You don't have to use it

Okay, this is something I can get by then Accuracies seem to work better with large bursts of damage than multiple repeated shots.

So, I played two games as rebels and I'm a bit disappointed too by the firepower of the rebel ships. I can understand the strength of throwing multiple shots at the same arc to eat through the defense tokens but still...

In the two games, no Imperial ships were destroyed (and no Rebel ships were destroyed either, although two of them were severely crippled by the end). I just kind of feel that the firepower is a bit meh, and that accuracy rolls are more the enemy of Rebel ships than they are their friend because you want them to spend their defense token.

Actually, when you get an accuracy, can you choose not to use it or do you have to ?

How many ships did you take, what were your targets, did you perhaps split your fire? I've had issues with getting a VSD down at 180pts, but didn't have any problems once I got to 300pts. I could reliably take down a VSD, what varied were my casualties. Of course, once I had access to the AFMKII, it was a whole different story....

Reinholt's got it right about the tokens. More attacks concentrated on one target are going to be more effective than one big attack. To make a big attack hit home, you need to support it with small attacks (especially squadrons, since they piggyback on ship activation) or use upgrades such as h9/Intel officer.

This is true for imperials also (rhymer supporting demolisher, ACM hitting in a way tokens cant negate)

But again, if you want big attacks:

Salvation

Paragon

Yavaris (currently outdamages any single activation if used with bwings)

Personally I've found the CR90 to be the best ship that the Rebels have at the moment. It can run rings around the VSD and has a good chance of keeping out of the way of the GSD as well. OK it won't do much in the way of damage but it won't get shot to pieces in return. The problem that I've had with the Nebulon and the Assault Frigate is that my opponant rushes into short range with his Demolisher then unloads something like 7 dice into my ship (most of them black). Weathers the return fire and then unloads another 7 dice in the next turn. The GSD might be messed up by this point but I've had to take a ship off the board.

OK it won't do much in the way of damage

Sure it will. http://aripax.blogspot.ro/2015/07/armada-dice-part-i-ship-to-ship.html

OK it won't do much in the way of damage

Sure it will. http://aripax.blogspot.ro/2015/07/armada-dice-part-i-ship-to-ship.html

Personally I've found the CR90 to be the best ship that the Rebels have at the moment. It can run rings around the VSD and has a good chance of keeping out of the way of the GSD as well. OK it won't do much in the way of damage but it won't get shot to pieces in return. The problem that I've had with the Nebulon and the Assault Frigate is that my opponant rushes into short range with his Demolisher then unloads something like 7 dice into my ship (most of them black). Weathers the return fire and then unloads another 7 dice in the next turn. The GSD might be messed up by this point but I've had to take a ship off the board.

Not sure what and how many ships you're bringing, but if you can get 3-4 ships, you should be able to take out that GSD before he can take out 1 of your ships or at the very least make it a 1 for 1.

The way I've found to make this happen is to fly your rebel ships at the start of the game at speed 1. Picking a nav token on the first round and banking it for when you need to jump up 1 speed or to combine it with a nav dial to jump up 2 speed in a later round. The slow speed means you get to get off 1-2 rounds of attacks from several ships on the gsd before the GSD can toss black dice your way.

I suggest bringing a couple nebs with 1 being salvation and an AF2. From the 2 nebs, that's 6 red dice and if you add in concentrate fire from both, that's 8.

Its funny, there was someone running a thread the other day wondering if the Imperials were underpowered and the rebels had all the good stuff.

I honestly think at this stage of the game the two sides are really well balanced. Certainly balanced enough that the decisions you make as players are likely to trump whatever combinations of ships and upgrades are in play.

Imperials have some genuinely game changing stuff - demolisher, rhymer etc and flat out raw fire power. But VSDs only have a single brace and 2 redirects, and it can be scary how quickly their defences can fail sometimes - one accuracy will shut down the brace and redirects are useless when all your shields are all down.

Rebels on the other hand have less raw firepower but some great options still - concentrate fire paragon, yavaris Bwings etc. Their defensive options are broader also - ECM with evade, redirect and brace is extremely hard to crack ship to ship unless you take specific tools. And with speed 3 and broadside firepower, they can manage their exposure to heavy return fire.

Game is fantastic at how overall it's balanced right now.

I'm not sure how much that will change with wave 2, but loving how it's definitely possible to win with either side and that there isn't a "must have ship/squadron combo" to be competitive. I think the objective selection really helps to maintain that balance as some builds work better for some objectives than others. Thus one side or the other could possibly negate a portion of the strengths of the opposing fleet which helps maintain a nice balance.

Overall, just a fantastic game all around, components, rules and gameplay.

The assault frigate hands down is the best ship of the core+wave one era. If you haven't tried a double assault frigate list, I recommend it!

The Victory Warlord with pulling the doublehit and the Demolisher are in a close second, with CR90 swarms bringing up the rear at number 3.

Don't forget the power of the dark side- er concentrate fire commands.

The CR90 is great for lining up attacks out of front and side at the same target. So instead of using a cf command to boost your front dice, you should actually use it on your side arc to have two equal power attacks. And let's not forget paragon firing 4 reds, a blue, and 2 black at medium (or drop the blue for long) range! I love assigning her as my advanced gunnary objective ship. <3

(Oh and the neb spewing 4 dice from the front at long as well)

And if your having durability issues, use Mon Mothma! That reroll at close range is overpowered, works on screed fished crit hits from glads, and on bombers if you save it for the crit hit.

Also, if I remember correctly, wasn't their a way to get a AFmrk2 8 enginnering tokens in one turn?

there is no "Best" ship in Armada, that's how well designed it is

The Cr-90 is the most efficient dice per points you can buy outta ships

The Nebulon-B is the cheapest source of 2 anti-squadron, a good generalist all rounder, and packs Yavaris and Savaltion which are two absolutely incredible offensive titles that make the ship far more deadly than its modest asking cost would suggest

The Afmkii is the "fat" ship of the rebel alliance. Offensively challenged without upgrades, it can be heavily customized to the player's liking with options both for heavy squadron support and heavy long range firepower. It is thus far the most durable ship in the game, owing mostly to the fact that it has mostly Long Range dice and 2 very wide primary arcs letting it contribute from very out of the way. Chuncky stats with the defensive retrofit upgrade option help a lot, too. Like the Neb, it also has two absolutely incredible titles. Gallant Haven is a defensive squadron support option (Rather than Yavaris' offensive); Paragon is difficult to enable, but cheap and hilariously punchy for the mere 5 points.

the scenarios in which each of these ships is the "best" varies wildly on your fleet and what you're hoping to come across

I definitely think the Rebels are harder to play then the Empire. They tend to hold up to some pretty big screw ups typically. Whereas most Rebel builds are pretty dependent on piloting very well.

It went like that for me, too.

Initial games: How do you destroy two VSD without losing everything?

(learn to play a bit more)

Later: How can you stop the Rebels with those AFs?

On the point of the CR90:

I played a game last night where Jaina's Light ripped 6 damage off a Vic II in one shot. We were playing Opening Salvo so her attack, (2 + 1 + 2 from opening salvo) netted 1 Accuracy, 3 Hit/Hit and 1 Blank. Naturally my opponent negated my brace so I used a redirect but my ship took a good walloping. Admiral Screed had a silly look on his face after he lost two arcs worth of shields. I find you need to suit yourself situationally with Rebel ships and use them to their individual strengths much more than the beatsticks of the Empire. Yea it was a lucky roll but thats half of a lot of things in this game... The other half? Fate.

But as a matter of Imperial record I afterwards dropped that sucker faster than a Death Star on Alderaan.

After thinking about it, Gunnery Team seems to have a lot more utility on the Assault Frigate than Imperial ships (and you can even see Rebel Soldiers in the back of the illustration !). Obviously you can get more of it from a Victory but due to the ways arcs of fire are designed on both Rebel and Imperial ships, I feel it's easier to get mileage from gunnery team on a flanking AFMK2 than on a Victory.

@Fickle : You should detail your analysis of the "6" ships that Rebels have access to currently

The way I see it :

- CR90A : Cheap damage dealer harasser. Probably the best bang for your buck of the Rebel fleet. due to its firing arc it's relatively easy to get almost as many shots as the VSD's front arc, then get away

- CR90B : Support "debuff" ship relying on the blue crits. It lacks both range and raw firepower to be a serious contender on its own I feel, but with the right upgrades it could be a very good asset for a fleet.

- Nebulon B Escort : Definitely a ship to coordinate fighter support for a fleet, it's relatively cheap can stay back and contribute to the firepower.

- Nebulon B Support : A fire support role. I don't know how effective it can be on its own because I've never ran one but it's definitely got potential.

- AFMK2A : That ship seems to want to be in the thick of things, with the right upgrades, it's tough enough that it can take quite a beating and deal a reciprocal beating then move away undaunted. The fact that it has two anti-suqadron dice screams to me that it is sufficiently prepared to act on its own with maybe a couple fighter escort.

- AFMK2B : This whale seems more of a long range damage dealer to coordinate a squadron group/bomber wing. It can survive the fray, but it's probably not where it is the most comfortable.

I will say that I am a big fan of a gunnery team on a VSDII in particular (the 3 red / 3 blue wide front arc is the one you are most likely to have two ships in) for the Imperials... but beyond that, I agree, the AFII can make good use of them at times.

For a VSD, the VSD2 is the one that definitely takes the most advantage out of it, but tactically it's going to force Rebel ships to move around as soon as they get in close range (perhaps the best use is to prevent them ganging up on your front arc).

Personally I've found the CR90 to be the best ship that the Rebels have at the moment. It can run rings around the VSD and has a good chance of keeping out of the way of the GSD as well. OK it won't do much in the way of damage but it won't get shot to pieces in return. The problem that I've had with the Nebulon and the Assault Frigate is that my opponant rushes into short range with his Demolisher then unloads something like 7 dice into my ship (most of them black). Weathers the return fire and then unloads another 7 dice in the next turn. The GSD might be messed up by this point but I've had to take a ship off the board.

Not sure what and how many ships you're bringing, but if you can get 3-4 ships, you should be able to take out that GSD before he can take out 1 of your ships or at the very least make it a 1 for 1.

The way I've found to make this happen is to fly your rebel ships at the start of the game at speed 1. Picking a nav token on the first round and banking it for when you need to jump up 1 speed or to combine it with a nav dial to jump up 2 speed in a later round. The slow speed means you get to get off 1-2 rounds of attacks from several ships on the gsd before the GSD can toss black dice your way.

I suggest bringing a couple nebs with 1 being salvation and an AF2. From the 2 nebs, that's 6 red dice and if you add in concentrate fire from both, that's 8.

I tend to find red dice to be rather hit and miss, especialy against the GSD. If the GSD is moving at speed three I'm often faced with the prospect of only geting one shot in before the Demolisher gets to unload it's black dice. In addition when I'm in the firing line my opponant always seems to roll really high when it comes to damage

So, I played the first 400 points game today as Rebels and it was very teaching on how the Rebel ships worked, and how they are balanced much more differently than the Imperial Ships. It's interesting, because we see kind of a inverted symmertry between Rebel Ships and Imperial Squadrons and Imperial Ships and Rebel Squadrons.

Imperial Ships are autonomous. Points for Points, they can tank and dish a stronger beating than Rebel ships can. And the upgrades tend to boost this even further. Imperial Squadrons, on the other hand are quite crappy on their own, but they are all extremely synergetic (their aces even more). Just having a single TIE Advanced with 2 TIE Fighters and Howlrunner will make the TIE Fighters and Howlrunner even more deadly because they'll be alive perhaps 1 to 1.5 turns longer. Adding an Interceptor instead will provide the opponent with a critical choice to make : Do I try to shoot down the TIE to avoid the Counter but take 4 blue dice to the face later on ? Or do I try to shoot down that Interceptor asap to minimize the amount of dice he'll throw even with Counter ?

On the other hand, Rebel Squadrons are extremely "autonomous". Points for points, they can do better things than the Imperial Squadrons and tank longer. Rebel Aces are even more autonomous due to better resilience and better damage output in terms of absolutes.

____

When it comes to Rebel ships, I really felt that they need to be built with synergy in mind much like a Imperial Fighter wing needs to be thought of to be effective.

And by "synergy" I just don't mean concentrating firepower (which is an obvious tactic regardless of which faction you play). When I say that I feel they need to be synergetic, I mean that it is easier to configure them into a very specific role thanks to what their upgrade possibilities offer compared to which chassis they're on. And optimizing their role within the fleet to allow the fleet members to work better.

The Nebulon B for example is a long range damage dealer. The Support Frigate will provide just that, fire support. The Escort will provide Fighter Damage from long range while trying to maintain that front arc facing versus most threats. It really is the glass cannon of the Rebel Fleet, so it needs to be supported by ships that draw fire away from it. In any case, both want to be shooting their front arc at long range and only get away if needs be.

The Corvette is easily the most flexible ship build in the Rebel Fleet, regardless of how they appear at first glance :

1) Regardless of version, it can be built as a tanky ship with Engineering Team and Electronic Countermeasures. Due to being able to take up 4 damage at close range (and that's not even factoring in the Evades at medium and long range) before reaching the hull thanks to always using its redirect, and it can regenerate 1 shield and move a shield to another zone. To be one shotted, it will need to take at least 8 damage straight up.

Obviously, it will never be the main tank that the AFMK2

Both versions can also purely be built as a Command Ships, being able to pass tokens or change orders or other ships.

2) The CR90A can be built as a skirmisher at long range with expanded armamanents or as a precision damage dealer with H9 Turbolasers, ensuring the hullzone you've targeted will take damage.

3) The CR90B is clearly a debuff ship. Dodonna's Pride will leave your opponent either without shields on a facing, either spending defense tokens and getting a face up crit anyways. Overload Pulse will leave your opponent with spent defense tokens. In both cases, it's meant to lead the shots for a another ship to deal more damage or to completely burn the enemy defense tokens.

The Assault Frigate has many builds available, from a straight up brawling ship to squadron damage. In all cases, it better likes to be in the thick of things compared to its cousins. It can also be used as a long range broadside ship that pecks away at the opponent while capturing objectives, and can still hold its own when it's caught in the middle of the battle.

_____

Compared to Imps, the Rebel ships offer better synergy at the expense of less intrinsic survivability and raw damage, but with the added advantage that they can really be kitted out in very different ways to provide very different roles to the fleet. Thinking with upgrade cards is paramount with Rebels as it is often the difference between a non synergetic fleet and an efficient killing machine.

Today I lost because I played 4 long range ships that didn't synergize well with each other and I had messed up my deployment. Even if I did, the Imperial Admiral would have likely thrown everything at my glass cannons to deprive me of much of firepower.

That is exactly the reason why the Imperials seem easier to play (because the chassis is very autonomous and durable), while Rebel Admirals really need to understand that key difference to take the most out of their fleet

MoffZen You should send that to BiggsIRL and see if he wants to put an article up on this

MoffZen You should send that to BiggsIRL and see if he wants to put an article up on this

Unfortunately (well, fortunately for me), I'm leaving tomorrow for almost 3 weeks in the sun But if he reads this, Biggs can feel free to take inspiration about this analysis for an article. I'm not asking him to quote me, but a little mention would be nice

I'm definitely not saying I'm an Armada pro player (I've barely got a dozen game under my belt), but it really struck me how obvious that was during my first 400 points battle today (I recommend every player to play at 400, because they might get away with stuff at 300, but 400 keeps you on the edge of your seat !).

To give a proper example, my Corvettes were specced as long range skirmishers, and I was counting on the Neb's range to keep them alive. But definitely not as they needed a fire magnet (which the 2 Corvettes or AFMK2 would have done with flying colours) while they pumped fire from afar.

One other thing to add to sustain the highly specialized and synergetic role that Rebels should have in my opinion. They are cheap ships with multiple possible upgrades. Taking a look at a CR90B with Dodonna's Pride which cost is 45 points. You kind of want leading shots to combine to a Concentrate Firepower Command on the front arc, so you have less chances of whiffing and higher damage output. It comes at 49 points now. If you feel you need more tanking and start putting ECM it's fine but that's an extra 7 points (56 now). The ship is starting to cost a lot but now you can see how well it can perform that brawler role to debuff the opponent's ship in preparation for an attack.

But, if you throw in Engineering team, you now have a 61 point ship that while good has conflicted roles in terms of what orders you want to give it. Because, due to your other upgrades, you kind of want to be spamming Concetrate Firepower as long as it's in range of any ship, and you want to be in range of at least one ship most of the time. So, Engineering team is good but it is starting to feel a bit wasted because it conflicts with the main spec of the ship.

Alternatively, for 65 points you can get a CR90A with Enchanced Armaments, ECM and engineering team. It is quite a capable tank, because you're likely to bank an Engineering token early on, maybe an Engineering on Turn 2 or a Concetrate Fire/Squadron, then Engineering. The point is to draw fire away from other ships by being more aggressive while still pecking away with a decent armament of 4 red dices and up to two blues, then doing a burst repair of 5 Engineering points in a turn (which is just 1 shy of being VSD Engineering + Dial Grade). That means 2 shields and a redirected one (so up to 3 shields on the facings you might have lost), or a shield and a damage card (perhaps a face up one even !).

The Rebel ships I feel favour tinkerers because then the ship are geared to do their job with the utmost effectiveness. I kind of like this about the Rebels to be fair, they really do feel like a ragtag fleet with many custom upgrades giving a lot of personnality to the ships. A bit like Monster Garage in a sense

_____

My last game I finally played the CR90 and had a pair of them start off at speed 4 and boy it was fun flying by VSD's and Gladiators with a finger in the air getting into their rear arc. It gave me a sense of oh so this is what rebel speed is like, and this is why we use it. After that game my cr90's remained because of speed. And I won't field Neb B's any more because in my opinion CR90's are more reliable. Must get more of them