There were several heavy squadron fleets in our rather large field (I think high teens was final count) in NYC.

None of them placed in the top-3; those were two squadron-less fleets (gencon special and a 4-ship 2xAF rebel fleet) and one triple ship Imperial with a handful of screeners, as I recall.

I know a Rhymer Ball placed 2nd at one event near me, and 1st at the event I went to. A Y Swarm won an event in NC, and I know at least one other place had a win with 5 As and 4 Ys with dual Assualt Frigates.

I do not remember the placement for my first day (I took 3rd with only 4 bombers though). I did fight a squadron heavy list though. It was an 8-10 mix of bombers, fighters, and interceptors. They prevented my bombers from doing much, but were shredded by H9 / Warlord, so the trade was in my favor.

2nd day top had 3 fighters and 2nd and 3rd had none.

Both 1st and 2nd place in our local meta had six or more squadrons.

I won with the following: AF:A with Dodonna, Raymus Antiles, Gunnery Team, and Enhanced armament. AF:B with Expanded hanger bay and gallant Haven. 2 xwing squads, 2 Y wing Squads, 2 B wing squads, and Tycho. Most wanted which people picked for 2 out of my 3 matches... also had hyperspace assault and superior positioning.

The squadrons really were the MVP's of my list.. they took multiple galds over the tourney and a couple vics...

In the finals round, my opponent and i both played with pretty heavy squadrons. This was more of a gentleman's agreement, as we had both painted out respective squadrons and everyone wanted to see them fielded against one another.

He had:

Boba Fett

2 Bombers

2 Interceptors

3 Tie Fighters

1 Howlrunner

(106 out of possible 133)

I had:

Han

2 Y Wings

1 B Wing

3 X Wings

(99 out of possible 133)

Amazingly, Han Solo and Boba Fett were the only squadrons that survived :-)

But my pre-finals winning list only had 2 tie fighters.

I got to the final round 1 day with no Squadrons, I got to the final round the next day with 70ish points of Squadrons.

Lots of interesting answers!

Lots, some... None. All doing good.

Went with Luke, Wedge, 3x B-wing, Yavaris, AF with Flight Controllers and Expanded Hangar Bay. Came in third of six. One game I had my AF way out of position (didn't get a shot off out of position) but only was about six points down after six turns. B-wings with Yavaris made short work of a gladiator.

I flew one of each rebel ship, 3 As and 3Bs to second place twice, out of 9 on Saturday and 12 on Sunday. In most games, the Bs did a majority of the damage. Most lists had at least a few fighters, with many running 4+. The gencon special and 2 AF 2 vette lists made an appearance both days, but I don't think either placed particularly high.

I won my event with this list:

Assault Frigate Mk II B (72)

- Dodonna (20)

- Adar Talon (10)

- Flight Controllers (6)

Nebulon-B Escort Frigate (57)

- Yavaris (5)

- Raymus Antillies (7)

CR 90B (39)

-Tantive IV (3)

Keyan Farlander (20)

2x B-Wing (28)

3x Y-Wing (30)

Total: 297

Precision Strike, Hyperspace Assault, Superior Positions

I went second every time, regardless of who won the initiative, and all of my Objectives were brutal. I played against an Imperial VVG list with reasonable fighter screen that I managed to outfly and outgun, keeping out of his short range front arcs and using Yavaris B-wings to tear through his screen. I beat a good local player who runs VGG Demolisher with Rhymerball; Demolisher went down in one round, and the other Glad went down the next. In the finals, I kept the list pretty similar, swapping the Assault Frigate for Independence and a Scout Frigate, trading Farlander for Nym and dropping a bomber to make the list fit. I 10-0'd the Imperial player, again by outflying him and keeping his ISD at long range the whole game. Yavaris dropped out of Hyperspace and one-shot a Gladiator.

I love X-Wings

I'll admit it, I was on board with the whole chorus of 'X-wings are over-priced, no one will use them'. A-wings, great, B-wings, great, Y-wings... okay (but I had made them work for me in every game I played. The B-wing was my concession to force myself into something different), but X-wings? Pah...

Man, they were everywhere. A-wings were outright bouncing off Y-wings and getting plinked to scrap metal, but those X-wings can still take a serious bite out of the flying doughboys.

My initial reaction to the composition was one of genuine surprise. I wasn't phased that squadrons were being taken (I expected and planned for tycho's three amigos and Rhymer 'minné' balls), but I was shocked that 'sub-optimal' squadrons were being taken in fairly serious numbers. From what I saw played, squadrons are still a part of the game that have yet to be mastered: there were just too many to effectively control, even if they did some damage (Things like a line of B-wings act as effective area denial, but I'd say it's debatable that -that- alone counts as finesse. Got to agree with Dano on that one, at least to some extent). There is a lot of potential that I'm seeing, but it's just a matter of harnessing what's there. I ended up using mine just to hold back my opponents fighters, my naked ships did a lot of the malpractice surgery on my opponents capitals.

So I have a sneaking suspicion that the Rogues and Villains won't necessarily be doing -all- the work, but act as a sort of 'dam buster': a group that can just provide that little bit of extra 'oomph' to break an opponents defences by applying pressure in areas where the attention of a capital ship can't be spared. It's just my suspicion, we'll see how it pans out. And naturally, these are all merely reflections of what I experienced at Sullust, it's not definitive by any means.

I love X-Wings in this game so much. Yeah, they might not be as flashy as B-Wings, or as fast as A-Wings, or as heavily damaging (on average) as Y-Wings, but they are an excellent all-arounder for their price point. Good enough for intercept duty (possibly more now that Independence is a thing), and a hell of combination of dice / hull (and the most efficient combination by cost, if you assume an average of 2 damage per enemy attack and forget that counter exists). Plus BOMBER to pile on the damage when your dice are hot and shields are down. They just feel like the all-purpose fighters they were meant to be.

Well i won the event in Warsaw with 2x AF MKII B's and Luke, A-wing and 6 Y-wings

Yavaris dropped out of Hyperspace and one-shot a Gladiator.*

5-8 shot**

one-round

Here's to X-wings! Wedge on a Yavaris squadron activation against a couple of previously activated TIEs doesn't end well for the Empire!

"Wedge on Rhymer. He activated already so that will be six..."

"What?!?"

Hands across Wedge squadron card.

LOTS of squadrons around here.

My addition of six TIEs was an absolute necessity to counteract the numerous Yavaris' sporting B-wing escorts, and the first place list at our Sunday tourney was two whales with 10 Y-wings.

A cloud of fighters that large is hard to avoid, and at 6hp each.... let's just say it's hard to deal 60 pts of damage.

The only way to fight it was to try and knock the ships out, which very few people pulled off thanks to his experience maneuvering.

If the Y-wings didn't finish a ship, the combined broadsides sure did.

And here is the pic:)

It seems suddenly for Sullust a lot more people are running Squadron heavy lists and they seem to be doing well (when flown right).Rejoice in this Squadron renaissance we are having.

Just took people a while to realize how to use squadrons right.

I don't really get that vibe. In fact it's even better...people are doing well with ALL sorts of lists, including no squadrons, a few, or maxed out.

Seems to be down to player preference and the local scene. Good sign nonetheless.

I don't really get that vibe. In fact it's even better...people are doing well with ALL sorts of lists, including no squadrons, a few, or maxed out.

Seems to be down to player preference and the local scene. Good sign nonetheless.

This.

The meta was always an illusion.

A guy here did well with three Nebulon B's piloted well. It was tough to get close without facing nine red dice, and he kept a screen of fighters to capitalize on weakened shields.

Our Champion was a double Victory List with 9 Squadrons.

Screed

Victory-I: Assault concussion missiles, Offensive Liaison

Victory-II: Dominator, Flight Controllers, Expanded Hangers

4 Tie Fighter Squadrons

3 Tie Interceptor Squadrons\

2 Tie Bomber Squadrons

squadrons are beautiful

remember the gencon special is made to game the m.o.v system to run the gambit up to the top place

not to say at all that its engineer didn't have to, you know, actually play the **** game to get there, but the forum-generated terror of it is all smoke and mirrors

it is not a dominating list as much as a system-gaming list. It's terrifying because GSDs with ACMs are terrifying, but it's not even close to the be all, end all of Armada

it's deathly allergic to B-wings

I played 2 AF2 Bs, 2 A-wings and 6 Y-wings.

I came 2nd.

Game 1: My opponent had 2 of the 2 die anti fighter glads and Ryhmer with soontir, 2x advanced 2x ints and 2x bombers
My Ys got worked over by his fighters and glads as they closed. But they did almost equal fighter damage in return, no ships were destroyed.
5:5

Game 2: My AFs ran from 2 Vics and a small Ryhmer ball, but my Ys and As took them out while only loosing an Awing (my Ywings were rolling hot). I was able to take out one of the Vics.
9:1

Game 3: My 2 AFs and my opponents 3 AFs circled each other trying to get points off the Station objective. I was trying to stay out of his range, and he was trying to avoid my fighter swarm. They crossed the middle of the circle without support as my ships were out of range to help. They seriously damaged the tail AF but couldn't kill it by the end of the game. I had 3 objective pts. He had 2 and neither of us had any losses. So it was another tie. It was my first Rebel vs Rebel match. I was worried I would lose one of my 2 AFs to his 3 if I just closed and and engaged, but I think I should have trusted that my 2 ships and Ys could deal enough damage to his to come out ahead.
5:5

I ran Fel, 3 Interceptors, and a 2 Advanced. Won the fighter part of every game there were enemy fighters to play against. Sadly though, aside from a Rhymer Ball, and a A-Wing heavy build, not too many people bothered to bring fighters, and very few of the big winners did.