I love the simple battery of changes suggested in this thread.

1. Flotillas do not count towards tabling.

2. Errata to engine techs, making it an exhaust to use card that is exhausted whenever you overlap a ship or obstacle during your move (might also breathe some life into the ion cannon upgrade...)

3. Riekan does not affect squadrons

I think these changes would go a very long way towards changing the state of the game to something more exciting, whether you are on the "yea" or "nay" side of the flotilla/sqadron debate. :-)

1 hour ago, ForceSensitive said:

As my buddy who plays him quite well points out to me, (and I consider him an amazing player, better than me for sure, and would have loved to see how he would have done at worlds this year considering his current list I think was identical to the runner up) in Armada the core strategic goal is to eliminate your opponents key ships before they remove yours. And that's regardless of the objective as those just change what in your list is actually the key ship or ships. Riekan throws that core concept completely out. You CAN'T in MAJORITY cases remove vital targets before they remove you. Even the best play against that kind of effect will still cost you likely more than you should pay to get the results you need.

Further, from the math side (and I feel myself throw up a little when I have to say that) Riekan buys you essentially your whole list back for one turn. 400 points for the price of a tenth of that. Hell, you can be in a currently 'tabled' board state and still win by virtue of his effect, iirc that was never erratad. In Armada it's reductive component comparitive value. Almost all war games are. The numbers you start the turn with are removed as you use yours to remove your opponents. The best application of one versus the other can determine a victory. A maneuvering system with distance requirements simulates the strategy portion but the rest is still math, varied by random input from dice. And Riekan negates that for the entire game.

This is the part where i definitely agree with you.

The issue with Rieekan is that his strategy cannot be disrupted. I don't mean "cannot be disrupted by conventional means." I mean it cannot be meaningfully disrupted, only attenuated to a single turn. With most major combat in the game occurring over only 1-2 turns, and this means that Rieekan's plan still fully or primarily occurs during the crucial game moments where the ability to degrade the opponent of their ability to contribute is most important.

And without ways to counter that plan, Rieekan is at a distinct advantage whenever there is the possibility of trading resources such as ships or squadrons.

Many players have made suggestions that opposing teams need to bring in bigger and better squadrons to fight the lists at the top of World's. What they fail to observe or acknowledge is that the only way to destroy anything affected by Rieekan is to not only destroy it, but survive retaliation until the subsequent turn. The meta list presented is designed to directly counter that later, critical part of the strategy. Because of Yavaris, the retaliation is equivalent to 2-3 additional squadron activations for the opponent. In fact, most tournament Rieekan lists are designed to retaliate against any form of aggressive action, even defensive combat action. Rieekan doesn't care as it how big your squadron attack was ship long as it is caught mostly by escort squadrons or other chaff designed for the purpose. The retaliation strikes will be sufficient to mop up during the remainder of the round or in the subsequent round.

A lot of players have pointed to Demolisher as equally broken, but you can take a number of actions to fight Demolisher that don't rely on directly engaging with your ships.

A number of players have suggested forcing the opponent to play against your objectives, except that the only objectives which consistently trouble this list are this where all combat is discouraged. And this is a problem because it means you’ve had to make objective decisions based entirely around potentially facing a single list archetype.

2 hours ago, ForceSensitive said:

I've been of the opinion for about a year now that Riekan was too good to start and was only going to become more so with each release. It won last year's worlds too didn't it? I remember because that year the final match was between two lists almost identical to me and my friends, Dodonna and Riekan. And just like our meta, Riekan won.

Dodonna won last year with the Rieekan aces counter.

Double intel pure bombers. Rieekan denies alpha squadron strikes. Double intel bombers doesnt give a ****.

27 minutes ago, Ginkapo said:

Dodonna won last year with the Rieekan aces counter.

Double intel pure bombers. Rieekan denies alpha squadron strikes. Double intel bombers doesnt give a ****.

Well the Rieekan player was too aggressive with GH.

Ok, double Intel pure bombers got through last year.

Why didn't double Intel pure bombers wreck Rieekans face this year? Because both factions got multiple new squadron support upgrades and about 8 new squadrons.

And yet, Dodonna Bombers didn't ride those upgrades to victory. Because Dodanna has a key flaw: his carriers and squadrons die upon being reduced to 0 hull. And the new Rieekan squadron lists exploit this mercilessly, removing enemy activations that threaten their ships before engaging the remaining forces (if any).

10 minutes ago, thecactusman17 said:

Ok, double Intel pure bombers got through last year.

Why didn't double Intel pure bombers wreck Rieekans face this year? Because both factions got multiple new squadron support upgrades and about 8 new squadrons.

And yet, Dodonna Bombers didn't ride those upgrades to victory. Because Dodanna has a key flaw: his carriers and squadrons die upon being reduced to 0 hull. And the new Rieekan squadron lists exploit this mercilessly, removing enemy activations that threaten their ships before engaging the remaining forces (if any).

Also JJ played something else this time.

10 minutes ago, Madaghmire said:

Also JJ played something else this time.

That is true. I think the other issues with Dodonna Double Intel is that there has been a lot more time for people to develop the counter for it.

I have not seen the final yet but have read nearly every post about it and the claimed issues with the game.

I left x wing as I was disillusioned on where the game had got to and where it was most likely to go. I don’t see Armada anywhere near that (yet).

My view on the subject and it is only mine and its ok if people don’t want to agree with me.

The wining worlds list;

Had an assault frigate in it – don’t see the issue, its good a ship that can shoot as well (it’s no ISD)

Had a Nebulon in it – again don’t see the issue, claimed to be the weakest of all ships (ok it was Yavaris but it still stands)

Only 1 bomber command – don’t see the issue (I hate how they stack but they never did in this which is great)

The squadrons used don’t overly scare me. Ten can do some unblockable damage so he is the worst to deal with.

3 corvettes ok I get the padding point but I am sure there are ways around this. I do believe the scatter is to strong on these. (I think they should be treated maybe like an evade but in reverse.)

I feel the list is 100% better than a Rieeken ram list. I was tabled by one of these at a reginal event not that long ago and I hated it. I know in hind sight I could have played against it better. I personally feel the engine tec upgrade ram is the worst thing in the game. One thing I did do right was use my rouge squadrons to hit some of his squadrons and they died as it was end of turn. Mine did not nor did he get a chance to counter them back.

As for the squadrons I have played the Biggs ball with GH and it eventually fell apart against solid Imperial aces backed with some defenders.

I play regularly against an imperial ace squadron lists and unless I plan well and spend more in fighters and support it will lose bad. This is even when I try to hit first. The point I am trying to make I believe there are imperial squadrons out there right now that can kill or cripple that list of fighters. Yes they can shoot back before they die but I also feel a bit of strategy could help here.

I have moved away from heavy fighters and started using bigger ships and I have found this works great. I believe the tools are there and it’s about using them to their best.

I will admit that I haven't figured out a solution to Rieekan 2+3 builds.

For those that have played against Rieekan or with Rieekan... has Rieekan ever been tabled? I feel Rieekan lists are very hard to win big against.

My bad on the memory. I might be remembering a different tournament or something but I swore that Riekan was up there.

I've never seen it tabled. I've seen it lose like twice to me personally on weird circumstance, but that was really odd reason wise. Hell one of those I think went to dice. I don't know of many other loses in my area, especially recently. After CC.

1 hour ago, Q-DOWg said:

I will admit that I haven't figured out a solution to Rieekan 2+3 builds.

For those that have played against Rieekan or with Rieekan... has Rieekan ever been tabled? I feel Rieekan lists are very hard to win big against.

Yes and Yes. Approaching a 2+3 Rieekan aces is very much like others have described. It's a briar patch that will maul you terribly most of the time. The synergies added in the last few waves have made it a littler stronger then it probably should be.

I think flechette raiders are a strong counter, but they rely heavily on first activation and carful play. I only ended up playing one game against Rieekan aces at worlds, even though I planned for then. My raider allowed me the chance to brawl and have some sort of damage parity, but in the end I came out just behind. But that was just with a single flechette raider 3 TIE bombers, and Valen Rudor. If I had a few more squads of my own, I probably could have come out on top. The problem is when you tech against the aces, you might have a harder time facing other lists, which is partially what happened to me.

It's looking at a result like yours @JJs Juggernaut that I say that while yes there might be something you could add to the game to adjust it to Riekans presence, I feel like you still need to directly address how he functions. Or you'll just be adjusting to him in every wave from here on out.

8 minutes ago, JJs Juggernaut said:

Yes and Yes. Approaching a 2+3 Rieekan aces is very much like others have described. It's a briar patch that will maul you terribly most of the time. The synergies added in the last few waves have made it a littler stronger then it probably should be.

I think flechette raiders are a strong counter, but they rely heavily on first activation and carful play. I only ended up playing one game against Rieekan aces at worlds, even though I planned for then. My raider allowed me the chance to brawl and have some sort of damage parity, but in the end I came out just behind. But that was just with a single flechette raider 3 TIE bombers, and Valen Rudor. If I had a few more squads of my own, I probably could have come out on top. The problem is when you tech against the aces, you might have a harder time facing other lists, which is partially what happened to me.

This of course echoes a common complaint, that if you build to beat the rieekan list you can, but doing so forces you to skew too hard versus the rest of the field.

1 hour ago, Q-DOWg said:

I will admit that I haven't figured out a solution to Rieekan 2+3 builds.

For those that have played against Rieekan or with Rieekan... has Rieekan ever been tabled? I feel Rieekan lists are very hard to win big against.

There are literal entire regions of armada players who have been trying to figure out a way to do this for the last 5 months. But apparently we're too stupid to be worth listening to. And top6/8 of all worlds isn't enough squadrons for squadrons to be an issue.

Game is fine.

1 hour ago, Q-DOWg said:

I will admit that I haven't figured out a solution to Rieekan 2+3 builds.

For those that have played against Rieekan or with Rieekan... has Rieekan ever been tabled? I feel Rieekan lists are very hard to win big against.

I've tabled Rieekan fleets but it's rarely a blowout unless the Rieekan player is much less experienced. Maintaining activation parity or even advantage despite significant "losses" earlier in a turn can be very strong and allow the Rieekan fleet to inflict commensurate losses in return with its zombies, which can make it very tough to get a solid activation advantage on it with fleets that like to do so and obviously makes alpha striking plans much more difficult, as has been discussed. Which is to say nothing of how much it can suck getting hemmed in with a large ship due to all the zombie hurdles getting thrown in your way as they ram the bejesus out of you. One of the reasons I like my Ozzel small ships fleet is it can punch out Rieekan ships and then jump over the hurdles rather than get stuck in place. Flechette Raiders are also solid against the Ace Holes fleet and they don't suffer much being used against other fleets either.

I'm still not sure I'm on board with "nerf Rieekan" but I'm undecided on the matter. I think the main concern is that Rieekan is a solid commander that performs well against a variety of fleets without any catastrophically bad match-ups. He is a response to a meta (originally the Demolisher-heavy meta with Imperials) that is now requiring a response of its own from other fleets to be properly equipped to handle him. Whether this is a serious problem or not largely depends on your perspective. I will say that dealing with heavy squadrons definitely requires some "training" before one is proficient at it and dealing with Rieekan also requires a fair amount of experience before one wraps one's head around how much he changes the basic assumptions about when and how and who to attack. Rieekan heavy squadrons fleets require their opponent to be proficient at both or risk getting blown out.

5 minutes ago, Blail Blerg said:

There are literal entire regions of armada players who have been trying to figure out a way to do this for the last 5 months. But apparently we're too stupid to be worth listening to. And top6/8 of all worlds isn't enough squadrons for squadrons to be an issue.

Game is fine.

#RMB

There are clearly things worth considering. If one faction and one template is ubiquitous in the top 10, that that seems to me an issue. I am including my own list in this, obviously.

2 hours ago, Q-DOWg said:

I will admit that I haven't figured out a solution to Rieekan 2+3 builds.

For those that have played against Rieekan or with Rieekan... has Rieekan ever been tabled? I feel Rieekan lists are very hard to win big against.

I tabled one Friday with a no squadron, Liberty list.

Can be done. Not easy at all. Mov was 275 to me.

2 hours ago, Q-DOWg said:

I will admit that I haven't figured out a solution to Rieekan 2+3 builds.

For those that have played against Rieekan or with Rieekan... has Rieekan ever been tabled? I feel Rieekan lists are very hard to win big against.

I saw Ard 10-1 Justin's GH list in Austin with his MC30 activation spam list. The problem is that the list is somewhat luck dependent, and for example of this see Ard's battle report at Worlds. We did get one MC30 activation spam list that placed 5th, so those builds are definitely solid and can work. There's also some variance in how it performs against different kinds of squadron builds. Ard lost a close 6-5 to Parkdaddy back in February following the San Antonio regional where they both scored 27 points. The key different here is that Justin's list has much more versatile squadrons and much more powerful anti-squadron tools than Parkdaddy's list, which contains much more powerful anti-ship units. Plus you then get the AFFM bonus to movement in the Pelta list, which helps tracking down the fleeing MC30s. Consequently, where the MC30 activation spam has a chance of 10-1ing a list like Justin's, but produces a contest that is generally going to vary between 7-4 one way or the other against a Pelta style list. I've seen Parkdaddy wrecked by an equally strong Imperial antisquadron list, because once you step away from GH, the opposing squadron game becomes much more viable.

I was also working with that same kind of principle in my Madine list, but after a string of losses to Parkdaddy, I was really at the point where I figured I needed to just eat the 6-5/5-6, play conservatively, try to swipe a flotilla or two, maybe a squadron, and then make an escape against a fleet that had no chance of running me down. And in the end, that's not really much of a plan.

Much of the problem stems from the additions in wave-5. I really felt back in wave-3/4 when I initially designed my Madine list that it worked in principle at the time. I lost some squadron games, but I felt like I could find errors in my play that I could correct that would have produced the big wins I needed. Wave-5 brought a new squadron pack to each side, the new aces and uniques in the CC, the new objectives in CC, and the Pelta has been a surprisingly good substitute for an Assault Frigate (I had said as much on the forums going into the wave). In terms of powercreep, that's left us with the squadron builds getting incrementally better with each successive wave and their power compounding with each successive wave. The causes are therefore multiple. It is not one thing in particular, for example Rieekan being the punching bag in this thread, but the combination of a lot of these things that create the shallow meta.

I'm sure FFG is looking into it. I'm quite patient in waiting it out. And now that worlds is over, I can certainly play around with less competitive lists because a lot of the guys in our area are down for the fun matches.

Rieekan is the scape goat for the people who don't want to blame squadrons and refuse to do look at the numbers of their mathematical efficiency. And have never heard of jousting value.

45 minutes ago, Caldias said:

There are clearly things worth considering. If one faction and one template is ubiquitous in the top 10, that that seems to me an issue. I am including my own list in this, obviously.

The MC30 fleet is fine IMO. Its good but has plenty of counters. Plus its like the only all ship fleet you can run right now thats competetive.

All rebels top 8 tho, yes I agree that is troubling.

I think that more than Rieekan, it is the whole flotilla thing, not to dredge that up again. How many of the top 10 had three flotillas? How many in the tournament? I'd be interested to find out.

4 minutes ago, Caldias said:

I think that more than Rieekan, it is the whole flotilla thing, not to dredge that up again. How many of the top 10 had three flotillas? How many in the tournament? I'd be interested to find out.

Both sides had flotillas. Flotillas were a key part of the tournament on the whole, not just this list or the top 8. The top 8 was going to have multiple flotillas regardless of the list archetype or faction.

2 minutes ago, thecactusman17 said:

Both sides had flotillas. Flotillas were a key part of the tournament on the whole, not just this list or the top 8. The top 8 was going to have multiple flotillas regardless of the list archetype or faction.

How many of the top 8 had as many as three flotillas, or more?

21 minutes ago, Blail Blerg said:

Rieekan is the scape goat for the people who don't want to blame squadrons and refuse to do look at the numbers of their mathematical efficiency. And have never heard of jousting value.

Rieekan is one on the links in the chain of synergies that make the most sense to tweak, if errata is the answer. Relay is another. So are flotillas. I've also seen people discussing cutting the squadron cap to 1/4.

Squadrons are wonderfully effecient. In early waves this was combated by the practical difficulties of bringing that efficiency to bear, and the risk of having it not be worth it. We have since seen a number of tech options that ease or trivialize that. It strikes me that those are the levers to adjust.

Rieekan makes sense as a balance lever because he removes one of the simplest, most effective counterplays-vaporize squadrons/carriers prior to their activation in order to limit return fire. Also he was all over the top tables at Worlds, so naturally people are looking at him particularly hard atm.

Relay also seems like a lever that could use a tweak, imo.