Agree completely with PT106, while I think the idea of analysing the cost of countering a flotilla lifeboat is valid your method of not incorporating the cost of the admiral is flawed.

As PT says, the cost should be compared on the basis of the total lifeboat cost against the counter. Honestly if anything I think the bump should work the other way, you're killing a flotilla worth anywhere between 38-60 odd points but that's also at the same time negating fleet wide bonuses (as in it should be a positive per-ship addition to killing the lifeboat, not dividing its cost across the fleet).

I think comparing the lifeboat to the counters using the cheapest admiral is also flawed. If Dodonna and Ozzel were omnipresent in the meta than maybe this would be valid but realistically the cost of the lifeboat can vary considerably.

Just as an aside re: admiral powers conferring fleet wide, I actually don't think it's that hard of a logical, thematic jump. I always saw it as the manifestation of a multitude of small things they did that impacted their fleets in those specific ways. Training crews, specialised officers, specific upgrades to ships instituted under their leadership. Maybe Vader's crews are trained to push the ships to beyond their operational stress limits to maximise firepower, or Ackbar installs turbolaser reroutes that divert forward and rear firepower to the sides etc, etc.

Fair points, all. Not to be dismissive, I still have trouble rationalizing vastly separated admirals hanging out in unarmed craft. It just seems to be that it would be more balanced to have some kind of mechanic that required a ship in the fleet to...I dont know... be with the fleet.

IF Vader jumped in a cargo ship and ran out of range to watch the battle from afar, do you think his forces would remain so tightly drilled or do you think morale would suffer at the sight of their leaders cowardice?

I'm glad you're able to concede that PT and Captain Weather were making a good point about including an Admiral's cost in the counter of a lifeboat. It really does make a difference to add their points in there in determining the efficiency of life boat hunters. As PT said, if I can send a 60 point ship to kill a 40-50 point life boat that has zero chance of hurting me back, that is a tactical trade I will take anytime.

And I can concede that I too have found a cognitive dissonance in the Admiral effect being the only effect in the game that is not restricted by range. Rather than wanting to change the rule though I took the approach of thinking about the admiral effect as something different. I mean if al of the upgrades that represent on table effects have range limits, then maybe the admiral's ability represents something different.

I stated above, and some others agreed, that the admiral effect may represent between battle training and drills rather than anything going on on the table. Training would certainly not be range limited. That also settled for me the dissonance in why some admirals can order their ships to turn harder, but others can't. It's not that they don't want to turn harder, it's more that they spend their training time focused on other drills. What do you think of this idea?

Now, none of that can make you like the idea of a lifeboat. I'm not fond of it, but I don't discount it either. Previous to flotillas I've run my admiral in everything from a CR-90 to an MC-80.

I think it is a valid, but risky tactic. Probably not one I would use personally, but it doesn't break the game for me either.

Best idea as to rationalization of an Admirals effects being global, I agree. I believe it was Dras who also touched on this. Mathematically I'll always say it's an even trade under certain circumstances, namely which Admiral we're talking about being out there. I suppose an argument could also be made for the ability that it provides. Taking my Dondonna example one more time, probably not worth it, rationalized by stating I'd take those criticals anyway, is it that important to invest so many points into stopping his choice? Probably not.

However, with a cost of only 4 more points and in my opinion still not mathematically worth the investment, Motti's fleet ability makes an uneven trade more considerable in order to bring the fleet itself back down to more manageable levels.

The top, probably, 3 or 4 Admirals per faction make the investment viable, whereas the bottom one's (cost wise) really don't. It's still frustration, or perhaps more of an annoyance, that lifeboating is a thing.

There's one finally thing to consider beyond value of target vs points expended to achieve it that goes beyond the what if's of it being intercepted and that's the ability to even kill it.

A lot of the...I hesitate to say por-Floats again...take a lot of these points at their literal face value.

Let's say I use a lifeboat. I deploy him facing whichever corner looks to be the most distant based on my opponents deployment. Turn one, I open him up full speed towards that corner. I see my opponent split a Raider to send my way. Turn 2 I start nav spamming and turn back towards my fleet. Now my opponent has a lone ship split from his forces I can either pounce on and eliminate or intercept (in the vent what he sends is fighters or bombers).

Or I sit back on an 18 point ship without a care in the world because my Admiral is effectively invulnerable and able to influence the battle just by being in the general vicinity.

The one thing that prevents me from rationalizing the intense training argument is the fact the Admirals effects are lost upon his death. Sure, it would be a hit to morale but it also wouldn't force a military unit to just forget how to fight, either.

I get that a game requires decisions between being thematic and being a mechanically viable game. I really do understand that. I just really feel like FFG design teams dropped the ball on this one.

one fast ship with a bomber or two on board kills Flotillas very quickly hell I've one shoted them in passing pin their scatter with an accuracy and pop their dead. takes 4 points of damage and if you ram them first and why not its only 3 points of damage. then you beat feet back to the battle from the rear. and the other guy has no more leader. I always bring at lease one fast ship and now that they can hall bombers they are awesome assassins.

Aye, I get this but the only 4 speed ship that can take rapid launch bays for the Empire is a Raider and it only has a single squadron command. That's 6 points for 1 squadron just for the prospect of sending it away from the battle in the event of a lifeboat. I do get it's viability so I think it's just a matter of preference.

How did we even get this far with this debate...I sit at a bar stool and actively question this.

I used another persons post to identify those troublemakers and dissenters that refused to let the conversation move forward.

One could simple say admirals only effect ships of the flagship size one size up and smaller. So ackbar on a floatilla can only wffect cr90s, motti on a floatilla would pnly effect small and floatilla ships only. So to get the most effectively from the admiral you need to pop him on a medoum or large base.

Not a bad idea. It occurs to me that adjusting Admirals rules would be difficult given that they're part of the Core Set and flotillas are not. It's a difficult subject to wrestle with because I think it's one of those things that doesn't really have a solution. I did like someones idea from the other thread about changing how flotillas were classified since they aren't technically ships in their truest sense but nor are they squadrons. I cringe at the thought of a "Flotilla" phase between ship and squadron but sometimes I fear that would be the only solution. That way flotillas would still count as a ship but could have the added limitation of not being able to lifeboat.

As far as "in universe" logic for the lifeboats (which is a kinda weird thought exercise), I always just imagine any number of secnarios that make sense

1) that one side has caught a VIP in long transit and that the other side has rushed assets to cover their VIP when they got intel he might get ambushed. There are hundreds of in universe examples of situations like this and the "bushwacking the dangerous leader" battle is a classic

2) a VIP is moving his flag from one fleet to another and comes into a battle already brewing... grabbing the comms and yelling at the sensor techs he takes control of his side

3) Reviewing a friendly war game from a distance, the command is caught out of position as his assets turn to intercept an enemy attack not expected this far behind the front

etc.

In Star Wars... guns have limited ranges... sensors easily outpace these and why would a commander be that drastically effected by being just a little out of weapon range? The larger assets are no doubt dutifully feeding telemetry to their commander and able to listen in on his orders as he gives them... ticked though he may be to not be on his command bridge.

In gameplay... really? Are flotillas really causing that much disruption? I'm just not seeing it and there's mission types, objectives, and tactics that many are using with reasonable success to neuter this problem.

Personally I'd be fine with an FAQ ruling that flagships must be 30+ points, or the like, but truly do enjoy the challenge of swiping that low hanging fruit (or bait for a trap) if offered. That's not elitism or an opinion, that's a fact. I do truly enjoy that challenge. I cannot see this as a huge problem, but I'd be fine with a soft and easy fix that kept cheap units from housing commanders if that's what the powers that be considered the best for game play and balance.

Thats a pretty argumentative post, however I think some of these arguments operate on a wrong set of assumptions. Lets start with the first one: how to calculate cost imbalance.

Because an Admiral can apply his effect regardless of range to any ship, the lifeboat flotilla is effectively an 18-23 points investment. The Admiral is not factored into this because he's not a factor in the tactic of placing a cheap unit in a corner.

Thats a wrong assumption. One of the reasons of placing Admiral in a cheap unit is to spread the points across the fleet, so the loss of any ship is recoverable points-wise and there is no point sink that will be a primary attack target. So once admiral is on the flotilla it becomes a 50-60 points that can be gained from killing it (and it can be killed by a 44-points raider). So the whole talk about points imbalance doesn't really make sense from my perspective - as we're now talking about sending 50-60 points ship to kill 50-60 points and survive (as there is no chance for flotilla to kill it.

Now lets talk about flotilla killers (I assume Imperial ones)

1. Raider. Thats all it takes. There is no need to load anything on it, he'll get that flotilla. Maybe it'll take him 2-3 rounds but he'll get it.

2. Gladiator. A usual GSD loadout with Intel officer - poof. Dead flotilla in two rounds. It may be even a half-dead Demolisher going after that admiral after successful run on a ship.

3. Squadrons. Bossk + Zertik. Done. Bossk gets his free accuracy and keeps bombing.

4. A set of rogues that keeps going and going.

5. ...

Essentially I think that we're at a point in the cycle where usuing a lifeboat flotilla is riskier and riskier and we'll see a decline in the use of this strategy over a next few months.

As stated in my example, if you wish to include the cost of an admiral in the lifeboat, that's fine but it has to be done across the entire fleet since the admiral effects the entire fleet. In the provided example, I used Dodonna in a 4 activation fleet, effectively increasing the cost of the flotilla by +5. To reflect this increase, I offered detractors to remove .5 from my estimates.

The logic behind this is fairly simple. Upgrades factored into the cost of that ship effect only that ship (or allow it to manipulate the battle in some way). To assign the entire value of a card that affects your entire fleet to a single ship is misleading in the extreme.

1) It's stilla points imbalance and a unit that is effectively lost for the rest of the battle.

2) Will never return to the battle in time and an even higher points cost than my Raider example.

3) Purely fighter-dice are highly unreliable since the only thing that applies damage is actual hits, which is why I included Vader.

Perhaps.

Whoa whoa whoa. You can't try and apply the points across the entire fleet. That's not how this game works. Don't try it. Follow the RRG and FAQ if you want to create points like this. Everyone else plays by them. You have to as well.

Otherwise we can make all sorts of crazy arguments.

Correct. Utilizing the same biased and flawed logic wouldn't all ranged effects only be applied in part to the ship they are actually on and have a variable value throughout the game as ships moved in and out of that range?

No, because the upgrades you reference are balanced in that their effects are not applicable outside of their prescribed range. You can't tractor beam someone from across the map. You can't bomber command reroll from a corner. Range provides opportunities for counter play with equal cost in that your ship is at as much risk as your opponents and/or it doesn't take effectively throwing it to the wind to go hunt down a mouse in a field in the hope it comes back before the start of round 6.

As far as "in universe" logic for the lifeboats (which is a kinda weird thought exercise), I always just imagine any number of secnarios that make sense

1) that one side has caught a VIP in long transit and that the other side has rushed assets to cover their VIP when they got intel he might get ambushed. There are hundreds of in universe examples of situations like this and the "bushwacking the dangerous leader" battle is a classic

2) a VIP is moving his flag from one fleet to another and comes into a battle already brewing... grabbing the comms and yelling at the sensor techs he takes control of his side

3) Reviewing a friendly war game from a distance, the command is caught out of position as his assets turn to intercept an enemy attack not expected this far behind the front

etc.

In Star Wars... guns have limited ranges... sensors easily outpace these and why would a commander be that drastically effected by being just a little out of weapon range? The larger assets are no doubt dutifully feeding telemetry to their commander and able to listen in on his orders as he gives them... ticked though he may be to not be on his command bridge.

In gameplay... really? Are flotillas really causing that much disruption? I'm just not seeing it and there's mission types, objectives, and tactics that many are using with reasonable success to neuter this problem .

Personally I'd be fine with an FAQ ruling that flagships must be 30+ points, or the like, but truly do enjoy the challenge of swiping that low hanging fruit (or bait for a trap) if offered. That's not elitism or an opinion, that's a fact. I do truly enjoy that challenge. I cannot see this as a huge problem, but I'd be fine with a soft and easy fix that kept cheap units from housing commanders if that's what the powers that be considered the best for game play and balance.

You actually agree, or atleast your choice of words indicates that you do. I'm not saying it's impossible to kill flotillas or even that I actually want them changed. I'm just trying to generate reasonable discussion about them because I've sat on these forums and watched the same conversation raised and the same people disrupt it to the point the people who do question it just give up.

If this thread accomplishes nothing, it will serve as a resource of thoughtful discussion, explanation, and reference to the question in the future.

Getting mad and taking this discussion personally and treating anyone who brings it up as a fool will do nothing but prevent people from asking questions for fear of the forum fascists coming after them again. I'm not saying that's what you're doing, not at all. It's what happened in the last thread, as well as the two previous ones on this very subject.

That said, I do like your suggestion of a minimum value required for a flagship. That in and of itself would put a lot of this to rest, wouldn;t change the phases, admirals, or what I truly feel was the flotillas intended purpose...a fleet supply and support ship designed to stay in the rear of a formation and provide repairs, buffs, rerolls, etc. That's what their upgrade cards and available slots indicate their design was intended to be. Utility, not a failsafe.

@Sygnetix

I don't think I've posted directly or indirectly to you on this issue. But all but your last paragraph in your reply to me above is simply not conducive to a fruitful online discussion. You need to stop rehashing the same thing over and over again. Its burying your reasonable and thought out points in what has clearly become flame-bait to others. Surely you see that you're provoking emotional ping-pong with all of this discussion on the discussion instead of the topic at hand.

Just stop the window dressing and talk about flotillas if you want people to truly talk about that. Instead we're all talking about HOW we are talking instead of just staying on point. I'm not saying it's your fault, that you started it, or that its even fair that people are taking cheap shots at you (and they are) but someone needs to put down the torch if reasonable discussion is the goal. You're one of the ones lighting the fire, so you need to be one of the ones that puts the torch down if you want to see topics not name calling when flotillas come up.

No, because the upgrades you reference are balanced in that their effects are not applicable outside of their prescribed range. You can't tractor beam someone from across the map. You can't bomber command reroll from a corner. Range provides opportunities for counter play with equal cost in that your ship is at as much risk as your opponents and/or it doesn't take effectively throwing it to the wind to go hunt down a mouse in a field in the hope it comes back before the start of round 6.

When points are awarded for everything on a ship that gets destroyed the commanders have to be looked at as increasing the cost of the ship by their amount for the sake of accuracy. To say an 18 point ship is having a fleet wide impact seems disingenuous at the least. Not to mention the implied value that someone pointed out of removing a commander from the game which results in you getting value from killing that ship above what the commander cost rather than below it. Therefore from a gameplay standpoint flotillas carrying commanders doesn't seem to be an issue at all. From a thematic/fluff stand point I am not sure why it doesn't make sense that a commander would be back safely from a battle in a low priority target calling the shots. Gameplay wise and thematically flotillas seem like an excellent addition to the game that wouldn't benefit the play experience to make major changes to. If you want to talk thematics; I think it'd be more thematic that the opposing fleet doesn't know which ship the commander is on in the first place.

.

First, let's remember the rest of the game. Everything has ranges. Everything has measurements. Everything has restrictions. Except Admiral abilities.

Your premise is bad and you should feel bad.

And since you apparently built your argument on a demonstrably incorrect premise, I can't help but call into question the validity of the whole thing.

" Your premise is bad and you should feel bad"

Let's be positive for the community and maybe try to at least put the veneer of civility into our posts?

Oh oh oh! This looks like a good thread to be involved in!

Seriously though, my thoughts:

1. Flotillas are weird to begin with, and I'm actually impressed at how well they actually do ​ work in the game mechanically and thematically. Especially when it comes to the Rebel Transports, even though they show up in so many battles, I was worried that they would totally feel out of place in these big fleet battles.
2. On a thematic ​ level, I don't think "lifeboats" are very "Star Wars"-ey. They can be justified ​, but they're still just weird and feel out of place. Commanders "leading from the rear" and staying away from the main battle is totally a great military strategy. But Star Wars is stupid ​ in a lot of ways, and this is one of them. Commanders are in their big command ships, barking orders and being "in the fray". It's dumb, but it's Star Wars.
3. With regard to ​range of commander effects ​, I don't see a problem at all. As others have pointed out, limited range is ​ a thing for most things, but "commanding" (commanders, Fleet Command ​ upgrades, and Relay) specifically seems to be exempt.
4. With regard to lifeboats being a mechanical advantage / imbalance , I don't really ​ see it. What's the desired alternative? That they go on the biggest ship? If you kill that ship anyway, does it matter that much that the commander isn't killed and the commander's effect remains? Are hiding those points ​that ​ effective? Isn't it kind of like sticking a little custom objective off in the corner for your opponent to consider ​?

Honestly, more than dealing with the "lifeboat" issue with Flotillas, I'd like to see the whole "activation advantage" thing addressed in some way that doesn't encourage plopping down tiny, nearly useless, ships. An upgrade - crew or commander or something - that can be used as a "dummy" activation just to stagger our your major activations ​without ​ having to include little tiny ships floating around in the background.

I gave this some thought and I realized that these lifeboats work partly because opponent lets them.

If you think about it, a fleet is engineered around the admiral. If the admiral falls off the table, the battle plan usually collapses. Therefor if the opponent would dispatch a token task force against the lifeboat, the admiral would have no other choice than o stick with his/her fleet and become a target there.

For example a Kitten or an MC30 could run down a lifeboat, destroy it quickly and return to the battle for some more punches. Risky? Of course, because that ship may end well out of the battle. But it totally worth it. With Relay even a smaller bomber force could do that and they could return to the main battle much faster (although this is more viable for the Imps as the Lambdas are Relay 2 and their bombers are much faster).

Ok, so I've been reading the thread and how it's been going and I thought I'd weigh in.

Before Flotillas, the ship you put your admiral on was a less complicated choice. The theory seemed to be, put your admiral on a strong ship that will be harder to kill, or

perhaps something like a corvette for a Mon Mothma fleet to allow the admiral to survive and possibly run a bit. Corvettes were used as flagships to spread points within

the fleet and assault frigates were popular choices too. Victory Star Destroyers were popular in the begining for the imperials, as there wasn't much choice for them in

the earlier waves anyway. They'd have an admiral on a VSD and a demo GSD and maybe a rhymer ball or another victory. It was a simpler time. In summary:

- Initially the choice was, do I put my admiral on a medium size ship or a small based ship?

Then as more ships released people had more choice. We started to put our admirals on large base ships, something we still do to this day, and for a time perhaps the

better part of a year this is how we played. We put admirals on even bigger ships, sometimes medium ships and sometimes small ships. The choice had to do with how

the player wanted to play their fleet, what ships they believed would die in combat or had a higher risk and perhaps what was more likely to survive due to speed or hull.

- At this stage of the game, in it's second year we were able to put admirals on MC80's and ISD's.

WIth the release of more large and medium base ships, we realised that the Liberty was not neccessarily the greatest choice, and perhaps the Interdictors tankyness

made it a great choice. We didn't have to wait long for the arrival of the flotilla. Just as the large base ship was an extension of previous tactics wherein an admiral would

be placed on a medium base ship, so too was the flotilla an extension of the cheaper ship evasive choice. To clarify, this paradigm has existed since the start of the game,

admirals would ride on a corvette like mon motha using a cr90's evades to great effect. The use of a flotilla allowed for a saving in points, without the option to use it as a

light gunboat. Instead, it became known as the life boat.

- New ship releases supported admiral choice

- The new choices were a logical extension of admiral fleet building placement

- It added more depth to the question, does my admiral want survivability or maneuverability?

The reason this was important was because, for gameplay reasons keeping your admiral alive allowed you to get your admiral ability.

In my reading of your previous posts, you seem to dislike these design choices for a large number of subjective reasons. Subjective meaning, that it is in your opinion. It is

of course hard to argue against someones opinion, not only is it unknowable, but it certainly is not shared which leads to disagreement. Allow me to share my opinion for

some contrast. I like the choice we have been given by the designers of the game, and we can choose one of the ship classifications to fit certain fleet builds. There is no

one answer that fits every fleet. Yes the lifeboat is good, but the feeling of it dying in one turn to a H9 MC30 will give the idea pause for thought. Sometimes it is better to

put your admiral on a motti ISD.

Annoying gameplay elements are a part of this great game, and while it may feel frustrating and you may think it is unfair, the lifeboat flotilla does not break the game.

Here's some other annoying things for you to try, so that you can take heart that this is consistent with the current FFG game design, a design I enjoy.

- A fleet of Flotillas corvettes, MC30 A-wings and Neb B Carrier, travelling at speed 3 everywhere with Admiral Cracken.

- The Motti ISD

- Mon Mothma MC30's and corvettes

- Admiral Rieekan

- Vader Arquitens

- Maarek Stele Jendon combo.

These are all very annoying to verse, as annoying as the flotilla ever was . It's a part of the game and more practice with good players makes us

familiar with some of these ideas so we can verse them.

Give that man a cookie. ^^^^^

There have ALWAYS been admiral lifeboats:

They keep the admiral safe and provide activation.

Exhibit A)

I remember the first Worlds - the winner had Garm on a CR90B, keeping it safely away from the front, while his AFs trolled the enemy with A-wings. LIFEBOAT LOVE

Exhibit B)

Clonisher (DemSU) - has Screed on a Raider, usually very lightly upgraded (APT only for example), because it was essentially a lifeboat. LIFEBOAT LOVE

Exhibit C)

Rebel swarm builds, be they Rieekan CR90B, various types of MM TRC90s/MC30s etc - they put the admiral on the ship least like to take fire. Sometimes that might be like Foresight, but usually a lowly CR90. LIFEBOAT LOVE

I'd actually make the argument that - then and now - there are a great many MSU builds that could not work as well if the admiral was forced to fly on a front line ship.

That was pre-wave 3.

Exhibit D)

Then FFG gave us flotillas, making the lifeboat strategy even more viable. Cheaper activation. Scatter. Stuff like Comms net. They even packed a couple admirals that would work quite well with MSU/lifeboat fleets. LIFEBOAT LOVE

It's almost as if they knew and wanted lifeboats to be part of the equation. Being a bit sarcastic here, but not much

Post wave 3/4 you basically either stuck you admiral on something tanky or a flotilla...or sometimes, more rarely, on one of the old lifeboats (Raider, CR90 etc). Basically nothing had changed, except to make lifeboats even more attractive.

Exhibit E)

Wave 5. So FFG gives us wave 5, which has RELAY (and Centicore). I guess Imps need a boost more than Rebs, with their cheaper flots and BH.

Anyway. This little keyword makes the far-away admiral lifeboat even better. Before, if you wanted it to be really safe, it was out of the fight. At best it could throw a few tokens with Comms before scooting away.

Now that lifeboat can stay in the corner, and with Exp Hangars, a token, and 2 Lambdas you can activate 4 squads from clear across the table (it's not even an extreme example). If you can also keep your admiral safe, that a huge bonus. LIFEBOAT LOVE x1000

We also got some stuff like Tua and Derlin, which can, if you want to use them that way, augment the survivability of your lifeboat (Derlin BH, Tua Ecm). Even more LIFEBOAT LOVE

To me this presents overwhelming evidence that lifeboat have been part and parcel of Armada from the start - and FFG knows this and supports it as a viable strategy.

FFG IS IN LOVE WITH ADMIRALS' LIFEBOATS!!!

A few points.

First, quit comparing land battles to Armada. Seen several posts saying, oh in real life commanders are in the rear....yes, in LAND battles. This game is more akin to a naval battle, and historically Fleet Admirals commanded from the biggest battleship or carrier in the fleet. Not from a corvette, unless they had to transfer due to damage to their flagship. (, hmm, we need escape pod mechanics.....but I digress!)

Second, I love canon. I'm considered a canon expert by those who know me. I loooooveeeee it. But this is a GAME, which happens to have a Star Wars skin on it. You know why admirals have a global effect? BECAUSE THE RULES SAY THEY DO. There. No need to think too hard about it, the designers decided it'd be cool to have an admiral with table wide effects and made it so. Same with any other effect (Mithel, Dodonna, Motti, etc). It's like it is SIMPLY BECAUSE THE DESIGNERS TOUGHT ITD BE COOL AND FIT THAT CHARACTER, and made it so.

Third, flotillas. No, I don't like them. I got into this game to have fights between mighty Capital ships. Now I'm running around trying to swat a bunch of shrimps....its most irritating. But as an Imperial commander, I will adapt. It seems that FFG has seen that flotillas are a bit much. And wave V has done much to redress the balance.

Lastly....seriously. Stop overthinking this, the game is the way it is because the designers made it so. Effects work like they do because the rules say they do. It has NOTHING TO DO with real world examples or even Star Wars canon.

End rant.

Admiral Wolf Deralisk, out.

Apply Cr90B with engine tech. Ram life boat......repeat as necessary.

I don't see the problem with Admiral effects across the board. I have a favored fleet that is an MC30, 3 CR90's, and a Flotilla set up for bombers, commanded by Cracken. I assume his fleetwide benefit is more of a trait of ship captains that he commands, rather than him constantly hen-pecking them constantly through the battle.

And if he is killed, then they are obviously so distracted by the moral defeat of their commander suddenly dying that they and their crews forget their training. Done, mechanics married easily to fluff.

Now, I don't think this fleet would ever see a flotilla flagship, because my flotilla build needs them to get into the mix to command bombing runs, and I want my commander on a ship screaming around at speed 4 with the capability for a defensive upgrade for survivability, maybe even with Jaina's Light to not have to worry about obstacles, either.

When Flotillas were released it absolutely never occured to me to put an Admiral on them, rather than on a much more survivable combat ship.

A few points.

First, quit comparing land battles to Armada. Seen several posts saying, oh in real life commanders are in the rear....yes, in LAND battles. This game is more akin to a naval battle, and historically Fleet Admirals commanded from the biggest battleship or carrier in the fleet. Not from a corvette, unless they had to transfer due to damage to their flagship. (, hmm, we need escape pod mechanics.....but I digress!)

Second, I love canon. I'm considered a canon expert by those who know me. I loooooveeeee it. But this is a GAME, which happens to have a Star Wars skin on it. You know why admirals have a global effect? BECAUSE THE RULES SAY THEY DO. There. No need to think too hard about it, the designers decided it'd be cool to have an admiral with table wide effects and made it so. Same with any other effect (Mithel, Dodonna, Motti, etc). It's like it is SIMPLY BECAUSE THE DESIGNERS TOUGHT ITD BE COOL AND FIT THAT CHARACTER, and made it so.

Third, flotillas. No, I don't like them. I got into this game to have fights between mighty Capital ships. Now I'm running around trying to swat a bunch of shrimps....its most irritating. But as an Imperial commander, I will adapt. It seems that FFG has seen that flotillas are a bit much. And wave V has done much to redress the balance.

Lastly....seriously. Stop overthinking this, the game is the way it is because the designers made it so. Effects work like they do because the rules say they do. It has NOTHING TO DO with real world examples or even Star Wars canon.

End rant.

Admiral Wolf Deralisk, out.

You are allowed to mock those posts but they were not made out of no where, they were in response to another's assertions. That's all. Have a good day.

one fast ship with a bomber or two on board kills Flotillas very quickly hell I've one shoted them in passing pin their scatter with an accuracy and pop their dead. takes 4 points of damage and if you ram them first and why not its only 3 points of damage. then you beat feet back to the battle from the rear. and the other guy has no more leader. I always bring at lease one fast ship and now that they can hall bombers they are awesome assassins.

Aye, I get this but the only 4 speed ship that can take rapid launch bays for the Empire is a Raider and it only has a single squadron command. That's 6 points for 1 squadron just for the prospect of sending it away from the battle in the event of a lifeboat. I do get it's viability so I think it's just a matter of preference.

well you really don't need the bombers just double ark and ram them. at best they live for 2 turns they live the first by burning the scatter and if they run back to their fleet you attack some one from the rear after the have taken damage for the main fight.

Regarding Flotillas... H9s can be a hard counter to their defensive stratgies. H9s aren't bad for ships that have them in always locking down other defense tokens as well. If I knew I'm going up against massed flotillas I'd be encouraged to take them, especially if there are no other Turbolasers I'd like more. It's just I have more cause for enemy fighters...

No, my problem with Flotillas is how they enable cheap activation passes . For 18 points the Rebels can continue to skip their "turn" until optimal strike time, where they unleash their best shot. It could be an MC80 opening up to an MC30 starting its run to Yavaris moving with Flight Coordination Teams and a flight commander then double-tapping their bombers. Rebel ships are cheaper as a whole, and they use smaller ships, making this easier when stacked against the Empire.

That has my concern, more than Admiral sedans, because it creates an uphill struggle for bigger ships that cannot activate properly when they want to. I'd like to see that addressed somehow.

That has been addressed. First, the flotillas have a cost. 18 points is a lot to pay for activation padding. When the customs community (before Wave 3 was announced) considered an admiral who existed purely as an activation pass, we priced him at 20 points, and some still felt that was too expensive. Second, they are balanced further by utter lack of armament and marginal survivability past Scatter. They represent no threat other than enabling other ships and squadrons. Third, as the Clonisher proved, activation padding is perfectly available without flotillas to make it easier. The arrival of the Arquitens and Pelta in Wave 5 further cement this, as each side has more and more cheap ship options. Can you get the ridiculous activation advantage of a flotilla spam? No. Do those fleets suffer the disadvantages here? Even more so. Fourth, all flotillas must always activate, so that is not necessarily an advantage in tightly flown fleets whose opponent ruins their maneuver plan.

Fifth and finally, while the Empire generally has more expensive combatants than its Rebel equivalents, that is not something unique to flotillas. That has always been true across the board since Wave 1. The Empire offsets this by the fact those smaller Rebel ships are far less durable than the Imperial warships, which are heavily armed and equipped for bruising closing battles the Rebels have trouble facing (plus squadron balance, plus fleet synergies etc etc). In short, it's part of game balance. I for one main Imperials and have absolutely no issue with that I spend more "per ship" because I get more ship in my ship for my investment in my estimation, and I can fly and fight in that playstyle. To be completely honest this sounds like you are someone whose tactical mindset prefers Rebel strategies. If I am wrong, Arquitens.

18 points is the cheapest activation in the game right now though... to delay three activations, the Rebels need only pay 54 points... the cost of about two fighter aces. If you have something like I dunno, a massive defensive rebel fighter ball, those activations also carry enhancements for the ball while you wait for your target to fall into the net. Or they can help advance the net in the case of going on the offensive.

It's the same strategy that allowed DeMSU to come out strong as it did in the beginning. Here I am with multiple activations, I'm gonna waste time until the target I want to hit is in range and then launch Demolisher at it. Well, now the Rebels can do it for cheaper.

I'm also not following why you don't think massive flotillas have activation spam... I face it every other Sunday when I go against one of the local players here. In order to have an activation of my choice, I need to find three or four things to activate first before my target in order to jump it. With Imperial ships being more expensive, I'm going to have to get used to getting double-tapped by a Yavaris bomber group after I move one of my ships in.

Also please don't tell me my armed flotillas have some kind of standout advantage over the Rebels' by being armed. I've never heard of a Rebel player taking an armed GR-75 over an unarmed transport. If I could toss the guns off my Gozantis to have a massive reduction in points, I'd do it in a heartbeat. None of my Gozanti guns have ever killed a ship- they've done more for AA fire than anything else... just like GR-75s. Everyone I know takes the cheapest Transports for fighter support and strength in the activation game.

On factions... if it were up to me, I'd love big battleship play to come back with overloaded VSDs and ISDs carrying the day, so I could be proper thematic Imperial. Thanks to Wexley ripping all my ISD shields off with massed fighters and unkillable blocking Flotillas under Rieekan, this is no longer possible. I'm too stubborn to jump ship, and I hold out hope Imperial Big ships can have a purpose in the future beyond their massive fighter ratings. But ISDs, VSDs, and all the other iconic large Imperial ships are why I got into this game in the first place.

@Sygnetix

I don't think I've posted directly or indirectly to you on this issue. But all but your last paragraph in your reply to me above is simply not conducive to a fruitful online discussion. You need to stop rehashing the same thing over and over again. Its burying your reasonable and thought out points in what has clearly become flame-bait to others. Surely you see that you're provoking emotional ping-pong with all of this discussion on the discussion instead of the topic at hand.

Just stop the window dressing and talk about flotillas if you want people to truly talk about that. Instead we're all talking about HOW we are talking instead of just staying on point. I'm not saying it's your fault, that you started it, or that its even fair that people are taking cheap shots at you (and they are) but someone needs to put down the torch if reasonable discussion is the goal. You're one of the ones lighting the fire, so you need to be one of the ones that puts the torch down if you want to see topics not name calling when flotillas come up.

Perhaps.

Oh oh oh! This looks like a good thread to be involved in!

Seriously though, my thoughts:

1. Flotillas are weird to begin with, and I'm actually impressed at how well they actually do ​ work in the game mechanically and thematically. Especially when it comes to the Rebel Transports, even though they show up in so many battles, I was worried that they would totally feel out of place in these big fleet battles.
2. On a thematic ​ level, I don't think "lifeboats" are very "Star Wars"-ey. They can be justified ​, but they're still just weird and feel out of place. Commanders "leading from the rear" and staying away from the main battle is totally a great military strategy. But Star Wars is stupid ​ in a lot of ways, and this is one of them. Commanders are in their big command ships, barking orders and being "in the fray". It's dumb, but it's Star Wars.
3. With regard to ​range of commander effects ​, I don't see a problem at all. As others have pointed out, limited range is ​ a thing for most things, but "commanding" (commanders, Fleet Command ​ upgrades, and Relay) specifically seems to be exempt.
4. With regard to lifeboats being a mechanical advantage / imbalance , I don't really ​ see it. What's the desired alternative? That they go on the biggest ship? If you kill that ship anyway, does it matter that much that the commander isn't killed and the commander's effect remains? Are hiding those points ​that ​ effective? Isn't it kind of like sticking a little custom objective off in the corner for your opponent to consider ​?

Honestly, more than dealing with the "lifeboat" issue with Flotillas, I'd like to see the whole "activation advantage" thing addressed in some way that doesn't encourage plopping down tiny, nearly useless, ships. An upgrade - crew or commander or something - that can be used as a "dummy" activation just to stagger our your major activations ​without ​ having to include little tiny ships floating around in the background.

Your second point is the motivation behind the debate. Your closing statement is also a huge consideration as well. As one of the previous recomendations would suggest, changing the way flotillas are viewed within the game mechanics would address this, such as moving them to their own "inbetween phase" after ship phase but before squadron phase.....logically viable since they are not ships in the sense otehr ships are, but nor are they squadrons. Another suggestion was that flagships have a minimum points value. In this sense, lifeboat flotillas could still be utilized but you'd have to add upgrades to the flotilla to bring it's points value up to "command ship level". In order to gain use of that flotilla throughout the battle, it would still have to be in range for it's upgrades. Sure, lifeboat flotillas would still exist but it might force a shift not only in building an activation advantage but their use as a corner dwelling no-nothing all game long.

I gave this some thought and I realized that these lifeboats work partly because opponent lets them.

If you think about it, a fleet is engineered around the admiral. If the admiral falls off the table, the battle plan usually collapses. Therefor if the opponent would dispatch a token task force against the lifeboat, the admiral would have no other choice than o stick with his/her fleet and become a target there.

For example a Kitten or an MC30 could run down a lifeboat, destroy it quickly and return to the battle for some more punches. Risky? Of course, because that ship may end well out of the battle. But it totally worth it. With Relay even a smaller bomber force could do that and they could return to the main battle much faster (although this is more viable for the Imps as the Lambdas are Relay 2 and their bombers are much faster).

What birthed this post was the math behind dispatching a portion of your forces to go hunt an 18 point ship someone tossed their admiral on. It's the risk vs reward that causes imbalance here. It's a low risk vs high reward for the lifeboat user. It's low risk because it takes more points in ships to go and kill their 18 point lifeboat. Sure you can argue specific builds that do it efficiently but this rocky foundation for a counter argument assumes that everyone includes a flotilla lifeboat killing solution in their fleet.

What a lot of people are failing to understand is that when you look at purely the cost of the ships involved in a "kill the flotilla lifeboat" scenario, it's drastically skewed in favor of the lifeboat. That's imbalance.

When you include the cost of the commander, it balances out....on the surface. When you include the upgrades on the forces you've now dispatched to kill said lifeboat, it swings back into imbalance.

You also have to factor in the risk vs reward of dispatching to chase the flotilla. Points value aside, you're dispatching approximately 1/8 of your fleet, at a minimum (if everything totals exactly 50/400 points). If it takes 2 turns to close into firing range (more than likely 3 but I'll be generous), you're risking being able to double arc. If you can't, it's going to take atleast 2 turns to kill the flotilla. This means that if the main engagement has surpassed a certain distance threshold from the corner the flotilla ran to, you cannot return to the fight in time to roll dice in turn 6.

Sure, the commander was lost for the last 2 or 3 turns. The assets dispatched to kill it are lost for atleast 5 turns, more than likely the entire game.

That's imbalance.