Intensify Forward Firepower Episode 14: Objective Overload begins with a quick update on what's been happening with Skyshuffler, Easy, Drunk Tarkin, and Dano before diving into a gigantic topic. Specifically, the crew of the Flesh Star Destroyer covers everything time allows for regarding objectives; even speculating on how some of them will change in the Wave 2, 400-point environment. Have a listen, and if you happen to see Lobrad anywhere, let him know there was a bit of blaster fire coming from the conference room last night!

LINK: http://www.wwpd.net/2015/11/intensify-forward-firepower-episode-xiv.html

You admirals can all subscribe via iTunes or Podbean by searching for Intensify Forward Firepower. Thanks!

Loaded for tomorrow at work. I'm sure that means I'll be too busy taking calls to listen.

I apologize in advance- I was snoozing a bit by the back half. Super long day before recording, and it all caught up with me!

Do you guys talk about the Worlds results?

Who's that dude on your steam that sounds like Peter Griffin? I can't help but think there should be a Family Guy episode where they play Armada.

Cool!

Great episode as usual. It always entertaining and good to hear your opinions.

A few little things I noticed and wanted to point out. First is when Dano was reading the MoV table, he read the old 180pt table instead of the 300pt one, but that's really moot since we need a new table for 400pts anyway.

Second was about precision strike. You talk about how you wouldn't spend a bomber squadron's hit to flip a card and get 15 pts since you aren't doing more damage. I would tend to agree, but there is the fact that doing regular criticals still gives you a VP token plus does new damage, so I'd just pound away with bomber squadrons and once you get through the shields you rake in the points while killing the ship. Pure profit! Just food for thought.

Third was just a comment on intel sweep. The second player does have to watch out for a token snipe, since first player has the first activation he could steal the third token on the top of round 4 depending on setup. I made that mistake in one of my first intel sweep games. I had my objective ship (assault frigate, I agree with Steven on choosing a bigger ship) in range of the token, but my opponent had snuck in range with his ship as well.

Thanks JJ! I hadn't thought too much about the bomber's crit... you mean specifically a black die w/ hit/crit right? That definitely has some nice merit to it.

Yeah, I've gotten pretty good at sniping the tokens away from my opponents in Intel Sweep!

Yes, specifically the hit/crit on the black die, but also letting regular hits go through so shields go down so rolling natural crits on blue or red dice (depending on the bomber itself) will score the VPs. Obviously its situational, and you sometimes have to choose between points and just killing the ship, but with the all important MoV stacking those points can be worth it. I've had 12-15 tokens before and with Dodonna it's just brutal! There is nothing like using the blue hit to get a VP token from a B-wing and still using the black to do more damage and possibly a normal crit for another token! and if you have Yavaris...oooh I get giddy just thinking about it!!

I will say that my bombers love flipping cards but you have to time it just right.

I really need to play with someone who can token snipe in Intel Sweep. . . All the people who have played it so far have not done this. Or get hammered by Ackbar for doing it.

-smirks- I listen... I do. I'm quiet because I more than occasionally need a few days to come to terms with basically agreeing with either Easy or Dano, or just listening and trying to internalize pointsso often. It's a sort of scary epiphany, agreeing with Dano so often about a lot of the 'experiential' factors in gaming, He gets to say what I'd like to say, but with a forcefulness that I never could muster. It's almost jarring, but I appreciate that from an almost abstract perspective. So, by that time I can't really add much but, “Yeeeah, what 'e said! Get 'em boss!”

Well, I guess I'll make it a touch more awkward; thanks mates, I'm usually a bit aloof because I couldn't hope to add much, but believe it or not, this is the episode I've been waiting on for a while now (I think it was mentioned about 5 episodes back). From my local group, to Sullust, to a few out-of-towners I've played, I can't get people to play certain objectives. I'm not sure what to make of them.

I've never been able to convince people to go for Precision Strike, for instance. The times I've simulated it with Dodonna and Mon Mothma, I couldn't get it to work, and I sure can't get it to work with Garm. The only thing I shy away from more is picking Opening Salvo against Imperials, but I'm aware of how that one works (2 one-shotted Assault Frigates in one game due to Gladiators taught me something). This sounds like it's going to be frustratingly good with Ackbar, but it's worthless with Garm. From the Imperial side of things, it's more about the shorter engagement envelope and singularity that makes Counter Fire tokens a little less profound, like DrunkMoff said. I'd never even considered Dano's point on the Brace for Precision Strike. I'll start thinking about that one.

Might I add something?

Advanced Gunnery: Paragon makes me love it. That said, so does Defiance and Salvation. I might be using it on Salvation when running an MSU fleet. It's on a ship with good range and decent output after all. Now the MOV tournament thingcrops up, Refit Salvation is cheap, 51 points becomes only 102+7 for a total of 109 points lost in a 400 point match, when the gunship is sunk. If you're putting that on an ISD II we're talking about 120 points becoming 240+ upgrades (likely in the 20ish range conservatively).

Plus we have another proviso that comes with Gunnery Teams. Because the wording is “you can attack from the same hull zone more than once per activation, that hull zone cannot target the same ship or squadron more than once during that activation.” and pursuant of Pg.1's Golden Rule, “If a card effect uses the word “cannot,” that effect is absolute," correct me if I'm wrong, but Gunnery Teams eliminates the Advanced Gunnery advantage. Plus, the ship costs double if it goes down in flames. I can't put it on my ISD II's because I will be taking those normal gunnery teams (I might very well put it on my ISD I that has flight controllers instead, but how common will that be?).

So the knee-jerk here is the Vader +ISD II Devastator + gunnery team + Intel officer, ++ etc, doom ship as it seems like it's the one that's going to be the most obvious to put a double tap on, especially with such a wide front arc. But as it stands, it doesn't seem like it'll work. Much like Superior Positions, the benefit might be slightly less obvious. So as the cool kids once said, “I play my trap card!”

Opening Salvo feels like it's a bad choice as long as you're playing for MOV, it's just too easy to rack up points on both sides in a tournament and even out the swing that the MOV relies on. But I do have a question. When it comes to Opening Salvo, it adds to the pool, but could it be used in conjunction with Concentrate Fire to add in additional dice not originally in the pool? I'm sure it was addressed before.

Hyperspace Assault, Hmm: VSD, tractor, and it sets up your attack vector better as your ships can move straight or begin to turn if you hyper in behind them. It won't be able to escape for at least 1-2 turns. I like it, didn't see it before either. Lax return fire from most rear arcs, even if it's just 1 turn, means it's a safe bet to use something like Dominator and be near ISD level in firepower.

I guess I shouldn't talk too much more. Thanks mates, I really do appreciate it. Oh, just one last thing: the Twitch announcement, I'm excited about that. It's kinda like what our illustrious moff said, I watched some of the World's and got in to it. So I'm looking forward to seeing that from both the Armada and Auturi cluster perspectives. Hey, you got me onto a podcast, why not that? I'll watch it in lovely 144p farmervision.

Vykes, you're the best. I don't even remember where the "Vykes doesn't listen" joke came from, but I'm glad to see you take it for the nonsense/inside joke that it is. Now the real question is whether Easy mailed that prize to Lyraeus today or if he only wanted to set up an out so he didn't have to hang out with Dano ("Peter Griffin") anymore.

Speaking of, if you find yourself agreeing with Dano's points that just means you're mentally exhausted from all the objective chat. Don't worry. Give it a day and you'll recover. If you agree with me on the other hand, that just means you're a perfectly sane and we'll adjusted individual who finds nothing wrong with hanging out in a conference room on a flesh star destroyer all day.

400 point games are going to change the way we look at objectives somewhat. If for no reason other than that we will see very few, in my opinon, completely squadron-less builds

I called it... started to listen, got 3 minutes in and I've been on the phone pretty much ever since or had people talking to me in the office.

"Can't you people see I'm trying to work here!?"

-smirks- I listen... I do. I'm quiet because I more than occasionally need a few days to come to terms with basically agreeing with either Easy or Dano, or just listening and trying to internalize pointsso often. It's a sort of scary epiphany, agreeing with Dano so often about a lot of the 'experiential' factors in gaming, He gets to say what I'd like to say, but with a forcefulness that I never could muster. It's almost jarring, but I appreciate that from an almost abstract perspective. So, by that time I can't really add much but, “Yeeeah, what 'e said! Get 'em boss!”

Well, I guess I'll make it a touch more awkward; thanks mates, I'm usually a bit aloof because I couldn't hope to add much, but believe it or not, this is the episode I've been waiting on for a while now (I think it was mentioned about 5 episodes back). From my local group, to Sullust, to a few out-of-towners I've played, I can't get people to play certain objectives. I'm not sure what to make of them.

I've never been able to convince people to go for Precision Strike, for instance. The times I've simulated it with Dodonna and Mon Mothma, I couldn't get it to work, and I sure can't get it to work with Garm. The only thing I shy away from more is picking Opening Salvo against Imperials, but I'm aware of how that one works (2 one-shotted Assault Frigates in one game due to Gladiators taught me something). This sounds like it's going to be frustratingly good with Ackbar, but it's worthless with Garm. From the Imperial side of things, it's more about the shorter engagement envelope and singularity that makes Counter Fire tokens a little less profound, like DrunkMoff said. I'd never even considered Dano's point on the Brace for Precision Strike. I'll start thinking about that one.

Might I add something?

Advanced Gunnery: Paragon makes me love it. That said, so does Defiance and Salvation. I might be using it on Salvation when running an MSU fleet. It's on a ship with good range and decent output after all. Now the MOV tournament thingcrops up, Refit Salvation is cheap, 51 points becomes only 102+7 for a total of 109 points lost in a 400 point match, when the gunship is sunk. If you're putting that on an ISD II we're talking about 120 points becoming 240+ upgrades (likely in the 20ish range conservatively).

Plus we have another proviso that comes with Gunnery Teams. Because the wording is “you can attack from the same hull zone more than once per activation, that hull zone cannot target the same ship or squadron more than once during that activation.” and pursuant of Pg.1's Golden Rule, “If a card effect uses the word “cannot,” that effect is absolute," correct me if I'm wrong, but Gunnery Teams eliminates the Advanced Gunnery advantage. Plus, the ship costs double if it goes down in flames. I can't put it on my ISD II's because I will be taking those normal gunnery teams (I might very well put it on my ISD I that has flight controllers instead, but how common will that be?).

So the knee-jerk here is the Vader +ISD II Devastator + gunnery team + Intel officer, ++ etc, doom ship as it seems like it's the one that's going to be the most obvious to put a double tap on, especially with such a wide front arc. But as it stands, it doesn't seem like it'll work. Much like Superior Positions, the benefit might be slightly less obvious. So as the cool kids once said, “I play my trap card!”

Opening Salvo feels like it's a bad choice as long as you're playing for MOV, it's just too easy to rack up points on both sides in a tournament and even out the swing that the MOV relies on. But I do have a question. When it comes to Opening Salvo, it adds to the pool, but could it be used in conjunction with Concentrate Fire to add in additional dice not originally in the pool? I'm sure it was addressed before.

Hyperspace Assault, Hmm: VSD, tractor, and it sets up your attack vector better as your ships can move straight or begin to turn if you hyper in behind them. It won't be able to escape for at least 1-2 turns. I like it, didn't see it before either. Lax return fire from most rear arcs, even if it's just 1 turn, means it's a safe bet to use something like Dominator and be near ISD level in firepower.

I guess I shouldn't talk too much more. Thanks mates, I really do appreciate it. Oh, just one last thing: the Twitch announcement, I'm excited about that. It's kinda like what our illustrious moff said, I watched some of the World's and got in to it. So I'm looking forward to seeing that from both the Armada and Auturi cluster perspectives. Hey, you got me onto a podcast, why not that? I'll watch it in lovely 144p farmervision.

Just to answer your question about opening salvo, yes a concentrate fire order can be used to add an additional die. Since adding is done in the modify step after the initial roll, you have the option of the order to modify dice in. So you can trigger opening salvo, then based on that roll see what die you want to add from CF. Then you could leading shots or Vader for example.

Thanks mate. Actually I think I said it: I'm not a big podcast person (Farmervision 144 p video miiight give you an idea as to how that mentality came about). Still, I do listen, and I will be paying attention to see if Easy did ship off that prize. I'm sure Lyraeus will tell us, or we'll get an update a that potential now ever so set in stone Aturi podcast, eh? I was honestly figuring that the Fallout 4 curse might have acted as some daylight savings time-esque phenomenon. You know, the one where the clock skips ahead 72 hours or so. Come to think of it, I think the contest winning and me admitting how odd podcasts came around at about the same time.

-laughs- Yeah, I'm really hoping I snap out of this month long fugue, otherwise I might start putting scented candles in my shopping basket and saying, “It just seemed like a really good idea at the time.”

Just don't tell anyone that I'm not incredibly impressed with the Mc80 in theory. It looks like a fun challenge to paint, but I need to see them some more before I actually commit to using one. I'd need an Engine tech Tantive VI “Boilerman” feeding the fat slug Navigate tokens to keep it moving how I want. Surely an extra 51 points is a mere pittance to pay for that 'stoker' ship that can fill in as an objective grabber when needed. There's nothing else I'd rather spend points on than that, nope, nothing at all. But if I've got that and Advanced Gunnery I'm golden, right?

I still think Dano's got a really strong point about the potential issue of playing the system rather than playing the game. I mean, the new-found tournament player sees Opening Salvo as tightening the margins of victory, and potentially as 'trap' to bump players out of contention for top spots. I know I can probably pull an Assault frigate out of the fire and shoot down a Demolisher, but if my opponent is suddenly picking up half points for a crippled ship, then why would I want to do that in a tournament setting unless I'm actively trying to get in the middling range on points for a match up I think doesn't suit me. It's pretty easy for that 9-1 to turn into a 6-4 by letting those points slide unless you disengage and go for points denial. Maybe it's just past experiences elsewhere, but I fear seeing every standard games becoming 'tournament practice' games: everything is a 400 point game of 'ride the pendulum' hoping for big victories. If that happens, it feels like a lot of options might as well be put on the endangered species list.

You're right, the episode touched on it with just the way that certain new rules interact with the system (rogues and even Contain). The danger of racking up points via objectives or just creating a few weak spots would seem to suggest that squadrons will get a little bit more action. And if we're talking about locking down those squadrons, it means you're going to need to have a particular trick like Instigator, or other squadrons to lock those rogues down. So, either way, squadrons. I'm still interested in how the ISD I carrier will do, but we'll see in time.

Anyway, thanks again to everyone there. I don't say it much but I do mean it, I appreciate the time and effort in doing all this, it's a lot of fun.

Thanks a ton Truegreek: I had figured that's how that went but I wanted to be sure. Just because I've been doing that for a long time with Paragon, and that I've played a lot of games, doesn't mean that I've been playing them right. It really is good to have confirmation It all has some potentially silly-high damage outputs in moderate cases. The Gladiator or MC30 with ordnance upgrades are great, but a cheapish CR90A with Dodonna's Pride might be a bit of a surprise, or just Salvation with Concentrate Fire. The last one isn't even a fringe case, but it's still a 58 point ship with an initial shot of 3 Red and 3 Black that counts 2 damage per crit on any dice before triggering an effect. Combine that with those '1/100' fringe cases such as turbolaser reroute and Home One floating by and things get weird for a relatively small points investment.

No problem. I haven't listened yet, but I did want to comment on fire lanes. I feel it's the truly gameyist objective out there, just cause stacking all 3 right next to each other creating essentially a super contested outpost game, where 2nd player gets to start 60-90 points up seems really really gamey. Especially with red vs blue games, where rebels have more red dice period. It's definitely one of the objectives that seems more likely to lose you a game picking it, than draw. I would love to see something change, such as they can't be deployed within 2 of each other, to spread the board and allow some flexibility in deployment.

Vykes, regarding gunnery team eliminating the adv gunnery objective advantage;

I would say it does not, as gunnery team is an upgrade that you may choose to employ. (Unlike, say, Slaved Turrets) The word "cannot" would therefore not come into play, because you would not be using gunnery team on your objective ship. Just how I interpret it.

The Vykes doesn't listen joke occurred early on in the series. It was around the episode you guys started handing out mentions to people.

I never noticed the interaction between Advanced Gunnery and Gunnery Teams. I just never put them together.

Vykes, regarding gunnery team eliminating the adv gunnery objective advantage;

I would say it does not, as gunnery team is an upgrade that you may choose to employ. (Unlike, say, Slaved Turrets) The word "cannot" would therefore not come into play, because you would not be using gunnery team on your objective ship. Just how I interpret it.

Gunnery Teams is worded like a modification. It is not a choice of using it as more if a 'if you attack twice from a single hull zone X occurs'

I was sort of wondering about that too Truegreek. It feels a little off to me as well, but that might be because I'm not even quite certain what the objective is supposed to represent. I'll admit, I can't recall a single game of firelanes that I've won against Imperials: a Gladiator with Engine tech and a decent double arc was worth two of my typical frigates unassisted. And given it's really uncommon, I can only think of maybe 4 games played red on blue, and I have a sinking feeling I lost them all as rebels.

I wouldn't disagree Madaghmire: but that's because at best it feels like a potentially unclear oversight, and at worst, that's a pretty gross trick in favour of the Mc80 at this point (if you can stomach losing 200+ points when it goes down). I think I side with Lyraeus on first reading: the keying is still exactly the same in a situation in which a card is pitted against an objective, when cards are supposed to be prioritized: “You can attack from the same hull zone more than once per activation” vs. “The first player's objective ship may perform each of its attacks from the same hull zone.” and “The second player's objective ship may perform each of its attacks from the same hull zone.” I mean, now we're talking semantics, but the operating words are 'can' compared to 'may' so it's not even identical in its wording. I don't want to take a guess as to their intentions if it's not laid out the same.

Objectives aren't always beneficial, Precision strike with Garm in a rebel list gains player 2 no advantage, and neither does Jaina's Light if it's the objective ship on Dangerous Territory. Much like Dodonna, it might simply favour certain upgrades regardless of which player has them. Then there's the 'strategic factor' in which of the objectives you'll chose in order to mitigate an opponents composition before any tactical considerations are made. How likely is it that your opponent has fighters? Would you want to take Hyperspace Assault where their deployment advantage is rendered null because ships have to be placed first? (Think of it as the 'strategic choice': you're likely to include it persuade an opponent to pick another objective that seems far less crippling based on their general composition rather than their tactical potential).

I'm not saying it's correct, just that the interpretation might be one of those things that deserves some real consideration. Lets put it like this, I wouldn't enforce that without further clarification, but I sure wouldn't want to argue that at a tournament because of 'The Golden Rule' on page 1. It's first impressions and I'm not firmly attached to any one interpretation, but that appears to be the way it interacts from how I read it.

Where are your archives? I found episode III on that site, but nothing else until episode IX.5

I'd really like to listen to the older ones, as I'm just now getting time to get into Armada again.

Never mind on the above. I managed to find them.

Also podbean doesn't show the podcast when you search.

http://www.podbean.com/site/Search/index?v=Intensify+Forward+Firepower

Vykes, regarding gunnery team eliminating the adv gunnery objective advantage;

I would say it does not, as gunnery team is an upgrade that you may choose to employ. (Unlike, say, Slaved Turrets) The word "cannot" would therefore not come into play, because you would not be using gunnery team on your objective ship. Just how I interpret it.

Gunnery Teams is worded like a modification. It is not a choice of using it as more if a 'if you attack twice from a single hull zone X occurs'

The choice is implicit in the card's wording. Gunnery team states "You can attack from

the same hullzone more than once..." before we get to the cannot part. In and of itself that presents a choice. You can do it, but you don't have to. Since you don't have to use it, you are free to use the objective ship ability without triggering the Gunnery Team qualifier, as the "cannot" in gunnery team only refers to attacks made possible by the players choice to use the gunnery team upgrade to enable the second shot.

I agree it could be worded better.

I passed out during the listen of the podcast this time so right there with you Steven

I passed out during the listen of the podcast this time so right there with you Steven

Ouch.