I think we can all agree that you need 3 ships in 300 point games. 2 ships is not enough, and easily focused down.

But what about 400 point games? Will we see an average of 4 ships, or 5 ships at 400 points?

I am trying to build a list of 3 Assault Frigates and 2 corvettes at 400 points, but might need to either drop a corvette to fit in squadrons, or downgrade an assault frigate to a Neb-B escort for anti-squadron duties + redemption title.

I was wondering on your guys thoughts on the matter. Do you agree that you need 3 ships at 300 points, and what do you think the number of ships in a fleet will need to be at 400 points to remain competitive?

I've run successful two ship 300 pt builds.

They were tough wins, sure, but then I LOVE the microcosmic fighter game, whereas others hate it.

In general, I'd say three ships are a smart standard, but by no means a hard lower limit.

I think the large ships, upgrades, and new fighters are going to shake things up too much to say, so much so that I disagree with the notion that you need X number of ships. I think fighters have a shot at a comeback. I'm actually terrified of the Rhymer Ball with the ISD and the intel ability going forward. Right now it's easily countered with TIE interceptors or A-Wings. What happens when you can't stop them from shooting? That's a lot of black dice moving speed 4 and shooting at medium range.

Rebels are going to be a little trickier, but I am going to continue to work hard to get the squadron heavy approach to work. It looks like some of the Mon Cal's upgrades could do some interesting things for squadrons. I'm going to have to speculate here, but there are two things that look like they could massively change the squadron game (in addition to intel, which will be huge as well). First, that "Boosted..." card for the offensive retrofit I think is going to allow squadron command at long range. That's a huge expansion of threat range for squadrons. Second, I think the Independence title will increase the speed of squadrons activated by the command by 1. Well hello speed 3 B-Wings. Suddenly the hardest hitting bomber in the game can keep up with all those speed 3 ships.

Sorry to interject squadrons into the discussion so early. I just think wave 2 is going to be that much of a shock to the meta. I'm going to try a Mon Cal, 2 Neb-Bs (Yavaris and Salvation), Keyan, Luke, Wedge, Jan, an X-Wing, and 3 B-Wings. Obviously that would need to be tweaked based on points for upgrades (ie dropping Wedge or Luke for regular X-Wings), but that gives you an idea of where my head is.

Considering that a 2 ship build and 9 Y-Wings won a tournament I am not sure how correct this is.

Considering that a 2 ship build and 9 Y-Wings won a tournament I am not sure how correct this is.

Yes, this is what I am talking about! Thank you for the counter-point, could you elaborate?

Another thing to consider is how the Mon Cal by itself is going to be able to change how a rebel fleet operates. Right now, we have to be very careful with distance. The toughest ship we have, the AFII, does not want to be closer than long range. We have little that can make an Imperial admiral think twice about getting close.

The Mon Cal and those loads of blue dice can change that. It's is exactly as dangerous as the Victory II's front arc, but with a wider area of threat. It's also tough enough to slug it out with that same Victory II because of its superior shields. Yes, the Gladiator will still hurt at close range, but it's not going to survive trading blows. The Mon Cal is too tough with 15 shields (!!!), Advanced Projectors, and 8 hull points. Just one of these babies screening those fragile Neb-Bs could make all the difference.

Take a minute to think about this fleet: 3 Mon Cals with Akbar. That's a very different rebel fleet than what we have now.

Considering that a 2 ship build and 9 Y-Wings won a tournament I am not sure how correct this is.

Yes, this is what I am talking about! Thank you for the counter-point, could you elaborate?

It was 2 AFMK2Bs from the guys at IFF. I believe they talk about the list in depth in one of their "bathtub" podcast or the post gencon one, can't quite pin it down.

Basically, both had Gunnery Team, Expanded Hangar Bays, Enhanced Armamants and one had Raymus. With Dodonna as the Admiral.

_____

Like you said, I think that 3 ships is a safe average, but based on all the lists I've played and played against, I've started to see a pattern. Bear with me here, it gets a little abstract !

Let's assign a ship value depending on the ship's size of the following. Let's call it the Motti Scale for the lolz :

Small : 1

Medium : 2

Large : 3

This scale measures the ability of the list to take a beating simply counting the number of Motti Values. I've found that for 300 points games, the minimal count of Ship value under which you start putting your fleet at a high sustainability risk is 4 and the maximal amount of ships that you can fit is 6-7, the former for the Imperials and the latter for Rebels. (Credit to Mickael Hassenstein for pointing out my calculation error )

Think about it, the GenCon winning list had a Motti scale of 5 (with a 3-2-0 class ratio), the Y-Wing list mentionned above was a 4 as well with a 0-4-0 class ratio.

It seems that lists that skirt towards the minimal of 4-6 perform well. Because at that point level not going for the absolute maximal Motti Scale allows to buy upgrades that really enhance the performance of the list. Interestingly enough due to the squadron values of larger ships, the more your class ratio gravitates towards larger ships, the more fighters you can throw in while still being efficient. That's because you're going to pay less per squadron activation, especially with upgrades like Expanded Hangars. That said, from what we currently know about Large Ships (the ISD 2 with a Squadron value of 4), there seems to be diminishing returns. If the ISD 1 has a squadron value of 5, we're going to see more

My expectations for 400 points will be around 6-8 on the Motti Scale

EDIT : Edited the ships class ratio to show Motti Scale values rather than number of ships.

Considering that a 2 ship build and 9 Y-Wings won a tournament I am not sure how correct this is.

Yes, this is what I am talking about! Thank you for the counter-point, could you elaborate?

The idea is that even with less firepower in the area called activations you can control the board state. Having the best number of fighters (not more) is viral here.

To figure out what is best, you have to look at how many squadrons can you activate every turn. With Tarkin, 2 VSD's can get 10 but you want 8 because you will want to use other commands.

Now why is 2 ships better or stronger than 3 or 4? Well they are not. The joy of this game is that there are literally dozens of ways to go about the same game with the same lists. That means that you can adjust your Tactics and your concept of what objectives to pick as well as where to place terrain. These things added together make it easier for one to counter balance a list. Oh and choosing first or second is vital.

Considering that a 2 ship build and 9 Y-Wings won a tournament I am not sure how correct this is.

Yes, this is what I am talking about! Thank you for the counter-point, could you elaborate?

It was 2 AFMK2Bs from the guys at IFF. I believe they talk about the list in depth in one of their "bathtub" podcast or the post gencon one, can't quite pin it down.

Basically, both had Gunnery Team, Expanded Hangar Bays, Enhanced Armamants and one had Raymus. With Dodonna as the Admiral.

Fantastic MoffZen. Simply fantastic.

I think there is more to the whole I can activate more ships than you. That is just one metric.

I think another equally as valid metric is just how many dice/how much damage can I do with each activation.

I think the Motti scale I now an official unit of measurement

I think there is more to the whole I can activate more ships than you. That is just one metric.

I think another equally as valid metric is just how many dice/how much damage can I do with each activation.

Really it's a set of damage/activation values

If a Nebulon is managing to stay at long range from a Victory II they could be called equivalent for the early turns, not so for the later turns once range has closed to medium or close.

If a |Nebulon is managing to stay at LR of a victory II, the vic is either distracted or the neb is flying away from it..

I frequently run five rebel ships at 300. The fun you can have with multiple activations and target saturation is immense. here's the list.

1 • Assault Frigate Mark II A - Assault Frigate Mark II (81) - General Dodonna (20)
• Total : 101 • Code : -
2 • CR90a Corellian Corvette - CR90 Corellian Corvette (44)
• Total : 44 • Code : r1
3 • CR90a Corellian Corvette - CR90 Corellian Corvette (44)
• Total : 44 • Code : r1
4 • Nebulon-B Escort Frigate - Nebulon-B Frigate (57)
• Total : 57 • Code : r3
5 • Nebulon-B Support Refit - Nebulon-B Frigate (51)
• Total : 51 • Code : r4

Haha glad the Motti Scale appealed to you

Now, I'm not sure 6 is going to be enough at 400 points, but that's a minimum of 2 large ships (with tons of squadrons) or 6 small ships. I'm really thinking it can work though ^^ I did try my first 400 points with a Motti Scale of 4 and got absolutely smashed, so 4 is definitely not enough

I also contest your asssertion about required ship counts. The top table in the final round at a tournament at FFG a couple weeks ago was 2 Vics and 9 TIE Bombers against an Assault Frigate and a Nebulon-B with 7 mixed Rebel squadrons. I don't think either of them won, because they fought to a draw that game and someone else jumped ahead by a point or two, but the Imperial player had spent the whole day up there.

I also contest your asssertion about required ship counts. The top table in the final round at a tournament at FFG a couple weeks ago was 2 Vics and 9 TIE Bombers against an Assault Frigate and a Nebulon-B with 7 mixed Rebel squadrons. I don't think either of them won, because they fought to a draw that game and someone else jumped ahead by a point or two, but the Imperial player had spent the whole day up there.

I never said it was required I said that below that count, you're putting the sustainability of your fleet in jeopardy.

In your example, the Imperial player had a Motti Scale of 4, while the Rebel player had a Motti Scale of 3. I would bet that neither of them won because the Rebel player was spending time avoiding engagements with his Neb, and kiting with a highly damaged AFMK2.

Victory denial can be a good strategy, but it doesn't bring you closer to the top table

Can we go through the Gencon data and see where the Win-Loss is in relation to the Motti scale?

I am liking this Motti Scale.

First place was 5 and second place was 5.

Can we go through the Gencon data and see where the Win-Loss is in relation to the Motti scale?

I could crunch that quickly if I get the data sample Don't have the time to find it though, so any hint/link would be kewl.

Errrrghhhh our lives would all be much easier if MajorJuggler played Armada.

Well from this post https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/184002-gencon-2015-tournament-report/

The poster had a 5 on the Motti scale.
Round 1: Vs Imperial 5M list, loss 2-8
Round 2: Vs Rebel 4M list, win 10-0
Round 3: Vs Rebel 6M list, win 7-3
Round 4: Vs Imperial 3M list, win 10-0
Round 5: Vs Rebel 4M list, win 9-1

This is only a single sample, and I'll try to dig up what i can find later today. But it kinda confirms your hypothesis. Less than 5M is not good.

Very interesting Bipolar !

So, 5M rather than the 4M I was thinking about ? I think more data is needed, but it's interesting so far

I also contest your asssertion about required ship counts. The top table in the final round at a tournament at FFG a couple weeks ago was 2 Vics and 9 TIE Bombers against an Assault Frigate and a Nebulon-B with 7 mixed Rebel squadrons. I don't think either of them won, because they fought to a draw that game and someone else jumped ahead by a point or two, but the Imperial player had spent the whole day up there.

I played the guy with the Neb+AF and squadrons, and I had no squadron cover. He was definitely packing a punch. One of the scariest things is going against a player with Luke and Dodonna. And early crit from Luke can severely hamper you. There is one that doesn't let you attack at long range, and that can real bad news for a Neb or a AF that doesn't have a repair command coming right up.