Who would've thought that giving the Rebels competitive offensive admirals would prompt so much outcry? I guess facing free-damage admirals is a new experience for the Empire...

Who would've thought that giving the Rebels competitive offensive admirals would prompt so much outcry? I guess facing free-damage admirals is a new experience for the Empire...

That's how I read it.

Meta is changing, old strategies not working, must be OP.

I'd say that's an over-simplification of concerns. Mine certainly go beyond "ooooh he's scary". But, being rational, I'm just watching and waiting to see how things shake out. Like with any good statistical analysis, we more samples before we can legitimately cry OP. Granted, my gut instinct says something's hinky, but I'm not irresponsible enough to just immediately cry foul and throw a tantrum.

Now we get a bunch of tournaments with a healthy number of participants and games played finished, and end up finding that Ackbar fleets win 75% (arbitrary number) of their matches, well, maybe he's a problem.

I just think it bears scrutiny.

I will find out tonight. I have a tournament then and there will likely be several Rebel Ackbar players.

Who would've thought that giving the Rebels competitive offensive admirals would prompt so much outcry? I guess facing free-damage admirals is a new experience for the Empire...

Who would've thought that giving the Rebels competitive offensive admirals would prompt so much outcry? I guess facing free-damage admirals is a new experience for the Empire...

That's how I read it.

Meta is changing, old strategies not working, must be OP.

I'd say that's an over-simplification of concerns. Mine certainly go beyond "ooooh he's scary". But, being rational, I'm just watching and waiting to see how things shake out. Like with any good statistical analysis, we more samples before we can legitimately cry OP. Granted, my gut instinct says something's hinky, but I'm not irresponsible enough to just immediately cry foul and throw a tantrum.

Now we get a bunch of tournaments with a healthy number of participants and games played finished, and end up finding that Ackbar fleets win 75% (arbitrary number) of their matches, well, maybe he's a problem.

I just think it bears scrutiny.

I will find out tonight. I have a tournament then and there will likely be several Rebel Ackbar players.

Good luck, Emperor's speed, put the fish in the fryer, and don't forget the chips.

(and let us know what you and others observe)

Who would've thought that giving the Rebels competitive offensive admirals would prompt so much outcry? I guess facing free-damage admirals is a new experience for the Empire...

Who would've thought that giving the Rebels competitive offensive admirals would prompt so much outcry? I guess facing free-damage admirals is a new experience for the Empire...

That's how I read it.

Meta is changing, old strategies not working, must be OP.

I'd say that's an over-simplification of concerns. Mine certainly go beyond "ooooh he's scary". But, being rational, I'm just watching and waiting to see how things shake out. Like with any good statistical analysis, we more samples before we can legitimately cry OP. Granted, my gut instinct says something's hinky, but I'm not irresponsible enough to just immediately cry foul and throw a tantrum.

Now we get a bunch of tournaments with a healthy number of participants and games played finished, and end up finding that Ackbar fleets win 75% (arbitrary number) of their matches, well, maybe he's a problem.

I just think it bears scrutiny.

I will find out tonight. I have a tournament then and there will likely be several Rebel Ackbar players.

Good luck, Emperor's speed, put the fish in the fryer, and don't forget the chips.

If there are odd number of people I will be playing. I will actually be playing imperials as well. . . I am loving my ISD!

Who would've thought that giving the Rebels competitive offensive admirals would prompt so much outcry? I guess facing free-damage admirals is a new experience for the Empire...

That's how I read it.

Meta is changing, old strategies not working, must be OP.

My problem isn't with any meta change, its that they have the factions completely backwards. The rebels fly whatever they can get their hands on, mostly smaller, older Imperial ships that they've salvaged or stolen. Ships which can not stand up to the firepower of Imperial Star Destroyers. They compensate this weakness by fielding large numbers of fighter/bombers that have been equipped with anti-ship weapons like torpedoes.

The Imperials build ridiculously large capital ships bristling with enough turbolasers to level entire cities, but are lacking in anti-fighter weaponry. To combat this weakness the Empire fields huge numbers of fighter craft designed to engage other fighter craft. Almost all of their craft are specialized, and they rarely use their fighters to attack enemy capital ships. And why would they? The Star Destroyers brutalize other capital ships.

As it currently stands in Armada the rebels out range and out shoot the Imperials, with even the tiny CR90 posing a serious threat to an ISD thanks to Ackbar, and the Imperials are the ones trying to dodge firing arcs and rely on their fighter craft to engage enemy capital ships.

My concern isn't specifically balance, it's that the factions feel wrong to me.

I am still wondering why the ackbar effect is not subject to the ships size or its original armament - the only other guy who is altering the ships stats directly (Mr. Motti) is linked to the size and one would argue that it makes sense. The flat +2 on ackbar is not an all too well approach balance-wise and fluff-wise in my opinion..

Indeed, Ackbar would be much more inline with other Admirals if he were to give small and medium ships only one extra red die.

No, because this encourages CR-90 and assault frigate spam, which can be actually worse than MC80s because it will be easier to swarm with and get more dice, more attacks on beleaguered Imperial ships.

Are you saying that giving small ships two dice somehow DOESN'T encourage CR-90 spam?

Reducing the added dice to one will reduce the spammability of Ackbar.

I've faced the roaming CR-90 swarm with the side arcs comparable to assault frigates. It's beyond brutal.

Well, the only ship that would lose out from that ackbar's bonus is the ship he rode out on, since everything else in the rebel fleet is mediums and lights.... so the only list that would change is spamming MC80s, but I never see anyone taking more than two, and those two are experimental.

It will be interesting to see how Ackbar pans out as the meta develops. He's the only directly offensive admiral in the Rebel forces actually... Dodonna needs crits to trigger but doesn't add dice. The Empire had Screed all this time so now it's payback time?

Akbar adds two red dice @ .75 damage each, Screed can add 1 damage at non-black, 2 at black. I'd say they're pretty comparable, especially with Screed being able to guarantee critical damage on ACM/APTs. Ackbar's better at range, Screed wins in a close-quarters brawl.

I'm going to call it now. Barring any serious errata, Akbar will win Worlds 2016, probably against another Akbar.

Yup, just like GenCon won Worlds this year. Or not. If the meta coalesces around Akbar, we'll see anti-meta be GSD-heavy list (oddly enough) with Screed (mebby Ozzel?) & Firespray/Rhymer.

You need to spend a die to get that crit from Screed though. And add in gunnery teams and suddenly its 3 more damage from Ackbar vs the 1 (possibly 2 but only if you roll 2 or more black blanks) you (may) get from Screed. Not to mention its significantly easier for rebels to stay at red dice range for most of the match with most of their ships than it is for imperials to get into black dice range with most of their ships.

And Akbar only lets you use side arcs and costs 12 points more. Everything's a tradeoff. I'm just glad "Aggressive rebel player" isn't an oxymoron anymore.

The Ackbar Cr90 Side arc is Identical to the Cr90 Double-Arc including a Front.

It takes a bit of the impetus of maneouver off the Ackbar player - but honestly, its no different than a standard swarm for me, so long as I'm not playing to the strengths - letting them split my force to get shots out of BOTH sides...

... A bit?

Taking the force of a ship's double arc attack and focusing it into a single arc and a single attack does "a bit" more than take "a bit" of the impetus of maneuver off the Ackbar player.

Side-arcing someone from long range with a ship that has the navigation chart of a CR-90 is beyond easy to do.

In order to achieve this normally you'd have to buy a larger class of ship entirely with a worse navigation chart.

They don't need to get you with shots out of both sides AT ALL, they just need to spread across the board and lay in single shots from maximum range before dancing well out of your return firing arcs. Add Home One and most of those shots will handily ignore your brace tokens.

There is, quite simply, NO Admiral that grants the offensive ability and absurd spammability that Ackbar does, and watching others come to realize that as I have is, I admit, gratifying.

I see claims like this regularly, but rarely have I seen anyone with experience on the table against Ackbar's Corvettes suggesting solutions so blithely.

Getting into the front arcs is much more easily said than done when the ships you're fighting are largely both faster and more maneuverable than you are. Getting in front of the MC80 itself is hard enough with the giant broadsides and narrow front/rear, but when there are 4-5 CR90s on the board, any front arc you move into is also the side arc of three others.

Using bombers is probably the most workable solution, but using bombers while staying out of long range is a tricky proposition when all of your ships are front-toward-enemy triangles. Imperial fleets can't exactly skirt engagements outside of specific builds. Is this an answer? Kind of... but you're still running the risk of six CR-90s blitzing past your bombers and wiping out your inferior number of activations with pools of red dice and auto-accuracies, which is vastly easier to accomplish for the Ackbar player than wiping out Ackbar is for the opponent.

Tractor beams, we've more or less proven at this point, need multiples stacking to really be anything but a points sink. This leaves you focusing one one of a handful of ships, only succeeding in slowing it down by one.

I'm genuinely waiting for anti-Ackbar solutions taking the form of something other than "Be better at the game" or untested theories.

Forgive my staggering arrogance but... I'm pretty good at Armada. I'm looking for something concrete that doesn't involve building my list to specifically counter a single admiral.

For the record... I didn't like the Screed/Demolisher/ACM dominant meta, either.

I'd never be so dramatic as to say that Ackbar breaks the game, but he is certainly irritating beyond the realm of "I got outplayed" and into the realm of "Oh what the hell is this nonsense?"

Ah, missed that bit about the CR90 double-arc. The CR90 is the most maneuverable ship in the game. I've pulled 270 degree turns over the course of two turns with my trusty CR90s. "Getting into position" is not hard with those. On the other hand, if you want to use your (slightly) more powerful front arc, you need to be in some way pointed at the ship you're aiming at - which means you're travelling toward them (bad). The real revolution of Akbar isn't the extra dice on a side arc for CR90s (it is very nice) but that CR90s can continue laying down enough fire to justify the point cost without closing with the enemy.

So here is the answer. . . Prioritize the flagship. Once you take Ackbar out everything goes back to normal.

Side-arcing someone from long range with a ship that has the navigation chart of a CR-90 is beyond easy to do.

I guess the difference is I'm saying, with the move chart of the Cr90, getting a double arc shot, normally, is almost as easy. Because unless you are getting both broadsides simultaniously... Cr90s Front + Side = Ackbar Side.

Perhaps the issue is I'm just familiar with fighting against exceptionally well flown CR90 Swarms in the leadup... Because of this feeling, I'm finding that the Ackbar Cr90 Swarm is *almost Identical* when I fly against it, to the familiar Cr90 Swarms I've faced in the past...

With the notable difference is that they are easier to kill...

The level of death they throw out really hasn't changed for me...

What has been increasing the level of Death, to me, is the Turbolaser Reroutes, which, honestly, are unneccessary - but scary - for both an Ackbar'd and Non-Ackbar'd Cr90 Fleet...

So here is the answer. . . Prioritize the flagship. Once you take Ackbar out everything goes back to normal.

Trying to charge through the overlapping fields of multiple CR-90 side arcs, staying within the incredibly narrow boundaries of the front/rear of the MC80, is a losing proposition.

I've seen ISDs try as much and die before they even got into firing range. I've seen groups of Gladiators and Raiders try the same and melt by the time they got to medium range.

It's just not a reliable strategy or rather, it's the sort of strategy that Ackbar can shut down with minimal effort, in my experience.

But you're leaving out an important element.

The angle at which you have to turn a CR-90 (or most ships) to achieve a double-arc has a SEVERELY limiting effect on that ship's ability to maneuver. It becomes tricky to line up a second double-arc on the next turn since you're already tilted inward and losing distance.

With Ackbar, you can attack people at rear oblique angles that leave you in perfect position to simply circle and never reduce range.

This is a game of position, more than anything else, and somehow Ackbar is master of positioning.

So here is the answer. . . Prioritize the flagship. Once you take Ackbar out everything goes back to normal.

Trying to charge through the overlapping fields of multiple CR-90 side arcs, staying within the incredibly narrow boundaries of the front/rear of the MC80, is a losing proposition.

I've seen ISDs try as much and die before they even got into firing range. I've seen groups of Gladiators and Raiders try the same and melt by the time they got to medium range.

It's just not a reliable strategy or rather, it's the sort of strategy that Ackbar can shut down with minimal effort, in my experience.

If you are allowing 1 ship to do that while not putting pressure onto the CR90's (which what, do an average damage of 2) than of course you are having issues.

See you are looking at it from attacking the broadsides. That feels and does not seem right to me. An ISD should be making space dust of those CR90's

::shrug::

I'm not leaving it out, or forgetting it. I'm merely relating my personal anecdotes as to why I am not as concerned about it. Because it feels like business as usual for me.

I can understand how it may feel different for someone else, especially if this is a relatively new development in the area... But Ackbar does nothing about how survivable his own ships are.

Attrition management is the counterpoint to position, and Corvettes are relatively easy to kill in comparison.

It hurts, aye. Aye it hurts.

But its always hurt to me. Through Wave 1 to Wave 2.

So here is the answer. . . Prioritize the flagship. Once you take Ackbar out everything goes back to normal.

Trying to charge through the overlapping fields of multiple CR-90 side arcs, staying within the incredibly narrow boundaries of the front/rear of the MC80, is a losing proposition.

I've seen ISDs try as much and die before they even got into firing range. I've seen groups of Gladiators and Raiders try the same and melt by the time they got to medium range.

It's just not a reliable strategy or rather, it's the sort of strategy that Ackbar can shut down with minimal effort, in my experience.

If you are allowing 1 ship to do that while not putting pressure onto the CR90's (which what, do an average damage of 2) than of course you are having issues.

See you are looking at it from attacking the broadsides. That feels and does not seem right to me. An ISD should be making space dust of those CR90's

Um... they do QUITE A BIT more average damage than two.

I encourage you to play against the insanity that is the Ackbar CR-90 buffet to get a better perspective.

I respectfully disagree.

Position is the single most important survivability and damage mitigation factor in this game.

So here is the answer. . . Prioritize the flagship. Once you take Ackbar out everything goes back to normal.

Trying to charge through the overlapping fields of multiple CR-90 side arcs, staying within the incredibly narrow boundaries of the front/rear of the MC80, is a losing proposition.

I've seen ISDs try as much and die before they even got into firing range. I've seen groups of Gladiators and Raiders try the same and melt by the time they got to medium range.

It's just not a reliable strategy or rather, it's the sort of strategy that Ackbar can shut down with minimal effort, in my experience.

If you are allowing 1 ship to do that while not putting pressure onto the CR90's (which what, do an average damage of 2) than of course you are having issues.

See you are looking at it from attacking the broadsides. That feels and does not seem right to me. An ISD should be making space dust of those CR90's

Um... they do QUITE A BIT more average damage than two.

I encourage you to play against the insanity that is the Ackbar CR-90 buffet to get a better perspective.

If they are running TRC's than I can see 3 damage on average. Without TRC's you are looking at 2.25 damage on average.

Well, I think I'll go now.

Being told my opinions are essentially invalid is quite enough.

I'll go back to rules discussions.

So here is the answer. . . Prioritize the flagship. Once you take Ackbar out everything goes back to normal.

Trying to charge through the overlapping fields of multiple CR-90 side arcs, staying within the incredibly narrow boundaries of the front/rear of the MC80, is a losing proposition.

I've seen ISDs try as much and die before they even got into firing range. I've seen groups of Gladiators and Raiders try the same and melt by the time they got to medium range.

It's just not a reliable strategy or rather, it's the sort of strategy that Ackbar can shut down with minimal effort, in my experience.

If you are allowing 1 ship to do that while not putting pressure onto the CR90's (which what, do an average damage of 2) than of course you are having issues.

See you are looking at it from attacking the broadsides. That feels and does not seem right to me. An ISD should be making space dust of those CR90's

Um... they do QUITE A BIT more average damage than two.

I encourage you to play against the insanity that is the Ackbar CR-90 buffet to get a better perspective.

If they are running TRC's than I can see 3 damage on average. Without TRC's you are looking at 2.25 damage on average.

Times the number of CR90s... spread across the same number of attacks... every turn...

I strongly dislike Star Wars: Mathmada, but if we're going to do the maths lets do ALL the maths.

Don't forget to factor in Home One tossing accuracies around like candy, and one command ships always having CF when they need it.

Again, I'm not trying to say this is *broken* or *unbeatable* but it seems unreasonably difficult to overcome given how simple and straightforward it is to apply.

Bro, I literally said "I respectfully disagree" and stated my opinion in response.

If you consider that dismissive, I'm afraid I don't know how to be any gentler with you. The kiddest of gloves were worn.

So here is the answer. . . Prioritize the flagship. Once you take Ackbar out everything goes back to normal.

Trying to charge through the overlapping fields of multiple CR-90 side arcs, staying within the incredibly narrow boundaries of the front/rear of the MC80, is a losing proposition.

I've seen ISDs try as much and die before they even got into firing range. I've seen groups of Gladiators and Raiders try the same and melt by the time they got to medium range.

It's just not a reliable strategy or rather, it's the sort of strategy that Ackbar can shut down with minimal effort, in my experience.

If you are allowing 1 ship to do that while not putting pressure onto the CR90's (which what, do an average damage of 2) than of course you are having issues.

See you are looking at it from attacking the broadsides. That feels and does not seem right to me. An ISD should be making space dust of those CR90's

Um... they do QUITE A BIT more average damage than two.

I encourage you to play against the insanity that is the Ackbar CR-90 buffet to get a better perspective.

If they are running TRC's than I can see 3 damage on average. Without TRC's you are looking at 2.25 damage on average.

For the record:

Ackbar puts the long range broadside at 2.25, 3 with CF.

The double arc at long range averages .75 + 1.5 = 2.25, 3 with CF. In smaller increments, so harder to defend.

TRC puts the side arcs, long range at 2.25 + ~1.5 = ~3.75 damage. ~4.5 with a CF.

TRC puts a double arc, long range at 1.5 + ~1.3 + 2 = ~4.8 damage. ~5.5 with a CF.

If the corvette gunline has you up in arms, it's TRC you should be outraged about, not Ackbar. Ackbar helps, sure--like he should, because he's a freaking 38-point admiral.

So here is the answer. . . Prioritize the flagship. Once you take Ackbar out everything goes back to normal.

Trying to charge through the overlapping fields of multiple CR-90 side arcs, staying within the incredibly narrow boundaries of the front/rear of the MC80, is a losing proposition.

I've seen ISDs try as much and die before they even got into firing range. I've seen groups of Gladiators and Raiders try the same and melt by the time they got to medium range.

It's just not a reliable strategy or rather, it's the sort of strategy that Ackbar can shut down with minimal effort, in my experience.

If you are allowing 1 ship to do that while not putting pressure onto the CR90's (which what, do an average damage of 2) than of course you are having issues.

See you are looking at it from attacking the broadsides. That feels and does not seem right to me. An ISD should be making space dust of those CR90's

Um... they do QUITE A BIT more average damage than two.

I encourage you to play against the insanity that is the Ackbar CR-90 buffet to get a better perspective.

If they are running TRC's than I can see 3 damage on average. Without TRC's you are looking at 2.25 damage on average.

For the record:

Ackbar puts the long range broadside at 2.25, 3 with CF.

The double arc at long range averages .75 + 1.5 = 2.25, 3 with CF. In smaller increments, so harder to defend.

TRC puts the side arcs, long range at 2.25 + ~1.5 = ~3.75 damage. ~4.5 with a CF.

TRC puts a double arc, long range at 1.5 + ~1.3 + 2 = ~4.8 damage. ~5.5 with a CF.

If the corvette gunline has you up in arms, it's TRC you should be outraged about, not Ackbar. Ackbar helps, sure--like he should, because he's a freaking 38-point admiral.

He's 38 points, this is true, but come on.... does he REALLY seem to be in line with Tarkin, point for point?

Tarkin is nothing like the nearly auto-include levels of facerollery Ackbar represents.

Don't forget to factor in Home One tossing accuracies around like candy.

Less relevant with the corvette, I think. At the amount of damage per shot that corvettes put out, I almost always would rather have damage over accuracy. Same philosophy as fighters.

Don't forget to factor in Home One tossing accuracies around like candy.

Less relevant with the corvette, I think. At the amount of damage per shot that corvettes put out, I almost always would rather have damage over accuracy. Same philosophy as fighters.

Firstly, thank you for snipping those quotes, they're starting to get out of hand.

Secondly, negating the Brace of an Imperial fleet is a pretty big boon when you can do it reliably.

I can understand how it may feel different for someone else, especially if this is a relatively new development in the area... But Ackbar does nothing about how survivable his own ships are.

Attrition management is the counterpoint to position, and Corvettes are relatively easy to kill in comparison.

This may be true, unless you take the viewpoint that killing enemy ships easier helps your ships survive longer.

I can understand how it may feel different for someone else, especially if this is a relatively new development in the area... But Ackbar does nothing about how survivable his own ships are.

Attrition management is the counterpoint to position, and Corvettes are relatively easy to kill in comparison.

This may be true, unless you take the viewpoint that killing enemy ships easier helps your ships survive longer.

The best defense is a good offense. And Akbar is the most offensive admiral in the game.

Ackbar is amazing. Im glad the rebels got a really good commander. I only play imperials and look forwarded to besting ackbar lists, its all part of the fun.

Would have been nice if vader was a bit more powerful.

I can understand how it may feel different for someone else, especially if this is a relatively new development in the area... But Ackbar does nothing about how survivable his own ships are.

Attrition management is the counterpoint to position, and Corvettes are relatively easy to kill in comparison.

This may be true, unless you take the viewpoint that killing enemy ships easier helps your ships survive longer.

The best defense is a good offense. And Akbar is the most offensive admiral in the game.

He sure is. He smells like fish.

I'm genuinely waiting for anti-Ackbar solutions taking the form of something other than "Be better at the game" or untested theories.

Forgive my staggering arrogance but... I'm pretty good at Armada. I'm looking for something concrete that doesn't involve building my list to specifically counter a single admiral.

For the record... I didn't like the Screed/Demolisher/ACM dominant meta, either.

I'd never be so dramatic as to say that Ackbar breaks the game, but he is certainly irritating beyond the realm of "I got outplayed" and into the realm of "Oh what the hell is this nonsense?"

I'd be more likely to take your points to heart if I hadn't heard the same line from people regarding how brokenly unstoppable Demolisher was and useless squadrons were in wave 1. Yavaris put Demolisher in check and bomber squadrons (and A-wings) eventually woke people up.

As for all-comer lists vs specific lists. People need to hunt out the "problem" list with specific lists before you get to run an all-comer. That said, I don't really think the anti-akbar lists are all that specific. They require you be able to handle fast mobile ships. I'm not seeing how that's overly specific.

As for Tarkin, I like him vs Akbar. Put him on a VSD1 with Dominator, have an ISD1 running speed 3 with Admiral M, and a Glad running Projection Experts. Plus a mix of TIE bombers and fighters. All 3 ships like engineering tokens, Tarkin provides em. Plus he gives flexibility when there's a break in the action. Turn 1 squadron commands really helps.