We are obviously dealing with a Trump supporter

For serious, can we just...

Wow. Lot of people talking about data. Let me tell you, emmjay knows all about data. He has the best data. Nobody has better data than emmjay. When the circle comes back around, you're going to see just how good his data is.

Edit: China

Guys. Irrelevant politics.

This. Although I thought WuFame's post was just good satire regardless of political leaning. But yeah the only leaning we should be discussing is the way all the Nebulon B's lean on their pegs.

My current list is squad support with 135 points of X-Wings and HWKs.

Whats it like being a dirty no good cheater, ricefrisbeetreats?

Or are you one of them renegades playing a 500 point list?

Not sure if there's much value in replying, but I'll chime in as disappointed in the Squadron heavy meta. Assuming one stand is a single "Squadron", you should see 5 or less as a rebel player and likely 10 or less as an imperial. The Death Star attack had Gold Squadron and Red Squadron I believe. Scarif had Red, Blue, and Gold with the Ghost.

I bought in with the idea of flying ISDs against the rebels and really wish the game supported that play. I think I'd make a few tweaks like making all imp squads 3 hull roughly and cheap to allow huge swarms while beefing up the rebels and costing them to feel more outnumbered. My current list is squad support with 135 points of X-Wings and HWKs.

Yeah, I guess the reality is buyers remorse. Why buy 2 or more of anything outside flotillas?

You just gotta break out of this mindset that 134 points of squadrons is somehow mandatory and try different stuff. Otherwise, yeah, if you're just building multi-flotilla+ fighters lists, there's not much reason to buy multiples of much else.

I mean, I'm really not out to discount other people's experiences here. Yeah I get that it's scary and frustrating to be staring down a field of double-rerolling Y-wings or double tapping B-wings or whatever. But the way to develop the meta and push yourself forward is not to pay what everybody else is playing, but to find a better way!

If you're having trouble with a particular list, try flying it a few times. Find out what other people do that's hard for you to deal with, or what you hope the other guy doesn't do, or what you're glad the other guy doesn't have. Then, turn around and fly that stuff against it and see what happens.

I guess some of us are salty because we bought into this game hoping the glory would be on Star Destroyers and capital ships fighting it out. With Squadrons being so much better of a mechanic for dealing damage against ships, it's kind of starting to look like a zoomed out version of X-Wing.

To me it feels like the pendulum just swung too hard in favor of squadrons. They were weak in wave one, now we're seeing overcompensation.

completely disagree that they were weak in wave one. yavaris was still a thing. FC tie swarm was still a thing. These aren't new concepts they date back to that very wave. Squadrons have always been strong. It just took the majority to catch up.

Maybe I'm an outlier, as in 300pt games (haven't gone into 400 yet in my home games) I only bring around 4 squadrons. They are fun, but I don't want to steal too many points from my ships for upgrades.

And I actually like Salvation over Yavaris, so I can use my Neb-B as a sniper gunship. I just give it to a Support Refit with Adar Tallon and a YT-2400 to capitolize on the 1 squadron command. Soon Sato will play into it, too.

We are obviously dealing with a Trump supporter

For serious, can we just...

Wow. Lot of people talking about data. Let me tell you, emmjay knows all about data. He has the best data. Nobody has better data than emmjay. When the circle comes back around, you're going to see just how good his data is.

Edit: China

Guys. Irrelevant politics.

This. Although I thought WuFame's post was just good satire regardless of political leaning. But yeah the only leaning we should be discussing is the way all the Nebulon B's lean on their pegs.

I. CAN'T. STAND IT.

Maybe I'm an outlier, as in 300pt games (haven't gone into 400 yet in my home games) I only bring around 4 squadrons. They are fun, but I don't want to steal too many points from my ships for upgrades.

And I actually like Salvation over Yavaris, so I can use my Neb-B as a sniper gunship. I just give it to a Support Refit with Adar Tallon and a YT-2400 to capitolize on the 1 squadron command. Soon Sato will play into it, too.

The difference between a 300 point game and a 400 point game is that at 400 points you are no longer constrained by the inability to take both squadrons and ship upgrades, and the additional 34 points allows you to upgrade all the squadrons to more powerful or versatile options.. This means you need to commit more points to squadron defense and ship abilities than you did in the 300 point meta. The World Champion winner in the year one meta basically sacrificed any significant upgrades to maximize squadron capability. At 400 points, you can maximize your squadron ability and get 3-4 heavily upgraded small or medium ships and a more expensive commander.

I actually think that I'd be happy to leave the balance as it is and simply reduce the squadron point limit to 100 points, or move the game up to 500 points and keep the current squadron point level. This would have a few positive effects:

Effect 1: Reduce the length of time placing, moving, and attacking with squadrons by reducing the overall number of squadron activations.

Effect 2: Smaller defensive screen squadrons would be a more meaningful threats against large numbers of bombers.

Effect 3: Make focusing exclusively on large numbers of high-quality squadrons and Aces a more expensive and limiting proposition (looking at you Riekaan Aces, YT-2400 and Rhymer-Fireballs).

Effect 4: Reduce the ability to rack up high numbers in squadron-based objective (Precision Strike, Superior Positions, Fighter Ambush) by reducing the number of fielded high-reliability squadrons.

Late to this thread but gotta jump in, so, what are the first 4 ships you think of when someone says Star Wars, for me it's star destroyers, M. Falcon, xwings and tie fighters. Oh wait, I said ships, **** 3 of those are squads...so....hmmm.

Squads are a must have for Star Wars ship warfare, accept it and move on.

We are obviously dealing with a Trump supporter

For serious, can we just...

Wow. Lot of people talking about data. Let me tell you, emmjay knows all about data. He has the best data. Nobody has better data than emmjay. When the circle comes back around, you're going to see just how good his data is.

Edit: China

Guys. Irrelevant politics.

Must. Get. Thread. Locked.

Seems like the imperial players just want to run 3x ISD and have nothing particularly threatening for them by nerfing fighters.

I will say one of the big flaws of fighters was having all of their abilities/attacks be range 1 because yeah when you get 20 on the board they become very unwieldy. I think letting them have some range on their stuff and having them more spread out would help a lot.

I don't know how anyone could think squadrons are bad for the game. Have you SEEN Star Wars? The snubfighters are integral parts of every battle.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Battle_of_Endor

How many ships did squadrons actually kill in 4-6?

1. Death Star 1

2. Death Star 2

3. Executor

4. Devastator

5. Harbringer

6. Vehement

Thats it.

IF squadrons were so vital, as you all put it, why didn't they, at the Battle of Hoth, use their weapons to destroy the AT-AT's, and then go into space to destroy, or at least cripple, the large bulk of the Imperial Fleet?

And, 2 of them wern't even ships, they were Death Stars.

I'd like to know how many ships are destroyed by ships in IV-VI. Then we can compare the effectiveness of squadrons v ships against ships v ships.

I don't know how anyone could think squadrons are bad for the game. Have you SEEN Star Wars? The snubfighters are integral parts of every battle.

http://starwars.wikia.com/wiki/Battle_of_Endor

How many ships did squadrons actually kill in 4-6?

1. Death Star 1

2. Death Star 2

3. Executor

4. Devastator

5. Harbringer

6. Vehement

Thats it.

IF squadrons were so vital, as you all put it, why didn't they, at the Battle of Hoth, use their weapons to destroy the AT-AT's, and then go into space to destroy, or at least cripple, the large bulk of the Imperial Fleet?

And, 2 of them wern't even ships, they were Death Stars.

I'd like to know how many ships are destroyed by ships in IV-VI. Then we can compare the effectiveness of squadrons v ships against ships v ships.

Well if you watch Rogue One, there is a lot of ship vs ship action. But you'd also expect ISDs to kill smaller ships without any trouble.

I actually think that I'd be happy to leave the balance as it is and simply reduce the squadron point limit to 100 points, or move the game up to 500 points and keep the current squadron point level. This would have a few positive effects:

Effect 1: Reduce the length of time placing, moving, and attacking with squadrons by reducing the overall number of squadron activations.

Effect 2: Smaller defensive screen squadrons would be a more meaningful threats against large numbers of bombers.

Effect 3: Make focusing exclusively on large numbers of high-quality squadrons and Aces a more expensive and limiting proposition (looking at you Riekaan Aces, YT-2400 and Rhymer-Fireballs).

Effect 4: Reduce the ability to rack up high numbers in squadron-based objective (Precision Strike, Superior Positions, Fighter Ambush) by reducing the number of fielded high-reliability squadrons.

1) only if we reduce squad cap. increasing ship budget to 500 would not help on time. And only about half the regionals winners are above your proposed cap.

2) Every regionals winner with bombers took escorts or space-superiority fighters. Bomber wings are expecting to fight their way in, not just intel their way past screens. 11/14 winners had 11+ expected squad damage. (5.5 Xwing Equivalents) Reducing the absolute size of the bomber wing will only reduce the absolute size of your screen, not the proportion. Roughly doing the numbers, it looks like you need defending squadrons of 60-70% of the attacker.

3) Aces aren't currently a problem. 2 of 14 regionals winners took ace heavy wings (definition: 50% or 4+aces, 5+ squads) 10/44 top 4. 2/14 wings with YT24s, 0/14 wings with firesprays. Also, high quality squads are what the big ship proponents should be using to defend. That way they can keep the big ships free of squad commands, and just have one or two escorts running the screen.

Gotta say it feels nice seeing these data driven arguments crushing the emotional arguments on how to fix squads.

Maybe this game is balanced after all and people just don't know how to deal with squads.

Hats off to shmitty for making data crunching possible and using numbers to make decisions instead of feelings.

Late to this thread but gotta jump in, so, what are the first 4 ships you think of when someone says Star Wars...

Maybe it is just me, but if you ask for ships I will give ships, squadrons are not ships so not what I think of when asked for ships. As for ships first four are in order I thought of them (took all of less then 10 seconds) Super Star Destroyer, Imperial Star Destroyer, CR-90, and Nebulon-B (Medical Frigate). So we have between half to two-thirds depending on how you look at it, we do not have the Super Star Destroyer yet . And we have the Nebulon-B but not the Medical Frigate sub-class, unless it is the support as I can not see it being the escort, but that may just be me. If you want top four iconic craft from Star Wars with out regard to class then it would be a little different I would say Death Star (I do not really see a difference between the two so count this as one), Super Star Destroyer, Imperial Star Destroyer, and lastly probably the Skipray Blast Boat (loved it from first time I saw a drawing of it) but as it I think has been written out I would go with the Millennium Falcon. Either way only one of the top four at the best is what the game calls a squadron.

Squads are a must have for Star Wars ship warfare, accept it and move on.

So with my thoughts from above I do not think that they are a must, now do not take this the wrong way I do like having squadrons or at least the concept of squadrons. I also do think that the game would be less without them, but I would not have had a issue if they were much less than they are, or ships were more than they are.

Am I the only one waiting for a Rebel commander than will let us take up to 2/3 our points as squadrons? To better reflect the ground-based forces seen in episodes 1,4,5 and 7.

Am I the only one waiting for a Rebel commander than will let us take up to 2/3 our points as squadrons? To better reflect the ground-based forces seen in episodes 1,4,5 and 7.

Here are my 26 Y wings, which had 4 rerolls thanks to BCC and Dodonna to flip the crit I want.

Am I the only one waiting for a Rebel commander than will let us take up to 2/3 our points as squadrons? To better reflect the ground-based forces seen in episodes 1,4,5 and 7.

You are going to be waiting for an extremely long time (hopefully forever), so I hope you've got something comfortable to sit on.

@CDAT the Med Frigate was the Redemption I believe, so we have it. I think that would be considered the support class.

Yet, you refuse to listen to any argument against what you believe? Man, you are starting to sound like a flaming liberal.

Real ironic that you'll later call for logic and reasoning now that you've outed yourself as incapable of either.

Am I the only one waiting for a Rebel commander than will let us take up to 2/3 our points as squadrons? To better reflect the ground-based forces seen in episodes 1,4,5 and 7.

Am I the only one waiting for a Rebel commander than will let us take up to 2/3 our points as squadrons? To better reflect the ground-based forces seen in episodes 1,4,5 and 7.

Yes. Unless you want to face off again 20 lancers all Rogue bombers.

I'm fine with that.

I think there is something a LITTLE bit off with squadrons at the moment, and for me it does sit with the anti-air capacity of ships, or the inefficiency thereof. I recently tried using Glad II's as AA cover... not trying that again.

Problem is, when you have three hull tie fighter squadrons, you don't want them to just be auto-evaporated whenever they go near a ship, which is the risk you run if you DO crank up the strength of AA. I quite like squadrons though, but like I say, it does feel a tad off due to AA.

Am I the only one waiting for a Rebel commander than will let us take up to 2/3 our points as squadrons? To better reflect the ground-based forces seen in episodes 1,4,5 and 7.

Yes. Unless you want to face off again 20 lancers all Rogue bombers.

I'm fine with that.

I read pages 1-3 of this thread. Then I saw there were a lot of replies, jumped to page 7 believing in was the last page. It wasn't, jumped again to page 10.

Please bear with me if I'm missing something crucial that was said in these last pages. The general discussion, however, seems to be revolving around: "squadrons ruin games, I wanted to play capital ships" VS "squadron add fun and complexity to my games, plus they're thematic and we see them a lot in the movies".

In my experience, both positions have a point. Here's some (anecdotal) evidence from the Rome regionals I attended yesterday: out of 10 players, the minimum squadron wing was something along 100 points, for what I saw everybody had at least 8 squadrons. Now, while I am on the "squadrons are fun to play" boat (after all I brought Luke, Jan, and 6 Xs), I do feel that too many fleets nowadays rely solely on squadrons up to the point that capital ships, especially with the omnipresent flottilla spam, become almost exclusively a matter of activations and squadron value. I think that the whole point of this thread is not just squadron hate, but displeasure at the sight of actual ships becoming less and less relevant (more anecdotal evidence: our regional was dominated by a liberty, 5x gr 75, 10x awing list) in favour of high, low quality activations backed by countless numbers of squadrons.

I'll admit this bothers me a little as well: while I am all for squadrons being competitive, I wouldn't want a game in which squadrons and flottillas are the ONLY competitive setup. I read about the MM MC 30 list. I'd like it to be one of the few options for running a squadronless fleet, not about the only one. Also, I'd like to be able to bring just a token force of squadrons, and let's be honest, right now that's a niche option at best.

However, after some thinking, I feel like FFG already tried to address this problem with wave 5, and specifically with the new flechette torpedoes. Yeah, squadrons remain the best anti squadrons, but at least now there's an option to shut down an enemy squadron force without fully committing to it. Generally speaking, in the future I'd like to get some dedicated anti squadron ship , maybe even with red anti squadron dice to start plucking damage early (please, dont come up with the raider: if you ever flew one, you'd know that it can work its magic only under a very specific set of condititions, all of which are hard to achieve nowadays, where high activations and low bid are to go to, at least in my meta. That plus no redirects mean it's extremely vulnerable to squadron fire).