The ramming mechanic is thematic.

No railings, no crew.

11 hours ago, Coldhands said:

How many gladiators did you see without any title? Without title, its not really viable in my opinion, id go for an arq for the same price

One of my favourite comp lists has three Gladys...... Demo glad 2 as a fighter and float hunter, the sneaky back stabber glad 2 and a no titled glad one with engine tec and OE as specialist admonition hunter ( ram ram ) backed up by a raider AA, gozantis and light fighter cover.

Not saying you would ever go for a vanilla glad over demo but multi glad are still ok if you enjoy close in knife fighting.

1 hour ago, Ardaedhel said:

Really? I would definitely have said that your ships blowing up was a pretty good punishment for ramming.

Not unpreventable. Hard to prevent, absolutely, but not unpreventable. Outmaneuver them, then kill them... BAM, prevented.

One engine teching CR90B is virtually impossible to outmaneuver. Seven of them that all have to work in concert to succeed is actually not super difficult to outmaneuver.

I know you edited yourself, and this is directed at you Ard, but I want to make some points clear since you brought it up.

With Rieekan, there is no punishment if you activate first or last or in between with 8 CR90s. They all are doing the same thing and die at the end of the round, so getting "out of position" is neither good nor bad. You just are there laughing at all the shots taken at you while you prep your engines. Where as a TRC90 needs to be careful where it goes. Drop into medium range and it can die. Drop into a double arc and it can die. There's no punishment when you toss 94 (2 CR90B ET) points away to drop an MC80 with 10/12 blue dice in a single round, and then another 4 damage straight to the hull.

You are right, you can kill them. I should have elaborated on "unpreventable damage". You can mitigate 10 blue dice with defense tokens and obstruction, but you can't mitigate or outright prevent hull damage from a ram. Sure, RBD might save you, but you have to survive. The ET ramming guarantees 2 damage once you get within speed 4. With a Nav command, you can whip that ship around, and then ET. And with Rieekan, he guarantees the CR90 is on the board until the end of the round to deal that damage. Unpreventable damage in every essence of the word. You can't kill the ship outright, and you can't out run the ship. Multiply by 8.

Even if you manage to navigate the entire maze of hyperspacing CR90s and not get T-boned, you are sure as hell in medium range taking a lot of dice. Death by a thousand cuts is the motto of bombers, but 8 CR90s qualify for that as well.

The fleet is very well designed to exploit the rules, and I don't think anyone would disagree that this fleet is very difficult to deal with. Even if you manage to kill 1 per round, that still leaves 2 on the board, and with 8 activations, you will be moving into range of anything that you kill, most likely.

We can talk theory about how the build a fleet to beat this, but why is that even necessary? This fleet never should have existed in the first place. It completely disregards a significant portion of the game and exploits the current rules. It's like cannon rushing in Star Craft or playing a Maralen EDH deck and killing everyone by discarding land. Yes, technically it is legal, but it is not the way the game was envisioned to be played. Does anyone here really think FFG intended us to play space bumper cars? I know I've played games where I've used ET to ram flotillas to death. Feels good for me, but my opponent hates it because it's lame. "Oh cool, Demo just wiped your MC80. Now I'm going to ET and kill your lifeboat too. Next round I won't even bother attacking because I can just ram your other flotilla for the win."

I can think of 2, non-intrusive ways to deal with excessive ET ramming, whether it's from Demo or CR90s.

If you overlap a ship, exhaust ET.
At the end of a ships activation, if it overlapped a ship, deal 1 damage to both ships.

Both limit the damage to 1, and still allow you to utilize ET.

3 minutes ago, Undeadguy said:

I know you edited yourself, and this is directed at you Ard, but I want to make some points clear since you brought it up.

With Rieekan, there is no punishment if you activate first or last or in between with 8 CR90s. They all are doing the same thing and die at the end of the round, so getting "out of position" is neither good nor bad. You just are there laughing at all the shots taken at you while you prep your engines. Where as a TRC90 needs to be careful where it goes. Drop into medium range and it can die. Drop into a double arc and it can die. There's no punishment when you toss 94 (2 CR90B ET) points away to drop an MC80 with 10/12 blue dice in a single round, and then another 4 damage straight to the hull.

You are right, you can kill them. I should have elaborated on "unpreventable damage". You can mitigate 10 blue dice with defense tokens and obstruction, but you can't mitigate or outright prevent hull damage from a ram. Sure, RBD might save you, but you have to survive. The ET ramming guarantees 2 damage once you get within speed 4. With a Nav command, you can whip that ship around, and then ET. And with Rieekan, he guarantees the CR90 is on the board until the end of the round to deal that damage. Unpreventable damage in every essence of the word. You can't kill the ship outright, and you can't out run the ship. Multiply by 8.

Even if you manage to navigate the entire maze of hyperspacing CR90s and not get T-boned, you are sure as hell in medium range taking a lot of dice. Death by a thousand cuts is the motto of bombers, but 8 CR90s qualify for that as well.

The fleet is very well designed to exploit the rules, and I don't think anyone would disagree that this fleet is very difficult to deal with. Even if you manage to kill 1 per round, that still leaves 2 on the board, and with 8 activations, you will be moving into range of anything that you kill, most likely.

We can talk theory about how the build a fleet to beat this, but why is that even necessary? This fleet never should have existed in the first place. It completely disregards a significant portion of the game and exploits the current rules. It's like cannon rushing in Star Craft or playing a Maralen EDH deck and killing everyone by discarding land. Yes, technically it is legal, but it is not the way the game was envisioned to be played. Does anyone here really think FFG intended us to play space bumper cars? I know I've played games where I've used ET to ram flotillas to death. Feels good for me, but my opponent hates it because it's lame. "Oh cool, Demo just wiped your MC80. Now I'm going to ET and kill your lifeboat too. Next round I won't even bother attacking because I can just ram your other flotilla for the win."

I can think of 2, non-intrusive ways to deal with excessive ET ramming, whether it's from Demo or CR90s.

If you overlap a ship, exhaust ET.
At the end of a ships activation, if it overlapped a ship, deal 1 damage to both ships.

Both limit the damage to 1, and still allow you to utilize ET.

Is this really as bad as Cannon rushing? lol. That seemed a lot less counter-playable.

Would it be a good counter to use your flotillas to block possible rams, and just take obstructed shots with your big ship?

How strong is this list for real though?

Also, doesn't it feel kind of cheesy nowadays that most of the game revolves around activating later to move into range safely? Its pretty boring. That seems to be how MSU works, how this works, how Rieekan bombers work. Yes, its a core game mechanic, but its really kind of the true bane of turn based games, and armada is really severely about that mechanic. Outmaneuvering in this game doesn't involve dodging arcs so much as it involves simply moving after something has moved so you can hit it before it gets to hit you.

2 minutes ago, Blail Blerg said:

Is this really as bad as Cannon rushing? lol. That seemed a lot less counter-playable.

Would it be a good counter to use your flotillas to block possible rams, and just take obstructed shots with your big ship?

How strong is this list for real though?

Also, doesn't it feel kind of cheesy nowadays that most of the game revolves around activating later to move into range safely? Its pretty boring. That seems to be how MSU works, how this works, how Rieekan bombers work. Yes, its a core game mechanic, but its really kind of the true bane of turn based games, and armada is really severely about that mechanic. Outmaneuvering in this game doesn't involve dodging arcs so much as it involves simply moving after something has moved so you can hit it before it gets to hit you.

Cannon rush is an example of how to play the game without actually "playing the game". You win with buildings instead of managing an army and countering your opponent. Sure, it's legal, but still...

It won 1 regionals. You should try it against mythics fleet. Who cares about Yavaris? The ship is already dead and going to double ram you to death... Plus CR90s can outmaneuver that fleet so there is no reason you shouldn't get double arcs or at least attack the side arcs.

In regards to activation advantage, I tend to stay in engagement range until I finish my run or kill the target. Or die. Whatever comes first. I'm really not sure what you are getting at, but I assume something like activating last against a target that moved into range, and going first next round to get out of range. I mean, I'll do that if I get the chances, but my lists typically don't depend on that.

Also, I'm totally not of the opinion that yelling "everything is fine!" is the great solution. That's just putting your head in the sand, instead of thinking about how the game could be better and involve more choices that are competitively supported.

A compilation of what people seem to think here:

Yavaris - When you activate squadrons at close medium range, if they don't move, they may attack twice.
impact: low, just means Yavaris has to follow into the fight.
Demolisher - 14 or 15 points.
Rhymer - no idea.
Norra - no idea. (Also, you prob don't want me making these calls haha)
ET - After executing a maneuver, if you did not overlap another ship, you may make a speed 1 maneuver.
BCC - doesn't stack.
Rieekan - doesn't affect "generic uniques" like Gold Squadron.

Fix titles like Devastator, warlord, corrupter, etc.
Interdictor buffs

---

GSDs are gold. Seriously good screens, great vs MC30s and cr90s and small ships. They're literally like cruisers or destroyer gunships, meant to kill other small ships.
GSD2s are under-tested gold. Especially with Bonus. Ugh, sooo good. And the AA.

1 minute ago, Undeadguy said:

Cannon rush is an example of how to play the game without actually "playing the game". You win with buildings instead of managing an army and countering your opponent. Sure, it's legal, but still...

It won 1 regionals. You should try it against mythics fleet. Who cares about Yavaris? The ship is already dead and going to double ram you to death... Plus CR90s can outmaneuver that fleet so there is no reason you shouldn't get double arcs or at least attack the side arcs.

In regards to activation advantage, I tend to stay in engagement range until I finish my run or kill the target. Or die. Whatever comes first. I'm really not sure what you are getting at, but I assume something like activating last against a target that moved into range, and going first next round to get out of range. I mean, I'll do that if I get the chances, but my lists typically don't depend on that.

No I'm talking about how Armada is dictated by turn order. You wait until things get into range, and then you bop them.

The ram list does this by staying at far or out of range, then comes careening in at speed 4.

MSU vs mythic is dependent on throwing 1 MC30 in at a time to do first and last assassination snipe, while staying out of the range4+ threat range of 2 FCT Bwings, which one shot smaller ships, and cripple Mc30s. (if not outright killing them on lucky rolls, again average of 2, not average of 3).

Also note the analysis mythics did in theory for that list, and people have tried it, that grudge match went the way of the squadron list btw.

--

Also, I'm really considering the ram list vs the squadron list. But I have 3 CR90s, not 7. And I'm also a bit tired of strong fleets requiring high monetary costs: 2 squadron packs, 3 transports... 4 MC30s, 3 transports. 7 cr90s.

3 minutes ago, Blail Blerg said:

No I'm talking about how Armada is dictated by turn order. You wait until things get into range, and then you bop them.

The ram list does this by staying at far or out of range, then comes careening in at speed 4.

MSU vs mythic is dependent on throwing 1 MC30 in at a time to do first and last assassination snipe, while staying out of the range4+ threat range of 2 FCT Bwings, which one shot smaller ships, and cripple Mc30s. (if not outright killing them on lucky rolls, again average of 2, not average of 3).

Also note the analysis mythics did in theory for that list, and people have tried it, that grudge match went the way of the squadron list btw.

--

Also, I'm really considering the ram list vs the squadron list. But I have 3 CR90s, not 7. And I'm also a bit tired of strong fleets requiring high monetary costs: 2 squadron packs, 3 transports... 4 MC30s, 3 transports. 7 cr90s.

Oh I'm just talking about CR90B ET ram fleets. MSU and MC30s are fine. With Rieekan, you don't care about the threat range of bombers. You just need to get close enough to ram for 2 damage. 3 CR90s can do that, but that is a steep cost to kill Yavaris. I'm sure it would be a close game if you borrowed 4 more CR90s.

One thing the op finds kind of funny is that a lot of the X wing errata is about limiting range, forcing ships into the fight.

In armada we get relay. I think we're being trolled

Just now, Green Knight said:

One thing the op finds kind of funny is that a lot of the X wing errata is about limiting range, forcing ships into the fight.

In armada we get relay. I think we're being trolled

Actually I wanted armada to be more spread out. Theres so much space. Instead of simple convergence of damage...

As someone who has played it, on the topic of the ram fleet:

1: It's exceptionally good against a lot of common fleets. The fleets that give it trouble (triple motti ISD, for example) are not good in general.

2: It is supremely un-fun to play against. A decent number of fleets have essentially lost the game before it begins against that fleet. If you don't have a ton of hull, a ton of activations, or a ton of squadrons and objectives for them, I don't see a path to victory.

3: I agree it is the ET ramming that is really the problem. 8 single rams is rough but requires a ton of skill. 8 double rams means I wipe an MC80 off the board with ease.

I would prefer this fleet not exist and I do think it's an exploit in the sense of focusing on a very niche mechanic and ignoring the rest, which produces highly asymmetric games where players came in with radically different expectations and someone will leave upset.

4 minutes ago, Undeadguy said:

Oh I'm just talking about CR90B ET ram fleets. MSU and MC30s are fine. With Rieekan, you don't care about the threat range of bombers. You just need to get close enough to ram for 2 damage. 3 CR90s can do that, but that is a steep cost to kill Yavaris. I'm sure it would be a close game if you borrowed 4 more CR90s.

Well. I'm challenging that MSU is fine. And my point about the severity of turn order is shown by those examples.

I want an efficient way to beat mythics list, not a suicidal "but I won!" victory, especially also after including the nearly free 80 or so points a squadron player gets from their objectives.

--

I'm hoping to maybe drop 1 Cr90 to add a slicer tooled transport. Slice Yavaris, so that its not as easy to die in one squadron activation to all the bombers, then unleash 3 Cr90s on Yavaris. -> With counterplay and blocker flotillas, it';ll probably take two turns, I'll lose some,,and hopefully he loses more. But ill get to wipe out his transports too.

3 minutes ago, Reinholt said:

As someone who has played it, on the topic of the ram fleet:

1: It's exceptionally good against a lot of common fleets. The fleets that give it trouble (triple motti ISD, for example) are not good in general.

2: It is supremely un-fun to play against. A decent number of fleets have essentially lost the game before it begins against that fleet. If you don't have a ton of hull, a ton of activations, or a ton of squadrons and objectives for them, I don't see a path to victory.

3: I agree it is the ET ramming that is really the problem. 8 single rams is rough but requires a ton of skill. 8 double rams means I wipe an MC80 off the board with ease.

I would prefer this fleet not exist and I do think it's an exploit in the sense of focusing on a very niche mechanic and ignoring the rest, which produces highly asymmetric games where players came in with radically different expectations and someone will leave upset.

Btw,, its 7cr90s with ET.
And its very unlikely you can actually fit 8 rams on one ship. even 3 or 4 rams to a protected ship is hard.

Also a note that counterplay to ram lists with squadrons is simply to park the squadrons everywhere where you'd get rammed, and let the squadrons kill things in squad phase.

11 minutes ago, Blail Blerg said:

Also a note that counterplay to ram lists with squadrons is simply to park the squadrons everywhere where you'd get rammed, and let the squadrons kill things in squad phase.

That's a gross oversimplification.

A ram spam is usually fast and agile enough to threaten two axes.

So yes bombers can be the answer, but unless you bring a swarm of Firesprays + Rhyme or Lancers or something, you'll be hard pressed.

8 hours ago, Green Knight said:

"NAV: After you execute a maneuver, you may exhaust this card to execute a speed-1 maneuver."

So if the card gets exhausted as part of resolving an overlap, it would already be exhausted by the time you can exhaust it to trigger the effect.

This would be good as it would totally stop the guaranteed 2 damage from using engine techs to ram.

39 minutes ago, Reinholt said:

As someone who has played it, on the topic of the ram fleet:

1: It's exceptionally good against a lot of common fleets. The fleets that give it trouble (triple motti ISD, for example) are not good in general.

2: It is supremely un-fun to play against. A decent number of fleets have essentially lost the game before it begins against that fleet. If you don't have a ton of hull, a ton of activations, or a ton of squadrons and objectives for them, I don't see a path to victory.

3: I agree it is the ET ramming that is really the problem. 8 single rams is rough but requires a ton of skill. 8 double rams means I wipe an MC80 off the board with ease.

I would prefer this fleet not exist and I do think it's an exploit in the sense of focusing on a very niche mechanic and ignoring the rest, which produces highly asymmetric games where players came in with radically different expectations and someone will leave upset.

So wise. So eloquent.

The Doctor has spoken.

11 hours ago, TheCallum said:

To be honest, I'd like to see Demo been added to tournament ban list.

It would be nice seeing Gladiators be Gladiators and not Demolishers.

I feel there is a huge restriction on what the devs can do with black dice upgrades (for all slots) in world where Demo exists, removing that worry will open the field.

Then when the next campaign comes out, they can replace it with a different title.

The most that needs to be done is making Demo have a cost to trigger. Such as losing a shield or spending a token or something else.

57 minutes ago, Blail Blerg said:

BCC - doesn't stack.

Rieekan - doesn't affect "generic uniques" like Gold Squadron.

You're the only one who wants this. I want NOT this. The aces were designed and I'm sure playtested to be like that with Rieekan. It's like, just like EVERY ace, that they cost more points for their improved abilities. BCC is fine, as is Rieekan. Aces cost more, so you need to pay more to get utility out of them.

And to everyone who dislikes Nora, she's 17 points and rolls one black dice. Yes she does an extra shield damage, but let her evaporate your Star destroyer shields and then her crit is useless. Bring a good fighter screen and attack them next turn.

3 minutes ago, geek19 said:

You're the only one who wants this. I want NOT this. The aces were designed and I'm sure playtested to be like that with Rieekan. It's like, just like EVERY ace, that they cost more points for their improved abilities. BCC is fine, as is Rieekan. Aces cost more, so you need to pay more to get utility out of them.

And to everyone who dislikes Nora, she's 17 points and rolls one black dice. Yes she does an extra shield damage, but let her evaporate your Star destroyer shields and then her crit is useless. Bring a good fighter screen and attack them next turn.

NAH.

Brah. You get plenty of value for 1 point on most of them. =)

Also, read above for "fine". I think Demo and Rhymer and Yavaris are "fine". No one gives a shht.
I'm just saying these are the strong cards of the meta, that if toned down just a little bit, like Demo = 15pts, they'd still be good.
Would Rieekan still be really good and really useful if this happened? Yup.

As for play testing this, HAHAHA. This is FFG game, look at the FAQ requests. No. They might have realized it, but they may not have extensively play tested it to see how strong it was.

23 minutes ago, Green Knight said:

That's a gross oversimplification.

A ram spam is usually fast and agile enough to threaten two axes.

So yes bombers can be the answer, but unless you bring a swarm of Firesprays + Rhyme or Lancers or something, you'll be hard pressed.

Yeah, but you DO know where they will be. Also, I'm just talking both sides of the argument here.

I think its a strong list, I'm also noting its counter plays.

6 minutes ago, geek19 said:

You're the only one who wants this. I want NOT this. The aces were designed and I'm sure playtested to be like that with Rieekan. It's like, just like EVERY ace, that they cost more points for their improved abilities. BCC is fine, as is Rieekan. Aces cost more, so you need to pay more to get utility out of them.

And to everyone who dislikes Nora, she's 17 points and rolls one black dice. Yes she does an extra shield damage, but let her evaporate your Star destroyer shields and then her crit is useless. Bring a good fighter screen and attack them next turn.

I'm also against making squads like Gold Squadron unaffected. I do think Rieekan himself needs a change.

That said, BCC needs to not stack. It makes bombers so reliable that they are nearly on Par with SW7s for damage reliability.

12 hours ago, Blail Blerg said:

No to OE change, why are you nerfing ship-AA MORE into the ground?
Also PDR needs much stronger: Works at any range (close-med), you may reroll one die.
In general _most_ of the ship-AA upgrades are pretty garbage, with exceptions to Kallus

Engine Techs I can live with either way.

--

I still think more elegant fixes would be BCC does not stack (can only use once per activation).
Ships with green brace and redirects can use them without exhausting them when defending against squadrons.

I have no idea how to make large ships have an easier time vs MSU lists of 6+ though.
And I still think 5 activations is pretty key in this meta.

--

On a brighter note, much of the titles could be changed in cost to be worth taking. =)
And Interdictor/tractor beam stuff could really use a boost.

Let me guess, you fly Imperials!

11 minutes ago, Blail Blerg said:

NAH.

Brah. You get plenty of value for 1 point on most of them. =)

Also, read above for "fine". I think Demo and Rhymer and Yavaris are "fine". No one gives a shht.
I'm just saying these are the strong cards of the meta, that if toned down just a little bit, like Demo = 15pts, they'd still be good.
Would Rieekan still be really good and really useful if this happened? Yup.

As for play testing this, HAHAHA. This is FFG game, look at the FAQ requests. No. They might have realized it, but they may not have extensively play tested it to see how strong it was.

I honestly don't think we need any errata as there is not an issue with any specific piece in armada, some units are better than others, but as they are part of a whole fleet it's fine. IsDemo OP, yes a bit if taken in isolation, but the fleet its part of will not be OP therefore it's just a bit of fun cinematic flavour ( somtimes if I'm finding a game boring I will just throw my Demo into the opposition just to see how much damage it does before going boom, it won't win the game, it's just fun..). The reason they need to errata OP xwing cards/units is because a single unit will have a massive impact as it will be a significant part of any force. This is why X wing suffers from a constricted OP type meta. Armada fleets are so variable because in reality any one OP unit does not matter, it's how a whole fleet works, the tactics behind the fleet construction and how well you play on the day that matters. That's why in a comp with 60 players each fleet is likely to be unique and played in a different way. in xwing you will find most experienced tournament players rocking in with one of only only 2-3 competitive builds types that have any chance. It's why I stopped playing X wing, I got fed up of knowing exactly what I would be facing off against.