2 minutes ago, Undeadguy said:

This is actually a great point in favor of Rieekan aces being too good.

Or maybe JJ just had an off day? Even the best have off days, and the man was coming from I believe a final exam? He's entitled to not win every single thing.

Don't get me wrong, I believe that rieekan aces clearly needs to be looked at, but to infer that because JJ had a rough tournament we need to look at balance, even obliquely, is ludicrous.

Just now, Madaghmire said:

Or maybe JJ just had an off day? Even the best have off days, and the man was coming from I believe a final exam? He's entitled to not win every single thing.

Don't get me wrong, I believe that rieekan aces clearly needs to be looked at, but to infer that because JJ had a rough tournament we need to look at balance, even obliquely, is ludicrous.

He didn't have breakfast.

Just now, BiggsIRL said:

He didn't have breakfast.

See? Thats the most important meal of the day!

#rmb

Just now, BiggsIRL said:

He didn't have breakfast.

Ginkapo even warned him concerning that same thing, if I recall correctly. . .

1 minute ago, Madaghmire said:

See? Thats the most important meal of the day!

#rmb

Gonna put on my crotchety old man pants, but what the hell is that hashbrown anyways?

While Player skill is vital in a tournament of this level, how many that too a variation of that list dropped in the top 32? More than half? Are they people we have seen or played against?

Skill accounts for a lot of things but skill and bearing are only a small part of the equation.

Guys, I think this is a discussion worthy of a new thread.

Remember in Armada, you are battling the rest of the field to score as much as you can to make the playoffs.

From my understanding, getting near the top in Armada is akin to making the cut in a major golf tournament... it's really hard. Sometimes you have to risk it by playing anti-meta... sometimes you get a good draw. When you play anti-meta, you take the chance of finishing dead last.

I want this thread to start thinking positively... Rieekan is out there. We KNOW what is out there... I want "Rey" to have a "Awakening" --- someone to come out of left field and shock the World!

Just because Rieekan has won Worlds that doesn't mean you can't win your Store or Regional.

Have fun, experiment, do your thing!

11 minutes ago, Madaghmire said:

Or maybe JJ just had an off day? Even the best have off days, and the man was coming from I believe a final exam? He's entitled to not win every single thing.

Don't get me wrong, I believe that rieekan aces clearly needs to be looked at, but to infer that because JJ had a rough tournament we need to look at balance, even obliquely, is ludicrous.

I saw one of his day one games against Rieekan aces that he lost (as I ended up not playing the second round after 1-10 loss round 1) and he was definitely not having an off day. He had a good counter list and executed his strategy. Until the last moment I thought that he was very likely to win that game by tabling the opponent.

1 minute ago, pt106 said:

I saw one of his day one games against Rieekan aces that he lost (as I ended up not playing the second round after 1-10 loss round 1) and he was definitely not having an off day. He had a good counter list and executed his strategy. I thought that he was very likely to win that game by tabling the opponent.

My understanding is he came very close. Easily within the realm of possiblity.

But uhm, he also said he only played one of those lists.

And four other games.

Also, JJ at his worst is still better then many of us at our best.

2 minutes ago, Madaghmire said:

My understanding is he came very close. Easily within the realm of possiblity.

But uhm, he also said he only played one of those lists.

And four other games.

All true. The only thing I'm saying: based on my observations during that round, I don't think that the theory that he lost big because he wasn't at the top of his game has merit.

And I'm only bringing JJ as an example to show a logical mistake that was done previously (as I needed to find an obviously good player that didn't bring the Rieekan list).

Sure. I get it. Its why when I wrote my original response I caveated there were several top players not at the top of that tournament, and honestly JJ, you, and Ard were just a few of several that came to mind.

My point tho is that an individual players performance has too many outside variables which cant be accounted for to be considered.

19 minutes ago, Madaghmire said:

Sure. I get it. Its why when I wrote my original response I caveated there were several top players not at the top of that tournament, and honestly JJ, you, and Ard were just a few of several that came to mind.

My point tho is that an individual players performance has too many outside variables which cant be accounted for to be considered.

This is correct, however some fleets are more forgiving to bad luck or unfavorable matchups and some fleets are less forgiving. I think that Rieekan squadron heavy fleets are within the first category while its counters are in a second one.

(And in the case or Ard and me it was a very low probability event (and in my case also a minor mistake that was usually easily recoverable) that made one game a 1-10 loss. And in tournament like this you can't really recover from 1-10)

1 hour ago, Madaghmire said:

Or maybe JJ just had an off day? Even the best have off days, and the man was coming from I believe a final exam? He's entitled to not win every single thing.

Don't get me wrong, I believe that rieekan aces clearly needs to be looked at, but to infer that because JJ had a rough tournament we need to look at balance, even obliquely, is ludicrous.

Let me explain my point of view.

Last Worlds, 3 of the 4 lists were squad heavy (I don't remember what the last list is. Steve had YT-2400, Brik with Rieekan, and JJs with Y-Wings). Let's take JJs and Brik as a base line. Bomber lists performed very well.

This time, JJs built a list to counter the squad meta and did not do very well. He even faced a Rieekan list. Where as Brik ran Rieekan and placed top 4 again. This is a very small amount of data I know, but if one of the best players did poorly in the squad heavy meta, and he himself did not bring bombers, it makes me wonder.

The top 8 had 6 Rieekan lists with personal touches. I'm fairly certain Yavaris and Norra were in all of them (based off memory). From our base line, we could say Norra has helped boost Rieekan aces more so than any other change to any other fleet. Norra is the single most powerful "new item" from the last wave. Combine this with Rieekan.

Another thing I consider very important is the skill level of these players. From several accounts, we have top tier players who did not do very well. An "upset" if you will. Match ups are extremely important, but it's nearly impossible to put a "value" on them or find a good way to compare 2 different games. Each game is unique. For that reason, I'm saying we should ignore match ups, with the exception of the fleet in question, Rieekan aces. So if someone played against it, that anecdotal evidence should be considered. If they didn't, it's irrelevant because we have no way to rate matches against one another (except tournament points and MOV which does not give any insight on how the fleets fought).

Back to skill. Armada is not a very forgiving game. I found that out the hard way last night against Truthiness when I ran my ISD over an asteroid that I was certain would clear it. That prevented me from activating it in the 6th round since it died after the 1st activation. Rieekan aces is the most forgiving fleet out there. Double FCT allows you to get your squads back in position if you overlap, or if your opponent tries to flank you with faster squads. It also allows your squads to move faster to get to the target. Dual BCC let's you reroll bomber dice so you deal near max damage every time. Rieekan let's you recover from misactivations or from an alpha strike. Rieekan counters Demo and Rhymer. Yavaris makes sure you kill enemy squads. Toryn let's you reroll.

I'm not saying the list is impossible to beat. But you can take a GT ISD shot as close range AFTER it alpha strikes you with Maarek, Jendon and 3 Tie/D and laugh it off. Because here comes Yavaris with 3 B-Wing double taps with triple rerolls and Norra crit. It's an extremely powerful list and I'm not surprised it did so well.

Take this with a grain of salt. I know the data is limited, but everything makes me believe Rieekan is too powerful for his own good.

That said, I would be extremely excited to play against it. I want to see if I could beat it and I'm not worried in the slightest if it shows up at a tournament. I don't think everyone needs to be finding the "secret fix" that will restore balance to Armada. FFG will do that for us.

Sorry for the rant @Q-DOWg

Armada is fun. I just want to play.

1 hour ago, Undeadguy said:

I'm not saying the list is impossible to beat. But you can take a GT ISD shot as close range AFTER it alpha strikes you with Maarek, Jendon and 3 Tie/D and laugh it off. Because here comes Yavaris with 3 B-Wing double taps with triple rerolls and Norra crit. It's an extremely powerful list and I'm not surprised it did so well.

You are shattering my confidence one sledge hammer at a time...

Just a reminder that every single small ship in the game (except MC30)is one shot by the Yavaris double tap with BCC.

It takes only 3 attacks (half a Yavaris) to down a raider from full to 0.

Every other small ship in the game, can simply be deleted by pushing Jan in with a previous activation, then 3 Bwings with FCT. It explodes. Every small ship.

The MC30 usually survives on 2 hull and no relevant shields. If you add a Yavaris Nebulon attack or 2 more other random squadron attacks, the MC30 dies.

All medium ships survive but lose all shields and end up about 4/8 hull. Only 1-2 attacks away from death.

Large ships take only about 1.5 turns to kill. Not even lasting 2 turns.

FCT should be unique.

BCC should be unique.

Rieekan only affects named, unique squadrons led by a heroic character.

7pt crew: Temporal Specialist, large ships only, you may exhaust this card instead of activating a ship.

Now the only ones that really need a hard buff/future help are medium ships.

--

That I think is actually enough to fix squadron efficiency.

However, since I only proclaim doom and gloom, we should do what FFG is rumored to be testing.

Flotillas count as squadron points.

Flotillas don't stop tabling.

14 minutes ago, Lyraeus said:

You are shattering my confidence one sledge hammer at a time...

That's not my intent haha I was merely pointing out the reasons why I think Rieekan aces needs a nerf.

I have not played it, and I have not played against it. But I do know what it is capable of because I have used most of the components at different times. There is a way to beat it. We just haven't figured it out yet. It's a challenge and I'm excited to see what I can do.

Why not just say a Flotilla can't be a flagship?

1 minute ago, Undeadguy said:

That's not my intent haha I was merely pointing out the reasons why I think Rieekan aces needs a nerf.

I have not played it, and I have not played against it. But I do know what it is capable of because I have used most of the components at different times. There is a way to beat it. We just haven't figured it out yet. It's a challenge and I'm excited to see what I can do.

Hey Undeadguy. You should try it. =). Or play against it. Its very good for learning. I both play it and play against it.

Actually... now that the cats out of the bag, I did exactly what the worlds lists could be described. I created a version that had Biggs that was slightly less bomber-y but tankier, and had the intent of also having a slight edge against the standard bomber style, which as highly prevalent, while maintaining about 80-85% of the firepower of the original bomber list. This is why those two worlds lists did well, they actually unmaximized bomber damage, but came with a ready made counter to standard bombers.

To be fair, playing just north of the World Champion's home ground by about an hour, his group of guys are all great. And they play one hell of a lot of Armada. You may find that practice and experience played a bigger part then you think

53 minutes ago, Undeadguy said:

That's not my intent haha I was merely pointing out the reasons why I think Rieekan aces needs a nerf.

I have not played it, and I have not played against it. But I do know what it is capable of because I have used most of the components at different times. There is a way to beat it. We just haven't figured it out yet. It's a challenge and I'm excited to see what I can do.

Well I will... You can see me get destroyed

5 hours ago, BiggsIRL said:

Gonna put on my crotchety old man pants, but what the hell is that hashbrown anyways?

One, lol at hashbrown. Two, yes please, can someone explain to me what the dickens that means, since I clearly missed the thread that was its inception?

Thanks to Q for generating this thread.

It has also been some interesting discussion. So thanks to the forum for their wonderful insights.

That being said, after so many threads post-Worlds, a lot of discussion is starting to feel like we're talking ourselves into circles and regurgitating the same points. And it isn't just two individuals on megaphones. So I'm not really sure how much more I can contribute.

On tabling: I find that most really good players have an anti-tabling plan, and that this goes back into wave-2. Come to think of it, I don't think I've ever been tabled (Classic Ben for real?). Back in wave-2, it was almost always possible to have a Corvette fly out of the engagement. In waves 3-5, well positioned flotillas often contribute to it. Now, I've still been 10-1ed a few times, and 9-2 a handful more, but I can design lists with almost every commander that have some kind of anti-tabling principle in effect. I do think certain commanders and certain units make it harder. Rieekan might be one, but the MC30 spam lists also fall into this column. I know Ard was 10-1ed, but I have to expect that this would be exceptionally rare. They're usually going to kill some units, and even if some of them get taken out, the point trade tends to be in the 7-4 range or less. I've got the same kind of point-denial going on in my Madine list in that it is really hard for ships to pick up and put away targets, and at least as a minimum against squadron lists, they usually need different kinds of objectives to force an engagement, which makes a long drawn out 6-5 for one side or the other possible.

I'm looking forward to another month or two when we can see what FFG really does. Then our discussions can get more substantive and more serious.

6 hours ago, Undeadguy said:

Let me explain my point of view.

Last Worlds, 3 of the 4 lists were squad heavy (I don't remember what the last list is. Steve had YT-2400, Brik with Rieekan, and JJs with Y-Wings). Let's take JJs and Brik as a base line. Bomber lists performed very well.

This time, JJs built a list to counter the squad meta and did not do very well. He even faced a Rieekan list. Where as Brik ran Rieekan and placed top 4 again. This is a very small amount of data I know, but if one of the best players did poorly in the squad heavy meta, and he himself did not bring bombers, it makes me wonder.

I will point out a few relevant facts. My only squadrons with the exception of Valen were bombers (3 TIE Bombers). It is squadron light for sure. Also, I did build "counter meta," and I only faced Rieekan aces once. In fact, that was the only squadron heavy game I played. The others had from 60-100 points, all tending to be much more multirole. Those games ended with my list being much less suited to deal with them, especially when outbid. I tried to play to the meta, and lost that gamble, I also didn't play my fleet near enough pre-worlds to feel confident in those later matchups. Those mistakes all cost me.

As for my one game vs Rieekan aces; yes, I lost. I made a few mistakes and could have planned my overall attack coordination better, but in the end I was one GR-75 hull point away from tabling my opponent. So while I did lose, it was extremely close. What I'm trying to get across is that Rieekan aces is very beatable. It might be a little harder to do that it should be, and teching against it might leave you more vulnerable to other builds. While slight, I do think the synergies available to that list might be a little too strong at the moment.

6 hours ago, Undeadguy said:

Let me explain my point of view.

Last Worlds, 3 of the 4 lists were squad heavy (I don't remember what the last list is. Steve had YT-2400, Brik with Rieekan, and JJs with Y-Wings). Let's take JJs and Brik as a base line. Bomber lists performed very well.

This time, JJs built a list to counter the squad meta and did not do very well. He even faced a Rieekan list. Where as Brik ran Rieekan and placed top 4 again. This is a very small amount of data I know, but if one of the best players did poorly in the squad heavy meta, and he himself did not bring bombers, it makes me wonder.

The top 8 had 6 Rieekan lists with personal touches. I'm fairly certain Yavaris and Norra were in all of them (based off memory). From our base line, we could say Norra has helped boost Rieekan aces more so than any other change to any other fleet. Norra is the single most powerful "new item" from the last wave. Combine this with Rieekan.

Another thing I consider very important is the skill level of these players. From several accounts, we have top tier players who did not do very well. An "upset" if you will. Match ups are extremely important, but it's nearly impossible to put a "value" on them or find a good way to compare 2 different games. Each game is unique. For that reason, I'm saying we should ignore match ups, with the exception of the fleet in question, Rieekan aces. So if someone played against it, that anecdotal evidence should be considered. If they didn't, it's irrelevant because we have no way to rate matches against one another (except tournament points and MOV which does not give any insight on how the fleets fought).

Back to skill. Armada is not a very forgiving game. I found that out the hard way last night against Truthiness when I ran my ISD over an asteroid that I was certain would clear it. That prevented me from activating it in the 6th round since it died after the 1st activation. Rieekan aces is the most forgiving fleet out there. Double FCT allows you to get your squads back in position if you overlap, or if your opponent tries to flank you with faster squads. It also allows your squads to move faster to get to the target. Dual BCC let's you reroll bomber dice so you deal near max damage every time. Rieekan let's you recover from misactivations or from an alpha strike. Rieekan counters Demo and Rhymer. Yavaris makes sure you kill enemy squads. Toryn let's you reroll.

I'm not saying the list is impossible to beat. But you can take a GT ISD shot as close range AFTER it alpha strikes you with Maarek, Jendon and 3 Tie/D and laugh it off. Because here comes Yavaris with 3 B-Wing double taps with triple rerolls and Norra crit. It's an extremely powerful list and I'm not surprised it did so well.

Take this with a grain of salt. I know the data is limited, but everything makes me believe Rieekan is too powerful for his own good.

That said, I would be extremely excited to play against it. I want to see if I could beat it and I'm not worried in the slightest if it shows up at a tournament. I don't think everyone needs to be finding the "secret fix" that will restore balance to Armada. FFG will do that for us.

Sorry for the rant @Q-DOWg

Armada is fun. I just want to play.

So FYI my list did not have Norra nor did it have FCT's or Flight Commander.