Honestly, once Ard posted his thoughts and I made my own variant and tried it out, I think that's for sure the rebel way to go if you do no squadrons.

Same. It's a brilliant concept than can be tweaked for your meta very easily

From our group's experiences, squads are balanced. My complaint with them is that they gum up the board and defintely add a LOT to playtime. When both sides have 10+ squads the game can take too long to play and just moving one ship is like playing 1950s Operation game with a blindfold on. Very taxing and often not fun.

Add the 4 or more new squad keywords in wave 5 and just figuring out the situations every squad activation will require more time. Im still an advocate of lowering the max squads allowed to somewhere around 80. Its simple for me, I'd have the most fun playing when there arent a lot of squads in the game.

Yeah, and to be the opposing voice from Thraug - From our group's experiences, squads are balanced and fun to play. Even when theyre's 10+ on each side...

My biggest slowdowns come when my opponent has 5+ ships in play, and agonizes over every possible click of the maneuver tool for every ship activation he has to take... And it doesn't seem to be a linear curve either, the more ships, the radically longer each ship tends to take, because the ships get lighter and death is but one mis-move away....

When you practice with squadrons, you get better with them. Placing them, picking them up, moving them, not knocking them... It just gets easier with practice.

I got burned by a lack of fighters in my most recent tournament, where I ran a capital ship heavy Rebel fleet with a CAP of 2 YT2400s, Tycho and an A-wing. Worked ok until I ran into a six Gozanti 10 TIE bomber monstrosity of a list!

Also, given the large numbers of squadrons a lot of people put on the table there is a benefit in being able to take them out for extra points. I am trying to use more Imperial fighters now, initially started with 10 to be silly and I am finding about 6 well chosen anti-squadron fighters including some aces is quite effective.

Fighters are here to stay, I just need to get more practice with them to use them to their best effect!

Raiders have a weird rep on the forums

Evidently, not many have seen them scythe through entire squadron compliments

I regularly run with a pair of Raiders in a list. Depending on the enemy composition, I can either run them as flankers against a ship heavy force, or together with 4 or 5 TIEs to just plough through squadrons. Love that flexibility.

Yeah, and to be the opposing voice from Thraug - From our group's experiences, squads are balanced and fun to play. Even when theyre's 10+ on each side...

My biggest slowdowns come when my opponent has 5+ ships in play, and agonizes over every possible click of the maneuver tool for every ship activation he has to take... And it doesn't seem to be a linear curve either, the more ships, the radically longer each ship tends to take, because the ships get lighter and death is but one mis-move away....

When you practice with squadrons, you get better with them. Placing them, picking them up, moving them, not knocking them... It just gets easier with practice.

I also really like the fighter aspect of the game and have a similar experience to this ^^

However I do think the rebels fighter options are a bit behind the curve at the moment. Dengar, howlrunner, mithel, Vader etc make a mean combo that's seriously hard to beat, and I am really hoping the advent of wave 5 and the CC will rebalance this a little and give us other options than the balling them all together every time.

The only thing I would add though, is you can massively lose the squadron battle and yet still win the war.

I feel like fighters and small ships are ruling the universe right now.

I keep ramming my Imperial-cap head against that wall, hoping to find some cap ship combination that isn't to the mercy of Yavaris, DeMSU, or Flotilla spam. My dream is someday to have my VSD IIs and ISD list viable again in some way. Those days were fun, before Ackbar ruined it.

10+ fighter games have been completely dragged out. Any sort of dedicated consideration to the efficacy of that number of squads with a myriad of restrictions and keywords takes time and aggravation. Absolute disagreement to drasnighta. Who seems to have tailor made his response to be irritating and dismissive to possible other opinions.

10+ fighter games have been completely dragged out. Any sort of dedicated consideration to the efficacy of that number of squads with a myriad of restrictions and keywords takes time and aggravation. Absolute disagreement to drasnighta. Who seems to have tailor made his response to be irritating and dismissive to possible other opinions.

Seems a bit harsh to be fair. His response wasn't overtly antagonistic. Moreover, I agreed with him...

Anyway, I do acknowledge the Imperials have the trickier squad interactions, with Howl adding a dice to those within 1 range, Swarm needing another engaged to give a reroll, Dengar distance 1-2, Soontir, etc. It's definitely not easy. Hopefully some of Wave 5 and the CC will shake that ball up a bit and make it less appealing to form.

My friend always slow rolls some carrier Vics and about 134 pts of Deng/Howl/rhymerball straight at me. I hate it.

Should be easy to counter then...

I've felt for some time you don't see some answers that are already in the game due to cost. Why would you want 8 plus R&V packs to get some builds? You might want them, but people aren't spending that money.

But starting shortly, Maybe you won't see 8 YT2400's, but something like 2x YT2400's, Hera's Ghost, 2 normal Xwings, Rogue Squadron, and Han isn't a bad look, and roughly as efficient for a little less cost.

*Looks woefully at the 3 extra R&V packs he bought to take 6 YT-2400*

I got burned by a lack of fighters in my most recent tournament, where I ran a capital ship heavy Rebel fleet with a CAP of 2 YT2400s, Tycho and an A-wing. Worked ok until I ran into a six Gozanti 10 TIE bomber monstrosity of a list!

I was probably pretty lucky with dice rolls though and it was almost entirely a bomber force, so AS fire was minimal (except the usual DV shenanigans).

it require a better Admiral with good tactics to lead the combined strike of squadrons and ships.

Isn't that, kinda, the whole point of the game?

The release schedule may have hampered it until now, but for me, the entire original intention of the game was a 'fleet battle' (it even says that on the box) and fleets consist of ships and squads - whoever brings and manages the correct mix in the best way wins.

I find the rebel squadron design tack in this game to be a bit iffy but perhaps the new keywords will help them with more generic support for them. The rhymer ball is so efficient compared to the rebel options..

I also think that clicking the fighter bases when they have to get pretty close together is a pain in the ass and i'm not sure how I would do it better though.

Absolute disagreement to drasnighta. Who seems to have tailor made his response to be irritating and dismissive to possible other opinions.

Irritating and dismissive would be saying:

"Hey, Blail. I love how you singled me out, but you just need more Practice, because you're Wrong. The Wrongest of the Wrongest of the Wrongest of Wrongland."

But you know, I said nothing of the such to anyone.

...

Instead, I stated the opinion of my gaming group - - and I did so in such a way as to jokingly mirror the opinion of Thraug directly above me.

So, if you're going to call me out as irritating and dismissive, then call us both out. Not just the one who disagrees with you.

That being said, I have no problem with being an arsehole if I must, to get my point across... I mean, if I'm going to be hung as one, might as well be one in the meantime.

I got burned by a lack of fighters in my most recent tournament, where I ran a capital ship heavy Rebel fleet with a CAP of 2 YT2400s, Tycho and an A-wing. Worked ok until I ran into a six Gozanti 10 TIE bomber monstrosity of a list!

I ran 4 vanilla A-Wings against a similar list and was really happy with how well they performed. I just dropped them in a wide circle around the Rhymerball and let them hold everything up for a few turns. Dengar can only unpin a few at a time.

I was probably pretty lucky with dice rolls though and it was almost entirely a bomber force, so AS fire was minimal (except the usual DV shenanigans).

That was the same list at the London Masters! Yeah I managed to hold up fighters in previous games but just couldn't deal with the numbers in this one - and activation advantage meant he could move them when needed. I am now quite happy to trade a bit of anti-ship capability on my fleet to deal with those pesky squadron balls! Then they just become more points for me...

I find the rebel squadron design tack in this game to be a bit iffy but perhaps the new keywords will help them with more generic support for them. The rhymer ball is so efficient compared to the rebel options..

I also think that clicking the fighter bases when they have to get pretty close together is a pain in the ass and i'm not sure how I would do it better though.

Rhymerballs arent any more efficient. Like all things dark side it's just easier. Yavaris is the Rebel equivalent. Where Rhymer gives you persistence, Yavaris gives you burst. It is easy to line up? No. Does it do a hell of a lot more damage than a Rhymerball when you do it right? Absolutely.

Now in the fighter fight, the Imperials have long had the upper hand, with Yavaris being just about the only way to remotely keep up with Howl and Flight Controllers and Mauler and Fel and...sorry my PTSD is kicking in from all the blue dice and auto damage. Give me a second. OK, where was I? Ah yes. Ass loads of Imperial damage. The main problem for Rebels has always been weathering that initial storm. They have the speed to almost always alpha strike, so even if you have Yavaris, you have to live long enough to attack bad. Rieekan has always helped this to a degree.

I'm happy to say that the Trench Buddies© are now here to help. Biggs changes this dynamic significantly when paired with Rieekan and Luke and Wedge. The three of them can cover pretty much every angle of attack, keeping their bombers safe, so when the alpha strike comes, they're going to take the brunt of the attack. Spreading the damage around is only part of the beauty of Biggs. He shines mainly when one of Trench Buddies© dies. You then start shoving as much damage at that Rieekan zombie as humanly possible.

For example, this is how it worked out for me. I had a nice little ball of Howlrunner, Mauler, and two Interceptors thrown my way. Mauler did his thing and then the dice started flying, with Biggs as the primary target. He braced everything he could and pushed it to Wedge and Luke until the last attack. He was down to one hit point and got tagged with five damage from an Interceptor. I then replied in kind, killing an Interceptor with Biggs (two more damage from counter goes to his zombified ass), scorching Howl with Wedge and taking down Mauler with combined fire from Jan and Luke. I should note I had the assistance of Flight Controllers and Toryn Farr for all of this. The Imperial player wasn't quite done and managed to push a couple more TIEs into the fight, targeting a fairly weak Luke. They each only managed two damage a piece. Guess what? Brace and throw that damage down the zombie hole.

I find the rebel squadron design tack in this game to be a bit iffy but perhaps the new keywords will help them with more generic support for them. The rhymer ball is so efficient compared to the rebel options..

I also think that clicking the fighter bases when they have to get pretty close together is a pain in the ass and i'm not sure how I would do it better though.

Track on the fighter card itself.... but that requires enough cards for each fighter in a pack and more space to lay out said cards and enough differentiation markers... so it kinda becomes more effort...

That was the same list at the London Masters! Yeah I managed to hold up fighters in previous games but just couldn't deal with the numbers in this one - and activation advantage meant he could move them when needed. I am now quite happy to trade a bit of anti-ship capability on my fleet to deal with those pesky squadron balls! Then they just become more points for me...

Did we play each other that day?

10+ fighter games have been completely dragged out. Any sort of dedicated consideration to the efficacy of that number of squads with a myriad of restrictions and keywords takes time and aggravation. Absolute disagreement to drasnighta. Who seems to have tailor made his response to be irritating and dismissive to possible other opinions.

What are you talking about? I played a 20 squadron game and finished on time because we have practiced how our fleet runs and know all the keywords so we don't need to reference the card all the time. It appears you are being dismissive of other opinions with your grand claim "Any sort of dedicated consideration to the efficacy of that number of squads with a myriad of restrictions and keywords takes time and aggravation."

You don't need to like squads or play them, but respect your opponent if they bring 10 squads because it is perfectly acceptable to run 134 points of squads.

I find the rebel squadron design tack in this game to be a bit iffy but perhaps the new keywords will help them with more generic support for them. The rhymer ball is so efficient compared to the rebel options..

I also think that clicking the fighter bases when they have to get pretty close together is a pain in the ass and i'm not sure how I would do it better though.

Rhymerballs arent any more efficient. Like all things dark side it's just easier. Yavaris is the Rebel equivalent. Where Rhymer gives you persistence, Yavaris gives you burst. It is easy to line up? No. Does it do a hell of a lot more damage than a Rhymerball when you do it right? Absolutely.

Yavaris requires you to take a really fragile and pricey neb B into the thick of things and there's not a lot you can to do protect it- a yavaris that does enough to work actually loses a trade with demo.

I find the rebel squadron design tack in this game to be a bit iffy but perhaps the new keywords will help them with more generic support for them. The rhymer ball is so efficient compared to the rebel options..

I also think that clicking the fighter bases when they have to get pretty close together is a pain in the ass and i'm not sure how I would do it better though.

Rhymerballs arent any more efficient. Like all things dark side it's just easier. Yavaris is the Rebel equivalent. Where Rhymer gives you persistence, Yavaris gives you burst. It is easy to line up? No. Does it do a hell of a lot more damage than a Rhymerball when you do it right? Absolutely.

Yavaris requires you to take a really fragile and pricey neb B into the thick of things and there's not a lot you can to do protect it- a yavaris that does enough to work actually loses a trade with demo.

I mean, Rhymer is pretty easy to kill, too. That is also a fragile platform. And sure, you can take some Advanceds, but then you are trading bombers for protecting Rhymer. Plus, Yavaris has his bro Rieekan to ensure probably getting two turns of squadron murder.

I find the rebel squadron design tack in this game to be a bit iffy but perhaps the new keywords will help them with more generic support for them. The rhymer ball is so efficient compared to the rebel options..

I also think that clicking the fighter bases when they have to get pretty close together is a pain in the ass and i'm not sure how I would do it better though.

Rhymerballs arent any more efficient. Like all things dark side it's just easier. Yavaris is the Rebel equivalent. Where Rhymer gives you persistence, Yavaris gives you burst. It is easy to line up? No. Does it do a hell of a lot more damage than a Rhymerball when you do it right? Absolutely.

Yavaris requires you to take a really fragile and pricey neb B into the thick of things and there's not a lot you can to do protect it- a yavaris that does enough to work actually loses a trade with demo.

Fly a Neb right and it's durable as all hell for the points. Pair it with Rieekan and I can guarantee two turns of double taps. Hence my statement that it's harder than a Rhymerball, though.

10+ fighter games have been completely dragged out. Any sort of dedicated consideration to the efficacy of that number of squads with a myriad of restrictions and keywords takes time and aggravation.

This... I have games that now go over 3 hours because I have a buddy that routinely brings over 10 squadrons every game. After feeding one too many of my ships to his b-wings I have decided to add an anti squadron wing to my fleets. And now every game is 2+ hours of moving squadrons back and forth and agonizing over every flipping millimeter while squads kill each other, then maybe turns 4/5/6 see some ACTUAL capital ship combat (what a concept for a game built around capital ships!?!) I don't play x-wing, and I don't WANT to play x-wing. Stop turning Armada into X-wing with smaller models!!!

I still don't get stories like this. I've routinely brought 8 squadrons almost the entire time I've played Armada (yes, even in wave one because I like pain). I've never come close to the time cap. What exactly is happening that slows your game down so much? Biggs and I finished our Regionals match in a little over an hour. There were around 16 or so squadrons on the table if I remember correctly (I brought eight, how many did you bring Biggs? 8 or 10?). I spend more time agonizing over ship movement than squadron movement.