I know I'm jumping into this thread pretty late but I feel like removing the instant win/loss condition from destroying all of a players ships is what is holding back Squadrons the most. It's been said before but if I have 300 points worth of ships and you have 200+100 in fighters then you need to destroy 50% more points worth of ships than I do to hit that win condition. That's a pretty substantial advantage for me. *shrugs*

Following the discussion, I can't help but wonder: What if the rules had made spending 1/3 of your fleet points on squadrons mandatory?

Just thinking out loud, in the real world, no actual fleet would go into battle with no air support, nor (thematically) does the idea of Star Destroyers without clouds of Tie fighters seem quite right. I think a house rule that all capital fleets have to have some points expended on combat air patrol is pretty darn reasonable.

no...

But i could see 1/5 or 1/4. Just to get away from the all ship builds. But then Imperials would have the advantage... so no. I have no clue what FFG was thinking when all but one of the rebel fighters is slower then the imperials

Right. I was thinking this as well. Maybe 75 pts of fighters in a 300 pt game and 100 pts of fighters or so in a 400 pts game? And one other poster was correct, it would limit choice, but it would also eliminate the ship-only build.

(My thinking is that Ties are cheap, light, and fast, while x-wings are more expensive, solid, and a little slower? Kinda like the F4 in Mig Alley in Korea? Hard to think of a WWII comparison, maybe Spitfire vs. Messerschmitt? Probably not a good analogy.)

You know what would have been cool, in my opinion? If they had baked the cost of fighter support into the cost of the capital ships. A Star Destroyer costs X and comes equipped with three Tie squads. A Neb B costs Y and comes equipped with two X-Wing squads, etc. Upgrade cards would allow you to add mores squads, or switch out the type of ship, (x-wing for b-wing). That would have eliminated the ship-only build, but of course, would have offered less choice for customization. On the other hand, it would require players to use the capital ship and it's air support as a single weapon, perhaps as more intended in a game called Armada.

A few quick notes:

1. The problem with squadrons has nothing to do with defense tokens on squadrons; this is a misdiagnosis of the problem.
2. The problems are:
   1. The more squadrons you have, the less ships you have, and the less ships you have, the easier it is to get tabled. To win, an opponent merely needs to kill all your ships, your squadrons then get automatically swept off the board, essentially.
   2. The more squadrons you have, the less ships you have, and the less ships you have, the less activations you have. Being at an activation disadvantage is not game losing in and of itself, but all else equal, you would prefer to at least be even.
   3. Squadrons cannot act independently against most ships. Given that they must move OR shoot, not both, in the squadron phase, without a squadron command, it's very hard to consistently attack ships with fighters.

Without some sort of change to the core mechanic of move or shoot but not both in the squadron phase, it's unlikely squadron-heavy builds are going to work (barring, of course, upgrade cards that do something like make them into a brutal alpha strike that allows equalizing the ship/activation disadvantage due to spending on squadrons). I am somewhat more optimistic about the "rogue" keyword squadrons in Wave 2, however, but I think the real change FFG needs to make is ultimately to allow squadrons to move AND shoot against ships (not other squadrons) without a squadron command. As, at that point, if you don't take a fighter screen, they basically chase you around and sting you the whole game.

If I may throw a crazy ball in here, it seems like

mass-fighters beats no-fighters beats some-fighters beats mass-fighters.

In our experience, no fighters beats both some fighters and mass fighters, ignoring low values of "some" (the rebel players have had success with a few throw away A-Wings, especially Tycho, as they are probably the best stand-alone squadron given they are fast / hit back without a squadron command / can be used as an alpha strike given their speed / are cheap).

In imperial assault skirmish, they have retroactively added a rule that allows the player with less activations to be able to pass. While I haven't yet tested this out, I am almost exclusively a campaign player unless I'm demo'ing the game, I wonder if this would help the squadron situation somewhat since squadron heavy builds will generally have less ships and therefore less activations.

Why? This would allow the player with less ships the option to wait to activate a ship which would then possibly bring enemy ships in range of the ship that's passing its activation until later in the turn.

I think that would change the entire game and you would end up having players pass to try and get the most string of activations with the enemy ships in range who were unable to get their optimal shots.

In imperial assault skirmish, they have retroactively added a rule that allows the player with less activations to be able to pass. While I haven't yet tested this out, I am almost exclusively a campaign player unless I'm demo'ing the game, I wonder if this would help the squadron situation somewhat since squadron heavy builds will generally have less ships and therefore less activations.

Why? This would allow the player with less ships the option to wait to activate a ship which would then possibly bring enemy ships in range of the ship that's passing its activation until later in the turn.

This would be an excellent idea if they implement it in similar fashion (e.g. can only pass when you have less activations remaining, so if you are 4 v 2, you essentially can pass once somewhere).

I don't like it. First off we have not (Dragon Ball sin about to be accomplished) reached the final form of this game yet, we don't know what FFG has planned for squadrons in Wave 2 which will be where we can safely gauge everything.

Remember that the people who played at GenCon, many of them were inexperienced and the current tournament rules don't favor squadron play. As people get more experienced, we will see squadrons more and more.

The activation point is not specific to Armada, however; this is a well known problem with alternating activation games in general. There's even mathematical theorems about this kind of thing from the game theory side of the world.

In short, you have far more degrees of freedom if you can "wait" for your opponent to do everything before activating your key things in many situations, so spamming activations becomes a more and more valuable tactic the less control the opponent has about their chain.

The passing fix is not unique to Armada, and it's not just about squadrons, as it might also open up the space of fewer elite ships (e.g. two highly upgraded ones) being a viable build.

I also thing 4 ships is going to be optimal at 400 points which would allow you room for squadrons.

with all the negativity surrounding the perceptions of squadrons, I'm wondering if Wave 2 hasn't been delayed all this time because they're making Rogue a standard rule

1. The problems are:
   1. The more squadrons you have, the less ships you have, and the less ships you have, the easier it is to get tabled. To win, an opponent merely needs to kill all your ships, your squadrons then get automatically swept off the board, essentially.
   2. The more squadrons you have, the less ships you have, and the less ships you have, the less activations you have. Being at an activation disadvantage is not game losing in and of itself, but all else equal, you would prefer to at least be even.
   3. Squadrons cannot act independently against most ships. Given that they must move OR shoot, not both, in the squadron phase, without a squadron command, it's very hard to consistently attack ships with fighters.

mass-fighters beats no-fighters beats some-fighters beats mass-fighters.

In our experience, no fighters beats both some fighters and mass fighters, ignoring low values of "some" (the rebel players have had success with a few throw away A-Wings, especially Tycho, as they are probably the best stand-alone squadron given they are fast / hit back without a squadron command / can be used as an alpha strike given their speed / are cheap).

I think anyone who makes these statements havent played experienced rebel squadron players. All of those points are valid if you drive your ships into the enemy and joust them. Jousting is perfectly fine for imperials as they are designed to do just that but rebel are not. I have no problems getting my squadrons in front of enemy ships and either forcing them veer away from my ships or bump my fighters. Either way is fine and plays on the strengths of my rebel carriers. I cant speak for imperial carriers but if played well my rebel ones can easily win against any squadron-less builds. Against equally skilled players I am about 50-50 which I think speaks well for the game.

All that aside, I think the fact that tjhere is so much debate about this means FFG did something right and the game is well balanced.

1. The problems are:
   1. The more squadrons you have, the less ships you have, and the less ships you have, the easier it is to get tabled. To win, an opponent merely needs to kill all your ships, your squadrons then get automatically swept off the board, essentially.
   2. The more squadrons you have, the less ships you have, and the less ships you have, the less activations you have. Being at an activation disadvantage is not game losing in and of itself, but all else equal, you would prefer to at least be even.
   3. Squadrons cannot act independently against most ships. Given that they must move OR shoot, not both, in the squadron phase, without a squadron command, it's very hard to consistently attack ships with fighters.

mass-fighters beats no-fighters beats some-fighters beats mass-fighters.

In our experience, no fighters beats both some fighters and mass fighters, ignoring low values of "some" (the rebel players have had success with a few throw away A-Wings, especially Tycho, as they are probably the best stand-alone squadron given they are fast / hit back without a squadron command / can be used as an alpha strike given their speed / are cheap).

I think anyone who makes these statements havent played experienced rebel squadron players. All of those points are valid if you drive your ships into the enemy and joust them. Jousting is perfectly fine for imperials as they are designed to do just that but rebel are not. I have no problems getting my squadrons in front of enemy ships and either forcing them veer away from my ships or bump my fighters. Either way is fine and plays on the strengths of my rebel carriers. I cant speak for imperial carriers but if played well my rebel ones can easily win against any squadron-less builds. Against equally skilled players I am about 50-50 which I think speaks well for the game.

All that aside, I think the fact that tjhere is so much debate about this means FFG did something right and the game is well balanced.

So, yes, clearly it's that I haven't played experienced rebel squadron players despite the fact that Gencon's top lists were almost all no-squadron...

I play rebels mostly and have an imperial fleet that actually does very well for me; the problem with the squadron based fleet for rebels is thus:

1. The best imperial fleets will plow through your squadrons at high speed and blow up your carriers (witness the winning Gencon list, which is one of the main archetypes that will do this). Unless you have enough of a squadron alpha strike to reliably kill two star destroyers, you are down ships after the first real turn of engagement. This is crippling when you already have less activations AND your squadrons don't work with activations. In short, you trade a ship to win the game as the imperial player.
2. Many rebel fleets (like the #2 list at Gencon... seeing a theme?) don't want to get close, and will happily engage you at long range and force you to chase them around with squadrons; if you took B-wings, you may well spend an entire game and never catch them.
3. The CR90 swarm is all but a hard counter to rebel squadron lists.

Look, I want squadrons to work as much as the next guy - they are awesome and thematic, so don't take my posts as being happy they don't work well mechanically. But, right now, they don't work well mechanically. I will throw back at you the question of why, if a rebel squadron player can win so consistently, were none of them in the top brackets at Gencon? Do you expect they will be in the future and this was an anomaly, and what would convince you that you are wrong? As I will admit that, if in the next few major tournaments, squadron-heavy builds are all over at the top, I'm not as good at this as I think I am and I was wrong.

However, if I am not, correctly identifying the core issues and point cost problems with squadrons is how we get FFG's attention (along with tournament results consistently disfavoring them) so that they will get fixed and we can all use them.

How about if you destroy all your opponents ships the games ends but their fighters do not count for determining victory. So you get 200 instead of 300 at the end. Incentives for taking fighters to help you score that magic 300 more easily.

Lyr:

In imp assault, you can only pass if you have less activations. So let's say it's 3 imp ships vs 2 rebel ships.

Rebels have less activations and decided to pass when it comes time to activate their second ship. It then goes to imperials. They can't pass because they don't have less activations so they must move. Doing so puts their ship into range of the last rebel ship. The rebel ship has 2 bwings and produces a squadron command. The bwings and the rebel ship are able to destroy the imperial ship.

Now, neither side can pass on activations because neither side has less activations.

I'm not saying this is a defacto fix for the squadron problem, but I do think it would help alleviate some of the problems. It also adds some interesting tactics to the overall game experience.

Lyr: we haven't reached the final form of imperial assault either, not even close. Yet, it was seen as a needed fix by FFG to fix the problems in skirmish when activations have been shown to be very important.

I thnk what the all ship lists are showing, aside from the obvious benefit of a repairable, damage dealing platform, is that increased activations are very important to achieving victory.

1. The problems are:
   1. The more squadrons you have, the less ships you have, and the less ships you have, the easier it is to get tabled. To win, an opponent merely needs to kill all your ships, your squadrons then get automatically swept off the board, essentially.
   2. The more squadrons you have, the less ships you have, and the less ships you have, the less activations you have. Being at an activation disadvantage is not game losing in and of itself, but all else equal, you would prefer to at least be even.
   3. Squadrons cannot act independently against most ships. Given that they must move OR shoot, not both, in the squadron phase, without a squadron command, it's very hard to consistently attack ships with fighters.

mass-fighters beats no-fighters beats some-fighters beats mass-fighters.

In our experience, no fighters beats both some fighters and mass fighters, ignoring low values of "some" (the rebel players have had success with a few throw away A-Wings, especially Tycho, as they are probably the best stand-alone squadron given they are fast / hit back without a squadron command / can be used as an alpha strike given their speed / are cheap).

I think anyone who makes these statements havent played experienced rebel squadron players. All of those points are valid if you drive your ships into the enemy and joust them. Jousting is perfectly fine for imperials as they are designed to do just that but rebel are not. I have no problems getting my squadrons in front of enemy ships and either forcing them veer away from my ships or bump my fighters. Either way is fine and plays on the strengths of my rebel carriers. I cant speak for imperial carriers but if played well my rebel ones can easily win against any squadron-less builds. Against equally skilled players I am about 50-50 which I think speaks well for the game.

All that aside, I think the fact that tjhere is so much debate about this means FFG did something right and the game is well balanced.

So, yes, clearly it's that I haven't played experienced rebel squadron players despite the fact that Gencon's top lists were almost all no-squadron...

I play rebels mostly and have an imperial fleet that actually does very well for me; the problem with the squadron based fleet for rebels is thus:

1. The best imperial fleets will plow through your squadrons at high speed and blow up your carriers (witness the winning Gencon list, which is one of the main archetypes that will do this). Unless you have enough of a squadron alpha strike to reliably kill two star destroyers, you are down ships after the first real turn of engagement. This is crippling when you already have less activations AND your squadrons don't work with activations. In short, you trade a ship to win the game as the imperial player.
2. Many rebel fleets (like the #2 list at Gencon... seeing a theme?) don't want to get close, and will happily engage you at long range and force you to chase them around with squadrons; if you took B-wings, you may well spend an entire game and never catch them.
3. The CR90 swarm is all but a hard counter to rebel squadron lists.

Look, I want squadrons to work as much as the next guy - they are awesome and thematic, so don't take my posts as being happy they don't work well mechanically. But, right now, they don't work well mechanically. I will throw back at you the question of why, if a rebel squadron player can win so consistently, were none of them in the top brackets at Gencon? Do you expect they will be in the future and this was an anomaly, and what would convince you that you are wrong? As I will admit that, if in the next few major tournaments, squadron-heavy builds are all over at the top, I'm not as good at this as I think I am and I was wrong.

However, if I am not, correctly identifying the core issues and point cost problems with squadrons is how we get FFG's attention (along with tournament results consistently disfavoring them) so that they will get fixed and we can all use them.

I respect your comments and point of view so please dont take my comments as any sort of dig on you.

I guess my point is I dont think there are any problems right now with squadrons. One tournament doesnt dictate the meta in my opinion. In fact just because you attended Gencon doesnt mean you are in the top tier of players (not that there werent any there). It just means to me that on average the best players there adopted a strategy of not taking squadrons. The only issue is it takes more planning and experience to get squadrons to work well which I personally like. I agree that new players will struggle with them but to me that is just an incentive to get better.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xmFXEcI_AA4

I respect your comments and point of view so please dont take my comments as any sort of dig on you.

I guess my point is I dont there is any problems right now with squadrons. One tournament doesnt dictate the meta in my opinion. In fact just because you attended Gencon doesnt mean you are in the top tier of players (not that there werent any there). It just means to me that on average the best players there adopted a strategy of not taking squadrons The only issue is it takes more planning and experience to get them to work well which I personally like. I agree that new players will struggle with them but to me that is just an incentive to get better.

I think our disagreement is that I don't believe it is a matter of experience, I believe squadrons are just worse.

They limit your degrees of freedom when acting because you MUST take certain commands and coordinate with your ships for them to be effective. If you are giving up flexibility, you need to instead receive much greater strength in return for doing so.

And yet a single X-wing does less damage and requires more complexity than just taking enhanced armament as an upgrade, to give one example! Why would you ever take an X-wing? I just don't believe squadrons are a cost-effective way of dealing damage when you have to deal with the combined loss of activations and loss of freedom. (Note: limited A-wings to fill points and Rhymer blobs for range extension are the two things I think might buck this trend in wave 1, and I think the rogue ships in wave 2 may work fine because they overcome the loss of freedom problem).

I don't believe there is a secret sauce for squadrons and practice will improve the results. I think the problem is that they are just not as good because they are mechanically very finicky and cost points you can use better elsewhere. They strike me, to refer to MTG, as a "Timmy" thing; when they work, they can work big and it's awesome and spectacular (double tapping two b-wings with Yavaris is fantastic), but in reality, it's really hard to do that and against an efficient player (WHY DID YOU VOLUNTARILY FLY DIRECTLY INTO TWO B-WINGS AND YAVARIS!!!1111one!!!), you will never be given the opportunity.

Edit: Don't worry, I don't take things personally here; it's just the internet. I am more saying I find it to be a logical flaw to argue for "more practice" for squadrons when you have multiple people who just demonstrated they were the best players at the biggest tournament so far saying squadrons were, as a main tactic, sub-optimal.

I guess my point is I dont think there are any problems right now with squadrons. One tournament doesnt dictate the meta in my opinion. In fact just because you attended Gencon doesnt mean you are in the top tier of players (not that there werent any there). It just means to me that on average the best players there adopted a strategy of not taking squadrons. The only issue is it takes more planning and experience to get squadrons to work well which I personally like. I agree that new players will struggle with them but to me that is just an incentive to get better.

Here is where I'm not sure I can agree with you.

The current tournament point system works in such a way that destroying all of the enemy's ships is to your advantage when calculating level of victory.

So what is going to help you

a) destroy ships quicker that doesn't involve a hard counter (squadron engagement rule is a hard counter);

b) make it harder for all of your ships to be destroyed?

My answers are:

a) You can destroy ships quicker with more ship activations and with ships than with squadrons and less ships. This is because activations can allow you to double or even triple attack an opposing players ship before he even gets to return fire or move (depending on who is first player). When you invest in squadrons, especially at the 90-100 point level, but not exclusively so, you lose out on ship activations and the consequences begin to add up. In the current tournament point system, this encourages more ship builds and less squadron builds.

b) The more ships you have, the harder it is, in a 6 round format, for a squadron centered build to destroy 4+ ships. However, against 2 ship, squadron focused builds and even 3 ship squadron focused builds, it's easier to survive when you have 4+ ships, thus denying the opponent the large MOV that comes with tabling.

I would prefer squadrons were a must take to do well in the tournament setting, but based on how the points work, I think it's more of a detriment to have squadrons beyond maybe 2 or so cheap ones.

I wholerea

I guess my point is I dont think there are any problems right now with squadrons. One tournament doesnt dictate the meta in my opinion. In fact just because you attended Gencon doesnt mean you are in the top tier of players (not that there werent any there). It just means to me that on average the best players there adopted a strategy of not taking squadrons. The only issue is it takes more planning and experience to get squadrons to work well which I personally like. I agree that new players will struggle with them but to me that is just an incentive to get better.

Here is where I'm not sure I can agree with you.

The current tournament point system works in such a way that destroying all of the enemy's ships is to your advantage when calculating level of victory.

So what is going to help you

a) destroy ships quicker that doesn't involve a hard counter (squadron engagement rule is a hard counter);

b) make it harder for all of your ships to be destroyed?

My answers are:

a) You can destroy ships quicker with more ship activations and with ships than with squadrons and less ships. This is because activations can allow you to double or even triple attack an opposing players ship before he even gets to return fire or move (depending on who is first player). When you invest in squadrons, especially at the 90-100 point level, but not exclusively so, you lose out on ship activations and the consequences begin to add up. In the current tournament point system, this encourages more ship builds and less squadron builds.

b) The more ships you have, the harder it is, in a 6 round format, for a squadron centered build to destroy 4+ ships. However, against 2 ship, squadron focused builds and even 3 ship squadron focused builds, it's easier to survive when you have 4+ ships, thus denying the opponent the large MOV that comes with tabling.

I would prefer squadrons were a must take to do well in the tournament setting, but based on how the points work, I think it's more of a detriment to have squadrons beyond maybe 2 or so cheap ones.

I wish squadrons were worth some points too. But in the end it all comes down to personal experience as others have said. I have played against 3-4 ship builds and I have beat them consistently with squadrons. In fact, as a Rebel, I find it difficult to put out enough damage against Imperials without them. Time will tell but either way its good to have these lively debates.

I would say 40-50 points of the right squadrons can be worth so much more than their actual point cost. If I'm playing rebel, I'm never leaving home without Tycho and at least one extra A-wing squad. those 27 points can be used to deny the use of 50+ points of bombers. If I'm imperial, I'm not leaving home without Rhymer and two extra bombers. for 34 points, that's an average of 3 damage to a capital ship per turn. Fly them in front of an enemy's VSD, and they'll be shooting for the rest of the game, as you can continually place them in front of the VSD as it moves forward and bumps you out of the way, no Squadron Commands required. And if they get tied up? It's only 34 points. A slight disadvantage, sure, but nothing instantly game ending.

On top of all that, the game was designed for 400 points. I think once we get there, Squadrons will be seeing more action.

I wonder if having a separate squadron phase is the issue here? Since during deployment you can place on ship or two squadrons interchangeably, why were ships and squadrons split off for activations?

If the ship and squadron phases were combined, and you could activate one ship or two squadrons, that could even out the activations, or even give the advantage to the squadron-heavy build. Squadron command would work the same, and non-commanded squadrons could still either move or fire.

I agree with soaringbear assertion regarding the point limit. I have played only a couple games at 300, but numerous games at 400. What I have found is that you can build much more "complete" lists at 400, where at the 300 point limit you have to specialize more. In that limited arena, the all ship fleet is more effective in a tournament environment, but I don't think it will remain that way at 400. Which isn't to say 400 point tournaments won't be won by all ship fleets, but I think at 300 you have to sacrifice too large a percentage of your points and potential ship deployment to make them shine. Certainly in my casual 400 point games we have experimented with both and both have had success. We tend to trend towards minimal fighters but rhymer ball gets some action. That said its far too-limited a sample size to learn anything from except how to win at our Tuesday night games.

I also strongly believe that the new squadrons pack is going to drastically change the landscape of the fighter game. I mean, it looks like the base firespray goes rogue/bomber with 2 blue dice. How expensive does that have to be before it becomes not worth playing?

I agree about wave 2 changing the squadron game or at the very least, giving it the possiblity of being more useful. I still think having another ship vs 3-4 more squadrons will be the way to go, with a point total of 400 it'll probably be effective to field 3-4 cheap squadrons... such as a-wings or ties.

There are a couple squadron cards included with the MC-80 and I'm curious about what affects they will have.

maybe the scoring syatem is broken? It gives way to much for "tabling" your apponet without needing to kill ALL his fighters and not enough for real adjectives. that or fighters need to be better at damageing ships.