Why are your GR75's with repair crews in range of enemy guns? At all times I would keep my bigger ships in between the enemy and my support ships ideally with my support ships in range of my bigger ships and out of range of enemy ships.
They have to stay at distance 2. The ships that they benefit tend to be slower. So avoiding combat for more than a single turn is difficult if not impossible.
Besides, even if flotillas with repair crews are in enemy range along with your big ship/s, an opposing player firing at them instead of the big ship is surely a win? Or at least it allows your big ship to press on unmolested whilst the enemy try and get your GR75 scatter token exhausted/ discarded.
My thoughts on the Flotillas are that outside of Riekaan, they can only be effective when their abilities effect ships at Distance 5. There are almost no situations where you want a Flotilla activating before a ship that has targets in range, especially if they have not activated yet..
I disagree. Distance 3 is in blue range so you can move to Distance 3 of a ship, let's say the Gladiator, on a side arc of course, and use slicer tools
I didn't say useless for First player, just inferior
What Ginkapo states at the top of this page is first hand experience.
I agree that support Flotillas are great as second player but honestly, the first player aggressive flotillas that use squadrons, or splicer tools and tractor beams can be devastating.
Hmm. I really wish we heard more about how the flotillas ahve been working out in real play. i wanna know if i really need two. and if they really work the way we want them to. they actually... seem to be particularly targeted tools. not auto includes...
https://community.fantasyflightgames.com/topic/221637-anyone-use-flotillas/#entry2250479
Trizzo gives us some feedback from experience here.
What Ginkapo states at the top of this page is first hand experience.I didn't say useless for First player, just inferior
I haven't tried them but it seems like if your flotillas have your enemy shooting at then instead of your big ships then they're accomplishing something.
These aren't going to have the effect on the game like the ISD or assault frigates (or the wave 4 ships), mostly will be neat tricks that in the right battle come in handy. It will be fun and vary up lists for squadron pushing and all, but these aren't going to be the dominating factor in future battles.
Well, we need to examine what these ships actually are: Fleet Support.
When we look at the best support abilities in the game, they are already the ones that require the least amount of opportunity cost for the largest benefit. ECMs? Requires that you give up Advanced Projectors but has no other downsides. Boosted Comms and Expanded Hangers? What else was competing for the Offensive Retrofit slot? Demolisher? Home One? Yavaris? Salvation? Is there even a downside for those titles?
The Fleet Support upgrades basically come in two flavors: Fancy Flyers, where you need to be perfectly timed and extremely close to use the effects, and Big Bubbles, where everything in range gets the benefit. Repair Crews is a fancy flyer -- you must be using it when your ship is already in range, and you must end your movement close to the target in order to use it again. This makes both ships obvious in their flight path. Similarly, Sensor Jammers is a Fancy Flyer, requiring you to maneuver so that you don't negatively affect your own squadrons. And of course, Slicer Tools requires you to successfully navigate to within Distance 3 or your target. Which almost always means that the ship will be lost shortly afterwards.
Comms Net and Bomber Command are Big Bubbles, and this is where their primary strength lies. By extending their effects to Distance 5, it is almost impossible to get too far away to not have the effect available for most reasonably competent fleet commanders even after the target ship or squadron you wish to benefit has moved ahead.
And this is why I think that Comms Net is the breakout star in this wave. Comms Net doesn't require fancy flying, it simply requires a basic level of planning to ensure you will still have a ship in your range to benefit. It's dirt cheap, so even if you don't use it you haven't wasted many points. You can even use it 2-3 times, starting on the very first turn in most cases.
Bomber Command has the benefit that there are no prerequisites save that the affected squadron have the Bomber keyword and be in range, but pays for that by being 4 times the cost of Comms Net. Also, with most Bombers have a 75% or better chance to hit already, I just can't see it having that big an effect.
Yep right with you there (just didn't elaborate).. they are support.. the right support type fitted with the right fleet (and with the right initiative/scenarios) will be strong, but can be risky and have some opposing lists or scenarios that could hard counter them. Different from the ISD, guppy, or wave 4 ships that just tossing one on the field will have a big effect from the previous meta.
Besides, even if flotillas with repair crews are in enemy range along with your big ship/s, an opposing player firing at them instead of the big ship is surely a win? Or at least it allows your big ship to press on unmolested whilst the enemy try and get your GR75 scatter token exhausted/ discarded.
Good point. My answer would be (as always) - it depends!
If your opponent has an ISD2 and gunnery teams then any flotilla in range is going to die as a target of opportunity shot. But against almost anything else I think this is a good risk. If you flotilla takes a medium range volley from Defiance instead of your star destroyer you are probably happy with that.
Repair crews always stuck me as redundant shields 2.0 or more so, shield projection experts 2.0. Essentially the "tank/healer" build concept that has been basically stillborn in every wave so far.
The fact is, this game tends to not seem to favour points put into reversing damage as much as points put into preventing and dealing it.
Just like certain other tools (tractor beams, Projection Experts, Ackbar come to mind) you pretty much have to build your entire fleet around the (excuse the use of the word but I can't think of a better one right now) Gimmick, and typically they are easy to spot and counter. (cue the guy who that one time built a tank fleet and won a game with it, because anecdotes)
The only reason repair crews work is that it is more efficient... One Engineering Point instead of Three...
You just have to ask yourself how often you are actually removing Damage Cards rather than Raising Shields in the first place......
If you're taking more than one Repair Crews, I'd think you'd need to handle damage done to your ship differently to get mileage out of them. Specifically, you'd need to deliberately allow the occasional damage to get through to the hull so the Repair Crews can fix it (in a roundabout way, saving you some shield points). It's still not a great plan unless you can provide easy Engineering tokens to your flotillas somehow (Tarkin, Garm, Raymus).
If you're taking more than one Repair Crews, I'd think you'd need to handle damage done to your ship differently to get mileage out of them. Specifically, you'd need to deliberately allow the occasional damage to get through to the hull so the Repair Crews can fix it (in a roundabout way, saving you some shield points). It's still not a great plan unless you can provide easy Engineering tokens to your flotillas somehow (Tarkin, Garm, Raymus).
Repair crews feels like a card intended for a tank that needs to take damage to get some ability off. The most obvious candidate I can think of is Devastator, but I'd have no idea how to keep them ready to go without either losing them or losing Devastator before they started doing work.
Guys you do realise repair crews can be used on the flotilla itself right? Basically allowing you to go aggressive with it.
If you're taking more than one Repair Crews, I'd think you'd need to handle damage done to your ship differently to get mileage out of them. Specifically, you'd need to deliberately allow the occasional damage to get through to the hull so the Repair Crews can fix it (in a roundabout way, saving you some shield points). It's still not a great plan unless you can provide easy Engineering tokens to your flotillas somehow (Tarkin, Garm, Raymus).
Repair crews feels like a card intended for a tank that needs to take damage to get some ability off. The most obvious candidate I can think of is Devastator, but I'd have no idea how to keep them ready to go without either losing them or losing Devastator before they started doing work.
I think they're also handy for ships that aren't naturally great with Redirects. Nebulon-Bs, Raiders (played more conservatively), Liberties, etc.
Guys you do realise repair crews can be used on the flotilla itself right? Basically allowing you to go aggressive with it.
That usage effectively gives it Engineering value +1 on a dial and +2 on a token (if you're only using a dial or token for the effect, it does nothing for a dial+token). I don't think that allows for a meaningful improvement in survivability if you're using a flotilla aggressively because it assumes that your flotilla has taken damage prior to its activation and survived AND that repairing one hull damage will make a meaningful difference to its future survivability AND it's worth using Repair Crews over other fleet support upgrades (all of which debuff enemies or buff friendlies) AND that somehow using a flotilla aggressively (for a ship designed for fleet support and with minimal dice contribution) is a worthwhile role for a flotilla in the first place.
So basically I'm not convinced that we're going to see tanky flotilla gunboats rocking the tournament scene supported by Repair Crews. They'd be fine as fleet support, though, it's just they're competing with all the other flotilla configurations for best value.
There are a zillion ways to sneak in some devastating crits in this game. Having a cheap way to get rid of such a crit can be really big.
Just like the Comms Net can sneak in a key token at the opportune moment.
That said, I don't see myself building a fleet around those two cards. Instead the go on flotillas that are already there for other reasons (probably to command squads).
Also, you don't have to activate a Rep Crews flotilla early for it to work. You can activate it late in the turn to get rid of a card taken during the same turn. Next turn you big striker is good to go again with an early activation.
There are a zillion ways to sneak in some devastating crits in this game. Having a cheap way to get rid of such a crit can be really big.
Just like the Comms Net can sneak in a key token at the opportune moment.
That said, I don't see myself building a fleet around those two cards. Instead the go on flotillas that are already there for other reasons (probably to command squads).
Also, you don't have to activate a Rep Crews flotilla early for it to work. You can activate it late in the turn to get rid of a card taken during the same turn. Next turn you big striker is good to go again with an early activation.
Repair Crews will really mess with Dodonna crit snipes. . .
Having played a couple of games using proxies, a GR75 transport with repair crews and expanded hangars is a flexible ship, and for only 27 points.
It frees your big ships from running squadrons AND can help a big ship out if it receives a nasty crit. Damage like ruptured engines or depowered armament can really bugger up your turn/ future turns if not sorted quickly. Our little flotilla fire engine can save the day when this happens, in addition to other duties.
I was the who played against Chris (the OP), using 3 flotillas with Repair Crews in a fleet somewhat built around them. I certainly could have flown them better, and I learned a lot on how they need to be flown, but they were just far too difficult to use properly and I always felt I would have been better off with fighting vessels. My biggest beef with them, and with most flotillas effects, is the stupidly short range at which their ability requires. For Repair Crews, the range 2 requirement forces you to cluster your ships up, something that drastically limits your movement flexibility and causes endless grief when trying to order your activations. Range 3 would have been acceptable, range 2 is too limiting.
What I did like about having 3 flotillas, and these were far more effective than their upgrade cards:
Basically, I used them as sacrificial lambs and this seemed pretty useful. I suspect putting them out front, between enemy ships and yours, will be a viable tactic. Like Chris said, scatter tokens are never used and they are only fired upon when the attacker can smoke them with a high chance of accuracy rolls, or pecking at them with squads. Overall, I'm still not impressed with flotillas. By the time you add the necessary upgrades they seem to expensive for what they do. The Fleet Support upgrades needed to be stronger or cost a lot less, preferably 1-3 points each.
Edited by ThraugI think that kind of addresses one of the original concerns people had. Running 3 of the things likely makes less sense. Running one or two? Maybe more helpful.
I am all for upgrades requiring skill and experience to play properly. That is what makes Armada good imho.
I am all for upgrades requiring skill and experience to play properly. That is what makes Armada good imho.
Yeah I get the feeling that these will be a high skill ceiling addition to any fleet, in other words, just throwing a few flotillas in and hoping things go well will be miles and miles away from someone with a practiced and deliberate strategy.
I am all for upgrades requiring skill and experience to play properly. That is what makes Armada good imho.
Yeah I get the feeling that these will be a high skill ceiling addition to any fleet, in other words, just throwing a few flotillas in and hoping things go well will be miles and miles away from someone with a practiced and deliberate strategy.
^^ This.
I had this idea that tweaking my fleets to add in flotillas would be easy.
Not so.
I had to start from scratch. Still struggling to figure them out, but a bit of playtesting has begun to give me some clues.
I finally got try flotillas yesterday night in a game where I was flying 2 VSD 1, 3 of the little buggers, tarkin and a big rhymerball. My flottilla setup was 1xBCC, 1xRC, 1xJF (would have liked slicer tools, but lack of points).
Thus, I can only speak for imperials so far, and even then my experience is extremely limited. Regardless, here's what I found:
- flotillas are good at pushing up activations: this is kind of obvious, but still a large part of the reason you field flottilas in the first place;
- they obviously are no combat ships, but (at least the imp version) they provide the sometimes needed firepower to bring a heavily damaged ship down. Surprisingly, conc fire dials and token can be quite effective on them, doubling their firepower.
- they are good, though not stellar, at pushing squadrons around: basically I dislike heavy upgrading of such light ships, so no boosted comms/ exp hangars on mine. Plus, they can't take flight controllers. YMMV on this one.
- they're best used in conjuction with slow fleets: speed 3 is nice, but it doesn't mean you want to reach it often. Tipically I fly mine covering flanks of the VSD at the same speed, and everybody here knows that VSD aren't exactly fast. While you definitely can outrun the rest of a slow fleet, being non combat ships and all suggests keeping them in formation rather than overextending with them.
- speaking of formation, I think this is a big part of the flottilla game: not only you get the nice buffs they provide on the ships that most needs them, but you get to use the little buggers as blockers too, which paired with high activation can really helps setup traps for your opponent. Yesterday I had my suppressor roadblock a demolisher on his way to my VSD and absorbing 2 of its attacks (last + first) before dieing. This bought time for my squads and VSD to soften up the demolisher so that I could kill it on my next activation, having suffered only 2 hull damage on my VSD. You need to think of flottillas as trade machines that, while not good at killing ships themselves, help other ships and squadrons doing it.
- as for fleet support upgrades, jamming field isn't stellar, but it does help if you want to run more bombers and less AA. Not that this is a rebel problem for sure 
, but having your tie bombers shielded can be nice when paired with a ship based AA. BCC is pure gold, and the main reason we'll want to field flottilas IMO. Haven't tried slicer tools yet, but as someone in this thread said, it seems it will make for a fancy flier in a different kind of list, specifically an aggressive one. Comms net I tried once and loved it, it's basically a tantive on steroids that costs less, and I already loved tantive, so what's not to like?
- specifically about the repair crews, which was the point of the whole thread, I gotta say I like them, but I can see why they won't work in certain types of fleets. In my fleet they do all the usual: push squadrons, fly in formation, roadblock, plus they can heal a VSD with a tarkin token when the time comes. If they don't, oh well, not a big deal, it's a 27 points ship my opponent had to shoot to. Even then, I wouldn't field more than 1 repair crew, both because fleet support variety is good and fun to play, and because of the difficulty of having 2+ of them all flying in formation and within range of the tanking ships. 1x is just a nice plus, a trick you can pull from your hat when a critical crippled your ship and you want to remove it but have 3 squadrons command queued 
.
I finally got try flotillas yesterday night in a game where I was flying 2 VSD 1, 3 of the little buggers, tarkin and a big rhymerball. My flottilla setup was 1xBCC, 1xRC, 1xJF (would have liked slicer tools, but lack of points).
Thus, I can only speak for imperials so far, and even then my experience is extremely limited. Regardless, here's what I found:
- flotillas are good at pushing up activations: this is kind of obvious, but still a large part of the reason you field flottilas in the first place;
- they obviously are no combat ships, but (at least the imp version) they provide the sometimes needed firepower to bring a heavily damaged ship down. Surprisingly, conc fire dials and token can be quite effective on them, doubling their firepower.
- they are good, though not stellar, at pushing squadrons around: basically I dislike heavy upgrading of such light ships, so no boosted comms/ exp hangars on mine. Plus, they can't take flight controllers. YMMV on this one.
- they're best used in conjuction with slow fleets: speed 3 is nice, but it doesn't mean you want to reach it often. Tipically I fly mine covering flanks of the VSD at the same speed, and everybody here knows that VSD aren't exactly fast. While you definitely can outrun the rest of a slow fleet, being non combat ships and all suggests keeping them in formation rather than overextending with them.
- speaking of formation, I think this is a big part of the flottilla game: not only you get the nice buffs they provide on the ships that most needs them, but you get to use the little buggers as blockers too, which paired with high activation can really helps setup traps for your opponent. Yesterday I had my suppressor roadblock a demolisher on his way to my VSD and absorbing 2 of its attacks (last + first) before dieing. This bought time for my squads and VSD to soften up the demolisher so that I could kill it on my next activation, having suffered only 2 hull damage on my VSD. You need to think of flottillas as trade machines that, while not good at killing ships themselves, help other ships and squadrons doing it.
- as for fleet support upgrades, jamming field isn't stellar, but it does help if you want to run more bombers and less AA. Not that this is a rebel problem for sure
- specifically about the repair crews, which was the point of the whole thread, I gotta say I like them, but I can see why they won't work in certain types of fleets. In my fleet they do all the usual: push squadrons, fly in formation, roadblock, plus they can heal a VSD with a tarkin token when the time comes. If they don't, oh well, not a big deal, it's a 27 points ship my opponent had to shoot to. Even then, I wouldn't field more than 1 repair crew, both because fleet support variety is good and fun to play, and because of the difficulty of having 2+ of them all flying in formation and within range of the tanking ships. 1x is just a nice plus, a trick you can pull from your hat when a critical crippled your ship and you want to remove it but have 3 squadrons command queued
Thanks for the rundown! Sounds good, and along the lines of what I was already thinking.
I'm starting to think that repair crews might actually have more impact on SMALL ships rather than large. In other words, on a small ship with garbage for engineering points (e.g. raider) where throwing an engineering command won't even ditch a card, a repair crew proc could mean the difference between life and death (repair crew for a hull point, raider throws eng for shield gen). If you take a damage card from an ISD, big deal, its less than 10% of its damage. You take one off a raider and that's 25% of its life. In high activation MSU lists where an enemy has LOTS to shoot at and a flotilla with a scatter might not be target #1....ever... it might get a TON of value from zipping around at speed 3 with repair crews. Might be something to try, anyways.
In terms of what I'm looking forward to: I'm immediately replacing the raider from my current list for a bomber-buffing gozzanti and the value-add will be frankly disgusting since the raider previously in there was basically an activation throw-away.