OK, so now that we have at least an 'unofficial' answer to how they work (in principle at least), have people given them a good workout yet?

So far, despite prediction of doom and gloom and how powerful they might be, we haven't found them to be that much of a game changer. Are they helpful at times? Sure. Are they something I would always take even with a squadron-heavy list? No, I don't think so.

I can definitely see the potential for them to be devastating in the right circumstances, but the same could be said about many other upgrades. Since they take up an Offensive Retrofit slot, they typically will preclude more common squadron support upgrades such as Boosted Comms or Extended Hangar Bays.

They have encouraged opposing fleets to be a bit more cagey with their own squadron deployment and usage, but I think they are about fairly priced for their effectiveness and opportunity cost.

What have other folks seen? Are they are powerful as some predicted or do you think they'll just be another varied tool in the arsenal to sometimes take and sometimes not?

No trials.

Some people are happy with Unofficial answers.

But I've found, so far, its just more arguments until there is an official one.

I also wasn't aware we even got an Unofficial answer.

11 minutes ago, Drasnighta said:

I also wasn't aware we even got an Unofficial answer.

Talking about the #teamorange ruling at FFG Regionals overseen by FFG staff.

Not official by any means, not even necessarily a good indicator of which way it will ultimately turn out, but better than nothing in at least some people's mind.

#teamorangerhymerswitheverything

Used them once. Had fun. Decent card but the depolyment hit is something I feel hurts a lot.

1 hour ago, Eggzavier said:

Talking about the #teamorange ruling at FFG Regionals overseen by FFG staff.

Not official by any means, not even necessarily a good indicator of which way it will ultimately turn out, but better than nothing in at least some people's mind.

Wait, which one is #teamorange

12 minutes ago, Visovics said:

Wait, which one is #teamorange

The team that won.

2nd place in a regionals is a result no??

32 minutes ago, Visovics said:

Wait, which one is #teamorange

Orange is the one most people were hoping is how it worked.

Deployment at distance* one is their movement for this activation and they immediately may shoot.

had it been ruled purple i'd probably never touch this card as it leaves them wide open for a random TIE or Awing to just zip in and go "HAI GUIZ HOW U DO!?" and stop the whole strat.

Im still waiting on an official faq. Most of my local area guys arent very forum-savvy so all these unofficial things goes unnoticed. Heck they didnt even know about the armed station stat swap snaffoo.

edit: just realized that means they come out one by one, so any "ball" you got in there you need to send the "ball enabler" first (Norra, Rhymer, Howlie). Not...terribly a big problem since you still got the other activations but you could accidentally shaft yourself if you arent paying attention.

edit: *derp, big difference between distance and range buddy lol

I haven't used them yet, both because the card is.... messy... and because I just don't know how I want to use them. Yet.

Hoping to maybe try it out this weekend, though still... not sure how I want to try them.

1 hour ago, Uncle_Joe said:

OK, so now that we have at least an 'unofficial' answer to how they work (in principle at least), have people given them a good workout yet?

So far, despite prediction of doom and gloom and how powerful they might be, we haven't found them to be that much of a game changer. Are they helpful at times? Sure. Are they something I would always take even with a squadron-heavy list? No, I don't think so.

I can definitely see the potential for them to be devastating in the right circumstances, but the same could be said about many other upgrades. Since they take up an Offensive Retrofit slot, they typically will preclude more common squadron support upgrades such as Boosted Comms or Extended Hangar Bays.

They have encouraged opposing fleets to be a bit more cagey with their own squadron deployment and usage, but I think they are about fairly priced for their effectiveness and opportunity cost.

What have other folks seen? Are they are powerful as some predicted or do you think they'll just be another varied tool in the arsenal to sometimes take and sometimes not?

I've played with them a couple times, and they're not bad.

The first obvious gripe is that they detract from your deployments, especially if you are loading up an ISD with 4 squads. You lose 2 deployments right there.

I think there is some merit to loading up on b-wings and using the Leeroy Jenkins method of attack with flight commander. I've had an MC80 us engine techs to engage my entire fleet and drop some angry bees on me. It is not pleasant.

There are also interesting ways to utilize the card. You do not have to unload all of your package at once, and it might be strategically advantageous to drop bombers later while you clear fighters out of space. Then again, you have to be careful so as not to lose your ship while it still has squadrons in its belly.

I think the card is pretty niche, and won't see that much use.

13 minutes ago, Vineheart01 said:

Orange is the one most people were hoping is how it worked.

Deployment at distance* one is their movement for this activation and they immediately may shoot.

had it been ruled purple i'd probably never touch this card as it leaves them wide open for a random TIE or Awing to just zip in and go "HAI GUIZ HOW U DO!?" and stop the whole strat.

Im still waiting on an official faq. Most of my local area guys arent very forum-savvy so all these unofficial things goes unnoticed. Heck they didnt even know about the armed station stat swap snaffoo.

edit: just realized that means they come out one by one, so any "ball" you got in there you need to send the "ball enabler" first (Norra, Rhymer, Howlie). Not...terribly a big problem since you still got the other activations but you could accidentally shaft yourself if you arent paying attention.

edit: *derp, big difference between distance and range buddy lol

that's the one I hope for

Thanks for the replies so far.

And yeah, it has it's ups and downs. As mentioned, I think the deployment disadvantage hurts in addition to the cost and opportunity cost of the upgrade itself.

It does allow you to pick and choose when your squadrons fight so if the enemy has a fighter advantage you can hopefully tie up some of them with normally deployed squadrons and then deploy your bombers once its 'safe'. You can also use it as a sort of quick AA screen when you know you're about to be jumped by enemy bombers...just dump out one or two squadrons as a 'shield' (unless they have Intel but then round and round she goes... ).

I think the feared 'B-wing alpha strike' would still be lethal, but your opponent really has to let you do that for it to have maximum effect.

9 minutes ago, Warlord Zepnick said:

I've played with them a couple times, and they're not bad.

The first obvious gripe is that they detract from your deployments, especially if you are loading up an ISD with 4 squads. You lose 2 deployments right there.

I think there is some merit to loading up on b-wings and using the Leeroy Jenkins method of attack with flight commander. I've had an MC80 us engine techs to engage my entire fleet and drop some angry bees on me. It is not pleasant.

There are also interesting ways to utilize the card. You do not have to unload all of your package at once, and it might be strategically advantageous to drop bombers later while you clear fighters out of space. Then again, you have to be careful so as not to lose your ship while it still has squadrons in its belly.

I think the card is pretty niche, and won't see that much use.

I faced down an MC80 with 3 B-Wings+Norra after taking an Overload Pulse to an ISD. Only thing that saved me was 1 Tie/D running screen for me. It died but my ISD got to run away.

The first time you play it, if your opponent is unaware of it's full potential then yeah it can rock. I dropped Luke, Keyan and Hera in front of a relatively healthy Victory. Hera rolled well and finished off the front shields and Luke and Keyan crippled it. However, there's no way i'll be able to pull that trick again against my regular opponent.

2 hours ago, idiewell said:

The first time you play it, if your opponent is unaware of it's full potential then yeah it can rock. I dropped Luke, Keyan and Hera in front of a relatively healthy Victory. Hera rolled well and finished off the front shields and Luke and Keyan crippled it. However, there's no way i'll be able to pull that trick again against my regular opponent.

This is definitely what allowed me to do so well at San Antonio. I made a meta call, on several different things, and called it right. An engine teching Pelta with rapid launch bays...

But that element of surprise—building some off-kilter combo into your list that your opponent either won't see coming or hasn't practiced against—that is what will make a huge difference in a match between players of equal skill.

And it's not about coming up with something new, it's finding what's already there before someone else does so that you can dominate before the counter play develops. I believe that accurately depicts what Clon did when he developed the DeMSU Clonisher list.

4 hours ago, Parkdaddy said:

But that element of surprise—building some off-kilter combo into your list that your opponent either won't see coming or hasn't practiced against—that is what will make a huge difference in a match between players of equal skill

At my local games shop where all our local armada players come, until my friend and I got interested and started playing there was only 4 armada players (though Xwing is really popular with up to 15 people) who came regularly (now including me and a friend there is 6 lol)

last Wednesday I played against one of the older and more experienced players there who had never faced a true bomber heavy list before (his regular opponent in squadron light, and the other two players generally bring large fighter balls, not bombers) , which led to him underestimating the potential of my Ys and having his fleet tabled except for his interdictor and one decimator (his fleet included a ISD, a GSD, Morna kee, two decimator squadrons and two tie fighter squadrons) because of a pelta and mc30c with squadron commands

it just goes to show that bringing a new style of fleet to the table can pay off really well- and not even between players of equal skill, if he had not of underestimated the Ys I would not of won the battle and he would of destroyed two of my ships the very next round

as for rapid launch bays..... I haven't really used them, but I can see the potential of say a AF dropping 3 Bwings right next to its intended target and using them to deplete its shields enough to take it down for instance.

Instead of using them offensively, my next game i'm probably going to use them defensively, to add extra fighter protection if my command ship gets into too much squadron trouble.

I tried Parkdaddy's list tonight in a friendly. I'd been trying to come up with a fleet to use RLB and I really liked his Pelta delivery system.

It's got a lot of moving parts, which I totally c0cked up, but despite that, the Pelta dropped two Bs and Norra in an ISD 1s front arc and melted it in two turns ( without any of the rerolls from things that should have been nearer). AND the Pelta lived to tell the tale.

I wouldn't expect that kind of success regularly but overall I'm really impressed with the potential.

Great list, Parkdaddy.

As an Imperial Homer, I find the fighters are fast enough that RLB is a waste of points and deployments. Why spend points on something when you can just hang back and use a normal squadron command to get the same effect?

14 hours ago, ManInTheBox said:

I tried Parkdaddy's list tonight in a friendly. I'd been trying to come up with a fleet to use RLB and I really liked his Pelta delivery system.

It's got a lot of moving parts, which I totally c0cked up, but despite that, the Pelta dropped two Bs and Norra in an ISD 1s front arc and melted it in two turns ( without any of the rerolls from things that should have been nearer). AND the Pelta lived to tell the tale.

I wouldn't expect that kind of success regularly but overall I'm really impressed with the potential.

Great list, Parkdaddy.

Yes, those moving parts are definitely something to contend with. Activation order is key in the first 3 rounds, and this particular activation order, in conjunction with how close you want everything to be (in order to have range for BCC, Toryn, Relay, etc), requires a very delicate deployment. I bumped a lot of my own stuff together in the tourney, so I still have a lot of improvements to make as well

On 2/17/2017 at 11:59 AM, Eggzavier said:

Talking about the #teamorange ruling at FFG Regionals overseen by FFG staff.

Not official by any means, not even necessarily a good indicator of which way it will ultimately turn out, but better than nothing in at least some people's mind.

well, what other options do we have? If the ships placed can't even attack that way, that makes RLB the worst upgrade in the history of Armada.

19 minutes ago, Sybreed said:

well, what other options do we have? If the ships placed can't even attack that way, that makes RLB the worst upgrade in the history of Armada.

#TeamPurple says it leaves them unactivated. Becausethey are unactivated, they can then be used with, say, Yavaris for the Next activation - as they have not Moved, they Double tap.

Its no Point Defense Reroute or Cluster Bombs... It just needs Coordination to work that way - and its more devestating than the #TeamOrange solution when you do hook it all up.

8 minutes ago, Drasnighta said:

#TeamPurple says it leaves them unactivated. Becausethey are unactivated, they can then be used with, say, Yavaris for the Next activation - as they have not Moved, they Double tap.

Its no Point Defense Reroute or Cluster Bombs... It just needs Coordination to work that way - and its more devestating than the #TeamOrange solution when you do hook it all up.

hmm, but that leaves your opponent a turn to react, the counterplay seems pretty obvious here. Not sure I would still pick it if it worked that way.

Its fine to not like it, its certainly tricky

But its not useless.

In a turn of Reaction, the enemy has to be ready to crash out Multiple B-Wings, and possibly an Intel, too. Its mostly just to protect them beforehand, or provide B-Wings with a lot of speed in comparison to using FC/FCT and such.

Not optimal, for sure - but not useless.

- and honestly, I say that for both Versions at the moment.

purple interpretation is what I would have expected. Deploys unactivated, but no talk about attacking. Also, makes use of expanded hangar bays: 3 to drop out with RLB, 3 to activate from an ISD.

Or just carry 6 , let other things activate them as they are now in range, or even just drop them out and let them all activate by themselves in squadron phase.