15 hours ago, Ardaedhel said:

Of course you're at a disadvantage. With activations costing 18-23 points and providing such an obvious advantage, you're running a skew list if you show up with 2 or 3 ships. In the same way that if you show up with 9 or more activations you better be really really good or really really lucky because most of those ships can't shoot for crap. But then, you brought that list knowing those limitations, sooo... build a better list? Or, learn how to win with the one you brought.

The advantages of large ships that I laid out above have nothing to do with skill level or experience, and you didn't address any of them--you just laid out examples of the advantages of MSU lists, which are, as you said, abundantly clear. But, I'm going to address them anyway.

A) have a finite number of movements to affect the game state

Each movement of an ISD affects the game state much more than that of a CR90 does. Furthermore, incoming damage incrementally decreases the effectiveness of those CR90's faster than it does the ISD. Eight points of damage is a flesh wound for an ISD; it kills a CR90, leaving you with diminished firepower, decreased activations, and an overall weaker fleet.

You can't equate 1 ISD with 1 CR90, which is the flaw in this logic. The flip side is 3 naked cr90As have more utility and better points per die efficiency than 1 upgraded ISD, they have more total defense tokens, more health and 3 times the shots potentially ON TOP of all the deployment and activation advantages. Again, all things being equal, mechanically more small ships > few large ships for the points. Not sure why this is even for dispute when even you just said that 3 activations = "Learn to play, nub"

B) have a finite number of deployments, which is a metagame on its own

Most MSUs bring fewer squadrons than larger ship builds. This is balanced along an entirely different axis of squadron alpha strikes vs activation efficiency, as well as the point below. Therefore, while MSUs have more ship deployments, large ship builds tend to make up the difference with squadron deployments. Furthermore, see my article on the subtleties of the deployment curve--it's not all about how many you have. If you're deploying an ISD2 Christmas tree while the other guy has two CR90's left, odds are that you still came out ahead on deployments in terms of percentage of your fleet deployed before committing to a strategy. Again, assuming you didn't build your fleet poorly.

Again, you are arguing anecdotal and specific things, e.g. "experience and skill" where I'm talking about mechanics. the mechanics are skewed in favour of smaller ships, likely in an attempt to mitigate a misconceived power gap between small and large ships. I'm not saying ISDs don't have advantages, I fly ISDs and VSDs for preference, I am well aware of the advantages. What i'm saying is that the big ships are costed wrong they are costed without taking into account MSU advantages.

C) have a finite number of attacks to make

This goes back to the point I made that you ignored about upgrades being more efficient on large ships. Are an ISD's two shots, each of which one-shotting an MC30, really less valuable than the MC30s' four shots that probably still fail to tackle the ISD in one round? And consider the impact that one Flight Controllers/EHB ISD activation makes on that alternate axis of the squadron game that I just mentioned. I'd always prefer to have an EHB ISD activating my squadrons even if it's dramatically more expensive than the 2-3 Gozantis it's replacing, because alpha strikes are a really big deal.

Anecdotal. Also, a "more efficient" upgrade becomes less efficient, by definition, when it results in overkill. What good is 5 squadron activations when you can reach 2? how "efficient" is spending 30+ points on upgrades when one of the maybe 3 front arc shots you get to take over-kills something worth 44 points by 4 dice? Not very efficient. So if you want to get anecdotal, tell this to my regionals opponent with the 4 gozantis and (IIRC) 2 Glads pushing swarms of Ties. My ISD had no chance (flight controllers, EHB all went for s___)

the mechanics of defense tokens work is less effective/impactful v.s. more small attacks than less/bigger attacks

Again addressed by more efficient upgrades. Those 8 redirects in your MC30 swarm suddenly look a lot less useful when they're staring down one ISD2 rocking the Gunnery Teams and XI7's that I paid a grand total of 10 points for.

Again, you ignore "all things being equal", a poor MC30 player might eat ISD2 front arcs at medium range vs a good ISD2 player, a good MC30 player double arcs you last/first and gets away because guess what? he has activation advantage and probably bid for first cause his ships are cheaper.


Yes. More activations is an advantage. Mass is, too--ship and squadron. Survivability is, too. Throughput efficiency is, too.

Just like every other advantage in this game, it has to be balanced at all points of the game from fleet-building through conclusion against aaaalll the other axes. There's a reason you don't see 7 and 8 ship builds dominating all the top tables: it's very hard to get that many activations while keeping any kind of relevance in those activations.

Yeah, you are being glib and condescending. Been playing this game and on these boards almost as long as you, i'm not some nub just coming out of the woodwork, frankly, it's fairly clear that there is a substantive advantage to MSUs, yes, I'm not stupid, I understand that other things have advantages too, my argument isn't that those advantages don't exist (I use them in the fleets I build all the time, last night my 4 activation fleet nearly tabled a 6 activation fleet), my contention is that the mechanical imbalance presented by large numbers of activations is not reflected in the actual cost of the ships in the game, this makes for a built-in imbalance that clearly skews the game towards MSU. Just ask the local meta around here. We have players here that are just absolute masters at movement and deployment, they regularly do very well at regionals, nationals and worlds (when they go) and in any meta discussion, anything less than 4 or 5 activations is considered self-inflicted harm. Coincidence? I don't think so.

8 hours ago, MandalorianMoose said:

I've found it works best with OLP on the Avenger itself with Screed, activation control, and initiative. Double arc your target, proc OLP with the side are, unleash hell with your front arc (needa/trc helps here). It can claim fully healthy medium ships

Balancing the difficulty of successfully pulsetapping from another ship with the power lost from taking OP on Avenger can be tricky.

Honestly, I could never run OP on Avenger. My mind refuses to justify sacrificing up to 5 guaranteed points of damage over working harder to get the pulse tap.

Sw-7s+screed+Needa/TRCs+Avenger= HURT

I average 12 damage/shot. That'll pop an MC80

Wow. Impressive!

How are you averaging 12 damage/shot with only 8 dice? (4 for blue dice, 2 for TRC red, 1.875 for 3 red dice = 7.875 avg)

I could see getting 12 damage when double arcing. But that's 2 shots.

Overload Pulse and Avenger is a great combination against players who are worse than you. My contention is you don't need help beating players who are worse than you.

1 minute ago, Democratus said:

Wow. Impressive!

How are you averaging 12 damage/shot with only 8 dice? (4 for blue dice, 2 for TRC red, 1.875 for 3 red dice = 7.875 avg)

I could see getting 12 damage when double arcing. But that's 2 shots.

Maybe just luck...

I typically run con-fires

I take blue since that's a hit no matter what with sw-7s (9 dice total?)

It's very common for me to get two doubles on red and at least a single damage/crit in my rolls (probably unusually so? I had all 4 land on doubles just last week?)

5(sw7)+2(TRC)+2+2+1=12

I suppose mathematically it should be lower but I roll hella well.

Ironically, everything you say is anecdotal can be applied to the things you are using as proof MSU is better than large ships, or simply refutes your claim skill has no part of MSU doing well.

You have 3 ships to deploy and yet you were able to win before the start of the game?

22 hours ago, Hastatior said:

While training up my CC partner who is a veteran war gamer but new to Armada, all I had to say to him was "before you place that ship, where is it going to be on turn 3 and why?" and he was instantly a better player.

Interesting... because you also said this.

20 hours ago, Hastatior said:

The argument is that you would want the game balanced along the activation axis. In other words, the mechanics should not be so skewed that taking an MSU fleet against a low activation fleet is automatically an advantage, with all else being equal.

And this statement looks like skill is a factor, regardless of how you play the game.

22 hours ago, Hastatior said:

It's funny cause during a match of our CC campaign where I started with only 3 activations, I knew my opponent had likely lost the game the second he placed his first ship. Yeah, it can be that important.

All of this is anecdotal because you are describing it in a vacuum. I'd say a GT ISD can kill 2 of those 3 CR90s with a single activation, and you counter by saying the CR90s will never in the front arc. The circle goes on and on forever.

56 minutes ago, Hastatior said:

You can't equate 1 ISD with 1 CR90, which is the flaw in this logic. The flip side is 3 naked cr90As have more utility and better points per die efficiency than 1 upgraded ISD, they have more total defense tokens, more health and 3 times the shots potentially ON TOP of all the deployment and activation advantages. Again, all things being equal, mechanically more small ships > few large ships for the points.

What "mechanic" does MSU have that large ships don't?

58 minutes ago, Hastatior said:

Again, you are arguing anecdotal and specific things, e.g. "experience and skill" where I'm talking about mechanics. the mechanics are skewed in favour of smaller ships, likely in an attempt to mitigate a misconceived power gap between small and large ships. I'm not saying ISDs don't have advantages, I fly ISDs and VSDs for preference, I am well aware of the advantages. What i'm saying is that the big ships are costed wrong they are costed without taking into account MSU advantages.

And I'm pretty sure you mentioned skill.

59 minutes ago, Hastatior said:

Just ask the local meta around here. We have players here that are just absolute masters at movement and deployment, they regularly do very well at regionals, nationals and worlds (when they go) and in any meta discussion, anything less than 4 or 5 activations is considered self-inflicted harm. Coincidence? I don't think so.

So the world class players in your meta are winning games? That's a surprise. After all, they are "absolute masters at movement and deployment", but I guess their skill shouldn't matter?

This is just nonsense. I had a dual ISD fleet with a 10 point bid, and a Sato MSU with a 0 point bid. Low cost of ships does not equate to higher bids.

1 hour ago, Hastatior said:

he has activation advantage and probably bid for first cause his ships are cheaper.

I'm all for having a discussion on how to make a large ship counter an MSU list, or how to properly deploy a fleet. There was a great article on how to deploy B-Wings and Yavaris and how that dictates where the fight will be. But I see you just trying to convince people that MSU is "so OP, plz nerf" but nothing you said supports that.

1 minute ago, Snipafist said:

Overload Pulse and Avenger is a great combination against players who are worse than you. My contention is you don't need help beating players who are worse than you.

Seems extremely subjective to me.

If someone is better than you, and they lose to a PT avenger fleet, does that then make them worse than you? Is that how we gauge skill in Armada? It always seemed kinda abstract but if it's based on the usability of a PT fleet then all the people I play are chumps and I'm an apparent god of Armada.
I don't think that's the case though.

Well, first of all, let me say that I don't at all mean to be condescending. I am aware that my writing style tends toward antagonistic when what I'm going for is direct. It's something I'm trying to work on, but have to be intentional about. Even though my opinions are always right, I sincerely do not mean to be dismissive or offensive in proving it.

4 hours ago, Hastatior said:

You can't equate 1 ISD with 1 CR90, which is the flaw in this logic. The flip side is 3 naked cr90As have more utility and better points per die efficiency than 1 upgraded ISD, they have more total defense tokens, more health and 3 times the shots potentially ON TOP of all the deployment and activation advantages. Again, all things being equal, mechanically more small ships > few large ships for the points. Not sure why this is even for dispute when even you just said that 3 activations = "Learn to play, nub"

I absolutely can compare 1 ISD activation to 1 CR90 activation when refuting your position that "more activations = more chances to influence the game = inherently better," because it illustrates the point that those more chances to influence the game are not all equal. I agree that 3 CR90's is close to a direct comparison to one ISD (on re-reading, I didn't make that explicit, my bad--that was what I had in mind when writing), but the point stands that the ISD does more stuff in its one activation than any of those CR90's do. Yes the CR90's do more stuff overall, but the ISD does it faster. That is a nontrivial balancing factor.

4 hours ago, Hastatior said:

Anecdotal. Also, a "more efficient" upgrade becomes less efficient, by definition, when it results in overkill. What good is 5 squadron activations when you can reach 2? how "efficient" is spending 30+ points on upgrades when one of the maybe 3 front arc shots you get to take over-kills something worth 44 points by 4 dice? Not very efficient. So if you want to get anecdotal, tell this to my regionals opponent with the 4 gozantis and (IIRC) 2 Glads pushing swarms of Ties. My ISD had no chance (flight controllers, EHB all went for s___)

Anecdotal would be a problem if I were basing broad claims on it rather than using it to illustrate a point. I'm not going to go through every conceivable matchup, but think through some large vs small matchups that you've seen and I promise you can give this pattern. Your illustration is an example of flight controllers being rendered useless by a counter, and has nothing to do with its being on a large ship. A better example is the ISD vs three CR90A's from before. An XI7 on the ISD is going to impact 8 dice for a third of the cost of buying comparably-valuable TRC's for all three of those corvettes (side arcs notwithstanding, in both cases).

4 hours ago, Hastatior said:

Again, you ignore "all things being equal", a poor MC30 player might eat ISD2 front arcs at medium range vs a good ISD2 player, a good MC30 player double arcs you last/first and gets away because guess what? he has activation advantage and probably bid for first cause his ships are cheaper.

That's just not so. Not to get too far down this rabbit hole, but go watch the World Cup game in which CNinja totally greeblehauled me in just this scenario. I consider us reasonably well-matched skill-wise; I had him on activations and initiative; and he managed to maneuver me into a trap.

The bidding for first thing is a non sequitur. Individual ships being cheaper is unrelated to overall points cost. More efficient would influence this, but, as I pointed out above, MSUs require multiplication investments in upgrades that large ships do not, balancing their greater absolute efficiency (in the absence of unbalancing upgrades which... is kind of out of scope here, imo).

4 hours ago, Hastatior said:

We have players here that are just absolute masters at movement and deployment, they regularly do very well at regionals, nationals and worlds (when they go) and in any meta discussion, anything less than 4 or 5 activations is considered self-inflicted harm. Coincidence? I don't think so

I snipped the bit that I felt was about justifying the value of your opinion, because I don't think you need to justify it on the basis of experience (see opening paragraph).

I don't dispute that 4 or 5 activations is right around ideal in most cases. When an extra activation can amplify the effects of the rest of your fleet by, say, 10% (arbitrary) in exchange for an investment of just 5% of the total fleet cost, you would be foolish not to make that investment in the absence of other competing considerations. What I do dispute is that more activations is always better or isn't sufficiently balanced by other considerations.

I really think that, even though we haven't seen a really novel, breakthrough approach to it yet, there is space in this game for a low-activation, high efficiency fleet to make its mark. Or maybe part of the reason is that such a feat would be more about the tactics than the fleet build. I don't have the answers to this piece (or I'd be doing it myself, haha), but I do think that the potential is there.

Just now, Darth Sanguis said:

Seems extremely subjective to me.

If someone is better than you, and they lose to a PT avenger fleet, does that then make them worse than you? Is that how we gauge skill in Armada? It always seemed kinda abstract but if it's based on the usability of a PT fleet then all the people I play are chumps and I'm an apparent god of Armada.
I don't think that's the case though.

It takes a lot of setup and relies on secondary ships which are either slow/unmaneuverable (VSD) or fast/fragile(Raider-II) and landing a crit and getting the ship to stick around for the Avenger. Or double-arcing with an Avenger side arc then rolling crazy damage out the front (which is just not mathematically reliable and depends on positioning). It's also something your opponent can see coming a mile away and take steps to avoid it. I see less capable players get hurt by it reliably because they don't have the experience to identify the problem or take steps to avoid it even if they do identify the problem ("I'm just going to run my ships straight ahead and we'll just see what happens!"), but more capable players just casually sidestep it by shutting down at least one of the crucial elements of the combo (not being in range of the Overload Pulse, not being in range of Avenger, stopping the crit from going through, etc.). Hence why I say it's a combination that's mostly good for beating up on people who aren't as good as you. People who are as good or better just avoid it and then you're left with a jank fleet whose combo isn't working.

Your fleet has a single source of Overload Pulse and it's on one VSD-II being run under Screed, who does nothing to assist its maneuverability. Does your meta just run a bunch of heavy ships that can't (or don't?) outmaneuver a VSD-II? Don't get me wrong, I think VSDs are fine, but you can't rely on them being in a critical place at a critical time and that's exactly what your fleet seems to be doing.

16 minutes ago, Snipafist said:

It takes a lot of setup and relies on secondary ships which are either slow/unmaneuverable (VSD) or fast/fragile(Raider-II) and landing a crit and getting the ship to stick around for the Avenger. Or double-arcing with an Avenger side arc then rolling crazy damage out the front (which is just not mathematically reliable and depends on positioning). It's also something your opponent can see coming a mile away and take steps to avoid it. I see less capable players get hurt by it reliably because they don't have the experience to identify the problem or take steps to avoid it even if they do identify the problem ("I'm just going to run my ships straight ahead and we'll just see what happens!"), but more capable players just casually sidestep it by shutting down at least one of the crucial elements of the combo (not being in range of the Overload Pulse, not being in range of Avenger, stopping the crit from going through, etc.). Hence why I say it's a combination that's mostly good for beating up on people who aren't as good as you. People who are as good or better just avoid it and then you're left with a jank fleet whose combo isn't working.

Your fleet has a single source of Overload Pulse and it's on one VSD-II being run under Screed, who does nothing to assist its maneuverability. Does your meta just run a bunch of heavy ships that can't (or don't?) outmaneuver a VSD-II? Don't get me wrong, I think VSDs are fine, but you can't rely on them being in a critical place at a critical time and that's exactly what your fleet seems to be doing.

Just a couple of things to consider

A.) A low bid can redefine an otherwise obvious game.
-Sanguine Night is not my standard, just an example, but at 384 points, I'm lower than most folks I play, meaning they choose from my objectives. Two of these objectives basically give me 80-120 points to sit in a corner and guard an objective, something ISDs and VSDs are GREAT at, the other reduces their ability to lock down my defenses, again, great for big ships. So an obvious PT can change rapidly depending on objectives.

B.) Never under estimate the value of someone who knows how to deploy.
-Based on the objectives, who won the bid, number of activations, fleet meta, enemy deployment, there are a number of formations than can interact well in nearly any situation. I know ISD players tend to be the dense "Let's just charge up the middle" type, but that's something you should never take for granted with as much power as they are swinging.

C.) Know your enemy and yourself.
-I hate to quote this guy cause it's such a cliche but,

“If you know the enemy and know yourself, you need not fear the result of a hundred battles. If you know yourself but not the enemy, for every victory gained you will also suffer a defeat. If you know neither the enemy nor yourself, you will succumb in every battle.”- Sun Tzu-

This applies to Armada, if I'm facing an enemy who I've faced before, regardless of skill level, and I know what I'm capable of and what they are capable of, I know what I need to do to get the VSD in place. If facing someone new, or you know you'll be in a position where facing new people could present an issue, bring enough to finish the fight... Switch that VSD out. A couple of kittens with Vader and TRCs could provide all the damage output you need to tap DF tokens for avenger while providing a much more agile support ship that doesn't require OP.

I'm not saying you're necessarily wrong, it is certainly easy to beat less skilled people with PTs, but I do not believe the difficulty increases in such a way against players at equal or even greater skill levels that the PT is no longer a viable choice.

Have we reached that point in a thread's life where people start quoting Sun Tsu? It's like the Godwin's Law of miniature wargaming forums: "as a miniature wargaming conversation grows longer, the probability of a quote from Sun Tsu (usually the one about knowing yourself and your enemy) approaches 1."

Seriously, though, I'm hugely not a fan of anything involving Overload Pulse+Avenger in competitive play, but I don't think we're ever going to see eye to eye on the matter and we're likely to just keep repeating ourselves from here so I'm happy to just let it drop.

24 minutes ago, Snipafist said:

Have we reached that point in a thread's life where people start quoting Sun Tsu? It's like the Godwin's Law of miniature wargaming forums: "as a miniature wargaming conversation grows longer, the probability of a quote from Sun Tsu (usually the one about knowing yourself and your enemy) approaches 1."

It's a strategy game based in warfare, it's inevitable.

2 minutes ago, Darth Sanguis said:

It's a strategy game based in warfare, it's inevitable.

Loosely based.

Idunno, it's a peeve of mine, which may be unfair. I've read Clausewitz's "On War," Sun Tsu's "Art of War," Machiavelli's "the Prince," and Miyamoto's "Book of the Five Rings" as well as other books/articles with points to make on military and political matters and quoting them always feels pretentious and unnecessary to me, especially when talking about fantasy wargaming where there's no actual war, just a bunch of guys in t-shirts pushing plastic spaceships around.

The other thing that bugs me is it seems like the authors of the type of works that get quoted are trying to communicate a functional worldview by using examples, summary points, and parables but all people seem to take away from reading the works is a need to memorize pithy quotes. Not everybody, but most people, anyways.

Again, I'm quite likely being unfair. My bad.

8 minutes ago, Snipafist said:

Loosely based.

Idunno, it's a peeve of mine, which may be unfair. I've read Clausewitz's "On War," Sun Tsu's "Art of War," Machiavelli's "the Prince," and Miyamoto's "Book of the Five Rings" as well as other books/articles with points to make on military and political matters and quoting them always feels pretentious and unnecessary to me, especially when talking about fantasy wargaming where there's no actual war, just a bunch of guys in t-shirts pushing plastic spaceships around.

The other thing that bugs me is it seems like the authors of the type of works that get quoted are trying to communicate a functional worldview by using examples, summary points, and parables but all people seem to take away from reading the works is a need to memorize pithy quotes. Not everybody, but most people, anyways.

Again, I'm quite likely being unfair. My bad.

I actually tend to agree, which is why I tried to qualify it before I said it, but in terms of this game, it is true. You pick up on the habits of regular opponents, and sometimes they're downright obvious.

38 minutes ago, Snipafist said:

Idunno, it's a peeve of mine, which may be unfair. I've read Clausewitz's "On War," Sun Tsu's "Art of War," Machiavelli's "the Prince," and Miyamoto's "Book of the Five Rings" as well as other books/articles with points to make on military and political matters and quoting them always feels pretentious and unnecessary to me, especially when talking about fantasy wargaming where there's no actual war, just a bunch of guys in t-shirts pushing plastic spaceships around.

It's funny, though, how much real war can seem just like that at the higher levels.

3 hours ago, Ardaedhel said:

I don't dispute that 4 or 5 activations is right around ideal in most cases. When an extra activation can amplify the effects of the rest of your fleet by, say, 10% (arbitrary) in exchange for an investment of just 5% of the total fleet cost, you would be foolish not to make that investment in the absence of other competing considerations. What I do dispute is that more activations is always better or isn't sufficiently balanced by other considerations.

I really think that, even though we haven't seen a really novel, breakthrough approach to it yet, there is space in this game for a low-activation, high efficiency fleet to make its mark. Or maybe part of the reason is that such a feat would be more about the tactics than the fleet build. I don't have the answers to this piece (or I'd be doing it myself, haha), but I do think that the potential is there.

I agree strongly withall that youve said in this thread, but wished to expand on this point.

When I took my list to regionals one of the few things I really felt the need to do was check the stats here on the forums for average activations, as I hadnt been able to play in a large tournament since wave 2.

Upon seeing that people took 3-7 activations, with the majority taking 5, that told me that 4-5 would be optimal for my fleet. I could reasonably afford to regularly give away an activation, or perhaps two, in order to build a list that brawled in the way I liked.

The optimal number of activations is based on the Meta. As it shifts this number will too.

Gunnery teams, ecm, H9 and LS on an ID2 is really all you need, relentless is gravy...the whole "where am I turn 3 and why" is vital with the ISD...turn 3 is when you need to be killing things in a single blow and you need dedicated support in the ISD's activation to make it happen or the MSU fleets are gonna swarm you.

Sloane is going to be a HUGE game changer. The light carrier (maybe 2) and an ISD2 plus a legit tie swarm is going to really make those MSU ships fight ALOT harder. Now I'm pushing 3 solid activations + ties to either kill fighters or straight up harm your ship.

I mean imagine for a moment an ISD 2 throwing 5 tie fighters at you...rhymer just happens to be by you...cool...you're throwing dice to strip tokens from a target. You say knock out the brace or scatter...then the ISD rolls in and it does the rest of the work.

This game is space chess, you gotta plan plan plan plan plan.

MSU lists are just annoying when you don't have the set up nor the mental flexability to get over being out numbered...then there are the guys who relay and hide in the corner...but tbh just deploy in the middle, go speed three, and smash and grab.