Armada was designed, and sold to the public, as a game about large ships fighting each other.

Was it?

Yes it was.

He has rightly admitted it is a "fleet" game.

If you want a game of a few entities fighting each other, that would be xwing.

I love squadrons.... Get good...

People are not complaining about losing to squadrons, they're complaining about the omnipresence of squadrons. Plz don't be a troll in these threads.

Well, when they don't have anything constructive to say.....

I love squadrons but squadrons are a disproportionate threat to captial ships. There is always a possibility of future upgrades that can Balance out the game.

Exactly. That is my point. When players are more mindful of squadrons and not my VSD/ISD Avenger combo bearing down on you, then there is a serious issue.

Look, the 8 Y-Wings taken at Worlds this year, along with the bomber command re-rolls, can deal a potential 16 damage (plus extra damage from crits). No ship, not even an ISD, can handle that firepower, no matter what upgrades you put on them. Even with Reinforced Blast Doors, which only activate at the start of a ships phase, you can still totally take out any one ship, or potentially 2 a turn. And yes, I have seen it happen many, many times.

There's a reason ALL big ships have fighter wings. Every single one of them ever has had fighter escorts. This is basically a fundamental aspect of not just space combat in Star Wars but pretty much all combat. War isn't just two forces pointing and shooting at each other, there's been cavalry, artillery, all sorts of support or different aspects of a fight. So you're ISD SHOULD be worried about an uncontested Y-Wing bombing run coming in. Because if you let several bombers pick and chose where exactly they want to bomb you because you don't have any anti-air defense, you're going to lose every single time.

And I agree with Ginkapo, the issue isn't the squads or bombers. Its intel. It basically defeats the purpose of bringing a decent anti-squad wing if they can just attack your ship anyway. Yeah you may get to block them a turn or two and kill a few more, but against the big swarm like JJs its going to get some bombing done somehow. The more I look at it, I see just how powerful it is. It makes a ton of sense why there weren't any squads used in Wave 1, since a single Advanced could lock down almost an entire wing for a turn.

Edit: Also, I strongly believe Snipe will help A LOT with this issue.

Imperial Assault works that way, can pass if opponent has more activations. I could see that fix coming.

Nice. They really need to buff quality vs quantity builds.

The original demos and early game materials emphasized that the game was a fleet game that focused on the larger ships and their impact in the Star Wars universe.

Guys you are way underestimating double aa dice

Scatter tokens

I love squadrons.... Get good...

People are not complaining about losing to squadrons, they're complaining about the omnipresence of squadrons. Plz don't be a troll in these threads.

With all due respect, the title of this thread is "squadrons why they are bad thing in armada"

That fits the very definition of a complaint.... OP leads off with the premise that we were all duped into buying the game and then had squads forced onto us... It's just not the case...

Lastly, from what I gather from the forums and from other players is that the game feels incredibly balanced and fun to play... Therefore I submit if you have the viewpoint that squads or flotilla need adjustment, that PERHAPS you need to go back and evaluate your own play...

I apologize if my post came off trolly, but at the time I felt that one troll post deserved another....

Is there a place for those of us who are ok with some squadrons and a little worried that as the definitive winners of wave five and the corelian conflict that squadrons will be too dominating in a game that was sold under the idea of star destroyers V corvettes.

I think that is this thread because I feel those things.

Guys you are way underestimating double aa dice

No, this is why you don't see en-masse TIE Fighters and TIE interceptors flying against Rebel fighters. It's soo incidentally easy to shoot down TIE Fighter squadrons I don't think they stand a chance unless you activate them first and throw them into the fray. It's much too easy for Rebel fighters to kill what should have been the bread and butter Imperial squadrons that for Empire it isn't worth it. Since both sides can activate the same number of fighters out of their capital ships, it's better to have more resilient fighters, which the Rebellion has.

That's why people don't bother with anything other than Rhymer with Bombers with the occasional advanced when flying generics. And Activating Rogues is a bit of a waste, not to mention they are costed higher than the average Rebel squadron for minimal bonuses.

Fortunately that's changed with the new fighter pack. Everything in the Empire is hull 4 or higher, giving the Empire some staying power with some not-to-bad advantages to go with it.

We will never agree on these points. That's ok.

But as far a double aa only being good against 3 hull squadrons I completely disagree and I know hasslestien would too

Guys you are way underestimating double aa dice

Scatter tokens

Again I say you are underestimating double aa dice.

Just take 4 A-Wings or 6 Z95s/Ties and get a good nights sleep. If problem persists, up the dosage to 8 Z95s/Ties.

Wow great to see a topic that gets some rigorous discussion!!

I disagree with the opening point and many have put the reasons better than I can. Armada is a fleet game and in star wars that means a hefty squadron influence. It wouldnt have half the appeal if Xwings etc couldnt take part and it to mean something. I think its very disingenuous and a bit post truth to conflate a denied sense of entitlement that FFG has mislead you.

Worlds 2015 and the gencon special getting beat by A wings was a great milestone for the game because it showed it was developing beyond single formula approaches to fighting effectively.

Its really just a case now that the squadron game has become much more lethal now than your initial feel of it was back in the wave one days. You can't just "ignore it and kill the ships" any more. Moreover, you are going to have to pass up opportunities to "optimise" your ship killing to mitigate or win the squadron game. But ships are like this as well. Admo and Demo especially are now so dangerous that your whole game has to hinge around mitigating them.

So all up, don't see anything amiss. Although I would be interested in trialling a season with a 100 point squad cap just to see how it panned out.

Guys you are way underestimating double aa dice

Scatter tokens

Your opponents must be a lot worse at attacking scatter aces than mine. With a bunch of 4blue squads hooning around not to mention Toryn sodding Farr, I think my scatter aces get maybe one scatter in game these days!

Guys you are way underestimating double aa dice

Scatter tokens

Your opponents must be a lot worse at attacking scatter aces than mine. With a bunch of 4blue squads hooning around not to mention Toryn sodding Farr, I think my scatter aces get maybe one scatter in game these days!

I meant when attacking squadrons with ships. If you have a single blue or black die, you're ******. If you have a blue and a black, then you need to stars to align and a sacrifice to our lord and savior Cthulhu to get a damage in.

The key point in all of this is that large ships have no means to defend themselves against multiple small attacks,

Anything less than a strong squad sees the smaller squadron eaten alive, downing you points, and putting your capital ships at risk.

But I do feel the pendulum should swing back to capital ship advantages in the near future. I want reasons to take upgunned VSDs and choose commands other than fighter activation.

I want to feel the satisfaction of landing a turbolaser hammer on an enemy starship and leaving it crippled without worrying about how Yavaris is going to take my glorious battleship apart.

These are 3 good points. I'll take them 1 at a time.

1 Large ships can't kill many small ships: They shouldn't be able to. That's why they have escorts. Some of those escorts should be fighters, and some should be light ships. I'd love to see big ships have something like the fleet buffs that flotillas & pelta got to encourage them to be the flagships. Maybe something like "add X command dials to your admiral. X=flagships motti value. you may spend these dials instead of any dial flipped during a ship activation."

2. absolutely agree this is a problem. It should be possible for a competently flown light fighter screen to hold off 50% more in a mixed wing, or twice it's size in straight bombers. Tien Numb & flechette missiles may help break up the squad mobs, and disrupt the synergies that are currently making all-in on squads be so powerful.

3. Agree: The command dial choice should be just that, a choice. I should be mixing up my dials on my carriers, destroyers & battleships. But every ship should be dangerous in proportion to it's points. An optimized carrier + fighters that costs 150 points should be comparable to an optimized battleship costing 150 points, or 3 destroyers costing 50 each. Finding ways to make activation advantage less important, but still useful, would be nice. Maybe "discard a command token to pass an activation. you must have fewer activations remaining than your opponent"

Or just do activations like Battletech has done for decades: of you outnumber your opponent, you have to activate more units per go than they do. If I have a 2 to 1 advantage, then for every 1 unit they acivate, I have to activate 2.

I dont think a +1 advantage would be effected, but a +2 advantage would see 2 activations before the opponents last.

I'd say (SPOILER ALERT)

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-

-

-

-

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Watch the end of Rogue One. Squadrons seem pretty important to me (after all, a single squadron disabled a major ship which later allowed for some shenanigans).

Oh look

It's this thread again

Re: this thread in general

When it comes to the more measured "I have some concerns about the current meta and the prevalence of squadrons" posters, I feel we can have a discussion. I would like to counsel that we need to see how wave 5 plays out before jumping to conclusions, as right now it seems some people are just thinking "right now but more crazy squadrons," without considering those squadrons cost points and change the squadron build dynamics. Anyways, I do feel like a few of the complaints come down to "I'm used to running squadron-light fleets that focus on attacking large ships by using upgrades like XI7s and this wave 4 meta is crushing me and I don't want to adapt," but there are some valid concerns. I for one would like to see some more cost-effective anti-flotilla platforms (particularly for the Imperials) but it looks like wave 5 might help a bit there through some new upgrades (and Jerrjerrod indirectly) as well as some new anti-blob tech (Ten Numb for Rebels), Snipe squadrons to pick at Intel lynchpins, and stronger anti-squadron squadrons for Imperials (with some neat tech). This does require one to use squadrons in the first place, though, which brings me to...

I have absolutely no sympathy for the people who think Armada is supposed to be a game where fleets with no squadrons whatsoever are highly competitive despite the overwhelming and ever-growing evidence that both FFG and the actual series do not agree with them. The only space combat in a Star Wars movie with no squadrons is the opening scene of a New Hope and that's stretching the definition of "space combat" given it's an extremely outmatched corvette running like hell away from an Imperial Star Destroyer.

Re: possible "solutions"

If FFG was ever going to issue any kind of fix to a game problem it would need to be something that kept its cards and points values intact. Anything that changes points costs or adds extra rules to flotillas can create a substantial amount of confusion and the ideal way to fix that is to print all-new cards detailing the new costs and rules to replace the old cards. That is a big logistical headache for FFG that generates zero dollars of profit and so is just plain not going to happen. I think your best bet is for something that's easy to put into an errata or FAQ that slightly changes the basic game rules and is a more general "fix." I'm personally a fan of the "you may pass instead of activating a ship if your opponent has more unactivated ships than you do" solution, and it's been shown that FFG is amenable to that exact kind of fix with Imperial Assault.

Armada was designed, and sold to the public, as a game about large ships fighting each other.

Was it?

Seconded.

Argument built on False Premise to draw Pre-assigned Conclusion.

Yes, and the proof is simple.

1. On the link below, Armada is listed as "A game of tactical fleet combat in the Star Wars universe." Fleet, as in ships, not squadrons.

https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/products/#/universe/star-wars

2.

Rebel and Imperial fleets fight for the fate of the galaxy in Star Wars™: Armada, the two-player miniatures game of epic Star Wars space battles!

Massive Star Destroyers fly to battle against Rebel corvettes and frigates. Banks of turbolasers unleash torrential volleys of fire against squadrons of X-wings and TIEs. Engineering teams race to route additional power to failing shields. Laser blasts and explosions flare across the battlefield. Even a single ship can change the tide of battle.

In Star Wars: Armada, you assume the role of fleet admiral, serving with either the Imperial Navy or Rebel Alliance. It’s your job to issue the tactical commands that will decide the course of battle and, perhaps, the fate of the galaxy.

However, battles between capital ships are fought on a massive scale all their own; the more powerful your ships, the harder it is to adjust their actions on the fly. Capital ships can’t easily vary their speeds or execute hairpin turns like the starfighters that buzz around them, so successful admirals must learn to master every aspect of the ships in their fleet and learn how best to implement their strategies well in advance of the initial engagement.

https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/products/star-wars-armada/

That's the current information... Going back into the archives, well, we find this.

https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2014/8/8/star-wars-tm-armada/

Although Star Wars : Armada is built around the galaxy’s many capital ships, you’ll almost certainly want to fly one or more squadrons of starfighters in your fleet, both to threaten enemy ships and to defend your ships from enemy squadrons.

So, yes, to answer your question, it was sold as a primarily Ship combat game.

Straight from Merriam-Webster.

fleet

noun

Definition of fleet

1

: a number of warships under a single command; specifically : an organization of ships and aircraft under the command of a flag officer

2

: group 2a, b; especially : a group (as of ships, planes, or trucks) operated under unified control

Tell me again how that's not what we got?

What you mean to say is that you were sold on big ships and the idea of fleets being big ships.

Some of the rest of us weren't, for our own reasons, part of which possibly being the definitions of words.

Guys you are way underestimating double aa dice

Scatter tokens

Again I say you are underestimating double aa dice.

I think they just are not taking enough. If you go squadron less or low squadron count you will need some AA dice. If you take only Mc-30s and VSD II you are going to lose to squadron bombing and strafing runs.

There is nothing wrong with expressing concern about power creep of squadrons in this game. With flotillas and the next batch of squadrons, they will become an ever dominating presence compared to what the game had when it first came out.

My personal beef with them is compared to the wonderful models of the capital ships, the squadrons are nothing but little blobs of grey plastic. I think the real problem is people paid a lot of money for the wonderful ship models only to watch them die pathetically to little blobs of plastic.

Oh look

It's this thread again

Re: this thread in general

When it comes to the more measured "I have some concerns about the current meta and the prevalence of squadrons" posters, I feel we can have a discussion. I would like to counsel that we need to see how wave 5 plays out before jumping to conclusions, as right now it seems some people are just thinking "right now but more crazy squadrons," without considering those squadrons cost points and change the squadron build dynamics. Anyways, I do feel like a few of the complaints come down to "I'm used to running squadron-light fleets that focus on attacking large ships by using upgrades like XI7s and this wave 4 meta is crushing me and I don't want to adapt," but there are some valid concerns. I for one would like to see some more cost-effective anti-flotilla platforms (particularly for the Imperials) but it looks like wave 5 might help a bit there through some new upgrades (and Jerrjerrod indirectly) as well as some new anti-blob tech (Ten Numb for Rebels), Snipe squadrons to pick at Intel lynchpins, and stronger anti-squadron squadrons for Imperials (with some neat tech). This does require one to use squadrons in the first place, though, which brings me to...

I have absolutely no sympathy for the people who think Armada is supposed to be a game where fleets with no squadrons whatsoever are highly competitive despite the overwhelming and ever-growing evidence that both FFG and the actual series do not agree with them. The only space combat in a Star Wars movie with no squadrons is the opening scene of a New Hope and that's stretching the definition of "space combat" given it's an extremely outmatched corvette running like hell away from an Imperial Star Destroyer.

Re: possible "solutions"

If FFG was ever going to issue any kind of fix to a game problem it would need to be something that kept its cards and points values intact. Anything that changes points costs or adds extra rules to flotillas can create a substantial amount of confusion and the ideal way to fix that is to print all-new cards detailing the new costs and rules to replace the old cards. That is a big logistical headache for FFG that generates zero dollars of profit and so is just plain not going to happen. I think your best bet is for something that's easy to put into an errata or FAQ that slightly changes the basic game rules and is a more general "fix." I'm personally a fan of the "you may pass instead of activating a ship if your opponent has more unactivated ships than you do" solution, and it's been shown that FFG is amenable to that exact kind of fix with Imperial Assault.

To be fair to the complainers, I have in fact mid-battle recreated that scene, down to Tantive IV and Raymus (though the ISD was Relentless and her commander was Motti). Usually ends the same way. And by usually I mean always.

The fix is going to be another ship or card that tweaks some other factor in the game. I'm mildly concerned that things like AFFM are a bit much, both the Arquitens (Minister Tua, Jerjerrod, DTTs) and the Pelta (all of the Fleet Command options, Sato, etc.) have shifted the game in a way presumably to respond to FFG's concerns about the game and its future. So I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt. (And it will last exactly as long as it takes a Z-95 to one shot one of my brand-new Defenders.)

Create your own house rules.

Dont deploy your squadrons at setup. Use squadron commands to deploy that amount of squadrons during the battle and allow all squadrons to use the rogue ability.

So I've seen some possible "solutions" or alternatives to standard play that may be interesting to try:

1. The whole passing on activating thing

2. Flotillas not counting towards whether or not a player is "tabled"

3. Reducing squad point max to 100/400, and adding a 50 point buffer that can only be used for squadrons

Armada was designed, and sold to the public, as a game about large ships fighting each other.

Was it?

Seconded.

Argument built on False Premise to draw Pre-assigned Conclusion.

Yes, and the proof is simple.

1. On the link below, Armada is listed as "A game of tactical fleet combat in the Star Wars universe." Fleet, as in ships, not squadrons.

https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/products/#/universe/star-wars

2.

Rebel and Imperial fleets fight for the fate of the galaxy in Star Wars™: Armada, the two-player miniatures game of epic Star Wars space battles!

Massive Star Destroyers fly to battle against Rebel corvettes and frigates. Banks of turbolasers unleash torrential volleys of fire against squadrons of X-wings and TIEs. Engineering teams race to route additional power to failing shields. Laser blasts and explosions flare across the battlefield. Even a single ship can change the tide of battle.

In Star Wars: Armada, you assume the role of fleet admiral, serving with either the Imperial Navy or Rebel Alliance. It’s your job to issue the tactical commands that will decide the course of battle and, perhaps, the fate of the galaxy.

However, battles between capital ships are fought on a massive scale all their own; the more powerful your ships, the harder it is to adjust their actions on the fly. Capital ships can’t easily vary their speeds or execute hairpin turns like the starfighters that buzz around them, so successful admirals must learn to master every aspect of the ships in their fleet and learn how best to implement their strategies well in advance of the initial engagement.

https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/products/star-wars-armada/

That's the current information... Going back into the archives, well, we find this.

https://www.fantasyflightgames.com/en/news/2014/8/8/star-wars-tm-armada/

Although Star Wars : Armada is built around the galaxy’s many capital ships, you’ll almost certainly want to fly one or more squadrons of starfighters in your fleet, both to threaten enemy ships and to defend your ships from enemy squadrons.

So, yes, to answer your question, it was sold as a primarily Ship combat game.

Straight from Merriam-Webster.

fleet

noun

Definition of fleet

1

: a number of warships under a single command; specifically : an organization of ships and aircraft under the command of a flag officer

2

: group 2a, b; especially : a group (as of ships, planes, or trucks) operated under unified control

Tell me again how that's not what we got?

What you mean to say is that you were sold on big ships and the idea of fleets being big ships.

Some of the rest of us weren't, for our own reasons, part of which possibly being the definitions of words.

The quoted article explicitly states, in the last paragraph, that the game was built around representing the capital ships in Star Wars.

This is not to state that squadrons don't have a place in the game. They certainly do. From that same sentence, " to threaten enemy ships and to defend your ships from enemy squadrons."

The current meta is a game built around large clouds of fighter squadrons, and that is because the game currently does not provide any ships with firepower and durability equivalent to their fleet costs when compared to squadrons.

Just so we are clear, the upcoming Wave 5 squadrons include the following:

Rogue Grit Bombers that can be fielded in large enough groups to compete with Star Destroyers

Heavy Rogue Counter flying bricks that can be fielded to compete with Star Destroyers

Rogue Bombers that can be fielded to compete with Star Destroyers

Bombers with dice output comparable to ace squadrons to compete with Star Destroyers

Swarm 7 pt squadrons that can output firepower on par with bombers and be fielded to compete with Star Destroyers.

Strategic squadrons that can be fielded to deny your opponent from getting objective tokens.

Basically, we're seeing that nearly every element of the game from firepower to durability to even the ability to collect or influence objective tokens is being taken over by squadrons. This leaves the large ships that were advertised as the main selling point of this game in a position where they can't actually do much of anything except possibly activate squadrons.

Now, it's possible that in the next handful of waves something is going to drastically reduce the power of those squadrons. But it's becoming increasingly clear that many ships are going to lose the "should I take ships or squadrons" game, at least until the next wave. Some will get better, but some are going to fall even further behind.

There is nothing wrong with expressing concern about power creep of squadrons in this game. With flotillas and the next batch of squadrons, they will become an ever dominating presence compared to what the game had when it first came out.

Assuming you mean wave one, i think you've chosen an unfair point in the game's evolution to compare it to. Of course the squadron game will seem enhanced, compared to the days when no-squadron lists ruled the meta. Being unhappy with anything but a return to that (which is what you essentially stated) means returning to the days of (imho) an incomplete game.

My personal beef with them is compared to the wonderful models of the capital ships, the squadrons are nothing but little blobs of grey plastic. I think the real problem is people paid a lot of money for the wonderful ship models only to watch them die pathetically to little blobs of plastic.

Would you be happier if your ships died to nicely painted little blobs of plastic? Some of us have those available.

squadrons are necessary, and a max point squadron section is almost required.

this is getting a little out of hand

it feels like you need to spend nearly half of your points on squads and ships meant to push them around

squadrons are a disproportionate threat to captial ships. There is always a possibility of future upgrades that can Balance out the game.

Bomber command will be addressed, probably will get exhausted when used.

If you take only Mc-30s and VSD II you are going to lose to squadron bombing and strafing runs.

I say it every time this same thread pops up:

Guys. I'm seriously, you guys.

Try Mothma MC30's.

the 8 Y-Wings taken at Worlds this year, along with the bomber command re-rolls, can deal a potential 16 damage (plus extra damage from crits). No ship, not even an ISD, can handle that firepower, no matter what upgrades you put on them.

Mon Mothma's Admonition can.