator..and I would argue it's more useful to a list thna TWO gladiators. So I find naked all-ship lists to be a curious fad of people wanting to replicate swarms from X-Wing and the ever-prolific BBBBZ or new KKKKK scum list to come.

My argument, however, is that those things will not hold out strong in competitive play. Sure you'll have fun, but 2 naked VSDs and 3 naked GSDs against my list, to me, is a very simple win with some interesting tactical decisions to make.

Of course...this is just from a theoretical framework. Perhaps rolling out 5 imp ships vs my 3 will prove too much dice to handle? Perhaps you'll obliterate my ships fast enough that the withering fire of TRD doesn't matter that much...I'd love to test that though. Armada is, imo, one of the best balanced wargame/miniaturegames ever made. So I want to play infinity games to learn all the fun stuff that's possible, effective, and silly.

The Squadron setup described above is going to, if left uncontested, do about 5 damage a turn. Given that it will be over 8 attacks, thus really not defendable, I think it's very much going to be worth the points in the end. The key being that you have to keep a ship alive. And stay clear of 2AA dice arcs that really threaten the lighter TIEs.

This is why I love my setup, and see it as the best way to run a fighter wing...you can handle even a 100-point fighter-only enemy while rhymer and friend nuke enemies. Essentially if you look at it like a 100 (or 134) point ship that has muliple parts. If you invest all those points as anti-fighter or as anti-ship you have a ROCK or a PAPER: ie you can be easily countered by the opponent based on their choice and end up wasting a ton of points.

Yet, if you take the middle ground and invest that 100 point ship as 60-70% anti-fighter and 30-40% anti-ship...then you ALWAYS have a safe anti-ship investment even if you're against a 100% anti-fighter "squadron-ship". And if they invest ZERO points in squadrons, then you add in those extra fighters to do half effectivess towards ships...and if you're running certain objectives (superior positions is basically my god heh) those points spent on crappy 8point TIES are suddently the most cost effective choice in the entire game.

As for AA dice, against an all-ship list with decent AA fire...attack with your ships. Unless they have gunnery team they simply wont be shooting at them as, like it has been pointed out, squadrons are semi-irrelevant to the game. Of course, i'd trade losing all my TIEs to get 1-3 50/50 rolls per fighter for 15 VPs a hit with SupPos running and 2dice AA everywhere.

Who said they were naked? All the GSDs have ACMs on them , one has the Demolisher title. The flagship has Intel officer on board.

Mind you I have not tested this yet. My current fav 400 point list has a VSD, three GSDs and eight squadrons, all antifighter.

...

Of course...this is just from a theoretical framework. Perhaps rolling out 5 imp ships vs my 3 will prove too much dice to handle? Perhaps you'll obliterate my ships fast enough that the withering fire of TRD doesn't matter that much...I'd love to test that though. Armada is, imo, one of the best balanced wargame/miniaturegames ever made. So I want to play infinity games to learn all the fun stuff that's possible, effective, and silly.

On the topic of ship spam lists, I will ask two leading questions that begin to hint at my personal experience with this:

1 - Is there a level of numerical advantage at which having more ships becomes better? As in, do 4v3 and 5v3 and 6v3 all produce the same dynamic, or is there some kind of break point thanks to the nature of an alternating activation system between players where outnumbering snowballs?

2 - Are there certain characteristics ships might have that make them a better bet to take in an all-ship list, even accepting sometimes you might run into bomber lists or some such?

There is a break point but if you are first player with more ships you can get maybe 3+ activations in a row. That is a lot of damage that could be done.

The fight list noted above is good but I don't think it is invincible. A couple of X-Wings can hold it while Tycho can tie up your bombers.