Any squadron-heavy fleets at Sullust?

By Green Knight, in Star Wars: Armada

The title says it all really: was there any squadron-heavy fleets at Sullust? How did they fare?

There were no events near mo, so I've not first-hand experience. My brother did attend two events, however, and while there were some squadrons in play, there wasn't a whole lot. He had 3 A-wings on Saturday and placed 2nd. On Sunday he ran without squadrons and placed 3rd (but admitted he really missed those A-wings).

I went with 2 Ys, 2 As and 1 B - not sure if that counts as heavy, but not light, they were supported by Yavaris. I placed second. The winner went with 5 Rebel aces, so he was squadron heavy. The other two players were ship only Imperial builds.

MANY.

Okay, I played 5 matches between the two tournaments I went to. First four matches were all squadron heavy. Two were Imperial players with Rhymer balls, and the other two were Rebel players with 3x nebulons and rebel squadron nastiness.

Of course, the only list I lost to was the fifth list, which was a mirror match of Screed/Vic/Demo/Glad xD

I ran with Luke, 2 B-Wings, and Adar Talon - they did all right

I ran 2 AFMk2's with 2Y 2B 2X and an A, Came 2nd across two different Sullust events, took an MC80 and an MC30c (Already paid for 2 MC80's don't need a 4th!) Funny enough first place was the same across both too, he was running Gencon Special.

My store was very squadron heavy....maxed out in several cases. I took a risk and went with none at all (except the final game with the Rogues, where I had just Han), but it paid off and i scooped first. I think there were 2 of us with zero squadrons (1st and 4th), and 6-7 very heavy squad builds out of 12 players. None of the maxed squad builds were in the top 5.

Edited by Extropia

I find people just run Squadrons at things which is the wrong way to use them, keep them close to your ships and use them as a screen of death, and always throw squad orders for them, the extra dice before your ship shooting is amazing, forces token useage usually. Even better if they already have attack range so they can shoot then reposition for the next round/target.

Ran a Rhymer ball on Sunday, as did another player there. I took 2nd and if I recall he took 4th, out of 10.

Saw another Rhymer ball on Saturday (while I was playing Rebels), though can't remember how he placed. A few lists floating around both days with smaller numbers of squads but don't think anyone was playing with silly numbers of fighters beyond the Rhymer lists.

I ran a 7 fighter Imp list and got murdered. Especially against that triple AF list.

The most successful lists in my 3 tournaments had no more than 4 squadrons.

Either an single advanced escorted Rhymer ball or some mix of Rebel fighters, predominantly Tycho or Y Wings.

I had five squadrons and all my three opponents (two rebels and one Imperial) each had five as well. None of them ever got to shoot at my ships, while my squadrons landed a few hits on their ships.

I had 2 x B; 2 x Y; 1 x A and Luke.

I took Yavaris.

Got 3rd place out of 10.

The winner had no squadrons (sad face...) 2 x Vic II and 1 x Glad.

My squadrons did good work all day, in one game i also had them all dogfighting (not my call..) but they won out and killed 60 points of elite pilots, again Yavaris helped with commands and anti-fighter guns.

I find people just run Squadrons at things which is the wrong way to use them, keep them close to your ships and use them as a screen of death, and always throw squad orders for them, the extra dice before your ship shooting is amazing, forces token useage usually. Even better if they already have attack range so they can shoot then reposition for the next round/target.

I slow rolled my Neb at speed 1, with 2 Ys and a B wing that had flown ahead to a spot where I thought my opponents Glad might come to - It worked very well, the Glad came screaming in did its Demolisher/engine tech thing, and reduced my Neb down to 1 hull, I then got to shoot with the Neb/Yavaris, and double tap with the squadrons, and then because I was first player, I got to do it all over again the next round :) one very dead Demolisher.

Yup fighters can really pile on the hurt, but there are still a lot of people winning repeatedly with no fighters at all.

We'll have to see if wave 2 changes it up!

At the Sullust Tournament I ran there were no squadron-free fleets. About half of the 8 were squadron heavy and one of the squadron heavy fleets won the swiss rounds tournament. In the final game both sides were squadron heavy. There was a 3 Gladiator list with only 3 squadrons which was about the lightest squadron list fielded.

There were 7 rebel lists at the Sullust turnout I was at and just 1 Imperial VVG; the ones I faced all heavily outnumbered me in squadrons when I thought I was going to have my pick. I had 5 squadrons (2 A's, 2 Y's, 1 B) most of them had 8-10 and all had at least one ace that I saw. I can't remember exactly what the first place guy had, I'll see if I can find him, but I think it was Luke and 3-4 Y-wings. So yeah, Squad-max.

Edited by Vykes

A Saturday event (4 players) was won by:

AF MK B w/ Garm, adv projectors, flight controllers, expanded hangers

AF MK A w/ Paragon, adv projectors, flight controllers, expanded hangers

3 xwings, 4 ywings

Sunday I placed 2nd out of 9 with:

VSD 2 w/ Motti, gun team

VSD 2 w/ warlord, gun team, h9s

Rhymer, 2 bombers, 1 advanced, 2 interceptors, 1 fighter

The Sunday event had a good balance of high # fighters, moderate #, and minimal or none.

Very squadron heavy at my store, only 1 list without any (it was corvette spam). Imperials all arrived with Rhymerballs of some sort, and I had 3A's and 3Y's. I used 3 B's, 1 A, and Moldy Crow in the final, and took first.

I did respectable ship damage with Luke and two B-wings, using the extra activation from Adar Talon to move a B-wing into attack range or activate Luke twice. 48 points into squadrons and another 10 in suport.

I went with my rhymer bomb of Rhymer, Howlrunner, 3x TIEs, 2x Intercpetors, Advanced. I won the day.

People scoff at it but when they start taking 6 blue and 2 black ship bombardments from short-med range, they start to realize whats happening

not sure if it's squadron-heavy, but I took the same list that did so well about two weeks ago which involves 3 ships and 4 B-wings, Keyan included

Won the first round and as feeling great, but then I ran into my mirror-world clone who played imperials

12063393_10156068912210142_8029226731020

that's Afmk2 + neb + neb +4 Bs versus Demolisher + VSD + VSD + rhymer + bomber + 2 advance

I screwed up bad with Yavaris by throwing her in one speed too fast

game ended like this

12074922_10156068912190142_6940410958732

After the Afmk2-A kills the Tie Advance in the middle, we're down to 2 VSDs and 2 Squadrons to my 2 ships and 2 squadrons, 85 to 86

The difference was in the two ships running the **** out of the fight, a naked VSD and a naked Nebulon down to their last hull

who took first? gencon special, flown by the same player I beat at the finals in my last tournie 2 GSDs to nothing

stupid random matchups :(

Edited by ficklegreendice

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.

2 AF MK II's running 6 Y-wings 3 A-wings. This build pulled 2nd place. I don't remember all the upgrades I know there was Flight controllers and Expanded hanger bays.

I saw a good amount of squadrons.

My 1st list had 4 TIE FIghters and 2 Interceptors + 3 Victory 1's with Screed. It helped alot against lists with no squadrons, because I had total freedom to fly them whereever I wanted, and their speed made up for my slow Vics. They actually took down alot of shields, and in one match they killed a ship on the last die rolled, which made the difference.

2nd Day I flew 4 ships, no squadrons. (2Vic1's with Screed, 2 Glad 1's with Assault Concussions). There weren't as many squadrons on the second day, but most builds had at least one. One guy ran JUST Tycho - which I think is an excellent option if you need at least one squadron.

I'll admit though, when running zero squadrons - Rhymer ball was a pain and almost lost me a game. I WAS able to kill Rhymer with simple squadron firing from the Vic1's, but it took the whole game.

I had BBBYYX.

First game, I faced off against XXXXYYYY.

Second Game was Imperials. Int, Int, Int, Int, Bomb, Bomb, Bomb, Rhym

Third game was back to rebels, and all he had was A+Tycho.

I finished 5th of 12.

Gencon special got 4th, and I didn't play against the guy. (Been training, familiar opponent, would have been confident of a win against it)

Edited by Drasnighta

2 AF MK II's running 6 Y-wings 3 A-wings. This build pulled 2nd place. I don't remember all the upgrades I know there was Flight controllers and Expanded hanger bays.

I ran this list but I had 7 Y-Wings and 2 A-Wings with Dodonna, Flight Controllers, Expanded Hangers, Ray Antilles, and Adv Projectors and won at my 12 person Sullust event.