Hey everybody!

Some people have alluded to a rock-paper-scissors dynamic in Armada... it's akin to Aggro/Beatdown, Mid-Control and Control in Magic.

In one-off games, anything can happen! In a 3-Round Sprint (and maybe a 5-Round Longer Sprint?), along with player skill, luck of the dice gods... MATCH-UPS IMO are a strong factor in determining the eventual champion. Maybe we can use Street Fighter as an example... some Fighters inherently have a strong, slight or weakness against other Street Fighters. The same applies to Armada builds!

The beauty of Armada is that FFG has created a scoring format in which ANY GOOD build with a GOOD player can win (no squadrons, some squadrons, "all" squadrons).

(Sorry for the generalities, but with upcoming Worlds, I don't want to give anybody's tech away.)

Furthermore, since it's a Sprint, players are trying to maximize MOV (the 2nd "M")... as such, sometimes you gotta gamble to win big (and it might cause to you to get tabled) or sometimes you gotta play for the tie/draw. Haha... I guess you can't just beat your opponent but there is a battle from within... do I push the limit to try to score more?

All in all, I love reading how everyone is so passionate about the game and I believe the scoring system allows for a variety of builds - variety is the spice of life!

TL; DR - Matchups and MOVs may be more important than the argument of squadrons/no squadrons. Play lists that you are most comfortable with... you'll have more FUN and likely play better in the competitive environment (if that's your thing)!

You have a point.

When GenCon occurred, people took squadronless fleets because it was easier.

It did not help that the guy who won GenCon did so with never facing a squadron heavy fleet.

I'm still trying to find someone willing to do mass squadrons against none to test it out

It doesn't go well. I took two VSD 1s and two GSD 1s aginst two whales with Ywings and Awings to test this. Got mulched badly by the amount of dice being thrown out at my fleet. Lost one of each ship and only got one whalr with no fighter kills.

I took an isd with expanded hanger bays and boosted coms... along with ryhmer, 3 bombers Vader a tie adv. And boba fett....against a no squadron build. I was able to use squadron commands to get almost the whole ball to fire at once and then fire with the isd.....it was .nuts....andbthen against a smaller squadron list I blew up a neb b in one turn first turn....so yeah squadrons are a thing now to be integrated into all lists I feel.

I'm still trying to find someone willing to do mass squadrons against none to test it out

Come visit Portland Oregon. I have people doing this all the time. . .

I'm still trying to find someone willing to do mass squadrons against none to test it out

Got my cousins into Armada and I'm planning to test this out against them