While a number of us are disappointed by the lack of fighters in the finishing battles, I just want to say it that tournament winning builds will not be showing up everywhere for all of us to fight against all the time.

Me and my friends will always have X-wings with rebels and TIE/Ln with imperials because it is cinematic and feels right.

So enjoy your armadas, try new builds, fly casual and have fun!

I am not disappointed in anything. In fact I figured this would happen once IFF started going on about getting an automatic 300 points for killing all ships.

Well, maybe FF do better squadrons for wave 2 and 3. I'm a little disapointed with de final lists.

I love squadron's game.

the current squadron offerings are more than fine

while we'll be getting some support in the form of intel (and esp Oars ) we'll also be getting Rogue which can work just fine with ship spam since they're not entirely dependent on ships (will get murdered by commanded squadrons activating first, though)

but since basically all of the wave is unspoiled apart from the base ship stats, who the hell knows?

Based on what I've been reading about the top list and other top lists, the big takeaway is that multiple, maneuverable ships are important. And yes, taking a ton of points in Squadrons to get that carrier build to work is even more points that you spent trying to get that carrier build to work.

maybe there needs to be a tournament rule stating you have to spend 20% to 30% on fighters? anything to pull the ground out of power players.

depends on what one means by "carrier" build

I don't like crutching on any one aspect in any game, and have included squadrons + ships to reflect that. You don't need to go crazy with Yavaris + Haven etc if you don't want to (either title by itself is a huge swing, and yavaris especially is cheap), as squadrons will contribute quite readily just by themselves and you can pour the leftover points into more ships or anti-ship tech.

advantage of having a large number of ships is a more difficult issue. The most I've been able to fit comfortably is 3 Nebs (yavaris with nothing else, naked neb, and support refit raymus + salvation). At 400 points, you could fling out 2 Cr-90as (or 1 cr-90, 1 more escort for a perfect 100) on top of that for a nifty total of 5 (which is also the ceiling for skreed VSD + X ACM GSDs).

At 300, you can fit a naked neb, yavaris, 2 cr90bs, and some 75 points of squadron, but I'm personally not huge on cr-90s without MM

there is also, if you're the good kind of crazy , MM on a Afmk2 - B (Enhanced Armaments), 3 Cr-90as and 5 A-wings

or Big-D with two Escorts (one Yavaris), 2 Cr-90As, and 5 B-wings...well now I won't be getting any sleep

as much of a copout as it is, it could be a 300 v 400 point issue. With the squadron cap only being raised by 33 points, leaving 77 to spend on ships, 400 points promises larger fleets even when squadron focused.

So were squadron based lists actually present at the tournament and losing or is everyone just turning up with no squadrons

This is a good question. Looking at the top guy's post, he played no-squadron lists two out of his five games, with the other games being labeled "Some Ties" and "Some A-Wings".

So, at a minimum we know that squadron based lists were not present at the top tables, particularly after Round 3. And minimum squadron lists were competitive, if not the overall winner.

Taking Lyraeus' advice and build suggestion, I brought a squadron-less build to a tournament yesterday and did quite well with it.

That said, I did find that the one opponent of mine that brought squadrons had squadrons that were really a pain, and none of them had Bomber. There wasn't much that I could do against them, in the skirmish in question. The VSD just can't outrun squadrons the way that a GSD can.

Still, the meta will develop. I'm sure people will figure out how to use squadrons effectively to really make it a drawback to not have squadrons. But right now, I think that squadron-less is a very viable option.

But, to the OP's main point: if Armada becomes a game focused on standard/tournament play, then I think that the tournament meta will become a very powerful thing, and you will have to be playing pretty casually or in an alternative fashion in order to escape the tournament meta.

I can not speak to the tournament, but the issue that I see with fighters is almost every game I play every single rebel ship has two anti-fighter dice. With that many anti-fighter dice may three hit fighters die so fast that they can not do much. Why spend the points on something that will not help me? If I am lucky they will survive one turn, never more. I understand that the rebel fighters are better, but it is not even a competition with better fighters, better anti-fighter on the ships, and ship abilities that buff the fighters even more. Now I can try and fight his fighters with mine and watch them die, going this way cost me points that I can use to get more ships. And as the "game" is all about the ships why not just go with more? Now do not get me wrong I enjoy trying to make a great carrier group, just need some fighters that can survive long enough to do something.

anti-squadron die are not really good without squadrons to engage enemy squadrons with

problem is you can do silly things i.t.o positioning that makes the anti-squadron dice not particularly useful (such as using ability to pre-measure and squadron's arc-independence to hit the enemy at an angle where one ship, max, will have anti-squadron on you)

you could also duck into the same arc he has on your ships. for example, if a neb escort has its front arc on your ship, attack it from the front. Now it has to choose between shooting the squadrons or the ship.

I think the fighter composition is quite a bidding game now. Do you risk no fighters, knowing you might come up against a Rhymer ball? Maybe it's better to bring a few A-wings.. But then your opponent could bring some fighters to engage your A-wings, leaving the Rhymer ball to do some good work on a ship.

Isn't the counter to the alpha strike to have a fighter screen and not put ships immediately at risk? Maybe focusing too much on squadrons in 'squadron lists' is really the downfall, especially if all they need to do is counter ships (and not other squadrons).

Seems like it's a self correcting problem to me.

(I will make the caveat, though: I think many ships are too fast relative to squadrons, and this may really be the reason they're failing)

So were squadron based lists actually present at the tournament and losing or is everyone just turning up with no squadrons

I agree it's a great question. Because in mini games, you quite often have a "self fulfilling meta"... Because everyone talks about how this ship is junk or great, or how this combo borders on OP, you see a lot or none of those at tournaments.

Not because what's being said is true, but because people buy what's being said and don't try it for themselves.

Which isn't to say that what's being said isn't untrue, it could be. In X-Wing everyone knows the Tie Advanced is bad, and that's not just group think, it's the simple truth. But at one point everyone 'knew' that Tie Swarms were unbeatable, until Paul did that with a XXBB list.

I just think we don't have all the things we need to use squadrons as effectively as they can be used. I am sure once wave 2 comes out they will be better (ISD's able to launch 7 squadrons at once)

I just think we don't have all the things we need to use squadrons as effectively as they can be used. I am sure once wave 2 comes out they will be better (ISD's able to launch 7 squadrons at once)

Are you referring to the lore, or is that a game mechanic that I missed somewhere?

ISD's got Squadron 4 + Hangars + token for 6, though it was initially spoiled with Squadron 5 and later the article got edited

So were squadron based lists actually present at the tournament and losing or is everyone just turning up with no squadrons

4th place in the tournament speaking here.

Squadron's were present, but the squadron heavy builds were very match dependant. Most of those who percolated up to the top tables for the last rounds had the intent of weathering fire from squads until the opposing capital ships were wiped out. I brought 3 squadrons just to keep Rhymerball and RebelAces from having a free day with my ships. Quynh and Francois opted for 4 ships to my 3, so that extra ship gave them space to afford losing one if it happened.

My 3rd round game at table 3 was against a Rhymerball. My squads kept about 4-5 attacks off my victory, which gave my glads the time to get around and take out the 2 carrier VSD before my Victory went down. My Victory kept tanking hits, redirecting crits to the sides, and taking several face-downs. I think it ended that game with about 3 hull left.

I just think we don't have all the things we need to use squadrons as effectively as they can be used. I am sure once wave 2 comes out they will be better (ISD's able to launch 7 squadrons at once)

Edit - ninja'd

Squadron's were present, but the squadron heavy builds were very match dependant.

Speaking very much as a matter of IMO... I'm fine if squadron heavy builds don't become the norm, as long as there's at least 2-4 stands of fighters on the table I'm happy and think the look and feel would be good.

I don't want to see 1/3rd of the points having to be spent on fighters, but I also don't want to see 0 points spent on them either. As long as it's somewhere between there it's good IMO.

Well, regarding the squadrons, in my local meta it seems that a lot of people have no idea on how to use them effectively. Most of them throw the squadrons unsupported by squadron commands (or maybe only 1 or 2 squadron commands) and they get eaten by builds geared for squadron superiority.

No squadrons are viable for sure, but so are squadrons as long as they're built into the game and properly supported by capital ships. Squadrons are almost an upgrades of ships and squadrons without squadron commands are a nuisance rather than true damage dealing.

How was the distribution between rebels and imps? From all the posts so far it sounds like there were many more imp lists then rebels. Is that true? If so it looks like the imps are doing better at the squadron-less game, tournament-wise (although I can't confirm from my personal experience, while imps are strong I won over 90% of my games using rebs, but only against weaker or equal players - none I would consider stronger/better)

i'm curious about the distribution of Commanders.

I'd imagine that on the imperial side, screed was the top commander.

Rebel side my guess is mon mothma followed closely by dodonna.