I've been thinking a lot about why Fleet building is important lately especially as I see more players Calling my beloved Demolisher build Op or broken. So I thought I would go back and trace some of my thought processes to Create the list.

For reference the list can be found here:http://armadawarlords.hivelabs.solutions/view_list.php?token=23130

When I started development of this list I was trying to achieve 2 goals.

1) Making Vader work for me

2) consistanly defeating Ackbar AF fleets

On goal #1 I failed miserably...

But goal #2 was achieved pretty nicely and this is what I'm going to focus on today.

First let's talk about what "Your Tactical Hand" means. For the most part this is simply thinking about the obvious diffrenly but it's nice to delibraly point it out, anyway this is a reference to card games were your "hand" represents what your capable of doing. For Armada our "cards" can be a number of things but the Primary cards are, Activations, Bid, Deployment, and Survivability. Your Activations equal to the number of ships you have and represents your lists ability to gain the LAST ACTIVATION each round. Your bid how many points you leave off of your list and represents your ability to choose 1st or 2nd player (generally first). Deployment is the the number of ships you have + 1/2 of your squads rounded down and represents your ability to React to where your opponents places his ships. Survivability is a combination of your hit points and defenses that represents how hard it is to table your list, this is hardest to show but Motti Factor is a reasonable representation. Squadrons are another major card but are harder to generalize. Each list will also have a set of abilities from their upgrades that will add other cards more unique to each list.

Lets take a look at my "hand" For the Original Clonisher:

- 5 activations

- 13 pts for a Bid

- 6 deployments

- motti factor 5

The misc. Cards include:

- Demolisher can kill ANY ship with 3 attacks

- instigator can delay bombers for a turn or 2

- Very high damage+ Intel officer means almost no list is "hard to table"

- lots of Evades

- Devastating AA ability, if squadrons isolate themselves from the fleet they will die.

Let's compare this to an Average Ackbar build like the ones I was trying to defeat, for reference we will use this list:http://armadawarlords.hivelabs.solutions/view_list.php?token=24412

Ackbar main hand:

- 3 activations

- 6 pt bid

- 5 deployments

- motti factor 7

Misc cards:

- damage concentrated at long range

- ecms for garenteed tokens

So to compare:

Activations: me 5 vs ackbar 3

Bid: me 13 vs ackbar 6

Deployments: me 6 vs ackbar 5

Motti Factor: me 5 vs ackbar 7

So we can see for the Primary Cards I pair nicely against a typical ackbar build only falling short in the survivability part.

What about the misc. Cards?

Well ecm is basacally negated by my Intel officers

And acbars long range advantage is reduced by my evades and speed 4

In short I find it interesting because you can often predict outcomes of matches based on the "tactical hand" of each fleet particular when both players are relatively equally skilled or play each other often.

I probably will add more but I'm out of time now,

Feel free to add any thoughts and post your lists Tactical Hand!

Reserved

Thanks for the explanation on the technological terror that you constructed that is the Clonisher!

it is interesting, I ended up in a very similar place, but for differing reasons.

Playing during wave one as an Imperial commander, I came to the realisation that usually you get one chance per game to fire all dice in your strongest arc, but time and time again, this one attack was not dealing anything like enough damage to cause trouble to the ship being fired upon, leaving me feeling pretty frustrated overall with Imperials. I had ran bombers, but again the vagaries of dice at crunch points, and no way of rerolling them, left me thinking that they were not reliable enough.

At best they would maul something, and then it would in true Rebel fashion, move beyond the front arc, and park itself around the flank/rear of my VSD's and I would never escape from them.

So around the time Wave 2 was announced, I was playing around with a VSD 2 (dominator) and 2 GSD list, no squadrons, each ship was designed to throw that many dice in that once per game chance, that they could kill what they were attacking, without needing multiple bites of the cherry, and the GSDs with Engine Techs, actually were fast and maneuverable enough to get away from ships that slipped into side/rear arc positions.

My biggest gripe before wave 2, was Imperial ships cost to much, and the VSD's were absolutely horrendous if they got flanked, and that Rebels with cheaper ships could always get activation advantage (300pts limit).

So along came the Raider I/II and suddenly I had the one thing I had been wanting above all else for my Imperial fleets, a cheap, fast maneuverable ship. I had a chance now at out activating Rebels, to further enhance my once per game attack.

I went to several tournaments, and learned a great deal, and I'll never forget the day I played against 3 Rebel commanders, who all had 4/5 ship fleets (Mine was 4) so even with the initiative, I struggled to get my ships where I wanted them, so I further refined my list to get 5 ship activations, so I wouldn't have that issue again.

So I ended up where Clon did, but for totally different reasons.

You really should check out the Dodanna the Oppressor build...that is what I'd like to see you pick apart.

I am looking into 4 Neb Rieekan build as it offers a wonderful card. Extremelly focused powerful front arc dice negating defence tokens through number of shots. They can get ALL arcs on the same target.

In numbers:

- 4 activations

- 0 pt bid

- 7 deployments

- motti factor 4

Misc -

Multi shot long range damage

Double tap of zombie yavaris death

But that Motti factor scares me.

You really should check out the Dodanna the Oppressor build...that is what I'd like to see you pick apart.

- 5 activations

- 24pt bid

- 5 deployments

- motti factor 5

Misc -

Dodonna APT double taps

Brace blocking with mass Intels

Guarenteed long range dice

But thats a poor score on deployments and motti factor. Motti factor isnt a great issue as thats an accepted list weakness to be mitigated by good flying. Deployment numbers is low and lets the opponent place their main weapons in the optimum position.

I feel like you're giving me the tactical "finger"

I'm not getting the "Motti Factor". Can you elaborate please?

I'm not getting the "Motti Factor". Can you elaborate please?

It was conceived in wave 1 useing the values assigned to each ship from Admiral motti hence "motti scale"

Basically every small ship=1

Medium ship=2

Large ship=3

I'm not getting the "Motti Factor". Can you elaborate please?

motti factor or "Motti scale" is a measuring method used to determine a fleets survivability based primarily on hit points.

It was conceived in wave 1 useing the values assigned to each ship from Admiral motti hence "motti scale"

Basically every small ship=1

Medium ship=2

Large ship=3

Can also be paired with the less used Bel Iblis scale for how responsive ships can be. This based on command values, lower is more responsive higher is less responsive.

Not generally a key value to track, particularly with various officers and relentless mucking with command stacks. But if you trying to numberize everything, might be useful.

I guess Rieekan would be considered in the Misc. My wasted points in my Louisville list was the overload pulses, possibly the flight controllers. If I had dropped both that would have put me at

24pt bid

4 activations

10 deployments

Motti factor 5

Misc Yarvis Adar Tallon Rieekan zombies, and BWings

A note: this list is missing Instigator and Demolisher titles because of a code bug, which has been fixed. @Clontroper5 you can edit the list and re-add the titles so the list will be fixed. Sorry for the inconvenience!

For the fun of it, I'll break down my Rieekan B-Wing madness in similar fashion:

-3 activations
-1pt bid
-7 deployments
-Motti Scale 5

The main cards:

-Rieekan zombies. Ensures that even as second player, all of your ships gets to play in a given turn. You can also rely on a blocking ship to stay put for the turn.

-Yavaris and B-Wings are the only thing capable of even remotely the same levels of damage as a triple tap Demolisher. If done right (and it is 10x harder to get right than Demolisher) it results in 6 black, 6 blue, and 3 red in a single activation.

-Wedge and Dutch not only help in the squadron fight, but they're also flexible enough to be a significant threat with the bombing runs if needed.

-Ass hole objectives. Advanced Gunnery, Fire Lanes, and Superior Positions. Pick your poison.

My list is a variation of yours Truthiness. I just never really got Dutch to work the way I wanted. That and I wanted everything to be capable of protecting Yavaris from bombing runs.

I went through the same thought processes to get double ISD working. Some locals call my list broken (6dice tie interceptors with counter 4 is infuriating and hilarious). People just say things are broken until they can learn not to tilt, and then figure out how to beat it. every list has its weakness.

After regionals I plan on doing some active rebel play for the first time ever.

to be clear i don't think anyone is saying your fleet of broken, just that demo is

to be clear i don't think anyone is saying your fleet of broken, just that demo is

Erm no. Demolisher isnt broken, Demolisher IN THIS FLEET is as close as you can get to broken.

to be clear i don't think anyone is saying your fleet of broken, just that demo is

Erm no. Demolisher isnt broken, Demolisher IN THIS FLEET is as close as you can get to broken.

This. It's a combination of tooled up Demolisher with the high activation count. Demolisher without first player and/or last activation isn't that scary. Putting it alongside 4 other ships and a very high bid is about as close as you can get to broken in this game. I still reserve the right to withhold the "overpowered" title until I see more Regional results.

It's broken

I'm not saying demo is broken I am actually on record of saying the opposite. I was simply saying that the masses aren't saying the build is broken the masses are saying that demo is what needs tweaking.

The masses also declared Ackbar to be overpowered. He's not exactly gracing the top ranks of tournaments right now.

why are you trying to convince me????? I was simply clarifying statement? Do I think demo is too good maybe certainly the closest thing in the game, do I think he's broken? Not ready to jump to that yet. I don't know how else to convey that I don't think he is broken. Also on the ackbar point that was just people not being able to count.

The masses also declared Ackbar to be overpowered. He's not exactly gracing the top ranks of tournaments right now.

Did Ackbar ever grace the top ranks of tournaments? I don't think so, but Demoisher appears to be doing a pretty good job of that right now. One may have been hype, but the other seems to be actually bearing out.