Most Wanted (cedes too much control to second player for points distribution),
See, "Most Wanted" always seems to be underestimated by my opponents - or at least viewed as the "least worst" of the options. I think the fact that both players get an extra attack die versus the Objective Ship makes it seem relatively balanced - and the fact it's Second Player who picks the Objective Ships isn't seen as that big of a deal.
Until it comes to tallying up VPs...
Believe it or not, I've seen a lot of Advanced Gunnery lately. That's partially because I've been playing a lot of Rieekan squadrons lately and I've found a nice combination of mean objectives. If you're looking at Superior Positions, Fire Lanes, and Advanced Gunnery and I've got Independence, Yavaris, and 8 squadrons, which would you go for?
Actually, given that list I could see taking Adv gunnery. There really are no good options.
Most Wanted (cedes too much control to second player for points distribution),
See, "Most Wanted" always seems to be underestimated by my opponents - or at least viewed as the "least worst" of the options. I think the fact that both players get an extra attack die versus the Objective Ship makes it seem relatively balanced - and the fact it's Second Player who picks the Objective Ships isn't seen as that big of a deal.
Until it comes to tallying up VPs...
It's definitely something that I hadn't fully acknowledged until I was in a tournament game picking between objectives, realizing just how slanted it would be for my opponent. If I was running a swarm it might not be so bad, but with a single 100+ point ship in the mix, I either have to play it extremely safe or go all-out and essentially hope for a 10-0 (usually not great odds with the extra dice). But I get +1 dice against that raider/cr90, right? Woo-hoo?
Only fools take Fleet Ambush, because, as Versch put it, "who's ambushing who?"
When fielding a brawler black dice heavy list, I love Fleet Ambush... Nothing like getting a free ability to nearly immediately engage and in the formation I want to be in. Player 1, player 2, who cares... With Imperials if you are first player and have Demolisher it's great, as you can keep him back and use him as the knife behind that shield.
In theory it's also a very good choice for bomber heavily lists too.
The only time you're going to get an opponent to pick your Fleet Ambush is when it's going to be better for him than for you. God help you if you come up against Yavaris B-wings and you have Fleet Ambush in your objectives--I've had more than one game in which I've gotten the opening-turn alpha strike on my opponent's flagship when I was running Yavaris B-wings as player 1 and took his Fleet Ambush. The same can be true if you're facing Demolisher, pimped-out ISD-2's, or strong Ackbar MC80 broadsides: all of those can set up an alpha strike on second player in Fleet Ambush.
The whole point of picking your objectives is to give yourself an advantage if you're second player. Fleet Ambush creates many situations in which it is not only not advantageous to you, but actually extremely advantageous to your opponent. Not only that, but it's very easy to mitigate the supposed disadvantage for player one even if they're not playing one of those lists, by simply deploying at the back of the ambush zone to join your fleet up by the end of round 1.
So, I stand by my position: it is foolish to put Fleet Ambush in your list. Look at the win/loss on the objective from the Vassal World Cup--0% wins for second player on that objective.
Edit: on rereading, maybe I wasn't clear on my initial statement? More precisely, only fools put Fleet Ambush in their own list. As first player it can be amazing, which is why it's foolish to put it in your own list.
Edited by ArdaedhelI've been doing Advanced Gunnery (with an MC80), Fire Lanes, Intel Sweep. Really, of all of them, Intel Sweep is probably the "Least Bad" option, but with my list and Rieekan, it's pretty much "give Biggs 75 points". That's still a better option than "give Biggs 45 points per turn" from Fire Lanes or "let Biggs shoot you with an MC80 broadside twice" from Advanced Gunnery.
Minefields seems to be the most popular objective brought and played in my area.
Yeah, I do the same with my list. With a mini ship swarm you can stretch your opponent out whilst picking up free points. Its the opposite of contested outpost, expands the battlefield rather than shrinks it.
In terms of colors, we've got the loved and unloved batches...
Yellow loved: Contested Outpost, Fleet Ambush
Contested Outpost tends to make the game predictable and I see it sometimes in fleets that aren't really optimized to use it. If you're not bringing a VSD, MC80, or very cheap ship you don't mind leaving at speed 0, you probably shouldn't bring Contested Outpost.
Fleet Ambush has never been a good choice for the player who brought it (but good for me, the player who picked it!). I reiterate this to my newer players all the time. You absolutely should never bring Fleet Ambush unless you are 110% certain there is no other fleet in the meta that can bring it to you worse than you can bring it to them using Fleet Ambush.
Yellow unloved:
Hyperspace Assault tends to not get picked, but it does get brought. Usually by Yavaris players or Imperials with Demolisher. At this point I've only seen it used perhaps once in a game ever, and I think that was back in wave one.
Fire Lanes is a wall of text that nobody wants to care about. I've seen it used in a game once (I picked it as first player because I wanted to actually play it for once ever) and the opponent did not set up the targets well, so I kept pinging them for points. For this one to get picked it first needs to be brought and nobody brings it, which is odd as it seems like an easy inclusion for Ackbar fleets which are everywhere these days (even though Ackbar doesn't add dice to the target shooting, he does bring a fleet with a lot of broadsides to paint targets on opposite sides of the conga line).
Blue loved: Superior Positions
Superior Positions is pretty much the default blue in our area and it's pretty useful overall. It's not rare to see fleets using it that can't really capitalize on both elements of it, though (attacking rear hull zones and strongly preferring enemy complete deployment first), which makes me think the player should have considered a different blue objective instead.
Blue unloved:
Intel Sweep was brought a lot in wave one but has dropped off precipitously in wave two. It's a tough bring because there's a lot of differing types of fleets you could come up against and fleets with little fast ships are going to give you the most trouble when one of them (a Raider, Gladiator, or CR90) is chosen as the Mega Maid objective ship.
Minefields is brought rarely and picked even less. It's tough to set up the mines meaningfully and when you do it's a dead giveaway as to your plans. If your opponent can upend your plans somehow (by going over/around the mines or plowing through them when you thought they wouldn't), you're gonna have a bad time.
Dangerous Territory is one of my favorites but I don't see a lot of people bringing it, so it's rarely chosen. It's a great way to mess with very formulaic fleets (see: Ackbar conga lines) by making them either change their set-in-stone plans or lose out on points. I think the main reason we don't see this as much is that Dangerous Territory is best with faster fleets, usually with several smaller ships - they can easily grab their own objectives early in the game and then threaten grabbing objectives from a player who isn't as committed to the objective game. This is all well and good but those small ship fleets also enjoy Superior Positions, which is more reliable.
Red loved: Most Wanted
A buddy of mine swears "never red" when it comes to objective selection and I can't say I fault his logic. Most Wanted is the tamest of the available options, so in the rare circumstance in which I play a red objective it is Most Wanted which seems less punishing than the alternatives.
Red unloved:
Advanced Gunnery saw a slight resurgence when it's a player with an ISD/MC80 versus another player with an ISD/MC80. This was pre-FAQ, however, so I'm expecting to see this both brought less often and picked less often (excepting MC80 fleets).
Precision Strike is only brought by players running enough bombers (usually Rebels) and only selected by players who either have enough fighters to contest the bombers or an opponent also using a lot of bombers.
Opening Salvo is in kind of a weird place where it was popular wave 1 but nowadays it's a lot iffier to bring along in the first place. It's best used with numerous smaller ships but the extra red dice to your opponent has seen a number of Opening Salvo bringers cursing themselves when an Opening Salvo chooser uses the extra dice to wipe out smaller ships in a single volley before they get to proc it.
I tend to select Objectives, both for my fleet and when picking from my opponents, based on scoring extra points.
For that reason I never take Minefields, Hyperspace Assault, or Fleet Ambush. Precision Strike, Superior Positions, and Fire Lanes are the potentially highest scoring objectives, so I take those frequently. The 2nd player bonus for Precision Strike is among the weakest though so I don't usually have it in my fleets, but love seeing my opponents offer it.
What actually gets played? Anecdotally, I see Superior Positions, Most Wanted, and Intel Sweep quite a bit.
Edited by shmittyI have never played a game of Most Wanted.
I have seen Hyperspace Assault for rebels with AFIIs, contested outpost, and dangerous territories. Contested outpost is the most popular for imperials by far and I have seen more matches with it than anything else.
probably having a single point be the place that needs to be controlled with strong frontal arcs of imps sure rebs can fly circles around you but you are still getting the points from being at the station.
This kind of varies by fleet, as well, but to break it down:
As 2nd player:
As 1st player:
TL;DR - stop taking Fleet Ambush, people.
Actually, given that list I could see taking Adv gunnery. There really are no good options.
Exactly. I've had a few people take Superior Positions and badly regret it when the B-Wings start racking up the victory tokens. Fire Lanes never gets touched. Advanced Gunnery usually gets picked because they think they can just avoid the MC80 if necessary. While that's true, it often means the big boy survives the game easily. He's there for Independence slingshots and points denial anyway.
In the last tournament I was at, me and me mate cursed opponent, got to watch a few other games after our Imperial/Imperial Fleet Ambush 'in your face' slugfest was resolved in 20 minutes. What I saw was sorta staggering. Five tables, Every single one (but possibly one, who may have just been ignoring the objective itself) was playing Contested Outpost. The tournament from before that had something similar, Contested Outpost. I avoided it as an Imperial and picked Dangerous Territory which I think was the second or third most picked objective in those events.
I don't think I've even seen Precision Strike used in passing.
I don't think I've even seen Precision Strike used in passing.
You don't come down here to the Southland of Hothgary.
We'll show you Precision strike and 134 points of Bombers on Both sides...
-laughs- so I heard from a particular chap who gave me a right good drubbing by flipping minefields against me last week 
I didn't face more than 4 squadrons for 2 tournaments. It's been making me complacent.
Yeah, that might very well be a factor in what we're seeing objective wise.
I love Intel Sweep and Dangerous Territory because people think im a noob for taking it and they look less daunting than my red and yellow objectives so they choose and fall into my trap!
It's so bizarre to me that there are people who avoid objectives (Fire Lanes specifically) because it's long?? You really only need to read it once and then play it, it's not confusing. And you have the card right there if you forget when to place them or the distances or whatever. Is this seriously a thing? Your opponents have the patience to commit to a 2-hour game but not to spend 15 seconds reading an objective card to find out how to play it?
It's so bizarre to me that there are people who avoid objectives (Fire Lanes specifically) because it's long?? You really only need to read it once and then play it, it's not confusing. And you have the card right there if you forget when to place them or the distances or whatever. Is this seriously a thing? Your opponents have the patience to commit to a 2-hour game but not to spend 15 seconds reading an objective card to find out how to play it?
Oh yeah, this absolutely happens. If I played Rebels I'd be bringing Fire Lanes in the right fleets but I don't (that may change in a few weeks) so I'd rather use other yellows for Imperials.
I think the problem is conceptualizing exactly how the Fire Lanes objective will play out is often difficult for people* and so they don't know how much of a benefit it would be to them; thus they don't bring it (as the second player) or don't pick it (as the first player). Compared with something simpler like Contested Outpost or Fleet Ambush they often bring/pick something that's more of a known quality.
I want to reiterate that this is foolish but that's how it is. Fleet Ambush in particular is often a bad choice in most of the fleets I see it brought with and Fire Lanes would've been at least superior to Fleet Ambush.
*To be fair, it requires the second player to set up 3 separate tokens at a distance of 4 or more from each table edge and in the setup area and then their opponent gets to move each token up to range 2 of its initial position. It's the kind of thing that requires a fair amount of practice to get good with and many opponents won't pick this objective because they already don't understand how it works or whether it's giving too much away and so getting that practice in will be difficult enough.
I will depending upon my Opponents fleet (Imperials, I will 9 times out of 10 take AG, Rebels depends on Admiral and which ships), be happy to pick a Red Objective, lots of people still don't understand with AG you can double arc with your objective ship as player one, and that can be a big advantage. Precision Strike I usually have APT's on my Raiders, few tournaments ago I managed to get 14 tokens (in one game) from that objective with not a single bomber or squadron in my fleet, (don't take it if you have Rieekan..like ever.) Most Wanted, situational for me again depending upon my opponents fleet, I will rarely if ever pick Opening Salvo.
Yellows : I will take Fleet Ambush if you have it, but the rest I will usually avoid.
Blues : Superior Positions / Intel Sweep / Dangerous Territory, all fairly safe and easy to deal with, I won't pick your minefields.
Edited by TheEasternKingI think the problem is conceptualizing exactly how the Fire Lanes objective will play out is often difficult for people* and so they don't know how much of a benefit it would be to them; thus they don't bring it (as the second player) or don't pick it (as the first player). Compared with something simpler like Contested Outpost or Fleet Ambush they often bring/pick something that's more of a known quality.
*To be fair, it requires the second player to set up 3 separate tokens at a distance of 4 or more from each table edge and in the setup area and then their opponent gets to move each token up to range 2 of its initial position. It's the kind of thing that requires a fair amount of practice to get good with and many opponents won't pick this objective because they already don't understand how it works or whether it's giving too much away and so getting that practice in will be difficult enough.
I suppose I can see where the confusion comes from, but even so... I pretty much just played it exactly like Contested Outpost the first several times I played it--just stack them on top of each other and park (Imp) or orbit (Rebel). Still do when the situation calls for it.
I mean, not to be elitist or anything, I understand rationally that it could confuse somebody or not be worth the effort to strategize around or whatever. It's just weird to me, I guess.
Yeah, it is not hard to work out, it can backfire on you catastrophically though which is why I never seem to come across it when I am looking at my opponents objectives.
It's 45pts per round, and if you lose a few ships, people can quite easily dance around you, while milking tokens, and finish you off round 6, after getting a ton of extra points. Not something to play for the faint hearted.
I wish more people picked my Precision Strike. . . They do it maybe twice and never again. . . Makes me sad. . . I like getting 150ish points off of it. . .
I think we should be much much more cohesive about the strategy behind objectives. This should be a well-written-up, tailored thread. Maybe next time.
I'm gonna start talking in archetypes, because that tends to have a 3-pick that many understand.
The most common (and reviled, imo) archetype is mass squadrons - Precision Strike, Superior Positions and Contested Outpost. The two squadron objectives are really obvious, though I've actually not played any games with either of those. Contested Outpost usually comes next easily as a squadron player just loves to have you run into their block of mass squadrons. Frankly to me, this is the most obvious and boring of the objective choices. And completely common nowadays with basically eery game having a 133 squadron count.
Ackbar fleets present a serious quandary for both players. The only thing that prevents Ackbar atm from being OP is the lack of dedicated super anti-squadron squadrons. Basically, no Howl Dengar 2 Tie Ints combo in the rebel squadron selection. Thus, Ackbar fleets, due to the huge number of max squadron fleets there are, always have to take a very high number of squadrons as AA. They also basically always have to be second, to avoid having to pick from the above 3-pick of the max squadron player. Ackbar tends to go for: Opening Salvo/ Most Wanted, Fire Lanes/Dangerous Territory, and Intel Sweep.
Ackbar prefers a lot of mobility to keep an opponent from ramming them. Of these, Intel Sweep tends to be taken more often. In vs max squadron, Intel Sweep is actually an ACE-Awesome card: It gives you 75 more points to work with to pad your victory score due to the near inevitability of losing both your AA squadrons and one of your ships to max squadrons.
On objectives by themselves:
A lot of people shy away from Opening Salvo fearing that a 6 Corvette spam or something will use it to max effect. Interestingly enough, while that is the easiest way to get the most dice out of that objective, its actually in most cases, worst for small ships and best for big/powerful ships: It enables a much higher chance of one shotting small ships. Really beefy big ships can be throwing out 11 dice easily with this. As a medium ship player, this is a good one for running away from the other player. If you get caught in this objective, avoid entering the heavier firepower ranges: If you have lots of reds, stay at red. Don't get into blue, you'll get one shot easily.
Intel Sweep is just plain awesome most of the time. The trick is to create a layout that can be taken in two different ways. Or to choose a tricky collector ship. Since these are close together, I find a medium or large ship is just fine for this task. 75 points gives you a serious help against lists that might hard counter you.
The infamous Minefields have to planned out moderately carefully. They are better for moderately maneuverable ships, like Gladiators, Raiders, Shrimps and Cr90s, even though these tend to take a higher percentage of damage. In contrast its relatively ok for Large ships like ISDs and MC80s also. The medium ships tend to get rather hurt because their maneuver chart is quite mediocre: VSDs and AFs. The trick to minefields is to create a layout that tends to funnel the enemy into your list. Good for lists that want to catch and kill something: Squadrons, mass Raiders.
In general, minefields is a good one to practice: You should take a few hours to familiarize yourself with driving through minefields. Once you do, you can easily pick Minefields from your opponents list and you'll find often they will hit them more than you will!
Its interesting.... ideally if expecting to go second the missions that potentially have the biggest payoff are precision strike, firelanes and superior positions - as they can produce a potentially massive VP haul. But they can backfire badly if someone has a list that can play your mission better than you (I know Ive won massively on firelanes before and also lost massively to superior positions!).
My recent experience (say the last 6 games)....
- Most Wanted - picked both by and against me....
- Firelanes - picked by me, got a draw on the mission but lost the battle (probably because I played the mission!)
- Dangerous territory - picked by my opponents over hyperspace and opening salvo against my 4 ship.
- contested outpost - because its safe and boring! (also it doesn't count as a station anymore, which is a big help against mass rogue lists!)