38 minutes ago, Forresto said:

Honestly i'm not saying its an invalid strategy. It takes your opponent expending resources away from the main battle to eliminate your admiral however I do think its a very cheesy strategy and as such the player choosing it does deserve to get ribbed a little for doing it.

So I should play so my opponent always keeps his fleet together?

Let's not go there again. I think the initial comment was meant in jest/fun. Opinions may vary, and lets leave it at that.

On 13/2/2017 at 5:04 AM, TheEldarGuy said:

From an historical context, Admiral Spruance of the US Navy acted in Halsey's place during the battle of Midway. Spruance was not a capital ship guy and was known for commanding a flotilla of cruisers and support craft; incidentally, his own flagship was a heavy cruiser.

Halsey had to step aside from the Midway battle and hand picked Spruance for his ability to remain calm under extreme pressure.

It does happen that every now and then that something other than the biggest ship is the 'Flagship'.

Yes but Spruance, as far as I know, never used a Liberty ship as flagship.

Please note, that several of the treaty class heavy cruisers where outfitted to act as flagships, as they where built with extra space on board to accommodate Fleet staff officers, crew and command and control facilities accociated with being a Flagship.

USS Indianapolis and three Northamptons had extended/longer Forcastles as a result of this.

Heavy cruisers were in fact just as long as the old battleships, albeit slimmer and on several occasions heavy cruisers where mistaken as old battleships by the enemy.

Yeah, I don't think this thread needs to turn into yet another relitigation of the merits/thematic issues with lifeboats.

6 hours ago, Kiwi Rat said:

Yes but Spruance, as far as I know, never used a Liberty ship as flagship.

Please note, that several of the treaty class heavy cruisers where outfitted to act as flagships, as they where built with extra space on board to accommodate Fleet staff officers, crew and command and control facilities accociated with being a Flagship.

USS Indianapolis and three Northamptons had extended/longer Forcastles as a result of this.

Heavy cruisers were in fact just as long as the old battleships, albeit slimmer and on several occasions heavy cruisers where mistaken as old battleships by the enemy.

Ah! But a little wikipedia digging shows that Admiral Sir Harold Burrough, during Operation Torch, commanded the Eastern Naval Task Force from an Armed Merchant Cruiser, HMS Bulolo. The task force included a CA, 2x CL, 2x CVE, and 13x DD's. To make this relevant, this seems a very Armada-scale task force.

The HMS Bulolo was previously a passenger, cargo, and mail steamer until the Royal Navy requisitioned her in 1939.

She then commanded the landings at Gold Beach on D-Day, flying the pennant of Commodore Douglas-Pennant, Naval Commander of Force "G". After the war she resumed her merchant duties.

So.....grognards need only include a GR-75 Combat Retrofit to assure themselves of historical parallels.

I don't quite understand why people think lifeboat commanders are cheesy. It's been my experience most people in charge are the last ones in and the first ones out. We've watched the Star wars movies and sure they all act like heroes on screen, but there's gotta be a yellow commander or two who surveyed their opponent and said, "Nah, I'll wait here have fun though".

Motti, chilling with his feet up on his console as the flagship of his fleet, the golden chicken, circles around the battle surveying it from safety.

lol It makes sense to me, but I guess i'm basing that on every boss I've every had.

On 2/14/2017 at 0:18 PM, Ardaedhel said:

I really don't understand the difference. Maybe you are using the word "cheesy" to mean something different from my understanding?

I mean, I thought it pretty much did mean an invalid strategy: something that's technically allowed under the rules but only due to an unforeseen rules interaction. I could see this kind of thing happening under a system as arcane and rules-y as 40k, but I would be pretty stunned to find that FFG did not expect people to use flotillas as lifeboats. Particularly given that it was not uncommon practice to put them on corvettes even before flotillas were a thing.

Ahh I see. The way ive used cheese and heard it used has nothing to do with a cheesy strategy being invalid. Its completely valid within the constrains of the rules its just on the fringe of what is expected and is sortve taking an easy route.

For example is Resident Evil 7, which is survival horror and designed to give you limited resources since thats part of the fear. At a certain point you start to occasionally get a single use item, a type of drugs, that lets you see where all the items are for a brief duration, so it basically reveals ammo and health and all that stuff that is otherwise really hard to find. Essentially it makes the game a ton of a lot easier. So clearly you dont get many of these drugs.

Now the cheesy strat is to save and use one of the drugs, find where all the items are in an area, and reload so that you have the drugs and you know where all the items are. Totally valid as the developers let players do it but a really easy strat that changes the dynamic of the game.

Clearly flotillas are entirely valid to have your admiral on. Im not sayong they arent. However they are a pretty easy way of getting your admiral out of the heat of battle and they do change the dynamic of the game. I'm not opposed to them at all. But thats what I mean by cheese, the easy method.

31 minutes ago, Forresto said:

But thats what I mean by cheese, the easy method.

Its only that way when you let them get away with it .

I've always considered "cheese" methods the "off meta strats". And by off meta, I mean doing something that disregards a major portion of the content and strategy of the game. I grew up playing Star Craft, and "cannon rushing" is considered cheese because you are winning with buildings, where as the game is about creating an economy and training an army and having the correct counters to your opponent. Typically, cheese methods are the "all or nothing" games. You invest your entire strategy into this one gimmick, and if you don't win quickly, you lose.

18 hours ago, Maturin said:

Ah! But a little wikipedia digging shows that Admiral Sir Harold Burrough, during Operation Torch, commanded the Eastern Naval Task Force from an Armed Merchant Cruiser, HMS Bulolo. The task force included a CA, 2x CL, 2x CVE, and 13x DD's. To make this relevant, this seems a very Armada-scale task force.

The HMS Bulolo was previously a passenger, cargo, and mail steamer until the Royal Navy requisitioned her in 1939.

She then commanded the landings at Gold Beach on D-Day, flying the pennant of Commodore Douglas-Pennant, Naval Commander of Force "G". After the war she resumed her merchant duties.

So.....grognards need only include a GR-75 Combat Retrofit to assure themselves of historical parallels.

Perfectly valid when you are in charge of a fleet which purpose is landing troops on a beach, you are rather static.

But when you are commanding a task force of warships, that is seeking out enemy task forces, to sink them in actual ship VS ship naval combat, the Flag commander of the task force is not on a armed merchant cruiser, if he is, something has gone horribly wrong.

None of the US Carrier task forces in WW2, was commanded from a merchant ship, as most merchant ships back then were to slow for them to keep up with the fast carriers cruiser and destroyers. (If you mention "What about the fleet Oilers?" I would say, they are fleet oilers and they were not used as flagships, as their job was to supply the task force with oil, not command them)

All the major naval night engagements at Guadalcanal, had the Flag commander onboard a real warship, from destroyer size and up.

With the "relay" Squadrons, on a worthless ship, they can fly away, give activation help, and still have a roll in the fight.

5 hours ago, Kiwi Rat said:

Perfectly valid when you are in charge of a fleet which purpose is landing troops on a beach, you are rather static.

But when you are commanding a task force of warships, that is seeking out enemy task forces, to sink them in actual ship VS ship naval combat, the Flag commander of the task force is not on a armed merchant cruiser, if he is, something has gone horribly wrong.

None of the US Carrier task forces in WW2, was commanded from a merchant ship, as most merchant ships back then were to slow for them to keep up with the fast carriers cruiser and destroyers. (If you mention "What about the fleet Oilers?" I would say, they are fleet oilers and they were not used as flagships, as their job was to supply the task force with oil, not command them)

All the major naval night engagements at Guadalcanal, had the Flag commander onboard a real warship, from destroyer size and up.

True, true - but I would counter that Armada doesn't really represent naval clashes on the scale of Fast Carrier Task Forces. They're more skirmish like - and it's entirely conceivable that one side is in the midst of another operation. The battle is the skirmish between raiders and the covering force....(yeah it's a bit of a stretch). Big Fleet scale battles are more like the end of a CC campaign...

For a more modern example the USN Blue-Ridge Command ships were entirely unarmed except for point defence weapons. 7th fleet HQ = flotilla?