They can strafe like fatties and when it comes down to it they can hop into close range and punish everything. Even side arc ISD 1's can't afford to take that kind of punishment. At speed 4 the Shrimp frigates will be a strong force (though I expect their movement to be 0, 1, 1, 1 at speed 4)

so what you're saying is those destroyers can't repel firepower of that magnitude

though you're right about the punishing part, I don't think the "hop into" part pans out so easily. As far as we know, there's no Shrimp demolisher and given the "move, then shoot" mechanics and close range, it's going to be difficult to just straight up utilize those black dice outside of punishing other close range ships (or very big, slow bastards like the VSD and ISD)

it's what I personally don't get about the "squadrons are more skill intensive" controversy. Non-demolisher black dice are the shortest range in the game and even commanded B-wings exceed those handily; they're pretty hard to bring to bear without some good play and really difficult without initiative.

I think you should re-read what I posted...I didn't argue the point of two shots. I argued that after two shots, with support from my ships, you're going to be hurting or dead.

Also...a SINGLE B-Wing? That's scary o_O

Mentality the same? I very, very much doubt it. As my post to Aloha suggests. I've been around Table-Top gaming for a while now, and with the internet there are clear pushes towards whats popular as being what IS good (essentially self fulfilling prophecies).

Take, for example, in X-Wing if everyone agreed that Turrets were bad and X-Wings dominate (I'm aware the difference is that X-Wing has concrete concepts that direct the meta...Armada doesn't have as much of that yet) then you would see all the "best" players take X-Wings and no turrets to a tournament. Thus the internet would conclude this as fact.

I don't see these tournament people as anything but avid netlisters living in their own echo-chambers of "all ships are awesome".

As for activations...so what? All activations aren't equal. My VSD is far more deadly than your CR90. Perhaps you can gang-up on me..but if I pop out a squadron command while you try to flank me, I can drop 5 squadron dice on your head, followed by one of my bad arcs, and move such that it's hard for you to move again next turn to hurt me again.

This is why I claim points effectiveness are better than points. And upgrades/squadrons have multiplicative values that CAN (but don't intrinsically) surpass sheer activations.

You should re-watch the video again or actually watch it. There were more B-Wings than that.

You are really not thinking are you. So what if your 72 point ship is better than a 44 point ship, if you can't bring that firepower to bear it might as well be useless. Tactics tactics tactics.

5 squadron dice? Maybe but you would need to waste a turn to get the token and take the points for that. Investments that may turn a profit though. . . Well blue dice is 50% hit rate so 5 squadrons is 2.5 damage, not that scary for 40 points AND the token, AND the Hanger bays, AND the command. Your 45 points sent 5 dice to my 39 to 44 point ship. Nope not worried.

That is all based on TIE Fighters since you used a VSD.

You are looking at a single aspect of what more ships means. It means I have more concentrated points to throw at you that do t need to be herded. I can focus on my other commands like navigation and concentrate fire.

You're right, I didn't watch the video, I was going off what you said in the thread. The bottom line is that people claim 2 shots with your bombers and such aren't significant: you're just wrong imo. Not to mention that it can be set-up to be more than 2 shots...thats with fire and forget.

Which is funny, that your next statement is so utterly ironic: all these pro-ship people claim great things about all these dice you can buy and use when it's objectively true that squadrons are more easily placed where they need to be. I assume you're using tactics to properly place your ships; yet it's assumed i'm not doing that with my squadrons. Not fair representation of opposing points imo.

As I keep having to point out: it's MUCH easier to focus the points you bought in squadrons into a smaller area than it is to fly ships well enough to focus all their dice. This is objectively true: end of story.

5 blue dice? I have that..but if I'm using a squadron command i'm not using them. My blue dice is just extra shots I get that I never expected to get. A "free" 50/50 shot at your ships that can't really be mitigated? I'll take it.

I'm investing FIVE whole points in "carrier-ing"...expanded hangars. Oh noes...broke my bank for sure. Even so, if you look at the commands I can do on my ship: what is better? A Conc Fire for ONE extra dice in a single attack? Or activiting 2 bombers, 1 advance, and a fighter? People seem to argue that squadrons need commands to be good; while I would argue that (at least with imps) I feel the foundation assumption is bad. I'd rather activate 3-5 squadrons with decent bombing power than take a concfire command. Seriously, it's objectively better in nearly ever single way...EVEN if it's ONLY blue dice.

I find the current stance on anti-squadron rhetoric really pigheaded and silly.

Sure, it might be that you need nav or eng commands so your squads are left out...well guess what? Learn to fly better. Setting up squadrons so they can just fire away turn 2-3 then command them back into position for turn 4 so they can fire another two turns seems more than reasonable.

Also, as many rebel players have stated, B-Wings are amazing "mines" to protect space. It's the same argument I make for my Vic-1...I can never use black dice and be happy as long as the area control allows me to pull off something important.

Funny, how the people saying I need to apply tactics and non-dice-only concepts are the very people who do this.

So, cards on the table: I mostly without squadrons. I am, however, skeptical of the notion that squadrons are strictly inferior to ships.

Perhaps I'm misunderstanding but: the anti-squadron arguments advanced so far are not especially persuasive, at least the context they are made. If we accept that Serious People do not believe squadrons are worth using, and we expect to face Serious People across the table, then isn't a carrier unnecessary? Why load up a ship with squadron-buffing upgrades when you can load it up with anti-ship upgrades and then just use squadron commands? I don't need flight controllers because you're not bringing fighters. I don't need Gallant Haven, I don't need RAC, I don't need to concentrate squadron buffs on one ship in order to better crush opposing squadrons, because there aren't any. I don't want to concentrate squadron buffs because then you'll prioritize that ship. I can instead bring a couple ships that are focused on anti-ship fire, add on a bomber complement, and distribute squadron orders between them.

Or not? If not, what am I missing?

Yup it is a landslide effect. So because no one is taking squadrons that means more anti-ship and then when squadrons come out people don't have an answer. That is how Mets's work

Exactly Mxlm. People keep thinking you need all this nonsense to make squadrons work. Yet against all-ship lists its painfully easy to make squadrons the best thing in your list: bombers. Per your example: "best" players think all-ship is best, "best" players will be at regionals, therefore bring rock to counter scissors at regionals: bomber lists. Any of those terribad 2VSD1GSD or 1VSD3GSD lists would be utterly annihilated by a rhymer ball, or B-Wing horde. IF FLOWN WELL.

This is the self-correcting concept that squadrons WILL introduce. I'm starting from the end-point, myself, and I'll see you all here when you're forced to it

As to Lyraeus' point: that's the long-version is...

All-ship lists dominate due to netlisting.

People bring bombers to counter all-ships.

People get decimated by bombers.

People bring fighters to counter bombers so their ships can fight.

People bring all fighters on both sides and have pointless fighter engagements.

People spend less points on fighters to counter full-fighter lists and bring some bombers to punish ships.

Balanced meta emerges: balance of well-equiped ships and fighters to cover your bombers. Viola.

Very fallacious Aloha: if you don't have X represented, and all the players who show up (the best?) have Y lists. Then Y is better than X? And Y.1 wins so Y.1 is pretty good.

Sorry, but with the advent of the internet: group think on matters really screws up reality. Take X-Wing, the internet decides XYZ is bad, so no one takes it, so it's bad...even if it's perfectly viable and good.

Please note that I did not say none of the 90 or so players brought squadrons. I simply said that those lays were not battling it out for the win.

Hey i personally like to use squadron/bomber heavy lists. The thing is if there were bomber lists at the torunament why didn't they beat those terrible no squadron lists as you claim they should? Were all squadron heavy players just so bad that not even one made it to top 4. The best players decided to play without any bombers and it payed out for them. With so many people playing there had to be some good players with squadron lists but still they got beaten by ship spam.

Its not like there were no bomber lists there, you said that bomber list would counter ship spam list but it turned out otherwise in practice. Its not like everyone agreed not to bring squadrons and was unprepared to face them, they (top players) made that choice based on their experience that they will do better without any squadrons and thats all.

One event doesn't do anything. Perhaps the actual most skilled players took all ship, and outplayed any Joe-shmo with a squadron. Each game is more important than any list vs list analysis.

Metas require time to play out. I'll wait till it happens. Till then, well played to all the ship spam that took most people by storm.

And the other is similar except one of the lists is the Corvette spam. Squadrons? No.

To further clarify, round 4 the top two tables were squadronless, round 5 (final round) the top two tables were squadronless and on the third both Rebel players had 2 A-wings and Tycho.

I also had a change to chat with Steven as we were waiting for the final standings and although you may have lost your Neb-b love I may have convinced him to give it a try!

My list crams 5 or so Tie Advanced around Major Rhymer creating a 6 black-die gun emplacement that can fire at medium range. It slices clean through lists that don't want to join the fighter game.

My list crams 5 or so Tie Advanced around Major Rhymer creating a 6 black-die gun emplacement that can fire at medium range. It slices clean through lists that don't want to join the fighter game.

Advances are great balanced ships for imps. Very nice tactic. B-Wings and A-Wings are similar for rebels...though Rhymer sure adds that extra threat level.

one of the top lists was a apparently a boatload of ACM GSDs, only one of which (obviously) could be Demolisher

honestly, if I were to blame anything for this turnout, it'd be how good of a player that guy must've been to get all those close range missiles firing effectively

It's interesting to see that the No Fighters list have taken the top national tournaments.

I sincerely don't believe that it is because they are intrinsiquely (sp?) better than lists with squadrons. Rather, I feel it's just a question of focus and preferences. My observations of several games currently is that people tend to play fighters autonomously rather than synchronizing their role within a fleet with their ships. Like I've said in another thread, when a Nebulon B Escort pops up a squadron command with 2 X-Wings, it adds 8 blue dice against squadrons and 2 red dice against ships in its total attack capabilities which is much better than a concentrate fire command. It also adds 2 attacks for the purposes of resolving defense tokens which is tactically interesting.

A list with no fighters versus a list with fighters will be forced to deal with the fighters especially if they have squadrons with the Bomber special rule. And each fire arc they're not using firing at ships. Just imagine it, a VSD Carrier firing up 4 Bomber Squadrons adds 4 Black Dice to its total attacks at distance 5 of the target (4 + 1 shooting range without upgrades). That is as much as a broadside from a Gladiator I, which is not insignificant.

It's interesting to see that the No Fighters list have taken the top national tournaments.

I sincerely don't believe that it is because they are intrinsiquely (sp?) better than lists with squadrons. Rather, I feel it's just a question of focus and preferences. My observations of several games currently is that people tend to play fighters autonomously rather than synchronizing their role within a fleet with their ships. Like I've said in another thread, when a Nebulon B Escort pops up a squadron command with 2 X-Wings, it adds 8 blue dice against squadrons and 2 red dice against ships in its total attack capabilities which is much better than a concentrate fire command. It also adds 2 attacks for the purposes of resolving defense tokens which is tactically interesting.

A list with no fighters versus a list with fighters will be forced to deal with the fighters especially if they have squadrons with the Bomber special rule. And each fire arc they're not using firing at ships. Just imagine it, a VSD Carrier firing up 4 Bomber Squadrons adds 4 Black Dice to its total attacks at distance 5 of the target (4 + 1 shooting range without upgrades). That is as much as a broadside from a Gladiator I, which is not insignificant.

Exactly. It's just a case of lemmings with their assumed power-lists. Those that brought squadrons didn't quite know how to use them correctly or didn't have a good match-up or weren't very good players at all or combo of any/all).

Gunna need some Vassal games, as my area is limited in players who give a rats-ass about the game :\

woah woah, lemmings nothing

i got nothing but respect for the guys who brought nothing but a load of black dice and only one demolisher, but still flew that racing to the top

as intimidating as the list is, landing the shortest range in Armada without being able to move first is no trivial skill to master

A few quick notes:

1. I think it's a bit unfair to call the people winning at Gencon lemmings. They just beat 90ish people; give them some credit. If these guys barely took squadrons, that should tell you something.
2. The core issue remains that squadrons cannot operate autonomously; if FFG wants to patch their rules so squadrons can move and shoot at ships (but not squadrons) in the squadron phase, then you will start to see a lot more of them. Until then, there are core limitations against a player who can do things like reliably get the GSD to short range and tear you apart that squadrons will not overcome.
3. GSD spam with one VSD and CR90 spam were predicted to be the two top lists in my group. It's interesting those are essentially two of the three listed here. Points denial (making everything hard to kill through speed or raw toughness) and activation maximization are the reason.
4. IF there is a window for squadrons in the current Meta, I actually expect it is Rhymer with a mix of TIE fighters (just enough to shut down someone bringing a handful of A-wings) and mostly TIE bombers, or TIE advanced... essentially using them as another ship, knowing most people won't bring squadrons. That would be the contrarian play.

A few quick notes:

1. I think it's a bit unfair to call the people winning at Gencon lemmings. They just beat 90ish people; give them some credit. If these guys barely took squadrons, that should tell you something.
2. The core issue remains that squadrons cannot operate autonomously; if FFG wants to patch their rules so squadrons can move and shoot at ships (but not squadrons) in the squadron phase, then you will start to see a lot more of them. Until then, there are core limitations against a player who can do things like reliably get the GSD to short range and tear you apart that squadrons will not overcome.
3. GSD spam with one VSD and CR90 spam were predicted to be the two top lists in my group. It's interesting those are two of the three (the other being double AF + CR90 + small squadron screen) listed here.
4. IF there is a window for squadrons in the current Meta, I actually expect it is Rhymer with a mix of TIE fighters (just enough to shut down someone bringing a handful of A-wings) and mostly TIE bombers, or TIE advanced... essentially using them as another ship, knowing most people won't bring squadrons. That would be the contrarian play.

Exactly this is just getting distatstefull.

Best players are lemmings and people who brought squadron lists are dismissed as bad players. Really solid arguments.

People are saying that to please their ego and prove that their way of playing is superrior when out of 90 people only people doing exactly the oposite and playing "terrible" lists did well. Otherwise they would have to accept that they would probably lose the trounament while they would like to think they would have won.

I gotta agree whole heatedly on the lemmings bit

with that out of the way, back to the things we can actually debate. I still can't believe Squadrons' unique strengths can't be capitalized upon effectively when they've been able to coordinate so many ships (GSDs, no less) so well; especially when there's apparently no enemy squadrons to worry about

most importantly amongst these unique strengths

*near immunity to enemy ship attacks; with even 2-anti squadron ships having extreme difficult pegging down enemy squadrons if they're not pinned down prior (especially if you do fun things like occupy the same arc with which they'll have shots on your ship)

*piggy backing onto a ship's activation, unloading a silly amount of total damage (can't forget the ship itself contributing) and then running away. Squadrons play a great game of keep away with their commanding ship against ships such as GSDs, since they contribute the same dice regardless of their commanding ship's orientation and you'll know where the close range ships are going to have to end up to contribute their optimal damage

Against fleeting bastards such as fatties and cr-90s, I found it not terribly difficult to give chase with anything faster than a B-wing (and even B-wings aren't that difficult with their medium range and some foresight--re: ship facing + the trade off between straight flight and the very poor rear arcs on the CR-90 and fattie, which is less poor but not good at all for its price--just don't ever plan on Yavaris)

Basically, I'm much less for calling squadrons being less worth it, more for calling these players top in their class. Close Range is not easy, it is in fact that most difficult range to secure out of anything in Armada (hell, even Yavaris can be easier) with Demolisher adding the range of movement to it.

Based on what I saw from Nationals (I placed 2nd with minimal fighters) the real issue isn't a weakness in fighters from a firepower standpoint, but a loss of activations.

In the final round the top 3 tables had almost no fighters. All of the fleets had 3 or 4 ships in them. Having more ships than your opponent allows you better control over what to activate and when. The overall winner went undefeated and was able to get those close range shots because he could go last with a ship and then first with it the next turn for a quasi Demolisher effect. My Cr-90 rarely did much damage, but hugely influenced the games by letting me activate my Assault Frigates when I really wanted to.

Squadrons give excellent concentrated firepower if you can hit the same target your ships will shoot at. My 3 Awings did a fair bit of damage, but always to a ship my Assault Frigate was about to shoot.

My new goal is to build a fleet with a good squadron threat, while still having enough ships to give activation flexibility.

New plan: one squadron per CR90

This is a bad plan

one of the top lists was a apparently a boatload of ACM GSDs, only one of which (obviously) could be Demolisher

honestly, if I were to blame anything for this turnout, it'd be how good of a player that guy must've been to get all those close range missiles firing effectively

well diminishing returns is true from a void standpoint (diminishing returns insofar as it's ridiculously difficult to stack all that firepower on one target) but in a gameplay standpoint, when properly utilized, you can threaten a lot of ground with that many GSDs and they hit so hard that you don't really need to concentrate fire like you would with cr-90s or something. Of course, it all comes down to "properly utilized."

the question then becomes, did you effectively hem the opponent in without exposing some poor bastard to quick, brutal death by concentrated fire? did you threaten enough space to break the enemy apart, leaving them easy prey for demolisher?

whatever the GSD "swarm" does to work, it can't be very easy. Shoot, then move + close range basically defines it as the hardest type of attack to land in the game without demolisher (of which there is only one) or Insidious (which is its own bag of worms, what with its not trivial rear arc requirement).

I mean, GSDs have 2 red front arc dice, which isn't nothing (they're whole Nebs when conc fired), but for that price it's so inefficient it's almost tragic (especially since they're also not putting their squadron 2 to use; they're just contributing their wimpy dice for their cost).

the GSD is, by its very mechanics, high risk to high reward, but apparently it can be overcome by the player

I'm not sure what this proves, other than, the best player at this one tournament didn't use squadrons. He only used 1 upgrade as well, so upgrades, except ACM, are largely useless too? Can we conclude that from this this one tournament?

nobodys mentioned objectives yet.

I wish we had video evidence of the crimes.

I want to see how they flew. and what the advantages of squadron less were.

I'm not sure what this proves, other than, the best player at this one tournament didn't use squadrons. He only used 1 upgrade as well, so upgrades, except ACM, are largely useless too? Can we conclude that from this this one tournament?

nobodys mentioned objectives yet.

I would argue that the entire top tier being either no squadron or squadron-lite is actually pretty telling. It's not like a bunch of people with squadron-heavy builds were at the top.

I would also point out that several of us have been predicting these exact kind of results (I mean, hell, I think I've said earlier that I think the only rebel squadron worth fielding in most lists is the A-Wing, and that's exactly what happened) is probably not an accident.

Upgrades are an interesting case. If you take them, you are potentially limiting your activations, but likewise, some of them are really good. The answer I have come to is that they are worth it when:

• You have the spare points and your list doesn't care about an initiative bid (CR90 spam is a good example; your objectives are usually brutal for the other guy, but so is going first... make them make the terrible choice and take extra points of stuff).
• Your potential upgrades are hugely synergistic with the ship / overall fleet theme (ACM + Demolisher in a list with Screed).

Other than that, I think it is a bit like X-wing where, yes, going nuts on upgrades without having a precise plan as to why you are doing this probably is inferior to just taking more ships.

Also, to MXLM:

4xCR90A, 1xCR90B, Mon Mothma, 5xA-Wing is exactly 300 points... just saying. I am also pretty sure it is not good, however I have run a 1xNeb B (Salvation), 4xCR90 list with MM that also has Tycho and 1xA-Wing and that does pretty well.

Well done to the winners for sure.

I'm also a little bit disappointed by the lack of squadron success, but I honestly can't say I'm confident that my own squadron heavy lists would have beaten a 4 ship imperial build.

I wonder if any of the top players had to face off against a Yavaris B wing swarm for example, although possibly they did, took the hits and just clobbered Yavaris in the next volley, knowing they still had three more ships...

Will 400 points make it different? Will the extra 30 points of available squadrons open up a new paradigm?

So the conclusion people are wanting to draw from this tournament, is that the only thing that really matters in Armada, is - ships? This makes all the build list topics null and void. The answer is more ships. This somewhat destroys the richness of the game. Forget about upgrade card synergies, squadron roles/mixes, you don't need them, more ships is the way to go! It reduces the number of interesting decisions in list building to 1 simple question, which ship to spam with?

So a rich complex game is boiled down to a simple question, all based on 1 tournament may as well shut down the forum until wave 2 arrives, the game has been solved! ;)