April Showers Bring May Flowers. How Many Squadron Activations Would The Mayflower Get? (Steel Squadron May Quarantine Zone)

By BiggsIRL, in Star Wars: Armada

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**Check out the Blog!**

Okay, so I didn't have the best April, when it came to actually writing articles.

Here's the first one for May though, an AAR for my Regionals Win.

What did I actually write in April?

I covered a Vassal Game. - Youtube

I reviewed Rebellion.

"Howlrunner" reviewed Rebellion. (She also started up her own Blog)

I explored what it means to be a "good" playerbase.

I wrote a long-overdue update to Tournament Points.

I told MC80 haters to Git Gud.

I did another Vassal Game (These were bad.)

And another. (Seriously, don't listen)

Not my most productive month. Here's to hoping this one is better!

Edited by BiggsIRL
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Good show sir! And congrats. Nice article.

Looking forward to what you're serving next!

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An actual tactics article that isn't just a matchup between two lists? Blasphemy!

...and it's about a Wave 3 upgrade?!

Bomber Command Center - Running the Numbers

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Biggs, I'm not sure if your article really posited this, but I think Bomber Command is going to have the biggest affect on vanilla X Wings (despite your chart showing (I think), that B Wings benefit the most from it).. That red die was soooo fickle that its bomber, escort and anti-squadron attack have been offset by A Wing's speed, counter, and black die as the go to "all purpose" squadron of the Rebel side. I think Bomber Command is going to push more vanilla X Wings back into the mix. A Wings will retain their position as long range interceptors, but their opportunistic anti-ship role will be turned over to a couple of X Wings, who now have a chance of pushing out more damage and / or crits.

Edited by Rocmistro
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Your article separates Luke and Wedge but not the Scurgg and Nym. You also dont go into having multiple Bomber Command Centers. This allows you to fish even more. It is EXPENSIVE but imho can be worth it for guys like Nym.

Edited by Lyraeus
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Your article separates Luke and Wedge but not the Scurgg and Nym. You also dont go into having multiple Bomber Command Centers. This allows you to fish even more. It is EXPENSIVE but imho can be worth it for guys like Nym.

Since it's a "while" wouldn't Bomber Command Center only be allowed once per roll?

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Your article separates Luke and Wedge but not the Scurgg and Nym. You also dont go into having multiple Bomber Command Centers. This allows you to fish even more. It is EXPENSIVE but imho can be worth it for guys like Nym.

Since it's a "while" wouldn't Bomber Command Center only be allowed once per roll?

Per card. Each would be a different "While" Event I would think.

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Your article separates Luke and Wedge but not the Scurgg and Nym. You also dont go into having multiple Bomber Command Centers. This allows you to fish even more. It is EXPENSIVE but imho can be worth it for guys like Nym.

I have Nym out for fishing, but there is no point in separating him from a Scurrg, or Dutch from a Y-Wing, because they have the same anti-ship battery as their generic counterpart.

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Biggs, I'm not sure if your article really posited this, but I think Bomber Command is going to have the biggest affect on vanilla X Wings (despite your chart showing (I think), that B Wings benefit the most from it).. That red die was soooo fickle that its bomber, escort and anti-squadron attack have been offset by A Wing's speed, counter, and black die as the go to "all purpose" squadron of the Rebel side. I think Bomber Command is going to push more vanilla X Wings back into the mix. A Wings will retain their position as long range interceptors, but their opportunistic anti-ship role will be turned over to a couple of X Wings, who now have a chance of pushing out more damage and / or crits.

I do include that in there as part of the analysis, but it's buried in the middle - of the Rebel section. X-Wings go from just having "better max potential damage" for anti-ship to having better odds of hitting, better average damage, and retain the maximum potential damage over the A-Wing. The A-Wing retains it's dominant role for speed though.

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Man, I love these crunchy articles. Thanks for the analysis, Biggs!

That said, I believe your math on the B-wing is wrong. It looks like you gave it rerolls on both blue and black each time without accounting for a blue acc + black blank (in which you could only reroll one of the two, assuming one BCC).

I get 2.14 for the B-wing with BCC reroll.

edit:

I'm sure there's a better way to find it, but basically I took the regular average for a blue, regular average for a black, added in the rerolls for each (1*.25+.75*.25), and then from that subtracted (blue reroll) * (odds of rolling blank+acc), or .0625*.75.

Edited by Ardaedhel
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... Which then, actually, would put the X-wing on top (barely) as the top beneficiary of BCC, both in absolute terms (+.41 vs +.39) and (because it's cheaper to begin with) in terms of damage per point.

I used the wrong value for reds because I has a dumb. :) B-wings are still the top beneficiaries.

Edited by Ardaedhel
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Yeah, I love what Tagge does to the lightning-fast Demo IO triple tap--I just hope he's good enough in the general case to make him worth taking for the guy taking him, beyond just hosing the current iteration of the Demo.

Still not quite sold on Cracken... I'll have to see him on the table a couple times to form an opinion on him. A poor man's evade is a good way to describe it, because it's definitely much less good than evade, being untargeted (that is, can't use it to selectively shwack a TRC double or whatever). Good, yeah, but I don't see it being great.

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Yeah, I love what Tagge does to the lightning-fast Demo IO triple tap--I just hope he's good enough in the general case to make him worth taking for the guy taking him, beyond just hosing the current iteration of the Demo.

Still not quite sold on Cracken... I'll have to see him on the table a couple times to form an opinion on him. A poor man's evade is a good way to describe it, because it's definitely much less good than evade, being untargeted (that is, can't use it to selectively shwack a TRC double or whatever). Good, yeah, but I don't see it being great.

I feel the same way. I guess this would be a good general for someone that is running all TRCs, so evades are only used for offense. Otherwise I would still stick with Mon Mothma or Rieekan.

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Yeah, I love what Tagge does to the lightning-fast Demo IO triple tap--I just hope he's good enough in the general case to make him worth taking for the guy taking him, beyond just hosing the current iteration of the Demo.

Still not quite sold on Cracken... I'll have to see him on the table a couple times to form an opinion on him. A poor man's evade is a good way to describe it, because it's definitely much less good than evade, being untargeted (that is, can't use it to selectively shwack a TRC double or whatever). Good, yeah, but I don't see it being great.

I feel the same way. I guess this would be a good general for someone that is running all TRCs, so evades are only used for offense. Otherwise I would still stick with Mon Mothma or Rieekan.

Evades lose power as the dice pool grows. If anything Cracken makes Evades quite a bit stronger.

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The one thing I see about both commanders is that they are very ship-focused. For Tagge, the brace is the token you most want to protect, and it works best against really big shots where it stops at least 2 and sometimes as much as 5 damage. So that's going to incentivize doing damage in smaller bursts, especially if you can get it in 1-2 point increments from squadrons. Biggs is right that you're going to get more damage absorption from that Brace than from Motti in many games. For Cracken, his benefit only works against ships. If you look at the benefit that Flotillas themselves bring to squadrons as well as the additional upgrades to squadrons. Then add that to the success that squadrons enjoy in the current meta, and I don't see how the overall effect of the wave fails to incentivize squadrons further.

That leaves Cracken as a very very specific fleet commander. A swarm that is constantly on the move and which can get away from squadrons, definitely. You could also maybe run Assault Frigates Carriers that stay at range-3, use their own squadrons to shore up Cracken's defensive weakness, use speed to ensure the loss of the die AND the benefit of the evade at long distance, then that might work. If you've only got 4 red dice coming in at range, and you lose one for obstruction and can cancel a double hit off of another, you've effectively neutered those red dice. One big problem with Cracken is going to be his inflexibility. There's going to be some situation in which you just don't want to be going at speed three.

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Yeah, I love what Tagge does to the lightning-fast Demo IO triple tap--I just hope he's good enough in the general case to make him worth taking for the guy taking him, beyond just hosing the current iteration of the Demo.

Still not quite sold on Cracken... I'll have to see him on the table a couple times to form an opinion on him. A poor man's evade is a good way to describe it, because it's definitely much less good than evade, being untargeted (that is, can't use it to selectively shwack a TRC double or whatever). Good, yeah, but I don't see it being great.

I feel the same way. I guess this would be a good general for someone that is running all TRCs, so evades are only used for offense. Otherwise I would still stick with Mon Mothma or Rieekan.

Evades lose power as the dice pool grows. If anything Cracken makes Evades quite a bit stronger.

At long range he does, so CR90s for sure, and AFMKIIs become the ultimate Gozanti troll. I guess I was thinking more about MC30s. I don't think he synergizes with them as well as MM or Rieekan, at least not the torp variant.

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Biggs, I love you like a brother, man, but can you please stop using it's when you mean its ?

It's its when it's owning something, while it's it's when its apostrophe is indicating a contraction.

You're a paramedic - you know about contractions, right?

:)

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Yeah, I love what Tagge does to the lightning-fast Demo IO triple tap--I just hope he's good enough in the general case to make him worth taking for the guy taking him, beyond just hosing the current iteration of the Demo.

Still not quite sold on Cracken... I'll have to see him on the table a couple times to form an opinion on him. A poor man's evade is a good way to describe it, because it's definitely much less good than evade, being untargeted (that is, can't use it to selectively shwack a TRC double or whatever). Good, yeah, but I don't see it being great.

I feel the same way. I guess this would be a good general for someone that is running all TRCs, so evades are only used for offense. Otherwise I would still stick with Mon Mothma or Rieekan.

Evades lose power as the dice pool grows. If anything Cracken makes Evades quite a bit stronger.

At long range he does, so CR90s for sure, and AFMKIIs become the ultimate Gozanti troll. I guess I was thinking more about MC30s. I don't think he synergizes with them as well as MM or Rieekan, at least not the torp variant.

Cracken and TRC90s are a perfect match. the TRC90 doesn't have much reason to get any closer than long range, so Mon Mothma doesn't really do much for them except allow them to be a little riskier. Cracken allows them to stay at long range while still gaining a benefit from the commander.