Sure, the beauty of this game is that nothing is truly "dead" but naturally some things become less viable or at least lest consistently competitive.

Tournaments are in Swiss rounds and you are much more likely to place high and win if you are consistent and the advantage of the scatter carrier philosophy is that no matter what you face you are highly unlikely to get tabled, even a counter-squadron build will likely grind to a stalemate.

All this being said I have a couple of squadronless builds i'm still going to try out

Not getting tabled isnt good enough. And scatter carriers are easy to blow up if you put a little effort in.

Allbuilds are viable in my opinion, as long as the build is cohesive, thats all that matters.

Personally I enjoy that squadrons are an optional component of the game. People seem to do well who use zero or only a tiny amount, and some people swear by maxing them out. I think that's pretty cool that you can be competitive but play what you want.

All builds are indeed viable, but most seem to require at least a SLIGHT acknowledgment of squadrons on the opposing side. The easiest way to do this is with a few rogues who don't require you to build or fly your ships in a supporting fashion.

I also don't like how we seem to get WAY more squadron options than ship options. Once wave 5 hits, the Empire is going to have 31 different squadron cards and only 14 ship cards.

In a game where only 1/3rd of your fleet can be squadrons, I think you should have that same proportion of squadron options, but the balance of ship variety is skewed the other direction. There are ship upgrades, but those don't "feel" like the kind of variety that whole new ships or squadrons do. So between the 45 ship and squadron cards available, less than 1/3rd are for ships, and that annoys me.

All builds are indeed viable, but most seem to require at least a SLIGHT acknowledgment of squadrons on the opposing side. The easiest way to do this is with a few rogues who don't require you to build or fly your ships in a supporting fashion.

I also don't like how we seem to get WAY more squadron options than ship options. Once wave 5 hits, the Empire is going to have 31 different squadron cards and only 14 ship cards.

In a game where only 1/3rd of your fleet can be squadrons, I think you should have that same proportion of squadron options, but the balance of ship variety is skewed the other direction. There are ship upgrades, but those don't "feel" like the kind of variety that whole new ships or squadrons do. So between the 45 ship and squadron cards available, less than 1/3rd are for ships, and that annoys me.

Interesting Point.

But how does it stack up if you consider a Single Unique "Squadron Ace" card as the equivelant of a Ship with a Title?

I mean, that effectively increases the ISD from... 2 (an ISD-1, or ISD-2), to an ISD-1, an ISD-2, an Avenger, a Relentless, or a Devestator... From 2 to 5... because they're unique variations of ships... (And I'm nto further breaking down into both flavours each havinv the upgrade, as they are unique, for 5 - rather than the potential 8....)

I use token squadrons in almost any build. Mostly they're there as a screening force. The big guns still have to do the Lord's work.

The big guns still have to do the Lord's work.

Vader?

The big guns still have to do the Lord's work.

Vader?

More like GrandMoffMatt's

The big guns still have to do the Lord's work.

Vader?

More like GrandMoffMatt's

Jeez, I'm out of it for a little while and everyone gets delusions of grandeur!

@crabbok. Interesting, never thought of it that way. I suppose it helps that ships are customizable to a large degree, whereas squadrons are not. I suppose it's much easier to design new squadrons as opposed to ships where you have to factor in how upgrades will affect the final builds. There can be a big difference in how the same ship in two builds is used and behaves on the table based on admirals and upgrades. Still, maybe it wouldn't hurt to see more variations of existing ships, it would help people find that one build that really fits what they want in the game.

The big guns still have to do the Lord's work.

Vader?

More like GrandMoffMatt's

Jeez, I'm out of it for a little while and everyone gets delusions of grandeur!

Fun fact. I ALWAYS have delusions of grandeur. Hence the name.

Sure, the beauty of this game is that nothing is truly "dead" but naturally some things become less viable or at least lest consistently competitive.

Tournaments are in Swiss rounds and you are much more likely to place high and win if you are consistent and the advantage of the scatter carrier philosophy is that no matter what you face you are highly unlikely to get tabled, even a counter-squadron build will likely grind to a stalemate.

All this being said I have a couple of squadronless builds i'm still going to try out

Not getting tabled isnt good enough. And scatter carriers are easy to blow up if you put a little effort in.

Allbuilds are viable in my opinion, as long as the build is cohesive, thats all that matters.

Are they easy to blow up tho? Funny, guy that won the tourney went up against 3 different types of fleets including an ISD/Dictor Rhymerball fleet and he only ever seemed to lose 1 flot and maybe a few squads. He 10-1d the guy with a no squad fleet and lost almost nothing. In other games I watched desperate demolisher front arcs praying for a lucky accuracy to land anything on a flotilla. If you aren't twice lucky (once to catch the thing and twice to get that accuracy) you need to build for accuracy now and that digs into the holy grail of building for "lords big guns" or naked ships with lots of activations.

My concern is now that the meta has shifted a little too much towards squads, perhaps its an overcorrection from squads being a footnote in the very early waves? Wave 5 might fix that a bit by giving a wider range of options on how and what squads to field and lowering the minimum investment required to "survive" and overcome heavy squad builds.

Who knows?

All I know is that as someone who enjoys playing squadless fleets every so often I would now not even consider taking a squadronless fleet to Nationals. It just won't fly.

Edit: Interesting add would be something like a lancer frigate as dedicated anti-squad for people that just refuse to do squads. Would be a fragile ship with limited ship to ship ability of moderrate to low point cost with a red AS die. Yes! that would be so cool!

Flotillas blow up as long as something not a flotilla concentrates on them. Yeah you might not get an accuracy or you might think that it's a waste to use a corvette to kill one, but as flotillas become central to fighter strategies shooting at them is no longer a waste. Always send something speed 4 at them which means even if they try to hide you can probably get a shot off on them turn 2. If all else fails either save a gunnery team shot from something big for them or ram them. In a tourney I played this past Saturday it seems like everyone lost a flotilla to deliberate ramming.

A little history/math around squadrons:

Squadrons designed to be anti-ship (notice I'm not saying bomber as not all bomber keyword squadrons are anti-ship) have a higher damage per point ratio than most every ship. The noticeable exception is the Gladiator I at close range. Otherwise, B-wings are more cost efficient. Squadrons that are anti-squadron tend to have very low anti-ship damage per point ratio. The TIE interceptor is incredibly low in this regard. TIE fighters are slightly below average, d-wings below average and A-wings the closest to average damage per point cost of all squadrons.

What does this mean? The core set came out and for roughly 6 months was all there was. This meant the only squadrons were x-wings and TIE fighters. Players who ran squadron heavy in this era where at a slight disadvantage as squadrons have a larger learning curve and the available ones not point effective vs capitals.

Wave 1 finally arrived and people initially seemed to run a mix of squadrons and capitals. But it didn't take too long to run all Gladiator lists with Demo and no squadrons. Anyone running too many squadrons that were poor vs ships got demolished. The Rhymer balls had problems as once you bought a ball and two carriers that's all there was. If you got the two carriers the opponent was tabled.

But all was not bleak for squadrons. People who paid attention to the anti-ship balance of their squadron forces, knew how to place squadrons ahead of oncoming ships and practiced using squadrons without excessive squadron command usage saw success. Some notable squadron lists were the 9 Y-wing list that ate Demo lists quite effectively and the second place Gencon list that ran 3 awings. These were AFM2 lists. Several of us advocated and ran 4 activation Yavaris B-wing lists with local success. They took practiced sometimes tricky flying but could eat a Demolisher at the end of the round. By the end of wave 1 numerous people were finally catching on to a-wings due to their speed, decent anti-squadron, and okay anti-ship stats. Their heyday was short lived as wave 2 arrived with Intel negating counter fairly effectively.

With wave 2 the boards forgot demo lists for a time and Rhymer balls of various flavors became predominant. Which lasted until Demo was resurrected as Clonisher with 4 raiders. Which brings us to today. The 400 point list cap made carriers more viable as the no ship lists had usually another ship to eat through and squadron usage overall improved. Some of us continued to the raw efficiency of wave 1 squadrons, but many appreciated the ease of use the Rogue keyword provided. With the latest set of tools I think the biggest plus is that there are tools for squadrons to be used in a variety of ways. So it's less about learning a "correct" way and more about picking up the tools that enable your particular style.

So I can learn from it that playing competitive ruins not only every game but also Armada, because you ditch the very scenric squadrons totgether with half the Star Wars feeling because they are not "competitive"?

I ditch them because I play X-Wing so if I want X-Wings etc, I had a whole game designed around them. I like Armada for the big ships. Also they happen to be overcosted in this game.

I don't think I've ever seen a game so completely lost before the start of turn one......

I've always enjoyed taking FA if offered the option as first player, it's bloody, fast and if you have the right fleet winnable very early on. I used to play a twin AF,twin CR90 + bomber ackbar list, so it liked the opportunity to deploys its heavies and bombers within a turn one strike range.....CR90s could wing it up so fast as to get in support distance for round two firing......

So I can learn from it that playing competitive ruins not only every game but also Armada, because you ditch the very scenric squadrons totgether with half the Star Wars feeling because they are not "competitive"?

I ditch them because I play X-Wing so if I want X-Wings etc, I had a whole game designed around them. I like Armada for the big ships. Also they happen to be overcosted in this game.

Where have you people been for all the rhymerballing of the last year? And all of the yt-2400ing that followed?

I've beaten Rhymer twice. granted it was lack of experience on the part of the opponent, but we were both really just getting back into playing.

Just to throw my hat in the ring.

I picked fleet ambush against Clons engine teching corvettes.

As others have stated, his force was split and you could pound him with everything you had. I havent found fleet ambush to be beneficial for the ambusher yet, as it seems to always result in a situation like this. I like to take it as an objective in my list and hope that second player picks it. I have never seen anyone win who had to deploy part of their fleet in the box

As others have stated, his force was split and you could pound him with everything you had. I havent found fleet ambush to be beneficial for the ambusher yet, as it seems to always result in a situation like this. I like to take it as an objective in my list and hope that second player picks it. I have never seen anyone win who had to deploy part of their fleet in the box

I think you might be getting ambusher and ambushee mixed up there. A common mistake, since it's pretty hard to tell who's ambushing whom.

I've picked my opponent's FA as second player before. The most spectacular was when I was playing AF/AF/Yavaris and Garm with B-wings; he was running MC80/AF/AF with Ackbar and no fighters. I killed Ackbar's flagship AF2 on the first activation of the first round with Yavaris and 3 double tapping B-wings. That's the danger of taking FA: there are several opponent builds that can punish you for having it, and those are the only people who are going to pick it.

I've picked my opponent's FA as second player before. The most spectacular was when I was playing AF/AF/Yavaris and Garm with B-wings; he was running MC80/AF/AF with Ackbar and no fighters. I killed Ackbar's flagship AF2 on the first activation of the first round with Yavaris and 3 double tapping B-wings. That's the danger of taking FA: there are several opponent builds that can punish you for having it, and those are the only people who are going to pick it.

I assume that you meant selecting FA as first player. I also have several fleet ambush stories, the most recent one was GenCon where I was given first player and selected Fleet Ambush with my ISD1/ISD1/RDR1/RDR1/RDR1 squadronless fleet against AF/AF fleet with Rieekan Aces. Both AFs were on a table before I needed to place my first ISD. I placed both ISDs in the ambush zone as close to his edge as possible, ambushed his AFs and tabled him on the first activation of the fourth round.

My favourite was Store Champs in Calgary...

I selected it when I had 5 Vics and Motti...

He had an AF, Neb, Corv and a full fighter compliment.

I started with 3 Vics already in Red Range and a pair of Vics backing htem up if they got "jumped"...

I had a ridiculous fleet ambush game at a local Store Championship. I was running a 7 TRC90 Ackbar swarm and was up against a 2 ISD Demo list, he picked first and my fleet ambush...

He lost a Mottied ISD turn 1 and ended up tabled turn 2, I think I lost 2 'vettes...

Very fast very bloody...

I had a ridiculous fleet ambush game at a local Store Championship. I was running a 7 TRC90 Ackbar swarm and was up against a 2 ISD Demo list, he picked first and my fleet ambush...

He lost a Mottied ISD turn 1 and ended up tabled turn 2, I think I lost 2 'vettes...

Very fast very bloody...

7!?

Dang. That's a lot of MC-30s to buy just for one card! Just wait until TRC ends up being a promo for next year's tournaments! lol!

I only have 3 of them at the moment. Considering a 4th.... but 7?

I had a ridiculous fleet ambush game at a local Store Championship. I was running a 7 TRC90 Ackbar swarm and was up against a 2 ISD Demo list, he picked first and my fleet ambush...

He lost a Mottied ISD turn 1 and ended up tabled turn 2, I think I lost 2 'vettes...

Very fast very bloody...

7!?

Dang. That's a lot of MC-30s to buy just for one card! Just wait until TRC ends up being a promo for next year's tournaments! lol!

I only have 3 of them at the moment. Considering a 4th.... but 7?

I know people who were buying the Box for $30, selling APTs for $10. Selling the rest of the cards for $5 and then the ship by itself for $10.

Which meant they paid $5 for TRCs. And were happy with it.

I had a ridiculous fleet ambush game at a local Store Championship. I was running a 7 TRC90 Ackbar swarm and was up against a 2 ISD Demo list, he picked first and my fleet ambush...

He lost a Mottied ISD turn 1 and ended up tabled turn 2, I think I lost 2 'vettes...

Very fast very bloody...

7!?

Dang. That's a lot of MC-30s to buy just for one card! Just wait until TRC ends up being a promo for next year's tournaments! lol!

I only have 3 of them at the moment. Considering a 4th.... but 7?

I only have 3 as well, ended up borrowing the other 4.