Regionals Data - The Impact of Flotillas

By shmitty, in Star Wars: Armada

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All this talk of floatillas, but from what I see its squadrons that are dominating the game, floatillas just facilitate this. There really is no ship based solution to heavy squadron builds aside from buffing your own squadrons. Spending a lot of points on ships doesn't really help against squads and is wasted against a lot of fleets where there is no single ship worth as much as the squad compliment. With the introduction of relay, winning the squad war is now the only reasonable path to a solid victory, it's unlikely you will be able to chase down all the floatillas spamming squad commands from across the table. I can't make worlds this year, but will warn those of you attending that the guys coming from Toronto have created a monster that I believe requires attention from the game designers.

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@KristjanYes - running a fleet without flotillas and a plan to deal with flotillas is just as unhealthy as running a fleet without squadrons or a plan to deal with squadrons

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I'm not sure the argument here or call to action is "How do I deal with these?" I can assure you, we all know about the upgrades available to us :)

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haha that is funny, and a good find! If this meta is by design, then I suppose I can't hold my breath for a fix :)

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16 minutes ago, Kristjan said:

All this talk of floatillas, but from what I see its squadrons that are dominating the game, floatillas just facilitate this.

Totally agree and this is a point I was making earlier in this thread. Nowadays the fleet has to have answers to both squadron-heavy fleets and activation-heavy fleets. Relay mechanic makes it too easy to create unkillable (from a practical standpoint as these flotillas won't be in a ship attack range of a dedicated hunter until turn 3 (and turn 4 is more likely). By that time their death is largely irrelevant) carriers that also provide extra activations. There are very few ways to deal with this without going into activation heavy squadron heavy subtype as well.

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6 minutes ago, WWPDSteven said:

I'm not sure the argument here or call to action is "How do I deal with these?" I can assure you, we all know about the upgrades available to us :)

Yeah, it seems to be an issue of perception.

How big of a problem is activation advantage?

Do flotillas provide a fix or make it worse?

Does every fleet including a flotilla make things too samey? Vs flotillas allowing different fleet types to have lots of activations?

Should there be an option other than flotillas to mitigate activation advantage?

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Would flotillas be perceived differently if each faction had more than 1 option I wonder? Much like having squadron options.

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1 minute ago, Xeletor said:

Would flotillas be perceived differently if each faction had more than 1 option I wonder? Much like having squadron options.

like say... an attack flotilla? for maybe.... 5-6 points more? would be neat

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11 minutes ago, Xeletor said:

Would flotillas be perceived differently if each faction had more than 1 option I wonder? Much like having squadron options.

Nope. Its not about flotilla types, its about a cheap activation that can run away from combat while carrying admiral and activating squadrons via relay. Additional flotilla options won't affect the issue with the currently available one.

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To be fair to @WWPDSteven and @Reinholt, I get where you guys are coming from. It's not fun to play a fleet with 3 flotillas and 2 beat sticks. I've seen it, I've played against it, and played it. It's quite boring and the all are based around the same thing.

I don't like that I feel like I have to add 2 flotillas right away. I almost bought another GR-75, simply to get another Comms Net into a list for the activation and utility.

I agree that there is an activation issue, but I don't know how to fix it. I don't like the IA suggestion. I've never played IA so I can't comment on how it works in that game.

I also don't think the activation issue is a huge problem. It's always going to be there. FFG identified it before wave 3, which is clearly supported by the articles that they wrote.

IMO, it's very clear FFG meant for flotillas to be in every fleet. They are meant to stall activation and push squads.

I also think there is a portion of the community who thinks the game is fine and there are no problems, which is equally as frustrating to deal with when someone else thinks there is a problem and wants a change.

Flotilla has been a very divisive topic for many months. There has been a lot of heated discussion surrounding it. At what point should we look at the trend and ask if flotillas are an issue or not? It's no longer a small part of the community calling for a change.

There is another thing going on that I don't like either, which is this weird "I'm a world class player, thus my opinions are facts. Don't try to contradict me, peasant" mentality. Can we just stop that?

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3 minutes ago, Undeadguy said:

I agree that there is an activation issue, but I don't know how to fix it. I don't like the IA suggestion. I've never played IA so I can't comment on how it works in that game.

I'm not certain if it would work in Armada. But it is a great mechanic in IA. The greatest impact I have found is it makes sure games don't get super out of hand once a player starts losing a couple of deployments. But IA also has initiative switching each turn which helps out as well.

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Do you guys even remember how boring this game was before flotillas?

Make no mistake, I hate the little buggers, but they've taken the game to new heights.

Now get on with killing them.

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21 minutes ago, Green Knight said:

Do you guys even remember how boring this game was before flotillas?

Make no mistake, I hate the little buggers, but they've taken the game to new heights.

Now get on with killing them.

Flotillas are not the problem, flotillas fleeing from battle round 1 are.

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Just now, pt106 said:

Flotillas are not the problem, flotillas fleeing from battle round 1 are.

Well that other thread says to "git gud". Have you tried that? :P

I hear H9 is how to beat flotillas too. Bet you never knew that.

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10 minutes ago, Undeadguy said:

Well that other thread says to "git gud". Have you tried that? :P

I hear H9 is how to beat flotillas too. Bet you never knew that.

Ya know, it kinda makes sense now why they released wave 3 and 4 at the same time....

I bet they experienced this "activation" crap during play testing and realized that if they released the floatillas alone it'd be an issue...

That's why they pushed wave 4 in with it.

It came with a ship capable of creating deploy at speed 0 spots, and could reduce the speed of up to 3 enemies a round (G8s Q7s and Interdictor title), also a ship that could take h9s and still have a free turbo laser slot... it's almost as if they designed wave 3 and 4 to have interactions with each other....

Like having your cake.... and eating it too...

Edited by Darth Sanguis
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11 minutes ago, Undeadguy said:

Well that other thread says to "git gud". Have you tried that? :P

I hear H9 is how to beat flotillas too. Bet you never knew that.

Killing flotilla is not a problem, getting into the range for the kill (and doing it in a point-efficient manner) is.

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2 minutes ago, pt106 said:

Killing flotilla is not a problem, getting into the range for the kill (and doing it in a point-efficient manner) is.

I dont think point efficient is possible atm. They cost too little.

I think the new wave will somewhat address this, possibly. My theory is the hammerhead will be cheap, so it will be relatively more efficient at hunting down enemy flotes and compete with pure delay flotillas for list space, while the quasar will be close to par in terms of point for point pushing with the gozantis while providing considerably higher quality squadron activations.

Time will tell tho and thats pretty hard core speculation.

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10 minutes ago, pt106 said:

Killing flotilla is not a problem, getting into the range for the kill (and doing it in a point-efficient manner) is.

ET!

But really, I know. If your opponent is good, you will never catch the flotilla in a way that makes you feel good.

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Throwaway activations used for delay are pretty common in any game with alternating activations. It's just a part of the mechanic. I strongly prefer the mechanic overall and don't mind adapting to that tactic.

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7 minutes ago, Madaghmire said:

I dont think point efficient is possible atm. They cost too little.

It is possible to do for admiral-carrying flotilla, it's possible to do for flotillas that are present in the battle. However, fleeing 18-25 point flotilla is usually not worth pursuing (as the ship that goes for the kill is out of action for the rest of the game).

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I mean i assumed we were talking about your baseline activation fodder

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1 hour ago, RobertK said:

But most of the time the flotilla activation is simply for delay.

Before Wave 3/4 I used to use a naked CR-90b for activation delay. The 'problem' didn't arrive with Flotilla's. They may have exacerbated it (if you see it as a problem) but activation delay has always been a tactic within the game as far as I can see. In terms of Flotillas running away turn one... Let 'em go. I'm not going to chase 38-64pts of lifeboat around the table. That's 38-64pts less firepower/bombers/defensive upgrades my opponent has passed up on.

And yes, I currently run Rebel Transports. Usually two. Usually one has Leia on board, the other repair crews or if I'm going 'full-squadron' Toryn Farr and bomber commands! :P:lol:

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Ref. point efficiency, it is't confined to what you see on the card (ie 18 points plus say 38 for Ackbar). Whilst that flotilla may only be 56 points or less depending on Admiral, they have a value way beyond what their points suggest. For example, nail a Mothma lifeboat (a 48 point target) on turn 3 and the rest of fleet lost the very advantage they are built around. It isn't about "on paper" point efficiency.