Wait, why are ISDs suddenly bad?

Jeez people.

I dunno. You run Motti and throw Reinforced Blast Doors on one and listen to your opponent sigh, lol.

As someone who pioneered one of those Squadronless Ship builds. I personally think the game is about what YOU as a player can make work. If you cant take out a Yavaris ball, figure out the issues and plan for them. If Rhymer is causing issues, find how to counter him by changing tactics.

Norsegod, I might have been rambling too much. I was trying to convey that it just plain doesn't work for battleships to fight squadrons of aircraft without their own fighter cover. Even in star wars, hell they even say it in ANH! "We co u nt 30 rebel ships but they are so small they are avoiding our turbo lasers"

To go back to Earth, as soon as we started putting planes on ships the big line of battle fleet's days were numbered. Bismarck was disabled by 1 torpedo from a tiny British plane. Pearl harbor was a carrier raid, Midway, Corral Sea, hell even the falklands showed what a single plane with the right payload and some cajones could do.

Don't hate squadrons for going after your ISD. Flip over that model and ponder the reason for that big hangar...

I dunno. You run Motti and throw Reinforced Blast Doors on one and listen to your opponent sigh, lol.

It's going to be hard as you like to take one of these down, especially with a engineering spamming and or a doctor ship in company. Assault pickles can suddenly take a pounding with these as well.

As someone who pioneered one of those Squadronless Ship builds. I personally think the game is about what YOU as a player can make work. If you cant take out a Yavaris ball, figure out the issues and plan for them. If Rhymer is causing issues, find how to counter him by changing tactics.

I do feel that there should be meta that can include the triangle of three distinct fleet formations (plus a few random ones). These would be similar to the rock/paper/scissors formula you might find in other games like MtG. Your little to no squadron fleet, squadron support fleet, and your combined arms fleet.

As someone who pioneered one of those Squadronless Ship builds. I personally think the game is about what YOU as a player can make work. If you cant take out a Yavaris ball, figure out the issues and plan for them. If Rhymer is causing issues, find how to counter him by changing tactics.

I do feel that there should be meta that can include the triangle of three distinct fleet formations (plus a few random ones). These would be similar to the rock/paper/scissors formula you might find in other games like MtG. Your little to no squadron fleet, squadron support fleet, and your combined arms fleet.

I have been out for a few months but I think it comes down more to player skill than to just what you are taking. It is a culmination of those two things.

As someone who pioneered one of those Squadronless Ship builds. I personally think the game is about what YOU as a player can make work. If you cant take out a Yavaris ball, figure out the issues and plan for them. If Rhymer is causing issues, find how to counter him by changing tactics.

I do feel that there should be meta that can include the triangle of three distinct fleet formations (plus a few random ones). These would be similar to the rock/paper/scissors formula you might find in other games like MtG. Your little to no squadron fleet, squadron support fleet, and your combined arms fleet.

I dislike rock/paper/scissors balance for wargames. battles should be decided by careful fleet design and tactics, not matchups.

example of rock/paper/scissors balance and why it is bad for wargames:

army A has crazy offensive melee , makes a mockery of armour and has good threat range, but is super fragile and easy to hit.

army B has great shoting power. automaticaly defeats army A.

army C has amazing stamina to withstand shooting and/or can turn completely invisible(like, UNTARGETABLE) against shooting . automaticaly defeats army B. automaticaly loses to army A due to lesser threat range.

in theory, these armies are balanced. in practice, when they play they just have to look at the cards and the losing matchup concedes. no need to play the game, the winner is decided. i am not making this up, there is an actual wargame out there, proponent of rock/paper/scissors balance, that is like that. like, "the whole army turns invisible for one turn" stuff, or "the whole army shoots twice" stuff. complete skew "if it works game over, if it doesnt then game over for the one using it" thingy.

i do not think we want an armada like that. where matchups decide the victor and the battle is a chore, the losing matchup having few, if ANY AT ALL, chances. rock/paper/scissors balance is a can of worms. do not open it.

edit: in rock/paper/scissors, you play in 1 minute. in mtg, you play for some minutes. even if you are in a losing matchup, you dont realy have to spend hours on end fighting a battle already lost. in armada and other wargames, after matchups are shown, you start playing and keep playing. its just no fun if its not at least close to 50/50.

Large ships do just fine. I can see why some people might feel like they don't work out as well, and perhaps that plays into the OP's idea of ships versus squadrons. In the regionals data, 43% of the lists in the top 4 contained large ships, so we've got plenty of people who have managed to make them work (including me).

You definitely cannot go into a large ship list planning on the all-ship list. That's where the OP's comment on the fallacy comes in. You also don't need huge numbers of squadrons to make it work. I've seen some of the Ackbar lists go as low as 4 A-wings. You can certainly scale up from there if you've got a good plan for your AS fire to support your squadrons.

I do think expensive ships are hurting a bit at the moment. Bringing them down tends to become the focus of the game, and because they are so expensive, hiding them isn't really an option. Having a large base can also become a liability as it's easier to block and escaping is difficult.

As someone who pioneered one of those Squadronless Ship builds. I personally think the game is about what YOU as a player can make work. If you cant take out a Yavaris ball, figure out the issues and plan for them. If Rhymer is causing issues, find how to counter him by changing tactics.

I do feel that there should be meta that can include the triangle of three distinct fleet formations (plus a few random ones). These would be similar to the rock/paper/scissors formula you might find in other games like MtG. Your little to no squadron fleet, squadron support fleet, and your combined arms fleet.

I dislike rock/paper/scissors balance for wargames. battles should be decided by careful fleet design and tactics, not matchups.

example of rock/paper/scissors balance and why it is bad for wargames:

army A has crazy offensive melee , makes a mockery of armour and has good threat range, but is super fragile and easy to hit.

army B has great shoting power. automaticaly defeats army A.

army C has amazing stamina to withstand shooting and/or can turn completely invisible(like, UNTARGETABLE) against shooting . automaticaly defeats army B. automaticaly loses to army A due to lesser threat range.

in theory, these armies are balanced. in practice, when they play they just have to look at the cards and the losing matchup concedes. no need to play the game, the winner is decided. i am not making this up, there is an actual wargame out there, proponent of rock/paper/scissors balance, that is like that. like, "the whole army turns invisible for one turn" stuff, or "the whole army shoots twice" stuff. complete skew "if it works game over, if it doesnt then game over for the one using it" thingy.

i do not think we want an armada like that. where matchups decide the victor and the battle is a chore, the losing matchup having few, if ANY AT ALL, chances. rock/paper/scissors balance is a can of worms. do not open it.

edit: in rock/paper/scissors, you play in 1 minute. in mtg, you play for some minutes. even if you are in a losing matchup, you dont realy have to spend hours on end fighting a battle already lost. in armada and other wargames, after matchups are shown, you start playing and keep playing. its just no fun if its not at least close to 50/50.

There's a big problem with that and it's the "automatic" portion.

Having an ISD with all the nice big guns it has relegated to just being a carrier is particularly anticlimactic and considerably point inefficient. That's why the May versions where you remove that ISD for 2 gozantis instead win more.

The whole you must rely on squadrons to do damage is honestly boring. It precludes the ability to take relevant upgrades and or the number of ships needed to usefully pad your activations.

Of the currently meta competitive no squadron lists, only the mc30s with mon mothma I believe are truly top tier. Any other ship is just too weak to fighters.

I'm wholly against a short of Rock Paper Scissors idea. All I want is for a ship focused fleet not about squadrons to be effective. I want to see damage done with offensive ships. Not just having carriers and ships meant for defensive fire.

This is what the mc80 mc30 cr90 fleet is. That torpedo boat isn't meant to deal offensive damage. It's usually insurance to avoid letting your opponent close on your carriers.

Boring.

Wait, why are ISDs suddenly bad?

Jeez people.

They are not bad just not seen as point efficient compared to other options.

What do the Imps have that can do what an ISD does for less points?

Anyone remember back in the day when people were just mad at the fact that we had a squadron point limit. . . ahhh those were the days. Just think what this game would be without that limit. . .

no squad limit?

imps would suddenly be running a raider or flotilla to hide their commander and ~16 decimators.

Im glad theres a squad limit. I kinda wish it was a little higher than it is (150pts?) but if there wasnt a squad limit ooh boy...

Wait, why are ISDs suddenly bad?

Jeez people.

It's not that the ISD is bad... it's a great ship attack platform. The problem I feel is, it's too easy to be swarmed to death. What pushes it over the edge is that those swarm attacks can be enhanced to raise their damage (BCCs) or guarantee they hit (TRCs), so that every time the ISD is attacked it's taking multiple points of damage per shot. ANd if you can field a lot of attacks against the same target, it can claw apart even ISDs... which kind of not make them worth their points.

So I think if the quality of offense out of these small units has gone up, the defense should go up. Obstructing fighter strikes could be a way to do this, but Montferrat requires speed 3 and as soon as you ram (yavaris) you lose him and all those fighters strike harder.

I dunno... I've learned the lesson that I need to take fighters for my builds. The problem I have is against a fighter-centric list like the Yavaris one I mentioned too easily blows away the fighter cover I do take and remains super-powerful against my remaining capital ships. It forces me to consider a dedicated fighter protection to deal with it.

http://concentratefire.blogspot.gr/2016/12/wave-3-4-regionals-analysis.html

in wave 2 regionals, 41% of Imperial event winners used an ISD.

in wave 3/4 regionals, 40% of Imperial event winners used an ISD.

in top 4 stats, the numbers are also similar (52% to 47%)

wow. suddenly ISDs became worthless... ergo the 1%-5% drop in usage (wait, what? )

regarding fighter cover:

tried and tested method.

bomber build? then use 120-130 points of bomber squadrons.

fighter cover? then use 70-90 points of interceptor squadrons AND USE THE EFFIN SQUADRON COMMANDS TO BLAST THOSE BOMBERS APART.

use that fighter cover. you will be fine. honestly.

sample fighter covers in wave 3/4 (more options wave 5, like Snipe):

Rebels:

4 x x-wings, dash rendar, tycho celchu, 30 hullpoints, 23 antisquadron dice. ruthless Rieekan combo stuff.

5 x x-wings, moldy crow. 29 hullpoints, mass braces, 23 antisquadron dice.

tycho celchy, 3 x a-wings, dash rendar. mass counter and threat range. plus rieekan synergy.

Imperials:

darth vader, howlrunner, 6 x tie fighters. 26 hull points, escort with braces, up to 31 antisquadron dice.

darth vader, soontir fel, mauler mithel, 3 x tie interceptors; 20 hull points, but full autodamage/ scatter/braces/counters.

...or just howlrunner and 9 x tie fighters or whatever.

build your fighter squadron with the intent to dig through escorts and kill intel. force the bomber player to attack the squadrons due to that. ignore the idea of "tieing up squadrons", intel and grit have made that irrelevant. just shoot them dead! all you need to do is buy one or two turns that they are preoccupied with the squadrons instead of attacking your ships, so your ships can deal damage.

works like a charm. you dont have to say "i play 0 fighters/3-4 ties, OR i play full bombers". be creative.

Again, it's not that ISDs suck. They are good at wiping other single capital ships from the board. But what are people taking them for, Fighter 4 with a weapons team and offensive slot, or for the huge batteries and Ion/Turbo slots with Gunnery team?

No, what's exasperating is that the most capable and most expensive ship in the game is so highly vulnerable to fighters. When you start saying, "That's how it's supposed to work," Then I begin asking, "What's the advantage of taking big ships anyway if I'm so easily destroyed by massed fighters? I'll take Lambdas, Gozantis, and Demolisher which will sting less when I lose them and are just as effective. Plus I get activation advantage by taking more units."

The only reason I don't run those lists is because I want to keep believing big ships are still relevant in spite of the logic of my games. :s

advantages of ISDs:

-they kill flotillas dead, so easy to get accuracies. especialy with gunnery team. i cannot begin to state how big this is.

-they can use their squadron value to help your INTERCEPTORS get the alpha against a bomber force if you wanna play aggressive ships.

-they cannot be slowed by tractor beams of most ships (which often means death especialy while being surrounded by bombers)

-their speed 3 can often make them escape bombers after receiving one bombing run.

example list:

admiral: Motti

ISD-2

gunnery team, leading shots, xi7s, ECM (leading shots for rerolls if you dont get accs; kill those flotillas dead, and its not like this loadout is bad vs other ships either)

VSD-1 w/ admiral chiranau, expanded hangar bay

gozanti cruisers, repair crews

gozanti cruisers, comms net

2 x tie advanced

4 x tie fighters

howlrunner

mauler mithel (remember chiranau)

this is a setup where the ISD is clearly built to be a main damage dealer. i put this together in 5 mins, others have better ideas and use them in regionals.

EDIT: ARE YOU GUYS SURE YOU AINT MOSTLY ANNOYED BY FLOTILLAS THAN SQUADRONS?

if so, just put h9s and/or rerolls in your ships. flotillas is just one thing you gotta expect when listbuilding. nothing more, nothing less.

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.

Both the Yavaris itself and the B-Wings are pretty darn slow, especially since Yavaris can't have Boosted Comms so the B-Wings can't stray further than medium range from it.

The solution here is to not go at that fleet and just take a 5-5. That'll stop the Yavaris B-Wing Ball player from playing the list pretty quickly if he always gets stuck with a 5-5 and can't crack Top 8 standings. The problem with Armada, though--and it's a problem even at the level of Origins and Gencon based on my observations this past summer--is that some players will fly right into the teeth of their opponent's most ridiculous 5-5 lists. And now, instead of that player getting a 5-5 stalemate because of the nature of their list they've been gifted a free 10-0 win because their opponent was stupid enough to fly right into it.

The trouble, though, when you come against a list like that (and a couple waves ago it was Triple Vic Rhymer Ball or Double Vic Rhymer Ball + Glad) is that by refusing to engage them (where they have a huge advantage) and instead forcing them to settle for a 5-5 is that you also take a 5-5, which can ruin your tournament run as well and is an incredibly boring and unsatisfying way to spend 2.5 hours. But it's always better than the 9-2 / 10-1 you'd give your opponent if you flew right into their trap and let them fight the engagement on their terms with their slow overpowering list.

This is one of the reasons why Aramada, as beautiful and fun of a game as it is, really doesn't hold up well as a rigorous competitive tournament game.

imho it is not exactly that.

armada list building has HUGE "noob traps". so many that even modestly experienced players can create absolutely worthless lists- which creates the 10-1 situations you described.

building a fleet full of bulky unsupported ships, thinking that due to proper cost-effective upgrades it can work (and dont tell me about some konstantine list that devotes a whole medium ship on support duties, you know the kind of fleets i talk about...like, "why does my 2/3-ISD fleet not work??? why cant i fit 4 x VSDs in one list???" )

building a fighter cover thinking that "engaging enemy squadrons" is the goal (hint: killing escorts, grit and intel is. not "engaging")

underestimating what the bomber keyword does. (an opponent actualy built a rhymerball with interceptors and tie fighters and 0 bombers in it. not a "fighter screen with rhymer". no, a 130-pt rhymerball. he just didnt expect HOW MUCH LOWER the damage from non-bombers would be)

getting stuck in previous metas (i.e. refusing to work accuracy generators in their lists, hence no way to deal with flotillas).

creating lists with no attention to buffing up their activations and deployments (i've seen 5-deployment lists in regionals. like, 3 ships 4 squadrons)

and many, many others.

the gap between the average player and the competent player seems so HUGE in list building compared to how they play.

in general, armada is very prone to what MtG players call "timmy mistakes"("timmy" is a type of player that likes playing huge big unsupported creatures even though with such luck of support it can never work. NOTHING works without support, in gaming OR in real life)

Raider I w/Kallus, Ordinance Experts, Flechette Torps, Impetuous=58 pts

Gladiator II w/Kallus, Ordinance Experts, Engine Techs, Assault Protons, Demolisher=92

Both these ships shred squadrons and, in the raider's case, shut them down, or in the gladiator's case, are threatening to ships.

Or, realize this is Star Wars and take some fighters:

Bossk

Zetrik Strom

Tempest Squadron

Dengar

Mauler Mithel

This will take care of what ever troubles you squadron wise for 86 pts. Add Jendon and Bossk laughs all the way to the Scorekeeper's high score.

Howlrunner

Saber Squadron

TIE Interceptor x2

50 points of the best token squadron Imperials can get. A single well timed squadron command will deal with whatever is troubling you. Put flight controllers on your ISD or Vic and laugh at bomber balls.

Lieutenant Blount

Z-95 x3

35 points and all the Imperial salt you can carry.

Weird thst some are citing the ISD when it is indeed a squadron carrier

Sure, its a big scary bugger but it also a space faring battle station thst transports entire imperial armies across the galaxy

In game, it is not stated as a pure big gunship. I have to imagine ffg factored Squadron 4 into the cost and included the command dial stack reducing title for a reason

The mc80 flying turd is a better example of a pure big beat stick, simply because it has similar output at less price and less squadron commanding ability

Another thing about the isd being easy to kill is that the ISD isnt meant to be a big hulking indomitable monster. You need proper positioning and support to make sure that monster doesnt go down to concentrated fire

This is true regardless of if youre facing Yavaris squadrons or cr90a spam

As for the advantage, well youre concentrating an 8 die battery and four squadron anti ship dice into a single activation. Ideally you pop something before it gets to activate

Also gunnery teams almost effectively doubling your damage output brings up your damage efficiency quite a bit

its a carrier because everything in starwars is a carrier. Fighters are too important.