22 minutes ago, Reinholt said:

Let me instead start with observations:

My observation is that nearly 50% of ships, by count, are now flotillas, at the last few tourneys I was at.

High activation count lists are growing more powerful, and the 1-2 combat ship / 3 flotilla archetype as a starting point now accounts for many good lists.

I dunno. We both went in to GenCon assuming that only a high-activation fleet could win that tourney and then were shown the error in that assumption when two 2-ship fleets were at the final table.

Flotillas are everywhere, but what is being brought with them is very diverse at this point. Flotillas are a large portion of ships, but a small % of ship points. Less than 20% on average.

Personally, I think the game is the most balanced it has ever been. Big ships work, bombers work, MSU works, anecdotally from inputting all those regional fleets I could not get over the variety of styles that I was seeing and the variety finding success.

1 minute ago, shmitty said:

I dunno. We both went in to GenCon assuming that only a high-activation fleet could win that tourney and then were shown the error in that assumption when two 2-ship fleets were at the final table.

Flotillas are everywhere, but what is being brought with them is very diverse at this point. Flotillas are a large portion of ships, but a small % of ship points. Less than 20% on average.

Personally, I think the game is the most balanced it has ever been. Big ships work, bombers work, MSU works, anecdotally from inputting all those regional fleets I could not get over the variety of styles that I was seeing and the variety finding success.

See, he says anecdotally, but because its him impressions after inputting the largest dataset the community has available what I find myself taking from it is more along the lines of "studies show"

1 hour ago, Green Knight said:

Is a list with one pimped Dodonna BC with 5 flotillas and squadrons what we really want to play?

I don't. But it's quite effective.

I don't want to play it, so I don't. I don't mind facing it, though. I just faced a similar list the other day--once the activations start dropping, it loses effectiveness fast. That's what I mean when I say it has a vulnerability in the form of being reliant on all those fragile ships. You just have to identify the vulnerability, find a way to exploit it, and suddenly you have a threat against it.

Btw, I was flying two ISDs and squadrons when I did it...

1 hour ago, Reinholt said:

These are all arguments against fleet diversity! This is not to say it's wrong, but if flotillas are the "intended" solution (which I have doubts about), then we are saying the desired endgame is that all fleets should be 50% plus flotillas.

I agree that is internally balanced, but that goes to my point about low macro-variety. From a sales standpoint, it also harms FFG in the long-term, because if that many points are essentially eaten by default at the start of list construction, there is less room for future ships and less argument to take many kinds of ships.

I will again repeat my point and suggest the arguments raised against it are, in fact, confirmation I am right! If the flotilla is the "intended" solution, we are permanently locked in a flotilla-spam, squadron or comms-net spam meta, and a huge variety of potential fleet builds do not exist in practice. Yes, this is balanced, but it will severely limit macro-variety and, as a prediction, both reduce future sales and the popularity of armada to the point that the game will decline dramatically.

The thing is, this is a very correctable problem, and doesn't require a major rules rewrite to accomplish. All you have to do, if you want to tune the value of flotillas--and thus, activation padding--is provide more effective ways of exploiting the aforementioned vulnerabilities. Like, say... A wave centered around mitigating defense tokens.

Success given that you have already paid the flotilla tax.

Put differently: you and I both know that flotillas are overwhelmingly dominant by % of activations in fleets, and that winning fleets almost always include flotillas.

I don't like seeing anything that is an auto-include, but right now every single list should start with 2+ flotillas. Every single one. To the point that if you advise a new player to start with anything other than two flotillas it's probably statistical malpractice.

I suggest the Gen Con list would not be possible precisely because the flotilla exists now: spamming several cheap squadron pushers is, in many ways, the counter to what that was attempting to do.

Edit: Ard, unless those things are as cost-efficient as the flotilla, in which case they are horrifyingly overpowered against other non-flotilla stuff, it doesn't work. The problem is not that flotillas aren't killable; they are super killable. It's that they are not efficiently killable.

If there was a zero or one point upgrade for a low opportunity cost slot that could reliably strip scatter tokens? Yeah, that would do it. But that's not what I am seeing. Take Sloane: do you really want to have to dedicate 50+ points of squadrons plus pushers just to get rid of the scatter token on a flotilla, before we start talking damage? That's also far more terrifying to the ISD that just lost its brace.

Unless there are near zero cost ubiquitous flotilla-only killing tools (e.g. Ships can't use scatter against this attack type stuff), it's the dominant tactic, and likewise, even if it becomes such, the MC30 list with 3+ flots moving sideways on the back board edge is still a thing because you have to go through the MC30s to get there.

I keep hearing people saying that there is a Flotilla Problem that we all need to address but after months and months of discussion I still haven't seen it nor do I agree there is one. I still think it's a few players doing it and there are ways to deal with it if you take a balanced list. If you do a Two Ship Build you are at a disadvantage to deal with the Flotillas but take smaller ships and Squadrons and those Flotillas start dropping like flies. Someone takes three of them that's around 60 points without including any upgrades put on them. They are cheap but those points don't go to killing anything.

And the theory that Flotillas are a mandatory 2+ is not true at all. I take one and most players I know mostly just take one. I do fantastic with just one. So you absolutely do not need to take two to be competitive and it is misleading to suggest otherwise.

So again, I hear some of you are having problems but it doesn't appear to be game wide. It very well may just be your local Meta. And take Flotilla counter lists and watch your local Meta change in the matter of a month.

"Ultimately, the best way to fly a flotilla...is the way that best complements your overall strategy. But the question remains: how will you make use of these flexible flotillas to complement your fleet? Will you rely upon them to activate your squadrons? Will you field multiple flotillas and activate them early in order to draw out your opponent's larger ships? Will you use them to ensure your commands are more effective than your opponent's, from round to round?"

4 minutes ago, CaribbeanNinja said:

"Ultimately, the best way to fly a flotilla...is the way that best complements your overall strategy. But the question remains: how will you make use of these flexible flotillas to complement your fleet? Will you rely upon them to activate your squadrons? Will you field multiple flotillas and activate them early in order to draw out your opponent's larger ships? Will you use them to ensure your commands are more effective than your opponent's, from round to round?"

Are you saying that that Activation "Issue" was a game design to begin with! Oh see the surprise.

(I already knew it but I guess people forget.)

10 minutes ago, Reinholt said:

Success given that you have already paid the flotilla tax.

Put differently: you and I both know that flotillas are overwhelmingly dominant by % of activations in fleets, and that winning fleets almost always include flotillas.

I don't like seeing anything that is an auto-include, but right now every single list should start with 2+ flotillas. Every single one. To the point that if you advise a new player to start with anything other than two flotillas it's probably statistical malpractice.

I suggest the Gen Con list would not be possible precisely because the flotilla exists now: spamming several cheap squadron pushers is, in many ways, the counter to what that was attempting to do.

Edit: Ard, unless those things are as cost-efficient as the flotilla, in which case they are horrifyingly overpowered against other non-flotilla stuff, it doesn't work. The problem is not that flotillas aren't killable; they are super killable. It's that they are not efficiently killable.

If there was a zero or one point upgrade for a low opportunity cost slot that could reliably strip scatter tokens? Yeah, that would do it. But that's not what I am seeing. Take Sloane: do you really want to have to dedicate 50+ points of squadrons plus pushers just to get rid of the scatter token on a flotilla, before we start talking damage? That's also far more terrifying to the ISD that just lost its brace.

Unless there are near zero cost ubiquitous flotilla-only killing tools (e.g. Ships can't use scatter against this attack type stuff), it's the dominant tactic, and likewise, even if it becomes such, the MC30 list with 3+ flots moving sideways on the back board edge is still a thing because you have to go through the MC30s to get there.

In the last Vassal world Cup finals both fleets did not have 2+ flotillas. And there were a lot of top notch players in the tournament, including the officialcurrent world champion who happened to win the tournament with less than 2 flotillas

5 minutes ago, CaribbeanNinja said:

"Ultimately, the best way to fly a flotilla...is the way that best complements your overall strategy. But the question remains: how will you make use of these flexible flotillas to complement your fleet? Will you rely upon them to activate your squadrons? Will you field multiple flotillas and activate them early in order to draw out your opponent's larger ships? Will you use them to ensure your commands are more effective than your opponent's, from round to round?"

Is this the quote from the flotilla article?

I hope so.

It means FFG knew what they were doing all along.

16 minutes ago, Reinholt said:

I don't like seeing anything that is an auto-include, but right now every single list should start with 2+ flotillas. Every single one. To the point that if you advise a new player to start with anything other than two flotillas it's probably statistical malpractice.

15 minutes ago, Beatty said:

And the theory that Flotillas are a mandatory 2+ is not true at all. I take one and most players I know mostly just take one. I do fantastic with just one. So you absolutely do not need to take two to be competitive and it is misleading to suggest otherwise.

Yeah I'll throw in my support of this, and say that I only own 1 flotilla, and have only ever used it twice. The first time it was there to proved Repair Crews to add some extra tankiness to my MC80 Ackbar build, but was never used 'cause the '80 didn't even lose a shield. The second time it was for the BCC.

Just now, NobodyInParticular said:

Yeah I'll throw in my support of this, and say that I only own 1 flotilla, and have only ever used it twice. The first it was there to proved Repair Crews to add some extra tankiness to my MC80 Ackbar build, but was never used 'cause the '80 didn't even lose a shield. The second time it was for the BCC.

I agree. I just bought another Gozanti for my 6 activation Demo list so I could run 2 Comms Net. I typically just run 1. I do own 2 GR-75s, but that was for my Sato list that needed 2 to push squads via VCXs.

I don't think 2+ flotillas are an auto include. I think 1 is because of the versatility. 2 and you need to have a plan instead of "I need more activations since these flotillas are so OP."

Flotillas are good, but ET ram or H9 make short work of them.

all of my lists only use 1 flotilla. I have one that uses 2, but I haven't played that list, yet.

Although, I agree that having at least 1 seems mandatory.

Still, my Ackbar Home One fleet would love to face a 4 flotillas list.

Yup, own 3, usually use 1. I don't tell new players to run 2. If they want to, cool, but I don't think 2 is a necessary start for most lists.

10 minutes ago, Reinholt said:

Edit: Ard, unless those things are as cost-efficient as the flotilla, in which case they are horrifyingly overpowered against other non-flotilla stuff, it doesn't work. The problem is not that flotillas aren't killable; they are super killable. It's that they are not efficiently killable.

I don't claim to know know what such a counter might look like. I'm not the most creative dude. But I think Sloane is a step in that direction. Just spitballing here, but an Arquitens pushing a couple of ties should be able to tackle a pair of flotillas in a couple of turns without too much trouble, just as IO on TRC90's will. Sustained moderate fire combined with direct defense token pressure will pop flotillas incidentally, even setting aside what I consider to be the ideal approach (H9 on those MC30's that you should be taking anyway ).

And I don't think direct token pressure is gamebreaking when applied to an ISD or MC80 either. Bring Tagge. Bring Blistex. Bring Lando. Bring Targeting Scramblers. All underutilized upgrades that help mitigate token pressure for larger ships without scaling too well for flotillas (except Tagge, whose opportunity cost is so large that you almost never see him anyway).

1 minute ago, Ardaedhel said:

Bring Blistex.

???

1 minute ago, Ardaedhel said:

I don't claim to know know what such a counter might look like. I'm not the most creative dude. But I think Sloane is a step in that direction. Just spitballing here, but an Arquitens pushing a couple of ties should be able to tackle a pair of flotillas in a couple of turns without too much trouble, just as IO on TRC90's will. Sustained moderate fire combined with direct defense token pressure will pop flotillas incidentally, even setting aside what I consider to be the ideal approach (H9 on those MC30's that you should be taking anyway ).

And I don't think direct token pressure is gamebreaking when applied to an ISD or MC80 either. Bring Tagge. Bring Blistex. Bring Lando. Bring Targeting Scramblers. All underutilized upgrades that help mitigate token pressure for larger ships without scaling too well for flotillas (except Tagge, whose opportunity cost is so large that you almost never see him anyway).

Sounds nice in a vacuum, but most of the flotillas I run into are running right alongside, if not behind, the combat ships. So sure, you can snipe a flotilla with an Arq and some TIEs, but the return firw ftom the rest of the fleet won't be pretty. Trading at least 62 points for possibly 18 is bad.

Just now, Sybreed said:

???

15 minutes ago, Undeadguy said:

Is this the quote from the flotilla article?

I hope so.

It means FFG knew what they were doing all along.

Yeah it is. It is taken directly from the Gozanti preview.

31 minutes ago, Reinholt said:

These are all arguments against fleet diversity! This is not to say it's wrong, but if flotillas are the "intended" solution (which I have doubts about), then we are saying the desired endgame is that all fleets should be 50% plus flotillas.

I agree that is internally balanced, but that goes to my point about low macro-variety. From a sales standpoint, it also harms FFG in the long-term, because if that many points are essentially eaten by default at the start of list construction, there is less room for future ships and less argument to take many kinds of ships.

I will again repeat my point and suggest the arguments raised against it are, in fact, confirmation I am right! If the flotilla is the "intended" solution, we are permanently locked in a flotilla-spam, squadron or comms-net spam meta, and a huge variety of potential fleet builds do not exist in practice. Yes, this is balanced, but it will severely limit macro-variety and, as a prediction, both reduce future sales and the popularity of armada to the point that the game will decline dramatically.

Can you explain what you mean by macro vs micro variety in fleets?

The way I see it, flotillas have allowed large ships to bounce back. The doom pickle and dual ISD fleets have placed in the top 4 show for this.

MSU do well like the MC30/flotilla list. Craig placed 4th or 6th (can't remember) at Maryland with that.

Carrier lists also benefit from flotillas because you have a cheap squadron pusher and BCC. Mythics Rieekan list is doing quite well.

Large ships, MSU and carrier tend to be the archetypes for fleet design and none of them are dominating which would show there are no problems at the macro level of fleet building. And the micro level is also fine because we can define a fleet archetype, not a single fleet everyone copies.

What other fleet archetypes are there? Control via Interdictor? Ramfest fleets with CR90s?

I hope one of the task force titles for the hammerheads does an extra damage or something to flotillas. Delightful, though the cost may be prohibitive.

18 minutes ago, Valca said:

Sounds nice in a vacuum, but most of the flotillas I run into are running right alongside, if not behind, the combat ships. So sure, you can snipe a flotilla with an Arq and some TIEs, but the return firw ftom the rest of the fleet won't be pretty. Trading at least 62 points for possibly 18 is bad.

It's an example of a tool you that, if used well, can mitigate the issue for a minimal opportunity cost. It's not going to just automatically clean up all the flotillas on its own, boom, done. If that were the case, well... That is an example of imbalance. Not a third of fleets spending 36/400 points the same way.

We just need different flotillas. Fleet diversity isn't the issue, it's flotilla diversity.

3 minutes ago, Teh HOBO said:

We just need different flotillas. Fleet diversity isn't the issue, it's flotilla diversity.

Depending how cheap they are, it may be that the QF and Hammerheads will remedy this. They're not flotillas, but both look to possibly be in the corvette price range, depending.

Just now, Ardaedhel said:

Depending how cheap they are, it may be that the QF and Hammerheads will remedy this. They're not flotillas, but both look to possibly be in the corvette price range, depending.

Yeah that's my hope as well

1 minute ago, Ardaedhel said:

Depending how cheap they are, it may be that the QF and Hammerheads will remedy this. They're not flotillas, but both look to possibly be in the corvette price range, depending.

The quasar definetely will give some push to the gozanti that is only there to maybe push a couple squadrons. It's likely to also be relatively efficient pts/squadrons commanded, but instead of activation quantity you get activation quality in the squad game. (More squads activated at once, a place for Flight Controllers, I imagine the titles will have squadron synergy)

I think the Hammerheads are likely to push against the gr75 activation padding at least a little in rebel msu, but outside of that I need to see more about the ship to know how its gonna fit in and interact with the rest of the rebel kit.