you don't actually get that much out of a CF command for the VSD. The big guy's either unloading 6 "**** you" dice or a sh*tty 3, either way making the impact of CF minimal relative to the points you spent on him. You will miss the navigate, but squadrons are a great way to add punch that doesn't give half a **** about your facing

Now compare a VSD to a CR-90/Neb/Gladiator, which are all more attacks per points spent, and the CFs start adding up a bit. There are also some titles that greatly emphasize the value of extra dice (Paragon's black dice, Salvation's crit --> double damage, Warlord's dice fixing).

In most other cases, though, you will simply get far more dice out of your Squadron command than your CF. the higher your Squadron, the higher the amount of dice you will gain from a Squadron command relative to CF

the limits placed on Squadrons are probably due to how friggin difficult they are for cap ships to kill. You toss two cr-90s against a VSD, and the VSD will win easily if it gets its front arc. You toss 8 A-wings at it, the VSD is doomed no matter what it does. Squadrons are the most effective counter to squadrons (and by a huge margin), which is probably the reason for the point limit and cap-ship command dependency. If Squadrons are the best against Squadrons and cap ships can't do anything, then what's the point of cap ships? easy, make them necessary for squadrons to work.

Remember, even in the apparently meta GSD-spam, the GSDs can't actually do **** about the squadrons. Solution? Kill the ships.

Personally, I think the design for Squadron gives you more than enough room to give all Squadrons Rogue. Being able to activate in the ship phase (rather than the squadron) and simultaneously with one of your ships lets you pile on damage before your target even gets to activate.

Here's a thought. What if certain rogue characters could issue squadron commands (or ships within short range of the rogue ship can move and fire during the squadron phase)

It would fit thematically with the Falcon leading the attack on the death star and may open the fighter game up a little.

My concern with the current status quo is that you end up "paying" three times for squadrons.

1)The first is the initial points outlay,

2)the second is the fact that you are reducing the number of ships you can take and losing the activation meta.

3) you are having to use a command which is generally better spent on navigate or repair during the phase of the game when squadrons tend to engage.

Fickle, I like the cut of your jib. I pretty much agree with most of what you have to say.

K, thats done, all kiss-buttery aside.

Rhymer blahblahblah. He isnt the only on out there youknow..

I think the rebs are far better suited. Sure you miss out on the range, but Jeez...the firepower and crazy clouds you can bring to bear! Im adamant that I beleive Y Wings are king. En masse, they are the best all rounders. Squad comand is just 'convenient' for them when gaining Air superiority, cheap, dont care a thing for capital ship fire, they SLAUGHTER characters due to their numbers. (My A's go after regular squadrons while Y's dogpile characters who find their tokens useless)

Just today my fighters nuked 7 Ties, Howlrunner, then pummeled a glad and a victory that were unfortunate enough to roll thru the cloud they didnt expect to be so bad.

Thats an impressive kill count for 93pts. People get so blindsided by obvious tactics/stengths like Rhymer or B-Wing firepower with Yavaris they dont even explore more basic strong tactics...like numbers coupled with resiliancy.

Something really strange is the designers felt fighters were so powerful, you are limited to a maximum of 1/3 of your points on them.

What are we missing that the designers felt they needed a limit?

I mean, yeah, I can understand the desire to prevent someone bringing a CR90 with ~ 250 points fighters against someone who brought just a regular fleet. The CR90 would just kite for 6 turns. But even then, your fighters would be SLAUGHTERED by the opponents commanded fighters.

What are your thought?

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Personally, I suspect te 1/3 point limit was an initial nerf... Why? Because originally fighters could move and shoot during the squadron phase. The Squadron command's only benefit was to give an alpha strike. So people would just kite around and demolish the opposing fleet with fighters. (Limit how much you can take of the uber item)

But then the designers found that people still liked fighters way too much, so they made the squadron phase move OR shoot. But this dramatically reduced the value of fighters... And therefore they reduced the Anti-squadron value of the capital ships Right before they went to the printer(hence the downward revision in the AS dice from the news articles)

Now you may be asking yourselves, well the game designer said the Nationals winner didn't get punished for going all ships. That's called a confirmation bias (tendency to search for or interpret information in a way that confirms one's preconceptions.

Therefore, provide the premium isn't too high, we should see rogue keyword fighters bring it back.

Confirmation Bias assumes the person looking at the information wanted to interpret it a certain way. I assert that all we know about the nationals list is that it didnt face a bomber list, and as such we cannot conclude that it would have no issue defeating one, which is the implication/assertion we are seeing so much of on these boards. We can make rational arguments either way.

From my own experiences in the game, properly deployed and commanded fighters are well worth their investment. They do have a higher skill cap and as such may be less optimal in a tournament enviornment due to fatigue, not being familiar with your opponents tendendcies, and the way tournament scoring works. I think they are balanced just fine though for the casual, just playing a game games. Also, I very much agree that the new squadrons coming in wave two, from what I see, are going to turn this conversation on its head

If you ever are at the receiving end of five squadrons of bombers activated by a single squadron command, you will understand squadrons. Sure, a VSD I can bring as much attack dice with the right upgrades, but will it come close enough?

Capital ships only is fine if your opponent only brought interceptors without significant anti-ship capability. An opponent with enough bombers has an element that is nearly invulnerable and more maneuverable so he can dictate the circumstances of the engagement.

If squadron inferiority continues to be a problem after wave 2 (and I suspect Rogue and Intel are going to majorly shake things up), I thought of a quick and easy solution for helping squadron heavy builds. Right now, most commanders are very ship focused. Dondonna is about the only one I can think of that helps squadrons in remotely any way. Well what if we had a commander that automatically granted rogue to all your squadrons? Suddenly squadrons aren't dependent on commands and you have some crazy range. It would be like going from battleships to aircraft carriers. I would gladly pay 30-40 points for a commander like that. It would fundamentally change squadron play without having to re-write any rules.

If squadron inferiority continues to be a problem after wave 2 (and I suspect Rogue and Intel are going to majorly shake things up), I thought of a quick and easy solution for helping squadron heavy builds. Right now, most commanders are very ship focused. Dondonna is about the only one I can think of that helps squadrons in remotely any way. Well what if we had a commander that automatically granted rogue to all your squadrons? Suddenly squadrons aren't dependent on commands and you have some crazy range. It would be like going from battleships to aircraft carriers. I would gladly pay 30-40 points for a commander like that. It would fundamentally change squadron play without having to re-write any rules.

I like this idea.

Currently all commanders focus on improving your ships, as you stated really only Dodonna can help fighter, but really only those with bomber keyword.

I am in favor of having a General Wedge Antilles (and hopefully an Imperial equivalent) that does this.

Fighters are only good at denying space, and taking out other fighters.

Except rhymer, who creates a ship that shoots last and can be engaged.

I suspect that post wave 2 lists will have 4-6 ships as the norm including large based ones - those take up a fair amount of physical room on the playing area, meaning it will become much tougher to kill every single ship to secure the full 400 points in a tournament. In that case, I imagine people will feel "safer" investing points into squadrons. Not to mention the great points above where the Rogue keyword is a game changer, plus the older the game gets, the more familiar and comfortable people will be playing with/against squadrons.

True, and fair enough - in fact even Tie Fighters and Interceptors are never useless, all those individual blue anti-ship dice do add up. They're just not the most efficient use of points.

Basic math suggests that point for point, Tie Fighters are almost as good at killing ships as x-wings- Numbers make up for the lack of bomber. Actually, the Numbers slight favor the Tie for raw damage, although the ability to deal crits and the extra hull might make up for it (To be honest, though, my quick math suggested that both the escort Fighters pay a fair bit for the escort keyword, which means to really get value out of them you want to capitalize on that.

Regarding Fighters in the current metagame- The points cost hurts because you can't get a decent number of activations and a good fighter screen right now- That might change at 400, where the difference in activations will be less severe (4 activations vs 2 is very painful. 6 v 4 significantly less so). Being able to ignore squadrons when trying to table is also awkward.

Lastly, while I realize the rules work the way they do for a reason, it will never cease to bug me every time a capital ship outruns a starfighter.

A couple of ideas -

Given the broader game, using 3 hull ties against capitals is usually a last resort thing. To be effective they need to cluster around one hull zone, and a Neb B E will shred them quite happily. You are just giving away lots of points in this scenario. My mate is quite happy if I commit my Ties to harassing his ships - he always comes out well ahead.

Xwings, Tie Bombers and Tie advanced by contrast, are a different proposition. Just about every imperial ship is one shot each, and the Xwings have 5 hull, so its a lot less credible that the xwings will get shot down and give away points, while being able to keep up a steady weight of fire if commanded correctly.

Fighters are only good at denying space, and taking out other fighters.

Except rhymer, who creates a ship that shoots last and can be engaged.

My B-wings laugh at your comment.

B-Wings are one of those things... Just last night, I watched someone put a couple of Squads of B-Wings in front of an Assault Carrier that had started forward due to Fleet Ambush...

Having to *chase* the Frigate was irrelevant, as they punched straight through it and out the other side in the One Turn of Shooting they had at it...

Fighters are only good at denying space, and taking out other fighters.

Except rhymer, who creates a ship that shoots last and can be engaged.

LOL!

I think that a lot of the lack of squadrons in competitive play is because of how they do victory points. If you bring a 300 point list that packs 100 points of squadrons, they can kill off your ships but still get the full 300 vp. Even with all of your squadrons remaining on the table. There is no real point in giving up those points so easily since the tournament format relies solely on points killed instead of win-loss record.

I think that a lot of the lack of squadrons in competitive play is because of how they do victory points. If you bring a 300 point list that packs 100 points of squadrons, they can kill off your ships but still get the full 300 vp. Even with all of your squadrons remaining on the table. There is no real point in giving up those points so easily since the tournament format relies solely on points killed instead of win-loss record.

This could be true, and it could also be true that players consider them a bad investment due to inefficiency or lack of impact.

Have we considered that squadrons are unpopular simply because players don't think they're fun to use?

Personally, I find the squadron mini-game unsatisfying. It also irks me that I cannot field a squadron-dominant Rebel fleet to attack an Imperial fleet due to the rules.

I think that a lot of the lack of squadrons in competitive play is because of how they do victory points. If you bring a 300 point list that packs 100 points of squadrons, they can kill off your ships but still get the full 300 vp. Even with all of your squadrons remaining on the table. There is no real point in giving up those points so easily since the tournament format relies solely on points killed instead of win-loss record.

I think that a lot of the lack of squadrons in competitive play is because of how they do victory points. If you bring a 300 point list that packs 100 points of squadrons, they can kill off your ships but still get the full 300 vp. Even with all of your squadrons remaining on the table. There is no real point in giving up those points so easily since the tournament format relies solely on points killed instead of win-loss record.

This could be true, and it could also be true that players consider them a bad investment due to inefficiency or lack of impact.

Have we considered that squadrons are unpopular simply because players don't think they're fun to use?

Personally, I find the squadron mini-game unsatisfying. It also irks me that I cannot field a squadron-dominant Rebel fleet to attack an Imperial fleet due to the rules.

Rap, thats a reasonable assertion I guess. I love the squadron game though. Judging by the forums, I think more people would prefer squadrons were more viable in tournament play, but thats just a sense I get and I could be wrong.

I believe that many people put too much weight on the squadron command. Except for the B-Wing, which sadly lives off the command (but that's necessary to balance that heavy hitter) there's no need to spam squadron command every turn. If you try to hunt down GSD with fighters you will have a hard time even with the command.

As far as my experience goes the side bringing squadrons wins the setup phase most times. You see where the opponent places his ships while you put down fighters only, then you place your ships. You will probably loose the activation battle, but if the setup was well done you should get one or two turns out where at least one of his ships is not placed perfectly, so his advantage at activation will not weight as heavy during that period.

Killing a VSD with bombers requires 1 squadron command (depending the number of bombers you have of course). The command will get your bombers placed, after that you will be able to shoot the VSD for 2 turns during the squadron phase without using commands. Get a ship to help in that killing and it will be done within 2 turns.

GSD is a different story though. Those suckers are fast. An all GSD list is a rough enemy to face. I will need more playtime against them to come up with a viable tactic, so far blocking them with a ship and bomb them with fighters and/or focusing them down with fire worked very well, but I also only played vs lists that had only 2 of them in it.

Getting good use out of your fighters is harder than bringing all ships only instead. On tournament level you don't make your life harder on purpose if you can avoid it ;-)

Yeah, squadrons require a lot more thought and coordination to get the most out of them. You need to anticipate the enemies moves, position your squadrons to take advantage of those moves, take appropriate upgrades to get the most out of them, consider the fact that enemy squadrons may mess you up, etc.

I don't think ships are any more effective than squadrons, but they're easier to use. The fact that the game ends when all capital ships are gone is another point in favour of capital ships.

Yeah, squadrons require a lot more thought and coordination to get the most out of them. You need to anticipate the enemies moves, position your squadrons to take advantage of those moves, take appropriate upgrades to get the most out of them, consider the fact that enemy squadrons may mess you up, etc.

I don't think ships are any more effective than squadrons, but they're easier to use. The fact that the game ends when all capital ships are gone is another point in favour of capital ships.

The last point appears to be a big decider in Tournament fleet builds.

Squadrons are largely a matter of taste: to me, it just doesn't feel like Star Wars without fighters.

I would prefer that ships come with a standard load of fighters. Pay the points for the ship, and a number of squadrons equal to the Command rating are included. These would be the basic fighter for the faction. The basic fighters could then be upgraded by paying the difference in their points costs, from the current squadron cards. The total number of squadrons in a fleet would be limited by total Command rating of the fleet.

Arguably, the total number of squadrons than can be upgraded could be limited : I normally run with about 50% TIE Advanced. A swarm of TIE-X's is just nasty.

Yeah, squadrons require a lot more thought and coordination to get the most out of them. You need to anticipate the enemies moves, position your squadrons to take advantage of those moves, take appropriate upgrades to get the most out of them, consider the fact that enemy squadrons may mess you up, etc.

I don't think ships are any more effective than squadrons, but they're easier to use. The fact that the game ends when all capital ships are gone is another point in favour of capital ships.

The last point appears to be a big decider in Tournament fleet builds.

Squadrons are largely a matter of taste: to me, it just doesn't feel like Star Wars without fighters.

I would prefer that ships come with a standard load of fighters. Pay the points for the ship, and a number of squadrons equal to the Command rating are included. These would be the basic fighter for the faction. The basic fighters could then be upgraded by paying the difference in their points costs, from the current squadron cards. The total number of squadrons in a fleet would be limited by total Command rating of the fleet.

Arguably, the total number of squadrons than can be upgraded could be limited : I normally run with about 50% TIE Advanced. A swarm of TIE-X's is just nasty.

I like this approach, if only because the idea of deploying ANY Star Destroyer without a TIE complement is absurd, going by the lore.

Yeah, squadrons require a lot more thought and coordination to get the most out of them. You need to anticipate the enemies moves, position your squadrons to take advantage of those moves, take appropriate upgrades to get the most out of them, consider the fact that enemy squadrons may mess you up, etc.

I don't think ships are any more effective than squadrons, but they're easier to use. The fact that the game ends when all capital ships are gone is another point in favour of capital ships.

The last point appears to be a big decider in Tournament fleet builds.

Squadrons are largely a matter of taste: to me, it just doesn't feel like Star Wars without fighters.

I would prefer that ships come with a standard load of fighters. Pay the points for the ship, and a number of squadrons equal to the Command rating are included. These would be the basic fighter for the faction. The basic fighters could then be upgraded by paying the difference in their points costs, from the current squadron cards. The total number of squadrons in a fleet would be limited by total Command rating of the fleet.

Arguably, the total number of squadrons than can be upgraded could be limited : I normally run with about 50% TIE Advanced. A swarm of TIE-X's is just nasty.

I like this approach, if only because the idea of deploying ANY Star Destroyer without a TIE complement is absurd, going by the lore.

Agreed.

Maybe the way to fix this is to change the definition of Tabled from all ships destroyed, to all Ships & Squadrons destroyed?

I say "maybe," because killing off all of an opponents fighters can be a real PITA...

Yeah, squadrons require a lot more thought and coordination to get the most out of them. You need to anticipate the enemies moves, position your squadrons to take advantage of those moves, take appropriate upgrades to get the most out of them, consider the fact that enemy squadrons may mess you up, etc.

I don't think ships are any more effective than squadrons, but they're easier to use. The fact that the game ends when all capital ships are gone is another point in favour of capital ships.

The last point appears to be a big decider in Tournament fleet builds.

Squadrons are largely a matter of taste: to me, it just doesn't feel like Star Wars without fighters.

I would prefer that ships come with a standard load of fighters. Pay the points for the ship, and a number of squadrons equal to the Command rating are included. These would be the basic fighter for the faction. The basic fighters could then be upgraded by paying the difference in their points costs, from the current squadron cards. The total number of squadrons in a fleet would be limited by total Command rating of the fleet.

Arguably, the total number of squadrons than can be upgraded could be limited : I normally run with about 50% TIE Advanced. A swarm of TIE-X's is just nasty.

I like this approach, if only because the idea of deploying ANY Star Destroyer without a TIE complement is absurd, going by the lore.

Agreed.

Maybe the way to fix this is to change the definition of Tabled from all ships destroyed, to all Ships & Squadrons destroyed?

I say "maybe," because killing off all of an opponents fighters can be a real PITA...

I believe the reason it wasn't done is because it results in a stalemate- Every ship except maybe the VSD can easily outmanuver unsupported squadrons*, but will struggle to kill anything tougher than a Tie Fighter/Interceptor, so the optimal move for both sides will usually be to run away and hope the other side makes the first approach, which is a less than thrilling game experience.

It's almost like it would encourage balanced forces!

It's almost like it would encourage balanced forces!

The problem is that such a scenario can quite possibly occur even with a balanced force- If one side wins the fighter game but loses all their capital ships, you've got a couple of very boring turns ahead.

It's almost like it would encourage balanced forces!

The problem is that such a scenario can quite possibly occur even with a balanced force- If one side wins the fighter game but loses all their capital ships, you've got a couple of very boring turns ahead.

If we kept the rule that the game ends when one sides capital ships are destroyed, but added a caveat that points are only awarded for capital ships destroyed, then I think the game would be a bit healthier. You would not be able to score a 400 point victory by destroying 300 points of ships.