...so this is a topic that i don't think anyone has brought up.

squadrons. ships. squadron lists. ship lists. what is armada trying to achieve? is there a point really in trying to construct "all ship lists" or "all squadron lists"?

i would like to offer a fresh perspective. view armada from the beginning. what does it offer?

1. from the moment we open the core box, we find the following:

-3 star wars capital ships. 10 starfighter squadrons. upgrade cards including some favourite star wars characters.

from the get go, we realise this is a game about space combat in star wars.

2. what is it's difference to x-wing?

ideally, we should judge two different games seperately, but i'll give you my own take.

fluff-wise, x-wing is "small-time space combat". a dogfight here, a dogfight there. you get to watch wedge take down some TIEs.

but you will never watch Dutch Vander leading a bombing run against a star destroyer, or darth vader's devastator blasting off rebel ships, or agent kallus and his ships hunting down heroic rebels on a blockade run. you will never see a real trench run because there will never be a trench run target. everything will be small scale.

3. conclusion: armada is not a game about capital ships, NOR is it about squadrons. not in my view, and certainly not in the company's view that offered 3 capital ships and 10 squadrons in the starter. it is about a full star wars space combat experience.

4. what is the state of armada ?

in wave 5, we dont know. in wave 3/4, we see the following trends:

-lots of starfighter squadrons.

-2 combat ships and 2-3 flotillas. sometimes more combat ships, but the ratio i mentioned is considered "ideal".

-combat ships carrying the day (admonition, yavaris, demolisher. just look at their stats in regionals' performance) while squadrons surround large ships and bomb them to stop them from killing smaller ships.

-nevertheless, some few top 4/winners do have large ships in their lists.

what is not to like in the meta i described? isn't this star wars to the core? sure, it's not perfect. would you prefer a meta of "3 large ships vs 3 large ships"? does that feel star wars?

so, next time people cry over "squadrons ruining everything" remember: when you first bought this game, you had 56 or 58 points of squadros in your roughly 180-pt list. it didn't stop you from making your corvettes and star destroyer deliver pain. you think "ok but i dont want to only play flotillas, i want ships that shoot"? fear not, for there will always be a place for admonition, yavaris, assault frigates, ISDs, demolishers out there! you just gotta use the rest of your fleet to support them. relax and enjoy the game

When I bought this game I didn't have a single point of squadrons. Never needed them until now. Not to say it doesn't present an interesting challenge. It is what it is....adapt and overcome, or die. Simple enough.

im big on thematics. Im a bigger StarTrek fan than StarWars so the capital ship warefare drew me initially but StarWars has always been more about fighters than the capital ships, as often a handful of fighters rips a massive ship apart not the other massive ship. So, i had always maxed out on fighters. Begining to think going beyond 100pts in fighters is a bad idea though.

Good post! I agree that what makes Armada shine is the combination of squads and ships battling away. That to me is what Star Wars is all about.

I watched the 2016 X-Wing world's final the other day, as have no experience of it as a game. 2 fighters vs 2, ducking, weaving, shooting... found it all incredibly boring!

I dunno... the initial Imperial offering was a very heavy ship, which convinced me that's what the Empire was all about, plus a few screening squadrons. Intel has made the screening squadrons irrelevant, and Demolisher has guaranteed that the small base GSD has competitively outlived the medium VSD.

It feels like the game has become activations and massed small attacks. The balance between tough large ships and small ships has slid waaay to the Rebel's side of the introduction game with multiple small ships and fighter supremacy. Seems like the only good big ships have now is how many fighters they can command at once (which the VSD still does well, but not what made it impressive initially with the big batteries and high hull).

I tell myself this is just a phase. Most of my early community was about big ships and had to be prodded about how good fighters were when the Gencon list was taken down with an A-Wing cloud. Someday, somehow, big ships will have their day again. Then big ships will be allowed to lock Concentrate Fire into their command dials and mean it.

If not, then the meta will be nothing but Yavaris fighter clouds vs Demolisher with flotillas pushing fighters, because anything bigger will be crushed instantly by the massed small ship attacks over the course of an entire turn.

I usually only bring maybe 25% of my fleets as squadrons. My last fleet idea was an ImpStar, two Victories, 5 Ties and Howlrunner, and even that is abnormal, because usually I like fleets with lots of smaller ships rather than a skirmish force of a couple biggies.

Even a Rebel fleet I built with a section as a "bombing run" probably only had 5-6 squadrons.

I would just like large ships to be competitive. While in my micro meta it is (only because my primary opponent can't roll to save his life!) I'd like it to be competitive in general because star destroyers are the greatest capital ship in sci fi. Unfortunately because of the vastly overpowered nature of activation advantage, I'm finding it difficult to make a balanced list with even one ISD II.

The overpopulated and almost forced upon you fighter selection doesn't help much either. I'll admit I'm a sucker for masses of TIE fighters, but that's because it's fluffy. But all this insane combo-ing (it's a word now) of squadrons is absurd.

I think the squadron point values should have been dropped to 1/4 with the increase to 400 point games.

What if some tournament people just came up with a format that either only allowed capital ships or didn't allow for unique squadrons?

I feel that a lot of the current squad meta change is based around flotillas being tiny carriers. If FFG put out a "system patrol craft" flotilla that is somehow more of a surface combatant at a similar price point, then the activation increase wouldn't have tilted the balance towards fighters as much. Say, no squadron rating, 1 more dice on the faces & a Turbolaser or Ion upgrade slot instead of the offensive retrofit. whatever that costs out to. (0-5 more than a Goz?)

I also feel that people are exaggerating the power & efficiency of fighters. Are people really reacting any different to Yavaris today than Demolisher 9 months ago? In the absence of super-effective names, are low-activation generic carrier fleets winning against low-activation generic gunships? I'd be willing to bet that 3 ISD gunships will bash 2 ISD carriers, 1 Goz + a mixed fighter/bomber wing pretty well. (say, 4 T-A, 6 T-Bomb & jumpmaster) The fighters will survive, but as soon as the carriers are brought into close/medium range, they die. And without overwhelming activation advantage, I have a hard time imagining the carriers running & hiding that effectively.

Sure, we could come up with an upgrade that allowed gunships to threaten bombers back, but then we'd have to drop their damage enough that 3 ISD-point defense builds fight 2 ISD-CV builds to a near draw in the gun battle. (i.e. the fighters are all dead, or almost all, and the last ISD from both side is down to the last 1-2 hull before good/bad dice or excellent piloting makes the difference)

And if it's the game-breaking title, then lets build another game breaking title or two, but focused on what big ships should be good at - surviving damage or coordinating other ships. And then we have 4-5 must-have title

Wave 5 is going to see the return of med/large base ships as a greater proportion of fleets, guaranteed. Upgrades like RBD, Tua, and Jerjerrod increase their durability and ease of use, while the wave 5 squadrons offer vastly improved anti-squadron options for your CAP.

Wave 5 has blown things wide open. Head out there and fly those big ships!

Dono forget damage control officers now make APTs less dangerous for the big ships.

Oh, just a pet peeve I feel needs to be mentioned, Admiralts need to be mandated go on med or large based ships only... No flotilla hiding... That's not Star Wars!

Edit: sorry, wrong thread!

Or just deny them from Flotillas. Quite frankly i think it would be silly to not allow them on CR90s or Nebs.

Something that bothers me when I read the "squadrons are the cancer of Armada" type threads is that no one seems to remember reality, namely WW2. Star wars was infulenced by that war in many ways, and Armada by association. That war and the subsequent decades have proven that a carrier will kill a battleship dead every time so long as the carrier is out of range. This fundamentsl fact of modern naval strategy cannot be overlooked in Armada.

That said Armada has yet to give us an analogy to a Nimitz class in space. We have the unique type of "battlecarrier" that can dual hat direct action and squadron commands. I don't see anything wrong with the fact that without squadrons you will lose to bombers, or that squadron activations are so crucial to this game.

If anything I would like to se a medium or large tship that takes the flotilla idea further. Very little direct ship to ship combat ability but incredible C^2 (command and control) of squadrons and fleet support to give both great benefit to squadrons, and also to provide a miasion critical ship to hamstring your squadrons if lost.

But this isn't World War II in space. This is a science fantasy space battle game about capital ships and squadrons dueling in space. In theory, an ISD is powerful enough to wreck fleets on it's own, balanced evenly by the desperate, scrappy, clever rebels with crazy tactics. Instead, ISD turbolaser space mallets can't whack a mole ships they want to, and they get overwhelmed with fighters they can't kill efficiently. The only answer that's worked for me is taking just as many fighters to respond to a bomber ball.

I fight a Yavaris B-Wing battle ball nearly every time I play Armada. No capital ship combination I've come up with has been close to putting a dent in it. My only solution apparently is to resort to fighters... and honestly it feels like a, "If I can't beat them, Join them" response. This suggest to me large-meds for the Empire are valued more for their squadron values in such matchups... something i find really disappointing, because I wanted to play this game with space battleships, not space carriers.

Because if I wanted to do that, I can load up 300 points of Imperial fighters in X-Wing Epic.

No, the response to me is finding a way for an ISD to respond to multiple small damage attacks. I've seen stacked BCCs out of B-Wings and Toryn far do 2-3 damage per attack. How many of those hits should you expect an ISD to withstand? Because I take six such hits when the Yavaris activates... and more when the paired GR-75s do. These hits overwhelm my defensive tokens and make my shields vanish, especially with Norra. At that point I'm asking why I should bother taking an ISD, when cheaper VSDs can command almost as many squadrons and just as well. Those saved points go to my cheaper fighters that try to take the alpha strike advantage.

And again, I find myself seeing capital ships as losing power, valued only for their squadrons. If they aren't commanding or enhancing squadrons, then they are cheap gunships designed to take as many as you can to overload target defense tokens.

I've spent most of my time playing either medium/small bases mix reb lists or Imp small ship lists and one thing I've learnt is always respect the ISD ( especially motto). Yes you can focus it down... But it must be your focus, this allows the other units in the ops list freedom so he will be working a number on you while your taking down his ISD and if you make a misjudgement on your attack run the ISD will eat your small ships.

I have a slightly different option of the 8 hull pickle.

It's only going to get better with blast doors and a contain that can shut down APT/ACM ( assault pickles start to have some hardness to them).

I also thing, the fighter games has fundamentally changed, Intel is no longer king and can be sniped out, balls of fighters can be completely shut down by a well played raider or have their speed turned to sludge.

The combo above weekens small ship attacks just a bit ( APT/ACM was big for Glads and MC30), strengthens large ships a little and makes getting your bombers off a little more unreliable, although the impact of bombers has increased a bit if you can get them off.

One last thing, linked to getting your bombers off... rapid launch bays looks like it may have an impact on big ships. A hold full of bombers massive increases your offence and a number of Snipe ships gives you the option to target out the Intel if a bomber ball comes after you.

I fight a Yavaris B-Wing battle ball nearly every time I play Armada. No capital ship combination I've come up with has been close to putting a dent in it. My only solution apparently is to resort to fighters... and honestly it feels like a, "If I can't beat them, Join them" response.

[ flagship ] Imperial I-Class Star Destroyer (110 points)

- Admiral Motti ( 24 points)

- Gunnery Team ( 7 points)

- Quad Laser Turrets ( 5 points)

- H9 Turbolasers ( 8 points)

- Leading Shots ( 4 points)

= 158 total ship cost

Raider-I Class Corvette (44 points)

- Impetuous ( 4 points)

- Ordnance Experts ( 4 points)

= 52 total ship cost

Gladiator II-Class Star Destroyer (62 points)

- Demolisher ( 10 points)

- Ruthless Strategists ( 4 points)

- Engine Techs ( 8 points)

- Assault Proton Torpedoes ( 5 points)

= 89 total ship cost

Raider-I Class Corvette (44 points)

- Instigator ( 4 points)

- Ordnance Experts ( 4 points)

- Quad Laser Turrets ( 5 points)

= 57 total ship cost

1 Gamma Squadron ( 10 points)

1 TIE Advanced Squadron ( 12 points)

2 TIE Bomber Squadrons ( 18 points)

Because that's a list that will kill those B-wings dead, in one round if flown well. Demolisher alone will inflict 2 damage minimum per attack (on average) and with ET you can easily get your second shot on the same squadrons. With a little luck Demo will kill the Bwings by itself in one turn. That's four damage on each 5HP squadron clustered in range. Pick off the remaining one HP with raiders or ISD counter AA fire or whatever. ISD kills flotillas, Raiders kill Yavaris, etc.

I just threw this together in 5 minutes so it's by no means optimized. But you asked for a solution....

I fight a Yavaris B-Wing battle ball nearly every time I play Armada. No capital ship combination I've come up with has been close to putting a dent in it. My only solution apparently is to resort to fighters... and honestly it feels like a, "If I can't beat them, Join them" response.

Have you tried something along the lines of the following?

[ flagship ] Imperial I-Class Star Destroyer (110 points)

- Admiral Motti ( 24 points)

- Gunnery Team ( 7 points)

- Quad Laser Turrets ( 5 points)

- H9 Turbolasers ( 8 points)

- Leading Shots ( 4 points)

= 158 total ship cost

Raider-I Class Corvette (44 points)

- Impetuous ( 4 points)

- Ordnance Experts ( 4 points)

= 52 total ship cost

Gladiator II-Class Star Destroyer (62 points)

- Demolisher ( 10 points)

- Ruthless Strategists ( 4 points)

- Engine Techs ( 8 points)

- Assault Proton Torpedoes ( 5 points)

= 89 total ship cost

Raider-I Class Corvette (44 points)

- Instigator ( 4 points)

- Ordnance Experts ( 4 points)

- Quad Laser Turrets ( 5 points)

= 57 total ship cost

1 Gamma Squadron ( 10 points)

1 TIE Advanced Squadron ( 12 points)

2 TIE Bomber Squadrons ( 18 points)

Because that's a list that will kill those B-wings dead, in one round if flown well. Demolisher alone will inflict 2 damage minimum per attack (on average) and with ET you can easily get your second shot on the same squadrons. With a little luck Demo will kill the Bwings by itself in one turn. That's four damage on each 5HP squadron clustered in range. Pick off the remaining one HP with raiders or ISD counter AA fire or whatever. ISD kills flotillas, Raiders kill Yavaris, etc.

I just threw this together in 5 minutes so it's by no means optimized. But you asked for a solution....

So it hasn't even been playtested?

I wouldn't call that a solution.

More like ridiculous theory crafting...

I trust my TIE Defenders. 2 of them kill 1 B-Wing before it can even attack.

Squadrons are a part of Star Wars and Armada. I don't have a problem with that

So it hasn't even been playtested?

I wouldn't call that a solution.

More like ridiculous theory crafting...

This version hasnt been playtested, the concept has. It will work.

snip

I've found everytime I build a list with an ISD, I'm voluntarily gimping the list. Everytime I don't include the demolisher, I'm gimping the list. Everytime I don't stack squadron abilities to cheese with the best of em, I'm gimping the list.

I think its sad that FFG already needs to go back and redo all the large based ships because of how gimped they are.

I'm just lucky my primary opponent doesn't powerbuild.

I feel that the main reason for not using large ships is the tournament points limit of 400.

It really is hard to justify an expensive ISD in that kind of environment.

That being said I'm really glad my friends and I only play at 500 pts. I always take 1 ISD and several smaller ships plus a healthy Fighter screen. 500 pts. opens up much more possibilities for different builds and larger ships. Also it helps that we only have 2 flotillas for each faction

So it hasn't even been playtested?

I wouldn't call that a solution.

More like ridiculous theory crafting...

I trust my TIE Defenders. 2 of them kill 1 B-Wing before it can even attack.

Squadrons are a part of Star Wars and Armada. I don't have a problem with that

Well, it's been tested in a sense....in that I've actually faced a Glad-2 Demolisher kitted out in exactly that way. And it (with a little support) had no problem killing my Y-wing swarm - which I might point out, are tougher than B-wings. The rest of the list I threw together just to make a point.....to see if people have actually tried out Antisquadron focused ship lists.

Yes, it's a bit ridiculous. But also completely valid response to Norsehound's complaint, I believe.

So it hasn't even been playtested?

I wouldn't call that a solution.

More like ridiculous theory crafting...

I trust my TIE Defenders. 2 of them kill 1 B-Wing before it can even attack.

Squadrons are a part of Star Wars and Armada. I don't have a problem with that

Well, it's been tested in a sense....in that I've actually faced a Glad-2 Demolisher kitted out in exactly that way. And it (with a little support) had no problem killing my Y-wing swarm - which I might point out, are tougher than B-wings. The rest of the list I threw together just to make a point.....to see if people have actually tried out Antisquadron focused ship lists.

Yes, it's a bit ridiculous. But also completely valid response to Norsehound's complaint, I believe.

I fight a Yavaris B-Wing battle ball nearly every time I play Armada. No capital ship combination I've come up with has been close to putting a dent in it. My only solution apparently is to resort to fighters... and honestly it feels like a, "If I can't beat them, Join them" response. This suggest to me large-meds for the Empire are valued more for their squadron values in such matchups... something i find really disappointing, because I wanted to play this game with space battleships, not space carriers.

Because if I wanted to do that, I can load up 300 points of Imperial fighters in X-Wing Epic.

No, the response to me is finding a way for an ISD to respond to multiple small damage attacks. I've seen stacked BCCs out of B-Wings and Toryn far do 2-3 damage per attack. How many of those hits should you expect an ISD to withstand? Because I take six such hits when the Yavaris activates... and more when the paired GR-75s do. These hits overwhelm my defensive tokens and make my shields vanish, especially with Norra. At that point I'm asking why I should bother taking an ISD, when cheaper VSDs can command almost as many squadrons and just as well. Those saved points go to my cheaper fighters that try to take the alpha strike advantage.

And again, I find myself seeing capital ships as losing power, valued only for their squadrons. If they aren't commanding or enhancing squadrons, then they are cheap gunships designed to take as many as you can to overload target defense tokens.

Sorry to hear that, but the Star Wars theme was always about battlecarriers not battleships.

And honestly I dont see how you can even remotly think you can have your battleship feeling from X-Wing the fighter game.

Your theory is also wrong: The ISD inst menat to destroy anything with its turbolasers. Thats why they made it a battlecarrier: 72 Fighters to take down anything small, and the guns for anything medium and larger.

Wait, why are ISDs suddenly bad?

Jeez people.