So, this happened. Both of these are interesting large ship lists and I'd love to hear about how these work.

How do they do their activations? Is the MC80 list all about activation control with a giant blopper and a MC30 on flank/frontal defense? Why GT and TRC? seems like a lowball amount of damage. Very low fighter cover too. How do you avoid dying to 134 squadrons?

I actually really like that 2ISD list even more. It looks super cool. even though its really really slim on stuff. 4 Activations, and 12 point bid. Was this for first player to ensure damage? Do the Tie defenders get out of range? Did you ever need more AA? How do you push aggressively without being wholly punished for having only 4 activations?

1) Sean Sundberg (32 tournament points, 1113 MOV)
400/400
Gunnery, Contested Outpost, Intel Sweep

MC80A
-Ackbar
-Leading Shots
-XI7s
-Walex
-ETs
-Advanced Projectors
-ECMs
-Defiance

MC30 Scout
-Gunnery Team
-SFO
-Admonition
-TRCs

GR-75 Transport
-Comms Net

GR-75 Transport
-Comms Net

GR-75 Transport
-Comms Net

2x VCX
2x A-Wing

2) John Kwak (33 tournament points, 838 MOV)
388/400
Gunnery, Contested Outpost, Dangerous Territory

ISD I
-OEs
-SFO

ISD I
-OEs
-SFO

Gozanti Cruiser
-Comms Net

Gozanti Cruiser
-Jerjerrod
-Comms Net

4x TIE Defenders
Stele

#1 had 32 points but #2 had 33?

might of been a top cut where 2nd place beat 1st?

Yes. There were 44 people in attendance, so we got a cut. Sean and John actually played each other in round 4, which John won. Sean was far enough ahead at the top of round 3 that he made the cut anyway, so the cut game was a re-match. Clearly he learned from his mistakes.

Sean lists seems to use the flotillas to run repairs on his MC80 by providing command tokens to it, whilst the MC30 flanks and strikes hard and escapes.

The two ISD's may seem light on upgrades, but the ones they have make them HIGHLY effective.

As to the lack of squadrons, on a macro scale, the game is shifting away from max squadrons, on the micro scale both squadron set ups are quite capable of holding up much larger numbers and in Sean's case, the VCX's really seemed to help him with objectives.

@Englishpete I don't think you can say there are a lack of squadrons in the ISD build, he has 85 points worth!

Its certainly an intriguing set up, though I'd personally like a bigger big for ISD 1s. Drop a Defender, grab XI7s on the ISDs.

That would increase the odds of getting first, and let you one shot those MC30s you catch with it.

5 minutes ago, TheCallum said:

@Englishpete I don't think you can say there are a lack of squadrons in the ISD build, he has 85 points worth!

Its certainly an intriguing set up, though I'd personally like a bigger big for ISD 1s. Drop a Defender, grab XI7s on the ISDs.

That would increase the odds of getting first, and let you one shot those MC30s you catch with it.

This was my first thought on that build as well.

18 minutes ago, TheCallum said:

@Englishpete I don't think you can say there are a lack of squadrons in the ISD build, he has 85 points worth!

Its certainly an intriguing set up, though I'd personally like a bigger big for ISD 1s. Drop a Defender, grab XI7s on the ISDs.

That would increase the odds of getting first, and let you one shot those MC30s you catch with it.

Perhaps I should have said medium rather than maxed squadrons :-)

The max squadron play as far as I've seen is far from mandatory. On the major issues is tournament scoring. Back in X-Wing wave 1 where the Tie Swarm was a behemoth and the tourney scoring was a little different, you'd end up in what's called "Tie Hell". If you took a Tie Swarm and ended up playing another Tie Swarm you'd basically end up going to time with a very close match win. Then you get bracketed against other people who got close wins, namely other Tie Swarms, and you could never escape and get back to the top seeds. The same thing happens when you start putting max squad list together, especially in areas where they are extremely popular. Add in the ultra durable Biggballs and the chances of getting a decisive furball when players are acting defensively drop considerably. Throw in the lack of necessity of killing all the fighters to table someone and engagement rules and you have a huge number of options and abilities that can help you without taking the 134.

It may be at that point that we may want to consider that FFG has made every component the game a necessity (fighters, ships, upgrades) without overpowering any one aspect.

For example, this was was my first major tourney and I finished 12th with only 42 points in fighters (6 Z95s). I lost every Z every single game and in my final game I played against a full 134. However with smart and aggressive play, beyond a few plink damage, fighter damage was never really telling. For the record I lost the game against the 134 fighters list, but that was because my opponent made the smart move and ran with the objective turning a very close game into a 70 point win (no hard feelings on the guy running either, good guy to play, great games all around that day).

As for playing against winner Sean, I was a bit perplexed by his MC30 as well but as I thought about it, it honestly leverages Ackbar better than the normal MC30 build. He only really has two activation that do damage at a decent rate and the GT on the MC30 with TRCs means he can leverage damage earlier and at a pretty consistent rate. Yes would ordnance experts be great if he make a short range attack run? Yes but 3-4 Blacks at close range is nothing to sniff at. He basically turned the MC30 into a mini AFII that is more slippery and arguable more survivable. I may steal the idea.

14 minutes ago, ImpStarDeuces said:

As for playing against winner Sean, I was a bit perplexed by his MC30 as well but as I thought about it, it honestly leverages Ackbar better than the normal MC30 build. He only really has two activation that do damage at a decent rate and the GT on the MC30 with TRCs means he can leverage damage earlier and at a pretty consistent rate. Yes would ordnance experts be great if he make a short range attack run? Yes but 3-4 Blacks at close range is nothing to sniff at. He basically turned the MC30 into a mini AFII that is more slippery and arguable more survivable. I may steal the idea.

I've used that build and it works well with Ackbar. At range the 4 dice plus TRCs is really consistent. He's got Comms Net flotillas and keep a Con Fire token handy to re-roll at least one black when it matters.

His MC30 is also hard to kill. I've run the Foresight version and it rains the pain, whilst avoiding damage.

I need to post this for emphasis.

The important thing is that Sean won NC with this list, Britt won MI with inspiration from this list AND Sean tweaked it for the MD Regional.

Fly what you like... keep tweaking it (experience will trump netlisting)... have fun!

So he's won two regionals with this list?

Indeed he has. What a jerk.

1 hour ago, ImpStarDeuces said:

The max squadron play as far as I've seen is far from mandatory. On the major issues is tournament scoring. Back in X-Wing wave 1 where the Tie Swarm was a behemoth and the tourney scoring was a little different, you'd end up in what's called "Tie Hell". If you took a Tie Swarm and ended up playing another Tie Swarm you'd basically end up going to time with a very close match win. Then you get bracketed against other people who got close wins, namely other Tie Swarms, and you could never escape and get back to the top seeds. The same thing happens when you start putting max squad list together, especially in areas where they are extremely popular. Add in the ultra durable Biggballs and the chances of getting a decisive furball when players are acting defensively drop considerably. Throw in the lack of necessity of killing all the fighters to table someone and engagement rules and you have a huge number of options and abilities that can help you without taking the 134.

It may be at that point that we may want to consider that FFG has made every component the game a necessity (fighters, ships, upgrades) without overpowering any one aspect.

For example, this was was my first major tourney and I finished 12th with only 42 points in fighters (6 Z95s). I lost every Z every single game and in my final game I played against a full 134. However with smart and aggressive play, beyond a few plink damage, fighter damage was never really telling. For the record I lost the game against the 134 fighters list, but that was because my opponent made the smart move and ran with the objective turning a very close game into a 70 point win (no hard feelings on the guy running either, good guy to play, great games all around that day).

As for playing against winner Sean, I was a bit perplexed by his MC30 as well but as I thought about it, it honestly leverages Ackbar better than the normal MC30 build. He only really has two activation that do damage at a decent rate and the GT on the MC30 with TRCs means he can leverage damage earlier and at a pretty consistent rate. Yes would ordnance experts be great if he make a short range attack run? Yes but 3-4 Blacks at close range is nothing to sniff at. He basically turned the MC30 into a mini AFII that is more slippery and arguable more survivable. I may steal the idea.

Not really a new idea. In early wave two lots of folks were running the ackbar scout with gun teams. Obviously they phased out and it goes back to the Versch Old is New theory.

I do love the ackbar scout tho, however you build it. I feel like that ship is the armada manifestation of that common movie trope where two guys are going at it hard with swords and then one dude gets his sword on the guys neck but the guy gestures for him to look down and there's a dagger to his dangly doodle.

3 minutes ago, Caldias said:

Indeed he has. What a jerk.

Caldias is another example. In NC, he didn't do too well but he stuck with his gameplan and got a Final Four finish.

In Armada, I count Final Fours as pretty good due to tourney scoring.

4 minutes ago, Madaghmire said:

dagger to his dangly doodle

...

2 hours ago, ImpStarDeuces said:

The max squadron play as far as I've seen is far from mandatory. On the major issues is tournament scoring. Back in X-Wing wave 1 where the Tie Swarm was a behemoth and the tourney scoring was a little different, you'd end up in what's called "Tie Hell". If you took a Tie Swarm and ended up playing another Tie Swarm you'd basically end up going to time with a very close match win. Then you get bracketed against other people who got close wins, namely other Tie Swarms, and you could never escape and get back to the top seeds. The same thing happens when you start putting max squad list together, especially in areas where they are extremely popular. Add in the ultra durable Biggballs and the chances of getting a decisive furball when players are acting defensively drop considerably. Throw in the lack of necessity of killing all the fighters to table someone and engagement rules and you have a huge number of options and abilities that can help you without taking the 134.

It may be at that point that we may want to consider that FFG has made every component the game a necessity (fighters, ships, upgrades) without overpowering any one aspect.

For example, this was was my first major tourney and I finished 12th with only 42 points in fighters (6 Z95s). I lost every Z every single game and in my final game I played against a full 134. However with smart and aggressive play, beyond a few plink damage, fighter damage was never really telling. For the record I lost the game against the 134 fighters list, but that was because my opponent made the smart move and ran with the objective turning a very close game into a 70 point win (no hard feelings on the guy running either, good guy to play, great games all around that day).

As for playing against winner Sean, I was a bit perplexed by his MC30 as well but as I thought about it, it honestly leverages Ackbar better than the normal MC30 build. He only really has two activation that do damage at a decent rate and the GT on the MC30 with TRCs means he can leverage damage earlier and at a pretty consistent rate. Yes would ordnance experts be great if he make a short range attack run? Yes but 3-4 Blacks at close range is nothing to sniff at. He basically turned the MC30 into a mini AFII that is more slippery and arguable more survivable. I may steal the idea.

I dunnnooo. Still have yet to see 134 squadrons have a bad match up. I want to iterate on this primary point: The objectives in this game currently highly benefit squadron play -> If you read from ImpStarDeuce: You/He lost that game BECAUSE of the absolutely unmanageable advantage that the objectives give. That is the real problem. And that is why you hear me talk about going for a bid because honestly, maybe you can beat/destroy the squadron list, but it will earn so many points and run away with one transport that you will still lose. And heavily much of the time.

As for MC30s, yeah, I wonder what his flight pattern was. Did he use the blacks? I felt like even 4 dice with TRCs got nullified to paltry damage often. Though, I know the MC80 hits like a truck. However the Comms net sending repairs still can't send that much repair if the MC80 is taking focus fire. Also, it takes only 1.5 turns to kill an MC80 with max bombers. Assuming a move with FCT or RLB giving yavaris double taps.

16 minutes ago, Blail Blerg said:

Still have yet to see 134 squadrons have a bad match up.

Round 1, I 10-1 130ish points of Rieekan Aces & friends with no squadrons.

Yeah, but they are no Ackbar Star Destroyers...

The uk meta appears to have bulked out with large ships recently too. Which would mean the return of my mc30s, except Tua ECMs makes it so much tougher.

Yeah, max squadrons tend to have a bad time against anything that can blitz the carriers. All those squadrons will live, but won't contribute to killing anything, either.

1 hour ago, Blail Blerg said:

The objectives in this game currently highly benefit squadron play -> If you read from ImpStarDeuce: You/He lost that game BECAUSE of the absolutely unmanageable advantage that the objectives give.

I'm not sure I follow the causation here because running away with the objective doesn't necessitate a heavy squadron build in any way. My opponent could have taken no fighters and based on my opening moves would have run away with the objective easily. That is on me and good on my opponent for following through with a winning strategy. But that being said I lightly caution against the perception that anything is "absolutely unmanageable." We start talking in those terms or think that certain build are a necessity for a high level of play, you'll stifle some creativity and skew perceptions about game balance. If you do you could create a self fulfilling prophecy and cause fleet builds to stagnate. There's so much proof at this point that you don't need the full 134 to win.

1 hour ago, Q-DOWg said:

I need to post this for emphasis.

The important thing is that Sean won NC with this list, Britt won MI with inspiration from this list AND Sean tweaked it for the MD Regional.

Fly what you like... keep tweaking it (experience will trump netlisting)... have fun!

1 hour ago, Q-DOWg said:

Caldias is another example. In NC, he didn't do too well but he stuck with his gameplan and got a Final Four finish.

In Armada, I count Final Fours as pretty good due to tourney scoring.

As always, Q speaks all the truth.

When it comes to a tournament playing what you know is so important. The Regionals data has shown me there are trends in what shows up near the top, but nothing so strong as to trump something that is expertly flown.

There is a difference between a good and a bad fleet. But it is more about focus and planning than a silver bullet upgrade.