Click Bait Article! - Excerpts from it below

We are playing a game where a ship with 1 hull remaining (assuming no crippling critical effects) is just as combat effective as a ship with full hull and ships. To this effect, being able to destroy an enemy ship is much preferable in terms of damage we will suffer in this, and future turns, than damaging multiple enemy ships.

Specifically, it leads to an issue that I am going to call the Gunnery Team Mentality, that the only arc that matters is the best one your ship has. Players flying all medium and large base ships fall into this trap. Even the MC80, who doesn't have Gunnery Team as an option, has multiple upgrades that work to reinforce this type of flying (Slaved Turrets and Ackbar, who we will get to soon enough). Players want to line up and keep the entire enemy fleet in their best arc, and stop trying to line up the double arc shot. Why?

The Why is easy. Players want to do more damage, they want to see bigger dice pools, bigger rolls. They want to roll big hits and get big results. And the medium / large base ships definitely give them that option. And to them, it is working. They do roll big hits against two enemy ships.

Those two big hits are both braced / redirected, but hey, can't do anything about that

Except you can. We've talked in the past about how one of the best way to go Whaling is to fire multiple small attacks in a single turn, to overwhelm the brace (and other) tokens. Your big attacks that hit multiple targets for ~3 damage (after brace) each is turned into ~3 damage and ~3 damage on a single opponent by getting them into your other arc. You've gone from splashing the front shields (and being redirected to the sides) to stripping shields and punching into the hull. No real damage lost, but all that damage against a single target.

What do you think? Does Gunnery Team unconsciously teach us bad gameplay?

Oh Gunnery Team definitely makes me lazy and stop caring about arcs yes!

I've been now thinking about when its better to use the 2 red dice in the front for the AF instead of Ackbar-ing. Seems to work better just like you said against big ships with big Braces coupled with ECM.

There is a place for both, you just have to keep yourself flexible and actually think. If you've got 2 ships to shoot at with gunnery that's great, if not fly for your double arcs. Also before you roll those dice just do a quick count of what give you the most dice, sides only or front and sides etc etc.

Nothing wrong with side arcs - they have saved my VSDs bacon many times (especially with help from Dominator!)

I do think gunnery teams are pretty much given for ISDs though. Even just on an ISD1, they give you the option of not wasting their antisquadron capability. And ISD front arc is so big that if the battle is going well most of the enemy will be in it for most of the game....

Other angle - played against my buddys MC80 Assault Defiance last night. Advanced Gunnery, he was first player (so had the less good version of the objective bonus) - was still absolutely shocking the damage that thing could do when it could see two hull sections of the same ship....

My GT assault frigate on the other hand had a fair bit of success clobbering corvettes out its side.

Click Bait Article! - Excerpts from it below

What do you think? Does Gunnery Team unconsciously teach us bad gameplay?

Yes, as it will tempt you to engage the enemy ships head on which makes your movement more predictable, and the enemy ships will be able to pass by your front arc more easily. Flying at an angle to get that double arc gives you more tactical options, as its easier to compensate for enemy manoeuvres. And as the article states, its often better to focus down 1 ship rather than spread damage over multiple ships. That said, when the opportunity presents itself, the extra 4 or so damage GT provides for an ISD is very cost effective.

typically a good opponent wont get 2 ships in the same arc. Even the rebel toilet bowl can be out flown if you are savvy and keep em navigated. I simply find gunnery teams too expensive for my tastes.

As for the "A ship with 1 hull has the same combat effectiveness of a ship with full hull" that really happens when there are no crits, and how often does a ship especially a bigger one go down without taking any critical effects.

People always say it is a crutch. But they are pretending their flying is so good and also their opponent's is so bad. Now I do realize that some might think it expensive at 400 points. As I rarely play at 400 pts., you have to take what I am saying in that context.

IMHO, all this if your so good at flying you don't need these "crutches" fails to account for those who fly opposite of you as well. Options and flexibility are a powerful thing in this game. This is much different than always pulling the perfect command as GT direct impacts your opponents movements. Just having GT is the correct placement will dictation the direction of the encounter with even the best foe. I don't recommend them on all pizzas, but believe having just one, only one, is very important I high point games I take two if I am playing an ISD 2xVSDs and a Glad putting them on my VSDII and the ISDII and not the glad or VSDI. Having defense liaisons with Tarkin offers up so many options and make it extremely difficult for Rebel flanking attempts by fast C90s with ET or mC30s going 4 and 3. The key with the VSDs is to not get greedy and select navigation commands when the setup dictates you MIT get flanked. people are always grabbing the concentrate fire but a yaw click in my mine is often the best concentrate fire.

If you have it on an VSD that punches the Nav command over and over to get the yaw click at one and the normal at two it GT will protect flanks and funnel opponents toward you other resources, but this means you have another ship serving as a carrier and thus can't hit the Nav button as often. VSD are better served with Nav commands than concentrate fires as they help get you those double arcs where having more than one dice is much better than just one. More importantly it protect your flanks. However, you really only need one ship to cover the flankers it you set up and fly right and having GT on that one ship that covers the flank and continues a to hit the Nav button or have defense liaisons with Tarkin, or defense Liason, is going to mean ships have the choice of flanking into a GT or facing the front of two VSDs with 3 front arcs (+1 for GT). GT is as much defensive as it is offensive and anyone would says they can just fly around VSDs isn't playing someone who staggers their ships well and uses the Nav button enough tow get the two yaw clicks. If played right the imperials play a situation where they have good interior lines and the Rebels are spread thin. The only time I get around my wife's VSDs are when the ISD goes in guns blazing and allows for my MC80 with ET or MC30 to get around the "blind side" the side opposite e VSD II with GT. The VSDs should always be placed last in deployment. My 3 cents on GT...get one and if playing Akbar put them on you AFs so you can skirt the imperials instead of playing the double arc game which if your going against a good imperial player is going to get you killed.

An interesting thought experiment, but you greatly overstate the case and I would suggest the article is very incomplete as you missed the single most important argument in favor of Gunnery Teams for Imperials.

The value of Gunnery Team is the cross product of the following:

• The relative strength of all the arcs of the ship that you are flying
• The position of both your opponent and the maneuver options that allow you to bring firepower to bear as a result
• The importance of being able to combat both squadrons and ships from the same arc
• The composition of the rest of your own fleet

Point number 3, which is basically ignored in your article compared to its importance, is the key for the ISD gunnery team. The front arc is massive. Yes, side arcing someone is nice, but given the maneuverability of the ship, if you don't kill someone that turn, they probably fly past you and are behind you for the rest of the game. Thus, often the right play is to go slowly and keep them in front (back to maneuver being king), which also leaves the issue that even if there is only one ship in your front arc (so you can't double up on GT), it's also a massive safe spot for opposing squadrons without gunnery teams.

As a rebel, I like nothing more than an ISD without gun teams. Why? Because my B-wings / Y-wings can park in front of you with impunity for the entire game and you can do nothing about it, if your own fighter screen is tied up and/or doesn't win the initial exchange. You take Gunnery Teams and that entire equation changes from a ship with multiple die anti-squadron fire.

Similarly, even the same ship does not always want to maneuver in the same way. Take the multiple AF list for rebels. You cannot fly the back AF the same way you fly the front AF. The relative value of Gunnery Team as an upgrade is different on each ship.

So, yes, it's obviously lazy to put it on everything. It's equally lazy to put it on nothing or just discount it. Like almost every upgrade in this game (barring a handful of exceptions that are always bad like slaved turrets or always good like Demolisher), you take it where it counts, only.

I don't know if it makes people bad players. I do know however that in a list with fewer ships, Gunnery Teams helps mitigate some advantages an opponent can have.

You're also only thinking about large on large engagements. I almost exclusively fly swarms of one kind or another. It's rare for me to field a pickle. Or even a medium ship. The front or side arc of a large ship is often devastating for me and I try to avoid it. But sometimes it's easier to put multiple ships in that zone because I know they can only shoot one tsrget. Gunnery team? Nowhere is safe.

Not a point I agree with, but bonus for having a take and going strong with it.

I suppose I could have written this article as "Focus Fire is Important" and honestly I almost did.

I don't think that would have been controversial at all. And it really wouldn't have gotten people thinking or talking, now would it? After all "focus fire on the enemy" is kind of an obvious tactic, isn't it? And in the end, this is the problem that I have been seeing - people aren't focusing down their opponents, and too many poor navigation choices are relying on the Gunnery Team shots instead of giving themselves an option of a Gunnery Team shot.

Click-bait title aside, I don't think that Gunnery Teams are a bad upgrade. But they are incentivising the wrong playstyle, and I think that hurts our overall play.

In the picture in the article, there's a total of 4 squadrons on the board and still just a handful of large ships.

I can expect to see swarms of ships and squadrons. Focusing fire is absolutely a critical factor to understand, but the two are not mutually exclusive. When my ISD II can open up on your carrier ships AND your squadrons out of the same arc, I'm focusing down the same threat. Plus, to get a side arc out of an ISD your flight path is oblique to the target, meaning your gigantic base likely isn't blocking them.

Frankly, there are two ships worth of GT: The ISD II and the AFMKIIB. For both of them, they really place on the ship's strengths and dampen it's weaknesses. For the ISD you want to be head on as much as possible so you get multiple turns in that front arc. For the Guppy, you want to maintain range and move perpendicularly so double arcing is much more difficult to achieve. Conversely, red range is extensive, so your GTs frequently net you targets. The AfMKIIA is actually great at double arcing, and the ISD I doesn't always get the best benefit (although his squadron dice are yummy!).

In short, I pretty much disagree with the points you make except that maybe new players should consider when GT is and is not a requirement. I think you left out a lot of important uses of GT though, which makes the argument feel a bit half-baked to me.

I'm all in for click-bait article titles though!

To follow up, in case I came off kinda harsh. I agree with your jumping off point. Fistfuls of dice are not the end all in Armada, and in almost every situation I'd rather have them broken down into smaller, equivalent sets of dice. BUT that doesn't make gunnery teams bad, or a crutch, or the choice of unskilled players

I think it can make maneuvers more predictable, i.e. point wedge and hit the red button. GT shines when it can make ships with large, heavy dice arcs that make one dangerous attack (especially against smaller ships) into two dangerous attacks. Overall fewer places for ships to hide or spread damage. It also gives the player a lot of flexibility if the enemy brings few/large ships. You can instead try to angle multiple arcs on one ship or one arc from each ship with GT on one ship to facilitate the double attacks on one ship.

I think it is closer to a bionic upgrade than a crutch in most cases. It does not necessarily make excuses for poor flying more makes opportunities for many styles of flight.

My two credits anyway.

An interesting thought experiment, but you greatly overstate the case and I would suggest the article is very incomplete as you missed the single most important argument in favor of Gunnery Teams for Imperials.

The value of Gunnery Team is the cross product of the following:

• The relative strength of all the arcs of the ship that you are flying
• The position of both your opponent and the maneuver options that allow you to bring firepower to bear as a result
• The importance of being able to combat both squadrons and ships from the same arc
• The composition of the rest of your own fleet

Point number 3, which is basically ignored in your article compared to its importance, is the key for the ISD gunnery team. The front arc is massive. Yes, side arcing someone is nice, but given the maneuverability of the ship, if you don't kill someone that turn, they probably fly past you and are behind you for the rest of the game. Thus, often the right play is to go slowly and keep them in front (back to maneuver being king), which also leaves the issue that even if there is only one ship in your front arc (so you can't double up on GT), it's also a massive safe spot for opposing squadrons without gunnery teams.

As a rebel, I like nothing more than an ISD without gun teams. Why? Because my B-wings / Y-wings can park in front of you with impunity for the entire game and you can do nothing about it, if your own fighter screen is tied up and/or doesn't win the initial exchange. You take Gunnery Teams and that entire equation changes from a ship with multiple die anti-squadron fire.

Similarly, even the same ship does not always want to maneuver in the same way. Take the multiple AF list for rebels. You cannot fly the back AF the same way you fly the front AF. The relative value of Gunnery Team as an upgrade is different on each ship.

So, yes, it's obviously lazy to put it on everything. It's equally lazy to put it on nothing or just discount it. Like almost every upgrade in this game (barring a handful of exceptions that are always bad like slaved turrets or always good like Demolisher), you take it where it counts, only.

Basically, Reinholt's mouth was moving but the words were mine, ala puppeteer.

I practically felt where your mind went people. /shame

***No, he didn't steal my words. I meant I agree with him...from a certain point of view...HUA?***

A bunch of dumb words.

Basically, Reinholt's mouth was moving but the words were mine, ala puppeteer.

I practically felt where your mind went people. /shame

***No, he didn't steal my words. I meant I agree with him...from a certain point of view...HUA?***

It's like we shared the same buttery, fresh flotilla.

Edit: Likewise, if I came across as harsh, that is 100% not the intent. All of these articles are great food for thought for the community, and often the disagreements teach more than the agreements. A 100% worthy effort, good work Biggs.

In the picture in the article, there's a total of 4 squadrons on the board and still just a handful of large ships.

I can expect to see swarms of ships and squadrons. Focusing fire is absolutely a critical factor to understand, but the two are not mutually exclusive. When my ISD II can open up on your carrier ships AND your squadrons out of the same arc, I'm focusing down the same threat. Plus, to get a side arc out of an ISD your flight path is oblique to the target, meaning your gigantic base likely isn't blocking them.

Frankly, there are two ships worth of GT: The ISD II and the AFMKIIB. For both of them, they really place on the ship's strengths and dampen it's weaknesses. For the ISD you want to be head on as much as possible so you get multiple turns in that front arc. For the Guppy, you want to maintain range and move perpendicularly so double arcing is much more difficult to achieve. Conversely, red range is extensive, so your GTs frequently net you targets. The AfMKIIA is actually great at double arcing, and the ISD I doesn't always get the best benefit (although his squadron dice are yummy!).

In short, I pretty much disagree with the points you make except that maybe new players should consider when GT is and is not a requirement. I think you left out a lot of important uses of GT though, which makes the argument feel a bit half-baked to me.

I'm all in for click-bait article titles though!

As for Focus Firing targets down. If I have multiple Gunnery Teams and I shoot at the same 2 ships with each ship, am I not doing just that?

One consideration is that while a ship that is not yet dead is indeed putting shots out (one reason I focus fire Demo down so harshly), you can severely weaken several ships so that you can make a last game turnaround.

Gunnery Teams are a good, solid upgrade. However, much like XI7s I find myself using them less and less. Not that both aren't good, I just have found other places to spend my upgrade budget that work better for me, like dice manipulation.

I'm not sure that they make us lazy. I do know that they worked well for me when I was learning the game as they fit the tactics I was employing. As my tactics have changed, the amount that I use them has changed accordingly.

I will say that they are probably the best anti-squad upgrade out there. When I take them, it is often with that in mind.

Gunnery Teams are a good, solid upgrade. However, much like XI7s I find myself using them less and less. Not that both aren't good, I just have found other places to spend my upgrade budget that work better for me, like dice manipulation.

I'm not sure that they make us lazy. I do know that they worked well for me when I was learning the game as they fit the tactics I was employing. As my tactics have changed, the amount that I use them has changed accordingly.

I will say that they are probably the best anti-squad upgrade out there. When I take them, it is often with that in mind.

In the picture in the article, there's a total of 4 squadrons on the board and still just a handful of large ships.

I can expect to see swarms of ships and squadrons. Focusing fire is absolutely a critical factor to understand, but the two are not mutually exclusive. When my ISD II can open up on your carrier ships AND your squadrons out of the same arc, I'm focusing down the same threat. Plus, to get a side arc out of an ISD your flight path is oblique to the target, meaning your gigantic base likely isn't blocking them.

Frankly, there are two ships worth of GT: The ISD II and the AFMKIIB. For both of them, they really place on the ship's strengths and dampen it's weaknesses. For the ISD you want to be head on as much as possible so you get multiple turns in that front arc. For the Guppy, you want to maintain range and move perpendicularly so double arcing is much more difficult to achieve. Conversely, red range is extensive, so your GTs frequently net you targets. The AfMKIIA is actually great at double arcing, and the ISD I doesn't always get the best benefit (although his squadron dice are yummy!).

In short, I pretty much disagree with the points you make except that maybe new players should consider when GT is and is not a requirement. I think you left out a lot of important uses of GT though, which makes the argument feel a bit half-baked to me.

I'm all in for click-bait article titles though!

What he said. A lot of the time my guppy is circling to try and stay in red range. I get my anti-ship shot, and then I get my shot at the squadrons that are coming at me. The AA isn't much, but it adds up when your squadrons are fighting too. Aces can be forced to decide if they should take the shot from the ship to save the defense tokens for against your fighters,

Good post and good discussion.

Every strategy game will have some qualities about it that are easier to use for many people, and thus they'll get overused. I'm not sure I'd go so far as to say "incentivizing" bad play. The player is ultimately responsible for whether they win or lose, and ultimately that means putting thought into the game, especially about why one loses. Now one of the biggest problems that everyone who plays any strategy game faces is getting stuck in a strategic rut or playstyle. Now, it may be good to learn by playing similarly themed fleets, but eventually you hit a point where you become stuck in your abilities and stop progressing. Gunnery teams may contribute to that rut, but I don't think it is any different than getting stuck with a particular set of fleet designs, upgrades, or so forth. One question is whether we self-evaluate and grow past it.

"We are playing a game where a ship with 1 hull remaining (assuming no crippling critical effects) is just as combat effective as a ship with full hull and ships."

now this is something we were talking about working out a house rule to change. its kind of wrong that a ship that is 25% 50% or 75% dead still have 100% of its weapons working.

"We are playing a game where a ship with 1 hull remaining (assuming no crippling critical effects) is just as combat effective as a ship with full hull and ships."

now this is something we were talking about working out a house rule to change. its kind of wrong that a ship that is 25% 50% or 75% dead still have 100% of its weapons working.

Battlefleet Gothic's system was simply that once you were at half HP or less, your weaponry was reduced in half (rounded up). It seemed to work all right and didn't require a lot of book-keeping, but you'd be playing a sub-game to "real" Armada once you decided to go down that path.

Click Bait Article! - Excerpts from it below

We are playing a game where a ship with 1 hull remaining (assuming no crippling critical effects) is just as combat effective as a ship with full hull and ships. To this effect, being able to destroy an enemy ship is much preferable in terms of damage we will suffer in this, and future turns, than damaging multiple enemy ships.

Specifically, it leads to an issue that I am going to call the Gunnery Team Mentality, that the only arc that matters is the best one your ship has. Players flying all medium and large base ships fall into this trap. Even the MC80, who doesn't have Gunnery Team as an option, has multiple upgrades that work to reinforce this type of flying (Slaved Turrets and Ackbar, who we will get to soon enough). Players want to line up and keep the entire enemy fleet in their best arc, and stop trying to line up the double arc shot. Why?

The Why is easy. Players want to do more damage, they want to see bigger dice pools, bigger rolls. They want to roll big hits and get big results. And the medium / large base ships definitely give them that option. And to them, it is working. They do roll big hits against two enemy ships.

Those two big hits are both braced / redirected, but hey, can't do anything about that

Except you can. We've talked in the past about how one of the best way to go Whaling is to fire multiple small attacks in a single turn, to overwhelm the brace (and other) tokens. Your big attacks that hit multiple targets for ~3 damage (after brace) each is turned into ~3 damage and ~3 damage on a single opponent by getting them into your other arc. You've gone from splashing the front shields (and being redirected to the sides) to stripping shields and punching into the hull. No real damage lost, but all that damage against a single target.

What do you think? Does Gunnery Team unconsciously teach us bad gameplay?

Nope! If you're using GT for only shooting two ships, you just haven't developed to a complete Armada player. GT is there for versatility to allow that double attack when you really need it (2+ small ships or a ship and squadrons attacking from one arc) during gameplay. I almost always have GT on an ISD but I find that I might use it only 50% of the time. I certainly don't use it ALL of the time, that would be silly. I work for the arc overlap on one ship, usually fire first with the smaller battery (side) and hit the same ship again with the full front.

As for the damage, you would need a much more tedious record keeping technique or have an opposite "damaged" side to a ship card like XWing does for the Epic ships . . . neither of which we have. You also don't want that . . . yes, I'm telling you what you want and don't want even though I don't know you from Adam hahahaha. Seriously though, I've played Wooden Ships and Iron Men and it's a great game, but there is a lot of tedious record keeping that slows the game down. You have crit effects which are pretty devastating in a lot of cases so be sure to land them. Wooden Ships and Iron Men does have boarding actions though; how do we get that into Armada?