Hi forum.

I'm been having trouble beating my buddy who plays imperials.

We play 300 points since were just starting out. Right now he fields a Victory and 2 Gladiator star destroyers, one being the demolisher.

Ive tried to beat him with this list :

ASF II A

Electronic Countermeasures

XI7 Turbolasers

Paragon

Dodonna

Nebulon B Escort

Adar Tallon

Yavaris

CR90 B

Dodonna's Pride

2x B Wing

1x Tycho

1x Luke

My last game i deployed then all grouped up but that didn't work out really well. His superior firepower blasted me to smithereens. Do you think that scattering my deployment would be better? Or would that just make him get my ships one by one? Any tips are appreciated. Thanks for the feedback!

Can you give us more details on what he fields.

Looking at your list. You probably need to think about what your fighters are doing . Are you playing fighters-carriers or are you playing ships with CAP? Also Adar is better not on Yavaris.

I would drop the Corvette B and the upgrade for a Corvette A. Drop Adar Tallon on the Yavaris and get Garm on the guppy (I think the squadron token he can give Yavaris for free is great). Keep your fighters in close and DARE the demolisher to come in there. He shouldn't kill you in one shot with it (assuming he's going first), and then the three fighters will eat him alive (don't forget to take Yavaris' shots afterward. I think the fighter complement you have is really good.

Missions: Advanced Gunnery (guppy is the objectve ship), precision strike, and then Hyperspace (bring in Yavaris).

2 Assault frigates would be a solid start. One as Paragon and the other a carrier. Dodonna's pride is a nifty ship and doesn't need Dodonna as the Admiral to effectively distract your opponent. Garm will offer you much more versatility. Whichever Frigate leads your attack try spamming repair commands. Add Raymus Antilles to the Frigate for a repair command plus token every round. That'll replenish 3 shields per turn.

What do you have to pull from in terms of resources? If you use a corvette B with Dodonna's Pride; I've always taken leading shots. If you shoot out the front and get no crits you can burn one blue die to reroll the other two hoping for one crit.

So far i have 1x wave stuff except the corvette and victory. So that leaves out Raymus.. i like the idea of trying garm so i have a bit more versatility and focus less on the crit fishing.

Also, my opponent so far fields :

victory II + overload pulse + tarkin

gladiator II demolisher+engine crew+expanded launcher

and a gladiator I

he had 2 squadrons wich didnt bother me much.

Does he take any fighters? If not, Tycho might not be doing you as much good as a couple Ys would.

EDIT:

We posted at the same time.. so as to:

" he had 2 squadrons wich didnt bother me much."

I'd still possibly recommend taking the two Ys over Tycho. They aren't quite the same points, but it doesn't sound like you need to invest too much in anti fighter stuff. The Bs and Luke will still put out enough anti fighter dice. And the Ys will take a lot before they disappear but also be more useful against his ships.

I agree somewhat with homedrone. I've never been a fan of B-wings. They pack a punch but they're so slow. Y's can move as fast as x-wings, they're durable and they still roll black with bomber. Tycho is nice because he gets that black against ships, no crit hits count but the double hit still counts as one damage, and he gives you a little of breathing room in anti-squad play if you get duped in to playing against a rhymer ball. Were only taking about two B wings so if they get outran then they're useless for the rest of it.

^{Also, Ive always felt Paragon just wasn't the best-bang-for-buck upgrade. It's very specific and there's so much more you can get for those points.}

I agree somewhat with homedrone. I've never been a fan of B-wings. They pack a punch but they're so slow. Y's can move as fast as x-wings, they're durable and they still roll black with bomber. Tycho is nice because he gets that black against ships, no crit hits count but the double hit still counts as one damage, and he gives you a little of breathing room in anti-squad play if you get duped in to playing against a rhymer ball. Were only taking about two B wings so if they get outran then they're useless for the rest of it.

The glads are coming to you or they aren't doing much of anything. Position those B-wings right and watch the horror on your opponent's face as he sees those 8 dice come from two squadrons (not to mention Luke). Whichever glad comes in first ain't making it to the next round if you focus on it.

Of course theres the math too.

Your opponent has 33 shields and 18 hull points

You have 28 shields and 15 hull points.

2 Af2s + a Corvette would give you 31 shields and 16 hull.

That might be a little more forgiving. I needed 2 AF2s to get my first win against my buddy who's Imperial. I went 0-7 when we started playing Armada and was really getting despondent but after getting my 2nd AF2 I rattled off 5 wins in a row and now when we play its anyone's game.

Okay, i think i know what to do next game.

I'll take Garm so i have maneuver and squad tokens ready when i need them and play my bombers more agressive.

I dont have plans to buy a second AFII. I'd rather save the money for wave 2.

Not sure what to do with dodonna's pride, maybe ill have another go with it, i like the idea to try sneaking around and hit ships in the rear.

Thanks for the help so far!

Your opponent has 33 shields and 18 hull points

You have 28 shields and 15 hull points.

Except this doesn't account for the shields saved for bracing and evading, generally, Rebel ships have less hull and shields but more brace and evade. I wonder if this was an intentional game design feature to prevent this sort of comparison?

Not that I disagree with the idea of two Assault Frigates, they have a nice range of defense tokens and some good squadron and engineering values. At 300 points the use of the Corvette, Bombers or Escorts and Bombers largely depends on the fleet you end up facing. Here is a list I threw together, there is a fair amount of room for refinement though. In particular with the Aces.

REBEL FLEET (296 points)

1 • Assault Frigate Mark II B - Garm Bel Iblis (97)

2 • Nebulon-B Escort Frigate - Yavaris (62)

3 • CR90a Corellian Corvette (44)

4 • X-wing Squadron (13)

5 • Luke Skywalker X-wing Squadron (20)

6 • ''Dutch'' Vander Y-wing Squadron (16)

7 • Keyan Farlander B-wing Squadron (20)

8 • B-wing Squadron (14)

9 • Y-wing Squadron (10)

http://armada.fabpsb.net/permalink.php?sq=r8c5r3f9r1r6r5r15r10r11r9

Interesting point Amanal but I'm not sure I see any advantage to the rebels.

Imperial Fleet: 3 Brace, 4 Redirect and 2 Evade

Rebel Fleet 3 Brace, 2 Redirect and 4 Evade.

Evades lose much of their usefulness as the range closes. Perhaps our plucky friend should consider running Mon Mothma to turn those extra evades into more of a plus.

She actually won me a game last week with the reroll at short range. High drama indeed!

Played against my first Mon Mothma list recently, was pleasantly surprised at how effective she is not only at taking away dice, but also getting rid of critical damage especially on ACM Glads and similar.

Imperial Fleet: 3 Brace, 4 Redirect and 2 Evade

Rebel Fleet 3 Brace, 2 Redirect and 4 Evade.

Also not quite a perfect comparison, this is a ship by ship thing. The Neb has 2 brace so it can Brace and the damage on the brace is not inflicted at all. The corvette has 2 evades and really shouldn't ever get too close. The Gladies and Assault Frigates suffer for having one of each and therefore can find that an accuracy can remove choices easier.

At the end of the day here I am saying, sit down play games. This is the best means of having this discussion. And if the game design is solid, we'll never quite find an accord as to what is or isn't best.

I had an odd game playing Massing at Sullust, I was Imps rocking a 2 Vic and 2 Glad 300pt build. It was nasty and brutal:

Victory I + Tarkin (111)

Victory I (73)

Gladiator I (56)

Gladiator I (56)

Total: 296

But then I came up against a Rebel player with 2 Corvettes, 1 Neb-B and 4 unnamed X-Wings. I cannot remember the upgrades he used specifically, but even that looks hugely unbalanced. But he won!

His tactic was to have a smaller fleet cost (something like 288!), I picked "Most Wanted". His tactic was to focus his capital ships on my flagship, then fly away. He then finished it off with the X-Wings. I did not destroy one of his capital ships so he won on points. Admittedly having a few squadrons would have tied up his X-Wings (pun intended!)

My point being is use a classic Rebel hit-and-run tactic. Even Assault Frigates find it difficult to go toe-to-toe with a Victory so I would advise against that. This guy didn't even have one in his list!

He flew very well, hit quick and he was coming about just in case the X-Wings had bad dice rolls.

So my advice for a Rebel player is:

Have a lower fleet point cost, always be second player, pick these objectives:

Most Wanted (as second player get's to pick both ships which are wanted)

Hyperspace Assault (second player can drop a ship in, behind a cumbersome Vic)

Superior Positions (second player places last and can look at the deployment of the opposition fleet and go for Victory tokens from rear attacks)

Hope this helps/provides inspiration

I had an odd game playing Massing at Sullust, I was Imps rocking a 2 Vic and 2 Glad 300pt build. It was nasty and brutal:

Victory I + Tarkin (111)

Victory I (73)

Gladiator I (56)

Gladiator I (56)

Total: 296

But then I came up against a Rebel player with 2 Corvettes, 1 Neb-B and 4 unnamed X-Wings. I cannot remember the upgrades he used specifically, but even that looks hugely unbalanced. But he won!

His tactic was to have a smaller fleet cost (something like 288!), I picked "Most Wanted". His tactic was to focus his capital ships on my flagship, then fly away. He then finished it off with the X-Wings. I did not destroy one of his capital ships so he won on points. Admittedly having a few squadrons would have tied up his X-Wings (pun intended!)

My point being is use a classic Rebel hit-and-run tactic. Even Assault Frigates find it difficult to go toe-to-toe with a Victory so I would advise against that. This guy didn't even have one in his list!

He flew very well, hit quick and he was coming about just in case the X-Wings had bad dice rolls.

So my advice for a Rebel player is:

Have a lower fleet point cost, always be second player, pick these objectives:

Most Wanted (as second player get's to pick both ships which are wanted)

Hyperspace Assault (second player can drop a ship in, behind a cumbersome Vic)

Superior Positions (second player places last and can look at the deployment of the opposition fleet and go for Victory tokens from rear attacks)

Hope this helps/provides inspiration

I actually disagree with going second. If you go first and can make Yavaris go last and then first, it can really lay down the hurt with those squadrons and make anything think twice about getting close. However, I do like the objectives if you have to go second.