So after yesterday's match, I have adjusted and pieced together what I hope will be the fleet I take to the weekly league.

Major Rhymer's Itano Circus

Imperial-II Star Destroyer - 120 pts

• Relentless - 3pts

• Admiral Motti - 24pts

• Wing Commander - 6pts

• Gunnery Team - 7pts

• Boosted Comms - 4pts

• Electronic Counter Measures - 7pts

• Heavy Turbolaser Turrets - 6pts

• SW-7 Ion Batteries - 5pts

Raider-I - 44pts

• Ordnance Experts - 4pts

• Assault Concussion Missiles - 7pts

Raider-I - 44pts

• Ordnance Experts - 4pts

• Assault Concussion Missiles - 7pts

Major Rhymer - 16 pts

• Dengar - 20pts

• Firespray-31[x4] - 18pts[72pts]

OBJECTIVES: Precision Strike, Fleet Ambush, Superior Positions

The Raiders are meant to soften things up while the ISD/Fireball leisurely fill the enemy with Tibanna. The already respectable Squad4 on the ISD combined with Boosted Comms and a Wing Commander ensure the Firesprays will always be where they aren't wanted. The Heavy Turbos and ACMs will work together to overwhelm a ship - go ahead, re-route. Open another side for the Rhymerball.

I think the ACMs will be more useful than the extra black for Rapid Reload simply because it is a guaranteed 2 points to deal with every attack. It will help them soften up the scum more than another die they can brace.

Thoughts/Suggestions?

You're going to give your opponent a hard decision with that ship choice + Motti. Either go after the raiders and try to cut out some of your heavy-hitting offense, or go whole hog on the ISD and hope you can deliver 14 hull damage before the Raiders & fighters nibble your eyebrows off.

Still haven't faced a FlymerBall myself so not sure how I'd tackle this.

You're going to give your opponent a hard decision with that ship choice + Motti. Either go after the raiders and try to cut out some of your heavy-hitting offense, or go whole hog on the ISD and hope you can deliver 14 hull damage before the Raiders & fighters nibble your eyebrows off.

Still haven't faced a FlymerBall myself so not sure how I'd tackle this.

I sometimes wonder how phrases like that got started. I mean, I'm not aware of anything that deliberately nibbles specifically eyebrows without deciding that maybe the whole face is edible.

I have these thoughts.

You're going to give your opponent a hard decision with that ship choice + Motti. Either go after the raiders and try to cut out some of your heavy-hitting offense, or go whole hog on the ISD and hope you can deliver 14 hull damage before the Raiders & fighters nibble your eyebrows off.

Still haven't faced a FlymerBall myself so not sure how I'd tackle this.

I sometimes wonder how phrases like that got started. I mean, I'm not aware of anything that deliberately nibbles specifically eyebrows without deciding that maybe the whole face is edible.

I have these thoughts.

Some fashion in order to paint them again...

This looks okay mostly. Though, I think a heavily invested fighter force will take the punch out of your bombers, and a 5 ship Ackbar list will have that ISD dead inside turn 3.

This looks okay mostly. Though, I think a heavily invested fighter force will take the punch out of your bombers, and a 5 ship Ackbar list will have that ISD dead inside turn 3.

I can only hope the Snackbar stays closed in my local meta.

This looks okay mostly. Though, I think a heavily invested fighter force will take the punch out of your bombers, and a 5 ship Ackbar list will have that ISD dead inside turn 3.

I think a fighter-heavy list would have to suffer dealing with those Raiders.

I like this list very much. I certainly won't be recreating it (4x Firesprays means 4x R&V expansions), but if you can manage it, I think it might be competitive in the Ackbar-heavy meta.

You're going to give your opponent a hard decision with that ship choice + Motti. Either go after the raiders and try to cut out some of your heavy-hitting offense, or go whole hog on the ISD and hope you can deliver 14 hull damage before the Raiders & fighters nibble your eyebrows off.

Still haven't faced a FlymerBall myself so not sure how I'd tackle this.

They're actually not that hard to shut down with a decent fighter screen. They're durable, so there is little point in trying to outright kill them. However, if you kill their intel ship (assuming they have one), they can be tied up for long enough to decide the battle without their input. They can't afford to bring much if any protection for the intel ship unless they sacrifice a considerable amount of firepower.

That said, this is still a very solid list. I like it.

You're going to give your opponent a hard decision with that ship choice + Motti. Either go after the raiders and try to cut out some of your heavy-hitting offense, or go whole hog on the ISD and hope you can deliver 14 hull damage before the Raiders & fighters nibble your eyebrows off.

Still haven't faced a FlymerBall myself so not sure how I'd tackle this.

They're actually not that hard to shut down with a decent fighter screen. They're durable, so there is little point in trying to outright kill them. However, if you kill their intel ship (assuming they have one), they can be tied up for long enough to decide the battle without their input. They can't afford to bring much if any protection for the intel ship unless they sacrifice a considerable amount of firepower.

That said, this is still a very solid list. I like it.

I am hoping to be able to take out a fighter screen quick enough to get at least one shot off with them. Otherwise, I have a feeling my Meta will quickly adopt squadrons. I wonder why...

Firesprays just don't have the firepower to knock out some of the screens if Dengar is gone. For example, my own Rebel squadrons build has Tycho, an A-Wing, an X-Wing, Jan, Keyan, and 3 B-Wings. If I take out Dengar, I'm going to leave you with 17 hitpoints to chew through. Plus, there will be counters, Jan tossing brace tokens, and Tycho scattering all over the damned place. That's 59 points that are going to holding up 108 points for a good while. Meanwhile, the B-Wing slip by and do their thing.

Now, I'm not saying this to go 'I can beat your list ha ha!" I'm saying this all to stress the importance of Dengar, and Intel in particular. With him, your Fireball is very dangerous. However, even with an evade token he's very vulnerable. It might even be worth considering an Advanced paired with a regular Jumpmaster. You lose defense tokens and counter for your ball, but you effectively add 5 HP to your Intel capability. The difference is only 4 points, which you can get by dropping Boosted Comms. You aren't likely to be giving commands to the ball since the bulk of the ball made of rogues.

Firesprays just don't have the firepower to knock out some of the screens if Dengar is gone. For example, my own Rebel squadrons build has Tycho, an A-Wing, an X-Wing, Jan, Keyan, and 3 B-Wings. If I take out Dengar, I'm going to leave you with 17 hitpoints to chew through. Plus, there will be counters, Jan tossing brace tokens, and Tycho scattering all over the damned place. That's 59 points that are going to holding up 108 points for a good while. Meanwhile, the B-Wing slip by and do their thing.

Now, I'm not saying this to go 'I can beat your list ha ha!" I'm saying this all to stress the importance of Dengar, and Intel in particular. With him, your Fireball is very dangerous. However, even with an evade token he's very vulnerable. It might even be worth considering an Advanced paired with a regular Jumpmaster. You lose defense tokens and counter for your ball, but you effectively add 5 HP to your Intel capability. The difference is only 4 points, which you can get by dropping Boosted Comms. You aren't likely to be giving commands to the ball since the bulk of the ball made of rogues.

Dengar is definitely a priority target, but I think I'd rather work on maneuvering them to my advantage over adding squads. I ran it with IG-88 instead of the 4th Spray last week, and I gotta say he put in serious work keeping those X-Wings off my ass. I may eventually cycle him back in, but...Firesprays!

Rogue is there to make sure the commands aren't necessary, but they're still going to need to respond to a sudden bare hull zone at the drop of a hat. I actually used two squad commands last game to do exactly that, which prompted the Wing Commander as insurance.

Is Rhymer needed with Firesprays?

Is Rhymer needed with Firesprays?

Yes, he lets them bomb from medium range.

Is Rhymer needed with Firesprays?

Yes, he lets them bomb from medium range.

With rogue, it mitigates the need for that extra range. Seems very redundant, and would only help to make up for poor planning.

Is Rhymer needed with Firesprays?

Yes, he lets them bomb from medium range.

With rogue, it mitigates the need for that extra range. Seems very redundant, and would only help to make up for poor planning.

Not in the least. Think of Rogue less as a crutch and more as an option. The extra range from Rhymer allows you to have them threaten a comical area of the board- 1 from Rhymer and then Medium from that. Put a few squads on the table and measure that threat radius. Then remember that they only move 3. They're not slow, but they're not quick. By staging them all as a unit you can approximate a ship that moves 3 with a range of [1+M].

Is Rhymer needed with Firesprays?

Yes, he lets them bomb from medium range.

With rogue, it mitigates the need for that extra range. Seems very redundant, and would only help to make up for poor planning.

Not in the least. Think of Rogue less as a crutch and more as an option. The extra range from Rhymer allows you to have them threaten a comical area of the board- 1 from Rhymer and then Medium from that. Put a few squads on the table and measure that threat radius. Then remember that they only move 3. They're not slow, but they're not quick. By staging them all as a unit you can approximate a ship that moves 3 with a range of [1+M].

For the same points you could take several bombers and tie fighters. I'm a huge fan of Firesprays (and think they'll define part of the squadron metagame), but I don't know if Rhymer is necessary with them as he can get higher utility from other 72pts. Have you played this list with a 5th firespray instead of rhymer? (drop relentless or something?)

You're going to give your opponent a hard decision with that ship choice + Motti. Either go after the raiders and try to cut out some of your heavy-hitting offense, or go whole hog on the ISD and hope you can deliver 14 hull damage before the Raiders & fighters nibble your eyebrows off.

Still haven't faced a FlymerBall myself so not sure how I'd tackle this.

They're actually not that hard to shut down with a decent fighter screen. They're durable, so there is little point in trying to outright kill them. However, if you kill their intel ship (assuming they have one), they can be tied up for long enough to decide the battle without their input. They can't afford to bring much if any protection for the intel ship unless they sacrifice a considerable amount of firepower.

That said, this is still a very solid list. I like it.

Can confirm.

The Fireball is powerful, but if you take their Intel ship they're going to have to spend a long time breaking free.

So it seems the consensus is that Dengar will be the first and most glaring target. With that in mind, is it viable to use him as Bait in a Squad-Heavy list and then toss Firesprays on a different path?

So it seems the consensus is that Dengar will be the first and most glaring target. With that in mind, is it viable to use him as Bait in a Squad-Heavy list and then toss Firesprays on a different path?

Depends on how you do it, might be nice with Rouge. Haven't done much with R&V myself but I'd say if you're sending your Firesprays on a different path than Dengar, I'll just jump into your firespray ball and tie it up while Dengar is all lonely.

So it seems the consensus is that Dengar will be the first and most glaring target. With that in mind, is it viable to use him as Bait in a Squad-Heavy list and then toss Firesprays on a different path?

Depends on how you do it, might be nice with Rouge. Haven't done much with R&V myself but I'd say if you're sending your Firesprays on a different path than Dengar, I'll just jump into your firespray ball and tie it up while Dengar is all lonely.

I think this is where I need to practice misleading my opponent.

So it seems the consensus is that Dengar will be the first and most glaring target. With that in mind, is it viable to use him as Bait in a Squad-Heavy list and then toss Firesprays on a different path?

Depends on how you do it, might be nice with Rouge. Haven't done much with R&V myself but I'd say if you're sending your Firesprays on a different path than Dengar, I'll just jump into your firespray ball and tie it up while Dengar is all lonely.

I think this is where I need to practice misleading my opponent.

I bet you thought I was focusing on fighters when I really brought BEES!

Please do a battle report if you do pull this off (or don't, really). I haven't seen much misleading going on in Armada.

I bet you thought I was focusing on fighters when I really brought BEES!

Please do a battle report if you do pull this off (or don't, really). I haven't seen much misleading going on in Armada.

I try to deploy Waldorf last always for that purpose, but who knows. The biggest challenge to overcome is the speed of the Firesprays. 3 will let them cross to the other side of a SD, and if they're following Rhymer they get up to Medium from there - but if they follow Rhymer, they're telegraphed by necessity.

I think the key to misdirection is instinctively knowing what they WILL be watching. The first two targets are always Dengar and Rhymer in that order. Additionally, people know to watch for formation movement.

So what I see is that I need to telegraph things I'm not doing. Split the ball, use the squad commands to have 3x Sprays and Dengar/Rhymer/Spray work as independent units, send the Aces first. Set up a space for them to avoid, then push the other way.

I keep coming to the issue of not being able to really misdirect anyone paying attention. The movements and ranges are open knowledge, and it would have to be cultivated over multiple turns through non-physical assets - directing intent, verbal queues, etc. Bah.

I keep coming to the issue of not being able to really misdirect anyone paying attention. The movements and ranges are open knowledge, and it would have to be cultivated over multiple turns through non-physical assets - directing intent, verbal queues, etc. Bah.

By definition, I suppose. Coming from a TCG where odd splashes & combos were a LOT easier, I can sympathize. I've found a lot more luck in splitting my forces, and having the opponent assume the smaller contingent will be less lethal than it really is.

Sorry but I don't understanding using Motti for 4 hull points. 6 points per hull seems expensive. Hmmm