As the title states, I'm concerned that A-Wings are simply too good for their cost. They are fast, cheap, have decent health, a 75% chance to hurt a ship, and counter to dissuade other fighters from attacking them.

A-Wings are fast, meaning that they are flexible and forgiving of positioning mistakes. Also,it allows you to use them to intercept enemy bombers, or to have a larger Alpha Strike range. This allows you to engage enemy squadrons on your terms.

A-Wings also have black dice for anti-ship, meaning that they will do damage 75% of the time. Sure, they miss out on the potential for crits or double damage, but that only happens 25% of the time with Y-Wings.

A-Wings have Counter 2, meaning that they pose a threat to enemy squadrons even on your opponent's turn. Their AA of 3 is decent, and combined with Flight Controllers, they are very good at swatting other squadrons.

In short, A-Wings are the most flexible generic squadron in the Rebel arsenal. Their low cost justifies their lack of Bomber keyword, and they are only slightly worse than X-Wings or Y-Wings against ships, while being faster and better against squadrons.

YT-2400s take the spot as the elite generic squadron, but A-Wings are much cheaper and just as potent in the right hands.

In contrast, X-Wings seem wickedly over-priced. They only have one hit point more, one more AA die, are marginally more effective against ships, are slower, and lose counter. For whatever reason, the Escort keyword has been tossed on expensive ships, which the opponent would likely engage first, anyways. I could see X-Wings being good in a sort of, "second wave," wherein Y-Wings engage enemy ships and are then engaged by enemy squadrons. The X-Wings zip in and hammer the enemy squadrons, and Escort prevents the enemy for killing off your bombers. Sounds okay, and like a ***** to concert. Haha. I don't think X-Wings merit their cost. Maybe if they had a black anti-ship, or had 3 AA and cost less, or had more hull.

With the inclusion of Intel into the game, direct-attack value on squadrons has had its stock go up and Counter has had its stock go down. X-Wings are currently the most cost-effective means of just throwing raw blue dice at your problems. Furthermore, Jan Ors has crazy synergy with X-Wings whereas she's not nearly as useful when combined with A-Wings.

In wave one I absolutely agreed with you, but in wave two I'm seeing A-Wings less and less and it's for good reason. Meta changes have made them less clearly superior than they had been.

Welcome to Wave 1.

With the inclusion of Intel into the game, direct-attack value on squadrons has had its stock go up and Counter has had its stock go down. X-Wings are currently the most cost-effective means of just throwing raw blue dice at your problems. Furthermore, Jan Ors has crazy synergy with X-Wings whereas she's not nearly as useful when combined with A-Wings.

In wave one I absolutely agreed with you, but in wave two I'm seeing A-Wings less and less and it's for good reason. Meta changes have made them less clearly superior than they had been.

I'll second that.

Intel means that locking down some people with the a-wings is less effective. Most dedicated bomber wings will have an intel ship, so the handful of a-wings that would usually suffice to slow them down in wave 1 no longer cut it.

As the quantity of squadrons on the other side of the table has become more prevalent I found my a-wings were unable to keep up in terms of damage output. I had yavaris + a handful of A-wings and they would routinely get knocked around. I changed it to x-wings and found that the extra hull and the extra blue die was very helpful. My X's tend to do a better job of removing opposing squadrons since the lower armament on my As tended to leave them only partly alive, and only sometimes was the counter was enough to finish it off.

Counter is good, but useless if my ship dies. I have toyed with mixing As and Xs, where the X's just shoot at everything leaving a bunch of weakened squadrons for the As to mop up, but I'm not sure of the value of doing that as opposed to just focusing fire.

For those extra two points an X-Wing gives up counter 2 and slows from 5 to 3, but gains bomber, escort, an extra squadron die, and an extra hull.

I don't think you value Escort very well. For those two more points, X-Wings will keep Jan Ors or a generic HWK alive and allow your engaged squads freedom to attack or move. Your swarm of A-Wings aren't doing much to help you win the match attacking a TIE fighter while Demolisher sits there at range 1 almost dead.

A non bomber black and a bomber red both have the same average damage of .75, but the X-Wing has more of a swing to it's results, and the red crits from the bomber ability should not be dismissed.

With the inclusion of Intel into the game, direct-attack value on squadrons has had its stock go up and Counter has had its stock go down. X-Wings are currently the most cost-effective means of just throwing raw blue dice at your problems. Furthermore, Jan Ors has crazy synergy with X-Wings whereas she's not nearly as useful when combined with A-Wings.

In wave one I absolutely agreed with you, but in wave two I'm seeing A-Wings less and less and it's for good reason. Meta changes have made them less clearly superior than they had been.

I'll second that.

Intel means that locking down some people with the a-wings is less effective. Most dedicated bomber wings will have an intel ship, so the handful of a-wings that would usually suffice to slow them down in wave 1 no longer cut it.

As the quantity of squadrons on the other side of the table has become more prevalent I found my a-wings were unable to keep up in terms of damage output. I had yavaris + a handful of A-wings and they would routinely get knocked around. I changed it to x-wings and found that the extra hull and the extra blue die was very helpful. My X's tend to do a better job of removing opposing squadrons since the lower armament on my As tended to leave them only partly alive, and only sometimes was the counter was enough to finish it off.

Counter is good, but useless if my ship dies. I have toyed with mixing As and Xs, where the X's just shoot at everything leaving a bunch of weakened squadrons for the As to mop up, but I'm not sure of the value of doing that as opposed to just focusing fire.

I really like sending in A-wings to pick on non-Intelled bombers/fighters ( jan/Dengar can only be in so many places at a time!). Once the A-wings are getting good and blown up, send in the x-wings for the rescue (Go mysterious escort powers!)

While I agree that A-Wings are not as obviously dominant as they once were (now that you have things one would actually want to escort, unlike in wave 1), I still think the A-Wing is the MVP of rebel squadrons (alongside the YT-2400).

An understated point on the forums, because it is easier to type about math than pictures, is that the speed of the A-Wing allows it to pick its fights. Often, the real advantage of the A-Wing is that it goes first. Choosing the terms of the engagement has a non-zero value. This is much of the reason why they are still my go-to squadron for the Rebels.

They will only be too good when they come as a seperate squadron pack....

They will only be too good when they come as a seperate squadron pack....

I wonder how many spare, unwanted YV-666's the world has now!

At least in the the Reb/Imp packs, there really isn't a "useless" fighter. Though getting to 12 y-wings requiring me to literally have ships I'll never, ever use.... that's kind of frustrating.

An understated point on the forums, because it is easier to type about math than pictures, is that the speed of the A-Wing allows it to pick its fights. Often, the real advantage of the A-Wing is that it goes first. Choosing the terms of the engagement has a non-zero value. This is much of the reason why they are still my go-to squadron for the Rebels.

I agree whole heartedly. The A-Wing has the greatest ability to determine where the engagement will occur, as well as the ability to catch bombers/key pieces outside of the range of Dengar/Jan.

I think Jan and Xs are good, but I still think a pure A-Wing force would be more potent.

An understated point on the forums, because it is easier to type about math than pictures, is that the speed of the A-Wing allows it to pick its fights. Often, the real advantage of the A-Wing is that it goes first. Choosing the terms of the engagement has a non-zero value. This is much of the reason why they are still my go-to squadron for the Rebels.

I agree whole heartedly. The A-Wing has the greatest ability to determine where the engagement will occur, as well as the ability to catch bombers/key pieces outside of the range of Dengar/Jan.

I think Jan and Xs are good, but I still think a pure A-Wing force would be more potent.

I've faced Jan + X-Wings with support from A-Wings (as I recall, it was Jan, 3 X-Wings, and 2 A-Wings) and it's fairly potent. The X-Wing+Jan blob is your core that can absorb and dish out pretty strong amounts of punishment and the A-Wings can harass elements outside of Intel blobs by utilizing their speed 5. Worst case the whole wing casually wipes aside paltry squadron opposition and then just bothers enemy capital ships all game, which it's fairly proficient at.

Is this for serious.

@OP : X-Wings are awesome and quite versatile ! But like others have said, their Escort keyword is where they shine the most, especially to save Y-Wings after they've been targeted. The longer your own squadrons can tank, the better Escort will work because they first have to go through the original target's hp, then go through the escort's hp. This maximizes the board presence of both fighters, while simply using the escort as a shield early on will result in it being destroyed early on and losing this 4 anti-squadron hurts !

A-Wings on the other hand set where the squadron battle will take place and thank fully they have a black anti-ship dice ! It means that, if left unchecked, they will continuously and reliably pound on the enemy shield. And if Intercepted, they punish whoever is thrown at them thanks to counter 2. But 4 hp dies very quickly and even the Scatter of Tycho is discarded early on (unless you have amazing crazy luck like I did in some games where Tycho single handedly tanked and kill 2 Firesprays (okay he had some support from a Neb Escort AA !) before dying to revenge AA barrage !

But, unsupported, A-Wings are not going to last long if you don't bring the cavalry quite quickly. Thankfully, Speed 5 and Speed 3 means that the X-Wing relief force will only be 1 turn later than the A-Wings, and hopefully they're tanking !

They will only be too good when they come as a seperate squadron pack....

I wonder how many spare, unwanted YV-666's the world has now!

At least in the the Reb/Imp packs, there really isn't a "useless" fighter. Though getting to 12 y-wings requiring me to literally have ships I'll never, ever use.... that's kind of frustrating.

I don't mind taking those extra ships off your hands, it's not much skin off my nose. Just Pm me when you have them and I will gladly kindly give them a new home.

They will be well looked after, I can assure you.

Compare to tie interceptors that can be buffed to 4 or five blue AS dice (hole plus flight) lose a hull and black anti ship to blue. But gain a reroll from swarm and can have their counter increased

Compare to tie interceptors that can be buffed to 4 or five blue AS dice (hole plus flight) lose a hull and black anti ship to blue. But gain a reroll from swarm and can have their counter increased

Plus, while they can theoretically one-shot each other, it's harder for the interceptor to do so.

Welcome to Wave 1.

Wow, This was a perfect response. This guy hasen't played too much Wave II. The imperials are the best with Squadrons at this moment in wave II by a small margin, but in 500-750 games they are almost OP due to the massive synergy unless you build for it and are then playing a really dangerous game of rock, paper, scissors. My friends fleet build both sides and have their opponent pick the side on arrival at higher points to help mediate the imperial synergy.

People who haven't played enough armada really should not start forum posts and waste our time on the boards with observations based on inexperience this This type of post should be reserved for other forums where it is appropriate to drop in this line of speculation. If you and the rest of the grasshoppers out there have a questions like this, may I please encourage/explore you to PM an experienced player in stead of attention grabbing.

Wow, This was a perfect response. This guy hasen't played too much Wave II. The imperials are the best with Squadrons at this moment in wave II by a small margin, but in 500-750 games they are almost OP due to the massive synergy unless you build for it and are then playing a really dangerous game of rock, paper, scissors. My friends fleet build both sides and have their opponent pick the side on arrival at higher points to help mediate the imperial synergy.

People who haven't played enough armada really should not start forum posts and waste our time on the boards with observations based on inexperience this This type of post should be reserved for other forums where it is appropriate to drop in this line of speculation. If you and the rest of the grasshoppers out there have a questions like this, may I please encourage/explore you to PM an experienced player in stead of attention grabbing.

Just for the record I don't mind the occasional silly kind of snarky response when the original post is extremely over the top hyperbole (and I'm fond of responding as such on occasion) but the amount of condescension, elitism, and gatekeeping you expressed here is absolutely staggering.

Wow, This was a perfect response. This guy hasen't played too much Wave II. The imperials are the best with Squadrons at this moment in wave II by a small margin, but in 500-750 games they are almost OP due to the massive synergy unless you build for it and are then playing a really dangerous game of rock, paper, scissors. My friends fleet build both sides and have their opponent pick the side on arrival at higher points to help mediate the imperial synergy.

People who haven't played enough armada really should not start forum posts and waste our time on the boards with observations based on inexperience this This type of post should be reserved for other forums where it is appropriate to drop in this line of speculation. If you and the rest of the grasshoppers out there have a questions like this, may I please encourage/explore you to PM an experienced player in stead of attention grabbing.

Just for the record I don't mind the occasional silly kind of snarky response when the original post is extremely over the top hyperbole (and I'm fond of responding as such on occasion) but the amount of condescension, elitism, and gatekeeping you expressed here is absolutely staggering.

Unless you Like ME! There are plenty of threads about ME right now

Unless you Like ME! There are plenty of threads about ME right now

Like how you're overblown and nothing to really worry about?

Unless you Like ME! There are plenty of threads about ME right now

Like how you're overblown and nothing to really worry about?

And ranting from my poor opponents about how You have to experience it to understand

Such is the life of a celebrity!

(And yes I'm going to enjoy it as much as possible for the next week before everyone forgets I exsist again)

Well Sanp. First, sorry I affiliated your quote in my reprimand of a reply. I should have said you had a perfect repose then posted a seperate reply with the rest included to seperate my response from yours. My apologies for this mistake.

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Cliff Notes of the bottom: people should use the vey good search engine FF provides for the forums, ask their basic questions in other posts when appropriate if they don't want to take the time using the search engine, PM experts, etc. so the message boards don't get cluttered and waste people's valuable time. A little gatekeeping doesn't hurt when it asks people to put a small bit of work to find the answer to questions already answered. People on here are more than willing to help others, but I don't think people should abuse the communities generosity to the point we then can't focus on the posts that interests us. Could I have softened the edges to my reply? Yes, but that was the product of a lot of people abusing the good nature of the community more than normal as of late. I could be wrong, but there seems to be a very dramatic dip in the quality of forum posts lately. That has me concerned for the health of the community.

Feel free to skip the bottom unless you really want more detail. It is TLDR with the Cliff Notes provided above.

Cheers

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Regardless, the point is the message boards are flooded by a lot of junk and also people starved for attention. I don't think this OP was doing either, but it is clear that this is a beginner question that could have been answered to one of to ways without cluttering the message boards: asking an elite player or doing a forum topics search. A little gatekeeping by the community would be nice so we can focus on more important topics. This is what the community does to discourage posts when people discuss the SSD and the "world is coming to an end" topics on Armada being discontinued without any information except their own anxiety on the matter. I don't think we should be that type of "support group".

I don't think it is elitism to ask that people use the search engine or people take their "basic" questions via PM to the elite players who if asked are always more than willing to kindly take their time to respond. There are so few OPs posting substantive topics lately which wastes time. Some people might not mind this. However, for some, time is money and also time taken away from our love ones. I am sure there are a ton of people typing on these boards as their kids are asking them to play with them and while wives are attempting to talk to them.

In this case, it was reasonable for this gentlemen to PM someone with a couple of players with a huge number of posts about his question. I ask many questions directly to the people on this forum in the form of PMs who have displayed far greater wisdom about this game than I will ever have.

People just keep flooding the boards with topics that don't expand the conversation in meaningful way. I see very few posts that deal with complex state gif questions. Maybe this is a product of pictures not so easy to attach, I don't know. Again, many also don't take time to use the search engine to find answers to their questions which is either lazy or they are unaware they have access to that function. A lot of people are using very dramatic titles lately to get people to look at their posts--it has resulted in advertising gimmicks. Others have resorted to using vague posts with the same purpose. My personal favorite lately was, "What are your initial thoughts..." and it was just someone wanting people to look at his fleet. I am all for some fleet help when there is some very specific strategic question asked and/or pointed out that can benefit each of our collective metas. These sorts of posts are misleading and attention seeking. More importantly, they don't allow me to filter what I want to view easily and avoid it.

So I am sorry for affiliating your good name with my comment, but feel your reply to my reply was a little overboard and condescending and hypocritical.

Compare to tie interceptors that can be buffed to 4 or five blue AS dice (hole plus flight) lose a hull and black anti ship to blue. But gain a reroll from swarm and can have their counter increased

Interceptors start at 4. Howlrunner boosts that to 5. But 3 hull is a lot less than 4 than simple subtraction would suggest.

Plus, while they can theoretically one-shot each other, it's harder for the interceptor to do so.

I think a one on one comparison of imperial and rebel squadrons falls a bit short. Imperials have great synergies to build on, so one would have to judge squadron compartments against each other, not individuals. In a one on one an A-wing eventually comes out on top, but that slight advantage falls apart once we look at the bigger picture. In addition, nothing tops an interceptor at what he is named after, intercepting.

That stated, I dont really get the impression the OP is stating. A-wings have lost a great bit with wave 2, and consequently I am fielding x-wings for anti-squadron purposes a lot more than A-wings. The decline in usefulness of counter as rightfully stated by Snipafist has changed the squadron game, and nowadays raw power of your AS armament and the resulting alpha-strikeability is my go-to.

Welcome to Wave 1.

People who haven't played enough armada really should not start forum posts and waste our time on the boards with observations based on inexperience

In fairness, it's no more or less a waste of everyone else's time than posting observations based on non-standard rules:

The imperials are the best with Squadrons at this moment in wave II by a small margin, but in 500-750 games they are almost OP due to the massive synergy unless you build for it and are then playing a really dangerous game of rock, paper, scissors.

To be clear, I have no problem with either type of post. Just pointing out the pot/kettle situation.

In addition, i pretty much completely disagree with your assessment of the A-wing's value. I don't use A-wings for counter and never have: I use them with dedicated carriers and Flight Controllers as alpha-strike interceptors supporting B-wings. The value of the A-wing's speed has been vastly underrated on the forums these days. The ability to position exactly where you want to be is a huge deal if you're trying to dictate the terms of a squadron engagement. It takes a very specific type of play to master it, but it's very rewarding if you do because you're able to capitalize on the squadron's flexibility. I also think the A-wing relies heavily on Flight Controllers to make it go--if you're running A-wings, you should be activating them with FC most of the time.

Four A-wings + flight controllers will alpha strike almost any named pilot with a very high degree of reliability, and--especially against Imperials--taking out a lynchpin squadron before it gets a chance to strike is critical. "But escorts!" you say: that's the value of the speed 5. I very rarely see three Advanceds escorting, and anything less can't completely protect a squadron from all angles. With speed 5, you can position yourself in that tiny vulnerable area across on the other side of the engagement where Dengar is vulnerable to attack, where a mob of X-wings would get locked down trying to get there.

Comparing 4 FC A-wings (50pts) vs 3 FC X-wings (45pts)--against aces, 4x4 dice is significantly better than 3x5. You're much less likely to get 2 hits braced off on any one shot; having 1 shot scattered hurts less; you have comparable (69% vs 77%) odds of getting an accuracy on each shot to shut down tokens; you overwhelm tokens with lots of smaller attacks; and you can burn down a 5-hull with only braces with a wide variety of different rolls. Seriously, try doing a few rolls against Howlrunner with 4 A-wings vs 3 X-wings (with FC on both) and see the difference.

Not saying X-wings don't have their place, but A-wings are definitely not obsolete. You just have to use them well. Neither is a drop-in replacement for the other. A-wings can't escort in an environment with Intel; X-wings still don't kill as efficiently as A-wings can. And that red die is just so unreliable...

Ardaedhel makes a great point about the alpha strike. After Ardaedhel mentioning it a week ago to me (tx) regarding the Rhymer Ball, I used it in a one off game to very good effect. I still got crushed in the squdron war, but had enough time ship on ship before having to deal with Rhymer. Once the reduced ball was free it mostly melted under the upgraded AF to type A and MC80 that was still around. The Yavaris Neb B was killed during the A-wing Alpha strike. I was hit by the remaining Ball hard, but not hard enough to destroy my to remaining ship. The got away with a couple of hit points on each. Not that I hadn't like and used the A-wings before, but this time I was focusing on them for that specific reason. Four Awings plus Flight Controllers from AF a with token and 3 from Yavaris with Raymus. Added in Dash and Two YT-2400s and they stood long enough against Vader, 2x Advanced, Ryhmer, Dengnar, Mith, Soontir, Boba Fett. Going to try Laz solution tonight. Tx

Ardaedhel.