Hi, lurker here. I find there is a disconnect with how the squadrons activate. If I were doing some game design with this game I would have some upgrade cards for squadrons with flight leaders that would give the ability Squadron 3 to a model. I would then release new cards for some named characters that gave them the squadron ability too. That way ships could command lacal squadrons or a squadron commander could control them. I would not change the basic rule about activation phases so that the downside to squadron commanders would be that ships using squadron dials or tokens could activate faster. This would let squadrons persue ships effectively which would make many unescorted capital ships at risk to fighter attacks.

That's my $0.05.

Cheers,

Critical

PS FFG, I would be happy to contribute! Where do I sign up?

Would only getting 200pts for killing the capital ships hurt enough that suddenly those fighters seem like a good investment?

As mentioned somewhere else, the difficulty in going that direction is that suddenly you create an incentive for someone to table themselves. Okay, if the match keeps going to the bitter end, I could lose my 200 points of ships plus fighters. If, on the other hand, I drive my ship off the board right now my fighters don't die and don't give my opponent points.

True.

Oddly, both of these issues are in fact being caused by the "If you lose all your capital ships you lose" rule.

- If that rule wasn't there, the fighters would be worth the points more as they would continue killing you after the capitals were gone (granted less efficiently), and it wouldn't result in an instant 300pt win.

- Also, driving your ships off the board wouldn't help you, since the game wouldn't end until the fighters were dead too.

I stated this elsewhere, but people are ignoring a key tool. Squadron TOKENS. People seem to look at squadrons and immediately want to deck out a full carrier in a meta (at least nationals) where that is not needed.

Using Tarkin (for Imperials) or Garm Bel Iblis (for Rebels) is all the support needed. Each Admiral can give a "free" squadron token to every ship for later use. Assuming a 3-4 ship list, this means using these Admirals means you don't NEED A CARRIER for basic squadrons usage up to 3-4 squadrons. This is independent of squadron values on the ships.

This is slightly more useful for rebels as their squadrons are more balanced and therefor more independent, but the TIE Adv can serve that role for the imperials. The advantage of single ship activation of commands over tokens is of course the activation of a group of squadrons at once. However, if the enemy squadrons are grouped (or non-existent) you usually don't need the squadrons activated all at once.

Also, without GBI and Tarkin, this squadron token usage is not efficient unless you are lacking in good commands turn 1 to change to a token.

Elsewhere, people have tried to compare a TIE Bomber unfavorably to an ACM upgrade. However, they miss a few points.

ACM: 7 points, tied to a single ship, changes a crit into 2 damage

TIE Bomber: 9 points, "independent" of ship, changes a squadron command/token into an additional, SEPARATE, Black die. Does not use main attack crit. Susceptible to anti-squadron tech.

The bomber is not tied to needing a crit, meaning you don't need Screed. It's die produces, on average, half the damage of ACM, but does so in a separate attack. Any criticals of the ship attack and the bomber attack trigger separately. Finally, the bomber is partially independent of the ship in question. It can be activated by ANY friendly ship, does not die when the ship does (unless being tabled) and if well positioned gets another attack on the enemy in question the following round without needing an additional squadron token.

Finally they can be taken together to produce even more damage from a single ship activation increasing the likelihood of killing an enemy before they can repair.

I'm not saying one is superior to the other. I am saying the TIE bomber has more utility, even as a 1-of inclusion, than some folks are giving it credit for. Including a single bomber is a meta-game call to punish players running squadron-less, while not overly investing in squadrons. Once that starts, then people start having an incentive to run at least one fighter (non-heavy) squadron. And suddenly the meta starts to shift.

I like what Tranenturm said about comparing ACMs to Bombers...it is pretty silly to do this: you have to buy a ship first, and again (as I keep saying) squadrons are more agile than ships.

I think objectives are also important. I'm curious what peoples' opinions are on some of them:

let's say I had Precisions Strike, Fleet Ambush, and Superior Positions? Based on said tourney winner he'd pick Ambush, so his Vic and 1 glad is already in my face (where I want them to be. So for turn 1 and 2 It's my 300 points against his 200ish. That something that the 4-ship person would want? I did a few quick tests on vassal, and yes: actually the ship list seems to be tough to counter in this situation, but it was mostly due to him getting in closer, sooner, and gettting black dice in my face.

I'm thinking Ambush would be bad, in this situation, due to wanting my squads to engage first while he slogs to me...so perhaps Hyperspace Assault would work better. Even reserving my Victory and trying to bring him behind my opponents on turn 3 while my fast demolisher slow-rolls turn 1/2 and then jumps to speed 3 past his line on 2 or 3 while he's pelted by black dice at rhymer range?

I'd love to get another person on vassal to test, as it's really meh to test alone

As to an earlier comment on "simply thinking squadrons are at a dissadvantage" that's funny as I see it the opposite. But I guess testing is the best way to find out. 4ships with ACM and black dice against 2 ships with 8-12 black dice would be nice to figure out. Of course, I admit running 5 blue dice and 3 black is poor choice for me, but that's the idea of opportunity cost in that if anyone brings a few interceptors of some sort my bombers are useless so i'd want fighters: hence the drive to "balanced" squadrons.

Of course, first you need to be able to handle all-ship lists that seem to have numberous advantages.

I think the reverse point that is overlooked for squadrons is that, to be effective, they always require two things¹:

• The sacrifice of a token or squadron command, which could have been something else, and thus the opportunity cost² must be considered as part of the usage of the squadron.
• Coordination with the ship. To give a squadron command, a ship must be within medium range of the squadron being commanded. Therefore, thinking of squadrons as independent elements is incorrect; they are extensions of a ship, and thus must be coordinated³, limiting the movement options of each.

Footnotes:

1. My complaints are not true of "rogue" squadrons and I expect those may actually be quite effective.

2. It is difficult to define this, but my shorthand would be a repair token or repair command.

3. Here we run into the issue of running squadrons making the opponent's short ranged ships more effective, as to attack them you have to stay near your squadrons (you can't fly away or the squadrons are one shot only).

I think the reverse point that is overlooked for squadrons is that, to be effective, they always require two things¹:

• The sacrifice of a token or squadron command, which could have been something else, and thus the opportunity cost² must be considered as part of the usage of the squadron.
• Coordination with the ship. To give a squadron command, a ship must be within medium range of the squadron being commanded. Therefore, thinking of squadrons as independent elements is incorrect; they are extensions of a ship, and thus must be coordinated³, limiting the movement options of each.

Footnotes:

1. My complaints are not true of "rogue" squadrons and I expect those may actually be quite effective.

2. It is difficult to define this, but my shorthand would be a repair token or repair command.

3. Here we run into the issue of running squadrons making the opponent's short ranged ships more effective, as to attack them you have to stay near your squadrons (you can't fly away or the squadrons are one shot only).

Coordination is a misleading "negative". The whole fleet has to be coordinated. Ships have to be coordinated with one another. Assuming a squadron has to be connected to a particular ship limits your thinking. It is true a squadron has more value in medium range of a ship of yours with the ability to squadron it, but squadrons ARE their own thing, and do not die when a ship does. Now if your strategic thinking tightly ties a squadron to a particular ship, then yes it can quickly lose value with the loss of that ship. Hence, those who can build in strategies to their squadron use that doesn't tie them to individual ships gain value vs those who think "squadrons are part of their carrier".

Squadron token/commands are not always required. Squadrons are able to move along with the fleet just fine (well, within limit of their speed value) and can even be proactively placed (on the turn before) in likely paths of the enemy advance. If you are playing against "Boxing Gladiators" then pre-positioning your squadrons in the best boxing locations changes the dynamics of the interaction. A-wings in particular are quite capable of this method of play due to their fast speed, counter-attack capability and their black anti-ship die (minus the crits of course). An A-wing could play a pivotal role in the battle without ever using a squadron command. This is still true even if it doesn't fire, but encourages the enemy to choose sub-optimal positioning.

Yes, sending a squadron out into the void with nothing else around renders the squadron void of value. But putting them into key positions is VERY important. Putting them there early is simply a way to gain action efficiency while affecting the enemy. Of course this all depends upon what the enemy brings. Sending your TIE Bombers un-escorted into the teeth of Dutch, Wedge, plus Neb-bs gets them killed. But currently, the prevailing thought/fear/expression on this board is that people shouldn't be bringing any squadrons whatsoever. So against "good" lists, you can safely pre-position fast squadrons in key spots.

My experience at Nationals showed me that even a few squadrons are often meaningful. One squadron command early in the game would let me add 3 black dice to whatever my Assault frigate was throwing (often 4 red dice). Then later, thanks to Garm, I could reposition any out of place squadrons with my tokens.

In spending some time thinking on this, I think Tarkin or Yularen may be some of the strongest squadron upgrades. They would allow you to move squadrons around while reserving your commands for other things. One of the things that I found, and was alluded to by the winner, was that going squadron free or light made it much easier to select commands on your dial. A fighter build with a strong source of tokens could be really effective. If the Imperials had a ship similar to the Neb, 4 of those with Tarkin and some squadrons would be pretty amazing.

In regards to Objectives, if you have B-Wings (or other bombers), Contested Station may be the best choice amongst the Yellow objectives. Don't have to move your squadrons much if he has to be near the station or give you free VPs.

there is another, more subtle benefit to Contested Outpost

from the rules reference:

"If line of sight is drawn over an obstacle, the attack is obstructed even if the bases of the attacker and defender are touching"

and

"If line of sight between two squadrons is obstructed, those squadrons are not engaged even if at distance 1 from one another, though they can still attack each other."

so there you have it. Worried about interceptors and a-wings being pricks? hide in the station

sadly doesn't work too well with Bs (slowwwwwwwwwww difficult to just waltz out of engagement range), so you're probably just using the station to protect them while you kill the interceptors with something else

Hello guys !

Just wanted to pitch in because I had my first 400 points game tonight, and it was a better points size to observe the impact of mechanics over 300 points. I have trouble explaining it, but due to a larger size, everything good and bad thing you do seems to be more visible on the table because you have more absolute points spent into it.

Incidentally, it was the first game where my squadrons performed poorly, and this gave me some good insights that I'd like to share and discuss over because they are relevant to the current discussion I believe. The opponent had a Screed list with a carrier VSD1 (Chiraneau, Expanded Hangars, Flight Controllers), 2 Glads 2 with Engine Techs (one being Demolisher with ACM and Wulff, the other being Insidious without anything. In terms of Squadrons, he had 3 TIE Fighters, Howlrunner, Mauler, Soontir, Vader and another Advanced.

1) Let's start with Fleet composition (I'll detail how ship selection was poor on my part in another post, or maybe I should start a blog ). I had 2 CR90As with Jaina's, Mothma Nav team and Expanded Armaments, the other one being Raymus in the Tantive IV. I also had 2 Neb Bs, one kitted out Salvation with Intel, XI17 and Engine Techs the other one being Yavaris with no further upgrades. Finally, in terms of squadrons : 4 A-Wing including Tycho, 2 Y-Wings, 2 B-Wings.

2) Initiative is key to squadron superiority, even more important that the flexibility it provides to capital ships. Especially when the two lists have Carriers, the one getting to activate first. In that game, the Imperial player had the Initiative and its impact was really felt against my list. He didn't necessarily kill much more than me, but it allowed to define the shape of the squadron battlefield and put me on my backfoot while I needed the squadrons much more forward.

You don't need initiative to play well with the squadrons, but you need to make sure that he gets to activate his carrier ship later than you. Whether it is the looming threat of a Demolisher that will kill a Nebulon B next turn if it's not activated and moved away, or a juicy Nebulon B or surpisingly tanky Corvette on the edge of the board that might slip past the opportunity. As long as you can go first in the squadron vs squadron battle, you'll have a clear advantage. It's even clearer for the Imperials due to benefitting a lot from synergetic upgrades that Rebels don't have much of.

3) I think that there is a hidden truth behind the 33% point limit. Like the IFF podcast guys said (thank you so much for the entertainment and the very sensible discussion guys, please keep doing it !), at first you might think that they are maxed because they are super awesome but after a few games it becomes clear that it isn't the case. Actually, just cramming as many squadrons as you can is a liability to the fleets if they are not built around one key number : the number of squadrons you can activate with your squadron commands.

Let me explain further, and let's get back to the fleets that were played tonight :

- Rebs : 8 squadrons, 5 squadron value on the ships (+1 if you count Raymus on the Corvette, but let's not count that yet)

- Imperials : 8 squadrons, 8 squadron value on the ships

As we can see, regardless of whether there were Aces, the Rebel fleet had an extra 3 squadrons that couldn't be activated even if all ships activated them at the same time. In effect, it means that each turn, the Empire could activate all of its squadrons, while the Rebel fleet wouldn't even be able to do that.

More importantly, both list don't factor in the fact that when ships get destroyed, you're losing out on total activable Squadron Command value. On the table top, that translates by losing the ability to activate squadrons.

I've been very successful in the squadron game at 300 points with a "Rogue Squadron" list with 3 X-Wings and Wedge, an AFMK2B with Expanded Hangars and Adar Tallon, a Vette A and a Neb B Escort. I've always won fighter superiority and the X-Wings did a lot of damage to ships as well, ensuring victory even if both my small ships were destroyed. When we break that list down, we have :

- Rogue Squadron : 4 Squadrons (+1 with Adar Tallon), 7 Squadron Value.

The fact that I have 2 more squadron activations in that list (if we factor in Adar Tallon) allows not only to make sure all squadrons can contribute in any given turn (thus not "wasting" points), but also that if a ship gets destroyed (the Neb for example), it means that I can always take the full advantage of the points spent in Fighters. And without me planning for it, this is exactly what happened ! Squadrons were still a significant part of the list with about 20% points.

As a conclusion to that point, I think that when factoring in squadrons in your list, you shouldn't put more squadrons than you have total Squadron value in your list. This is a rule of thumb I will absolutely live by for now on.

Ironically, that means more ships for more squadrons, but this is Armada, not X-Wing and it has always primarily been about ships (and also why upgrades that increase your total Squadron value like Expanded Hangars are priceless for Squadron list, because it's the cheapest way to ensure a Squadron Command). It's not so much as you should activate all your squadrons at once, but that you should (as much as possible regarding casualties) never not be able to activate them all at once.

4) Going even further, I think that in order to conciliate the rule of thumb detailed above with the 33% limit is to cram in as many Aces in the list as you can while not dumbing down your main ships. It's more important to have good fighters that you can properly coordinate rather than having a squadron swarm that can't be coordinated.

Think of it as a logistics chain : if you have too much product compared to what your chain can handle, it'll be wasted. But if you can securely hangle X amount of product, you might as well make **** sure that this product is good stuff !

5) As a last observation, even if the Fleet is not built around to maximize squadron damage, the Squadron Command is the less wasted Command Dial that you can use. Even the mighty Demolisher with Engine Techs might find himself in a situation where whether or not he'll activate that card will not matter because current speed and enemy disposition will allow him to throw 4 black dice anyways, He hasn't taken enough damage to warrant an Engineering token. And Concentrate Fire is not needed. In that case, it might be better to have 2 TIEs join a melee than sit there hanging.

____

Sorry for the Wall of Text boys, but I really had to share that while it was still fresh in my mind, teehee !

MoffZen, I wonder if that's why the Rebels have better anti squadron dice in comparison to the Empire. But really good logic on your statement.

MoffZen, I wonder if that's why the Rebels have better anti squadron dice in comparison to the Empire. But really good logic on your statement.

This is highly possible. I haven't factored in anti-squadron batteries in my analysis, but this would make a lot of sense. After all, the most reliable damage you can throw on an enemy with Scatter is just a single annoying blue dice with accuracy from anti-squadron barrage that they can't brace

___

EDIT : Thanks for getting me to think about that matter man !

Actually, the more I think about the Assault Frigate, the more it comes as probably the most generalist ship of the Rebel Fleet because its optimal damage comes from using both guns and squadrons rather than simply one or the other. I've tried building the AFMK2 as a purely gunnery oriented ship and in terms of maximal output, I have trouble comparing it to what the Empire does.

I mean, you're paying quite a fair amount of points for the two highest Rebel Squadron values, might as well use them !

For a pure gunnery oriented ship, a Corvette with Enhanced Armaments is just as good at long range than the AFMK2 with Enchanced Armaments (assuming that the AFMK2 only manages to aim with one broadside at long range).

It's also funny to see that the only 2 currently available Offensive retrofits are designed to ensure squadron superiority. Just Sayan !

Has anyone actually done any playtesting of the two blue dice? I've been mostly underwhelmed. Esp vs named fighters. I'm ready to try the PD reroute next.

--

I'm really looking forward to future waves where they might release a small ship for squadrons:

The Rebel Transport. Sporting no guns. A squadron value of 3. Upgrades that let it heal other ships with its Repair tokens. Jam style action that debuffs enemies.

Costing around 30 points. WOW. That would be a fun ship. And funny enough same cost as X-wing.

Heck, in armada it could probably go down to even 25. Would be a really difficult piece to play and play against.

The empire could get the escort carrier, it looks like a brick with rounded corners. Barely any armament but lots of squadrons would be interesting to play, do you protect it with ships or rely on squadrons, it would nearly always take squadron commands, that would be an amazing thing and so different then everything else out.

A few quick notes:

1. Shmitty's experience dovetails with mine for rebels: a handful of A-wings are often a powerful tool. It's a few extra black dice (even if they can't crit, so better to think of them as red dice... the expected damage from an A-Wing attack on a ship is .75 per die) paired with the extreme speed of the A-Wing.
2. I agree some form of reliable token generation might be the best for squadron bossing. To this end, Tarkin does open some very interesting possibilities up, though right now it's hard to pass up on the Screed + ACM interaction for Imperials...

there is another, more subtle benefit to Contested Outpost

from the rules reference:

"If line of sight is drawn over an obstacle, the attack is obstructed even if the bases of the attacker and defender are touching"

and

"If line of sight between two squadrons is obstructed, those squadrons are not engaged even if at distance 1 from one another, though they can still attack each other."

so there you have it. Worried about interceptors and a-wings being pricks? hide in the station

sadly doesn't work too well with Bs (slowwwwwwwwwww difficult to just waltz out of engagement range), so you're probably just using the station to protect them while you kill the interceptors with something else

From the objective card:

"The station does not obstruct attacks," therefore line of sight is not obstructed, therefore squadrons can be engaged even if they're parked on the station. Right?

I came, I herped; I derped

there is another, more subtle benefit to Contested Outpost

from the rules reference:

"If line of sight is drawn over an obstacle, the attack is obstructed even if the bases of the attacker and defender are touching"

and

"If line of sight between two squadrons is obstructed, those squadrons are not engaged even if at distance 1 from one another, though they can still attack each other."

so there you have it. Worried about interceptors and a-wings being pricks? hide in the station

sadly doesn't work too well with Bs (slowwwwwwwwwww difficult to just waltz out of engagement range), so you're probably just using the station to protect them while you kill the interceptors with something else

From the objective card:

"The station does not obstruct attacks," therefore line of sight is not obstructed, therefore squadrons can be engaged even if they're parked on the station. Right?

You are right. You're a researcher like me. Of course I am also an overopinionated New Englander with a superiority complex. So you're better off, but you're STILL correct, and that's what really matters.

Mxlm beat me. You could, however, argue that cont outpost is good since you can sit in the station and know the shipsll be in range to bomb and you don't have to worry about obstructed shots: better with rhymer.