And the other 4 showed up with their X-Wing collection?

I mean, I can tell you, at least Anecdotally - That yesterday at the Edmonton Regionals, 6 of 10 Fleets were No Squadrons.

Now i'm curious. What kinds of fleets did they bring?

I mean, I can tell you, at least Anecdotally - That yesterday at the Edmonton Regionals, 6 of 10 Fleets were No Squadrons.

And how did those do?

The winningest single fleet archetype of Regionals was Rhymerball. The winningest fleets against it teneded to have hard answers to Rhymerball lists, usually in the form of another squadrons or yet another Rhymerball. At nationals, the two top tables were a Rhymerball and a YT-2400 swarm.

Competitive lists don't just require squadrons, they require nearly maxed out squadron points. And that's a serious issue for game balance.

I don't know the numbers and compositions for the Edmonton Regionals (and I was there, middle of the pack at 5th spot) but yeah, it was squadron light*. I think there were 6 lists with fighters out of 13-14 initial fleets entered, 2-3 dropped. Granted, the winner did have a 'fireball-esque' variety of Rhymer ball (played him first round and he murdered me on the token front of an otherwise positional battle. it was great fun and he's a great sport!) but he got first spot with equal tournament points and won on total MOV by a slim margin if I understand correctly. But no, squadrons didn't "dominate". In the event of absolute statements, said position tends to only hold water in the speaker's immediate area.

I had X-wings and A-wings backed by Yavaris: I fed them piecemeal to a superior force in one case, I had them cull a dedicated Rhymerball in the second, then I had them cut up a token force in the third. The only reason my squadrons were effective force against ships in the third game is they went after wounded small ships and then pecked away at a slow-moving Star Destroyer until the end of the game.

*If memory serves there was also an interesting force (3 YT2400's and 3 H6, I don't remember seeing it actually played to be honest, so it may have been an alt or drop), 1 Rhymerball (3 bombers, rhymer, a jumpmaster, and an advanced), the said fireball list (3 Firespray, Rhymer, a bomber, Vader, and Dengar), a token force (Bosk and an Advanced), and my force (3 X-wings and 2 A-wings). I know there was one more heavy Rebel list going into the second round at least but while I could speculate given past tournaments, I really am not sure about its exact composition.

Post Scriptum: I think second place was a no-squadron build. I'd have to ask him to get a confirmation.

I mean, I can tell you, at least Anecdotally - That yesterday at the Edmonton Regionals, 6 of 10 Fleets were No Squadrons.

And how did those do?

The winningest single fleet archetype of Regionals was Rhymerball. The winningest fleets against it teneded to have hard answers to Rhymerball lists, usually in the form of another squadrons or yet another Rhymerball. At nationals, the two top tables were a Rhymerball and a YT-2400 swarm.

Competitive lists don't just require squadrons, they require nearly maxed out squadron points. And that's a serious issue for game balance.

I did some additional regional data analysis based on Shmitty's data and the percentage of winning/top-4 Rhymerballs was dropping in the late regional season.

And a bit of anecdotal data - I do fly a squadronless fleet competitively and did pretty well with it during regionals. So the statement that competitive fleets are required to have maxed out squadrons may be a bit too broad.

Both the ISD, Raiders and MC80 have 2 dice of Anti-Squadron, then there are the forgotten few, that because they cost a few points more are often not used.

You can also add any of the Flotillas, the GR75 Combat Retrofit and the Gozanti Assault Carriers both pack a blue Anti-Squadron dice for <30 points, which makes them somewhat more efficient than a Nebulon or GSD-II as you get an activation extra.

Cactus. Please reserve judgement till you see the vassal tourney unfold. You will be surprised.

I play ARMADA. I play with BIG SHIPS. The over-emphasis of squadrons makes me absolutely furious, especially when half the Imperial squadrons are useless and the other half are either not lore-appropriate or accused of abuse/cheese.

I would much rather play a 300 point game that banned squadrons outright than a 300 point game of Armada and a 100 point game of X-Wing simultaneously.

Like the Dude would say: That's just, like, your opinion, man.

Me personally, I play Armada so that I can finally make my own Battle of Endor or the like. If you watch the movie again, you'll see that there was a big emphasis on the fighters dogfighting. If the game didn't include any fighter squadrons whatsoever, it would not feel like Star Wars, because they're part of the theme, they were an important part of the battles.

Star Wars space battle were inspired by WWII dogfighting. Capital ship battle is like the Pacific war: Big Battleship, Cruisers, Destroyers and, more importantly, Aircraft Carrier. Think of your Star Destroyer or MC80 as if they were Aircraft Carrier with Battleship guns. Making a Star Wars fleet battle game without squadrons would just be like making a Pacific fleet battle game without squadrons, it would feel wrong.

Just throwing in my two cents, I personally don't like squadrons because they feel very shallow mechanically and strategically. Their ability to move in any direction and lack of facing means the only interesting decision you're going to be making is how and when to turn them on and which ones to bring in the first place. The existence of rogues, Intel, and Rhymer dumbs these (already pretty basic) decisions down significantly, and the addition of cheap squadron activations and Bomber Command Center in wave 3 is going to make it even easier.

I don't really have any suggestions for what would have been better. I just don't like squadrons.

Just throwing in my two cents, I personally don't like squadrons because they feel very shallow mechanically and strategically. Their ability to move in any direction and lack of facing means the only interesting decision you're going to be making is how and when to turn them on and which ones to bring in the first place. The existence of rogues, Intel, and Rhymer dumbs these (already pretty basic) decisions down significantly, and the addition of cheap squadron activations and Bomber Command Center in wave 3 is going to make it even easier.

I don't really have any suggestions for what would have been better. I just don't like squadrons.

I think that they are a great addition to the game.

Mechanically speaking, they represent squadron of fighters. They are so much more maneuvrable and faster than a Capital ship that it only makes sense to not give them facing and allow them to go in every direction. They can't be flanked because they see other squadrons coming from miles so can reajust position accordingly. You have to visualize that when 2 squadrons engaged themselves, they are not just shooting at each other from their position, but engaged in a dogfight maneuvring against each other; the flanking happens there. Basically, when 2 squadrons engaged, think that you could zoom in and a game of X-Wing would happen. But instead of taking 1h15 to play the X-Wing game, you just roll your attack and see the result. Basic abstract rules so that the focus doesn't move from a Capital ship game to a squadron game. They are one more tool that a fleet commander can use, but still not the main focus of the game.

Strategically speaking, they serve multiple roles. They can defend your Capital ship by staying near them to deny the opponent the ability to bombard them with their own squadrons; They can Intercept other fighters to protect their own Bombers; They can intercept your opponent Bombers; They can attack your opponent ship to strip tokens or shield before firing with your big guns. Using your squadrons is a game within the game. Think about the fleet Commander ordering those squadron around: ''Enemy Tie Bombers incoming! Green Squadron, move in to intercept! Rogue Squadron, protect our flank in case some Tie Bombers make it through! Gold Squadron, prepare your bombing run against their Star Destroyer while Blue Squadron occupy those Tie Interceptor!''

Wow ... sure is an interesting brand of anti-squadron ]<00laid in this thread.

Don't like squadrons? Don't fly them. Pretty simple. There's plenty of examples where squadron light or squadron-less lists have done fine. Such a list placed 2nd or 3rd in the tournament I was at this weekend. Heck I've fielded tho kind of lists before and they can work.