So question....from someone who prefers second player....what's the point of trying to fluff your list for activations if those activations are being erased starting in turn 3? I'm not really understanding it, or perhaps I am missing something? I'd rather have teh damagez, staying power, and general safety of a big ole ship. Running an ISD2/VSD2 list with a thorough fighter screen right now and thoroughly enjoying it. My most substantial losses thus far has been my VSD and 2/3's of my fighter screen yesterday.

I use advanced gunnery, planetary ion cannons, and minefields to control the battlefield or make charging into me a fools errand. Also...I'm all about that speed one xD

Activations can relate to staying power, as a second player.

Mostly because having ot move earlier in the run, can expose you to more incoming fire than if you're able to delay.

A couple of things stand out, really. One is flexibility of engagement. Having the choice of who to activate in numbers over the enemy means you can always choose the most advantageous activation, whether that be getting someone out of a potentially dangerous position (say and ISD front arc), or moving a ship that's entirely unengaged (say a corvette that's trying to flank) so that your opponent must activate a ship they may not want to, because they'll end up in a worse position relative to the rest of your ships.

There's a nuance to it, and definitely a case of diminishing returns, but it is something that must be taken into account.

Another is in the set up. Some lists I've come against have been two or three heavily built ships with a small fighter screen, which often leaves activation heavy lists a distinct positional advantage in set up, as most of your opponents ships will be in position long before your fleet is locked in. It can be very useful for dictating the first turn or so, where engagement may not happen, but funnelling or flanking can begin aplomb.

Going first is an advantage in a game but then just before the initial combat it can seem like a disadvantage.

Turn 2 for example the first player can see it as a disadvantage not wishing to be the first ship to activate then move into range. Once turn 3 arrives I love being first player to get the initial shot or choose which of my ships to get out of trouble etc.

With more missions thanks to CC we may see second player as a preferred choice from the guy with the higher bid.

So couldn't that be offset by maneuvering? Like I said, I'm a big fan of speed one. Keeps me tighter to my board edge and makes getting behind me harder, allows me to see what my opponent might be planning, and lets objectives like Minefields and Planetary Ion Cannons do their job and soften their fleet (or at least delay them further). In the case of a delay, my fighter wing jumps on their fighters or bombers and it's generally down hill from there.

Having one more activation than you opponent lets you move a ship unhindered by the worries of getting shot when combined with first player.

What many appear to have forgotten on here, or not noticed, is that having three more activations than your opponent is just wasteful.

Thrre is a balance to be had, and you will find that potency of activation is criminally undervalued around here.

That's why I mentioned it has diminishing returns at higher numbers. If your opponent happens to be running a two ship list, and you have four, you're in a pretty solid place. If you have six, it's almost counter-productive in the case of swarming up from one place. Even if your ships are well spaced, it's still no more real advantage beyond that fourth activation.

I fairly regularly run 5-7 ship lists, and it's honestly in partial response to local players running four ship lists of various styles reasonably frequently. The odd time I face against a two ship list and find the extra activations actually gum up the works when things get in close.

Don't forget having 6 ships means they are low on points which means you won't swing hard to a loss if you lose one.

I have a 6 ship Sato list that works very well. 2 AF with OE and 1 with Paragon. 2 CR90s. 2 Flotillas, one with Sato. If I go first, I can double tap with Paragon by forcing my opponent to move into range. As second player, I can out activate my opponent so they have to move into range before I activate an AF.

Activation padding gets value when each ship you activate does something. Having 3 flotillas in a list just to give your MC80 last activation of the round is weak. But if those flotillas are commanding squads, passing tokens or attacking squads, the value starts to add up.

What many appear to have forgotten on here, or not noticed, is that having three more activations than your opponent is just wasteful.

While you're correct, I disagree.

The maximum effective activation differential is equal to the number of serious threats that you can bring to bear. If I can avoid moving my big threats into or out of engagement until you are completely activated out, I can do one or both of two things.

1) I can keep my close-in brawlers out of range of your standoff attacks or squadrons until after the last of your ships has activated, minimizing the amount of time that I spend in your threat range.

2) I can keep my long-range shooters in position to force you into my threat range, take the shot, and move out of return threat range.

In both cases, going second decreases by one the maximum differential that you can leverage. For scenario 2, there is little drawback (within the scope of this discussion, at least) to this. For scenario 1, you simply lose 1 ship's worth of activation advantage (this can of course be mitigated tactically, but that's also outside of scope). This means that, for standoff threats, you would ideally bring (threats - 1) activation advantage and go second; while for brawlers, you would ideally have (threats) activation advantage and go first.

Now, this doesn't come up often because very few lists are built for both activation advantage and numerous significant threats. Generally speaking, a high-activation list will constitute 2-4 delay/support ships behind 2 major threats. In those scenarios, it is equivalent to say "a 3-activation advantage is unnecessary" and "your activation advantage should not exceed the number of threats you bring."

So, your statement is correct for most scenarios, but lacking that caveat. That can be exploited. By a 4x MC30/3x GR-75 list, not to put too fine a point on it...

I was aiming to provoke a long discussion on this because its poorly understand by many.....

I was aiming to provoke a long discussion on this because its poorly understand by many.....

Figured. I'm about halfway through my article on it.

I'm finally home from work. I really wanted to sit down and right a long post out earlier today because this is exactly a topic that I've posted about in multiple places on the boards before, but for which the concept hasn't quite taken hold.

Activation Advantage

Activation Advantage is an old concept. Plenty of forum posts, blog posts, and other sources mention that with respect to Armada, but for anyone joining us that sees the term bandied about and is still unsure about what concept everyone is referring to, let me explain here. One of the keys to the game is the back-and-forth activation sequence on a turn. One player activates a ship, then the other, until both players have activated all their ships. Ideally, you want to take the best shots possible while limiting the quality and quantity of your opponent's shots. So let's say there is a game situation where you have first player. No ships are in range of each other. You activate a ship and are forced to move it, but now it moves up into range of the opponent's forces. The net result is that you got no shot and they got at least one in return. What activation advantage does is give you the chance to delay a powerful activation until later in the sequence, when the opponent has been forced to move at least one ship forward into range.

What I think is poorly understood is that there is almost a Knee-jerk recommendation to pick up more activations or to have a specific number of activations, and often these recommendations are bandied about without respect to what a given fleet itself is trying to accomplish. More activations are only good if that gets you something. This is reflected in Ard's comments above, which he and I have hashed out in person. He's got a list where it can easily swing the activation game into 0 shots for the opponent, while he either gets shots or at least gets to set up one or more very good shots on the next turn. The activations are actually doing something enormously productive in that list. The same can be said for a DeMSU, where a combination of first player and a high activation count can set up a Demolisher to triple-tap, or minimally force the opponent to activate all their ships so that Demolisher can go last without retaliation.

Other places where I think activation numbers count: JJ's Worlds list: Whether he gets first or second player, the activation count helps set Admonition up for a good shot. And Admonition really benefits from all the help that it can get.

Lists that spread out their thread among the ships, lists that don't have a specific ship that needs to be set-up, and lists that put a significant amount of anti-ship points into squadron wings are often less activation dependent.

Activation Quality

Here is a key concept that I observed early on. The OP makes a good point that on turn-3, first player seems to matter more. On the second turn, the activation sequence tends to matter because the real potential exists for one player to get few or no shots, or to get lower quality shots, and for the other player to get better shots. This is one of the first moments in the game where activation advantage matters. Once the shooting starts to happen, it seems like this advantage fades quite a bit. Round-3 seems pretty even, and after that, it depends upon the outcome of the early clash how the two sides are activating.

Activation Quality is the concept that what matters is not merely the fact that you have an activation, but what you can manage to accomplish in that activation. It is the total aggressive potential contained in that activation.

Let's look at some examples:

1. One of our top 4 Regional lists in Houston featured an ISD-I with EHB. A token gives it 6 squadron activations. Intel and Chirpy meant that the bombers were going to move. Rhymer meant it was going to do a lot of damage all at once. When you combine the big guns and the squadron mix together, there is one absolutely huge activation in which a lot can happen, and it can happen before the opponent has an opportunity to activate a ship.

2. My own wave 4 regional list built out an Endeavor with a heavy bid for first. Madine+ET+Raymus meant it went whichever speed it wanted to go and could position exactly where it wanted to go. It was hard for there not to be something in its threat range on the first turn and it was really hard to dodge the front arc no matter what an opponent did on the first round.

3. Demolisher has high activation quality. In Clontroper's original list, the Raiders also end up as serious threats as they have Expanded Launchers. This spreads the activation quality around. Ginkapo's Ackbar Star Destroyers has pretty even activation totals, so there's a high quality activations almost all the way across the board there.

Activation Quality must be held in tension with Activation Quantity. Some of the weakest lists are the ones that just throw numbers into the list without a plan for how those activations will work together. Furthermore, lower quality activations almost always mean that those units are easier to remove, which has to be part of your plan for playing through rounds 3-5 of a game.

In short, that's how I built Madine's Dancers. I had a quality activation in Endeavor that had the capability of removing activations from the enemy. I had a quality activation in Admonition and could trade off first player as needed between Endeavor and Admonition. And although it is a Corvette and therefore vulnerable, a TRC Jaina's light puts out an insane amount of damage. That's three solid ship activations. The only weak activation was a lowly flotilla. I could easily have taken more flotillas, but the activations didn't seem to benefit nearly as much as first player.

Although Ard's list is high in activation quantity, it packs 4 quality activations as well, so this fits the scheme.

In short, I think 4-5 activations is solid at the moment. As soon as you start shooting above 5 activations, the quality of those activations starts to dilute, or you're going squadronless like Ard and sacrificing on that part of the game to ensure the activation quality is still there.\

This isn't everything, but its what I'm willing to put to the computer at the moment.

Having one more activation than you opponent lets you move a ship unhindered by the worries of getting shot when combined with first player.

What many appear to have forgotten on here, or not noticed, is that having three more activations than your opponent is just wasteful.

Thrre is a balance to be had, and you will find that potency of activation is criminally undervalued around here.

Yes. What do you all think is the value of a naked flotilla, say in a list with two large quality activations.

Is a flotilla with comms net overvalued? Is it really worth it at 20 points? Is it useful as an activation and comms netter (which seems to only happen once a game) enough to have value in a list, or do you seriously need higher quality activation. ->

A flotilla with Boosted Comms Imo, is worth it. moving two squadrons is enough to gain back its value.

I'm finally home from work. I really wanted to sit down and right a long post out earlier today because this is exactly a topic that I've posted about in multiple places on the boards before, but for which the concept hasn't quite taken hold.

Activation Advantage

Activation Advantage is an old concept. Plenty of forum posts, blog posts, and other sources mention that with respect to Armada, but for anyone joining us that sees the term bandied about and is still unsure about what concept everyone is referring to, let me explain here. One of the keys to the game is the back-and-forth activation sequence on a turn. One player activates a ship, then the other, until both players have activated all their ships. Ideally, you want to take the best shots possible while limiting the quality and quantity of your opponent's shots. So let's say there is a game situation where you have first player. No ships are in range of each other. You activate a ship and are forced to move it, but now it moves up into range of the opponent's forces. The net result is that you got no shot and they got at least one in return. What activation advantage does is give you the chance to delay a powerful activation until later in the sequence, when the opponent has been forced to move at least one ship forward into range.

What I think is poorly understood is that there is almost a Knee-jerk recommendation to pick up more activations or to have a specific number of activations, and often these recommendations are bandied about without respect to what a given fleet itself is trying to accomplish. More activations are only good if that gets you something. This is reflected in Ard's comments above, which he and I have hashed out in person. He's got a list where it can easily swing the activation game into 0 shots for the opponent, while he either gets shots or at least gets to set up one or more very good shots on the next turn. The activations are actually doing something enormously productive in that list. The same can be said for a DeMSU, where a combination of first player and a high activation count can set up a Demolisher to triple-tap, or minimally force the opponent to activate all their ships so that Demolisher can go last without retaliation.

Other places where I think activation numbers count: JJ's Worlds list: Whether he gets first or second player, the activation count helps set Admonition up for a good shot. And Admonition really benefits from all the help that it can get.

Lists that spread out their thread among the ships, lists that don't have a specific ship that needs to be set-up, and lists that put a significant amount of anti-ship points into squadron wings are often less activation dependent.

Activation Quality

Here is a key concept that I observed early on. The OP makes a good point that on turn-3, first player seems to matter more. On the second turn, the activation sequence tends to matter because the real potential exists for one player to get few or no shots, or to get lower quality shots, and for the other player to get better shots. This is one of the first moments in the game where activation advantage matters. Once the shooting starts to happen, it seems like this advantage fades quite a bit. Round-3 seems pretty even, and after that, it depends upon the outcome of the early clash how the two sides are activating.

Activation Quality is the concept that what matters is not merely the fact that you have an activation, but what you can manage to accomplish in that activation. It is the total aggressive potential contained in that activation.

Let's look at some examples:

1. One of our top 4 Regional lists in Houston featured an ISD-I with EHB. A token gives it 6 squadron activations. Intel and Chirpy meant that the bombers were going to move. Rhymer meant it was going to do a lot of damage all at once. When you combine the big guns and the squadron mix together, there is one absolutely huge activation in which a lot can happen, and it can happen before the opponent has an opportunity to activate a ship.

2. My own wave 4 regional list built out an Endeavor with a heavy bid for first. Madine+ET+Raymus meant it went whichever speed it wanted to go and could position exactly where it wanted to go. It was hard for there not to be something in its threat range on the first turn and it was really hard to dodge the front arc no matter what an opponent did on the first round.

3. Demolisher has high activation quality. In Clontroper's original list, the Raiders also end up as serious threats as they have Expanded Launchers. This spreads the activation quality around. Ginkapo's Ackbar Star Destroyers has pretty even activation totals, so there's a high quality activations almost all the way across the board there.

Activation Quality must be held in tension with Activation Quantity. Some of the weakest lists are the ones that just throw numbers into the list without a plan for how those activations will work together. Furthermore, lower quality activations almost always mean that those units are easier to remove, which has to be part of your plan for playing through rounds 3-5 of a game.

In short, that's how I built Madine's Dancers. I had a quality activation in Endeavor that had the capability of removing activations from the enemy. I had a quality activation in Admonition and could trade off first player as needed between Endeavor and Admonition. And although it is a Corvette and therefore vulnerable, a TRC Jaina's light puts out an insane amount of damage. That's three solid ship activations. The only weak activation was a lowly flotilla. I could easily have taken more flotillas, but the activations didn't seem to benefit nearly as much as first player.

Although Ard's list is high in activation quantity, it packs 4 quality activations as well, so this fits the scheme.

In short, I think 4-5 activations is solid at the moment. As soon as you start shooting above 5 activations, the quality of those activations starts to dilute, or you're going squadronless like Ard and sacrificing on that part of the game to ensure the activation quality is still there.\

This isn't everything, but its what I'm willing to put to the computer at the moment.

Ok, I'm tracking what y'all are saying. My question is what's to stop a low activation heavy hitter from maneuvering in tandem to clear two small or medium based ships per turn after engagement? Would the high activation not be thoroughly countered almost immediately?

Edit: I know this seems like a "What if?" kind of question. It's so easy to generate a million and 6 different scenarios. Although I understand the concept behind these high activation fleets, I feel as though there are ways to deal with it that haven't been meta-fied yet. Perhaps it's a different perception of the game or a play style preference. Either way, I love a good discussion. Thanks for the time, I don't want you thinking it's going in one ear and out the other.

This isn't everything, but its what I'm willing to put to the computer at the moment.

Ok, I'm tracking what y'all are saying. My question is what's to stop a low activation heavy hitter from maneuvering in tandem to clear two small or medium based ships per turn after engagement? Would the high activation not be thoroughly countered almost immediately?

If their delaying ships are flotillas being used for Commsnet, or pushing a few token squads around, they aren't going anywhere near you, and they will only move their attack ships at the end, when they know where you will be next turn. If you can't get shots with your primary arc, you can't really pop those flotillas to bring the numbers down very quickly.

You can offset this somewhat with squads, since they don't have fire arcs, and some have absurdly long threat ranges (Rhymer...) but in a strict gun battle, battleships need some way to pin down torpedo frigates before they are whittled away to nothing.

Ok, I'm tracking what y'all are saying. My question is what's to stop a low activation heavy hitter from maneuvering in tandem to clear two small or medium based ships per turn after engagement? Would the high activation not be thoroughly countered almost immediately?

Edit: I know this seems like a "What if?" kind of question. It's so easy to generate a million and 6 different scenarios. Although I understand the concept behind these high activation fleets, I feel as though there are ways to deal with it that haven't been meta-fied yet. Perhaps it's a different perception of the game or a play style preference. Either way, I love a good discussion. Thanks for the time, I don't want you thinking it's going in one ear and out the other.

You're question almost to the nail describes my regional list last year. I ran 4 activations and 6 deployments. So I was getting out-deployed almost all games. In some portion of the games, I was also being out-activated. In short, I ran a list that by all accounts was at the lower end of the statistical averages In the end, I found neither mattered much. Once I got the rest of the build down, it became very hard for anyone deny the ship key shots. My reading of the regional data shows that those lower activation lists are already out there in the meta. For all the criticism of large base ships, they still represented around 40% of the top 4 placements. And when it comes to evaluating, at what percentage SHOULD large base ships appear? I know the perception that large base ships are weak is widespread, and I can understand why, but I've always been more of an MC80C over Assault Frigate kind of a player, and I ran an Endeavor Liberty through the season, and I can't stand the Victory personally, so pretty much any Imperial list I field has an ISD. I've never personally felt like I had to take something else just to succeed.

I'm always happy to discuss and help the community. Thanks for your encouragement and kind words.

Ditto. One day I might even figure out how to cherry pick quotes out of posts. That said, I just wanted to see if mechanically I was missing something. I've worked up dozens of Imperial lists and, thus far, my most successful list has been the one in this post. I don't quite firmly believe that the issue at hand is not mechanical but tactical. As of today, my list has been upgraded to 2 ISDs at the cost of only a single squad. My experience has been that, if you doubt you'll get activation advantage, pass on that advantage and build to be second player.

With that in mind, I really enjoy minefields and planetary ion cannons. I've had games where errors were forced and 5-7 damage was done before the ships even exchanged a single volley. Concerns like the demolisher final/first activation are mitigated by a total of 8 red dice and a fighter ball based off squadron activations. If that's the biggest concern.....meh. It works for me so why change it....till I'm bored with it. Aim at where they'll be, not where they are.

[ ] = in computer speak, this is start action. So make sure to capture the correct author name and timestamp within these parenthesis.

[ / ] = in computer speak, this is the end action. So you want one of these at the end.

Always keep or delete these in pairs.

I'm finally home from work. I really wanted to sit down and right a long post out earlier today because this is exactly a topic that I've posted about in multiple places on the boards before, but for which the concept hasn't quite taken hold.

Activation Advantage

Activation Advantage is an old concept. Plenty of forum posts, blog posts, and other sources mention that with respect to Armada, but for anyone joining us that sees the term bandied about and is still unsure about what concept everyone is referring to, let me explain here. One of the keys to the game is the back-and-forth activation sequence on a turn. One player activates a ship, then the other, until both players have activated all their ships. Ideally, you want to take the best shots possible while limiting the quality and quantity of your opponent's shots. So let's say there is a game situation where you have first player. No ships are in range of each other. You activate a ship and are forced to move it, but now it moves up into range of the opponent's forces. The net result is that you got no shot and they got at least one in return. What activation advantage does is give you the chance to delay a powerful activation until later in the sequence, when the opponent has been forced to move at least one ship forward into range.

What I think is poorly understood is that there is almost a Knee-jerk recommendation to pick up more activations or to have a specific number of activations, and often these recommendations are bandied about without respect to what a given fleet itself is trying to accomplish. More activations are only good if that gets you something. This is reflected in Ard's comments above, which he and I have hashed out in person. He's got a list where it can easily swing the activation game into 0 shots for the opponent, while he either gets shots or at least gets to set up one or more very good shots on the next turn. The activations are actually doing something enormously productive in that list. The same can be said for a DeMSU, where a combination of first player and a high activation count can set up a Demolisher to triple-tap, or minimally force the opponent to activate all their ships so that Demolisher can go last without retaliation.

Other places where I think activation numbers count: JJ's Worlds list: Whether he gets first or second player, the activation count helps set Admonition up for a good shot. And Admonition really benefits from all the help that it can get.

Lists that spread out their thread among the ships, lists that don't have a specific ship that needs to be set-up, and lists that put a significant amount of anti-ship points into squadron wings are often less activation dependent.

Activation Quality

Here is a key concept that I observed early on. The OP makes a good point that on turn-3, first player seems to matter more. On the second turn, the activation sequence tends to matter because the real potential exists for one player to get few or no shots, or to get lower quality shots, and for the other player to get better shots. This is one of the first moments in the game where activation advantage matters. Once the shooting starts to happen, it seems like this advantage fades quite a bit. Round-3 seems pretty even, and after that, it depends upon the outcome of the early clash how the two sides are activating.

Activation Quality is the concept that what matters is not merely the fact that you have an activation, but what you can manage to accomplish in that activation. It is the total aggressive potential contained in that activation.

Let's look at some examples:

1. One of our top 4 Regional lists in Houston featured an ISD-I with EHB. A token gives it 6 squadron activations. Intel and Chirpy meant that the bombers were going to move. Rhymer meant it was going to do a lot of damage all at once. When you combine the big guns and the squadron mix together, there is one absolutely huge activation in which a lot can happen, and it can happen before the opponent has an opportunity to activate a ship.

2. My own wave 4 regional list built out an Endeavor with a heavy bid for first. Madine+ET+Raymus meant it went whichever speed it wanted to go and could position exactly where it wanted to go. It was hard for there not to be something in its threat range on the first turn and it was really hard to dodge the front arc no matter what an opponent did on the first round.

3. Demolisher has high activation quality. In Clontroper's original list, the Raiders also end up as serious threats as they have Expanded Launchers. This spreads the activation quality around. Ginkapo's Ackbar Star Destroyers has pretty even activation totals, so there's a high quality activations almost all the way across the board there.

Activation Quality must be held in tension with Activation Quantity. Some of the weakest lists are the ones that just throw numbers into the list without a plan for how those activations will work together. Furthermore, lower quality activations almost always mean that those units are easier to remove, which has to be part of your plan for playing through rounds 3-5 of a game.

In short, that's how I built Madine's Dancers. I had a quality activation in Endeavor that had the capability of removing activations from the enemy. I had a quality activation in Admonition and could trade off first player as needed between Endeavor and Admonition. And although it is a Corvette and therefore vulnerable, a TRC Jaina's light puts out an insane amount of damage. That's three solid ship activations. The only weak activation was a lowly flotilla. I could easily have taken more flotillas, but the activations didn't seem to benefit nearly as much as first player.

Although Ard's list is high in activation quantity, it packs 4 quality activations as well, so this fits the scheme.

In short, I think 4-5 activations is solid at the moment. As soon as you start shooting above 5 activations, the quality of those activations starts to dilute, or you're going squadronless like Ard and sacrificing on that part of the game to ensure the activation quality is still there.\

This isn't everything, but its what I'm willing to put to the computer at the moment.

As a new player, this has been quite insightful, many thanks!

(been ghosting a load of threads recently, heh)

I think it's important to remember the utility of the throw away ship. I generally build in to most of my fleets at least one very week throw away activation. Rounds 1-3 I use the extra throw away ship to help me activate as I wish to, then at some point in rounds 3-4 I will very likely allow it to be sacrificed to my advantage.

In most of my fleets I aim for five activations, 2 will be my killer apps ( large ships, MC30s, well built glads) 2 will be general purpose activations ( bare bones AF, CR90a with TLRR, instigator etc) supporting the fleet and dealing some real damage if needed, and I will always have one throw away unit , it will have some use early game uses but less utility later and is cheap ( transport, for early fight activations, or a just about bare bones CR90b for blocking and one round of shooting).

My Rebels or imps my fleets generally follow that basic design principle.