Here's my worlds AAR.

Major props to everyone that attended, the FFG crew, my partner Brent for the Team tournament and those that I played against. Can't wait to see y'all at the next worlds.

http://www.mantorvilleexpress.com/gaming/2016/11/07/2016-worlds-star-wars-armada/

Enjoy.

Nice AAR but I *have* to roll my eyes at yet another "oh Armada is so much better than X-wing", about the "lack of a meta" or old ships being super competitive.

First of all, X-wing is doing relatively well on a balance perspective right now, 75% of existing ships had a representative in day 2. 75% of a big selection, mind you, not 5 ships per faction. Second, you don't just pick up a meta list and do fine.

On the topic of Armada, I think there is a meta and there are combinations which are definitely more effective, but everything gets drowned out in differences in player skill, microdecisions and dice variance.

Anyone who says that there isn't a meta, doesn't get what the term actually means.

Since the term simply means knowledge about the game that isn't directly from the game itself. The fact that you're posting AAR means you're contributing to the meta.

Nice AAR but I *have* to roll my eyes at yet another "oh Armada is so much better than X-wing", about the "lack of a meta" or old ships being super competitive.

First of all, X-wing is doing relatively well on a balance perspective right now, 75% of existing ships had a representative in day 2. 75% of a big selection, mind you, not 5 ships per faction. Second, you don't just pick up a meta list and do fine.

On the topic of Armada, I think there is a meta and there are combinations which are definitely more effective, but everything gets drowned out in differences in player skill, microdecisions and dice variance.

Um no. I'm not asserting that X-Wing is worse or better, X-Wing is it's own game. I play X-Wing as well and I'm just observing, there's quite a number of ships in X-Wing that aren't competitive and that's just simply the state of affairs over in the X-Wing world. Good / bad / whatever.

I was C-Ninja's partner. That game was a blast. Before the Intel Sweep points, it was a 4 point MoV with 7 dead ships -- ISD, 2x Gozantis, MC30, Yavaris, and GR-75 -- and 7 dead squadrons scattered across both teams.

Anyone who says that there isn't a meta, doesn't get what the term actually means.

Since the term simply means knowledge about the game that isn't directly from the game itself. The fact that you're posting AAR means you're contributing to the meta.

Is there a light in the sky somewhere that lights up any time someone says something that could be perceived as a slight against X-Wing? I mean, I haven't read the article, but it seems like a rather bristly response to a semantic issue.

I agree that many times when people say, "Metagaming" they are actually invoking "Netlisting." And yes, there is a lot of Metagaming going on. Every time you talk about a game you are Metagaming. These whole forums are a smorgasbord of Metagaming. What Armada has less of is Netlisting.

What has been called, "...everything gets drowned out in differences in player skill, microdecisions and dice variance" I tend to call extraordinary balance. If a list that someone has netlisted and maxed out can be taken down by the fleet I put together based solely on the fact I like ISD's because I am a better player and make better decisions then how is that not indicative of a balanced game"? The reason there is less netlisting, then, is because it simply isn't as beneficial.

X-Wing is balanced as well, because it is preeminent game in the genre at the moment and it wouldn't have that title without some modicum of balance. The balance just feels different to Armada. And as Paula Abdul says....

but it seems like a rather bristly response to a semantic issue.

It has nothing to do with X-Wing and everything to do with people using terms they clearly don't get.

What Armada has less of is Netlisting.

Very likely, but then people should call it what it is, rather than being let to use the wrong term, until the term itself loses all meaning.

Point taken. You are correct, people should call it what it is.

However, you are currently harping on a red herring, and distracting from what the OP initially wanted to share, which was his experience of playing in an Armada tournament.

Yeah, I have to agree that tgall is not using the term 'meta' as I use it, though I will acknowledge that the term does seem to have different meanings to different people.

What he seems to identify is 'power creep', which I understand to be the idea that the new stuff is better than the old stuff. I think it's also known as 'GW marketing strategy'.

From what I've heard, flottillas were all the rage at Worlds. If that's correct, and they were proportionally overrepresented (and not just because they're cheap), then I'd say there is most definitely a 'meta', which is some non-random structure in the way people choose how to build their builds. If there is such a non-random structure, and people either follow it, or build hard-counters for it, then they are meta-gaming (ie. gaming the meta, in the hopes of advantage).

That does not mean that the game is not about tactics. It just means that it's about strategy too.

Another way I've heard the term is to talk about different structures in different locales, aka 'local metas'. For example, when I read the forum, you Rebels all talk about Yavaris. I can't even remember what Yavaris does. (It's a Nebulon-B title that does something with squadrons, right?). Well, in my locale, people don't play with Nebulons much, and when they do, they don't seem to also take squadrons much, so I have never needed to learn what the darned card is or does.

Anyway, my point is that there most definitely is a meta, both in the global sense, and in the local sense. If you want to be competitive in this game, I do think you need to be attuned to the meta: either follow it, because it does capture a dominant set of builds, or hard-counter it, and hope that you don't unbalance your list so much that you get wiped up by the guy who didn't get the meta memo of what they were supposed to bring, which just happens to be the hard counter to your list.

What's interesting is that now in 2 years we've had Imperials dominating and winning GenCon, while Rebels have won both Worlds.

What's interesting is that now in 2 years we've had Imperials dominating and winning GenCon, while Rebels have won both Worlds.

I think this speaks volumes to what mikael is saying. Play what you are good at, keep an eye on your competition and try to stay ahead of that.

I would love to have a pic of the guy's face that play tested against DeMSU for weeks and got sat across from 8 flotillas.....

What's interesting is that now in 2 years we've had Imperials dominating and winning GenCon, while Rebels have won both Worlds.

Hoth and Endor, if you will.

What's interesting is that now in 2 years we've had Imperials dominating and winning GenCon, while Rebels have won both Worlds.

I think this speaks volumes to what mikael is saying. Play what you are good at, keep an eye on your competition and try to stay ahead of that.

I would love to have a pic of the guy's face that play tested against DeMSU for weeks and got sat across from 8 flotillas.....

I think most people didn't want to face the eight gozanti menace...

But what I think was interesting with the abundance of flotillas at worlds was how differently they were used. They weren't solely squadron support, etc... There was a fair mix of flotillas pushing squadrons, flotillas there to delay activations, flotillas using comms nets to pass tokens on to bigger ships, etc...

I think if there was one thing I saw the most of was Admirals on flotillas skirting the edge of the battle to keep them alive.

I was really pleased to see the variety of lists at worlds! And while the Imperials may not have made the top 2 each day, they were represented near the top (on day 2, the next 4-5 lists after the top two were Imperial). I agree with the assertion that fleet building is currently wide open, but there definitely are trends that people see, especially in local areas.

What's interesting is that now in 2 years we've had Imperials dominating and winning GenCon, while Rebels have won both Worlds.

I think this speaks volumes to what mikael is saying. Play what you are good at, keep an eye on your competition and try to stay ahead of that.

I would love to have a pic of the guy's face that play tested against DeMSU for weeks and got sat across from 8 flotillas.....

I think most people didn't want to face the eight gozanti menace...

And yet, that list did not make it to the top.....

What's interesting is that now in 2 years we've had Imperials dominating and winning GenCon, while Rebels have won both Worlds.

I think this speaks volumes to what mikael is saying. Play what you are good at, keep an eye on your competition and try to stay ahead of that.

I would love to have a pic of the guy's face that play tested against DeMSU for weeks and got sat across from 8 flotillas.....

I think most people didn't want to face the eight gozanti menace...

And yet, that list did not make it to the top.....

How did it do? I'd love to see one of it's matches.

What's interesting is that now in 2 years we've had Imperials dominating and winning GenCon, while Rebels have won both Worlds.

I think this speaks volumes to what mikael is saying. Play what you are good at, keep an eye on your competition and try to stay ahead of that.

I would love to have a pic of the guy's face that play tested against DeMSU for weeks and got sat across from 8 flotillas.....

I think most people didn't want to face the eight gozanti menace...

And yet, that list did not make it to the top.....

How did it do? I'd love to see one of it's matches.

EDIT: Ah, apologies, it was Captain Weather, not Ironkenics.

Anyone who says that there isn't a meta, doesn't get what the term actually means.

Since the term simply means knowledge about the game that isn't directly from the game itself. The fact that you're posting AAR means you're contributing to the meta.

To be fair, OP said in his blog post: "I don’t think we have a X-Wing like meta in Armada. What we have is tactics. We have powerful abilities, but I challenge the concept of a meta as it has been recently defined" (emphasis mine).

Good post. Thank you for your insights and for generating some splendid discussion. Here are a few thoughts on the subject of the metagame.

Metagame is simply the "game within the game." Its the mental process by which a person says, "everyone else seems to be taking X, so I'll either also take X because it is extremely powerful or I'll take Y because it directly counters it." Anytime you do that, you are engaging in the metagame. Now, to be fair to the OP, he does acknowledge that the meta is as defined as in X-wing, which I think seems fair. There is just a lot of good variety between lists, and all it takes is a couple of months before people learn how to counter particularly strong combos. DeMSU had fallen out by the end of the season 2 regional season. If we're going to see lists with 3 Flotillas and lots of squads do well, then people will start bringing units that can hunt flotillas (minimally), and find alternatives for handling the squadron game (maximally).

What worlds gives us is a good glimpse of what seems to be working and what is rising to the top. Flotillas and squads seemed to be a real theme, even if they were handled very differently from list to list. I wouldn't at all be surprised if the emerging meta post-worlds steps in the direction of the better lists. We're probably going to get a month or two of regionals before Wave 5 hits, so it will be interesting to see what people bring and what makes the top-4 in smaller events or top-8 in larger events.

Anyone who says that there isn't a meta, doesn't get what the term actually means.

Since the term simply means knowledge about the game that isn't directly from the game itself. The fact that you're posting AAR means you're contributing to the meta.

To be fair, OP said in his blog post: "I don’t think we have a X-Wing like meta in Armada. What we have is tactics. We have powerful abilities, but I challenge the concept of a meta as it has been recently defined" (emphasis mine).

There is certainly a meta. Its squadrons and flotillas. Just because there is a decent amount of variance around that in builds (better than the state of many games mind you) doesn't mean that there isn't that common trend. When it's to the point that rebel lists are averaging just a bit over 2 per, and imps at about 1.5 in EVERY build, it's definetly a thing (that and how many builds were pushing near 134 pts in squadrons).

What's interesting is that now in 2 years we've had Imperials dominating and winning GenCon, while Rebels have won both Worlds.

I think this speaks volumes to what mikael is saying. Play what you are good at, keep an eye on your competition and try to stay ahead of that.

I would love to have a pic of the guy's face that play tested against DeMSU for weeks and got sat across from 8 flotillas.....

I think most people didn't want to face the eight gozanti menace...

And yet, that list did not make it to the top.....

How did it do? I'd love to see one of it's matches.

If I recall correctly, Tokra (with the Gozantis) did really well overall. As German champ I think he took the bye, but then had the misfortune to be matched against the Australian champ for round two (Ironkenics?)...who managed to limit him to a 6-5 or 7-4 win. I think the two of them had blowout games for the rest of the day - their comment was they'd knocked each other out of contention.

Yeah people trashing Tokra's fleet by saying 'well it didn't make the cut' do not understand how good that fleet is, especially with the way he flies it. With the current tournament system if you pulled that fleet you were not going to make the cut, because even if you won you weren't going to win big.

I had the misfortune of pulling him round two, a fact we were both unhappy about. My fleet was two carrier guppies, three Flotillas, 6 Ys, 6 As. We were playing Superior Positions and I got greedy, jumping in squads to shoot his flotillas rather than his Squadrons. In the end that strategic mistake would cost me any chance of winning as Tokra made the right call to focus down my squads. Even then because my fleet was brutal against Squadrons I really limited what he could score. In the end I made a misplay on turn 6 that allowed a bomber on 1 health to dodge certain death and score an objective token which pulled it from a 5-6 to a 4-7.

But yeah we ended up 3rd and 5th on Day 1a respectively, and really I would be way more afraid of Tokras fleet then the net list would suggest.

I can tell you what the meta is, bomber formations. Which IMHO is a whole lot better than the squadron-less meta that Armada started out with.

I can tell you what the meta is, bomber formations. Which IMHO is a whole lot better than the squadron-less meta that Armada started out with.

Must...fight...contrarian...tendencies....

Love...B-Wings...

**** IT! SQUADRONLESS HERE I COME!

Anyone who says that there isn't a meta, doesn't get what the term actually means.

Since the term simply means knowledge about the game that isn't directly from the game itself. The fact that you're posting AAR means you're contributing to the meta.

To be fair, OP said in his blog post: "I don’t think we have a X-Wing like meta in Armada. What we have is tactics. We have powerful abilities, but I challenge the concept of a meta as it has been recently defined" (emphasis mine).

There is certainly a meta. Its squadrons and flotillas. Just because there is a decent amount of variance around that in builds (better than the state of many games mind you) doesn't mean that there isn't that common trend. When it's to the point that rebel lists are averaging just a bit over 2 per, and imps at about 1.5 in EVERY build, it's definetly a thing (that and how many builds were pushing near 134 pts in squadrons).

Agreed. Flotillas and squadrons seems to be the big deal right now.

I think people like to use squadrons a lot because they don't necessitate the use of a maneuver tool, meaning they can go where they want and there's nothing you can do to stop it.