I mentioned this in another thread and for the life of me, I can't remember what one it was in. So, after a few days consideration, I've decided to expand on my comment and post it here to try and spark a debate. Please be civil, regardless of what side you come down on.

So my thought for increasing game tempo, reducing match time, and generally making play a bit easier.....

Roll more than 1 squadron at a time against ships. That's it.

Let's say a ship with 4 squadron activation activates. Allow the activated squadrons to attack as he see's fit, but those squadrons attacking the same target roll together. This would also balance squadron vs capital ship interaction imho.

If I'm standing on the bridge of a Star Destroyer and see a wing of Y-wings barring down at me, I'm not going to stand there and point at individual torpedoes to Brace against....

I'm going to try and Redirect fire from the side that the threat is coming from, not try and redirect individual attacks.

It seems to me that whoever decided the system in place was stuck in the X-wing mindset of individual attacks rather than larger scale fleet vs fleet action.

The current design tries to designate individual squadrons as a threat to capital vessels when in reality, it's not the squadrons, it's the entire wing. The current design stops just short of being relative to fleet scaling.

I guess one could try and argue that nothing would prevent you from just x-wing balling and throwing all those dice at once....except that would allow you to actually use your ships brace against squadron attacks instead of just kind of laying there and taking the pinpricks with limited counter play....

Might fix the max squadron/transport spam as of late, as well.

I've tested this for a couple days now and figured I'd ask aloud. It's worked well in closed testing but I might be missing something.

/discuss

In short, I agree with you but what's done is done. While this makes sense for squadron vs. capital ship combat, it's inconsistent with squadron vs. squadron, which is why they probably chose for uniformity.

As for the individual nature of things, keep in mind that each squadron stand is actually half a dozen or whatever said Y-Wings.

In short, I agree with you but what's done is done. While this makes sense for squadron vs. capital ship combat, it's inconsistent with squadron vs. squadron, which is why they probably chose for uniformity.

As for the individual nature of things, keep in mind that each squadron stand is actually half a dozen or whatever said Y-Wings.

I get the line of thought but if that's the case then ship vs ship and ship vs squadron should also be uniform. This just seems like lazy or short sighted design but is something that could easily be corrected by including a rules update (and general FAQ) in all newly produced Cores and Expansions.

In short, I agree with you but what's done is done. While this makes sense for squadron vs. capital ship combat, it's inconsistent with squadron vs. squadron, which is why they probably chose for uniformity.

As for the individual nature of things, keep in mind that each squadron stand is actually half a dozen or whatever said Y-Wings.

I get the line of thought but if that's the case then ship vs ship and ship vs squadron should also be uniform. This just seems like lazy or short sighted design but is something that could easily be corrected by including a rules update (and general FAQ) in all newly produced Cores and Expansions.

How would you execute squadron vs squadron using the same design?

I'd do it like this:

Move each squadron and add their attack dice into the pool. Each squad must be within 1 of another squad attacking this activation.

Roll all dice. Attacker applies accuracies. Attacker applies damage to all fighters in range 1 of attacker, with the following precedence: escorts before others, generics before veterans before named, must assign damage equal to remaining health before moving on, cannot assign overkill unless Rieekan and unique. (How to deal with jan-braces?)

Any target assigned damage then activates counter.

If none of the mass squadrons moved before shooting, you may then move any squadrons who are able to move.

I'm setting the generic before named to balance out the faster killing due to concentration of fire. Maybe attacker should be able to nominate the target type? I.e shoot x-wings first, then yt13 then hwk's, then b: generic>Luke>generic yt13>hwk>jan>bwing.

Edited:attacker applies damage maybe works better. There may be ways to cheese it, though

Each "squad" is just that. A squad made up of multiple fighters. It's perfect. It's meant to represent just what you are saying, taking damage from a large amount of fighters.

It makes sense defensively. Fleets with no air cover (extrapolate into space combat) get picked off by enemy bombers everytime.

This is true for armour, tanks, C1-30 gunship. Large units cannot effectively defend themselves from fighter/bomber attacks unsupported: ie Singapore Stratergy

Each "squad" is just that. A squad made up of multiple fighters. It's perfect. It's meant to represent just what you are saying, taking damage from a large amount of fighters.

It makes sense defensively. Fleets with no air cover (extrapolate into space combat) get picked off by enemy bombers everytime.

This is true for armour, tanks, C1-30 gunship. Large units cannot effectively defend themselves from fighter/bomber attacks unsupported: ie Singapore Stratergy

We're talking about ships that are vast in size with armament designed for different layers of engagement. Technically, an ISD or MonCal cruisers blue dice should be their anti-squadron dice but instead it's rolled into ship combat.

You'll notice your validity for the mechanic chose to ignore naval ships, the closet comparison to Armada we have today....I'll go ahead and assume that was because you're aware of their anti-air capabilities, regardless of status of fighter screen.

I can see where you're coming from; however, the way I see it conceptualised/abstracted is that the squadrons are attacking in waves, rather than all at once.

Each "squad" is just that. A squad made up of multiple fighters. It's perfect. It's meant to represent just what you are saying, taking damage from a large amount of fighters.

It makes sense defensively. Fleets with no air cover (extrapolate into space combat) get picked off by enemy bombers everytime.

This is true for armour, tanks, C1-30 gunship. Large units cannot effectively defend themselves from fighter/bomber attacks unsupported: ie Singapore Stratergy

We're talking about ships that are vast in size with armament designed for different layers of engagement. Technically, an ISD or MonCal cruisers blue dice should be their anti-squadron dice but instead it's rolled into ship combat.

You'll notice your validity for the mechanic chose to ignore naval ships, the closet comparison to Armada we have today....I'll go ahead and assume that was because you're aware of their anti-air capabilities, regardless of status of fighter screen.

I can see where you're coming from; however, the way I see it conceptualised/abstracted is that the squadrons are attacking in waves, rather than all at once.

What this guy said. They're meant to strip away shields / defence tokens before the ship volley comes.

Also a single squadron can mean everything as seen here.

Each "squad" is just that. A squad made up of multiple fighters. It's perfect. It's meant to represent just what you are saying, taking damage from a large amount of fighters.

It makes sense defensively. Fleets with no air cover (extrapolate into space combat) get picked off by enemy bombers everytime.

This is true for armour, tanks, C1-30 gunship. Large units cannot effectively defend themselves from fighter/bomber attacks unsupported: ie Singapore Stratergy

We're talking about ships that are vast in size with armament designed for different layers of engagement. Technically, an ISD or MonCal cruisers blue dice should be their anti-squadron dice but instead it's rolled into ship combat.

You'll notice your validity for the mechanic chose to ignore naval ships, the closet comparison to Armada we have today....I'll go ahead and assume that was because you're aware of their anti-air capabilities, regardless of status of fighter screen.

You clearly don't know what the Singapore Stratergy is and how it failed (Britains entire naval fleet destroyed by Japanese bombers). Because AA alone is never enough! I included the others because it's a general rule of combined arms/modern naval combat. You need air supremacy because AA capabilites of Naval forces is not enough to ward off attacks by aircraft.

1) You're talking about a time that was before the development of most electronics, much less missiles.

2) STRATEGY

I can see where you're coming from; however, the way I see it conceptualised/abstracted is that the squadrons are attacking in waves, rather than all at once.

What this guy said. They're meant to strip away shields / defence tokens before the ship volley comes.

Also a single squadron can mean everything as seen here.

Oh, I get it. You've misinterpreted my reasoning behind this as it stands. This is to correct the imbalance in squadrons and squadron heavy lists. Although massed squadrons should pose a reasonable threat to capital ships, single squadrons (unless squadrons like Luke for example) really shouldn't.

I posed this as an alternative to increasing every capital ships anti-squadron dice by 1 lol

I can see where you're coming from; however, the way I see it conceptualised/abstracted is that the squadrons are attacking in waves, rather than all at once.

Without being massed, a captial ship would have an easier time dismantling the wing.

Hence why all squadron vs X examples in the movies are masses of fighter squadrons attacking at once.

The most important aspect of anti air defense is early dectection and engaging with fighters. If you resort to using missle and other defense systems that comprise the inner layer you have partially failed because they have penetrated far into your defenses. We never see this today because US naval power/air is virtually unchallenged. When we look at WW2/history we can extrapolate the lessons, unless one is being deliberately obtuse.

Of course missles/AEGIS/electronic warfare are complications on top.

Funnily enough Star Wars fleet battles appead much closer to WW2 slug fest than modern warfare with its complicated multi tier attack/defense. Imperial point defense turbo lasers are manned!

I can see where you're coming from; however, the way I see it conceptualised/abstracted is that the squadrons are attacking in waves, rather than all at once.

Without being massed, a captial ship would have an easier time dismantling the wing.

Hence why all squadron vs X examples in the movies are masses of fighter squadrons attacking at once.

This is the challenge with the abstractions involved. If a ship is being attacked by multiple squadrons in a turn/phase then I see that as massed, it's just that all their weapons aren't impacting at around the same time in the same place. Hence "wave" attack point being something that occurs within the time represented by turn/phase rather than a per turn/phase perspective.

In terms of your point about disproportionate damage from squadrons on ships, where I see the rub there is primarily with respect to brace defence tokens. It's **** frustrating getting whacked with a bunch of 1 damage which make brace useless. Again this comes down to the abstraction/conceptualisation of exactly what Brace represents - see another recent thread on that for different perspectives (some quite amusing!).

When this is happening in-game, my imagination is picturing a capital ship getting smashed with multiple small waves of fighters/bombers from different directions that challenge their shield allocation, damage control and coordination of point defence weapon systems - hence nullifying some of their defensive options.

The most important aspect of anti air defense is early dectection and engaging with fighters. If you resort to using missle and other defense systems that comprise the inner layer you have partially failed because they have penetrated far into your defenses. We never see this today because US naval power/air is virtually unchallenged. When we look at WW2/history we can extrapolate the lessons, unless one is being deliberately obtuse.

Of course missles/AEGIS/electronic warfare are complications on top.

Funnily enough Star Wars fleet battles appead much closer to WW2 slug fest than modern warfare with its complicated multi tier attack/defense. Imperial point defense turbo lasers are manned!

There are a number of relatively obvious limitations by comparison (WW2 ships and squadrons did not have the ability to effectively teleport to wherever they needed to be on minutes notice, for example). Today's anti-air systems (air- ground- and sea-based) are actually largely missile based and rely on far-reaching sensor information to hit inbound enemy aircraft. The threat envelope of incoming modern combat aircraft is now measured in dozens of miles. The threat envelope back posed by modern sea and ground installations is now measured in hundreds of miles.

Against equal forces, modern anti-air defenses are very powerful and dangerous. Except for a few particularly light squadrons such as TIE Fighters and Z-95 headhunters, that does not feel properly represented in Armada. Instead, squadrons in sustained close combat against those ships have almost no major threats or obstacles unless confronted by overwhelming squadron forces.

Squadrons attacking ships should have an advantage, not immunity to reprisal.

check out the Falklands war: I don't think a single ship shot down a aircraft, but the air craft sank a lot of ships. Only other fighters and land AA hit any fighters.

There is also a point to be made of armaments involved on those ships. Many of the large heavy-hitters (ISDS and VSDS for sure, and I believe MC-80s as well) don't even mount point defense. Their armaments are comprised solely of turbolasers, ion cannons, and ocassionaly capital-grade concussion missiles/proton torpedos. Due to the sheer size of these weapons, they turn and pivot to aim more slowly, making it far more difficult to hit agile fighters (and let's face it, compared to an MC-80, even the renownedly ponderous Y-Wings move like ballerinas.)

All that said, I wouldn't mind being able to brace against activation sets of fighters. Though negating 4-8 dozen proton torpedos does seem...unlikely.

*cant work these forums quote function*

*cant work these forums quote function*

The most important aspect of anti air defense is early dectection and engaging with fighters. If you resort to using missle and other defense systems that comprise the inner layer you have partially failed because they have penetrated far into your defenses. We never see this today because US naval power/air is virtually unchallenged. When we look at WW2/history we can extrapolate the lessons, unless one is being deliberately obtuse.

Of course missles/AEGIS/electronic warfare are complications on top.

Funnily enough Star Wars fleet battles appead much closer to WW2 slug fest than modern warfare with its complicated multi tier attack/defense. Imperial point defense turbo lasers are manned!

There are a number of relatively obvious limitations by comparison (WW2 ships and squadrons did not have the ability to effectively teleport to wherever they needed to be on minutes notice, for example). Today's anti-air systems (air- ground- and sea-based) are actually largely missile based and rely on far-reaching sensor information to hit inbound enemy aircraft. The threat envelope of incoming modern combat aircraft is now measured in dozens of miles. The threat envelope back posed by modern sea and ground installations is now measured in hundreds of miles.

Against equal forces, modern anti-air defenses are very powerful and dangerous. Except for a few particularly light squadrons such as TIE Fighters and Z-95 headhunters, that does not feel properly represented in Armada. Instead, squadrons in sustained close combat against those ships have almost no major threats or obstacles unless confronted by overwhelming squadron forces.

Squadrons attacking ships should have an advantage, not immunity to reprisal.

Someone gets it. There is 0 capital ship response once the fighter screen is down. Do I think squadrons should be able to contribute? Absolutely. Do I think they should be the deciding factor? Absolutely not.

Someone gets it. There is 0 capital ship response once the fighter screen is down. Do I think squadrons should be able to contribute? Absolutely. Do I think they should be the deciding factor? Absolutely not.

If you want ships to be able to fight back against squadrons, use Cluster Bombs, Quad Laser Turrets, or Ruthless Strategists. If you don't like being attacked by squadrons, take something that lets you fight back against squadrons. If you're running Imps, Agent Kallus and Raiders work wonders when combined with TIEs. If you're playing Rebels, YT1300s live for days, and their counter with a Toryn reroll can do damage over time.

Have you considered (and this makes me sound like a jerk, but i'm trying not to be, i promise!) taking more squadrons in your lists to actually fight against squadrons? E Wings with Snipe, YT-1300s, A wings with Counter (to act as Interceptors for whatever bombers you're facing), Shara Bey, Ten Numb, Wedge, Dutch, Han, a metric ton of Z95s....What are you normally taking as your squadron presence that's dying so quickly against your opponents? How are you flying your squadrons? Again, i'm not trying to be a jerk here, but are you flying your squadrons badly? Slash not having enough of them to deal with your opponent's fighters? If you dont want squadrons to be the deciding factor, take them out of the game.

I understand you want the ability to fire back against squadrons when they attack your ship, but that's not the game FFG gave us. Ships that use squadron commands are taking squadrons/bombers to be able to attack your ships with those squadrons. Individually they're weak, but together they're strong, all at the cost of more points being taken for that ability (The "standard" loadout of Yavaris and 3 B Wings costs 110 points, roughly equivalent to 2 TRCR90s. But you'd be hardpressed to find anyone who'd argue the 2 TRCR90s were stronger against a ship!). They've spread their ship damage across several sources, and your opponent has to find a way to deliver all that damage to the ship. Your job is to occupy those fighters and prevent that damage from getting to your ship as best as you can. If you want to attack against those squadrons with your ship, use one of your two attacks next turn to perform AA against those fighters before you move. But I don't think it's really fair to the squadron players to say "well, i want to be able to attack against squadrons during my ship phase, and i also want to be able to attack against them during the squadron phase."