I'd have no problems with the basic transport having no anti-squadron dice either. I mean, it can't fire upon fighters in X-Wing either

The GR-75 is supposed to have 4 twin laser turets for anti-fighter protection, which isnt shown in Xwing.

So far, I have seen the speculation that these cost between 20-30 points, the true usefulness will be dictated by where those costs truly lie, and the upgrade slots (if any) aside from the fleet support cards. Using these as activation bumps alone my not be enough to justify the cost of a ship that 5 TIEs can shred in a round. The best defense against the new Flotillas seems to be mass squadron lists, where that scatter token is only negating a single die just to keep the it alive.

And the biggest benefit of these flotillas is to Squadrons.

Its basically FFG giving two massive fingers up at the amount of ship only fleets around. "We gave you squadrons, now use them"

I do not see this fixing the two issue I see with empire fighters. First most of there fighters have only three hull and so pop if you just look at them, second is that the Rebels have the must include (at least in my area) Galent Haven so any single anti-fighter dice ship is useless.

So far, I have seen the speculation that these cost between 20-30 points, the true usefulness will be dictated by where those costs truly lie, and the upgrade slots (if any) aside from the fleet support cards. Using these as activation bumps alone my not be enough to justify the cost of a ship that 5 TIEs can shred in a round. The best defense against the new Flotillas seems to be mass squadron lists, where that scatter token is only negating a single die just to keep the it alive.

And the biggest benefit of these flotillas is to Squadrons.

Its basically FFG giving two massive fingers up at the amount of ship only fleets around. "We gave you squadrons, now use them"

I do not see this fixing the two issue I see with empire fighters. First most of there fighters have only three hull and so pop if you just look at them, second is that the Rebels have the must include (at least in my area) Galent Haven so any single anti-fighter dice ship is useless.

That's probably just a local meta thing. I have never once seen a rebel player (myself included) run a Gallant Haven.

I do not see this fixing the two issue I see with empire fighters. First most of there fighters have only three hull and so pop if you just look at them, second is that the Rebels have the must include (at least in my area) Galent Haven so any single anti-fighter dice ship is useless.

Then dont look at them!

Only Tie Fighters and Intercepters have 3 hull. And this makes a lot of sense, you can either have hull or have swarm with Imperial fighters. That is not an issue in my book, its a choice.

Gallant Haven is a big investment, but it only affects range 1, so just dont hold your squadron battles there.... Kill Gallant haven with ship fire, kill everything else with squadrons!

I do not see this fixing the two issue I see with empire fighters. First most of there fighters have only three hull and so pop if you just look at them, second is that the Rebels have the must include (at least in my area) Galent Haven so any single anti-fighter dice ship is useless.

Then dont look at them!

Only Tie Fighters and Intercepters have 3 hull. And this makes a lot of sense, you can either have hull or have swarm with Imperial fighters. That is not an issue in my book, its a choice.

Gallant Haven is a big investment, but it only affects range 1, so just dont hold your squadron battles there.... Kill Gallant haven with ship fire, kill everything else with squadrons!

I'll probably get 3x of each pack for the variety of options they present. They actually make me happy to see another cheap ship for smaller point games (100~150). I also love them for any Armada/FFG Star Wars campaign and making it far easier for players to have variety in those smaller, starting games or for raiding/escort missions. Can actually do a planetary escape like in The Empire Strikes Back.

I could see the Gozanti costing between 16 points and 24 points, with more emphasis on a lower point cost because of the quote we have on the Wave 3 preview. The Rebel transport ship could be even cheaper initially because of the necessity of adding upgrades on them.

I think there is an interesting role as an expendable handbrake for your larger vessels. You can position and then ram your own flotilla to essentially reduce speed for free (well for the cost of 1 damage to the flotilla). Not something I would personally do as it is a bit gamely but expect to see it.

You sir, are evil.

I'm pretty sure it'll have blue dice only to avoid people spamming them with Ackbar....

Talk about a real "death from 1000 cuts"

I was thinking about facing an Ackbar fleet of 14 GR-75, 13 of them throwing 2 red and 1 blue out each side. Man, that would be a fun fleet to fight against!

Then I realized, they aren't ships, they are Flotillas, Ackbar may not apply. ;(

I do think some people are focussing too much on these as simply an extra activation - the support upgrades could be huge!

I do think some people are focussing too much on these as simply an extra activation - the support upgrades could be huge!

I am hoping and praying they do something to make VSDs viable again. I just can't justify taking one when the ISD exists. Speed 2 and garbage manueverability negates its strengths too much for me to overcome.

I'm pretty sure it'll have blue dice only to avoid people spamming them with Ackbar....

Talk about a real "death from 1000 cuts"

I was thinking about facing an Ackbar fleet of 14 GR-75, 13 of them throwing 2 red and 1 blue out each side. Man, that would be a fun fleet to fight against!

Then I realized, they aren't ships, they are Flotillas, Ackbar may not apply. ;(

Pending a FAQ clarification, Flotillas are small ships for gameplay purposes. The only difference is the ramming rules.

And as per standard FFG Practice, there will be no clarification until at least a week or two after general release.

They almost never answer questions in advance of a release.

So far, I have seen the speculation that these cost between 20-30 points, the true usefulness will be dictated by where those costs truly lie, and the upgrade slots (if any) aside from the fleet support cards. Using these as activation bumps alone my not be enough to justify the cost of a ship that 5 TIEs can shred in a round. The best defense against the new Flotillas seems to be mass squadron lists, where that scatter token is only negating a single die just to keep the it alive.

And the biggest benefit of these flotillas is to Squadrons.

Its basically FFG giving two massive fingers up at the amount of ship only fleets around. "We gave you squadrons, now use them"

I do not see this fixing the two issue I see with empire fighters. First most of there fighters have only three hull and so pop if you just look at them, second is that the Rebels have the must include (at least in my area) Galent Haven so any single anti-fighter dice ship is useless.

Re: Imperial fighters

I find that when Imperial players complain about their TIEs dying so quickly, it's because they often don't use them very well. You need to be cagey with TIE Fighters/Interceptors and not commit them until absolutely necessary. Running them straight at enemy squadrons is going to go poorly because enemy ships won't have anything better to do than shoot your TIEs and they'll happily pour on flak. Given you're relying on Swarm to make the TIEs work well, flak is a natural counter to a blob of TIEs. Wait until your ships start shooting at one another and then throw TIEs into the mix so enemy ships need to decide between shooting your ships or your TIEs. They'll often (wisely) shoot your ships instead. Don't forget the importance of squadron commands towards making your TIEs perform and keep their fragility in mind at all times. Only engage as many squadrons as you need to and get your alpha strikes in as much as possible and bug out when you can. It should go without saying that you need to run a sufficient quantity of TIE Fighters/Interceptors to account for the inevitable attrition. The good news is TIE Fighters in particular are extremely cheap for a dedicated fighter platform so you can run 4+ of them for a minimal points expenditure.

I freely admit to loving TIE Fighters, however. Imperials who just can't come around to loving TIE Fighters can always run Aggressor Assault Fighters.

Re: Gallant Haven

Gallant Haven is not a big deal in my meta. It's basically a bunker for Rebel squadrons to hide in if they don't feel like contributing to the game just yet. If the Gallant Haven itself goes charging in to support Rebel bombers at range 1, it's typically turned into scrap by Imperial ships with minimal trouble (as Assault Frigates don't handle short-ranged combat well). The fact that it seems to be such a big deal in your meta and you comments about Imperial fighters seem to suggest that you're charging your own squadrons at the Gallant Haven bunker when you probably shouldn't be; that kind of playstyle means the Rebel player gets the full benefit of the Gallant Haven (keeping squadrons alive) without the usual downside (those squadrons either aren't doing anything or the Gallant Haven puts itself in serious danger).

Re: a fleet support upgrade to help TIE durability

If I was going to design a fleet support upgrade for TIEs specifically, it would be something like...

"TIE reserve command"

Imperial only

Fleet support slot

X points

All non-character TIE squadrons with 2 or less hull points that receive a squadron command within distance 1-5 of this ship heal 1 hull point.

Re: the original point of this thread

I'm also excited about flotillas. Points-cheap and command 1 with squadrons 2 is a godsend for squadrons. Tarkin and Rieekan seem to gain the most from them, but I'm sure we'll come up with all kinds of silly shenanigans with them.

I am loving how the still as yet unknown & unteased point cost has dropped in the speculation, from 30s on first blush, down to 16 or below!

I think we're going to have to set 8lts as the lower limit of our guessing. They did say as cheap as a squadron rather than cheaper than a squadron after all

We have four different points to speculate. And some of us started low. So what's the value of a GR-75 with no guns, can't ram, 3 hp and a single shield to a side? It should be able to command some squadrons, carry a support upgrade, and fill an activation. Rogue on squadrons is about three points. So I'm guessing the total thing should be around 15 total points. How much to put a gun on the front and back and will it be worth it? I'm guessing about 20 points. The Gizanti actually has some guns in each sector so I'm expecting 20-30 for the two versions.

Presumably it can also carry an officer and definetely a title as well.

Just noticed that in the description (that I'd originally glossed over) it explicitly says that there's a Combat Retrofit or a Medium Transport, with the medium transport having no anti-ship capability.

I'm guessing that Armed Transport was just a placeholder name for the Combat Retrofit. Either that, or the Combat Retrofit is not the unarmed version (to match the X-Wing version IIRC). Either way, I can't see FFG arming both versions when they make a point of one of the versions being unarmed. They like to put mistakes in all of their articles, but not that big a mistake, surely?

Your post got me to thinking that ffg sometimes likes to slip in different versions of the bases in different images. So I went back an looked at the article. On the top image (the one with the joint image of the Gozanti /wave 3 type/ gr-75) the gr-75 base is the unarmed one (also may look like a black anti squadron but I can't be sure)

I think we're going to have to set 8lts as the lower limit of our guessing. They did say as cheap as a squadron rather than cheaper than a squadron after all

Looking at the current spread of points, I lean towards seeing mid 20s up to high 30s. If they are cheaper, all the better, but I'm not counting on it.

Id be surprised if they get into the high 30's, where the corvette b lives.

Id be surprised if they get into the high 30's, where the corvette b lives.

Me too. I'm expecting them to cost roughly in the range of a character ace squadron, so between 15-28 points. More likely in the high teens (for the unarmed GR75 Transport) to mid-twenties (for the Gozantis).

I am going to use my GR-75's as these: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Escort_carrier.

If Gozanti's are 25 points or less, I'm going to use those to activation pad my 3 ISD list in place of the raider-I currently filling that role.

The only thing im concerned about with using them as activation padding is that they appear to be made of tissue paper and dreams.

I am now going to call the first two GR75s I own "Tissue Paper" and "Dreams", and shall be painted so on their hulls.